Well, the final proof that the pay-per-download plugins are just a way of getting more money... the game's barely released, and we already have the first one for sale. So obviously there wasn't some massive effort involved in making it. Why couldn't we have it included with the game? Because it gives Bethesda more money if they leave features out of the game so they can sell it to us later!

Oh well, at least they're not charging as much as EA yet...

Yup, they're still better then EA, although not by much. I'm not going to buy this expansion. If I really want horse armor, I'll mod it in myself for myself.

3 out no less!
this is probably why there's not 3ds plugin out yet (unless it came out recently without my knowing) - simply to limit the amount of user mods with new meshes so they can better pimp their own

They're crappy mods not worth any money; but atleast we don't need to get them. It's not as bad as EA releasing BF2 expansions with over-powered guns that can be used in the vanilla version of the game. Now that really took the piss.

I would pay a small fee for a mini expansion like the way EQII did for its mini expansions. With that said, I refuse to pay for an idividual mod. There are literally hundreds of useful mods out there and I couldn't imagine having to pay for all of them. A package of mods is one thing but a single mod is just rediculous. As for the patches, I feel it would be insane for Bethesda to make us pay for their error. Pathes should be a company's little way of saying "We made a mistake, so let us make it up to you.", not held for ransom.

It is just not right to offer people a free service and then begin charging them once you start doubling your profits. I believe price gouging should only be reserved for when your company is in the crapper, not when it is on top. But sadly, people will buy just about anything if it is marketed to them properly. Thank you.

Disgusting. Further proof that the games industry is going downhill faster than a pushed Himalayan mountain goat. The mod community for MW was incredible, and Bethsoft has totally turned its back on them. I consider them worse than EA, since we all new that they were gutter-snipe bastards with the moral fibre and ingenuity of a broken-backed rat. For Bethsoft to turn on the loyal modders is so much worse than that. Bastards.

<--- Disillusioned

Why is this bad? If they are continuing to work on stuff, why should they do it for free? They are a BUSINESS guys, not a charity. The people working on the mods are being paid, so where do you think the money for that comes from? I have no problem paying one lousy pound (or two bucks) for a profession quality mod when a coffee in Starbucks costs more than that. Why do people think they are just entitled to professionally done work for nothing?

If the mods do not appeal to you, don't buy them, but why complain if they want to charge for them? No one is ENTITLED to their continuing work if they do not feel like giving it away.

Because they're limiting the possibility of players creating good free mods since they haven't released the export plugin.

And a coffee at starbucks costs more than alot of things - I could buy my entire lunch for the cost of a coffee at starbucks.

I don't mind them charging for plugins, so long as they provide players with the opportunity to make these types of mods as well. Then you pay for the official mods if the quality is there and they're worth it - not because it's the only way to get new weapons and armor.

Exactly, brilliantly well put E D. I'll pay for something that adds real content to the game, but not something that could and should have been shipped with the original game. Now, if they'd put in this combat whilst on a horse, AND the horse armour (which would suddenly become really useful and needed, instead of an extra triviality) I'd definitely pay it.

But they are limiting what the modders can do in order to generate maximum profit. Profit! Makes me want to bloody spit. Sell-outs.

I'd pay 1.99 for the exporter plugin.

Bizarre. So by that I presume you do NOT want Oblivion to make a profit for the people who paid to create it? In other words, you do not want a sequel to ever get made? And as for being 'sell outs', what does that mean exactly? Were you under the impresssion that Oblivion was being marketed as a philanthropic non-profit project and all the money they take fir it goes to help Poor Llama Farmers in Peru? And did you realise that the people who make such games get paid salaries and that money has to come from somewhere?

And what planet are you from anyway? If people risk their capital on something as uncertain as a computer game (i.e. a hell of a lot more than you risked to buy the game), why should they not expect to make a profilt if things go well???

Now I agree that it is a shame that they have not released the plug-in code (I do not even think it is good business, but then I am not one of Bethesda's investors) but the basic notion of charging for content is just fine by me.

Because they're NOT continuing to work. The fact that they're releasing the official mods so soon after the game release proves that very little, if any, work has been done since the game was finished. The stuff you're paying for was deliberately left out of the game, so they could sell it to you later.

