Rarely have anyone been so fundamentally wrong.

I have played close to 200 hours of unmodded Oblivion. While it certainly isn't without its flaws, I loved every minute of it. I have discovered that I seem to be in the minority in that regard (that is, loving the game unmodded), but I can't imagine playing with mods. I don't know why, but it just doesn't seem right.

Sooo if someone doesn't enjoy a game very much, but finds mods that make it great for him, he shouldn't play it anyway? How about total conversion mods like Nehrim, is that changing vision of the original authors, or is that acceptable because it's total conversion? What if you mod the game so much that it's almost unrecognizable from the original form, thus becoming your image of what you'd like a game to be?

In other words: If someone buys a game for 50 bucks and finds that he's not really enjoying it all that much, he should throw those 50 bucks away even tho he can do something about flaws that bother him quite easily, correct?

Yeah, I loved the unmodded game as well. I've loved it even more with mods. There are some that don't really touch the 'feel' of the game's world at all, just make the game itself way better - like OOO for instance, graphics mods, or, for me personally, survival mods.

Three stages:
1, Vanilla with unofficial patch fixing bugs
2, Start adding in new feature mods you want, whatever suit your taste
3, reinstall the game (or learn to use MOM), and now try those overhaul mods with a CLEAN install of the game. (MMM, OOO, FCOM......)

Indeed. This crap about "as developer is intended" is like following a religious text to live your life...

It's made even more ridiculous by the mere fact that Bethseda has released modding tools and is actively supporting its modding community.

You can enjoy what you want, but no mod makes a game "better", nor are any "essential", unless they simply rectify crashes/bugs.

The whole PC gamer obsession with modifying a game is troubling. You don't read a book, and cross out words, or watch home movies on your phone during a film, so why tolerate brutishly inserted content in a game you consider a work of art?

Because unlike books and movies games are not static. They are interactive.

Dude... I would go with bug fixes only at first... Play through the game. It is fun, never-the-less Worse than Skyrim and Morrowind in my opinion... And THEN try it with mods, extra quests, and everything else to you tastes :)

Morrowind is for more the hardcore RPG players (D&D chance to hit-based and stuff liek that, which I enjoy a LOT more because it feels look in the end-game to have a feeling that you EARNED your place, and all that...) , and Skyrim, the more, FPS relaxed RPG players (not so much stat-based) but still an amazing game! :D

[Edit] I would say that Arena, and Oblivion are hand and hand, same in my opinion... But still great games!

Of course, Arena being more stat based, and Oblivion, being more FPS... but quality wise, they are the same to me...

Morrowind and Daggerfall are the absolute best you can get with The Elder Scrolls games, once again, in my opinion!

And if you DO decide to play Daggerfall, google Ancestral Ghost Daggerfall Setup

Good luck on your decision, no matter what you choose! :D

[Second Edit]

And try to play The Elder Scrolls: Redguard Adventures if you can find it... If you are mostly loving the lore though. GREAT lore in that one! :D

People do write fanfictions, create crossovers, or even other famous authors write other books from the same universe to enlarge it (see Dune for example.)

Still, you are utterly wrong. As PetrusOctavianus pointed out, videogames are, by essence, a completely different form of art from books or movies. Any game can be programmed in any way creators desire: There are games which are completely locked out, and those make it clear that creators do not wish their creation to be meddled with. On the other hand there are games like The Elder Scrolls which embrace their community and its additions to them, and are indeed better for it. If I have to pick between a game which is completely static or a heavily modifiable one, I'll grab the modifiable one, because I know that if something bothers me about the experience, I'll most likely be able to modify it.

And if all the fan additions are 'brutishly inserted content', why is it that so many famous moders ended up being hired by the very companies whose games they have modified and why games, most noticeable in the Elder Scrolls series, pretty much add content from the most popular mods to next iterations of their games?

What you are judging so harshly is, in fact, a unique interaction between authors and content creators. Authors can't be perfect, certainly not in something as dynamic as videogames - their community, on the other hand, figures out fairly quickly what have they screwed up, and if it's given tools to fix it, they will. And they will, of course, add their own additions, for everyone to try - like Frostfall mod for Skyrim, for instance, which tracks body temperature of your character. Basically, you can freeze to death if you're not careful enough, and it goes so well with the world of Skyrim - it's just dumb and immersion-breaking to listen to everyone talking about chilling cold, yet swim in water filled with glaciers in your underwear.

And the best bit is: It's all completely optional! And that's precisely part where I just don't get you. Why would you try to condemn something you don't even have to use yourself? If you want to play games vanilla, you can, nobody is stopping you. Fact is that those content creators you value so much clearly wish for their work to be modified. Who are you to tell them otherwise?

I am sorry, but if you don't get it, you don't get it. A game is an encapsulated work of art, no "modder" can "improve" on anything but technical issues. Any artistic content is by definition against the design of the game.

If you don't get why Spielberg doesn't do director commentaries, you won't get my point, but I am right. All you people just want sandboxes, not complete games. The PC platform has ruined gaming, as everyone expects everything imaginable in every game.

Noone demands Optimus Prime in Citizen Kane, or guns in Lord of the Rings, but yet demanding new textures, items, etc, in computer games is ok. Reeks of hypocrisy,.

I'd personally love to see Optimus Prime in Citizen Kane, or perhaps Batman in there somewhere.

There's no hypocrisy there, I personally play through the vanilla game first and yes, often times there are things that the developers screwed the hootch on.

I just finished AC3 this afternoon and quite frankly, the controls were a mess and there are the same graphics problems that games have had for good 6 years at this pint with people levitating above the ground in places.

And nobody demands such things in movies because you watch it for 2 hours or so, and you're done and yes, tons of people would demand such things if it didn't require getting the cast and crew back to film the changes. I personally loath and despise the way that Kubrick chose to end 2001 and again in The Shining, it added basically nothing to the films to change the ending in the latter and refuse to change the ending in the former.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I would cut out about half of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit as it does nothing positive to move the story along and wasn't in the source material either.

EDIT2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j2ghVpNCVe4