How important are Mods to you?

[II2]

Hard to answer. Very glad they / their creators exist. Not all of them are for me.

 

[Olas]

I like how they're free.

 

[TeletubbiesGolfGun]

Very important.

Mods: fix bugs, add features, allow people to learn more about game design within the confines of one engine, allow creativity.

That said, there are games that I think are fine without mods, and don't need them. But what I demand is that developers not discourage mods, they don't need to encourage them, but the former is tyrannical.

couldn't agree more with this.

plenty of games are fine and probably half of my games in my collection i would never pursue mods for them, however, there are some games where the mods make the games replayability shoot through the roof, i love to see what people add for games (not to mention there are ton of "derps" that people fix for games, that for whatever reason the devs were absolutely retarded by not including such feature)

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

Well really, their work could be better. I mean, I've seen them ban users over some fairly frivolous things, overreacting to some of...

Oh, GAME mods. Good for entertainment purposes, I suppose. Optional extra.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Depends on the game. I mean, Rising Storm is a mod that I'm completely looking forward too and can't wait for it to come out. I didn't buy Red Orchestra 2 because of it (that was because Sam Hulick made the music) but it is making me replay that great game. Mods make games better, in almost every case. So, yeah, I guess mods are really important for me, but they won't break the deal if the game has no mod support. I mean, BF3 is one of my favorite games, but if someone even mentions the word mod in it, DICE will have their head.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I normally use visual mods, like having real car and names on GTA vehicles, costumes and armors in FO3/NV and TES series, that doesn't change the core experience at all. I barely used game changing mods, and mostly in FO3 to make the game more accessible when it came to get weapons without breaking the flow and difficulty.

Also, allow me to remind you all about Forgotten Hope and Desert Combat. If you want to talk about mods, those are impossible not to mention.

 

[Vault101]

They're useful for keeping these forums orderly.
They aren't a cultural movement I know much about.
I haven't PC gamed since 08.
Your title should be clearer.

pretty sure given the context that this is a "gaming" site in "gaming disscussion" the meaning is pretty clear

since the cultrual movment in the context of the title makes alot less sense than "PC game modifications"

 

[alphamalet]

How is wanting to play something done by a professional instead of wanting to play something done by a random person who has no professional experience unjustifiable? Explain that one to me. I didn't say all of them are terrible, but from what I've played most have no value.

Because use of the term "professional" is so arbitrary that it perpetuates the idea that not one person can have better skill than one developer. How do you know they have "no experience" ? To put it simply, it reeks of ignorance.

Look at the Dark Souls PC port, the game was rushe and the developers even said they unprepared. Many people were annoyed at it's lack of proper optimization, there was nothing the developers could do apparently. Yet one modder managed to fix one of the main graphical issues in less than 24 hours because he knew how graphics worked.

Developer does not instantly mean "professional."
Modder does not instantly mean "unprofessional."

Judge them by their work, if you find bad mods, you can call them unprofessional. But don't generalize all mods in the gaming world based on a some bad shit that happened to you.

I'm fair when it comes to this:
-Amnesia's modding community is 99% shit
-The Stalker series would be NOTHING without mods that fixed that broken mess of the first game.

Let's put it like this. I'm currently in my senior year at a university studying video game design as my undergraduate degree (with the ambition of getting my master's degree in video game production). One thing you learn right off the bat when you talk to even the most hard-core gamers is that they are unable to even tell you what they might like about a game. They'll just say something to the effect of, "Well, it's just really fun to play." It's like eating a very good slice of pizza. It might be good, but few people are actually able to offer beyond, "It just tastes good".

I love the gaming community as much as the next guy, but there is a CLEAR difference of design sensibilities between people who are educated in and have experience designing games and those who don't. Most modders do not have these sensibilities and in my experience it shows. You think the delineation between professional and unprofessional may mean nothing, yet I think that statement couldn't be further from the truth and reeks far more of "ignorance".

This is a conversation about the value of mods as a whole. Sure there are amazing mods out there like DayZ, or Gary's Mod, but using exceptional cases to "generalize" that modders add compelling content is not wise. You accuse me of generalizing, yet then point to exceptional cases in a sea of lack-luster mods to justify what you are saying. Seems a bit counter-intuitive.

You and I both know that for every good mod, there are thousands of trash mods. You have to make far more of a brash generalization than I am to say:

A) The difference between "professional" and "unprofessional" design is "arbitrary"
B) Because of a few exceptional mods, then the modding community as a whole is valuable

Your view seems far harder to justify than mine. If you think that everything I have said here still seems unjustifiable then fine, but I hope I have clarified my stance on all of this, and I really have no desire to pursue this any further.

 

[Sunrider]

How is wanting to play something done by a professional instead of wanting to play something done by a random person who has no professional experience unjustifiable? Explain that one to me. I didn't say all of them are terrible, but from what I've played most have no value.

