5 ms·

This project never fails to impress me. If you scroll to the bottom of the announcement, you'll see maps from Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and Oblivion loaded i

This project never fails to impress me. If you scroll to the bottom of the announcement, you'll see maps from Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and Oblivion loaded into OpenMW. Games people spend 1000 hours playing earn a level of cultural significance that deserves protection from rent-seeking publishers. Each time Bethesda announces an update to Skyrim or Fallout 4, I cringe, because what the updates do above all else is break the existing mods. OpenMW is solving this problem for older Bethesda titiles, but I am pessimistic about Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5. Those two are years away and already lost causes IMHO.

kqr 1y ago
Not to mention the immense effort from the modding community. The Tamriel Rebuilt mod opens up much of mainland Morrowind for exploration (the official game covers only the island of Vvardenfell) and it is huge. It's as if they had released a Morrowind 2 but made it twice as big and still in the exact same style as the original.
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  Also: * Graphics updates with shaders for improved water and fog (which you can combine with much higher view distance), godrays, HDR, etc, improved meshes, improved grass, high resolution textures with normal maps and PBR. * Modernized UIs * Multi-mark (extra marks as you level mysticism) * Turn the books into audiobooks and add full voice acting if you're a mild heathen. * Combat and leveling system overhauls if you're a full heathen. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iFZm4VZnHy0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=iFZm4VZnHy0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Hv-46CCd9I https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Hv-46CCd9I https://modding-openmw.com/ https://modding-openmw.com/
  - hyperman1 1y ago
    I played it a year ago. To my surprise, in some ways, the advanced graphics broke my immersion. Standing in Vivec and expanding the render distance to Seyda Neen takes away part of the mystery. I had the same with Gothic, where my more powerfull computer could render Xardas' tower when standing in the old camp. Both games partially depend on limited render distance to provide an illusion of vastness.
    - Eupolemos 1y ago
      IIRC, you can adjust the fog to still be there and get the best of both worlds. Morrowind can indeed be small to look at, but big to play in <3
    - kqr 1y ago
      Volumetric fog is the solution. Gives you the best of both worlds: distant peaks over the mist, yet difficulty navigating to the next settlement.
- 4ggr0 1y ago
  one of my favorite games i've ever played is Enderal: Forgotten Stories[0], total conversion mod for Skyrim. liked it way more than Skyrim, includes some new gameplay elements and the story is absolutely phenomenal. while playing it i was constantly in awe of the fact that this was a free conversion made by a low amount of people. played it for about 90 hours over a couple of weeks. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enderal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enderal
  - notnullorvoid 1y ago
    I found Enderal so compelling that I watched a full playthrough, it's the only game I've ever done that with. I wanted to play it all the way through myself, but my PC at the time had very strange audio cracking issues with Skyrim so I wasn't able to get far.
akerl_ 1y ago
> Games people spend 1000 hours playing earn a level of cultural significance that deserves protection from rent-seeking publishers. It's not clear to me what you're suggesting here? 1. Are you saying that the developer shouldn't be able to ship updates to their game if those upgrades break 3rd party mods? 2. Why would a game's developer's rights be restricted after they ship something based on how many people use it or how much society likes it?
- afavour 1y ago
  > Are you saying that the developer shouldn't be able to ship updates to their game if those upgrades break 3rd party mods? Reading between the lines I think OP is suggesting backwards compatibility is retained when publishing updates. > Why would a game's developer's rights be restricted after they ship something based on how many people use it or how much society likes it? I'm assuming OP's answer is something along the lines of "because it's good for society". Why shouldn't society do things that are good for society, even if they increase a burden on a profit making company? Obviously every case is different but the principle is sound, IMO. Like copyright expiry. At the very least it's an interesting thought exercise.
  - aidenn0 1y ago
    Consider books in the vein of Hardy Boys[1]. Many of these books get revised over the years by the publisher. Imagine if the book on your shelf changed and when you went to read it again, the prose differed from how you remembered. People can disagree as to the extent to which the changes are good or bad (some are clearly fixes for "whoa, that was racist even for the year it was published" others are claimed by the original authors to have stamped out the small bit of originality they were able to slip past the editors), but something is lost when you lose things the way they were originally experienced. 1: For those who don't know, this is a kids book series with a single pen-name, but with each book written for-hire. Nancy Drew and Tom Swift were created by the same publisher in a similar manner.
    - akerl_ 1y ago
Pet_Ant 1y ago
I've felt that properties that earn a certain threshold should become public domain. You've made enough money, and now you are part of the culture. The heft of having created a cultural landmark or cornerstone ought to be enough weight to ensure their other projects get enough of a boost.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  I keep hoping they'll release Cyberpunk 2077 for open development. They abandoned the RedEngine and the city is really well built.
  - throwaway314155 1y ago
    Did they really abandon it after all that work? The engine itself was basically the only interesting part of that game! (ignoring gameplay-oriented engine stuff).
    - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
      They moved devlopment to Unreal 5
      - unixhero 1y ago
        Much better
    - danso 1y ago
      Given how lackluster most everything was (beyond the visual design of the city) — e.g. physics, crowd interaction, scripted events — maybe the engine was what held their creative vision back?
      - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
        It took them nearly 2 years, but the game has advanced a lot since it's launch. The Phantom Liberty DLC plus the 2.0 update/rebalancing made it more fun (even if it made it more 'console' and less PC)
Der_Einzige 1y ago
The real red pill is to realize that everything Bethesda made starting with fallout 3 is pretty bad. Skyrim is one of the most overrated video games ever. The combat and exploration from a 2005 game, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was infinitely better. Skyrim was "big" and had a good soundtrack and that's about it. If you don't believe me, see some gameplay: 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p3zj0YKKYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p3zj0YKKYE 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeRUHzYJwNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeRUHzYJwNE
- skotobaza 1y ago
  > Skyrim is one of the most overrated video games ever Agreed. Most of the systems do not work as intended, the amount of content is very low compared to previous entries. There is no excuse for it to be released in such poor state, since Bethesda had already released two games for the same generation prior to that. And they did what they always do - ship a couple of updates and then just drop the game until the DLC is release and then promptly drop all the support. Even though there are still many bugs left in the game. They've been doing that for years, yet people still praise them for some reason. A very irresponsible developer.
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    > They've been doing that for years, yet people still praise them for some reason. Because of the lore, setting, and the openness of both (and the engine). For a lot of ES fans (myself included), we aren't expecting an engaging game as much as a fun world sandbox set in the ES universe, with the ability to extend/mod it into whatever we want. The games are less about defined goals and more about roleplaying, exploration and world-building.
    - skotobaza 1y ago
      > The games are less about defined goals and more about roleplaying, exploration and world-building. And Skyrim lacks in each aspect, especially compared to previous Elder Scrolls games. You have even less skills than in Oblivion (which in turn had even less skills than Morrowind). The dungeons (caves, forts etc.) do not offer any meaningful rewards, so there is little incentive to just randomly explore the world. The guild questlines are much shorter which doesn't help roleplaying when you can become a grandmaster in one evening of playtime. Moreover, there are randomly generated quests thrown in to pad the time, which is even worse.
thatguy0900 1y ago
The real reason to be pessimistic about elder scrolls 6 is that Bethesda has tried multiple times already to get paid modding where they take a huge chuck of the profits to stick. They will stop taking no for an answer at some point
- ohyes 1y ago
  Yep, paid modding is Bethesda cooking and eating the golden goose. As soon as it happens it kills what makes their games special.

