Mod's Playground

Shamus Young

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Jul 7, 2008
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Mod's Playground

Buy game. Download mods. Create game you actually want to play.

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Xvito

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This is the reason I hate not having a good gaming-PC...

The mods for Fallout 3 are some of the best I've seen. And I've heard that there are even programs for making some pretty cool changes to the game yourself, kind of "on the fly".
 

GamerLuck

Questionably Opinionated
Jul 13, 2009
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A) I wish i had a Machine that could Run Fallout ALONE without bogging me down with so much lag i have to reduce the graphics to paper cutouts just to play.. let alone put mods on..

B) I wish the pipedream of a modding community over Xbox LIVE would come true.. then i would just need a bigger hardrive for my Xbox instead of building a computer from the ground up for a single game...
 

Daeres

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May 24, 2008
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This is why I grew to love PC gaming, and grew tired of console gaming; you're stuck with whatever the developer deigns to let you have.
I liked the original Medieval II: Total War, but the Broken Crescent/Increased Blood mods turned it into a spectacular new experience.
And your point about the fact that you can't sell these games to developer is absolutely right on the money; Broken Crescent turns the game into a real time strategy/turn based strategy game set in the Medieval Middle East, where almost every single faction is Islamic. How could you even begin to sell that game to a developer...
And yet, Broken Crescent is a magical and totally different experience to normal strategy games precisely because it dares to focus on Islamic history.
 

WhiteTiger225

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Honestly, Fallout 3 Had great story telling to me, some VERY addictive gameplay, and was all in all heavily polished. It was so fun finding the little details, easter eggs, and quests hidden about. I see everyone who calls it poor in any catergory (Save for an ending narroration, that I will admit seemed whipped up last second) I feel is just trying to be "That guy" you know who I am talking about. THAT GUY. The one who sits at a card shop calling your 1st turn kill deck overrated. THAT GUY who claims citizen kane and Casablanca are overrated, outdated garbage. THAT GUY, who just says things mainly to appeal to the easily lead, overly opinionated "Alternative" crowd.

The only 2 complaints I ever had about Fallout 3 were as followed... 1. To little command ability over your allies. I can't order them to run from death claws and fight everything else. 2. When you first talk to that Ghoul in Megaton... you automatically know he's a ghoul. That shouldn't be so.

And those are just minor nit picks.

On Topic Though: Mod's make ANY game better. Morrowind with it's Vampiric Embrace Mod III for example, Oblivion with the OOO mod. And sadly I am bogged down with the console version of Fo3 because I can't afford to upgrade my processor to play it on PC so I don't get the great mods available for the PC version. All I know is, Mod's make ANY game better. The more modability, the better the game.
 

Strategia

za Rodina, tovarishchii
Mar 21, 2008
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But this adventure with mods is winning me over to the idea of a sandbox game that doesn't try to do anything except provide a stable framework on which the community can build the games they really want.
You've just basically described the Space Empires series.

Of course, SE is a 4X space strategy game, not a first-person action-RPG, but still.
 

Shamus Young

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WhiteTiger225 said:
I see everyone who calls it poor in any catergory (Save for an ending narroration, that I will admit seemed whipped up last second) I feel is just trying to be "That guy" you know who I am talking about. THAT GUY. The one who sits at a card shop calling your 1st turn kill deck overrated. THAT GUY who claims citizen kane and Casablanca are overrated, outdated garbage. THAT GUY, who just says things mainly to appeal to the easily lead, overly opinionated "Alternative" crowd.
You're basically arguing that the game is great and anyone that disagrees is simply an attention-starved iconoclast. This is not reasonable and in fact is a pretty standard ad hominem argument.

I've had my say on the game and I won't belabor the point here, but the issues I had with the experience were multitude, and had nothing to do with wanting to be any sort of "GUY".
 