My disagreements with the capitalist system of profit and reward are not relevant to this discussion. Suffice to say, I am sure that Bethosoft have made a hefty profit on the game already, without milking it.



It means that for Morrowind Bethesda were excellent at providing the tools the modding community needed (as far as I am aware - I never heard any complaints), and to deliberately withhold them in order to exort more money from people who would have, for free, made the products they are selling, makes them sellouts. There are worse words I could use to describe those but this is a family place, so I shan't mention them.



My grasp on the economics of gaming-making are quite sufficient, thank you. But let me point your attention towards Guild Wars. It has bucked the trend of MMORPGs and not charged subscription costs - and its one of the most popular games of its type running today. It has servers that have to be maintained, and new content is added fairly regularly, yet they seem to manage without a weekly charge. If the Guild Wars company, who has a much larger drain on monetary resources than Bethesda, can make do without milking money out of customers, why can't Bethsoft?



Earth, third planet from the Sun. What that has to do with this debate is unclear, so I'll assume it was needless trolling. And to answer the rest of your question, I don't mind that they make a profit (too much), but to do this is ridiculous. They are stifling a community which they, thanks to Morrowind, created, and demanding more money for products that others could and would have made for free. So covering the costs they are running developing this new content is hardly the best argument for developing the plugins in the first place, is it? And, might I point out, Morrowind had official plugins, which were free. They have turned their backs on community and embraced the marketting men and accountants (which were probably hired from EA).

If you wish to continue debating this, please do not use trolling language. If you are unsure what trolling langauge is, please read the Posting Don'ts thread, pinned at the top of every page.

You know, I would pay the price of buying Oblivion CE again just to shut you whiners up. I'm sick of people complaining about Bethesda wanting to make a little bit of money for their work. They're a company, not hobbyists for this, they have needs other than just wanting to release something. And $2 REALLY isn't that much to pay for something -_-;

No, $2 isn't all that much... I spend that much on lunch every day. But you're also not getting very much in exchange for that $2. We're not talking about full expansions here, just little bits of content that were pulled from the basic game to make a little extra money. Or, in the case of one of the announced ones, just another generic house mod like all the billion other ones out there.

And like I said, the fact that they're being released so soon suggests that there isn't all that much work involved.

It's sickening. And they've just purged the forum of almost every dissident, so everything looks peachy to prospective buyers now.



Yeah, until they do it again. And again.
But mostly, it's the principle. That they have the audacity to yank something from the game to resell a week later is simply revolting.

You ever consider that perhaps these things were always being reserved for plugins? So there would be downloadable content to be release in installments, while they take the traditional break after a game goes gold and for sale. You do understand that they dont have time to sit around during the final months before release to make tons of original mods. The last few weeks are spent polishing the content already in the game and they are usually stuck pulling unpaid overtime to meet deadlines. The decision to make the plugins that are comming plugins instead of ship with release was probably made a LONG time ago. When these three are released then expect to see some new stuff. As I said the content was more then likly planned to have been plugin content from the beginning. Also if you notice the plugins for morrowind stopped 6 months after release. There were no more official plugins. While most of them were pretty much pointless, I would expect for there to be some decent plugins down the road.

Seriously had they released a new faction or something you guys would STILL be whining "They should have included this with the game I shouldnt have to pay 2 dollars. This is something major to hold out on us they are such sell outs." Its probably better that they saved a few MINOR things for initial official plugins. As I have said these three plugins announced were probably created from the get go with the idea of saving them for plugins in mind so they would have time to work on more content with out being rushed by the community. If they had waited 2 months you would still have people complaining saying "Whatever happend to the Official Mods Bethesda promised us." So seriously just chill out.. if you dont like the plugins dont buy them. I dont see them releasing these plugins more then once every 2 weeks or so and at that rate I used to pay more on crappy MMORPGs for the past 6 years..

That's actually not true: commercial software projects usually end with a reasonably long period in which bug fixes aren't really being taken, because the bugs are minor and fixing a bug often causes another. Plus, once they reach RTM, it still takes a long time for the CDs to be pressed and make it out to the public.

So, in reality, they've had plenty of time to write these plugins.

If they had put out a half-finished game, and were then selling the patches, yeah, that'd be bad. But in this case, they're selling little extras that weren't part of the game you paid for. And if my $1.99 here and there means that Beth can afford to keep putting out higher quality mods, I'm all for it.

