I don't know if anyone else has received this in the mail, but my hubby Cain got 2 free game guides and 1 extra disk with his subscription to PC Gamer magazine (which comes every month with a disk loaded with game trials & utilities) and on the disk was a download of the Morrowind mod Giants Ultimate 2.7.1 by Pumaman.

I am making a thread about this because I remember someone saying in discussion here that Bethesda ought to start recognizing the better mods made by fans for Morrowind and Oblivion and publish them with the creators name.

PC Gamer seems to have gotten the idea because here for the public is the most downloaded mod of Morrowind - so they say - and this is also wonderful advertisement for Morrowind and might get even a brand new generation of players for MW who had previously not heard of or tried the game.

I don't know if Pumaman is getting any money with this inclusion of his mod on the PC Gamer disk, but I hope he is - especially considering how Bethesda Gaming Company is now charging $2 for horse armor, and such. There was a guy at Ebay who was charging $10 a pop for sending mods to people that he didn't make (he was warned to desist.) But if the Bethesda devs are going to nickel and dime fans for the content they forgot to put in Oblivion instead of giving it freely like "Bitter Coast Sounds" mod, etc. for Morrowind; then why shouldn't all of us modders for Oblivion get on the bandwagon and make some money for our work as well. If the giving and sharing spirit of Tamriel is gone = let's ALL profit.

Now I've gone offtrack from what I wanted to say .... which is, what are your thoughts on this Morrowind player's mod being included on the PC Gamer disk?

Anyone who still plays Morrowind and would like to check out Giants can do so at this link

It's an honor.
If he gets the apropriate credit.

But I doubt he will get any money, since Bethesda forbids fans selling mods (thank god).
I don't think that any modder should get payed for his\her work. Do it for fun, or don't do it at all. However I do support donations. ''If you apriciate my work, please donate here (insert link)''

Just my quick thought.

Yeh, good thought HyPNO. I always loved the sharing feeling of community that surrounded the modder and modelers of Morrowind. I'm not sure if it's going to be the same for Oblivion or not. Hope so.

I suppose thats pretty good. As Hypno said, its an honour, the most important thing is that his mod has been recognised by a very well respected magazine. Still I always thought when I downloaded pc mods that the only reward these guys/gals got was the satisfaction of people having great fun with something they worked very hard to do. Something I think many developers of today have forgot.

Now Im not having a dig a Bethesda personally, but its pretty damn obvious the orrery and horse armour mods were plucked out of the final game and sold for a bit of extra cash. I imagine the wizards tower was too, but I let that slip since its slightly more useful than the other two. Still its good to be reminded that there are modders out there willing to put time and effort in for the love of the game, and not the cash. I hope Pumaman wasnt paid for that inclusion, but I do hope he feels very proud.

Well, I'm hanging out in the official forum modding section almost every day.
Respect is still there. Nope, none of it is lost. There are some threads that state that modders should be able to sell their mods, but they are mostly just complaining about Bethesda being able to sell them and modders can't. I've actualy read a post where it says that charging community mods would improve their quality Needless to say, that's rediculus, official Bethesda plugins being a nice example. There are a lot of better fan-made mods that are offering much bettter stuff then Bethesda can ever hope to offer. For free.

You know, it's really a miricle that we have such good and dedicated modders. They're not doing it for money, but for passion and satisfaction of improving someone else's gameplay. I wouldn't like to see the community being corrupted by money, it's perfect as it is. Although, as i said, i support donations. If you really like his\her work give a lousy 2$ to him\her, not for crappy horse armor

A lot people say that but I never believed it. With games they have a cut off point where all modders and modellers have to stop working and do testing and bug fixing or if they're not needed for that then work on something else. Orrery would be something which was planned near the cut off point but wasn't finished/started by then, horse armour would be the 3D modellers with a bit of extra time because they don't have as much work during fixing, then after release other people have time to stick it in game quite soon after release. Personally I am supprised they didn't release more crappy mods. But eventually they will start making good mods, it just takes a bit longer to realise that they need to put some effort in to sell it and for the team to run out of bad ideas, if you've noticed, with each mod they have gotten slightly better. And its better they are funding themselves with bad mods than bad games, some of them were quite good like sea dogs but most of them were crap.

