Main Quest - Helseth Ideas

[batman]

i thought it was gong to run like this: you take faction quests until a certain rank, then the main quest begins and you begin taking orders from the leader of your house.

that doesn't interfere with the faction quests that you take, as you'll never work directly for the leader of the house in those quests. again, separete and independent.

[Vrenir]

I like it. That's a nice divider for the those factions that have multiple joinable branches like the Telvani especially. The only problem is about faction membership: does each faction have a name and membership seperate from their House? (i.e. - if you rose through the ranks of House Hlallu and then started the Hlallu MQ, are you still getting orders as a member of Hlallu and if so what if you got there via the Imperial Union, do you automatically recieve an appropriate Hlallu rank?)

I think that the best solution might simply be to name the larger factions something different and, as Batman said, make them seperate. With the recruitment thing in TESIV, you could only get offered membership when you reach a certain rank in one of the relevant sub-factions. All we need are some good names. We already have the Telvani Alliance as opposed to House Telvani etc. Redoran I would think would be called the Triple Alliance or something like that (since Redoran is the only joinable though of the three, it should be an easy integration). Hlallu I have no name ideas for right now.

Nevertheless, the sub-faction quests should be building toward the House War with espionage, counter-espionage, anonymous raids, alliance building, etc. Only the actual war should be in the major faction quest-lines. (That also probably means that the sub-faction quests should probably not be overwhelmingly huge because the player will be going on from them into two other sets of quests: House War and Temple vs. Sixth House).

[batman]

uh, houses are factions...

the way i thought it was going to work was that, no matter what factions you join, you are a member of one of the four sides, and so when the main quest begins you report to the head of one the four consortiums. i disagree with making differnt faction "levels," to much work, to complex, not enough payoff

[Vrenir]

So if you join the Daedric Cultists, you will automatically also be given Telvani membership and achieve ranks in Telvani by doing Cultist missions or Betmeri? That doesn't sound right to me. Your idea as I understand it would work with Redoran but not the others as their allied members are too disperate in goals and identities.

Besides, I would think that a lot of the quests in the lower rankings would be alliance building and if the alliiances are already in place by default, what good does that do?

[batman]

why do poeple always assume the worst case scneairo instead of being interesting and creative? (sorry, i'm on the soapbox today)

no ones automatically given any membership in anything (when was that even suggested?). regardless of what other factions you join, the main quest has four sides to it and eventually you'll have to choose between them, is all i'm saying.

e.g.: if you join the betmeri league, when the main quest begins you'd take orders from the leader of the Telvanni alliance, but you won't join the telvanni unless you choose to.

but whatever, if you want to go ahead with integrating everything with everything, go ahead...

[Vrenir]

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood what you were saying too. Whatever is decided in the long run, I think that you've got a clear shot with Redoran as there are no sub-factions to integrate into the MQ branch. If it's divided into two groups or stays as one or whatever, you're still good to go. Just build the tension prior to the MQ section is all I'd really advise so that it's not out of the blue when it comes up.

[batman]

i still think that if the player has the knowledge that choosing a faction inherently limits your faction choices, then theres no problem with doing it so that once you choose your first faction (thats aligned with one of the three main sides) you've choosen who you're going ot take orders from at the onset of the main quest. No ones saying that the alligences exists yet, only that no matter what, the alliances will happen, and thus that is the person you will take orders from.

[Vrenir]

So no multi-membership at the start such as being a Redoran with Imperial Union connections later abandoning the IU and going full Redoran for the MQ? Not trying to criticize, just trying to understand the implications.

[batman]

well, that would be what i was thinking, so there are downsides.

what kukluza and i discussed before was that you would have the freedom to join anything (except multiple houses) up unitl a turning point in the main quest when you have to make a choice and ally yourself with one of the side, thus severing your ties to the other, but we never came too a final conlcusion.

however, after that we came to the idea that some factions should be jonable based only on certain criteria (race, etc), then we "trimmed the fat" of the joinable factions, so the details were never nailed down... that why we're talking about it here :yes:

[Vrenir]

How do could the "turning point" cut-off be implemented, assuming that there's no unknown miracle feature in the TESIV editor. Would it be at a certain rank? Would you plan to use practical means such as battles to make you attack either one side or the other, thus getting yourself kicked out of one if you're a member of both? I think that we should assume that players will want to join multiple factions from different main groups.

I honestly still like the sub-factions with renamed alliance factions that are joined after a certain rank is achieved in any other sub-groups. It would also allow us to work on the sub-faction quest ideas and planning before settling on a precise MQ plan. Of course, all of this can't really be implemented in any way until we have cities with NCPs in wide enough areas to have faction quests.