Possible spoilers ahead.

So far I've quite enjoyed the quest line for the thieves guild. I'm a bit saddened that I can't keep the skeleton key. Lock-picks are cheep so it's ok. The many and varied jobs that they offer is a much welcome addition. The personalities and stories give a richness to the guild.

The personality for the thieves that follow you on the quests is wack. They talk ALL THE TIME. Here I am sneaking along with Brynjolf and he won't shut up. I thought the whole point of sneaking is to be as quiet as possible. Yes I know it doesn't break sneak, it does break immersion. No Brynjolf I don't need your advice, yes Brynjolf I see the traps, yes Brynjolf I know to kill the dangerous creatuers... NOW SHUT THE HELL UP AND SNEAK.

In combat the thieves main strength is surprise, then combat comes along... What does Brynjolf do? He stands up, yells and charges in... [censored], be a thief hide in the shadows with me and do extra damage. No Brynjolf don't run in and get shot in the back by one of my arrows. *sigh* I figured that by now Bethesda would have worked out that little follower problem.

I have major problem with the reaction of the people in the guild to what Mercer does. They should have expected it. No matter what the quest line tells you, no matter what Nocturnal would like you to think, and no matter what the Nightingales represent, there is no honor among thieves. Let me say that again because it's very important. There is no honor among thieves. The main idea of being a thief is stealing. Stealing everything you can from everyone you can. I can understand a guild having a rule that if you steal from a guild member you get kicked out of the guild. However the reaction of the guild and the Nightingales to what Mercer does I found to be totally baffling. It should have been expected.

So far in the game I've found that the definition of "honor" and "morals" that the Bethesda designers used to be very shallow and simplistic. In a way I can understand it. This is a game and those concepts can be a very deep and troubled ground. The decision to make the moral system simple would appeal to the widest audience. I'm just wondering where the hard moral and ethical decisions are in this game? The Fallout series has some wonderful questlines that cause the player to make moral and ethical decisions. It would be nice to have something like that in Skyrim.

Don't get me wrong. So far I love the game. I like too many things to list and the things I don't like are few far between.


tl;dnr The personality of the thieves is wack! The combat AI could use some work. Make the quests less linear.

People always say 'make the quests less linear.' I've never seen anyone explain what they mean by that, or how they would implement it. It seems it's just one of those things that forumers like to say.


There's a lot of them, the game just doesn't make a big fanfare of them like other fantasy epics. And, besides, isn't it up to the player to graft morals onto their character? Bethesda enforcing a set of options you could choose along neat delineations would only elicit cries of 'too linear,' wouldn't it?