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Oblivion Discussion: Free Will - Missed Oppertunity?

Tags: #Debate 
  • June 10, 2017

    Hello, Classics Members. Today I have a question for you.

    In the final quest of the Mages Guild, "Confront the King," you find and kill Mannimarco, the King of Worms in his lair, Echo Cave. Before the final battle, however, there is a fairly long exchange of information and threats.

    Part of the conversation goes like this:

    Mannimarco:"I will make you another in a long tradition of Worm Thralls, and take my time in studying you. Your very soul will be forfeit to me."

    Player:"I'll serve you if you spare me."

    Mannimarco:"I'm afraid you misunderstand. I already have more servants than I need."

     

    Now, I think the player should have had a choice to join Mannimarco and fight at his side against the Mage's Guild. Bethesda could easily (well, not easily, but you know what I mean) have added another questline in which you could join the Order of the Black Worm and travel through the ranks. This would have given the player a real choice in the game and not be forced to be the good guy the whole time.

     

    The same can be said for the Main Quest. During the quest "Dagon Shrine" in which you go undercover to infiltrate the Mythic Dawn and steal the Mysterium Xarxes, the player is forced to be the good guy once again. In my opinion, there is another missed opportunity here, and the player really could have stayed in the Mythic Dawn and fought against the Blades, before perhaps assissting in the attacks on the cities around the world, and fighting on the side of the Daedra in the attack on the Imperial City.

    I think the game would be more popular and could be replayed more times if they could have done things like this in the game. For example, I really enjoy the game "Infamous" because of the option to be the good OR bad guy.

    What do you think?

  • Member
    June 10, 2017

    There may be a mod that allows you to do this... :-?

  • June 10, 2017

    Noodles said:

    There may be a mod that allows you to do this... :-?

    Is there? The only Mythic Dawn mod I know of is "Servant of the Dawn" and that takes place after the Main Quest.

    And for Join the Necromancers mods, there are a few, but again, AFTER the questline. :(

    And besides, console players can't mod. The discussion is about Bethesdas Missed Opportunities, not "Bethesda Failed to do this so yeah lets do modsssssssssssssssssss" :P

  • June 10, 2017

    I'm venturing into somewhat unknown territory here because I never actually played through these quests, but I understand the issue you're getting at. Player choice takes the hit when the developers want to tell a story, or otherwise can't include a entirely separate evil quest line due to technical limitations. I'd guess anyway. But I would be surprised if there's not a mod addressing these. Might not be fully voiced acted, but it could be around anyway. I'd love to see more freedom like this in ES6 though. If these epic quests offer the same sort of fluidity that Skyrim's civil war quest offered, what with the ability to defect, as well as the way FO4's lets people play all sides of the warring factions for a while before having to side with one, then we could end up with exactly the kind of freedom you and the rest of us are fiending for. 

  • Member
    June 10, 2017

    I must admit, when it comes to games like TES, I usually prefer to be one of "the good guys", but I do agree that it would be nice to have some diversity once in a while. Especially in the older games when you get more competing Factions.

    Morrowind did have this to a degree (Mages and Telvanni, Temple and Cult, for instance), but Oblivion would have been a lot more fun if you got to choose. The Blackwood Company would have been quite a nice choice, I think. They were only involved in a a handful of quests, if I rememer correctly, and it would have bee nice to get thigs from their perspective.

    Ah well, hopefully Bethesda will take the hint and add such a thing as "free will" in ES:6. We can only hope...

  • June 10, 2017

    Caesar said:

    I must admit, when it comes to games like TES, I usually prefer to be one of "the good guys", but I do agree that it would be nice to have some diversity once in a while. Especially in the older games when you get more competing Factions.

    Morrowind did have this to a degree (Mages and Telvanni, Temple and Cult, for instance), but Oblivion would have been a lot more fun if you got to choose. The Blackwood Company would have been quite a nice choice, I think. They were only involved in a a handful of quests, if I rememer correctly, and it would have bee nice to get thigs from their perspective.

    Ah well, hopefully Bethesda will take the hint and add such a thing as "free will" in ES:6. We can only hope...

    I really hope so. I'm hoping ES:6 will be in the Summerset Isle, myself, though loads of people think It'll be Blackmarsh :(

  • June 10, 2017

    Legion said:

    I'm venturing into somewhat unknown territory here because I never actually played through these quests, but I understand the issue you're getting at. Player choice takes the hit when the developers want to tell a story, or otherwise can't include a entirely separate evil quest line due to technical limitations. I'd guess anyway. But I would be surprised if there's not a mod addressing these. Might not be fully voiced acted, but it could be around anyway. I'd love to see more freedom like this in ES6 though. If these epic quests offer the same sort of fluidity that Skyrim's civil war quest offered, what with the ability to defect, as well as the way FO4's lets people play all sides of the warring factions for a while before having to side with one, then we could end up with exactly the kind of freedom you and the rest of us are fiending for. 

    Here's to hoping :) I think there is a few mods such as "Servant of the Dawn" but unfortunatly that (for me at least) is unplayable to the constant glitches. seems to work OK for my cousin though. The voice acting (from what I've seen) seems to be pretty good anyway.

  • Member
    June 10, 2017

    A lot of stuff ends up cut for time in ES games. In Oblivion, there was originally the idea that you could become a noble (which is why the Counts have their own technical Faction, among other things), and even as recently as Skyrim there was things cut (like being able to kill Elisif for Boethiah). My point is, you can't add everything in one game... Not yet, at least.

     

    As a side note, if you do the sacrifice for the Mythic Dawn and never steal the book, you *do* join the Faction. None of the Blades will speak to you, and (usually) your character even gets cult-specific voice clips. There's no actual questline, but it is worthy of note.