Of course they were. They announced the horse armor idea as an official plugin before the game was even released.

But the question is why is it a pay-to-download mod, and not in the game where it should be? Why was a basic idea like this set aside for future profit-making?



No I wouldn't be. I happily paid the $5-10 for the Neverwinter Nights official mods, because they added substantial content that was clearly different from the basic game. $5 for a separate storyline is very different from $2 for a feature that should've been in the game already.


But they're still not very substantial in content. These are things that could easily have been added to the basic game, but were intentionally set aside for extra money.



But that's exactly what it is. Horse armor is just such a common-sense thing that it should've been in the game already. But they released the game unfinished, and now expect us to pay more money for the features we should have.

And I won't be at all surprised if future official mods include things like the missing weapon types.

the first thing i need to say is if a modder could get paid for the long hours spent on a something that is not even worth it would he? i see it this way the $2 is just paying for the coffie that the gut who made the thing has most likely downed

[quote name='Peregrine' date='Apr 5 2006, 06:42 PM' post='137122']
[quote] No I wouldn't be. I happily paid the $5-10 for the Neverwinter Nights official mods, because they added substantial content that was clearly different from the basic game. $5 for a separate storyline is very different from $2 for a feature that should've been in the game already. [/quote]


I really doubt that. Think about it.. If they had 2 weeks after the release of the game released an entire new town, or a new faction with a whole slew of new quests. You would be sitting here right now saying that this soon after the release of the game it means it had been completed before release. Your upset because they didnt just include them in the game. But when you design something with the SOLE idea of making a plugin later.. So you HAD some plug in material after the release when you wouldnt be able to author new ones you dont just randomly say "Oh this should just ship with the game!". If the plugin was reserved from the START of its creation as a plugin and not as shipped content, there is absolutly no reason to change the plans for that. You make my point for me, it was such a small matter it was probably put aside and mostly forgotten. Had it been something major like a faction, a town or a series of quests. Then maybe they would have reconsidered thinking "Well the game needs more quests." This was not the case. I really dont see how it matters one way or another. I spent the 2 bucks, and I dont feel bad about my purchase one little bit. You will most likly get your substantial content here in a month or so. The Oratory plugin looks like it might be a small-medium series of quests in order to restore it.

But remember, that's $2 per download. In a couple hours, the pirated version someone posted here hit over 400 downloads. So there's a pretty significant audience for these things, and they're doing better than just "paying for coffee".



Probably, just because of how quickly it was rushed out. But if there was some substantial content in that download, I'd see it a lot differently.


That's exactly my point. Horse armor is a common-sense thing that should've been included in the game. But months ago, they said they're keeping it as a plugin thing. They intentionally pulled out a feature with the intent of selling it later. This is greed, pure and simple.

LOL, Well I dont suppose there is any point in argueing. I doubt I could get you to change your mind, since we are both obviously set in our oppinions. I just hope that a few months from now the plugins add more then just horse armor and what not. I certainly wont wanna keep paying 2 dollars for pointless little more or less decorative features. But for now I see the reasoning behind it, Personally Id rather get an expansion pack.

I was hoping the first plugin would have made a quest line where you rebuilt Kvatch, and become the Count or Countess. It really seems as though Kvatch had been under utilized, and I had thought that maybe they had saved it for a plugin.. Though that ended up being horse armor lol.

Hey hey,

Well this ends up being quite a bummer, just because this is the scheme they are putting down as of right now to pull in revenue and if it succeeds it will encourage this type of activity further and it does not less work will be done on future additions. All around a bad idea since there are a great number of features left out of the game as is for those of playing this on the PC. As in the entire interface and feel of it was geared to console and nothing has still been done about that besides from the community of which I am greatly appreciative of.


Bravo to the modders who toil for hours and share their work so we can enjoy the game more.


I think as time goes on if we just gain a loose method of organization as far as community mods regarding compatibility we will slowly no longer need these big publishers and instead of bookmarking the official site for patches and updates we can just bookmark the community site and say to hell with marketing schemes intentionally downgrading products to later on release the "full version" or "updated version" or "new and improved version" yada yada and so forth.

Right now between hardware and software the industry is so transparent with this basic approach.