HyPNO is exactly right, that there is a wonderful feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment - especially when other people enjoy a mod you've made as much or more than you do.
And there are other benefits that can be an offshoot of this modding experience that Bethesda has given us, more than any other game I know of. Some people get so inspired that they want to do this for a living.
For instance, I have applied to Full Sail School of Entertainment Industries here in Orlando for a Bachelor's Degree in either Computer Animation or Game Design. I am awaiting right now to find out the financial aide package I will get and may be able to start school as early as this June or July. My student advisor is familiar with my artwork style and is encouraging me to go for the computer animation, which is a part of the game industry too. I am leaning toward game design even though it involves a lot of math and I'm not great at math - but I'm pretty sure it's the hex editiing and prgrammer type math, which I actually have enjoyed the small ammount of that I've been exposed to. But I probably will wind up majoring in the computer animation because it will come more naturally to me. I can have the Bachelor's Degree in 19 months.
Graduates of Full Sail have worked at Madden 2006, Call of Duty game and some others. I am very excited and passionate about this and I never would have even thought of it if I'd never done modding in the construction set of Morrowind.

So, there are many rewards for modders. Now I've got to learn to model before school starts and I've finally found a great dagger tutorial for my 3ds max so if I disappear for awhile - that's where I'll be.

Good Luck Ibis !!!
I hope you won't be much absent for a long, but take your time, and learn the job properly. I also think it's a very good thing you want to master such a powerful tool like 3Ds Max. I hope we (mod users) will see some really great things made by you.

Work hard, and more importantly have fun !!!

You know what's interesting? We have a load of Voice Actors, Writers, Programmers, Artists, Thinkers, Leaders, and everything else (nearly) So Why don't WE DEVELOP our own game? I bet we could all work together to do it!

Edit: That was off topic, here's my thoughts on Giants: It's interesting, it's premium work and the guy SHOULD get credit for it. (Big time)

That's a great idea too, DarkHunter. I have heard of small games here and there which were made by small groups of people or smaller companies or corporations that they form for the purpose. I've seen some featured in the grading pages of PC Gamer from time to time. There was one that was made entirely by just 2 guys, but it took them a really long time at it, like 2 years or something.

It is entirely possible with the Morrowind editor to use the basic shapes, etc. of Morrowind but make an .esm that is entirely independent of Morrowind. But of course, Bethersda would own the rights to that because it would be their models.

But you are right, there are enough of every type creative person neccessary for gaming right here to create a game from scratch. Organization and communication would probably be the hardest parts of getting it started.

We have Neela's amazing skills with Poser (or whatever) to help us make new meshs/models

That is what people do with the big TCs, it is just a lot of people who get together and try to make a game, using TES as a base because there isn't many coders out there. 95% of TCs disappear because vital members become inactive, or lack support, or go somewhere else. The big reason for this is because everyone has different ideas and vision for a game, the successful TCs are the popular visions like Tamrial rebuilt and LOTR which share a common vision with a lot of people, if you want to make a TC then you have to ask "Does anyone else have the exact same idea as me?", if the answer is no then its not going to work. I'd quite like to make a warhammer fantasy mod where you can play as any of the races and behave just like a hero would in warhammer, and you can try to take over the entire world but the opposing forces would try to take back their cities and if you got too big then you would have trouble controlling your empire because of rebellions and your own overly ambitious generals. But of course that would take years so its just a dream

Well Pisces,

Do you think Vvardenfell will make what they're intending?

Thanks for the well wishes for school HyPNO and I just adore the new Avvy. So cute.

Yes, Pisces ... the best examples of the work being done with TESCS from Morrowind are Tamriel Rebuilt and LOTR. I heard somewhere though that LOTR ran into copyright problems and also that Tamriel Rebuilt are going to continue their project with the Oblivion TESCS. Don't know if that's true or rumor though.

I haven't been keeping track of LOTR to be honest, it was over a year since I last checked up on them. Tamrial rebuilt is doing pretty well, they are still making the surrounding morrowind province in TES3, and they are starting hammerfell (I think) in TES4. I gather they are almost done with MW, but I don't know.

Hyno: I'd imagine they will keep going fine as long as they keep their publicity up, they have to compete for talent with tamrial rebuilt. Though I don't know much about them, Silgrad tower team has done well.

I couldn't make an accurate prediction without having a big talk with all the leaders and read all the story, and even after that it would just be an educated guess.