When has Bethesda ever made a crappy game? Morrowind was game of the year in 2002. Oblivion was game of the year in 2006. Fallout 3 was critically acclaimed and considered one of the best games of 2008. I'm not seeing where Bethesda makes "crappy" games...

Nerd
–noun Slang .
1. a stupid, irritating, ineffectual, or unattractive person.
2. an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit: a computer nerd.

I don't understand the hostility some console users here have with those of us who can use mods... just because we're going to utilize what Bethesda is giving us doesn't mean we're trying to rub it in your faces. I don't think there are many PC users out there who get some sort of sick enjoyment out of seeing console users not being able to mod. :shrug:

...and it was overall game of the year. That's three in a row for Bethesda.

I chose my words carefully.

Im not trying to single you out, Im just getting pretty sick of getting on the forum to discus a game I love with my fellow fans, only to have, shall we say, elitist nerds putting me down for what system I use.

I cant believe people even care.

If we were all sitting around over pints could we not hang out because of system segregation?

PC games never had to go mainstream, they only did because that's what allows them to make the most money. There are still thousands of developers that develop exclusively for the PC. In addition, consoles and PCs have co-existed since the creation of the Magnavox Odyssey. The largest issue with console games is that their communities are almost non-existent, and are limited to the lifetime of the associate console. A community, like what formed around Doom, can keep a game alive and thriving for decades, and can allow developers to continue to bank on the game. Like I mentioned, just look at Doom. Platforms like Steam allow older games to be released and played by millions of players.

From what I've seen, console communities burst into flames when a game is released, then burn out and become cold fast. PC communities do not burn as hot, but they last far, far longer.

Smaller companies wouldn't even exist without indie PC game development. Getting licenses for a console game is rather expensive.

I for one don't see why there would be a schism between console and PC players. I use both, mainly I only use a console for the controller on a non-FPS game. If I find out that a game I want has controller compatibility for the PC version, I get it on the PC and use the controller (unless it is an FPS because my naga owns in FPSs)

Cool. Do it man, thats awesome. More power to you.

As for console users, Im still here.

And lets not forgot how the Elder Scrolls as we know it is only around because of what PC gaming could allow. Morrowind was a PC game first, and then they just adapted it for consoles.

I like that we can get mods. Thats nice.
But I agree most people on this forum think that mods are to fix a crappy game, like we saw with Oblivion.
I disagree with the mentality a lot, the game should be worth playing and enjoyable and epic on its own, mods should be for adding what you want.

And this is why I buy this game for the PC. Im a console player, but Oblivion needed mods. Skyrim may not need them, but there are things I will want we won't be seeing.
Like fast travel alternatives.


And seriously can we stop the fighting? Its a game series, one we all have clearly enjoyed. Focus on the common ground, Skyrim, and not what you run it on...

:foodndrink:

Well to be fair, they could only make it for the PC originally because Bethesda nearly went bankrupt after their spinoffs of the TES series and Zenimax picked them up and gave them a nice sized budget but Xbox didn't pick them up until Morrowind came out to be a big hit like Daggerfall and Arena before it.

I am able to use mods, console gamers are not. That is all there is to it.

I don't feel the need to rub it in people's faces, but if something can be solved with a simple mod that I could potentially make myself, I will mention it for those who are able to use it.
Bethesda is allowing us to mod, something that is incredibly genereous. I would be a fool not to take advantage of it when it's something I enjoy.

I don't get console wars, I own a fairly powerfull laptop, a PS3 and an Xbox 360. They all have qualities I like and they all have qualities I don't like.

I do prefer my PS3 over my Xbox 360 because it makes less noise, it's got more power and it can play Blu-Ray movies, granted my laptop has a Blu-Ray player as well, but the big TV make it a no brainer when deciding what system to use. However, the PS3 does not have that many games that interest me, the 360 does. I judge it on a case by case basis, I pick up a game for the PS3 (Got it this christmas so I haven't had the chance to buy many games for it yet) if they are exclusive to the system or if I don't see the need to buy it on my Xbox. A game like Mass Effect 3 I would buy on the 360 because that's where I have my save games, a save which is exactly the way I want it to be.

Every platform has strengths and weaknesses, I appreciate them all for different reasons.

This is a good example. PS3 users often don’t get the same access to dlc and stuff that 360 users do.

To me, pc users looking down on console users is like me (a 360 user) looking down on the PS3 folks because they don’t have the same access to all the content that I do.

But I don’t look down on them at all. In an ocean of FPS gamers, they’re TES fans like me, and I just wish that they had access to the same stuff that I do, when I do.

Cant we all just get along?

I agree with the OP. Especially in regards to the UI. I've heard it mentioned that even if we don't get a UI scaled smaller for the PC(fit more info), soemone will jsut make a mod for it and they point at Oblivion as an example. Problem is none of them seemed to fit every resolution, were incomplete in some ways, or had the correct game font on each screen. An offical version would work properly though..

just because we get mods for PC doesn't mean we should expect less. We should be asking for more because the mods creates a larger PC audience, so they don't have to just cater to consoles.

Mods can help tailor a game to individual tastes. There's no objectively perfect game, as people have different ideas of perfection. However, the ability to mod the game to be more to my tastes is one of the major selling points of Bethesda games for me. For instance, I absolutely detest minigames. I acknowledge that a lot of people love them. I don't understand it, but I acknowledge it. Thankfully, the first thing I do when I install a Bethesda game is either download or create a mod to remove the minigames, which improves the playability of the games exponentially for me.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Mass Effect 2, a game with some of the most excruciating minigames ever conceived. My mouse hand actually got a cramp from that planet scanning game. I think one of the Marquis de Sade's descendants works at Bioware. But because it's not moddable, I can't change it. If it had been moddable, I probably would have played through the game with every available class, but I just couldn't stomach any more of those minigames. This alone is what makes Bethesda my favorite developer.

