I became Archmage as a Priest. Lydia killed everything for me.
Except the last boss of course, where I had to use the quest item.

the only way ive managed it is to use my bow as soon as i spot the giant.

Wrong. You casted two spells, not one. You had to.

I think he/she mentioned that items/shouts will work for the entrance to the College and to open the doors...and I assume for the crystal aiming thing.

If you're gonna base your expectations off of real life , then yes , you can join a guild/union stating your desire to learn and excel at what the organization focuses on. For a time you'll be allowed to "prove yourself" if you don't well , they all have different ways of dealing with you.From outright firing/expelling to just sitting you "on the bench" unti you get tired of it and leave , or you're just plain too stupid to realize you're not needed/wanted. I'm professionally a plumber BTW , and that's 16 years of seeing this in action.

I've had numerous discussions with friends who mostly play consoles , and they are starting to form an opinion that they simply underestimated the average console player's expectations with this game.Some of them feel like the game almost tells them they're not capable of wantining a refined realistic RPG to play in excange for omg headchopz.That's one guys most extreme opinion , to another who simply thinks they erred on the way lower side of the age audience that would be playing this game.I personally don't run around every single game with the expectation of becoming grand poohbah of everything I do , nor do I want to.But I can visualize myself as a kid with access to a game like this really enjoying that , and I don't think that's a bad thing either. So the consensus we came up with was , how hard would it have been to put another option in under the challenge slider for "realistic" and another tick for "sandbox" or something similar to that.But now that I've shown my friends the mods that already exist for the PC version , they're kinda kicking themsleves for being exclusive xbox players as one friend said ,"I'm getting too old for just shootemups I want more now , OMG I'M TURNING INTO MY DAD!"

But some of us have an expectation of "believability" even in a fantasy world.If you appraoch certain quests/guilds that you really have no interest in really , but are able to complete and become the leader of , it just starts striking you as they were really afraid of making literally anybody feel excluded from anything.All the way down to a base concept of providing you with "cool quarters" you wouldn't otherwise have.And the college not only provides you with a really nice set of quarters , it's also the only option in that area for a "house". If you roleplay , then you set yourself up personally in a hard guideline of what you can and cannot do , and this applies to everything in the game.If you spend too much time worrying about believability in a game obviously designed to appeal to the most wide audience possible , then you're gonna waste alot time pining over these facts instead of being true to the RP nature of simply not being able to do certain things.Those are self-imposed rules that you use for yourself to introduce whatever quality you want into your game.

Personally I'd rather them deal with some of the really screwed up stories in the main quests , and some of the other things that are just glaringly beyond your control. Also some of these threads wouldn't even be happening over and over if people are paying attention.For instance , the TG quest you aren't railroaded into joining them you have an option to tell Brynjolff to get stuffed you're not breaking the law.Then you go into the ratway and deal with Esbern and continue on your merry way.Some things were done "ok" others weren't. But in the end these types of threads are made to express a certain type personal expectations in what YOUR perfect game are.You're entitled to your opinion as we all are , but personally I can appreciate the nightmare of trying to design this game with a deadline on your head , and being able to "generally" get alot right.

Playing my first character as the mostly good guy but he also had the tendency to be extremely curious/greedy , I actually did stumble on the scroll quest when I was trying to prove myself to the stormcloaks.Yes that means my set of rules to myself as this particular adventurer meant I left no stones unturned and entered a place I would otherwise have never known about unless I was being hand-fed the quest line to join the college.It was impressive that that could actually happen AT ALL considering my experience with other games.If your personal experiences and bad decisions leave you with a bad taste in your mouth , you usually end up on these forums to complain about "how it should be" which to me is fine , I actually enjoy reading other people's opinions. But the truth is this game has alot of not-so-evident ways of doing things the way you find acceptable for whatever reason , and to a rather high degree compared to other games.I by no means think this should exclude the writers from criticism for some seriously wierd stories etc.My very first impression with the game was ,"Wtf these people are sadistic or something." But then you have to consider the broader gamer base really does enjoy things I really don't , so I adjust the way I do things to make it acceptable for me.The majority's expectations will always outrule yours , and God help you if you're the guy making the final decisions on what gets released.