Stop putting words in my mouth. Your statement was "99.9% of them are very amateurish to say the least.", which is blatantly false. There are shitloads of crappy mods, granted, but that wasn't what you said, and there are a huge number of amazing mods as well. Crappy mods don't get any attention whatsoever in proper mod communities.
Not to mention how your statement implies that modders are by default unprofessional, which they aren't. They aren't professional by default either, but I hope I don't need to clarify such obvious things.
I never said your stance wasn't unjustified, since that has nothing to do with the issue.
You'd be correct if you said "There are more crappy mods than good mods", but saying that "99.9% are amateurish TO SAY THE LEAST" (with all the implications included in the capitalized part) is very silly and a huge exaggeration.

I read your reply to the other guy who replied, and it's clear that you aren't exactly new to the subject, which makes your initial sweeping statement all the more surprising.

 

[The Lunatic]

Exceedingly important, they're literal game changers.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Let's put it like this. I'm currently in my senior year at a university studying video game design as my undergraduate degree (with the ambition of getting my master's degree in video game production). One thing you learn right off the bat when you talk to even the most hard-core gamers is that they are unable to even tell you what they might like about a game. They'll just say something to the effect of, "Well, it's just really fun to play." It's like eating a very good slice of pizza. It might be good, but few people are actually able to offer beyond, "It just tastes good".

I wouldn't call those people unfamiliar with game design, I'd say they're unfamiliar with critique in general.

I love the gaming community as much as the next guy, but there is a CLEAR difference of design sensibilities between people who are educated in and have experience designing games and those who don't. Most modders do not have these sensibilities and in my experience it shows. You think the delineation between professional and unprofessional may mean nothing, yet I think that statement couldn't be further from the truth and reeks far more of "ignorance".

The more I've played games the more believe the delineation means nothing, I've seen design choices (by both developers and modders) that are so bad I wonder if anyone had playtested the game/mod before release.

Thus to me, saying you have be educated in game-design to be professional is silly, indie devs practically wouldn't exist then.

This is a conversation about the value of mods as a whole.

Yeah ok. There's a lot of shit, but there's some gold. You can't say it's all shit or all gold. I'm arguing that there's some gold.

Sure there are amazing mods out there like DayZ, or Gary's Mod, but using exceptional cases to "generalize" that modders add compelling content is not wise. You accuse me of generalizing, yet then point to exceptional cases in a sea of lack-luster mods to justify what you are saying. Seems a bit counter-intuitive.

I didn't generalize them as all good, I criticized your generalization. I said in my post that I'm aware of bad mods, I think that blanketing all mods as "unprofessional" is just stupid.

You and I both know that for every good mod, there are thousands of trash mods.

Yes I admitted such. But that's not the argument.

You have to make far more of a brash generalization than I am to say:

A) The difference between "professional" and "unprofessional" design is "arbitrary"
B) Because of a few exceptional mods, then the modding community as a whole is valuable

What are you saying here?

 

[DrBonBon]

I love mods. Because of them we got a working flashlight in Doom 3, original Doom made on the Doom 3 engine and of course for the original Doom:

Spoiler: Brutal Doom

 

[piinyouri]

Depends on how easy/difficult it is to bother with them, and how profound the changes the mod(s) make are/is.

Edit: Oh my, some people are throwing the old 'amateur, unprofessional ect' labels at modders?
Two words:
Tamriel [http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?gallery=1&p=screenshots] Rebuilt [http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?gallery=2&p=screenshots]

 

[Spoonius]

I am a modder, I enjoy it as a hobby.

Same here.

What game(s) have you worked on?

 

[TheGreekGeekPrick]

This is a conversation about the value of mods as a whole. Sure there are amazing mods out there like DayZ, or Gary's Mod, but using exceptional cases to "generalize" that modders add compelling content is not wise.

Are you sure? About the phrasing, at least-- Counter-Strike started as a mod, as did both Team Fortress games (Quake and the Classic remake). Vanilla Elder Scrolls is absolute balls, games like the "Vampire The Masquerade" series or the Falcon 4.0 simulator have been supported by modders long after their companies dissolved, there are more modded "Counter-Strike: Source" mods played today than vanilla and you'll find more examples all around.

You seem to focus on total conversions when referring to mods and I'll grant you many of them range from mediocre to awful, but the term is far too broad to make the statement that modders, in general, don't add compelling content. The ones that do contribute far too much to ignore.

Personally, I'm kind of surprised we're even discussing this. The DLC map and characters that Activision and the rest distribute for ten bucks a piece *are* mods. Many, many excellent custom models and maps back in the day by modders available for free to extend the life-cycle of a game; the same way companies do it now, only for a price-tag. If anyone, console or PC gamer, has ever found value in this type of DLC, modding should matter to them.

 

[DanielBrown]

Not very. Use them sometimes in MMO's when they bring something I feel is lacking to the game, but I'm mainly a console player so there aren't many modding possibilites there.

 

[hawkeye52]

Well one of the worlds most popular and most successful games that changed the gaming world both competatively and casualy in the space of a year or two was originally a mod of warcraft 3. League of legends

 

[Dr Jones]

]Snip

Black Mesa disagrees with you.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I keep games vanilla, unless the mod fixes a bug or something.

Edit: I'm kinda lying, I modded some beta content in Half Life 2 and made a small mod for GTA2 that allowes the multiplayer only traffic to spawn in singleplayer.