» Sat Jun 16, 2012 1:41 pm the DLC questline is said to begin with talk about someone or some group is looking for vampire hunters.
Okay so from there, supposedly we talk to someone and go to the Dawnguard base. From there, I guess we decide to help them and stuff. So then that questline could lead to meeting the vampires, then that can then branch off to the vampires questline if decision is made to join them.
Either that or before setting out to the Dawnguard base, another character approaches and talks about joining vampires, but either way at some point, there is the choice to join Dawnguard or the vampires/Volkihar.
So the question is regarding to how the role within each faction develops?
Well it depends how each faction is structured. For example, if the Dawnguard are like the Companions, then there really is no real rank or leader. But maybe there is a rank structure.
the same for Vampires/Volkihar, maybe there is a ranking system within the clan.
So the point is, if there is a chain of command within the Dawnguard and Vampires/Volkihar, will each questline give a real sense of promotion and progression among the forces ranks?
That was something that I felt was a bit lacking in Mages Guild for example. Okay, maybe I don't recall the whole guild questline, but aside from receiving the apprentice robes, there was like no sense of promotion while advancing in the guild questline. It was like, you gain more respect, but it's like the medium ranks are just skipped and you become leader. It wasn't like Oblivion mages guild where it was liek as you progressed, they would hand you the next gear for the next rank. overall Oblivion felt more rewarding and a more natural sense of promotion and progression. Whereas Skyrim Mages Guild, you would have to buy the other ranked robes, but that feels artificial compared to after meeting requirements, the leaders would present you with the next rank gear for that guild and you really feel like you've been promoted.
well of course BACK TO DAWNGUARD, Dawnguard's vampire hunters might be more Companion like, than having ranks, but who knows? Well even if there aren't ranks, it would be good to have more acknowledgement from the other members, especially the leader that you reached the next tier among the cult/faction.
but I think AT LEAST the Vampires/Volkihar have some kind of rank structure, which kind of makes sense because of course, even loyalty and respect and trust among vampires is kind of based on reputation and gradual acceptance, and compared to other members contributions to the family. So it's possible there could be some kind of gradual promotion system in place.
Does anyone feel the DLC questlines would be better with some system of gradual promotion (like either through name ranks/titles, and/or new cult/faction exclusive gear that represents your rank among the members?)
Well it might be tough making tiers of rank based gear for Dawnguard/Vampire guilds/clans. Maybe at least titles. but just titles are kind of......you know, don't have as much presence as gear/clothes that represent your class/rank within the group.
I also think any sidequests from certain characters, should be mandatory in some well designed way, you know for example I look back at Skyrim's Mage's Guild, and it's like, if those optional member quests were part of the main Guild questline, the Guild's questlne would have been much longer, deeper and more epic and involving. but at the sametime, it would still suffer from the lack of direct promotion from the Guild to the player. In a way it's good that the member quests are optional, but at the sametime, many players can miss out on so much more content the guild has to offer.
And that's what I feel Dawnguard and Vampires guilds/clans questlines can benefit from, so their questlines don't feel fragmented and short without doing the sidequests.
It would be great to design a system, where even any sidequests in the DLC for each faction, should still be required to complete them all (in any order) before the next phase of the main questline for that guild/faction continues.
That way, people that plow forward in the main questline don't miss out on the content in their first playthrough of the questline, because you know 4 out of 5 people aren't going to play through the questlines again, unless they have a backup save. Therefore, first impressions of a casual playthrough could lead to complaints of being short and bare bones, when there might be content/quests there that might be missable.
AND at the sametime, it would help if all the quests, even sidequests in the DLC have some meaningful weight to the story. You know so they don't simply feel like another fetch quests. There are many ways to go about it, but of course we can't discuss examples since we don't even know the directions each guild/faction's story questlines will take.
but yea it would help if both questlines don't feel like we're just a mercenary along for the ride.
