I decided to give Skyrim another chance (simply because it's a lot better then other games out there) and I created a battlemage (which is fun). Unfortunately though I made the mistake of doing the College questline, which was a huge dissapointment.

I won't spend a long time on the negatives. The main problem is that it is just too short and listless. I mean, it's a joke how fast you become the arch-mage.

What they should have done is a little something like what happened in the mages guild in Oblivion. I would have made it so that when you first talk to the court wizard in Whiterun, you can have the option to 'learn more about magic'. What that means is you talk to him and instead of just directing you to the College, you need to acquire recommendations from all the court Wizards in each city before you can even enter the college at winterhold. These recommendations wouldn't be easy to come by, you'd have to complete a quest for each Wizard that revolves around a riddle (So no fancy arrow telling you where to go). The quests lead you to a dungeon based around puzzles and clues(the court Wizard would have given you a diary that holds all the clues/riddles/answers). The first clue needs to be decoded before you can gain entry into the dungeon ( a puzzle at the entrance), perhaps you need an ingredient to burn at the entrance (Nirnroot?) or a 'speak friend and enter' sort of thing.

Once inside the dungeon you would have to wade through a number of puzzles and trials using nothing but the diary given to you by the court wizard. At the end of the dungeon you will find the court wizard awaiting you (not actually him but a sort of clone thing) he will be the final test and you will have to defeat him in magical combat, using only a certain spell (Shock, Frost or fire) depending on the weakness of the wizard (which you would find out from the journal or even dialogue before the quest starts). Once the clone is defeated you loot the corpse (for epic lootz) and then go on your merry way, having succesfully completed the quests.

You would have to do this for each court Wizard (different dungeons and outcomes each time to keep it fresh) there will be suprises along the way. Some epic twists and dungeons based around the elements (Fire temples, Water Temples, Earth Temples, Metal Temples...) Once you have recommendations from each court wizard you can then enter the college.

The college will then have a much longer story. You would have to attend classes and actually learn spells from lectures and lessons (This is getting like a 'Wizard of Earthsea', I know xD) You will have to move up in ranks (Journeyman, apprentice...) and complete a trial each time to acquire a new staff as tribute to your rank. You will then have to sort out disputes among your fellow mages (arguments, duels, fights over girls etc.)

Before moving up a rank you would have to have a certain skill level in each of the magics (Destruction 30 before apprentice maybe?) so that you actually feel like you deserve that rank. As your rank grows you will have more to deal with (You may be reluctantly called out by a jarl to sort out a magical problem in the world or hunt a rogue court wizard--A twist storyline? A traitor Court wizard jealous of your prowess?)

After doing things like that you will then recieve a high rank in the College and then the storyline that we have now can begin while in conjunction with all the other subplots that may be going on (These subplots wouldn't be optional they would have to be done and the rewards would be great).

If all that was done what we would have is an EPIC, AWESOME, 30+ HOUR FACTION QUESTLINE. WHich would have been so great that we would remember it for generations

Sorry for the long post. WHat are your thoughts on this kind of Faction?

i Think it was fine the way if was in a sense it wasn't bad at all we will probably see a college of winterhold overhaul mod with quests when the creation kit drops so don't worry.

I agree i wanted to learn something at the college.

It won't be changed to that degree though I shouldn't think. I hope so though.

Yup, Bethesda really dropped the ball with the College of Winterhold.

They did the same for the Companions, too, just to warn you.

I am now 40 hours into the game (only just getting into the thick of things) and I've already finished the Companions. The last half of the quest was completed rather quickly because the sense of urgency really ramped up at the end, but the main quest is only 6 quests long, so it was over before I was ever ready for it.

If I were not dawdling, I would probably have completed the Companions in about 4 hours, tops.

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It wasn't so much that it was poorly designed, or that the quests weren't interesting, it's that the rise was far, far, far too quick and we didn't really learn anything about being a mage. It's another symptom of what's "wrong" with TES. Tons of things to do, but not much you can spend more than a couple minutes on before you get bored.

No. Please no. There is no reason to have to be put on a bunch of errands to get into the college. It would have been fine with one quest to prove you have some magical skill instead of that elf saying "cast this spell. I'll sell it to you for 30 gold if you don't have it". But there is no need for the run around. To get into the college you should show you have an aptitude for magic so that you can learn the art. And that's about it.

How about this. Actually make the College quests better and a few more quests to flesh out the story a bit more. I don't recall Morrwind having any errand quests to join the guild, you just joined, but it seems the actual guild quests were much better. But it's been a while since I've played MW so I could be wrong.

That's kind of separate from the college(first part with court wizards). I'd prefer an expansion of the college, add more NPCs to the guild, add a simple rank system requiring some skill at magic, more quest content in general and let us just be a member and not the leader - I guess by just making it an option to turn down the arch-mage position and let someone else take it.

Court wizards I don't think are particularly involved in college affairs either. At least it's the impression I got in game, not sure if it'd be lore friendly having them be your barrier to entry.

It's not about errend quests it's about dungeons and fun. It's like saying 'In Ocarina of time I had to do dungeons and fetch artifacts over and over, boring errands'. They weren't boring becuase you are actually doing things that are fun. It wouldn't be the same thing every time and plus it makes sense.

To the underlined. I think MW did this and it seemed to work fine. Don't know why they dropped it in OB where you could have no magic skill at all and still be archmage.

I'm finding additional content and more questing from the College after becoming Arch-Mage. There's a lot there; you just don't need to do it all before becoming the head of the college. More is always better but there's plenty to do in the game. No complaints here. I'm having fun.

