Possibly the Companions could be completed in one really long session, perhaps depending on your combat difficulty settings. (I'm playing on Master, with some mods, so I die a lot and it takes longer to complete dungeons, etc.) I did Companions, Stormcloaks and Main Quest, plus a few daedric quests and collected about 8 or 9 shouts, all with one character and that took about 150hours.

However, my first character I played 200 hours and barely completed about 70% of the Thieves Guild (last thing I did was get the Eyes of the Falmer). Didn't join any other factions, did just the very beginning of the MQ, only collected a few shouts and did about 2 or 3 daedric artifact quests.

My third character was a mage, focusing solely on the College of Winterhold. I played roughly 170 hours and only completed (I'm guessing) around 60% of the College of Winterhold. Also didn't join any other factions, didn't do any daedric quests, and collected only about five or six shouts. Only did the main quest up to Kynesgrove.


After doing the first Mage's College quest at the archeological site, and in between each of the major steps of the main College questline, I collected books and Shalidor's research for Ugag Gro-Shub, and helped with a lot of other smaller quests around the College, helping J'zargo, Ommund and Brelyna, etc. These smaller quests altogether took around 170 hours, and then before going after the Staff of Magnus, I decided to start over with a new playthrough in order to try some new mods.

I get what your a saying. The Dark Brotherhood lacked the creativity from Oblivion. Most Assassinations were just kill him how you want. Only the last few quest had a few awesome things like disguise yourself and such

Bards college? That's funny. It's one quest and several glitched fetch radiants.

I did mean specifically the companions but I don't think I was being clear enough. My point remains though that if you sat down and played during a single afternoon concentrating on the companions you could easily complete the questline. I reckon you could put a big dent in the mages guild questline in that same afternoon. I know you could no way do that in Oblivion.
I don't think you could fuilly finish the thieves guild questline in a single afternoon but to be fair that questline has an aweful lot of radiant story padding.
The DB is the best guild questline in terms of length and quality of quests.
You took your time with the questlines which is the best way to play. I think I went through the companions questline too quickly, don't I feel I rushed it though, I just made the questline my main focus for a couple of sessions and then BAM I'm the Harbinger. I was really surprised how quickly I finished it, I was expecting Oblivion Fighters Guild number of quests but I got like 6 or something.
I just think its pretty poor that I could finish an entire guild questline in one afternoon and possibly even a second one when you compare it to previous Elder Scrolls that had very long guild questlines. For me this is Skyrims biggest failing. I was really shocked that I finished the Companions quesline so quickly, I wasn't even trying to finish the questline quickly I just focused on it for a bit. If I had been playing Oblvion I would only have gotten like a quarter of the way through it.

I forgot about those because I accidentally picked up the book before being given the quest which permanently breaks it.

Actually i have on multiple occasions found Farkas and some of the whelps out in the wilds. usually up near Dawnstar where they were attacked by a dragon with many of my characters. Rarely, I'll see Aela(spelling?) with a couple of whelps, they are usually the dark elf and the girl. anyways still seeing as you are on your first official assignment in the guild and they welcome you with open arms into the most secret of their secrets never really boded well with me. companions definitely felt the shortest by far of the guilds, Thieves Guild however i still have yet to finish and have played since release.

I suppose part of the reason there is such a variation in terms of how long these faction questlines last has to do with things like fast traveling, difficulty setting, and whether you are doing more than one faction with a single character.

If I'm doing a certain kind of playthrough that is dedicated to, say the Thieves Guild, I will do Bleak Falls Barrow and some other parts of the main quest, and as I'm traveling around (walking or riding a horse), doing smaller TG quests, I'll visit Markarth, Solitude, etc., wherever the quest sends me, and while there I will meet NPCs and perhaps do some other smaller local quests. Also I will continue to explore dungeons along the way and collect shouts, etc.

On the other hand, if I do multiple faction questlines in one playthrough, perhaps I've already completed X, Y and Z local quests, and already collected X number of shouts by the time I join the faction, so there is less to do other than the main faction questline, and as a result, one playthrough doing 3 or 4 faction questlines will be shorter than 3 or 4 playthroughs doing 1 faction each time.

Maybe you haven't noticed... but Farkas isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

Exactly....thats exactly my point. It doesn't make sense to have a character that would spill the beans so easily if it's such a closely guarded secret that could ruin the companions.