I can tell you though it usually never has a damn thing to do with developers or the game makers themselves. Almost any creator does it for the love. It is when it is yielded to our wonderful cousins in the $$ game that it becomes convoluted. I wish as I am sure many do we could bypass these men and women altogether. Going to take a large movement for this and not just complaints about whether it is bull ****.

peace out ya all,
runicNomad

Hmmmm... well i didn't get into the morrowind community until late but when i did i was amazed at the sheer size of some of the plugins people where making for the game, some people where making plugins from scratch meshes and everything and what amazed even more was the fact that they didn't want any money for it after all that, but moders made plugins like that coz they wanted other people to enjoy what they have created and only asked for credit for it if it was re-used...

The fact that bethesda has decided to charge makes sense but enoyed becuase the fact that they held the content from the game itself when creating it. i would just like to point out that the cheapest charge on file planet is $3.33 a month to download what i want... hmmm i always thought that that was a ripoff making me pay a month to download morroiwnd plugins but looking at the price of a single plugin on bethesdas site... id probably sign up.

And besides how often does your horse get killed and do you really wanna make it look pretty, theres plenty of houses to buy in the game and plenty to download for free, and im not sure what the other one is but im not a mage so i dont care.

I have been a member of fileplanet for years and have never paid a cent. I can download whatever I want. Who says you have to pay them? Don't believe their crap.

Hmmmmm.... the payment might be new but everytime i go to subscribe it comes up with billing options.

http://www.fileplanet.com/subscribe/subscribe.shtml

I am aloowed to post that right. slightly new see and have only read the rules once.

No it's fine you can put that up there.

All you have to do is register your account then click on the file you want and wait for the free public servers to appear. Though it seems the wait time on some of the new files are pretty long.

I don't mind that Fileplanet is charging customers for good servers, I think it's fair. But they should not be sods and make out like there is no other choice. That's just really lame.

Well .. there are plenty of new (free) mods made by the community already. There's even one called 'Weather Wizard' which has voice acting for its dialog... Bethesda is slow with their paid stuff. I think they're out partying too much (I'd probably be doing the same)

Oblivion mod site

If I could have paid a couple trivial amounts of $2 here and there to keep Looking Glass Studios afloat, or one of the million other great game companies that have died I would do it in a heart beat. Excellant Job, Bestheda, making a better business model. After all, next year's madden still costs $50 just like oblivion and probably cost about $2 million, if that to make. Oblivion probably budgeted anywhere from 15-25 million.

Nobody's making you pay it.

You are looking at this from an accounting point of view, just like they did. They saw a huge community which they had helped to create, and saw dollar signs. Screw their business model, I want a development company who puts gamers over squeezing that extra bit of money out of them.

And I'll echo Peregrine, had this been a big, substantial plugin with lots of content (the idea of having a Kvatch Rebuilt quest is a class idea, I'm sure it's on their list) I'd have been more than happen to pay for it. But for this puny content, made before or after the game was finished irregardless, I object to paying for it at all. Morrowind's official plugins were all free, why shouldn't these be? Oh yes, that's right - their better business model.

And by the way, you mention Looking Glass Studios. I'd have liked them to have stayed afloat as well, but unfortunately they didn't. And it seems that Warren Spector got bitten on the ass when he totally sold out to the accountants and made a weak, watered down Deus Ex 2, which consequently did badly in sales. Goes to show, if you cultivate a dedicated community for your games, it pays not to spit in their faces. Which is exactly what Bethesda has done, and purging the official forums of members who objects to this is even worse than that.

Click on Login Now above those billing options - it's for both logging in and registering as a new user. Sneaky

Click on Login Now above those billing options - it's for both logging in and registering as a new user. Sneaky
[/quote]

wow thanx for that... ive already had a little play on the site but how do i get to the summit and the downloads.

Is there an oblivion page on there up yet and can i view that as a member now or do i have to join that as well

Quite frankly I couldn't care less about a few crappy mods with subpar content. They're not forcing you to buy it and this isn't stuff that's necessary to play the game. I wouldn't say its stuff that should have been within the game already either -- it's horse armour for god's sake...big whoop de doo.

The mods they made for Morrowind, all 8 of them, are relatively crap and useless any way. I don't understand why people are making a big deal about how Bethesda made free mods for Morrowind; how many people actually used them?

