I was just thinking about this the other day and it's that even if they don't get everything right in their games they don't have to worry about displeasing the fans because they know the modders will morph the game to their liking. It's like they have their own auxiliary development team. It's crazy. Most games when you hear about something that you don't want in the game people go apeshit. But whenever you hear something minor go wrong in the Elder Scrolls people just shrug and go, "Mods." Now I know that a lot of other games have mods but the mods for Elder Scrolls are pretty vast, I mean people built an entire new fucking world in one of the vids I saw. It's kind of mind blowing the cult-following this game has. 

No the point I was trying to make was that if you didn't like something that bethesda did in terms of visuals, armor, gameplay, the HUD, then there's usually a way around it. Unlike some games. And the people who find their way around it are damn good at what they do, in general of course.

That's the opposite of great. A bunch of people unaffiliated with Bethesda are just presumed to be the ones who will fix the bullshit in their game. And giving Bethesda credit for the modders is silly. Give the modders credit. Bethesda gets credit for using the same engine for such a long time that mods became very easy to import into the next game and for most of the bullshit problems being easy enough to solve that modders can solve them. Those are backhanded credits, though.

No the point I was trying to make was that if you didn't like something that bethesda did in terms of visuals, armor, gameplay, the HUD, then there's usually a way around it. Unlike some games. And the people who find their way around it are damn good at what they do, in general of course.

Perhaps I should have said Elder Scrolls. And you're generalizing it a bit much. It's not so much fucking up as it is modifying it to personal preference, customization if you will. 

Most pc games have mods. The modders deserve the praise for the work done. Not Bethesda for leaving problems or lack of something. I can promise that isn't the case. "Let's leave things out cause we have a mod community"... that logic is flawed. You must have smoked some good shit.. can I have some?

what i think he is saying is that Bethesda can take more risks than most developers, if someone is unhappy with those risks than they can change it.  Plus unlike say dice, they make their games easy to mod

what i think he is saying is that Bethesda can take more risks than most developers, if someone is unhappy with those risks than they can change it.  Plus unlike say dice, they make their games easy to mod

Yeah, where would Bethesda be without those dedicated modders pumping out sex quests and nudity patches and big-boob character models and in-game lingerie stores?

The downside of making a game easy to mod is that most of the popular mods are utter trash.

Bugs? Terrible voice acting? Horrible animations? Cold or warm?

I remember when they used to be unique

Yeah, where would Bethesda be without those dedicated modders pumping out sex quests and nudity patches and big-boob character models and in-game lingerie stores?

The downside of making a game easy to mod is that most of the popular mods are utter trash.

What makes bethesda games so unique is that despite the fact that they are broken to a point of no return, they're still good thanks to their writing

@rebgav said:

Yeah, where would Bethesda be without those dedicated modders pumping out sex quests and nudity patches and big-boob character models and in-game lingerie stores?

The downside of making a game easy to mod is that most of the popular mods are utter trash.

Got a problem with big boobs, eh?  A game that mods well and which people are willing to mod is a great value proposition, too..  You can come back multiple times and have a different experience each time.  But we should not take it for granted that this will forever be true of Bethesda games.  There's one big thing you don't get when you put your game on consoles, and those are mods.  And this time around, consoles are actually the focus.  Skyrim will be fine, I'm sure, but what can we expect in Elder Scrolls VI? 

@Veektarius said:

@rebgav said:

Yeah, where would Bethesda be without those dedicated modders pumping out sex quests and nudity patches and big-boob character models and in-game lingerie stores?

The downside of making a game easy to mod is that most of the popular mods are utter trash.

Got a problem with big boobs, eh?  A game that mods well and which people are willing to mod is a great value proposition, too..  You can come back multiple times and have a different experience each time.  But we should not take it for granted that this will forever be true of Bethesda games.  There's one big thing you don't get when you put your game on consoles, and those are mods.  And this time around, consoles are actually the focus.  Skyrim will be fine, I'm sure, but what can we expect in Elder Scrolls VI? 

I get what you're saying, and it's certainly something to always be ready for, but Bethesda's games have been heavily console-focused since Oblivion.  Skyrim is no forlorn indicator of some bias in that direction that wasn't already there.  If anything, the fact that Bethesda will have put out three (four, if you count New Vegas) console-focused games that also have modding tools on the PC, with the devs freely praising the mod scene and even referring to the PC versions of their games as the superior versions because of it, is a positive sign for mods in Bethesda's games in the future.

