Just a psychological "why is that" kind of question:

What is the mechanism in our (those of us that fall in this category) subconscious that needs a mod that will force use to do what we could easily do ourselves?
For example why go thru all the headache of finding, installing, debugging and using a mod to prevent us from carrying 2000 arrows when all we would need to do is

JUST DO NOT PICK UP 1940 MORE ARROWS?

Do not get me wrong, I completely do this myself!

HECK I MADE THAT MOD!

But why? What is the "lizard brain's * reasons for doing this?

* (the old brain, or I think is is called the the nucleus accumbens but I am not sure if that is right or not.)

Just about to log off but here you are speaking my language.

Nah I think it is all new-fore brain activity that has us picking up the many arrows.

We know it is a kind of cheating - but who is watching us? When playing a game the meta-rules of how to play and the actual rules both are subject to strategy.

I think we only seek realism and immersion mods when we want the challenge of the game back. We create more rules then. We watch ourselves. Realism mods are then neurosis mods.

Hah

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8071/arrowmenu1.jpg http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/1262/arrowmenu2.jpg?

Those shots are old, I have like way more now. I don't care how many different arrows these mods I've got add I WILL COLLECT THEM ALL.

I'm afraid if I actually engage this discussion I'll go beyond RPGs and talk about achievements and gamerscores and all the various compulsions games and their metas can bring out and just ruin the whole thing.

Interesting topic, which could get very deep very quickly.

Here's my first thoughts:-

The ES worldspaces are attempts to build a cohesive alternate reality. When I'm playing in those worldspaces I don't feel as though I'm playing a game, I feel that I'm existing in the alternative reality. In that other existance it is natural to do whatever I need to do in the most efficient way possible without imposing 'artificial' restrictions on myself. After all I don't impose such restrictions on myself in the real world, so why should I in an alternative world? To use the arrows example, if, say I could carry 100 arrows in real life, I wouldn't arbitarily decide that I should only carry 50. I apply the same logic to the ES world. I may recognise that from a gameplay perspective (in the ES world) a bigger restriction on the number of arrows carried would be an improvement, and for that reasaon I would look to your wonderful combat archery mod to impose that restriction.

Actually, now i think about it, I have all sorts of artificially restrictive rules I play by in Oblivion, that doesn't alter the logic of my argument above though, my game would be better if all those restrictions could be enforced by mods rather than will power.

I hear where you come from on this, and I have actually been doing something along those lines for awhile now, where I keep 60 arrows in my quiver, and an additional 60 arrows in an imaginary arrow case. The only time I look for mods that force certain rules is when I know there is no other way to accomplish what I want to do (for example, using Progress to cap my skills where I want them so although I use them, they will not advance any further).

I try not to put in more mods than I think is necessary for this game, and I tend to go light on the rule tweaks and forceful immersion mods (primary needs being the exception, of course). If I can easily implement it with my own brain, why bother modding it in?

Even with my very own bag mod, I tend to travel very light, and limit myself to 50-60 arrows and a few potions. I use the bags to organize the junk I store at home. :lmao:

I think as modders we realize that we can manipulate and provide anything we want for ourselves, and that makes the game feel too easy; so we go out of our way to enforce more challenging play. To balance the scales, as it were. I know that's the case for me.

I think we use mods because they have that "What If'" kind of feel. Even though I can restrict what I want to do or use, other folk like to have things run their way. If I can have something allow me to do more than it is normally possible in a game, I'll do it. Me, I still have that old "Imagination" factor running. Back when games were only 8 or 16 kb's, you had to really imagine what was going on around you. That feeling of the unknown. Always trying to find out what was around the next corner. Now, we can just make a mod to give us what we want. Maybe I have strayed away from what Spooky wanted to get across, but without mods, TES would not have gone very far. Me, I look for that next quest down the road, that need to know what's out there for me to accomplish.

raed

As far as I am concerned the topic is wide open. It is more of a brain storming thing I guess. Throw it all out and we will see what sticks! :hubbahubba:

I think that for me I want the mods because I am working towards the existence of the "Holo Deck". So all this stuff needs to be played with and naturally EVOLVED so that when we have the technology to do so we will also have a handle on the "logarithms" as well.

Although all my friends think I am a "gamer" and I spend all my money and time on PC gaming now in my old guy years I am not really a gamer, I am more of a Virtual Reality addict.

My body may not be what it once was but my brain still is more or less. I want to be able to use that brain in the same way I did in RL but have the PC pick up the slack in the body department.

Not sure how well it relates to the topic, but something it makes me think about:

When The Sims first came out, I got it and played it for a bit. I wasn't in love with it, but it was fun enough for me at the time. But at some point I decided I wanted to be able to design a crazy dream home, so I enabled whatever cheat mode that let me build and place any object I wanted. So everything I normally had to have my Sim dude work for was at my fingertips. I built my little dream home, but from that point on I never wanted to play the game again (and I haven't). Being able to do what I wanted in the game without having to work within the mechanics of the game to accomplish it had ruined it for me. It didn't matter if I didn't use the cheat code, I knew that I always could, and for some reason that just defeated the purpose of the entire game to me.

So, while I do try very hard to make Oblivion more immersive via mods, it's very much about the game mechanics for me. Thus why I don't understand people wanting insta-kill weapons and spells, or things that otherwise break the balance of the game. It would just totally ruin it for me.

This is probably the same impulse behind wanting limitations. You can call it immersion, but to me that's more about atmospheric stuff. I think it's really all about challenge. If I wanted a "virtual world" I could try Second Life or any number of now-very-popular games that have no real challenge in their mechanics. But I play Oblivion because not only does it have an imaginary world I can take part in but there is something for me to play against. I could go on but I think I'd just start preaching about what I think is proper game design. I just think that, if you're like me, when you remove the challenge from a game it loses a lot of what makes it fun. Gotta have that dopamine flow!

I've thought on this too. For me, it depends. For some things I fall into the "just (don't) do it!" camp. Fast travel comes to mind. I NEVER fast travel. I'm not even tempted. Why waste load-order space on a mod disabling a function I'll never use? Doesn't make sense to me. Same with sleeping. I don't need a mod to tell me that my avatar needs some minimal amount of sleep either at night or catnapping during the day when circumstances force us to alter normal sleep patterns.

But I'm not good at making up reasons/excuses to do things. I'm not going to invade a dungeon just to have something to do. I need a valid assignment. Something given me by the Elder Council, the Legion, one of the guilds, or a private commission. Quest mods are therefore a very important part of my installation. I particularly like those that offer repeatable logical mundane tasks, such as patrolling roads, collecting taxes, and transporting merchandise. You would think I could easily patrol roads on my own without need of a mod to prod me. But no. Without an official assignment, it just seems like goofing around.

-Decrepit-

Just goes to show that we're all different, and the multitude of mod options caters for this. I find it difficult to play without an eat/drink/sleep mod because it forces me to give my player's day some structure. On the other hand I am capable of imposing serious gameplay restrictions on myself when it suites. Currently I'm playing a character that does not use destruction magic. I've had no problem resisting the urge to shoot fireballs at enemies. I also only do alchemy when at home, again i do this without the aide of a mod. I suppose we all unconsciously draw our own lines in the sand about what is acceptable/unacceptable in game and whether or not we need to enforce these rules through restrictive mods. The availability of all these gameplay mods gives us more options and allows more players to construct their own version of their 'perfect' game.