kqr 1y ago

Not to mention the immense effort from the modding community. The Tamriel Rebuilt mod opens up much of mainland Morrowind for exploration (the official game covers only the island of Vvardenfell) and it is huge. It's as if they had released a Morrowind 2 but made it twice as big and still in the exact same style as the original.

ndriscoll 1y ago
Also: * Graphics updates with shaders for improved water and fog (which you can combine with much higher view distance), godrays, HDR, etc, improved meshes, improved grass, high resolution textures with normal maps and PBR. * Modernized UIs * Multi-mark (extra marks as you level mysticism) * Turn the books into audiobooks and add full voice acting if you're a mild heathen. * Combat and leveling system overhauls if you're a full heathen. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iFZm4VZnHy0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=iFZm4VZnHy0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Hv-46CCd9I https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Hv-46CCd9I https://modding-openmw.com/ https://modding-openmw.com/
- hyperman1 1y ago
  I played it a year ago. To my surprise, in some ways, the advanced graphics broke my immersion. Standing in Vivec and expanding the render distance to Seyda Neen takes away part of the mystery. I had the same with Gothic, where my more powerfull computer could render Xardas' tower when standing in the old camp. Both games partially depend on limited render distance to provide an illusion of vastness.
  - Eupolemos 1y ago
    IIRC, you can adjust the fog to still be there and get the best of both worlds. Morrowind can indeed be small to look at, but big to play in <3
  - kqr 1y ago
    Volumetric fog is the solution. Gives you the best of both worlds: distant peaks over the mist, yet difficulty navigating to the next settlement.
4ggr0 1y ago
one of my favorite games i've ever played is Enderal: Forgotten Stories[0], total conversion mod for Skyrim. liked it way more than Skyrim, includes some new gameplay elements and the story is absolutely phenomenal. while playing it i was constantly in awe of the fact that this was a free conversion made by a low amount of people. played it for about 90 hours over a couple of weeks. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enderal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enderal
- notnullorvoid 1y ago
  I found Enderal so compelling that I watched a full playthrough, it's the only game I've ever done that with. I wanted to play it all the way through myself, but my PC at the time had very strange audio cracking issues with Skyrim so I wasn't able to get far.