Oh yeah I agree thats the best way to play Skyrim, take your time, don't fast travel try not to focus on a particular questline all at once etc.

Yeah, calling the Bard's College a guild is like calling Al a well developed, morally complex antagonist

I dont fast travel, but I dont think it makes sense from a story perspective to be trying to save the world from some vaguely evil eye, dealing with being a werewolf and being mercenary, joining a gang, being a cultish assassin, learning to be a bard, stopping a civil war, and saving the world from dragons at the same time. I shouldn't have to do multiple factions at once to make them feel longer. Like I said, it's the story's pacing that's the problem, not necessarily the amount of quests.

You know what I do? I "make" some side-quests part of the questline for the factions. It's the only way I can really feel like a "member" of a guild and not the "Chosen One". That's just silly. I never played Morrowind, but from reading and hearing about how factions and faction reputation worked, it makes me wonder why those kind of features were cut from Oblivion/Skyrim.

I enjoyed the main part of the Thieves Guild quest line. Characters like Karliah and Brynyolf were some of my favorite characters in Skyrim. In fact, several of my favorite characters were in the guilds, including Tolfdir and Babette. I understand that the radiant quests are time consuming, but being able to clear your bounty can save you quite a few septims during the Dark Brotherhood questline. Plus, the Prowler's Profit reward from the No Stone Unturned quest is awesome

The bard's college was an embaressment. I'm not trying to be funny when I said that. I honestly felt emberessed for Bethesda when I witnessed the bard's college. Especially after how every bard in the game hypes it up for you and says you can learn to be a bard.

Oblivion's guilds were pretty good in my opinion. They took away the skill requirements, which svcked, but it still made you feel like a member, then at the climix things pick up and turn into a narrative where you END UP being the "chosen one". Skyrim just gor it all wrong in my opinion, though I hear thieves guild is nice and I liked DB

Wow, talk about completely missing the point.

Look, the problem ISN'T that they're 'short', but that they're barely padded and have no sense of accomplishment. Instead of working your way up through the ranks, surpassing your peers and coming out on top through sheer skill is what we wanted. Like in Morrowind and Oblivion. But in Skyrim, you go from nameless mook to top dog without feeling like you earned it. You did what kinda felt like enough to rise up one rank.

So the problem isn't the length of the questline... it's the scale and pacing of the questline that people take issue with.

EXACTLY!

Did you play Morrowind or OB? Therein lies your answer.

Exactly.

Same, and in Skyrim it′s like, oh you did some quest now you are the Guildmaster!

Same here. Obviously it's a lot easier after you've played for a while and can see how some side-quests from other sources can fit into a faction questline.

The most obvious examples for me are Misssing in Action and Diplomatic Immunity. Since they both involve taking on Thalmor enclaves in Haafingar hold, I do them in conjunction with the CW quests running up to the Battle of Solitude (if I play Stormcloak). It just makes sense to me to tie them in together like that. OF course Diplomatic Immunity isn't really a side quest, but since I have to start the MQ to progress in the CW anyway, I just work it out so that it all falls into place that way.

And then after it's all over, Ulfric and Galmar and I have a good laugh over a few bottles of mead and that Thalmor dossier.

It feels like one guild in particular was half-finished.

The Companions was very abrupt compared to the Fighter's Guild of Oblivion. That was disappointing. But I like the
The Thieves Guild
And the Bard's College totally used me. No lute lessons guys? After all the stuff I did for ya?! You can at least give me a free tavern outfit...

No complaints other than nitpicky stuff (like not being able to marry anyone from the TG or DB and no real Thieves Guild followers.) The TG was fairly substantial and the mini-quests padded it nicely. The Dark Brotherhood is fairly (for me, anyway) involved and ended up being my favorite guild for the second game in a row. Mages Guild is similar. So really, the Companions suffered the most.

Urgh, edited for formatting and absent idea (last paragraph).

Artificially inflating guild quests with unrelated sidequests/sightseeing/RP does not mean that the guild quest is itself time consuming. From a story and pacing standpoint, the CoW was horrible - there was simply no build-up. In Oblivion, you worked your way through the ranks until you earned the trust of the Archmage himself.

In Skyrim, you're a glorified errand-boy.

Exactly. I dont think we were making excuses for the game though. We were simply suggesting wahs of making the questlines better. Sad that we have to do that, eh?