I think all of the above is a non-issue; if you're complaining about that then you're whining in my eyes. Sure you can say you won't buy the official plugins, but to be writing big essays about how Bethesda have sold out is pretty much useless.

For me the only issue here is the fact Bethesda are holding out on the necessary author tools to make similar mods. That's the bad thing.

*Waves* I used them Admittedly, for all of five seconds - "Wow, I can get a pop-up that says I've entertained the patrons!" - but it's the principal of the thing. And fair enough, no-one is forcing me to buy them, but as you say, they are withholding the tools necessary for modders to make their own stuff. And they are doing it for all the reasons I and others have mentioned.

I'll stop now, lest I be accused of writing a big essay

I think you're forgetting that this is a corporation, not a charity. Also, you're right, Warren Spector "sold out" when he made Deus Ex 2, but the game company he originally worked for, Ion Storm, is gone. Man, I know if I was out of work, and no longer able to do the things I'd love, I would hand over my projects and paycheck to some other guy in a heartbeat, if it was in favor of standing up for my "principles." Seeing somebody else develop the sequel to my IP, yeah, that feels REAL great. Ask John Romero.

The game industry is extremely tough right now, and while game production costs have been steadily rising into 8 digits, we're still paying $50 for great games like Oblivion. Sure, that's a lot of money, I agree, but we were paying $50 8 years ago, when $50 was worth about $55.

If you think I'm spewing crap, you better catch up on some reading.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/9/4
http://www.gamasutra.com/

Nobody's making you pay it.

Hmmm . . . .

Great marketing idea.. but the principle irks me. Here we have what i feel is a stellar immersive rpg with several game immersion issues that break the flow of play. My intention is not to look at the negatives but to point out that they seem quite capable of producing pay for play mods but are still lacking fixes to issues that should have surfaced during any self respecting beta test. I for one refuse to pay for any new content untill they address some of the more glaring issues that are so valiantly being tackled by the unpaid modding community. The fans of eldar scrolls are going the extra mile to make an already excellent game more playable and less buggy. Do i see any of them charging me to download thier product. no. to bethesda , fix the game before you sell new stuff.

Nail on head, totally agree.

Bring back Socialism

I don't have a problem in principle with Bethesda making extra content available and charging for it - I imagine that Oblivion's development costs were astronomical and well over budget, and if there is to be another TES game Bethesda need to make enough of a profit to keep their investors happy.

However, the way Bethesda have handled this so far is excruciatingly poor marketing, and not good for business in the long run. It is always more cost-effective to retain existing customers than to attract new customers to replace the ones you've lost. Alienating their fanbase and their modding community is bad business.
If Bethesda had charged an extra 2 quid for the collector's edition and included a code for a free horse armour download there, would anyone have complained? I don't think it would have provoked quite the same hostile reaction.

If Bethesda had announced that work on a patch was going on and the issues which were going to be addressed in this patch it would have mollified a lot of people, IMO. However, I haven't come across any such announcement.
The nif exporter is another such issue - it would be nice if an announcement were made as to when a nif exporter might be forthcoming, or if not, why it can't be released.
Basic customer care and after sales service, IMO. And ATM, that seems to be lacking.

However, releasing a commercial add-on without addressing those concerns first (or even at the same time) is bound to make a lot of people feel like cash cows rather than customers. And I suspect that's what's behind a lot of the unfavourable reactions.

I know it seems like it's taking forever for the exporter and other things to come out for the modding community. But really it hasn't been that long. It was months before Morrowind were out. Give Beth a reasonable amount of time before flipping out about it. They do care about the modding community, or they wouldn't be helping the modders on the Oblivion Wiki site.

I agree it kinda sucks to pay for a mod that I feel should've at least been contained in the CE version of the game. But for the cost of a coffee, it's not 'that' horrible. Regardless of when the mod was made, 1.99 in no way would cover the programmers time or effort to make the mod. In a perfect world maybe they would just do it for the love of the game and gamers, but this has never been a perfect world by any standards. In a way, we're actually lucky that they're releasing them at all. Since they have other projects in the works and have taken time away from other things, just to give these to us.

Yes, I'm annoyed about all this as well, but sitting back a little and thinking logically about it, things really aren't as horrible as some people are making it sound.

