I went to the college as part of a quest. Didn't sign up or go through any joining up process. From then on the guards everywhere kept saying "you're that one from the college".

???

I can't believe people are actually defending this very obvious flaw in the new system.

Freedom = the option to join and progress through any guild if you so choose and are willing to do whats needed to do so, it does not meen being able to do so without some kind of sense to it. A person wanting to join the college with a warrior is not a problem, that their aren't at least some kind of requirements to "graduating" is. You're in a school for magic, how does it make sense that you graduate and even become "dean" of the place without actually having to have some kind of magical competency at all?

minimal requirements for rank ups was a good thing, it should have been kept.

because he bullied all the other mages and stole their sweetrolls.

What's more bizarre is that you're able to become Arch Mage in the first place, and can do so in such a short space of time. Same with all the other guilds.

I've never seen so many people fight a claim with "just roleplay!!!" who obviously don't even understand the meaning of the word.

This. I like how the civil war questlines doesn't end that way. I also liked the skill requirements from Morrowind, it's a shame they went away.

It's not like you'll suddenly become the head of the maffia clan after getting addicted to it. Bad comparison is bad.

No seriously, I agree with the TS. Some conditions should be met. As far as my experience goes, most people want a game like Skyrim to approach the real world as much as possible for immersion reasons, with the additional fantasy aspects for entertainment. And in the real world, you won't become the head of a university shortly after joining as a student. The reason you joined is to get educated in a certain craft, but you should EXCEL in it before you should even be able to apply to become a leader. How can a newbie student even get a higher position than his/her superiors in no time? Does that mean the others are not interested in the position at all?

I only visited the College at first to do some sight-seeing, to see what they're up to. I was easily able to get in because I use restoration, and luck would have it she asked me to use Healing Hands. And well, even if I wouldn't have the spell, she would just sell the respective spell, so no limitations at all. Joining the College didn't seem to be a bad idea, as I wanted to train my restoration. The first lesson was nice for that reason, I immediately got a bit of training with wards. But since then, it's been nothing but fetch quests, quests I'm used to see from the fighter's guild rather than anything like the mage's guild. Logically, I'd think they'd at least want me to be able to use some advanced magic before promoting me. It's very possible they're short of people, but even then there's still the other College members. The least I'd expect is some competition for the position, unless they want the College to finally collapse because of their new incompetent leader who only excels in restoration magic, and aside from that can barely throw some flames at the enemy.

And being a dragonborn doesn't have anything to do with your promotion. They don't even realize it. The most I got was a "What was that?" from my first teacher when shouting fus-ro-dah at Saarthal. But I blame that on the lack of consequences in the game, nobody cares whether you're the dragonborn after all. Not even the at the college did, after shouting him to death for the umpteenth time he simply stood up and went on about his business as usual.

Rofl. Nicely done.

I didn't want to perpetuate argument I won't continue it, but what changes do you suggest to fit the welcoming of an Orc Beserker into the college?

If you don't want to lead then don't do the quest, simple as that

Its not a flaw
You can still impose restrictions on yourself. So long as you adhere to them they have just as much effect as if they were put in by the designers. In the meantime others can choose to play the game how they wish

if they were to place a restriction on what quests you can do based on what teh game thinks your character is like than I think you would find it a little bit rediculous how restricted you are, for example I play an archer with bound bow, I don't enchant, I don't use alchemy, I don't use any magic other than bound weapons, and in my off hand I always hold a sheild, yet I have need for the mages college even though my character isn't heavy on the voodoo, where else am I meant to study conjuration from the plains of oblivion?

How is it not a flaw that you have to impose restrictions or yourself that the game should have done? Especially that to even realise that you need to impose such restrictions on yourself you have to know in advance that the game doesn't?

Every one can already play their game how they wish, simple requirements like used to exist in previous ES titles doesn't stop any one from doing so, it only adds a level of logic to the guilds in question.

It's not a question of restricting what you can do, its restricting how far you can advance in rank without proving at least a minimal competence required for that rank. You don't graduation as a doctor or engineer without at least proving some competence in the field after all. You can join the college, you can do quests, but if you want to graduate and become its dean than you should at least prove that you have at least some level of competence in magic.

I think it's a shame that the college is a college in name only. Would've been nice if they put you through some proper studying and training exercises and helped you develop your magical ability(not just purchasing skill levels).

I've seen a lot of this since release. Players complaining that the game does or does not do something. That was evident when the discussions took place about the alchemy/smithing/enchanting power leveling ability and how to make your character god-like. Those discussion went on for a few weeks. Why doesn't the game put limits on you, why do you have to put limits on your character?

Instead of looking at the game to make decisions for you, take charge of your character and get past the problem point. I don't RP, but for those who do, I have this question: Don't you RP at different levels? Some parts are very easy, maybe even shallow, some parts are very deep and intricate. Like I said earlier, you're a dragonborn, you're the leader - you don't need to know every spell to be an archmage. In the end, you could RP so that you thank everyone for their support, but you think you won't be a great archmage, and thus have decided to transfer that responsibility to ?? One of the other mages. There's a lady mage there who I think would make a good archmage - can't remember her name.

Anyway, good luck to you all and I hope you can find your way out of this.

E

The way some people are arguing in this thread, Beth may as well add a button to the UI titled "Win". Click it and every quest in the game in completed successfully. Why should we have to put up with the restriction of actually having to play the game to complete the quests? What about the freedom of the people that just want to win without putting any effort at all forward? If you don't want to complete every quest at the touch of a button then just restrict yourself and don't push the button!


