Hi all,

been following this and honestly i am waiting for the game to be less buggy before i take on my journey.
That being said i have been looking and reading on the game and i was wondering why people need to mod the game so much to make it right?

and why does Bethesda kinda do nothing about it?

example: SKYUI

everyone keeps saying the inventory system is poor and that skyui is the next best thing for the game since ham and cheese sandwich for college student.

ok so if a Huuuuge amount of people are saying that sky UI is better then why doesn't Bethesda do their own mod and change the UI to make it like SkyUI?

ok some people are gonna call the whole steal idea thing discussion but isn't modding the game not akin to reverse engineering and isn't that illegal with software?

so technically Bethesda could get the mod and incorporate it into the real code and a lot of people would be happy... so why are they not doing it?

and there are tons of mods that modify the environment and makes the game better. why not implement it then?


thats my question?

to me the fact that a game has been so heavily modded is not a good sign, to me it feels like a huge chunk of the people do not seem to like your product overall and feel the need to change it....

not good but this is my opinion...

People Mod I presume because they refuse to admit the game is somewhat lackluster as it is. I don't understand the goal of modding a plain old fantasy game. It doesn't make much sense.

Well it depends, even if Skyrim was a 13/10 (Which it isn't) people will Mod because theirs always something a little bit better. Companies can't get everything perfect, they would spend the next 100 years doing that. But the greatest thing a game could have are modding tools. If Skyrim didn't have it, I would of bought Skyrim on my PS3 instead and wouldn't give it a second thought.

Because people are doing it for them-- for free. Releasing these tools is an ingenious idea by Bethesda, they allow for freelancers to use their talents and creativity and the entire gaming community benefits.

Oh, and about SkyUI-- it IS the best thing since ham and cheese sandwiches. I can sort items by value, weight, name, and so much more. Other mods like "better sorting" and high res texture packs are also amaaazing.

So that it's not a plain old fantasy game.

I was also wondering. There are even people who modify the beginning of the game, so that it doesn't begin in Helgen but somewhere else: no Alduin, no main quest...

Well, if Beth simply enforded the end user licence agreement that each and every player agrees to, then the game would only ever be modded illegally, alternatively, if they put certain protections in place through their online security systems, the game wouldn't be modded either. That's the 'harsh' answer, and we should be thankfull that Beth and everyone else in the chain is happy to allow us to mod and to play modded.

What may be your taste in mods, may not be mine, so who is to decide which 'mods' would be included in the game as enhancements? What Beth does is provide a workable and enjoyable game, and allows members of the community to modify it up to a certain point, which rather than being seen as a negative should be seen as a very very generous positive on their part.

'Modding' is not a right...ask the folk on Xbox or PS3 what they think.

Mods are for people that want to suit the game to their liking. I don't see anything wrong with it. I would mod if I had Skyrim for the PC.

Not everyone wants the same things from a game
Mods allow it to be altered for personal taste
eg I see a lot of complaints about skimpy female clothes and armour mods but it can't be denied they are popular
Given that they and many other things modders have done cause such extremes of opinion better it be left to mods than included in the base game
The only mod I'm using atm is one that means female Bretons don't all have horrendous worrylines but in time I expect I'll use many others

I would guess that developers do look at popular mods to get an idea of what players want. Some mods are optimizing things for PC that should really be done in the port, it's true, but games are marketed to console and that's how PC players can learn to live with it. Sky UI is one of those- the UI is pretty bad on PC.

For other things, it's a matter of tweaking things to your taste. People like to customize.

Simple, once developers have released a game the product is already in the market and their sales will follow. There is little to gain by changing things in the vanilla game instead of making more content and selling that (DLC's / expansions). Modders on the other hand improve and expand upon the greatness of a game by implementing either their own ideas or popular requests (such as a better UI in skyrim's case). It's not illegal in Bethesda's case because they fully allow and even endorse their modding communities (it's allowed by most game developers and publishers, except the really big ones like Activision and EA, but their games are rarely worthwhile when it comes to modding anyway).