IMO' the idea of downloadable content is a good idea
but the way Bethesda has gone about it just plain stinks .
, its like Valve releasing HalfLife 2 without the shotgun
then a few weeks later saying we made a shotgun if you want it you must pay .
You can compare it to as many cups of coffee , or other seemingly everyday items as you like
its not about cost.
Hopefully it s a one off just to introduce the Downloads System then they will get too making some good
stuff morelike mini Expansions at reduced price that add much wanted features or new story content etc
.. oh and a patch too but we dont wanna pay for that do we
(then again if its only the price of a snickers bar who cares --)

I understand where you're coming from, but nothing they're charging for is required. If they had left out all the bows in the game and charged you $2 to add them (shotgun analogy) yeah, that'd be bad. If they left out the main boss in the game, so you couldn't complete the main story line, yeah that'd be bad. But in reality, it's just some side quests and trinkets.

A game fix patch is surely being worked on, but there is a time frame before they can release it. First they have to identify all major issues that need to be fixed, Fathis anyone?, then they have to identify how those problems arrise, then they have to fix them and thoroughly test them. Also, you have to keep in mind that only the programmers can do that. What are all the level designers, artists, etc. working on? Mods.

I would point out that this is all Microsoft's fault and has nothing to do with EA. If the microsoft machine wouldnt sell their crap as unlockable/purchasable than we wouldnt be in this situation. I hate EA probably more than the next guy, since im from old school UO, but the blame should be placed solely on Microsoft.

What Bethesda is doing is a recent trend of immoral business ethics manufactured by such greedy american and western european companies who want money no matter what the cost. In this case Bethesda, who probably didnt put much thought into the 1.99 cost, which is an assumption that most of their gamers can use, or want to use, a credit card to purchase it. I point to Bioware as referrance to their lite-expansions that they developed at the least peak of the original Neverwinter Nights. While these mods werent all as professional as the 2 'expansions' they were still packed full of things to keep you busy for at least a while. As professional as it was delivered these modules were, and can be, found on pirate websites accross the internet. We are already seeing ways around the 1.99 price to download these mods, as people are creating their own versions, and it is only a matter of time before this progresses way out of their hand. While they are welcome to their own business ethics, once you start putting your finger up your customer's behind the customer tends to get aggitated at the moral value of the arguement at hand and resort to more drastic measures in order to combat the thick finger in the tiny anal crevice.

Valve, however, is a bad example as their publisher is currently EA and they release more mods than they do actual games. Our modding community has more skill than them idiots.

The example of ArenaNet's GuildWars, published by the now famous NCSoft, is a good one. ArenaNet, known better in their community as ANet, had alot of inner-discussion on the matter of how they would pay for the cost of running the game itself. The community is absolutely huge, spanning accross the world from Korea, Japan, America and the entire European Union and France. One release, thanks to their MORAL business ethics, can make a HUGE income for them. They expect a very large income from their expansion, GuildWars: Factions, due to such moral practices. The case made previous that everything comes with a price is simply an excuse. It is a CAPITALIST excuse. Yes, I agree with the latter author submitting his/her words to this article. This is a CAPITALIST mindset. Capitalism is not what it used to be. Capitalism, in modern times, is the process of earning capital by any means necessary. Perhaps some leninism could be worth more in weight than the pockets of gold they wear that will soon be empty by such cold and ill-thought practices of business. Time will tell. Yes it will indeed.

This is just the tip of the ice burg. If Bethesda continues to act like EA then I will be forced to trade in Oblivion while it is still worth good money to EBGames. While I enjoy Oblivion and will never trade in my copy of Morrowind, which still has mods releasing even after Oblivion is released, which makes Morrowind a money-maker today in its own right, I will not condone such actions or give my money to supply greed. My business ethics are unquestioned and I do have virtue, humility and honor. That gives me pride. I will not have my pride tarnished by one, or more, company's greed.

They can change their ways or be brought to their knees as they will lose the loyalty of the community they created when the time comes in the future for them to release an expansion or another TES stand-alone game.

"On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

Bethesda, Youve been warned.




