MODS Love Hate Relationship

[LoginToDownload]

Also, I like your analogy a lot about working on cars, Glue. There's no point to working on your car so much if you'll never drive it, and likewise, what good is putting mods in Oblivion if you're barely playing it? That's just time wasted.

What if you enjoy it? Aside from that, aren't all games mostly time wasted?

[Leenysaurus]

Also, I like your analogy a lot about working on cars, Glue. There's no point to working on your car so much if you'll never drive it, and likewise, what good is putting mods in Oblivion if you're barely playing it? That's just time wasted.

What if you enjoy it? Aside from that, aren't all games mostly time wasted?

 

I wasn't saying that mods are a waste of time. I just meant to say that it's not so meaningful to do if you mod the game a lot more than you play it (granted, opinions here may vary). It's fine if you enjoy mods; I certainly enjoy them and love Oblivion strongly for the very reason that it's an open-source game, but you should play plenty, too.

 

I can't say much on the idea of most games being time wasted. That could be controversial. A lot of people who love games wouldn't say they're a waste. If you want my opinion, games are just as much a hobby as sports or anything else, even if it isn't very healthy to sit around playing games. I know it's what I do with my free time, besides, I'm in college for game design, so I see it as fitting. Just as playing games can be a hobby, so can mods.

 

Also, any of my references to mods is meant in terms of downloading mods, not making them. Making mods is an entirely different subject to me.

[LoginToDownload]

Oh, okay. "Addicted to modding Oblivion" sort of confused me. I was using a sort of harsh definition of "A waste of time", though, since it had to include any enjoyment/interest found in browsing and downloading mods.

[Leenysaurus]

Oh, okay. "Addicted to modding Oblivion" sort of confused me. I was using a sort of harsh definition of "A waste of time", though, since it had to include any enjoyment/interest found in browsing and downloading mods.

 

I understand, I'm sorry if it offendedy you at all ... I'm trying to be careful in terms of defining a modding "addiction," but to me I only mean addiction int he sense of downloading and installing. Making mods is an art form, and so I don't see that as an addiction or illogical time-consumer (nor to I really see downloading mods as illogical, just somewhat nonsensicle in comparison to playing the game).

[Sangel2525]

To echo Leeny and clarify, when I use the term 'mod addiction.' I'm not talking about actually creating mods, of course not. While I am known to tweak some mods in the CS to my liking, for personal use from time to time. I'm hardly a modder. It's more along the lines of downloading mods just because they look so neat, and you just have to have it, while you're in the middle of trying to play through the game.

 

It does become a major distraction and kind of keeps you from actually playing. As I said though mods made my second play-through of the game much more enjoyable, and quite different. I used a lot less aesthetic mods, and more quest oriented/gameplay type mods in my second play through. For me the aesthetic mods can be the most distracting at times, even though I do love them. In one way it upsets me, but in another it's kind of a blessing in disguise. I use the BAB body, and not many modders are making new clothing, and armor for it these days. So it does stop me from going, "pretty must have!" Even though in a practical sense I think to myself, why would my character need that outfit right now? Or even, would she ever wear such an outfit? As pretty as it is, it may not exactly align with her overall personality you know? Still it would be nice to see new stuff for BAB. :P

 

This is not to say quest mods aren't addictive either. Some look just so neat, that it's like, "Wow I need to play this now!" Even if it makes no sense whatsoever for my character to get involved in said modded questline, while in the middle of trying to save the world. Though a lot of quest mods I have played do have their place, but you need to kind of use common sense as to when your character would likely get caught up in them. I guess you need to prioritize a lot, and really consider what kind of character you're playing, and where their focus would be when ingame. Again as I said, kinda plan ahead.

 

But I am in no way saying modders themselves have an addiction. Without mods this game would be really, really dry... I don't think I would play it more than once. Mods always keep me coming back to play the game after a while. They really increase the fun of the whole experience, and even after you save the world there may yet still need to be things that must be done. :)

 

Also to add, if people just like to keep adding to their game, and really don't care about the main quest, and such. More power to them. The whole point of a video game is to have fun. If you have fun just adding to it more power to you. Me? I always wanted to progress through the game, but always wound up getting distracted by the next shiny, pretty new mod. I found for quite sometime, I spent most of my time just installing mods, and not really playing the game its self. Which always lead to me getting bored and never really accomplishing much in the game, say for the DB questline once. Finally I picked up the game again, knowing just what essential mods I kinda needed and decided okay I'll use them, but no new mods until I play through.

 

Finally I did it, I finished the main quest! After doing so, I went back to experimenting with mods, and found some really, really fun ones. Months later I picked up the game again knowing just what mods I wanted and the experience of playing through again was dramatically different and a lot more fun with those mods. But yes as always I had to will myself away from adding to the game until I finished the main quest. After doing so a second time, I found even more mods that could potentially make a third play through even more fun! Since my second Champion was killed by computer virus, as I really enjoyed that character. I'm going to have to do a third play through eventually if I want to have some serious fun with the game. But I'm taking a break... I figure I'll wait until I get a new computer before my third go, but I am right now when I have the time kind of experimenting with mods so I can prioritize what I want for take 3, which should be a load of fun when I play it. But I'm going to wait on that, since my second go is still fresh in my system, not to mention I want the game to be prettier hence wait until I get a new computer, which may take a while.