I don't understand why they didn't design the College of Winterhold as a place to learn magic. I mean really, did anyone actually join the College of Winterhold with the expectation of being railroaded into becoming Archmage? Or the Mages Guild in Oblivion for the purpose of warring against Necromancers? It's like Bethesda forgot the actual purpose of guilds in their obsession with making everything "epic."

while I agree with your last point, All the head mages in there fields offer training and spells for sale. Whats really lacking is there only what, 3 students and like 6 teachers?

The problem with this is that sometimes you say "I'm not going to break the law.", but WTF is law in Riften? FWIW I didn't meet him in the daytime, but I think the "...not breaking the law option..." was before that. I killed Grelod without a trial and that wasn't counted as a crime in my Stats. Granted I did it as a werewolf so the the NPCs shouldn't have been able to ID me, but you can't hide from the Stats and it's not a murder in my log. Also, the words an NPC chooses could have different interpretations from what we've come to know in our worlds; I vaguely remember some quest (could've been Fallout 3) where I said "I'm not gonna' break the law." and then it was explained to me that I wasn't going to break any laws - just had to do something that was unethical. Also, maybe we aren't breaking the law because we're recovering something that was already stolen, but corrupt guards won't do anything for the NPC and would be considered illegal by the stronghold's twisted standards. :\

I got tricked into some evil quests in Fallout 3, but at least I knew afterward and I just gave water to the guy outside Rivet City as necessary.

I just wish I knew when I'd done the evil thing here because there are so many factions and everyone has their own side to the story.

Finally someone else who gets it. I get so tired of people who vehemently whine about minor bugs - to them I ask: "Would you rather being playing the game with minor bugs or would you rather be waiting as release dates are pushed back?"

Yes, people should report bugs, but when they do it so non-constructively it's irritating.

Games broken. I quit. /sarcasm

Considering the state of the college, ie low enrollment, hated by the town below, and magic in Skyrim, shunned by the Nords (ask the Nord student), it makes a weird kind of sense to make the Dragonborn a figure head. Not really a leader in the sense of an expert but in the sense of gaining approval from the citizens and bolstering support.

That said I have yet to play a Mage so I have yet to finish the quest line

Yeah, I'm not very far in the MQ, but I'm guessing we'll end up unifying Skyrim (no, I'm not asking for an answer ).

This the dragonborn , and THIS is my favorite college in Skyrim. I can see that angle , specially as Aren never really strikes you as particularly useful , well , that is until you find him dead and you have a certain spell.........
My one hope here is any DLC they release they come out with a vengeance and vindicate themselves , then maybe we can get down to real shop-talk.And yeah I'll take my small disappointments in this game with a dash of ,"Thank God this isn't Diablo3 , I've had an idiotic pre-release for the game issued mistakenly(?) almost 2 years ago.I saved it for the lols.I can just imagine faces all over the world firing that bad-boy up after almost a decade of "almost done guys" and....... OMGWTFBBQGLITCH

The easiest way is just use a bow and snipe the giant with it as soon as you see it. So long as you get one hit you you get the friendly dialog from Aela.

My Archmage used spells from every school. U mad?

"I became CEO of Bethesda by writing 'Hello World' in BASIC."

I feel like being required to have AT LEAST a good amount of skill in magic as a requirement for being the Arch-Mage isn't that crazy of an idea. IMO, most people who complain about these types of semi-realistic restrictions are akin to people who want to get in shape without exercising, and then complain when they can't.

The Morrowind system was broken

you could get through the entire mages guild csting almost 0 spells and paying skil ltrainers to raise you level for you.

The easy abuse of the system is what cuased Bethesda to remove it in Oblivion and re-lock down the number of skill trinas per level one could have.




The rank system is arbirtrary and only denies people acess to content for about 3 mintues wile they use an exploit around it, I am glad its gone.

