» Sat Jul 02, 2011 4:45 am
I think what it comes down to, and its where a bunch of the tension and flames come from, is not that the division of people along this line is between "hardcoes" and "mainstreamers" or PC players and console players. Its between those that want a "deep fantasy rpg world with an action fighting game inside it" vs those who want an "epic action fighting game with a fantasy world inside it". Those in the former category, like me, have the right to be skeptical and are not wrong to prejudge based on news that has been released. The news indicates that this is the latter kind of game, and that really is the fundamental difference as time goes on. TES has similar elements from one iteration to the next, and Skyrim is still a TES game... but it is another step in the evolution of the series into an action fighter rather than an actual fantasy rpg. The thing is, there is just still so much that fantasy rpg lovers can love about TES in the lore, the connection to the other games, the setting, the magic, the fact that there is character rp even if it has diminished.... so that's what mods are for in my opinion: to "fix" the game to be the type of game we want to play while still leveraging the lore, artistry, and platform that Bethesda first creates. The vanilla game Bethesda makes is just no longer in the same genre that it was in previous games, and gets further from it with each release, even though many elements are ported over, the pace, presentation, and subtleties move toward a different end of the spectrum. Its opinion-based of course if that is good or bad, but if someone is of the opinion that it is bad, it is a single player game, and mods are for the person installing them. One thing to praise Bethesda for if nothing else is to provide the modding tools directly, which most other game companies do not do.