Yeah and George Dubya Bush was a leader too, doesn't mean Yale or Harvard are knocking down his door trying to make him the head of their universities.

Seriously? Than maybe the game should allow me to kill main bad guy right off the bat rather than having to complete every other quest line leading up to that even. why bother placing this limitation on me?... after all it might make sense that have to get those elements of the quest done first and it makes sense that i would need to figure out what's happening first or learn about shouting first, but hey, I'm sure i could come up with some explanation why my char doesn't need any of that and can just kill the big bad guy right from the start. I'm the dragonborn after all, to hell with a questline having some sense to it, i don't need it, i can imagine it all in my head.

Again... you're in a college... You joined as a student... to learn magic... yet without having to learn any of it other than a handful of the most basic beginner spells, not only do you graduate, but you become the dean of the school within days of your admission. If you think that makes sense, than i don't know what to tell you. But for me, if i have to imagine excuses for it to make sense than someone didn't do a good job designing that perticular guild and questline.

I can go to Winterhold straight from Riverwood. How do they know that I'm the Dragonborn if nobody (including me) knows that?
And how can I limit myself if my character (not me), without a single septim at the start, thinks that those mages could use a bit of brute force and give him a little cash? Then my character (this one is a good guy) is forced to save them because it goes with his nature (that's roleplaying, thinking what YOUR CHARACTER would do, knowing what HE knows. This excludes a circle of fortify-enchant to get 444568351 damage dagger because a sane person don't go giving himself shots of redbull until he grows wings or dies). And then, bam! The good guy who looked for money becomes de Arch-Mage without 1) Seeking it and 2) deserving it. He can't even say no, damnit.

That's what happens if you roleplay. That is avoided if you are the puppeteer who knows everyhting and moves his puppet to accomplish certain things, but even if you play this way, you can't know that after 3 "go there. Smash. Gimme that shiny thing" goes "You now rule us all. Unga unga, great Smasher". Logic dictates that a smashmachine can't become any more than a low rank in a thinking place, but in this game logic is crying in the underwater ruins of Winterhold.

EDIT: Before the "oh your a hater i dislike you im gunna cry" - I like the game, I'm enjoying it a lot. But it could be better. SO much better.

How is it a fault that the game allows you to choose how to play? And I wish we could stop hearing this nonsense about how it was all different in MW. In MW you could advance to head of the Mages Guild without knowing a single spell. To become head of the Telvanni you did have to prove you knew a handful of spells but apart from then you never actually had to cast them. As for the supposedly tough requirements they consisted of 1 skill at 90 and 2 at 35 to become Archmage. Very difficult in a game with unlimited training. But wait, there were attribute requirements as well. Yes to become Archmage you had to have 35 intelligence and willpower. In a game where even a Nord starts with 30 intelligence (minimum) and most characters end up with 70+ even if they aren't mages thats ridiculous.

edit: basically the rank requirements in MW weren't there to stop people getting ranks, they were there to allow a measure of self-satisfaction

magic *snort* *snort*

My suggestion is quit worrying how others play the game.If feel your berserker orc would have nothing to do with the college then do your thing.If my berserker orc joins and becomes arch mage don't sweat it he is not involved in your game in any way.

In other words you play your way Ill play mine

The simplest fix would be to change the title from "arch-mage" to "Guardian and interim arch-mage" or somesuch. Then maybe add in a college election for the new AM as a quest that happens after some time has passed and boot the player out of office unless he's managed to either talk the other members into voting for him or actually has the skills.

The problem isn't that berserkers can become initiates and it's not that an initiate ends up having to save the college. The problem is that this leads directly and unavoidably to a permanent job as the new boss when all you've really shown is that you've got clutch when the poo hits the fan. The permanent job offer should thus not be as the top leader, which you've not demonstrated any flair or skill for, but as the "chief of security", which is a role for which the new initiate would seem more suited than possibly anyone else in all of Skyrim.

Heck, even without any fancy additional quests or new titles, simply adding "interim" to the title would instantly make things more sane. That way you'd explicitly be made the temporary solution until things have returned to normal and a better choice can be made.

How is it not a fault that guilds are straight out of bizarro world? And how can I choose how to play when doing the only rational thing sends me on a path to become arch-mage, which is so freaking bizarre that I'm almost forgetting my adventures with the equine mountan escalator.

Fair enough. I wish we could stop having casual arcade gamers post rubbish in here about how they're RP'ing by pretending to be in bizarro world, but I'm guessing neither of us will get our wish granted. Tough [censored], I suppose.

True, but you'd still need to be really good at casting spells (because that's what 90 skill meant) and keep in mind that the MW spell system had spells as a temporary thing. Spells could be learned and then unlearned if you didn't care to keep them anymore. We can of course only speculate how training sessions worked but it would be odd if no spellcasting was actually practiced during the long training sessions required to get to 90.

Except you couldn't train skills above ~70 or so without finding a master trainer (or using an exploit). And even so, if you did train your skill to 90 then so what? 90 skill still means you're pretty damn good at that school, regardless of how you got there and regardless of how many spells your character has in his spellbook.

You're forgetting that you also had to earn faction reputation by doing quests for that specific faction. Effectively there were three requirements, of which one was somewhat trivial. The end result was that you'd be a specialist in at least one of the faction's favored skills, and you'd have proven your loyalty to said faction through deeds as well. That is indesputably loads more realistic than the sorry excuse for guilds we have in Skyrim.

dont shouts count as magic?

Maybe they should have made Morokei immune to non magical damage.