In other news, I look forward to the release of Sony's Playstation 3. The day will come when Microsoft gets obliterated from the console gaming industry. On that day I will be very pleased. Death to EA. Death to Microsoft. Death to Bethesda? We shall see... They can edit their own forums but they cant edit the #1 modding site for both Morrowind and Oblivion's forums, nor can they edit this forum or any of the others. The only people who dont look into their game before they buy it are the 360 gamers, obviously, and children... Most of us are neither.

Of course EA is irrelevant. They were only mentioned because they do similar things, and have a reputation for releasing a patch and a tiny bit of new content as an "expansion" and charging for the download. Unfortunately, this seems to be the path Bethesda is headed down.

Sadly, most people pass on ethics for greater capital gains.

... And there you hit the nail on the head...." Nobody's making you pay it". I understand how the modding community is a bit frustrated about how MW offered all of its plugins for free, but the bottom line is... Businesses need to make money. Looking Glass Studios, Origin, and Black Isle Studios are all great examples of what can happen to excellent & talented groups of game makers. What ends up happening is that even though those studios made some of the most successful games in history they were bought out or shut down because of poor profit margins. I agree 100% that the CS was watered down because they wanted a way to be able to create mods and plugins that could not be created by the public. If this (or any other company or organization) cannot show their stakeholders that they can be VERY profitable after a 4 YEAR PROJECT (Which is a MONSTEROUS project by any standard!) then the game community can pretty much kiss these types of VERY large, expansive games good-bye. Remember everyone that a project of this magnitude requires a ton of funding for quite a few years with absolutely no return (which = BIG RISK). If the investors or stakeholders don't get a good feeling that the project will payoff at the end the project (or awesome game in this case) would have never been created. Bottom line.... Yes it’s a bummer that they nerfed the CS and it’s a bummer that they are charging for official mods/plugins, but it would've sucked even more if this game never came out.

Where all this is very true, the point is that they are royally screwing up two of the things that made Morrowind so popular: the CS and the endless amount of content that it provided. I don't really see anything wrong with them charging a nominal fee for extra content, except when it is for a relativly useless mod. They should only charge for a package of mods or a "mini expansion" if you will. EQII did this, not that I'm comparing Oblivion to EQII or that I like SOE, and it didn't seem like too big of a rip off. Though, they did charge, in my opinion, a little too much for what they offered. Ultimatly, I wouldn't mind paying up to $6.99 for a true mini expansion but not for a single mod; that just seems outlandish to me.

I just found out the whole "1.99 for this plugin" crap today on Beth's site. It makes me sick, I understand the whole cmpany = profit seekers thing, but still those three things should have been put into the game from the get out, I mean it's been less than a month since Obliv has come out.

This just reminds me of EQII, sadly. I had really hoped that Bethseda would have backed the modding community better than this, this is just a knife in the back IMO. The three mods are worthless, I mean Peregrine was right when he said he smelled something rotten when the final specs on the CS came out. I was a little wary when Beth stated that the CS was availiable for download bar some minor tweaks and things left out.

They're turning into Steam, is what they're doing. Bloody effing hell... >_<

And what's more, do any of you have any idea how effing hard it is to find a decent flask of Cyrodilic Brandy!? I mean, one would think that the country in mind would have it's namesake drink widely availiable for consumption instead of ruddy mead and beer. Hell, if I wanted mead I'd go back to Thirsk for...aw forget it...

Actually, that's an insult to Steam's good name, associating them with this kind of dishonesty. Steam's patch support has been pretty good, from what I've seen. Updates are coming fairly frequently, like they should be. And even if things are a bit slow to be released (new maps/character models), you aren't paying for them. If they were acting like Bethesda, you'd have paid $2 for each of the new character models, and $5 per map!

But really, I don't understand everyone's hatred of Steam. Assuming you've got the bandwidth to run it (and if you don't, why are you playing a FPS online anyway?), it works pretty well. I don't see any additional inconvenience compared to other games.

Eh, I concede. Maybe stating that they're acting like EQII or Sony would have been more in line. Either way, I'm clearly frusterated with the whole "pay as you play" idea.
Added with the total lack of information concerning what happened in Morrowind (Caius Cosades is [by me] presumably dead) and the lack of dialouge choices ("rumors" now serves as lore, advice, and secret) as well as taunting has me in a sore mood. I still like the game, I just feel that quite a bit of content has been pulled for the sake of the Console crowd. Some of us actually like conversations with NPCs to last more than what we "need to know".