I read a lot of topics on here and it seems to come up a lot "oh don't worry mods will fix it" or "don't worry it will get modded in" seems kind of sad for a game being voted game of the year
to be so reliant on it's users to finish their game, or to put it a better way "bring the game up to it's full potential" maybe Bethesda should just put out the CK and give people a blank game like Minecraft. I just want the game I buy to feel complete I'm starting to think I should wait like a year or more before I buy.

Wait a year if you feel that the game isn't complete. By then, enough mods will be out that you'll be able to happily enjoy the game. Otherwise, buy it now and watch the mods roll out (it makes me so happy when I see new mods come out ). And yes, I think Bethesda is a little too reliant on mods to fix their games. Not that modding is bad, but Bethesda should be able to polish the game on their own and have mods add on to what already exists rather than overwriting and fixing flaws Bethesda overlooked or didn't anticipate.

Well now you know, wait a year before you buy the game next time. No Bethesda doesn't really on Mods. People who play on the PC rely on Mods because that is their number one reason to play on PC. For those of us on the 360 and PS3, do not play with mods so it's a moot point.

If you are on a 360 or a PS3 is that not more the reason to want a complete game. But I guess that is a matter of opinion perhaps the game feels complete to you.

The problem with a word like "fix" is that it is subjective. Same with "full potential." What needs "fixing" for one player may not need "fixing" for the next. Likewise, the words "full potential" are open to interpretation.

It's all opinion. I don't pay much attention to most of it, myself. It's white noise to me. I find ways to enjoy a game or I find another game to play. Life is too short to agonize over something as inconsequential as a video game.

Is this not a matter of opinion as well, to the people who made it it is not inconsequential and to me it is not I spend a lot of time playing games it is very much a hobby or perhaps even a life style choice.

The unofficial patches are definitely a necessity.

the game is fine. mods are the only reason to get the pc version to begin with.

No one can argue with that. Playing Oblivion on PC WITHOUT the unofficial patches is like shooting yourself in the foot. It won't kill you, but why do it?

Question asked and answered.

I believe as the person who asked the question I should have a say in the matter of it being answered or not, and not that I need to point it out I think the main part of my question is in the topic title. However, yes part of my question was answered. I still find it very sad the this would be a logical choice and that everyone seems OK with that as an option.

I really don't think Bethesda leaves their games half-done, and then says, "We'll let the modders finish this." After all, they know a growing segment of their audience will not have access to mods. So I don't think they rely on modding. They enable and encourage the modding community as a way of extending the life of the game for PC players. It's a nice service to the fans, although it has led to a cult of folks who worship the modders while denigrating the original creators--which to me is like complimenting someone for being so tall when they're standing on someone else's shoulders.

You mean they wont have moders fix all the bugs and glitches and then be too lazy to actually include those fixes in an official patch. Hmm… for some reason the word “Oblivion” comes to mind.

Moders deserve to be worshiped, they do amazing things and ask for no $$$ in return. In todays society that sort of behavior deserves to be worshiped.

Bethesda does not "rely" on modding to finish games. Can you play to the end of the game without mods? Yes? Then the game is done. Could it be better? Hell yes, it could be better... a more precise way to pose the original question is to ask if PC users rely on modders to "finish" the game. The answer is "yes"... yes we do. Unofficial patches, leveling fixes, new/better textures and meshes, gameplay mods addressing specific concerns like enhanced vampires/werewolves... the list will go on and on, and after DLing a few of these, the gameplay experience for a PC user might be drastically different from those who play on the console or un-modded. This happens with nearly every game that can be modded.

I fully plan on modding the living hell out of Skyrim when the CK hits... there are so many game mechanics that could use tweaking -- I have quite a long list in front of me. But even after saying that, I would be lying if I also claimed that Bethesda relies on the modding community to finish their games. The fact is that they have provided us with as much content as they possibly could have in the timeframe they were given. Creating and balancing something on the scope of Skyrim was no easy task, and why are we surprised that there are places here and there that could use a little polish? How many millions of playtesters suddenly got on board after November 11? Can they afford to playtest the final product with as many man-hours as all of us have put in?

