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What is it that ruins a really good mod for you?


ENDZYM3

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You know, one of those mods that gets all the rave and hype, but you're still just not feeling it because of [insert reason(s)]

 

For me, it's always voice acting.

 

The Blood and Mud mod did okay with this, because they had super-thick accents.

But I was going to download the Sentient Weapons mod for Oblivion, and everything looked awesome.

 

But I saw a gameplay video and the voice acting killed it.

No hate on the actor himself, or even the modder (if they aren't the same person).

I'm sure they did their best. And a lot of people seem to like it, so I can't bash them for it.

 

I just -personally- did not at all care for it.

Had that been "up to my standards," I would've downloaded it.

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I've passed up so many mods because of their voice acting that, in all honesty, I wish that someone could've picked me up way back when so that I could work on it with them.

Even if I weren't voice acting myself, I do own an at-home music studio (AKA: The PC in my room ;) and could've easily brought some of the audio recordings to life with just a few simple audio effects.

 

No amount of effects will make up for poor voice acting, but it will sure liven it up a little.

And in the event that the voice acting is good, the effects make it even better!

 

It's win/win.

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In my case, it's typos and grammar errors in the text. I grit my teeth with American spelling as it's a US game, but some of the stuff uploaded in some mods REALLY needed to be run past a native English speaker before the upload - Google translate doesn't cut it.

 

As for voice acting - re-record the dialogue yourself and upload a replacement voice pack - I'm sure that way the original mod would get more downloads...

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In my case, it's typos and grammar errors in the text. I grit my teeth with American spelling as it's a US game, but some of the stuff uploaded in some mods REALLY needed to be run past a native English speaker before the upload - Google translate doesn't cut it.

 

As for voice acting - re-record the dialogue yourself and upload a replacement voice pack - I'm sure that way the original mod would get more downloads...

 

I actually hadn't thought of that.

That....I think I might just do that.

 

And even if I don't ever get around to uploading it, at least I can enjoy it all to myself. Muahahahaha.

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Two words. Colossal breasts.........

 

Would be much more of a burden than a mud crab clamped to your rear end. Breasts are for producing milk, why is there a fanatical fascination with em? Young looking female characters with F-cup+ just look weird anyway.

 

That's about it cause I have mostly clothing/armor mods.

 

Massive amounts of cleavage bugs me too, but not nearly as much. Cleavage and heavy armor shouldn't be in the same category. There's little point in bulky shoulder plates when someone can kill you by stabbing you in the chest with a butterknife :psyduck:

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Personally I'm playing almost entirely for the immersion, so the more a mod fits into the original setting, the better. Very minor details can be enough for me to pass on a mod, if I can't change it myself. The basic rule is, if it's obvious that it's a mod, it's not for me.

 

Most notably, I avoid any mod that uses voice actors. To be more precise; when any NPC's that should be able to speak are used. Although some voice actors may have done a pretty good job, the fact remains that Oblivion uses so few voices, it's instantly an immersion-breaker for me.

 

Another good example is clothing and armor. Tons of detailed and beautiful gear just stands out so much from the rest. The same goes for hairstyles and faces. If the entire world has a certain uglyness, I don't want to have a perfect skin like a stranded alien.

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I agree about the immersion visually - I've got a full QTP3/Bomrets setup for the eye candy, and am currently making a second installation up with the "enhanced vanilla" textures - things like normal maps, better LOD, etc., etc. to see how far the "original" game can be improved without making it photorealistic. I'm hoping that improved vanilla will be less of a performance hit too :)

 

Voice actors: I think you have to go the whole hog, or not bother. The worst scenario (for me) is the voice changing with a custom character, so that they use a premade voice for the idle conversations and vanilla topics, and a different voice for the additional quest stuff. I need to find a couple of Gifted impressionists to "fix" the beggar voices where they suddenly switch from their normal voices to upper class ones for certain topics <shudders>.

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"I need to find a couple of Gifted impressionists to "fix" the beggar voices where they suddenly switch from their normal voices to upper class ones for certain topics <shudders>."

 

I like to think of the beggars as hard-up out-of-work actors from the Oblivion Shakespeare Company, who put on the joke Mummerset 'beggar' voice when they see a likely mark, but revert to their normal actorly voices when you actually ask them something.. :biggrin:

Edited by roquefort
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1) Text issues: grammar, typos, poor writing.

 

2) Breaking the Third Wall. References to real world content (Brittany Spears wandering around Balmora in Oblivion is a typical example), or more subtly, comments by an NPC showing knowledge they couldn't possibly possess.

 

3) Sloppy programming. Unsupported walls hanging in midair, changes that affect not merely your mod but other, unrelated areas in the game, etc.

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Personally I'm playing almost entirely for the immersion, so the more a mod fits into the original setting, the better. Very minor details can be enough for me to pass on a mod, if I can't change it myself. The basic rule is, if it's obvious that it's a mod, it's not for me.

 

I used to be exactly like that, but as I started using more and more mods, I just let myself go.

Now that you mention it, I kinda miss the old days.

 

On Topic: When a mod doesn't function anywhere near as what's stated (or implied) in the description.

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