akerl_ 1y ago

> Games people spend 1000 hours playing earn a level of cultural significance that deserves protection from rent-seeking publishers. It's not clear to me what you're suggesting here? 1. Are you saying that the developer shouldn't be able to ship updates to their game if those upgrades break 3rd party mods? 2. Why would a game's developer's rights be restricted after they ship something based on how many people use it or how much society likes it?

afavour 1y ago
> Are you saying that the developer shouldn't be able to ship updates to their game if those upgrades break 3rd party mods? Reading between the lines I think OP is suggesting backwards compatibility is retained when publishing updates. > Why would a game's developer's rights be restricted after they ship something based on how many people use it or how much society likes it? I'm assuming OP's answer is something along the lines of "because it's good for society". Why shouldn't society do things that are good for society, even if they increase a burden on a profit making company? Obviously every case is different but the principle is sound, IMO. Like copyright expiry. At the very least it's an interesting thought exercise.
- aidenn0 1y ago
  Consider books in the vein of Hardy Boys[1]. Many of these books get revised over the years by the publisher. Imagine if the book on your shelf changed and when you went to read it again, the prose differed from how you remembered. People can disagree as to the extent to which the changes are good or bad (some are clearly fixes for "whoa, that was racist even for the year it was published" others are claimed by the original authors to have stamped out the small bit of originality they were able to slip past the editors), but something is lost when you lose things the way they were originally experienced. 1: For those who don't know, this is a kids book series with a single pen-name, but with each book written for-hire. Nancy Drew and Tom Swift were created by the same publisher in a similar manner.
  - akerl_ 1y ago

Pet_Ant 1y ago

I've felt that properties that earn a certain threshold should become public domain. You've made enough money, and now you are part of the culture. The heft of having created a cultural landmark or cornerstone ought to be enough weight to ensure their other projects get enough of a boost.

FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
I keep hoping they'll release Cyberpunk 2077 for open development. They abandoned the RedEngine and the city is really well built.
- throwaway314155 1y ago
  Did they really abandon it after all that work? The engine itself was basically the only interesting part of that game! (ignoring gameplay-oriented engine stuff).
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    They moved devlopment to Unreal 5
    - unixhero 1y ago
      Much better
  - danso 1y ago
    Given how lackluster most everything was (beyond the visual design of the city) — e.g. physics, crowd interaction, scripted events — maybe the engine was what held their creative vision back?
    - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
      It took them nearly 2 years, but the game has advanced a lot since it's launch. The Phantom Liberty DLC plus the 2.0 update/rebalancing made it more fun (even if it made it more 'console' and less PC)

Der_Einzige 1y ago

The real red pill is to realize that everything Bethesda made starting with fallout 3 is pretty bad. Skyrim is one of the most overrated video games ever. The combat and exploration from a 2005 game, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was infinitely better. Skyrim was "big" and had a good soundtrack and that's about it. If you don't believe me, see some gameplay: 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p3zj0YKKYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p3zj0YKKYE 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeRUHzYJwNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeRUHzYJwNE

skotobaza 1y ago
> Skyrim is one of the most overrated video games ever Agreed. Most of the systems do not work as intended, the amount of content is very low compared to previous entries. There is no excuse for it to be released in such poor state, since Bethesda had already released two games for the same generation prior to that. And they did what they always do - ship a couple of updates and then just drop the game until the DLC is release and then promptly drop all the support. Even though there are still many bugs left in the game. They've been doing that for years, yet people still praise them for some reason. A very irresponsible developer.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  > They've been doing that for years, yet people still praise them for some reason. Because of the lore, setting, and the openness of both (and the engine). For a lot of ES fans (myself included), we aren't expecting an engaging game as much as a fun world sandbox set in the ES universe, with the ability to extend/mod it into whatever we want. The games are less about defined goals and more about roleplaying, exploration and world-building.
  - skotobaza 1y ago
    > The games are less about defined goals and more about roleplaying, exploration and world-building. And Skyrim lacks in each aspect, especially compared to previous Elder Scrolls games. You have even less skills than in Oblivion (which in turn had even less skills than Morrowind). The dungeons (caves, forts etc.) do not offer any meaningful rewards, so there is little incentive to just randomly explore the world. The guild questlines are much shorter which doesn't help roleplaying when you can become a grandmaster in one evening of playtime. Moreover, there are randomly generated quests thrown in to pad the time, which is even worse.

thatguy0900 1y ago

The real reason to be pessimistic about elder scrolls 6 is that Bethesda has tried multiple times already to get paid modding where they take a huge chuck of the profits to stick. They will stop taking no for an answer at some point

ohyes 1y ago
Yep, paid modding is Bethesda cooking and eating the golden goose. As soon as it happens it kills what makes their games special.