7ru7h

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Jul 8, 2009
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Exactly... this is why I love my PC... it is just too bad that the pc doesn't get alot of the good games
 

Vorocano

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Jan 8, 2009
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IMHO, the modding scene is a big part of what's keeping PC Gaming viable. Simply put, consoles don't have nearly the same range of tools for modding as PCs. Now that may only appeal to a small segment of the total gaming crowd, but it's a big help. For me, PC Gaming is my "gaming heritage": it's what I started gaming on, and what I'll continue gaming on (mostly because I play RTS and RPGs, and the few FPSs and [almost no] sports games I play aren't worth buying a current-gen console) and I loves me my PC. It's comforting to know that some of the greatest sleeper hits lately were born as user-created content (I'm thinking of Counter-Strike specifically, although it's not exactly "lately" and I'm sure there are a tonne of other examples) and that the mod scene isn't going anywhere soon.

Now if someone would only drive out to Skywalker Ranch and smack George Lucas with a replica lightsaber until he agrees to port Force Unleashed to the PC.

Edit: wait, I was just informed that the new edition of Force Unleashed will be released for PC and Mac. Fanboy glee! Now let's hope it survives the port without becoming "t3h suck." (Excuse me, I have to go and set myself on fire for high crimes against intelligence: one count of replacing an "e" with a "3", and a misdemeanor for wilfully misspelling "the.")
 

unangbangkay

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Oct 10, 2007
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But this adventure with mods is winning me over to the idea of a sandbox game that doesn't try to do anything except provide a stable framework on which the community can build the games they really want.
That's great and all, but it should never take the place of a developer providing a finished product. It's wonderful that gaming has diversified to the point of our being able to remake a game to play the way we want it to play, but I don't want it to get to the point where all developers do is sell us an engine and tools in lieu of providing a polished, well-built product.

Certainly there are games building around the idea of self- or community-based authorship, such as LittleBigPlanet, but we would all be worse off if developers started using their single-player or campaign game experiences as window dressing for their toolsets, like, say Neverwinter Nights.

For better or worse, not everyone wants to author their own adventures, and the onus is
 

zBeeble

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Nov 19, 2008
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Interestingly, I agree mostly. Both Oblivion and Fallout have been more enjoyable for me with many, many mods. But rather than discuss the ins and outs of mods that I like or don't like (not a particularly interesting post as they simply reflect my role playing preferences), I think the conversation should expand to mods that do more than change gameplay.

For Fallout 3, I just discovered "Cube Experimental" (now an english version is available). It gives a Cube (the movie) like experience to your Fallout character. Takes about 3 hours to play (depending on your problem solving skills) and is a gigantic piece of new content... easily as big as any of the DLC for fallout. And free.

This type of mod is more common for Half Life2 and friends. moddb (the website) has many mods written for the HL2 engine (I bought the orange box largely to explore mods, but I found that the original campaign was enjoyable too). Possibly the oddest one I've played is a story told in pieces as you walk through the terrain of an island "remembering" the bits of the story. There are additional HL2 stories and completely different uses of the engine.

Myself... I've been working on modding L4D. It's very cool to be able to work with a 3D modeling program, create something, and then go shoot zombies in/on/around it.

In essence I'm saying that while you've (Shamus) modded the fallout experience to produce a new game to your liking, the modding community extends far beyond just adjusting the gameplay of the sandbox --- there are completely new sandboxes to be found.
 

Low Key

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I wonder how many employees at whatever dev company releases a game play it with mods. It would be interesting to see devs take a few and put them into their next game. Even if they had to run a contest to get around legality issues, it would be cool to see.

But I never have gotten into the modding community myself. It seems like there are a lot of people out there who do it, but I know if I started, I'd use it for evil. Heck, it took all my will power just to not enter in codes on GTA:SA when I 100% completed the game. The first thing I did after I saved was spawned a Rhino and began a rampage.
 

Rodger

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Jan 27, 2009
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I never really got into PC gaming much, there's about three games I've played heavily on the PC. StarCraft, WarCraft III, and Star Wars: Empire at War. I also have Sins of a Solar Empire, but none of these games really work too well on this crummy old laptop. Which is ironic since the specs are higher than my old PC but it can play any of those games without any hiccups. I blame the Intel graphics card it uses, but I digress...

