» Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:46 pm I posted this in the Skyrim forum, and I'm posting it here. I want a wider range of opinions than I would be likely to get from one place or the other.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I look around the Skyrim modding forum and see the Bethesda standard remains...there's an unofficial patch project claiming hundreds, or is it thousands, of bugfixes. Besides being a totally bug-ridden wreck I found Oblivion was about a thirty hour play and onto the shelf bore in its unmodded form. Enter hundreds of hours of effort finding a mod combination that worked together to make a quality game of it, which actually was more than a quality game, it was a great game. My son's response has been 'Bethesda games are console only...for better or worse at least they don't crash constantly and if I shelf it at least I didn't put any effort into it' and he has enjoyed playing Skyrim on a game console. My response has been quitting completely on what I call 'Bethesda Mod Platforms' since as near as I can make out they do not make actual games and there are plenty of turn-key games on the market.
But...the girlfriend is looking for something to get for my birthday and Skyrim in the 'Legendary with all the add ons' form fits the criteria I gave her so unless I specifically tell her not to get it she might. And it might be a great game, one way or the other.
So...would Skyrim fall in the 'install, patch, add unofficial patch, play' category, or the 'you can do that but you'll hate it and have to go on a dedicated mod expirementation run to make a decent game' category. If the latter is there someone who has done the work? I mean there are places where you can get a 'tested list' of mods that work together and make Oblivion good and I'd be interested in something like that. My days of investing more time into trying to make a game than I was willing to put into playing it originally are behind me.
