While I'm stuck with the omega console,(ps3) It seems PC modders have made some pretty amazing stuff. What gave me the idea, was after seeing the detail given to creating "Moonpath to Elsweyr " which was finished in 2-3 months after Skyrim's release. With all the creative hard working modders out there, why not create their own..leaving Bethesda out of some cash?
Just a funny thought.

For a good modder that would work.

Because Bethesda can change their engine as they see fit. Mainly add perk trees and some special hardcoded stuff that we can't do.

However it's a lot of work. Huge projects usually collapse because modding is something people do in their free time, unlike the developers it's not our jobs. Moonpath to Elsweyr is an exception, and while there are many, many amazing mods with many more to come, it's always nice to still have the official DLCs.

It is really great making some mods,when you know what are you doing.

This. Designing buildings and quests is one thing, adding new perk trees and other things like that which can't be done entirely through the CK is something entirely different. Arranging quality voice acting is also hard to do as a mod team.

Ah, see I'd be less interested in "quality voice acting" to be honest....I thought MTE did great for the time they gave themselves.. What I didn't think about with the skill trees..that's a good point.

There are several large, quality mods out there, but most of them will not start appearing until sometime after gamesas has released the last patch and DLC for Skyrim and have likely announced their next project (likely to be FO4.)

It's for the afore-mentioned reasons plus one: modding is, at it's heart, a hobby. gamesas made it incredibly easy for us, but nobody can do it full-time unless they don't need to work. This limits modding to after work and the weekends, at most 72 hours of work per week (assuming no breaks for food, socializing, etc. and only stopping for 8 hours of sleep.) Not to mention it is largely a single person or 5-10 on major projects. gamesas by comparison, has a 40-hour work week (which can expand to 80 and still leave weekends free) plus about 100 personnel all working on the same project. I'm assuming that employee number, but it's defantly more than most modding groups. So gamesas is capable of releasing DLCs faster than most modding teams. Now, quality of said games are of issue (gamesas, replace the QA department, or give it more employees or make 'em do their job, dammit! ) but it's still faster than what Mod Teams can usually do.

I don't care much about voice acting either, but it is a bit jarring to suddenly have none of it when the rest of the game does. It doesn't bother me a whole lot but some people avoid quest mods without voice acting completely because it feels weird.

Though I do think that bad voice acting is worse than no voice acting.

This I can definitely agree with

I mentioned MTE because of just that. I'm not sure the details, how many people worked on it at one time or another..but the fact that it was made in the bedrooms of fans, while Bethesda took nearly a year to release their own DLC using their million$ company..just blows my mind.
Again, as mentioned..there are things modders cannot do, I understand that now.. but the sheer brilliance of the community out there, I have no doubt they could make something nearly as good or better.

True. Mods + the DLCs gives you the best of both worlds

Can anyone confirm if the 1.7 patch/1.6 patch actually adds everything hard-code wise that DG needs? Given Vampiric Grip was fixed by 1.7, I'd assume it does... in which case, those perk trees are already there, VL can be made etc.

Of course, this completely ignores the lengths any modder would need to go to to replace the assets (make your own VL model, anims, sound effects, Skeleton, Havoc etc.) but in theory it should be possible.

Not worth it, DG will be out for PC (hell, TES 6 will be out) by the time a mod team would be finished with it.

Depending on the people involved, I imagine it would take a mod team at least a year or two to develop something along the lines of the scope of Dawnguard. Considering the tremendous effort involved, I don't think you will find anyone interested in working on such a project. Why mimic an existing official DLC, when you can create something new?

The real question is why does bethesda not work with some of the best modders to get some great armor, quest, player home etc released on consoles for a fee. I always wonder why if bethesda goes through the code and makes sure everything works, why it then could not be released by them. If of course the modder of said mod agrees to release it to them for a portion of the PSN or Xbox live dlc sales of the mod. Then modders would be paid and get credit and bethesda can keep a steady stream of content flowing and make money as well. Win win all around if you ask me. Microsoft and sony would be making money off of it as well.

Because what happens when the mod was made by a team? And one member left before finish, but then demands a cut of the profits? Or if the mod uses resources from another mod? What about mods that are updated all the time? Ensuring compatiblity with other mods, as consoles have no way to modify load order?

First thought that comes to mind reading the thread title is "Dont bite the hand that feeds you"

Mods that are finished are just like a dlc. I didn't say every single mod was to be used did I. And I said bethesda could work with modders to sort anything out. Also if I was a modder and was going to start a project with a team I would have it in writing that if you leave the project before completion you are out of luck on any profits. I'm sorry but most of what you said is easily fixed with contracts and like I said the mod would have to be confirmed by bethesda to not break skyrim. The same thing that they are suppost to do for the dlc they make.

CONCURRED.

Also, I still trust Bethesda. Loyal fan here still!

Exactly. In the first place, even if the whole mod were a recreation of the DLC, Bethesda still owns copyright to the plot. It's one thing to make a parody or a work that simply uses the same archetypes as another work, but just copying the original work outright is pure copyright violation. It would get smacked down immediately by any court in the land.

And in the second place, like you said, don't bite the hand that feeds you. Bethesda is (wisely, I think) working to make their game as easily moddable as possible - so any attempt to recreate their DLC just to keep them from making a buck is purely tacky, to say the least, even if it weren't illegal.

A few points. First, modders don't have to wrestle with the complexities of multiple platforms. Which is another way of saying they don't have to deal with Sony and Microsoft looking over their shoulders as they mod. If modders had to answer to Sony and Microsoft they would probably not get things done very fast either.

Second, modders don't have to patch the base game (for multiple platforms) at the same time that they are making their mods.

Third, they are not being directed to make this or that quest or model or texture by a boss. They have the luxury of doing what they want, when they want to do it, how they want to do it. If an idea is your own idea you may be willing to spend all of your waking hours - and even go without sleep - to see your personal vision become reality.

Nope. Without CK support it doesn't matter much what the engine can do unless you get hold of someone with rare talent to peer into the arcane darkness of the engine and give you access to that.

There is an interview with Todd Howard (I can't remember from what news place but it was most likely during E3). He was asked basically the same thing, would they ever consider making a package of new content created by modders for the consoles. Don't quote him as saying what I'm about to say because I don't remember what he said exactly (I will attempt to find a video of this on the interwebs) He said they would like to give console users some mods created for the PC, but how could they choose what to use and what not to use.

Like I said I'll see if I can find the interview...

Edit: Wow that was a lot easier than I thought lol. Skip to the 5 min mark in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNsZW2mjvxA

I remember what you are speaking of. Some mods would fit fine, right now a mod pack of armors that are all lore friendly is out for pc. I can't remember the name of it . But just a fun mix of mods that wouldn't break lore and bethesda would have to decide on that really. Even that flying air ship thats a player house mod is dwemer lore friendly. If you look it up its in the lore. So why not work with some modders to release some fun mods?

Also probably worth noting that DLCs generally add resources to the game that are then widely accessible to the modding community. Gives modders more to work with. Most noticeably with Dawnguard is probably the perk trees, animations, models, probably tilesets, new spell effects, etc.

And at the end of this creative process they dont have to worry about bringing it before the Dev team only to see it not used for what could be very legitimate reasons even when the desire to have it is strong.