[BloodEagle]

I would like to remind everyone about all the bull**** they promised for Oblivion.  I would also like to remind everyone about Oblivion.

Maybe they aren't lying to your faces this time.  I won't hold my breath, though.

[Turambar]

I would like to remind everyone about all the bull**** they promised for Oblivion.  I would also like to remind everyone about Oblivion.

Maybe they aren't lying to your faces this time.  I won't hold my breath, though.

Even if they are, mod tools mean we can fix it.

[Nemesis6]

And that was/still is a major component of the Morrowind/Oblivion games -- The modding community. It really is incredible what they have produced and continue to produce, so long after the game was released.

[BloodEagle]

I guess we can only hope. :/

And that was/still is a major component of the Morrowind/Oblivion games -- The modding community. It really is incredible what they have produced and continue to produce, so long after the game was released.

I remember that there was this really nice horror mod that broke right at the end (it was supposed to change part of the stock world, but it raised a conflict error and killed those changes).  I think it was still in production the last time I checked.

[Ghostavo]

The Elder Scrolls' main theme used for Skyrim at 2:45-3:10 sounds awesome.

[iamzack]

I hope the "sexy" mod to useful and nice mod ratio is a bit better this time around, but... :[

[Ravenholme]

I hope the "sexy" mod to useful and nice mod ratio is a bit better this time around, but... :[

Unfortunately (and I can say this somewhat authoritavely, as I've been actively involved in the TES modding community since Morrowind, and assisted in a fair few mods, released a couple, etc. Mostly for Morrowind, but one or two for Oblivion), the TES community attracts people for whom fantasy does not mean Sword and Sorcery escapism, but the substance of their sexual perversions (Often, anyway. Tentacle raep mod for Oblivion, anyone?) given digital flesh.

[NGTM-1R]

Unfortunately (and I can say this somewhat authoritavely, as I've been actively involved in the TES modding community since Morrowind, and assisted in a fair few mods, released a couple, etc. Mostly for Morrowind, but one or two for Oblivion), the TES community attracts people for whom fantasy does not mean Sword and Sorcery escapism, but the substance of their sexual perversions (Often, anyway. Tentacle raep mod for Oblivion, anyone?) given digital flesh.

You've not read much actual fantasy of the sword and sorcery variety of recent publication apparently, so I'll warn you straight up: that's getting frighteningly normal for the genre.

[Ravenholme]

Unfortunately (and I can say this somewhat authoritavely, as I've been actively involved in the TES modding community since Morrowind, and assisted in a fair few mods, released a couple, etc. Mostly for Morrowind, but one or two for Oblivion), the TES community attracts people for whom fantasy does not mean Sword and Sorcery escapism, but the substance of their sexual perversions (Often, anyway. Tentacle raep mod for Oblivion, anyone?) given digital flesh.

You've not read much actual fantasy of the sword and sorcery variety of recent publication apparently, so I'll warn you straight up: that's getting frighteningly normal for the genre.

No, I read true fantasy of the sword and sorcery variant. Let's put it this way, my favourite fantasy author is Glen Cook, who manages to keep his work remarkably sex free *shrugs*

I'm well aware that it's a common fixture of most fantasy, but I'm afraid the TES community takes it to extremes.

[iamzack]

too much horse balls and cat vaginae and naked girls with blank, unfeeling stares...

[Ravenholme]

too much horse balls and cat vaginae and naked girls with blank, unfeeling stares...

Oh the jokes I could make with this statement, but I shall refrain...

[Flipside]

Unfortunately (and I can say this somewhat authoritavely, as I've been actively involved in the TES modding community since Morrowind, and assisted in a fair few mods, released a couple, etc. Mostly for Morrowind, but one or two for Oblivion), the TES community attracts people for whom fantasy does not mean Sword and Sorcery escapism, but the substance of their sexual perversions (Often, anyway. Tentacle raep mod for Oblivion, anyone?) given digital flesh.

You've not read much actual fantasy of the sword and sorcery variety of recent publication apparently, so I'll warn you straight up: that's getting frighteningly normal for the genre.

That's just plain.... depressing, but what's possibly worse is that it isn't all that surprising for some reason

[Mongoose]

I knew I was playing it safe by just sticking to Lord of the Rings.

