T w e n t y S i d e d

So we meet these two idiots at Nightingale HQ, and Karliah tells us we’re here to “get the edge we need to defeat Mercer Frey”. Now, if you want to defeat Mercer Frey, all you really need to do is challenge him to a contest of not screaming a combat taunt for ten consecutive seconds, but whatever.

In the last segment, the story fell apart for me. This bit is where it pissed me off. We’re going to join the Nightingales.

Dear Bethesda: Do you understand that nightingales are birds, and not usually associated with power, cunning, or even darkness? I mean, I know you’ve got the word “night” in there, but the name actually means “‘night songstress”. As in singing. They are not harbingers of danger, adventure, or secrecy. They’re actually cute, fluffy little birds. It’s a terrible, terrible name for your super-secret cult. You basically named yourselves, “The Adorable Little Songbirds”. It sounds really stupid to hear people talking about “Nightingales” like they’re something insidious, and that’s before we see how completely useless they are. I can’t shake the feeling you were thinking of owls, crows, ravens, or blackbirds.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Skyrim Thieves Guild Part 4”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I arrive at the ruin to help Mercer Frey kill Karliah. There is this short bit of dialog at the start where Mercer is able to pick the lock of an “impossible lock” door. Then halfway through the dungeon he does it again, bypassing a door that you normally can’t open, even with maximum lockpicking skill. This becomes important later.

I have to say that Mercer is about the worst thief in the world. Instead of letting the player pick off targets from the shadows, he charges into battle, screaming combat taunts and blocking my arrows. He blunders into traps, even though any halfway-leveled stealth character has access to a perk that makes them immune to setting off traps. He’s actually a liability for anyone trying to use stealth. And I imagine that “stealth” is a pretty common appraoch for players who are running through the Thieves Guild questline. Crimey.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Skyrim Thieves Guild Part 2”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The Thieves Guild is not the worst bit of writing in Skyrim. (I think I’d give that honor to the quest in Markarth where you have to deal with the Forsworn.) But I don’t want you to think I’m cherry-picking some halfhearted sidequest. This is a major part of Skyrim and a lot of environments, characters, and cutscenes are dedicated it This is a shame, because the Thieves Guild questline is a mess. It’s unnecessarily terrible, failing at multiple levels and attempting things that aren’t even needed. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning…

The introduction to the Thieves Guild is kind of strange. It’s not horrible or broken, but for the sake of setting this up I need to plod through these first few quests.

Brynjolf walks up to me, a total stranger, and says, “You’ve never worked a day in your life for all that coin you’re carrying around.” This is a really screwy thing to say to an adventurer. (I imagine running over mountains and fighting through tombs is pretty labor-intensive.) I guess he’s supposed to be insinuating that I’m naturally a thief, but he says this to the player regardless of what gear they have or how much money they’ve got. It’s also odd because you can’t steal for a living until you join the guild, because you have no way to unload stolen goods. He’s implying you’re a thief, when by definition you can’t be one yet. So no matter who you are, he’s flat-out wrong. It’s also odd to be approached to join the Thieves Guild. I get that the guild has fallen on hard times, but this still feels awkward.

I do a little job for him where I steal a ring from person A and slip it into the pocket of person B. I’m actually railroaded into asking why he wants me to do this. Apparently Bethesda thought everyone was too stupid to to untangle the threads of this thuddingly obvious frame-up. This is not the last time they will underestimate the intelligence of the player.

Once that’s over I do an initiation where I have to run around town and extort money from a few of the locals. Once that bit is over, we settle into the main plot of the questline.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Skyrim Thieves Guild Part 1”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.