Morrowind and Oblivion had a well done approach to guilds.

In Morrowind, the guilds didn't really have a storyline, but each guildhouse had a specific theme and associated quests. Let's take the Mages' Guild; Balmora's head had a dislike for the Telvanni and necromancers, as well as a hard-on for the Guild itself, which was reflected in her quests. Ald-Ruhn had a Dwemer theme in its quests and Sadrith Mora's theme was exotic scholarly knowledge. As you do the quests, you slowly find out that the current Archmage is something of a moron and you were set to take his place courtesy of Chancellor Ocato or your own initiative.

In Oblivion, you started off with making your way into the Arcane University, having obtained recommendations from each Guild Hall. Then, you make your way up the ranks; from Associate to getting your own Mages' Staff to Archmage, and the history of the guild slowly unfolds as you deal with the rumors of Mannimarco's return. The one time you're treated like a disposable grunt, you get an apology; all other quests from that point on show that you're a trusted member of the Mages' Guild and you get them because your bosses think you're badass enough to handle them. The culmination of the questline is the Archmage himself entrusting you with stewardship of the guild and destroying the King of Worms.

In Skyrim? You're a grunt. Full stop. You don't progress through the story, gaining the trust and confidence of your guildmates. You just get told what to do. You don't even find out a thing about the Eye of Magnus, other than it being a magical doohickey.

Hopefully not all males. Cause i sure dont. And btw this my friends is how the elder scrolls is played.

This is one of my few problems with skyrim. you see in oblivion and not so much morrowind. This trend sort of happened naturally due to well designed storys. In skyrim however i sort of had to force my self to do this. The best guild is the thieves guild i reakon as thiis was the only guildline that this happened naturally. And the DB was my fav in oblivion, I almost cried when i had to eradicate the cheydinhall sanctuary

By artificially padding out the quests with unrelated diversions? All the butterflies and alchemy ingredients in Skyrim can't hide the fact that the College and Companions have, at most, 8 quests with no sense of immersion or progression. You literally leap from Apprentice to Archmage.