I think Bethesda deserves many thanks for making their games so easily moddable, and ultimately allowing the customer to decide how they want to experience these great games.

A mod to vanilla Oblivion was like a new app to data phones - you love the core product, and then you discover those beloved applications that can be added which make the product SO much better.

Don't like the interface? Feel like it could have a better style?
There's a mod for that.
Wish to have additional quests added?
There's a mod for that.
Want to play your game to the maximum on PC graphics and feel like the vanilla graphics are too stunted for consoles and weaker systems?
There's a mod for that.

Only when Bethesda decides to be fair to both sides. I don't want a crappy console UI on my PC. I don't want crappy controls on my PC. I don't want craptastic 360 levels of graphics on my Geforce 460.

Give me what I want, I I'll let you have what you want. Stop complaining that PC users are asking to be treated like everyone else, and stop using market share to justify Bethesda's refusal to do the right thing and make a product that is the best it can be for all platforms its present on.

I mean, the fact we are given such great mod tools, is something we all need to be thankful for.

And I agree, 90% of mods are niche things for a very small number of people, or simply an expansion on existing content that is just not worth the time (100's of different weapons or versions of them)

BUT there are a couple common themes that are always modded in and should have been considered since Oblivion, or technically, right after Morrowind.

I agree that a good game should need mods for only more variety and fun,and not fix poorly made things.

But may I ask,how many people are there that criticize Bethesda's desicions? Well,there sure are but majority seems to have a "Bethesda is perfect.They are DEVines" approach.

For instance,humanizing the beast races still doesn't get the critique it deserves in my opinion.Compatiblity? As a game studio,it's their duty to make it different AND compatible.It's not an impossible demand like "no loadings ever" .It just requires more WORK.

And I'd exchange sprinting for beast-like beast races any day.



So,having personally lost faith in some aspects,I hope for mods.

I don't think Bethesda are demigods of game design, they're people. People make mistakes, have limitations and have their own tastes and opinions that reflect on what they create. No game will ever be perfect and I don't expect Bethesda to be. There are many decisions they've made over the years that I don't agree with. The same goes for most developers.

Zenimax did not "pick them up", Zenimax would not exist if not for Bethesda and Chris Weaver feeling the need to expand to a multi-platform business on a larger scale.

From the developers point of view mods are very useful for them to stay in touch with their customers wants. In the latest GI update on combat they mentioned playing a certain oblivion archery mod and incorporating the idea into Skyrim. They spoke about how impressed they were with the mods that the TES community have produced for Morrowind and Oblivion. The PC market might be smaller than the console market, and mod users/modders a small part of the PC market, but to the developers it's a very important market segment. Think of the community as a development tool, the sum total of tens of thousands of amateur (and some not so amateur) programmers spending an aggregate of hundreds of thousands of hours fine tuning/tweaking and doing things with TES games that the developers never envisioned.

So of course BGS will take some things on board from that. I don't think they will ever discard the modding community even though it isn't where the greater part of their revenue originates.

I like mods, they can expand a good game and make it even better, and they're nice to have around if there's some aspect of the game that you feel should have been done differently, but I do not advocate using the attitude to justify poor design decisions. By that kind of reasoning, Bethesda might as well not make a game at all, they might as well just program the engine, core mechanics, and release this and an editor and let fans make the game themselves. In the end, when I play for the game, I expect to get a game that's enjoyable out of the box. Now, it's probably not going to have everything I could possibly want from it, and for that, it's still nice to have mods, but I should be able to enjoy it without them, and I would not use them as an excuse to justify not doing something that's wanted. Now, I'm not saying that I've played a game from Bethesda that I could not enjoy with out mods before. So far, all the Bethesda games I've played have been ones I enjoyed even without installing mods, chances are if I didn't enjoy the games out of the box, I would not have stuck around long enough for mods to be made to fix my problems with them, but there have been some design decisions I've seen in games Bethesda have made that I have not approved of, like Oblivion's approach to level scaling, for example, but I can accept that, because Bethesda can make mistakes at times, what's important is that they realize that maybe the way they did it before wasn't the most ideal way to do it, and try to fix this in future games. What really bothers me is when players criticize what they see as bad design choices, and then other fans defend these designs by saying "Mods can fix it." even worse when Bethesda apparently takes the same mentality, as the lack of an effort to improve the PC interface in Fallout 3 seems to indicate. And besides, the mod mentality probably doesn't appease console players. Now, since I expect to get the PC version for Skyrim, the console versions won't effect me too much, but if Bethesda is going to release the game on consoles, and they are, ignoring the interests of the console players would be rather unwise.

Now, I would say there are some things where the mod mentallity DOES work, but these are for features that some players want, but would alienate too many other players, and can't just be made options. I'd previously have put mandatory eating and drinking here, but since New Vegas proved this can work as an optional feature, I no longer feel it necessarily must be left up to mods. And there are some things that I feel Bethesda would be wise not to do, and should therefore be left for mods, like nudity. And sometimes, I just don't believe a feature will be in the game, or know it won't be in the game, but I still want it, so I say "At least we can mod it." but this doesn't mean I'm using the mod mentality to justify it not being in the game. This is simply acceptance that it won't be happening, and realization that the only way I'll see it is through mods.



I agree with that. Still, saying "players can mod it in" is usually not going to make me approve of a design descision I don't agree with.

No, of course not, but how often does that actually happen? I see mods as a bonus, Bethesda is allowing me to expand on their game and really make it my own, and I appreciate that. That's not an excuse for them to get lazy, it's just a nice thing they do for us.