I do not like the Development team's orcish, glass, ebony, daedric, and artifact armors in "Oblivion". I think that the special armors end up looking like a bloated mass of unmovable parts, no matter how much I try to appreciate them. Even the steel, iron, and legion armor looked better. I do not mean to insult the Dev team, but it is my honest opinion.

I have seen some Mod armor that looks fantastic; as if it was what artifact armor should look like. Because it was ornate, but practical looking, and not over the top. It made me wish that those designers were on the ES team.

Like I said, I love all of their concepts for the low level armors, but they always mess up on the rare equipment and the like. When enemies like Jygalagg and Umaril look like monotone distorted polygons in what is a well detailed world, it just looks out of place. :confused:

I hope that this doesn't sound like a rant. I am not trying to change anyone's opinion, I just want to hear them.

Honestly, at least fo Morrowind, I never download armor packs. They look waaaay over the top. Sure, cool looking...but more fitting a sort of anime nightmare than anything else.

Don't agree. At. All.

Most mod armor packs seem to be weird out-of-character pieces like "here's my set that looks like Lord of the Rings armor," or "my set that's totally like a badass samurai."

And I never felt that the armor that came with the game felt inappropriate or non-functional for the world.

Generally the modded armor. That is, as long as it's not the out of place JRPG stuff.

Depends on the mod, but I've seen a lot that are far, -far- better than the dev armor while still being world-appropriate.

I agree with you about Oblivion's armour. Only ones I liked were the Blades, steel, Mithril, and Dwarven armours. Morrowind's I really liked (most of them). If Skyrim's are meh, I'll probably make my own custom armour, because I LOVE armour! The quality stuff that is, not over-the-top anime style.

Dev armors are tough to beat as far as how appropriate they feel when compared to the world, just because they were designed to fit in. Too many mod armors seem out of place and based solely on "how awesome would an armor like (insert inspiration here) look!" If mod armors end up being remakes of some vanilla content they certainly have the potential to be better though.

It's not a fair comparison. An army of modders all over the globe have had five and a half years to make armor mods, unrestricted by corporate concerns about cost/benefit anolyses. Modders are limited only by time, imagination and ability. Unlike Bethesda, who have to stay true to the world they have created, modders have unlimited freedom to indulge their imaginations.