Bethesda's support of modding has become quite a big feature of TES and Fallout games, to the point that people consider it one of the greatest things that comes with the games (myself included).

Edit: it's also noteworthy that developers tend to borrow ideas from mods and implement them in next installments. Quite a few features in Skyrim were mods for Oblivion (companions, finishing moves, mannequins,..). It's a win-win situation and mods contribute more to the game industry than some people would like to believe.

Which would make the best course of action to simply ignore such mods, if they are not in keeping with your tastes.

I'm not accusing you of this, but I've seen lots of mods criticised simply because they are not to someone's taste. The thing to do when a mod is not agreeable to you is to pass it without comment.

Because that would imply admiting that their supershiny menu design is useless. And that isn't good for their ego.


Ehm... I don't know with the current state, but once the CK is out, how could be modding illegal?

Why mod?

Well, why not mod?

To make the game better.

That's why Bethesda releases the CK for us... To keep the game alive and selling for years...

Also, the expansions people can make to the games are amazing. It's not a matter of fixing most of the time, as it is expanding your experience. Look at older beth titles...

In fallout 3, one of my favorite mods was Powered Power Armor. It made Power armor use energy, boost physical attributes... you know, what power armor in science fiction actually does.

Look back at Oblivion. There were massive mods that added many many hours of additional missions and stories that were as good as that which was released by Beth.

I recall someone saying once that people mod because they truly love the game and they want to do nothing but make it better.


Also, your point about Skyrim UI... who says these things don't happen? Look at the X series. X-3: Reunion had a mod called X-tended... the company who makes the X series hired the team who made X-tended to make their next game. Another example: The guy who made OOO now works for a gaming company after he made OOO and it got Mod of the year from roughly everyone (I know this guy is around, so if I am mistaken, please correct me and I will remove the statement, just what I heard).

It adds replayability. A LOT of replayability.

Creating mods is a rewarding, challenging and exciting experience! In short: it is fun.

Also, Bethesda does not have the time to incorporate every popular mod in the game. Why would they?
They could spend their time much better building a new game.

You have to be a player with no experience in using mods, otherwise you wouldn't be thinking the way you are.

Sig

This game is mostly good for me. I have not put any mods on it, other than the performance/stability mods that I no longer need.

I will mod a few things once the CK is out, and grab a house or two, but other than that, the game is fine the way that it is.

I will use some of the quest mods when they come out, but that is what I like in a mod.

Because the game doesn't deliver on its own.

I am not saying the moding is bad, i am just saying that there is a bunch of things besides the obvious bugs that a lot of people decided to change.

like SKYUI

ENB

FXAA

why is Beth no putting these such things in the game?

I am not talking about reskins or new models or new textures but UI changes and the overall feel or look of the game. Maybe people want a more lively skyrim instead of muted colors...why not give them a setting to do so?

I do not mind using something that was done my someone else and putting it in my game...hell i have done that with GTA games and it was a lot of fun but i was part of a small group of people who happened to like that particular thing.

When 99% of the people would come and say to you that your PC UI svcks and that you should use SKUI instead and i was sitting in the dev chair at Beth thinking and reading on this well i would get up and gather a bunch of people and do one better. Theoretically, This is an example of a mass amount of people who would like something like this from the official dev that could come out in a patch.

LOL WUT??

we mod so that it isn't lackluster we mod it to make it better, better graphics,AI (someday maybe),weapons,companions,new lands,new armor,new mounts and on and on and on it's like free DLC and alot of it is better then paid for stuff I mean look at the WRP (weapon Retext Project) for Fallout NV and skyrim.... Waaaay better then vanilla.

When the CK comes out I plan on doing a very large new world mod (made of interiors any way, kinda like that one mod for Fallout NV, cant remember name lol)

- Chaos quote of the day-
Sanity is For the WEAK! - Chaos Dradnought

Lets not derail this thread with posts about mods on consoles. We have lots of other threads to beat that horse with.

Keep this thread to why we mod this game.