100x this.

Hold on now, I'll definitely agree that modding is great and adds a world of possibilities to games, but the fact of the matter is, moddable or not, Morrowind, the greatest game ever created, and Oblivion, also among the greatest may not have the kind of widespread popularity and interest that they do thanks to modding, but I think the games by themselves would definitely live on, especially in the hearts of TES lovers and any gamers with a decent opinion in games.

In the hearts maybe, but very very few people would be playing either one of them still right now without being able to mod for the game.

I can for sure say I would still play Morrowind vanilla to this day.

Gamers with any "decent opinion" in games probably wouldn't be playing Oblivion anymore. It has a lot of flaws out of the box, i.e. the leveling system etc. that are fixed only through the use of mods. It certainly doesn't qualify as one of the greatest games ever the way that Bethesda created it. Mediocre at best. I can't speak for Morrowind as I've never really played it.

For those of us who remember 2006..............
Modding Oblivion wasn't really easy at the beginning you know.
I was around on the forums when Windy figured out how to hack bowmorphs in NifSkope.
It was just that.....a hack....a trick to make NifSkope believe that two different models were the same model, and create the morph for us in between the two.
I was manually entering the over 200 x,y, and z coordinates of the vertices by hand (unsuccessfully I might add) before Windy's discovery.

Here's a question for you all.
Can you export a working bowmorph from Blender even now?

If Bethesda releases a construction set for ES5 (which I believe they will). The modder's will be there, and the game will make sales that it normally would not have as people know that the game will have free content they can add (which is a selling point to a game).
I loved Morrowind but loved it more when I discovered mods.
I bought Oblivion KNOWING that I would add mods to it (never thought I would be creating mods for it though........), and it was a deciding factor in my purchase.

Me too.

But the mods are nice to have.

How can you call Oblivion mediocre? It stands on it's own by having great gameplay and an excellent storyline, as well as an expansive world full of things to do. Whether or not you think Oblivion is one of the best games ever created, it still deserves a lot of credit for being a great game.

:shrug: It's all pretty subjective. But I agree with you, as it happens. Also, I doubt I could stomach vanilla Morrowind. Just goes to show.

Could they make TES 5 harder/impossible to mod? Absolutely. Would they in favor of gaining more capital through DLC? It is possible. I can see how it would work for and against sales. It would be cheaper to develop a game which needs to only be compatible with fixed hardware platforms (consoles) as opposed to multi-variable hardware (PCs).

Pros for making TES 4 mod friendly:

-Retain PC following which might otherwise be lost due to inability to mod.

-Expand the sales life and popularity of the game through user created content and the ability to extend the game beyond it's lore boundaries.

-Allows the possibility of new content which would otherwise not be released in official DLCs, thus expanding the games audience.

-Allows the possibility for extra sales do to official mod resource content expansions (think horse armor, but on a larger scale such as new buildings, trees, creature, weapon, etc meshes and textures).


I would probably still purchase TES 5 even if it were not as mod friendly as Oblivion was, but I would wait a year or so until the price dropped. I would also not purchase any expansions and not advocate the game as I have done with Morrowind and Oblivion, to peers and colleagues. As a modder, I feel that having such a malleable game to work with is a necessity for me. I have played the game since it was first released, have purchased every single expansion released on disk (for Morrowind and oblivion) and have multiple copies of both games (2 copies of morrowind and three copies of Oblivion, all on disk).

Peace!

Hey, Nico! http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1102306-attention-blender-modelers-and-animators/page__view__findpost__p__16126247

Tes players are united by mods without mods then tes 5 will be :flamethrower: by every tes player ever,so are bethesda going to do that?

Tes players in general aren't united by mods at all, only a small fraction. The console users don't have mods and the percentage of PC users that actually uses mods is probably highly overestimated. I know quite a few people that have Oblivion on either console or PC and none of them ever used a mod.

Very true, that's for sure.


Yeah, the lack of exporter was a really serious problem.

That said, the Blender Nif Scripts are, to my mind, better than the exporter would have been. For those of us who remember 2004, the exporter released for Morrowind had a ton of problems - principle among them the fact that it only worked with a particular version of 3DS Max that was out of date then. In so far as the lack of exporter spurred NifTools' work, that's a good thing. Of course, the headaches you and others endured, and at least one... side effect that I can think of, are quite bad.


According to a thread by Lhammonds earlier this week, yes, but it needs testing.


Certainly true, but it's a really small selling point.

Err, what needs to be tested? All works fine there...

He was looking for people to help write a tutorial but needed people to actually go through the process to make sure everything worked as expected, I think. I may have misunderstood though; search for his thread.

I used to play tes on consoles and I only got the pc version for mods and I know others who did the same and I don't think consoles players play over 2 or 3 years.(thats how long I played on the xbox 360 and I'm planning on spending longer on the pc.

You have understood him well. But it seems that it is you who needs to update an information on this subject ;] Just read the link StarX has delivered couple of posts above (#61).

Oops! Cool, that's awesome!

Great news on the bows from Blender Trollf!

I am a bit out of the loop having lost most of my desire to mod for Oblivion (you know.......the burn out factor finally caught up to me on it but I had a nice run ).

Hopefully another will take up the torch of many new, and unique bow designs for Oblivion with this great advance.



GASP! No mods in their Oblivion!
They have my pity. I cannot imagine even wanting to play Oblivion anymore without mods in my game.
With mods I still play, and enjoy this game.

Elemental: War of Magic is the spiritual succesor to one of my favorite games of all time Master of Magic I do hope they get it right because that game is still great today

Of course the game's lifespan is much shorter without mods. But most peeps I know just played Oblivion and have moved along to other games when having finished the game. Not everyone likes spending hours (days would probably be more likely) on finding/downloading mods and getting them to work nicely.



Yup, the same goes for me.

I guess it all comes down to what has your interrest. Take Total War for example, I had major fun playing that game. Yet it never interrested me enough to delve deeper into the tactics and mods available. I just played it and enjoyed the experience.

But when I was a fanatic Age of Empires 2 (The Conquerors) player I learned every single tactic/unit ability etc. available and played the user made maps (Land Nomad anyone?) because there was something about that game that just grabbed me.

I guess that's the same for other people with Oblivion: if you just want to be entertained and don't think there's much wrong with the vanilla game than you don't really going to look for mods. Issues like levelscaling isn't a major issue for the majority of players, they just accept the game as it was designed. Do the questlines and move on to the next game.

In all honesty I don't play Oblivion very much at all any more, it's making mods that's most fun for me. But I know many around here that do the very same.

Of course for initial sales it is a small selling point that i do agree with, but for sustained sales i would have to think it is a huge selling point i mean after the first year(if even that long)with no mods the game like most would really have no sales at all anymore as people have beaten it then discarded it...but with mods they are able to keep their sales going for years albeit not near as many as the initial launch but a whole heckuva lot more than they normally would have after that length of time.

Doesn't matter what Bathesda does with the next release of TES. Other than a better game engine, graphics, performance, and some new quests, it is still the same game as Morrowing and Oblivion. As long as the community mods for Oblivion the game will live forever. The early overhauls like Frans and OOO are a testament to how a game can change. Qarl showed how the visuals can improve. Plenty of performance mods out. And the only steady stream of new quests and content is from this community. Today, I would say Oblivion is way past what TEX V can be. After all, way more developers modding than work for Bathesda, and they get player feedback!!! No game developer can match this.

So Bathesda can do what it wants. In 5 years we will have a PC that will play Oblivion likw a champ with all great textures and overhauls, using new tweks for stability, that you won't recognize the game. Don't worry of what might be, enjoy what is.