I was thinking about people's attacks on the old Gamebryo engine and how wrecked it supposedly was. Then I tried to reconcile that point of view with the fact that a modded Oblivion is still one of the best looking games I have seen. This got me thinking about what kind of tradeoff I want for Skyrim. Oblivion was graphically amazing for the time. However, these graphics came at the price of some optimization, and the game would stutter, freeze, etc. That graphical prowess, however, has allowed the game to still feel new when modded. What would it have been like if Beth had decided they would curtail the game's graphics in the name of optimizations? How would that modded Oblivion compare to the one we know now?

Compare the massive graphical leap from Morrowind to Oblivion, and then from Oblivion to Fallout 3. Fallout 3 ran much better, but I am unsure how the game's graphics will stand up over time. That being said, what do you think? Would you rather have a game that is a little rough around the edges if it means that it will remain more current over the years? Does the graphical power of the engine affect a game's modded future at all?

Give me your thoughts. I don't know what I would prefer as of now, mostly because I don't know how much Beth's ambitions for graphics will influence the modded looks of the game later on.

Both. If I have to play Skyrim on low, that just means I have better graphics to look forward to next time I upgrade.

It is obviously a scale though. In order to optimize, they will have to limit the potential a bit, and vice versa. I'm reffering to the performance gain/ graphics gain tradeoff. Oblivion was inefficient (ran poorly), but looked better. Fallout was more central (didn't sacrifice stability).

To be honest better graphics (especially on consoles) appear largely as a result of the optimisation of the engines. It wasn't the fancy graphics that made the engine buggy; it was just buggy and unoptimised. Not that Bethesda was really in a position to do anything about it (given time constraits and a late port to the 360). Modded Fallout could look as good as Oblivion if you wanted it to (well if someone made a Fallout Graphics Extender).