It's time to get realistic here. The Skyrim that I am playing now is not the slapshod work of lazy devs who spent most of their time chomping pizza and laughing about how much "free" work they will get out of modders like me. They did a good job... they really did. But we can help make it even better, and I'm thankful that Bethesda has the balls to release a CK at all... a lot of software companies jealously guard their intellectual property instead of holding open the doors to their code and making powerful modding tools for us to use. I can think of a lot of games that could have benefited from a modding community and dev tools, but they were never to happen. This is one of the reasons that the TES franchise has such a loyal following after all these years. Y'all wouldn't be posting in this forum if you didn't care.

-Loth

The way I see it.



Yes

"Better" is pretty subjective. If you browse the Nexus I'd bet most of what you see you'll either have no interest in, or intensely dislike. You'll also see a number of things that you probably wouldn't want to game without. But those things are going to differ greatly from person to person. I think Bethesda has done a great job creating a game that will satisfy the greatest common denominator, and as hard as modders work, the amount of work that goes into creating a game like Skyrim is staggering. Bethesda probably did have modders in mind as they developed this game (the food and cooking in particular look like a stub meant to be fleshed out by hardcoe mode modders like myself) but with such an overwhelming amount of their customers being console players, I'd be really surprised if they didn't polish things up over the few months via patches. Put yourself in their shoes, they were probably working around the clock getting this game ready for a release date set months in advance, they met their deadline with a product good enough to capture several game of the year awards, and now its the holidays. I'd rather they take their time with their upcoming fixes and get it right (look at what happened with update 1.2, that's what happens when things are rushed.)

And waaaay better graghics and load times.

The game is complete on its own.

Considering only 1 of 3 platforms for Skyrim has access to mods, I certainly hope this isn't their excuse.

Especially when the PS3 version seems to be the hardest hit.

Hard to say, as a PC user I know there are a lot of things that would drive me insane if I couldn't fix them without mods. But many console owners still bought Skyrim and most of those seemingly enjoy the vanilla game.

I wish Bethesda would take an approach closer to that of The Witcher developers, who support the game post-release with solid game balance changes(Skyrim could really use this) as well as extra content for free.

There is a mod for Skyrim that increase performance by up to 20fps, with a mean of about 10 with no sacrifice to quality.
The unofficial patch for oblivion fixed over 2000 bugs.

It really bugs me when people downplay mods, when someone gives you a 20fps boost and fixes 2000 bugs plus adds an almost endless supply of optional content…

I was the first person to endorse the performance mod on the Nexus. I'm also a mod author (check the links in my sig.) I've also worked on an indy game project - developing a full game is no joke, and developing with a deadline has to be even more intense. A lot of mod authors put their heart, soul, and countless hours into what they produce, and they deserve recognition for it. I'm not trying to downplay modders so much as point out that Bethesda was not slacking when they produced Skyrim.

This.

I will add to this that when you really sit down and think about it, it's actually in Bethesda's best interest to encourage the modding community to thrive. They had what? 150 or so people working on Skyrim, generating and implementing ideas, all within a budget. Hand the game to a modding community consisting of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people with no time limits or budgets. Which is going to have the better chance of generating the better ideas? All ripe for Bethesda to take and integrate into TES VI, just like they did with Skyrim.

Skyrim was released in a broken, unplayable state for me. If it weren't for the mod community and unnofficial patches I would not have been able to even play the game until a week ago.

In my opinion Skyrim is a game that was rushed to completion and the final version, when released, was about 90% complete. I'm not referring to 'fixes' as they exist in relation to balance/design either, I'm talking about there being 10% of the game being unfinished in the form of bugs, quest breaks, improper deletion markings, and other things that shouldn't exist in a final, retail product.

In short, yes, Bethesda seems to be increasingly reliant on the community to not only create and add content and changes to gameplay, but actually provide fundamental and necessary changes in order to simply get the thing to work properly. I for one, while I appreciate the game and all the hard work from the creative people who went into it, believe the game was released with critical errors that overextend beyond simple 'mistakes' or 'oversights' into 'deliberate shortcuts were taken in order to get to production as quickly as possible.'

I don't consider a version of Skyrim without console access and the current and eventual optimization and performance mods to even be a playable game, because you know what? It isn't.