@Yanngc33 said:

What makes bethesda games so unique is that despite the fact that they are broken to a point of no return, they're still good thanks to their writing

The game people... who are they?

Their games are engrossing and you can get sucked in for hundreds of hours? You can go back and play their games years later and enjoy them all over again? You can count on pretty good DLC, and lots of it for their games? I dunno, pick one.

Meh, not a huge fan of Bethesda. Anticipating Skyrim though.

This is the worst argument of why something is good I've seen in a while.

The percentage of people who use mods is those games very small compared to the amount of people who bought the game.

I love Elder Scrolls games, warts and all.

I think what makes them great is the ideas behind what they put in their world and the immersion they pull you into. All the problems are balanced with all the stuff you can't get in any other game.

I like them, always have, they indeed offer you a shitload of game, and all the tools in the world to change every last detail of it, if you so please.

@Yanngc33 said:

What makes bethesda games so unique is that despite the fact that they are broken to a point of no return, they're still good thanks to their writing

You think Bethesda's writing is good?  ...  Why?    Not being confrontational or anything here, I'm just genuinely curious what you like about their writing.  My personal opinion is, and the general consensus seems to be, that Bethesda's writing is one of the single worst aspects in their games after Morrowind, so your statement comes as a bit of a surprise to me.

@JP_Russell said:

@Yanngc33 said:

What makes bethesda games so unique is that despite the fact that they are broken to a point of no return, they're still good thanks to their writing

You think Bethesda's writing is good?  ...  Why?    Not being confrontational or anything here, I'm just genuinely curious what you like about their writing.  My personal opinion is, and the general consensus seems to be, that Bethesda's writing is one of the single worst aspects in their games after Morrowind, so your statement comes as a bit of a surprise to me.

I'd have to agree with you there. Bethesda's writing is hardly the best thing about their games. I'd say the writing in Elder Scrolls has always been mediocre at best. The experience of the game is often quite good, but I cringe at a lot of the dialogue in the games. Atrocious. And not helped by the piss poor voice acting either. The game's strength has always been the whole experience, the exploration, the freedom, the customization. Character interactions have never been as good as, say, Bioware games. But then Bioware games tend to have better writing, just not as much freedom. I think in any open world game, writing is always going to be a secondary concern, and it shows in games like Oblivion. Skyrim might be better in that regard, but I honestly don't care.

The special secret about these sex mods is... 
 

@kashif1 said:

what i think he is saying is that Bethesda can take more risks than most developers, if someone is unhappy with those risks than they can change it. Plus unlike say dice, they make their games easy to mod

The only mods I use for Bethesda games are for the UI because they are utter shit. Hardly a risk, just lazy.

W@JP_Russell said:

@Yanngc33 said:

What makes bethesda games so unique is that despite the fact that they are broken to a point of no return, they're still good thanks to their writing

 

You think Bethesda's writing is good?  ...  Why?    Not being confrontational or anything here, I'm just genuinely curious what you like about their writing.  My personal opinion is, and the general consensus seems to be, that Bethesda's writing is one of the single worst aspects in their games after Morrowind, so your statement comes as a bit of a surprise to me.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

W@JP_Russell said:

@Yanngc33 said:

What makes bethesda games so unique is that despite the fact that they are broken to a point of no return, they're still good thanks to their writing

 

You think Bethesda's writing is good?  ...  Why?    Not being confrontational or anything here, I'm just genuinely curious what you like about their writing.  My personal opinion is, and the general consensus seems to be, that Bethesda's writing is one of the single worst aspects in their games after Morrowind, so your statement comes as a bit of a surprise to me.

Well, its only bad when compared to the other aspects of the game, and it really depends on what writing you're referring to, the plot wasn't all that great, but it certainly wasn't bad, the dialogue was ok. Worst aspect, yes, but not a bad one. 

I do feel like I would be more pissed about some stuff they're doing with the game (although overall I think they're making smart changes to the formula) if I knew it couldn't be tweaked with mods. Stuff like closed cities for instance.

That said I don't think they're making the game in the mind set of "let's do whatever, people will fix it". They're making the game they want to make. Knowing that people will be able to change what they don't like must feel conforting but it's crazy to think that it changes their development process.

So they make their games shitty so moders can fix it? Don't agree with that.

The modding community for their games is amazing.