[BlueFlames]

I would like to remind everyone about all the bull**** they promised for Oblivion.  I would also like to remind everyone about Oblivion.

Maybe they aren't lying to your faces this time.  I won't hold my breath, though.

Even if they are, mod tools mean we can fix it.

Here's a thought:  Why should I spend my money on a game that needs to be fixed, when I can spend my money on a game that will be good out-of-the-box?

For me, Bethesda has thoroughly squandered the goodwill they had built up with Morrowind.  Oblivion was a pretty world with no substance and questionable gameplay mechanics.  Fallout 3 was a slap in the face to fans of the original game, right from the off.  Both were sloppy, and neither was finished, upon release.  I'm no longer willing to hand Bethesda my money for a game that I'm going to have to bend over backwards modding to make it feel like a finished, polished product.

If they want to invest the effort in making a good game, I'll give their game due consideration.  If they want to release a lousy game, in the hopes that someone else will make it better, then I'll just go buy a better game, made by someone else.  Seems fair to me.

[Grizzly]

Here's a thought:  Why should I spend my money on a game that needs to be fixed, when I can spend my money on a game that will be good out-of-the-box?

This.

[Turambar]

Here's a thought:  Why should I spend my money on a game that needs to be fixed, when I can spend my money on a game that will be good out-of-the-box?

This.

The game is a console port, they need to reduce complexity so 13 year old xbox live ****-eaters can actually play the game.  Through modding, that complexity can be restored for us thinking PC players.

[iamzack]

Here's a thought:  Why should I spend my money on a game that needs to be fixed, when I can spend my money on a game that will be good out-of-the-box?

This.

I actually kind of prefer things this way. It's similar to the Sims, where the graphics and game mechanics and everything are pretty simple (I think so that people can play on low-end computers), but you get this basic platform. And then through mods, you get to build your own totally custom game. Besides that, you can have your game so modded it becomes almost another game entirely, and if you want to, you can play through and then download different mods and play through again, and it's all free.

You can't make a game to suit everyone's tastes, and if there is a community willing to create and share mods, why not make a basic game that will appeal to a wider audience in the first place?

The way I see it, it pays much more to make a relatively simple game, but make sure it's highly moddable and release mod tools to get the community started than it would to make a highly complex game that is amazing (by the standards of one group) right off the shelf. PLUS, we get the benefit of buying one game that we can play on more affordable systems AND we can change anything and everything about it pretty easily. It seems like we'd be more limited in what we could do with highly complex and developed games, but iunno.

Of course, that's all for PC gamers. Console gamers just have to make a trade-off between the simplicity of an all-in-one game system and less game moddability, I guess.

[Scotty]

Here's a thought:  Why should I spend my money on a game that needs to be fixed, when I can spend my money on a game that will be good out-of-the-box?

This.

The game is a console port, they need to reduce complexity so 13 year old xbox live ****-eaters can actually play the game.  Through modding, that complexity can be restored for us thinking PC players.

Because there are by definition no 13 year old PC gaming ****-eaters.  Must be that the ones I know don't actually exist.

Seriously, cut it with the condescending bull**** towards consoles.  It's old.

[Zacam]

You can't make a game to suit everyone's tastes, and if there is a community willing to create and share mods, why not make a basic game that will appeal to a wider audience in the first place?

The way I see it, it pays much more to make a relatively simple game, but make sure it's highly moddable and release mod tools to get the community started than it would to make a highly complex game that is amazing (by the standards of one group) right off the shelf. PLUS, we get the benefit of buying one game that we can play on more affordable systems AND we can change anything and everything about it pretty easily. It seems like we'd be more limited in what we could do with highly complex and developed games, but iunno.

I can agree with pretty much everything here. But the biggest difference (aside from Bethesda games not being The Sims) is the delivery of ANY formative content in the main release to begin with. And the fact that (other than Nude Mods) the FIRST actual gameplay mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas were to fix/patch bugs that shouldn't have been present in a commercial release in the first place.

Yes, they DO deliver in regards to giving us the tools to make more out of their universe than what they originally give us. But that is severely lessened and cheapened by the fact when we have to use those tools to instead correct for the content and gameworld that should have already have been corrected and more polished than it was delivered as, and it should be content more closely resembling what we were actually promised to get.

