I can play Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 currently unmodded, but it is the mods that make it seem like a fresh and new experience when I play today. I love the games and have them all on consoles to enjoy the vanilla content, but it is the mods that makes me still buy a new copy of Morrowind when I loose my old one. Saying it is less of a game because it has such a level of personal customization is a pretty biased view even if it can be understood. To go off of your example of FFT which I have played through twice, I loose interest after 30+ hours and leave it for years before returning. In TES I can play for 30+ hours, add a bunch of new content and play for another 80. Then repeat that every year and get far more playtime out of it.

Call me the grouch then. Someone needs to play the devils advocate on this thread.

I've never been impressed with community mods on games.

My experience in the past was they were either fluff or stupid. And often buggy.

I'll give them a chance this time around and download some once they've matured just to be sure, but I do not have high hopes. Most likely they'll be removed within the hour.

Amateur content under any other name is still amateur content.

If I had to rely on community amateur content to make the game enjoyable I'd have never bought it.

get game on 360
when the GOTY edition comes out, get the game on PC if you can run it.
when the GOTY edition comes out, you can get it on 360 as well, then return it after installing the content, or just give it to a friend who never played skyrim. that is what i did with oblivion, and the person who i gave the GOTY edition 2 fell in love and got skyrim day 1.

Disagree. I've seen some pretty damn good mods. Half-life probably had some of the all-time best mods. Sven co-op = much love.

One thing I have noticed though, is that community written stories seem to blow. Not saying that dev written stories are always so much better, since a lot of stories blow chunks, but every once in a while you get a gem. I've never seen a community "gem" though.

Well the great thing about mods is, you use the ones you like and other people use the ones they like. Don't use the ones you don't like. Everyone wins.

Personally I couldn't imagine playing OB without mods at this point. Quickly losing interest in Skyrim without the CK (hence why I'm on the forum right now and not playing the game itself). I got a perfect spot all picked out for where my custom house is going, now all I need is a way to actually create it. /impatientlytwiddlingthumbs

In my opinion, mods for Skyrim are not as essential as mods for Oblivion.
First, the graphic of Oblivion is out of date, so players can feel great improvement after installing mods. However, Skyrim has fairly good graphic and players can hardly tell the difference between vanilla and modded games.
Second, because Skyrim has a lot of huge mountain objects, it becomes difficult (and unnecessary) to make mods such as Unique Landscape in Skyrim.
Third, Skyrim has adopted many ideas from Oblivion mods, and there are not many things left for mods to do in Skyrim.

In conclusion, mods are good but not very important for Skyrim.

Disagree 100%. Skyrim is good but for it to reach its true potential mods are necessary. Having the power to be able to customize your own game to be played the exact way YOU want cannot be understated. It is an incredible difference. And it makes a big difference already.

Uh... so you'd rather pay an extra $15 for the exact same thing as on PC, but without mods being an option? I don't care if you get mods or not, but I don't see your logic here of wanting less for more cost. The PC gameplay is exactly the same as the xbox. There's nothing it's missing.

Mods multiply the hours of replayability several times. I'm not sure I'd buy a TES game without mod capability at this point, considering how many things end up having to be fixed by modders.

Short answer: nope

Not to disagree, but there are is a lot of "professional" content that feels very amateurish.

I would say that it comes down to the quality of content. There are MANY low-quality amateur mods. But there are also quite a few mods of the highest quality. And the greatest thing about mods is that you can pick and choose which you wish to use with no risk to your person. That is there is no commitment on your part including financially. Mods are FREE!

Mods and tweaks on a good PC can already deliver a graphical experience way beyond what you can get on a console.

If Skyrim turns out like Oblivion, then over the next months/quarters mods will fix many more bugs than Bethesda ever will, will add alternate gameplay systems that you might enjoy a lot more than vanilla, will add much improved user interface, and will add tons more content.

Not to mention with your good PC you'll be spend a lot less time waiting for loads to complete.

On the other hand, if you just want to the play the vanilla game for 10-20-30 hours and then be done with it, none of this may end up mattering all that much to you.

Here's a pretty graphic demonstration of amateur content next to original, Dracomie's http://static.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/6341-2-1242546724.JPG for FO3. The stock NPC faces are goofy, cartoonish and distorted by comparison. A lot of these mods are labors of love that see commitments of time and attention to detail that professional development schedules can't always match. Here's another http://static.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/6341-1-1250455894.JPG

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

It depends how much you want to play the game.

I can play unmodded TES games about 200 hours.
With mods I'll play TES games at least 1000 hours. Almost infinite replay value.

Yes

Seriously. Just get the pc version and play with an Xbox controller.

Mods multiply the life span of a game , they are essential to me

To me mods kept Morrowind and Oblivion alive for years and years, there was so many quality mods out there that makes the games feel neverending. Seems to me the only ones who will disagree to this is those who bought the game for console and are trying to convice themselves they made the right choice.

Meh, I rarely play with mods. They really aren't that big of a deal to me.

I am sure you have some niggling little things about the game you'd like changed, just so suit you, OP.

With mods, those issues can be corrected and the game can be changed to match everyone's tastes.

What consolers or those who played PC without Mods (Don't need Mods, Not that big a deal) fail to miss and take for granted is features from future released Bethesda games are taken straight from past mods.

If you played New Vegas, did you enjoy peering thru the sightlines of your gun? It wasn't this way in Fallout 3 until a mod came out called Ironsights.
If you played Skyrim, did you enjoy the subtle but nice visual change of herbs when they are picked? Petals and Leaves disappear when herbed. Well this started in Oblivion when one of the modders shared his herbalism mod.

etc
etc
etc

Most of the best Oblivion mods are now in the game you know as Skyrim... (Not by the original creators. Purely here in spirit, as Bethesda creations.)

Below are some Oblivion MODS, that essentially turn Oblivion into Skyrim... minus the AI and speed-boost.
- "Better textures" (Self evident)
- "More wild-life" (Oblivion less devoid of woodland life, like foxes and rabbits and butterflies.)
- "More creatures" (Dangerous creatures roaming around Oblivion. Like trolls and wolves and bears.)
- "Natural environments" (Custom scenery designs, weather, and rainbows!)
- "Ambient noises" (Birds, fish, bees, crickets)
- "Interior day-light" (Interior windows reflect time of day, not just noon, like in oblivion.)
- "Harvestable plants" (They disappear once picked)
- "Better flora" (More realistic plants and trees)
- "Low-poly grass" (Also expanded to be fractal and seed-random)
- "Better water" (As opposed to the saran-wrap muddy-water from oblivion.)
- "Better models" (Oh so apparent.)
- "Better LOD" (But that was expected.)

Those are just off the top of my head, but the more I play, the more I see from my old MODS list of "Top-mods".

Mods make the PC version of the game superior in every imaginable way. From conversion mods to gameplay overhauls, mods offer what the developers simply can't afford to invest time into. Indeed, player made mods are usually of a higher quality than those made by the developers themselves, simply because of the passion of the modder.