Thieves' Guild didn't provide any of that for me.

Everything has to be by the book gray with Chris Avellone and Obsidian, even if it means spending the long awaited conclusion of the game (the divide) having a Seinfeild conversation with a character with too much time on his hands and is obviously an overattempt to look savvy, but in the end was meaningless and dictated a plot that suspended belief and dictated your origins as a character which had no relevant relation to the rest of the story.

See, I disagree. The fact they actually did so, shows to me at least that they actually care about internal consistency. In Fallout 3, there were so many things that were inconsistent or made no logical sense, that I couldn't take it seriously.

My favorite part of this entire thread was when the guy whose name begins with "Big Iron" said he doesn't like New Vegas.

Darkside Epic, have you ever looked at this way.

Bethesda probably should have outlined this clearly. But I think it was stolen casually and in a low consistent quantity ("stealing from the guild for years") that it wasn't noticeable and then at the last second, made a heist of it all.

I doubt it's been empty for years and years and nobody figured it out in all that time.

That's how it comes off however.

I never said I didn't like it. That's a fact. Being on the new Vegas forums for a year and active (on an old account) I get tired of hearing, "Obsidian is flawless in their writing and Bethesda writting is crap" theme on the forums constantly. Like every other thread on the New Vegas forums talks about how Obsidian is flawless and Bethesda is the source of all evil and can do no good writing no matter what. So I just couldn't believe when I saw that crap roll into the Skyrim forum and then I said to myself, "ok, enough is enough."

For the Record. The vanilla game of New Vegas is pretty damn good with some serious flaws, but the downloadable content (with the exception of Honest Hearts is God Awful and that was due to Chris Avellone having full control for the most part)

As for the thieves guild, I found it a lot more contrived that we had to swear ourselves to Nocturnal to supposedly "stand a chance" against Mercer.

I almost turned off my 360 and just said eff it when this happened.

Why is that contrived? That's not really far-fetched that having a Daedric Lord's blessing will help you. Because as the story goes, there is no priests or worship of Nocturnal, she basically gives you luck and an edge.

Better than Obsidian going into hyber-bole science trying to explain how a GOD-like being is able to give you some luck. That is sooooo far fetched, sarcasm. She's a Daedra for Devil's sake.

Because, Mercer really isn't all that extraordinary? I mean, even if you fight him at level 50+ he's still using a dwarven sword of all things. And despite being able to use all three Nightingale abilities on a much shorter recast than is possible, he still comes off as a weakling.

That's not even taking into account that this plot point could be forced onto us while our character has already possibly defeated Alduin, an actual near physical deity. Or are we to assume Mercer is somehow more difficult for our character to put down than a demi-god in the shape of a dragon?

Not to mention nothing happens with Nocturnal after you've completed the guild.

Mercer's edge has nothing to do with his fighting ability. It has to do with his brain. The guy is very intelligent and with an edge from Nocturnal, he doesn't need to put a sword in your chest to defeat you or escape. Nocturnal is not the Daedric lord of "stabbing the dragonborn to death", she is the mistress of stealth and shadow.

And his "edge" was nothing more than an a potion of invisibility.

Please. It's an informed ability, not even truly correlated in the gameplay, that is used as a device for pushing our character to swear yet another meaningless oath to a preening daedric lord, that as typical, cannot do anything without the help of mortals.

You really shouldn't take Skyrim's writing too seriously when fifty percent of it is pro stormclown white power ethnic cleansing.
Skyrim approves of justified racism as nationalism, you know that the turner diaries and mein kamf are their writer's favorite inspiration.

I believe Nocturnal's blessing was to counter act Mercer's luck.No matter how skilled you were Mercer would always seem to get a "lucky" break without the Blessing.

I may be wrong though has happened before.It is just the impression I got from the conversations

as to the post above
Take off the tinfoil helmet pls and let the grownups talk

WTF? The Legion are the biggest milk drinkers ever. Their brand of Reagan-crack-a-smile-and-everything-wil-be-alright is supposed to be better than a handful of Nords in Windhelm who are NOT part of the Stormcloak rebellion that hate gray-skins? Please.

Obviously you take the game way too seriously if you think a touch of racism in a few individuals is reflective of a whole race or movement when those showing the bigotry have nothing to do with the Stormcloaks except the fact they share the same race as them.

Racism is bad, mmkay, but it isn't the worst thing in the world. I would probably take more offense if you molested my cat rather than calling me a "thieving little elf".

That is taking it too far, If anything the writer most likely made the stormcloaks look not like cliched "freedom fighters' in a way, its also not "pro-stormcloak", its called a "clash of idelogy", I support the Imperials, someone else supports the stormckoaks, why? unlike many other games, this is not a evil verus good conflict, its ass hole vs ass hole. we choose which one is the bigger ass hole and support the other group.

This- I might bother with companions in skyrim if they were not just walking sacks of meat. I actually did follower sidequests in vegas, and I usually solo everything.

Because the dialogue is sooo much weaker in skyrim, vegas seems deeper in some respects.

Writing in games has always bored me as being told what to do, think, believe, or say feels incredibly limiting and is somewhat insulting. Both Skyrim and Morrowind did a good job of expressing ideas in a more subtle way that made it interesting and made me feel more involved in the idea. Honestly I'd rather be shown why I should care than told why I should care.

That's a good way of putting it.