I disagree. Not that having more quests would be boring. I think the college needed many more quests. But to get into the college you only really need 1 quest. Then have the fun of doing College quests not recommendation quests.

Kind of like getting into college irl. I remember taking the SAT's and that was pretty much it. I didn't have to do errands for principles, guidance counceloers, local and state representitives, etc... I took a test. Proved I had at least some smarts to get into the college. Then I started learning.

They're not errands...they're tests. To get into university irl how many tests does it take to get there? Loads.

The recommendations idea is not good as most of the court wizards seem reluctant to teach or help and other quests would stop you from speaking to them, not to mention they have no more connections with the College as well they can't be bothered as they don't get anything out of it.

But I like the going to class to learn spells and ranking up by showing your teacher what you've learned maybe a separate teacher for each school and you can only rank up from like Novice to Apprentice after you've reached a certain level in that school.

Also the lessons for each school should have nothing to do with becoming the Arch-Mage and instead have a separate quest-line and you should only be able to get higher in rank by demonstrating you knowledge in magic and how it benefits the College.

I'm sorry but when I hear the word recommendation in a TES game, I think back to that ol' Oblivion where the character runs the errands of stewards. I'd like to see one little quest to show the mages in Winterhold that you're a bright student. Maybe they send you to a ruin to collect a dusty tome (I know, fetchquest, but just one instead of 8/9) and bring it back. Also, the "clash" with the cyrodiilic mage society could be more fleshed out: outright hatred for eachother? The influence of the Psijic order could also be increased. I'd love to take a look on their floating island. As you can see, there are quite a bit of possibilities to increase the amount of quests for the college.

This could be done for the other guilds, too. For the companions, there could be a minimum of radiant (or generic, a better name) quests to be completed, for example at least five until Skjor has some other kind of work for you. I dont know about the thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood, but with the TG it's possible to fence at least X amount of gold (by trading stolen items, of course) before you can get the next quest. The Dark Brotherhood could use the same system as the Companions. Have a few radiant questgivers, let them assign you to a random (named) NPC in a random city who will be spawned when you're in the cell.

I can't think of anything for the college, though. Dealing with a rogue mage? The little sidequests from the various NPCs in the college are all kinda short. Hmm, I have plenty of ideas for quests inbetween other guilds storyquests, but not for the College. ><

Good ideas

I agree that from a role play, making arch so easily is silly and also annoying that you can be a poor magic maker without it affecting your promotion. What I don't agree with in the OP is that we need more *#&#& riddles or puzzles or find-a-key searches. There are only two types of these.

1. So simple they seem idiotic like the key combo is written on the key itsel

2. Slows the action to a crawl while I try to figure out "what animal has three eyes, eight feet and no head?". I find that just to be annoying.

Morrowind had a system like this, where you'd had to have a certain level before you could move up a rank. I quikly looked it up and to become archmage you'd had to have one skill 90+ and 2 skills at 35. I don't really remember if those skills had to be magic skills (can anyone confirm this?). Anyway, I found that this system was much more realistic. It makes sense that you've got to have some kind of minimum skill when you move up a rank. Higher ranked wizards are supposed to be more powerfull than lower ranks. However, in Skyrim you can become archmage so fast and still have very low magic skills. I've become an archmage with my pure mage and I still feel the same then when I first entered the college, like a newcomer.

They did, each guild had a skill set appropriate for it, including the great houses and such.

The skills required for the highest rank were irrelevant for all factions except the Imperial Legion; the head of the guild usually challenged you at the second-highest rank. The Legion's head honcho's duel was accessed by asking about advancement.

And the "required skills" were rather arbitray; aside from one quest that required you to trap a soul (for which you were given soul gems and soul trap scrolls), none of the Mages Guild quests in Morrowind required you to use magic.

House Telvanni also required soul trapping to build their stronghold, gave spells as rewards, and Master Aryon did require you to know certain spells, but as before, you were given soul gems, the spells they gifted were, with a few exceptions, inefficient and had very large magicka costs, and Aryon merely required you to possess the spells, not show any proficiency with them (and his choices were odd -- recall with no mark, and his list of acceptable levitation spells included one spell that wasn't actually available to purchase).

I found it typical to get to the top due to connections and how to manage the red tape versus mastering of actual skills. The heads of many colleges in real life aren't masters in each offered major. In theory, they must excell in administration and keeping the college in the black.

I found the Oblivion mage guild quest line too expansive. I was thrilled to experience the Skyrim college quest line.

The Skyrim mage college mirrored my own experience in college. Mostly grunt work and no actual "learning." I succeeded because i had the drive to finish.

whats absurd is how you can be arch mage without knowing a single spell other than what you started with. it would have made more sense to become a senior/tenured wizard and then have to pass through a series of trials similar to the restoration school (completely naked, and relying only on your spells) in order to obtain the rank of arch-mage.

finally, when i am arch-mage i want other mages in the world to respect my authority, specially chops-man faengar from dragonsreach. HEYyyy you should join the college of winterhold , when im the freaking arch-mage.

Except that in Tamriel the resident scholastic institutions rewrite reality on a whim. What's the point of ascending to the highest role in an organization where even the lowest member is capable of hurling orbs of fire or bolts of lightning if you're not at least powerful enough to keep your subordinates in line?

While it seems a little short in the main quest, its fleshed out much more by the college sidequests. I did the college exclusively to level 40 before I became archmage from simply doing sidequests from the faculty. While an extra quest or two might not have been so bad to further flesh out the storyline, it by no means requires it to simply make it longer.