But that's the point he's making. No one's putting a gun to your head and forcing you to install mod X for your game Y. Sadly, however, there are many cases where you either (a) may not have alternative due to the game being released in a nigh-unplayable state, or (b) the game is so old that running it on your current machine is untenable.

If you play vanilla and people are acting like assholes to you over it, why should you care? It's your game, and it's your leisure time, and it's yours to play and use as you see fit. And furthermore, why would you even waste your time on such people in the first place?

I see what you're trying to say, and I appreciate that. But the blame for that lies with publishers who set games up to fail, either through pushing unrealistic release schedules (resulting in rushed development, like with KOTOR II), encouraging feature creep, or overhyping a game. But what you're railing against is both a symptom of, and a reaction to another problem entirely.

Anyone ever tried playing KOTOR 2 vanilla? Oh sure it can be done but at the cost of your sanity. MODS do have their advantages depending on the circumstances.

And when modders "fix" said game for them, they get let off the hook for any accountability. It does happen and as long as modders offer free help, it's inevitable to happen, because game makers are in the business of making and selling games to make money.

It's a huge monetary incentive to rush a release, get it out the door, then not worry about fixing all the glitches because whatever they miss, modders will fix for free. No need to pay our in house guys to do what modders will do for free. If there's anyone out there (I'm not saying you're one) that thinks a for profit business won't give in to such incentives at stress times then they're living in a fantasy world. When consumers don't hold sellers accountable (and buying crappy products and fixing them yourself is most definitely not holding sellers accountable) then it will always be the case that the quality will drop.

It was the same thing years ago when the internet first started getting popular. Believe it or not, you used to be able to walk in a store and buy a game that worked right, out of the box. But as soon as the internet made providing patches easy the incentive to release unfinished products went up, and then as soon as consumers shrugged and went along with it by purchasing the games anyway, boom, no more incentive to get a game right for release. I'd bet you can't name one game that hasn't been patched in the last 10 years.

And this same incentive will and does work regarding modders. All you have to do is put yourself in their situation. You make a product and sell a product. Then, you begin to lower your standards in making said product to save a few bucks because you know you can fix it later, after your customers have shelled out their cash. If your customers continue to buy anyway, why stop? Then when you discover your customers are not only continuing to purchase your product, but are now taking it upon themselves to fixing it up because of the lower quality, why on earth would you, or anyone else for that matter, not take advantage of that?

I agree with you, but from the customer's perspective, they'd already spent their money on a broken game; it's perfectly understandable to want to fix it, as opposed to waiting x number of months for the publisher/developer to issue a fix that may/may not work, if it doesn't make it worse.

Yes. And that's why customers need to stop buying games from, and supporting publishers/developers who make a habit of releasing crippled, and broken games that fail to deliver on their promise. But we never learn. How many people are going to stand in line to get Battlefield 5 when it comes out, completely forgetting what happened with Battlefield 4? How many people are going to snap up Sword of the Stars III, or Diablo IV? How many people are going to go on about how Gearbox's next game is going to be so crazy awesome, even though they got badly burned by Duke Nukem Forever and/or Aliens: Colonial Marines?

That's what you say mister, but not only have I completed KOTOR 2 vanilla, but my sanity is completely intact! Muhahahahahahahaha!

Ahem. As for the matter at hand, I personally don't use mods too much, especially on my first playthrough. I know people have issued multiple warnings, but I wouldn't mind trying vanilla Oblivion. I mean, my less game-oriented friend was able to complete it on his PS3 while also being completionist as hell.

As for your complaint, mods are definitely a benefit in the favour of PCs. New games have been built out of mods. (Just look at Valve's games.) Just because there are people who frown upon you for not using mods and just because companies release games full of bugs, doesn't mean that mods are bad. Just like you have the freedom to use or not use a mod, in the same way you have the freedom to listen or ignore those people.

Crazy or not we love you just the way you are....Meatbag! :D

I don't mind mods, as long as they're not terrible and I don't have to travel to Mordor to get them. For example, a large deal of Skyrim mods are... well, what's to say about those that hasn't been said already, and when I mention going to Mordor to get the mods I mean going to 27 different pages linking to this and that, and the final page with the real mod making you go through adf.ly to get to the real file. With most Terraria mods you don't need to go through 27 different pages, but one page that was recently hacked that will still send you through adf.ly.

This last part may make the OP go insane, but did you know that the version of Warlords Battlecry 3 sold by GOG.com is a modded version with unofficial content? The mod creators say and [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/warlords_battlecry_series/is_this_version_of_wlbc3_modded_out_of_the_boxhow_do_i_get_this_back_to_the_original/post3]here that the mod was never intended to be used in a commercially sold version of the game. So take that as you will :D

Meatbag? So are you, in fact, a droid disguised as Cthulhu? Or Cthulhu disguised as a droid? Or perhaps, Mecha-Cthulhu?

I think i just found my self a new torture devise to use.

I had no choice since I played it on the XB...uh nevermind. Let's talk about something else.

I fundamentally agree with you, which is why I frown upon the elitist cunts that downrepped you.

That being said, you might have worded it better. MODDING is a right, modding TOOLS are not. The developer is not required to provide you with the means to mod your game, but then they are also not entitled to prevent you from doing so on under your own steam.

I'm coming back to this thread after being the first reply.

As I said in my post, I almost wanted to agree with TaiPhoon except for that one (really powerful) clause. On the other most important part, I do want to echo his sentiments:

I really do wish companies would make games properly. In a small part, they do make inferior games that modders fix. I'm not sure it's because they "expect modders to fix it", but they certainly don't make games the best that they could.

A case study: Look at the HILARIOUSLY bad from-the-box experience of the PC version of TES: Oblivion. The UI was made for consoles and not altered for the PC at all. The face textures were embarrassingly bad (even for that time) and so on. While modders can and did fix it (and some of the best companies/products do actually incorporate modders fixes/expansions/suggestions into later patches...), the company should be held accountable for how much they let down the buyers. Those problems were fixed nearly immediately after release, so the company can't even say it was too costly an endeavor.

Some OPs gripes are also some of the reasons I reasons I don't do DRM, too. Companies release products and then move on. "Fire and forget", with the expectation "the modding community will keep it alive". We're blessed that that's been true in so many cases, because, in general, companies have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to keep their products updated as OSes and technology have gone on. (That is, even when the companies even exist anymore.) [Example: The Sims Medieval had Windows 8 support patched OUT of it in a DRM-software update. A game that came out only shortly before Win8, and is not even 3 years old yet, has been completely abandoned.]

I restated that last post because everyone was getting confused. Companies do not have to automatically give you modtools/official mod support, but give it by choice; but do not force companies that don't want to. It's a nice bonus feature when you get a SDK, but is it the sole reason to buy a game - fuck no.

You do realize that vast majority of Oblivion players actually played the game unmodded, right? :D Just people who dislike Oblivion run around pretending it was only playable with mods, yet most people who played it on PC played without them from my experience (most of my friends can't be arsed with mods and still enjoy Oblivion), and the vast majority of people who played it have done so on console, where they can't even mod it, and enjoyed it regardless. Just look up any site tracking customer ratings, Oblivion gets rated very highly. Same applies for Skyrim.

And that applies to all TES games. Without modding, they would still be extremely well done and enjoyable. With modding, you have an opportunity to make them even better. I have no idea why would people who use mods attack those who don't, then again I have no idea why would people with different belief attack others in general, so there you go....