... and there is one thing you are not considering, that some people who have the know-how and are professionals in their respective fields, just may be getting paid much, much more doing what they are currently doing, and/or have a much secure job, and/or doing something much more rewarding to them, than working for a gaming company, but do game mods as a hobby.

Idk for one better graphics and don't give me that [censored] that not everyone has powerful builds. I don't care. A proper UI look at Morrowind with icons and a grid interface much faster than scrolling all the time. Deus Ex: HR had a wonderful interface probably the best of any game this year. Having an engine that actually would use my hardware effectively would be a start. Cities could be open and not require a load screen into every single building possibly. There would be no limitation on space modders or Bethesda could not worry about some disc limit that would interrupt the sandbox experience and avoid having to compress the hell out of the game. It's such an ugly game because of it.

Now for my opinions a keyboard and mouse setup could also allow of a change in the combat system I'm not asking for something ltotally different but offering more options in combat look at Kingdoms of Amalur, if you can get past the over the top action, rogues automatically backstabbing and teleporting (not sure the abilities name) and poisoing whoever they go through, destinies that can mix and match and create completely unique classes or better yet reward players who decide to take a bit of everything. How about a map that is blank and you fill up as you go? I miss that from the old cRPG's I remember having to draw on my notepad I kept by my computer and when I first saw a miap ingame I was so excited. Allow of environments to be useful in combat other than ledges, take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oFAWo4A2dY make rain boost eletric spells or have some way for the environment to benefit you in combat. Like if your an archer on a hill aiming at an enemy you get a boost to aiming or warrior you can react faster if your character is a Nord in cold weather areas like Dawnstar. A proper stealth system would make me happy even Elder Scrolls alreadt steaks udeas ffrom other games how about using them effectively.



But whatever.

It would be a horrible game with half the NPCs walking around naked, Jedi Khajiit with light sabers, Anime-inspired spikey cyan hairdos. Oh god no.

Possibly, but if I were in that field and I had a choice of either:

A) Writing programs for systems that were for corporations/busineses that paid me really really well
or
B) Writing programs for a games developer (that I love and otherwise would be doing in my spare time) and just getting paid really well

There wouldn't be much of an option for me. Different strokes for differnt folks though eh?


I'm guessing those that fall into that category would be far and few between though.

lol. well fair question.
that i cant code [censored] maybe was a understatement,
i can code a little, but only very little.
but besides beeing a game modder i am also a sound engineer who has been working along side developers who built games from scratch.

Nope.

A painter is rendered useless without paint and canvas.I'm sure some modders can code well enough but a whole engine?

Nah.

Game engine coding is a very different beast from Modding using the construction set. Very very different.

As in work vs fun, 20 years C++ vs 1 year JavaScript, soul crushing deadlines vs I-will-update-when-I-have-time kind of difference.

If they built games from scratch, they'd be called "Developers". Since they change/augment existing content, they are "modders". No comparison.

why is this idiotic flame thread not locked yet?

That's like saying that if American civilians or military personnel could lead a nation better than the current politicians, they would all be in Washington D.C. instead of living their own lives.




There's a difference between creating a game and creating a retail product. All of the above has nothing to do with the actual game itself.

With the right modders I do believe a game would be made that I would prefer over nearly any other. However, I don't know that it would have as broad an appeal as Skyrim does and would likely require one hell of a CPU as I'm sure there would be endless scripting. That said, in about two years modders will have produced the best Skyrim I could imagine, I'm sure....until some original thinker comes up with something that hasn't been done before (e.g. UV or Duke Patrick's combat mods for Oblivion).

I'm an experienced game developer and TES modder. There are some talented modders but making changes and tweaks to existing work, even creating new work here and there is not creating a game from scratch. They work with a great base and finished polished tools, not with a blank slate. Other studios with seasoned teams of paid developers can't top Bethesda, how are a bunch of amateurs going to achieve anything? All of the bigger TC's fail. Modders get into petty fights. The bottom line is you need money and experience, and passion, AND talent all under one roof to create even a mediocre game. A group of modders do not have all those ingredients only some of them. Its absurd. /end thread

This is technically true. However, the OP stated that one of the steps would be to fire everyone at Bethesda-- even the janitors!-- which would include those departments. So if you did that and let the modders move into that space and somehow managed to overcome all the things I listed and more, thus creating this "better than Bethesda" TES game, to what end? Without a Marketing department, no one would ever know the game existed (ok, hyperbole-- very few would)! What good is it to create this fabled perfect game if no one can play it because you don't have any way to distribute it? The OP was talking about creating a modern game from scratch, and in this day and age, you need things like a website, advertisemants, and DVDs/downloadable options.

I want to see bethesda co-op with modders during dev of ALL their games, this should be stock standard for ALL moddable games imo MAKE IT HAPPEN!!! :flamethrower:

Modders don't have the resources to buid a game from the ground up.

Modders does not equal Coders

If it were so easy a talented group of modders should go start up their own gaming company .... :hubbahubba:

Modders couldn't make a better game ground up. But a lot of those modders are extremely talented folks, and if Bethesda aren't scouting the modders for future employees they should be. Those guys would be excellent additions to bugtesting or DLC teams.

There's no denying that some specific mods by themselves vastly improved Oblivion, simply be reversing some design decisions (see OOO/FCOM). If Beth would work with modders, or even just take cues from them, they would make much better games.

i love mods and i never would have completed oblivion had it not been for mods and mods have added some of the best ideas out there as well as locations. my favorite dungeon in oblivion was dungeons of ivellon which was a mod. it put bethesdas dungeons to shame.

while i would say modders can do several aspects of the game far better than bethesda i also remember that 99% of those total conversions ended up falling apart. even the very few that did manage to succeed took years to finish and that was using an existing engine and a SDK. they didnt actually have to do any of the software engineering etc. so no i dont think it would ever happen.

i can also imagine some big fights as well between the purist modders and the modders that do more fun mods like midas magic.

No. Nuff said.

Cheers

They already do...

If you played New Vegas and enjoyed peering through the sight lines of you gun, thank the mod Ironsights. Fallout 3 did not have this feature until Ironsights modder implemented it and it carried over into development for the released version of New Vegas

If you enjoyed harvested plants changing appearance after you pick em in Skyrim, thank the harvesting mod for Oblivion. Original Oblivion plants never changed appearance until this mod was shared. Thank the developers for carrying over this feature to Skyrim.

etc etc etc

This is why I love some consoler blurt out, "Game is Fine without Mods, Don't need em!!!", when in fact many of the subtle changes started with mods from a previous release and you just benefitted on the next released version.

Some modders are really talented and could do an amazing job, but they are not organized like a AAA development studio. Creating an engine from the ground up requires good programmers which is much different than modders using already ingame assets and scripting. Not to say there isn't modders that aren't also good programmers but they would be sparse and need to be properly organized to get a good timeframe for game completion otherwise you have Duke Nukem.

Personally I think its rather amazing how Bethesda made most of Skyrim in 3 years with the game being as polished as it is across 3 platforms. Sure they kinda screwed up with the PS3 but many developers have done that in the past because the PS3's memory caching is so different. I am interested to see how Bethesda is going to fix the problem, rewriting the game for the PS3 while also having stability is a tough nut to crack when the creation(gamebryo) engine was never intended for it.

Wouldn't work and they wouldn't make TES for consoles.

But being a modder doesn't mean you cant be a programmer or some other type of dev as well

Given 5 years and non of the restrictions placed on developers, yes they could do a better job

If they could, then why didn't they already?