My first post! Oh the fond memories

The End: I now have about 120 hours of gameplay and thought into Morrowind Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion I can sum it up in just a few words. "What's the point?" My character is currently the Guildmaster of the Thieves, Assassin, Mage and Fighters Guilds and I can't do anything with it. Sure I get a little money from the Fighters and Assassins. But, by far the Mage's guild is the most useless of the bunch. You don't get squat essentially. You can't guide the guild in any way. Yes, you can have an apprentice or an assassin run around after you and flick spells at or sneak attack bad guys. Yes you can easily get a few potion components from what I term 'the useless magic box' in the archmage's quarters. LAME!

Want List: This is what I want: When I become the leader of the guild I want to RUN THE GUILD. If I run the assassin's guild I want to direct it to take out people who get in my way. If I am the leader of the thieves I want a percentage of the take! If I'm the leader of the Fighter's Guild I want more options than 'focus on recruitment' and 'focus on contracts.' And if I'm the be-all-end-all mage of the mage's guild I want...SOMETHING! I want to be able to do something with these things I spent so much time achieving. I want to be able to build powerful new spells that go awry and destroy part of the Arcane University. What the game is really missing is a Merchant's Guild. Now that would be challenging. You could operate a store and move goods about depending on supply and demand and things like that. Now THAT would be much more interesting. Sure it might border on some time of Sim or RTS but not altogether. You could have some administrators to take care of things for you and just choose some options. But it would generate money, and when I am sitting on 200,000 gold the mere 200 a week from the Assassins is nothing.

Overall Now, I'm not completely bitter about the game. I actually loved the free-flowing style and the ability to just wander about and do what I wish for hours on end. It's realistic. Someone tells you something or hires you to do something and you do it when you get around to it. I like it, the world is rich both visually as well as in history and stories. But now I'm totally bored with it. I've decided that I am going to attempt to assassinate an entire town, just to see if I can get away with it. The graphics are scalable and aside from minor glitches with plants growing through rocks or texture seams in some places it was a great experience.

What the...? Now, what about the hanging thread of the main plot? It just ends up sitting there with no resolution. I want to be able to make some claim to power and rule Cyrodil from the Imperial city, or I want a seat on the council. It looks to be a setup for an add-on pack or a sequel.

Progress: I want to see the destroyed cities rebuild over time. I want to see new people pop up from some place else and settle into the cities. In other words; I want a growing, dynamic world that has some point to it all. But I don't want a MMORPG. I want the world to grow and change. In some ways it does because new mines open at times when they

The scores are in... Overall I would give the game a 85%. I mean it kept me interested for 120 or more hours. But it lost big points on the utter uselessness of attaining the highest levels in the guilds. I have now moved on to the Construction Set to see if I can try to build a quest string that ends up with some useful position in a guild. But it is going to take me quite some time from the look of it. I'll be sure to post on it later.

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