I can't remember how many mods I downloaded for EaW. It was a lot. I had mods to add World frickin' Devastators to the game. Or an Eclipse. You could find mods to add just about any ship or vehicle from the EU (not necessarily a good thing mind you, some modders went way out of their way to add every little thing) and even some new hero units. I even had HK-47 as a hero unit in one mod. You could also find mods to change the game entirely. Battlestar Galactica? Sure. Star Trek? Of course. Move things to the Clone Wars? You couldn't count the number of mods just for that. Or even Old Republic era mods for Sith vs Jedi. You could even have a Mudkip Super Star Destroyer: http://empireatwar.filefront.com/screenshots/File/92951/1

I think I spent more time messing around with different mods than actually playing the original game. And now that I've been reminded that modding communities exist, I might be tempted to give NWN2/PC WRPG's in general another try. Definitely getting Fallout 3 for PC instead of 360 now (waiting for the GotY edition) at any rate.
 

Dogstile

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Jan 17, 2009
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unangbangkay said:
But this adventure with mods is winning me over to the idea of a sandbox game that doesn't try to do anything except provide a stable framework on which the community can build the games they really want.

we would all be worse off if developers started using their single-player or campaign game experiences as window dressing for their toolsets, like, say Neverwinter Nights.

For better or worse, not everyone wants to author their own adventures, and the onus is

i actually thought the neverwinter nights campaign was a damn good playthrough, especially with the expansions

had a better story and gameplay than most games i've played anyway
 

Andronicus

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Mar 25, 2009
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I must admit, I'm not a big fan of modding gameplay aspects of a game; I think if the producer wanted me to play it that way, I would feel obliged to comply. That said, I can appreciate how other people would feel, and understand that sometimes the ultimate survival situation would be enticing; there certainly could have been a few more "survival" elements implemented into the original game, but I guess I don't have the sort of attention span to accomodate that sort of experience.
I have, however, outfitted my copy of Fallout 3 with a few choice mods, including my favourite More Where That Came From, adding a (much needed) extra 100 songs to the playlist, all of which are picked to suit the 50's vibe of the game. I love "Civilisation" and "Maybe", but the extra tunes are an excellent complement.
Unfortunately, the texture overhaul packs, while exceptionally pretty, constitute a larger download that my monthly limit can accomodate.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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Daeres said:
This is why I grew to love PC gaming, and grew tired of console gaming....
Exactly. I even went to the trouble of making one for Doom 3 [http://www.filefront.com/3839450/Doom-True-Survival--a-Doom3-Mod/] myself because I didn't like how the game played on the highest difficulty level. (I mean, really, that was a crappy idea, id Software.) I could spend all day just talking about awesome Mods for Oblivion- OOO, Martigen's, WarCry, Ivellon, Bravil: Blood & Mud... those are just some of the major ones I have. Mods can absolutely transform a game and extend the gameplay indefinitely.

Of course, there's a downside, with Mod conflicts and other technical issues. I somehow screwed things up when I uninstalled Unnecessary Violence (great Mod, but just too demanding)- now no item names show up in the menus. So I'll have to reinstall. No big deal, though; that'll give me a chance to go through Ivellon again....
 

DeadlyYellow

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If I were the motivational sort, I'd draw a political cartoon depicting Bethesda as a partially cut diamond with a figure (representing the mod community) busily carving the rest of it. Seems like an apt metaphor of their products.
 

Emphraim

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I love mods, especially the total conversion mods. It always amazes me what people can make with the modding tools and some creativity. I have a mod for Fallout 3 that is simply called RTS and makes the game into.. well an RTS. you make a small village, give your villagers tasks, and protect the village while it grows until eventually you have a decent sized settlement with it's own walls and defense network.

Another awesome mod is Third Age: Total war [http://www.moddb.com/mods/third-age-total-war]. Lord of the rings combined with epic battles and factions with units that are higher quality than the units in the original Med 2? Awesome.