The Mage's College is awesome. *No spoilers, please*

Wow. Talk about a well-written and engrossing questline, the Mage's College is it. I'm not finished with it yet, but it's been absurdly interesting and cool so far. I just love it.

So to those people roleplaying melee characters out there and think the college is offlimits due to roleplaying reasons, I say check it out. I'm a melee swordfighter myself, but it's been a blast so far. I justified joining by simply being a very novice magician, every character starts out with magic, so if you look at it like you want to learn more about basic magic and what not, it makes sense from a roleplaying perspective. But yeah, check it out if you haven't already, it's great.

So I finished the college just now. Here's my thoughts (may include spoilers, beware!!!)

Overall, it was great. Being dubbed Arch-mage was a little…anti-climactic, though. I expected the entire college to stand around and some sort of ceremony to take place. It just happened so fast once the dude was killed. There wasn't any real reflection on the crazy events that just took place. It felt slightly rushed.

As for those who think the college was too short, I think it was perfect length. They sent you to some deep dungeon crawls that took hours to complete, and all the quests were interesting enough. There was a lot of side content introduced too. I thought it was very focused and good length overall.

I am kind of upset that it appears no content has unlocked after I became archmage though. Although Arniel Gane sent me to Dwemer ruins to charge a warped soul gem, but that's really the only new quest that has opened up. Shame. They could have really went deep with it and added new content exclusive to the archmage. That would have been awesome. Instead it seems you just become archmage and that's that. Oh well. If that is part of the reasoning of people saying the questline was too short, then that I agree with. There just could have been more to do.

Example: Go back to the Dwemer ruin as Archmage, talk to the dude who ran that machine that finds great sources of power throughout Tamriel, and find a source of power in Skyrim to explore. Simple, and adds some new content. Also, it's strange that when you become Harbinger of the Companions, new content opens up, but for the College it doesn't (unless I'm missing something?)

Thoughts on the Mage's College?

The College started really well, with some quite interesting bits of lore kicking around. What is the Eye of Magnus? Who is the Augur of Dunlain? Wow, the Psijic Order! Sweet!



Still, it was better than the Oblivion Mages Guild questline, and Arniel's sidequest is pretty interesting, even if the implications are unexplored.

SPOILERS POSSIBLE!!! BEWARE!! (Don't know how to do the spoiler tag, someone fill me in?)

I would have liked to see it go a little deeper than it did, but overall I enjoyed it. I'd say it was better than the Companions (which I also enjoyed).

Spoiler tag: either pick the exclamation mark symbol while in the messaging menu (should be the second from the right) or type [ spoiler ] TEXT [ /spoiler ] without the empty spaces.

Loved the beginning and middle, but the ending was not that great.

The storyline was good but I'm one of those people that think its to short, mainly because that quest line is just 8 quests compared to Oblivion's 18 quests or Morrowind's 30 quests, that's not a lot.

Granted the story is better this time and there are some great side quests, still I still feel there is a lot of untapped potential playing as novice mage learning the trade from the masters of the college, basely you get shown a ward spell and then its off to find the ---, Tolfdir even let you run alone into some druagers in quest two, what a responsible teacher.

Originally Posted by Fluent
Wow. Talk about a well-written and engrossing questline, the Mage's College is it.

WTF!, Are you f******g kidding me? That questline is just plain retarded.

Well, let's just say that I suddenly and irrationally start feeling an uncommonly strong urge to behave like a true Codexian but I shall hold myself back since this is the Watch.

I thought the mages 'guild' quest line was too short - and not that inspired. Compared to joining the mage's guild in Oblivion - the individual politicking/plots etc of local mage guild leaders, eventually joining the univesity, Mannamarco - this was disappointing. The Thalmor had huge potential as terrifying 'arcane adversaries' for the mages of winterhold - which was hardly tapped. I'm afraid I don't see the 'awesome' here.

Originally Posted by Fluent
Example: Go back to the Dwemer ruin as Archmage, talk to the dude who ran that machine that finds great sources of power throughout Tamriel, and find a source of power in Skyrim to explore. Simple, and adds some new content.

Once the dwemer puzzle is complete Paratus said he'd tell the Council in Cyrodiil about the Eye of Magnus, and basically acted quite menacingly after that he started walking away, at which point I shot an arrow through his head…

Threaten my college will you?!

Daniel.

I found the mage line ok and interesting, but kinda less-than when compared to the Dark Brotherhood/Thieves guild questlines. Course I was playing an anti-mage dude, so that might have been part of the reason.


-Carn

The College´s main storyline is shite pretty much from the beginning to the end.
It goes into epic! mode way too fast, utilizes the tired Chosen One formula, the character "twist" in it is as obvious as it can get, story development is way too sparse and even though some elements may seem intriguing at first, they really aren´t and are wasted by the questline´s end.
Plus, the questline itself is short - its duration is just prolonged via inclusion of dungeons. The dwemer ruin is just a long slog through empty huge corridors (with few exceptions, dwemer ruins are generally rather underdeveloped in this game, in the quantity > quality way) with one interesting bit at its very end and Labyrinthian is probably even more disappointing - it was a great opportunity to infuse the game with an intricate non-linear devious dungeon crawl, but it´s linear and straightforward just like pretty much every other dungeon in the game … and long.
Becoming an archmage is a non-event and "you´re not as dumb as you look" remark doesn´t go away.
Storyline which would, for example, utilized some kind of rebuilding of the Winterhold city would be preferable in my book.

Arniel´s quest was pretty cool and I really like the master quests (not necessarily all of these quests themselves, but definitely as a feature).

Originally Posted by Fluent
Although Arniel Gane sent me to Dwemer ruins to charge a warped soul gem, but that's really the only new quest that has opened up.

You can finish this quest before becoming an archmage, it just gets temporarily closed somewhere during the main questline.

I actually quite liked it, the exploring the ruins/archaeological dig was especially fun, the end was the weakest point, as you automatically become the Archmage… I would have preferred it to be more like the Thieves Guild where if you want to be at the top you have to do a lot of work!

Daniel.

Originally Posted by darklord
the exploring the ruins/archaeological dig was especially fun,

Yeah, I liked that part too, except for its place in the overall narrative.

It was fun but it did seem to end rather abruptly. I wonder if it was originally going to be more extensive but they ran out of time?

There are some quests to do for Tolfir after becoming Archmage. I haven't done many, because I got distracted. Also, after giving Arniel the warped gem, wait a few days and visit him again. You'll get a very interesting "restart" to his quest that has an amusing ending. It's been a while, but you should end up with a unique staff if you've completed his full questline.

I really focus on destruction and at level 42, I still haven't hit master. In fact, I just hit expert (75 skill) a few levels ago. I think I'm at 82-83 range. Destruction has desperate need for alchemy at high levels or your damage won't keep up. Alchemy should stay close to destruction in skill level and make sure to learn fortify destruction ingredients.

There is a followup quest called Aftershock.

That's it! I never got very far in it. There are followup quests for all the guilds, IIRC. I never learn becuase I keep restarting! I was about ready for the showdown with THE major Foozle and instead started at the entrance to Bleak Falls Barrow and am replaying from there.