How important are guilds to you?

[Crosshair]

How important will guilds be to you in Project 5? Feel free to add your ideas.

[Allana]

Guilds, or a substitute (such as a "jobs board"), are important to make it easier to find sidequests. While having some sidequests available only by random conversations is ok, unless you're planning on putting a quest marker over every quest giver, having to constantly go around talking to every npc in every town gets old fast. Especially if you don't have a lot of time to spend playing a game, remembering which ones you've talked to recently can become cumbersome. Personally, I prefer to have the guilds (especially if there are game rewards/advantages for joining them), but an alternate method of finding quests would be acceptable.

Along those lines, being able to toggle quest markers on or off (for those that don't like them) would be helpful. When you cannot not play every day, those quest markers are essential.

[badgesareus]

I feel the most important elements of all quests are that they are interesting, creative, & progressively challenging. It doesn't matter whether they are in a guild format or not. One positive example is the system of "faction" quests in Amalur-Reckoning, which have interesting and inventive story lines, are increasingly difficult, and result in a bonus at the end. They also fit in with the main quest. One negative example would be the "guilds" in Skyrim. For example, the assassin's guild is just one quest after another to go kill someone, with little or no explanation ("don't ask why, just go do it"). Nehrim is my favorite RPG and it has no guilds.

What I would prefer are some quests which affect the outcome of the game, where decisions can result in different endings.

[Allana]

I feel the most important elements of all quests are that they are interesting, creative, & progressively challenging. It doesn't matter whether they are in a guild format or not. One positive example is the system of "faction" quests in Amalur-Reckoning, which have interesting and inventive story lines, are increasingly difficult, and result in a bonus at the end. They also fit in with the main quest. One negative example would be the "guilds" in Skyrim. For example, the assassin's guild is just one quest after another to go kill someone, with little or no explanation ("don't ask why, just go do it"). Nehrim is my favorite RPG and it has no guilds.

What I would prefer are some quests which affect the outcome of the game, where decisions can result in different endings.

I agree completely with these comments. No guilds with interesting, well thought-out quests would be far better than guilds with dull, repetitive quests. & Nehrim is one of my all time favorites as well, and finding quests in it was easy.

[Pyryp]

Guilds are vey important to me but only because they provide continous storylines. So quest chains would work as well.

[Vandriam]

Guilds are also very important for me, it can help to specialize in skills, a thieves guild is important for a player who would like to upgrade thieves skills, but i think a guild must be also playable by an unspecialized class, like a warrior or a wizard.

[FreezeProblem]

Very important as it very rpg point to rush somewhere where you can upgrade skills or enchant something. Also if it requires to do some quests then those quests gets more interesting to do. Like their reward is well worth it which is true.

[snoozy]

If the Faction quests can each create a very unique and enjoyable experience as the Main Quest, That will be great. If you can create better Side Quests outside of Factions, then by all means don't create Factions.

The best way to approach this is do what you feel is best. Asking the fans will most likely lead to generic ideas. What we saw in Nehrim was so amazing and unique that we couldn't of asked for such greatness, but wait for it to be introduced to us. After all, many of us are not creators, but critics and fanatics.

Thank you for Project 5. I have another reason to be excited to own Skyrim now! Just gotta be very patient xD

[Zoltán Ormosi]

What i am unsatisfied of a bit, is the way you join guilds:
Story wise it would be fun to have an extra option to do so, apart from barging in, and i sign up to do stuff.
An encounter with them should be the alternative from before even talking with anyone from the guildhouses.

Following this thought, universally guilds might be apparent, but the encounters with them should be added as side quests. After all, you aren't an official mercenary, hanging out with your comrades, taking part in sieges and so. This is why it feels weird right now to me, to join the Imperial Legion in Morrowind. To be an agent of the Emperor is quite different from that. Still it's up to us to consider the times spent with these factions as a chapter of our characters life, just take a look at the adventures of Conan. It's quite a good base for building factions, and the encounters with them i believe.

[Zoltán Ormosi]

I fear of it, this post might become nightmarish for you dear team!
Let's put aside the previous idea, our main options are: There are guilds, or no such factions.
For now i would like to point out some things about the first option. So we need guilds.
Let's face it: In terms of story, Morrowind takes the trophy yet it grants us a plague of immersion with the world, and that is our career in the guilds. In each game as i know our character climbs to the top, and rules over the guilds. By my point of view that's implemented quite wrong. It might seem rewarding to climb a ladder, but it just doesn't feel right. In 10-15 ingame days you can rush through the entire chain-of-command of a guild.
Now tell the scriptwriters and all everyone concerned to curse my name.
A guilds events you live through it's questline should be extended, or rather took into two parts.
The first is the well known visit location, do stuff. After all we have to use out this open-world. But!
There are arcane, fighting, sneaky, even religious organizations in a world. To really, and i mean really live out them capacity both in terms of story, gameplay and immersion, we need especially scripted quests for both of them. Out of these maybe the thief guild would suffice the least of such extension, but the arcane and fighting guilds needs them. To be frank, i might call these quests and the areas they took place in instances.
As a guildmember you can't always dally around the world. For example as a member of the Fighters Guild, you get a contract from a local ruler to put down a rebellion. The guild accepts the contract. You get a notification to join the group assigned to the task. You rush to the council, and prepare for the fight. "- Are you ready?" "- Yes i am!"
Choosing the acceptive dialogue should cut away your chance to dally around the world, no way! Accepting the quest you get warped to the location of the battle took from the main world as a limited area! That is in case of a quest that takes place in the open world area. This way you don't have to script all over the open world, but took these quests to modular level. What do you think,this would be beneficial in terms of the amount of content you put in a quest or not?
Before and/or after these battles i can see before me short cutscenes, with still images that tells about events or the daily life of the guilds. Such amount of possibilities to break away from the guilding system built by Bethesda...and such amounts of work.
The variety and immersion with the concerning guilds might be lifted enormously.
God. I feel so bad now.