I want to make a character that looks and plays like someone who could actually lead all of these factions. I don't have an image in my head yet..

Just because Morrowind wasn't perfect here, doesn't mean the idea of being good at something has no place in becoming a guild leader.

Here's how they could have handled things quite easily and made everyone happy, with only a little bit more work:

You can join the College as a student or be hired on as a bodyguard/assistant/fetcher for Tolfdir (though in the later case, you get access to studies as a perk of the job). One requires you demonstrate magic, the other requires that you kill a summoned daedra to prove you have the chops. If you want to train up magic, you can and they could have things you actually play through to up your skill (that are ideally fun) -- though I suppose that wouldn't have to exist. Either way, almost everything works just as well either way. The only difference is that in the end, if you don't have a lot of magic, then you can't become archmage. They could avoid having a new one selected by having the faculty unable to decide on who is the new head. You could then either work on your magic so you can become the new head or work to choose who the new head would be (and they'd be so grateful that they'd let you harvest herbs and whatever in their new quarters).

Basically the ending would be tweaked and added to, and some dialogue would be added and the system would be much better. If it was even better there'd be training options that were more than "click a button."

Edit: Oh and a quest or three after it was all over to help repair things between the College and Winterhold. It wouldn't result in great relations of course, but it would indicate things were on the road towards improvement -- though ideally this would branch so you could choose to make relations worse, but Bethesda doesn't do branching quests much, so I can't say I'd expect it.

All black armor burning armor covered in eldritch runes with an adjustable flame setting (for sneaking). Done!

Glowing eyes, of course.

Everytime I play Skyrim I always decide head of time what guild I want my character to join. I actually, made four different characters for the different faction quest to experience the game as it is suppose to be. I hear people complaining all the time how there forced to join the thieves guild or whatever. It is still a choice to join. I tell him I was going to turn him into the guards and he never bothered me again. Congrats to whoever who can beat it using a couple spells. I got so confused on the quest before the labyrithan.

You mean aligning the mirrors on the sphere-thingy? That was fun! Felt like I was playing Myst again!


On topic, I get the problem that the OP has with it, and I do think they could have added a way to make sure that the player is actually skilled in magic, but I don't think an arbitrary "you have to be this tall to ride"-type barrier is the right answer. I think that something along the lines of having to duel your instructors to prove your worth as a mage would be a great way to do that(think brawls, but with magic). It's more immersive, requires a decent magicka-pool and spell options, and fun. Of course that's just one idea, but I think that just adding something would be nice.

The main problem, though, of the College's quest line is that it feels half done. It basically went straight from "Welcome to the guild, new player!" to " OUR GUILD IS IN DANGER!" There should have been a few more mundane quests before diving straight into Saarthal. Then after killing Ancano, it was basically "welp, everyone's dead...you killed the evil guy, guess you're arch-mage." It felt like there should have been another 3 or 4 quests that consisted of you campaigning to be arch-mage. Yeah, you went into Labrynthian, killed Ancano, yadda yadda yadda, but all this literal happened after your first expedition with the guild. Some people should be suspicious that this all happened when you got here, some people should feel that Tolfdir and other senior-ranking members should have precedence regardless of what you've done so far, etc.

Bethesda needs to stop trying to make everything unnecessarily "epic." All they're doing is derailing the purpose of guilds in doing so.

Exactly.

The college needs new instructors. That's the perfect casus-belli to send the player in various towns looking for mages with the necessary experience to work as professors. In turn each one demands a favor, some help in their researches, etc... One thing the civil war quest lines did right was not to promote the player beyond a certain rank. The player is still a newcomer, even if promising. Becoming archmage over other senior members feels not right. Not to mention that the player doesn't stay at the college too long as it resumes adventuring afterwards.

i dunno, Dragon Age 1 managed to pull it off with little or no hassle.

Anyway, there's no point complaining about these things as people will play their game how they want to play it. I wouldn't presonally play the game in this manner, but each to their own.