[myrmaad]

:wallbash: I feel I have a love hate relationship when it comes to modding Oblivion, I always have the core mods, you know stuff like Deadly Reflex and Mystic Elves and Ren stuff plus Better Water and Natural Environments, plus a few more to improve the visual and gameplay effects on things.. but usually when a new mod comes along I feel I have to install it and see what it's like so I spend more time actually modding the game itself and finding the armour, weapons, quests etc then actually playing the main quest. Does anyone feel the same. ( Will I ever get to finish the main quest, I still haven't even gone to Jauffre yet to give him the amulet :( )

I decided to go the other direction from yours. First I installed four Replacer mods (Exnem's Body Female, Get Up Anim Replacer, Elys Uncapped, and Reneer's Guard Overhaul).

 

Then I chose to install mods that would add more "steak & potatoes" to the game: Super-mods (large quest & lore-mods).

 

My approach was, "Why not install something that really gives Oblivion some muscle?" I figured a RPG is based on action, puzzle-solving, doing tasks to earn EXPs to advance in skills & level. The "look-good" mods are great mods, but they don't help your character progress.

 

So I loaded in some of the favorites - Akatosh Mount, Lost Spires, Elder Council, Temple of the One, Midas Spells, Kingdom of Almar, The Necromancer, Fighters Guild Contracts, Origin of the Mages Guild, Kvatch Aftermath.

 

Then I added the Bank of Cyrodiil, a bunch of weapons mods, and the Bag of Holding. After that came Sulteric's Viconia companion mod, which is also a quest.

 

I'll be adding Malevolent & Sword of Aeons once the file updates are posted.

 

My game's fairly well-rounded, so I can spend time actually running a character.

 

I'm hugely picky about which mods I use, my modus operendi has been to get what I need and browse through what's available while I'm there. It started with Benirus Manor, I wanted a nice house I could afford, and I love Anvil, but the house was so creepy, I had to do something. I downloaded several Benirus mods but the hands down winner and the one I still use and really enjoy "coming home to" (when I'm in Anvil) is "ReCreated Benirus Manor" by CS@.

 

I don't recall if the mod did away with the foyer table, because I got rid of it myself ASAP by opening the console, clicking on the table, and typing "disable".

 

During game play, I will get aggravated with something, like losing my precious enchanted arrows for example, and think, "hey, I saw some mod that would address this," and going out and finding it--in that case the fab "denock arrows" mod.

 

The bulk of my mods are for houses and gameplay tweaks (faster turning horses, housemapmarkers, autobookplacer, decorator's assistant, dudewhere'smyhorse, BagOfHolding --Love That!--...)

 

 

Varus Torvyn's list is right up my alley, and I only have one or two of those, I'll have to check them all out!

[Ulstan]

I played Morrowind with 0 mods, couldn't be bothered, was having too much fun as it is :P

 

I've recently given mods a try for Oblivion - first I was interested in performance mods (low poly grass, streamline, etc) then I stumbled across the unofficial bug fixer mod and decided I simply must have that. Then I ran across the natural environments mod, installed it, loved it. Then, in a glorious moment, I found mods like denock arrows, house map markers, land mark map markers, etc, little tweaks that just made gameplay easier

 

And then it kind of snowballed from there until now I'm trying to install and use very ambitious mods - like OOO and some of the character levelling mods though I can't figure out how to get them to work yet. In a way, I feel really silly spending my evening trying to get KCAS work with OOO instead of actually, you know, playing the game, but I tell myself that it will make for a richer, more immersive, more *fun* experience. At least, that's the hope - if I can't figure things out soon I may just ditch them, but OOO looks so much exactly like what I want out of a mod!

 

And all the 'aesthetics' mods really do add a lot, in my opinion. Even little things, like shinier more detailed coins and rings and amulets. I love the OOO weeds in the water mod, and the harvest flora mod that makes the flowers disappear when you harvest them.

 

One of the great things about mods is that you can pick and choose what you want - so something may not be everyones cup of tea (though I am trying to limit myself to mods considered 'must have' by the community in general) but with a mod you can get those tweaks to make your experience more enjoyable. Everyone wins with mods, really :)

[MasterAub]

I go with cycles...

 

I clean my Oblivion data files every well...6 months maybe...and restart from scratch

 

But there are at the very least 2 mods I am always reinstalling:

 

Oscuro Oblivion Overhauls and the Quarl Texture Packs...

[SealJuice]

I'm a mod junkie.

 

My two main games are Oblivion and Sims2. I have played sims2 less than 20 total hours but I have 150 gigs of custom content. Maxis finally broke it entirely with securom when they released Free Time. So I am trying to quit.

 

I am doing the same now with Oblivion. I have eight characters already, all level 1 and 100 mods. I crash every fifteen minutes and spend more time trying to stop the crashes than playing. I also spend a ton of time cruising for new mods, downloading, and installing.

 

I'm a mod junkie.

[dezdimona]

I mod stuff,install it in my game,think hey I'll release it, send to some friends to beta test,and by the time they've tested it,I'm already working on another one,so that one never gets released!