And it's not even a case of the adjustments to handle lower end vs high end pc's either. When you have completely broken Quest Script Triggers or un-meetable conditions or conditions that expect and A->B->C approach in a gameworld where you can hit X->C->A->Z (but never "B") and end up with a broken mess, that is simply irresponsible.

I'd have rather seen Fallout 3 _and_ New Vegas delayed by 6 more months to give them both more polish and testing and corrections. They could have ironed out DLC addons interaction for FO3 a lot better and we wouldn't have had such a dismally embarrassing lack of patch releasing for New Vegas as we've seen delivered so far.

The tools provided shouldn't also have to serve as the swiss-army solution to correcting a lazy or rush development process driven by the bottom line dollar of players being willing to have to put up with it.

To be more on Topic, I hold _some_ hope that _maybe_ they get it right with Skyrim. But they've been on a decline since the release of Morrowind (it started showing in the GotY edition, honestly) and I won't hold my breath on it. If it can survive it's first month on the shelves without needing a community movement to list and correct bugs (because I know it's entirely too much to ask for it to be completely bug free) and we can see actual innovative content being delivered for it off the bat, then I'll believe in them starting to make steps in the right direction. (And then I'll have to wonder if they will then finally concentrate on actually fixing the remaining issues with the games they already have out instead of just orphaning their latest cash-cow on to store shelves so that they can work on the next one).

[iamzack]

You can't make a game to suit everyone's tastes, and if there is a community willing to create and share mods, why not make a basic game that will appeal to a wider audience in the first place?

The way I see it, it pays much more to make a relatively simple game, but make sure it's highly moddable and release mod tools to get the community started than it would to make a highly complex game that is amazing (by the standards of one group) right off the shelf. PLUS, we get the benefit of buying one game that we can play on more affordable systems AND we can change anything and everything about it pretty easily. It seems like we'd be more limited in what we could do with highly complex and developed games, but iunno.

I can agree with pretty much everything here. But the biggest difference (aside from Bethesda games not being The Sims) is the delivery of ANY formative content in the main release to begin with. And the fact that (other than Nude Mods) the FIRST actual gameplay mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas were to fix/patch bugs that shouldn't have been present in a commercial release in the first place.

Yes, they DO deliver in regards to giving us the tools to make more out of their universe than what they originally give us. But that is severely lessened and cheapened by the fact when we have to use those tools to instead correct for the content and gameworld that should have already have been corrected and more polished than it was delivered as, and it should be content more closely resembling what we were actually promised to get.

And it's not even a case of the adjustments to handle lower end vs high end pc's either. When you have completely broken Quest Script Triggers or un-meetable conditions or conditions that expect and A->B->C approach in a gameworld where you can hit X->C->A->Z (but never "B") and end up with a broken mess, that is simply irresponsible.

I'd have rather seen Fallout 3 _and_ New Vegas delayed by 6 more months to give them both more polish and testing and corrections. They could have ironed out DLC addons interaction for FO3 a lot better and we wouldn't have had such a dismally embarrassing lack of patch releasing for New Vegas as we've seen delivered so far.

The tools provided shouldn't also have to serve as the swiss-army solution to correcting a lazy or rush development process driven by the bottom line dollar of players being willing to have to put up with it.

To be more on Topic, I hold _some_ hope that _maybe_ they get it right with Skyrim. But they've been on a decline since the release of Morrowind (it started showing in the GotY edition, honestly) and I won't hold my breath on it. If it can survive it's first month on the shelves without needing a community movement to list and correct bugs (because I know it's entirely too much to ask for it to be completely bug free) and we can see actual innovative content being delivered for it off the bat, then I'll believe in them starting to make steps in the right direction. (And then I'll have to wonder if they will then finally concentrate on actually fixing the remaining issues with the games they already have out instead of just orphaning their latest cash-cow on to store shelves so that they can work on the next one).

Yeah, I suppose. The Sims 3 was a horrible broken mess as well, almost unplayable without mods. Never bothered me much, though, since mods are free and not terribly difficult to install. On principle it's kind of douchey to sell broken games, but it just doesn't really affect me.