I follow a simple rule.

First play through is done without mods and/or cheats on the exception of a few graphical enhancements (such as the dialogue window in FO3) and any game breaking problems.

Second play through I go all out.

It's all about the mods. They make Bethesda games playable and Rome: Total War awesome. What's not to love?

Matthew94:
#1 What do you think of mods?

Awesome, keep them coming. I love them ever since Half-Life, Opposing Force, Counter-Strike and all the rest there. They not only keep the game fresh - they change it and can turn it on its head or introduce absolutely new things. In some ways is poor man's game development since you can get some very nifty mods. And I point to CS and DotA (not technically a mod but it fits) - from some additional content for a game, to full games. Multiple of them for each title.

Matthew94:
#2 What ones stand out for you?

Well two immediately come to mind - both are ones I love. First, Fire Arms for HL - it was pretty sweet - two teams fighting which included realistic-ish weapons and damage. You get shot better bandage that or bleed to death. Also, ricochet fire - I remember I was mowed down by it after a teammate decided to rush through the end of the tunnel in front of me - I loved that, it adds an extra element of tactics and strategy fro both sides. If I recall correctly, you could also choose perks as you went along, say a medic perk or being better with pistols, that sort of thing. Second mod is Terran Vampires for Oblivion. Sadly, the developer disappeared back in 2007 and the mod was left in beta[1]. Anyway, it's an attempt to bring Vampire the Masquerade in Tamriel and it's pretty cool, too. It's not an vampirism overhaul, since it is a completely separate vampirism system to work alongside the normal one. You also get the clans (with jumbled names to avoid potential legal trouble), the Disciplines (same, but also some of the powers are redone to work better in-game) and the politics (not fully implemented, though). Some of the power are even impressively implemented - mist form allows you to slip though doors, for example, and bat form (done as a swarm of bats) allows flight.

Matthew94:
#3 Do you care if a game has modding support?

Yes, I'm much more likely to get it in that case. For example, I am not entirely sure if I would have bought Skyrim if I knew there would be no mods. The mods were the primary reason I got the game, because otherwise it would have been...let's face it, a Bethesda game. Although I did like Morrowind vanilla.

Matthew94:
#4 What do you feel about companies like DICE removing support from their games? ie BF2 could be modded, BF3 cannot.

Bad practice. I haven't bought BF 3, you know (nor any other BF game, for that matter, but let's pretend its because of the mod support).

#1 What do you think of mods?
I love them, though I tend to get wrapped up more in downloading and installing them than actually playing the game and enjoying them.

#2 What ones stand out for you?
Vurt's plant life on Morrowind is utterly gorgeous work. I never play without them.

#3 Do you care if a game has modding support?
Eh, not really. It's always a nice addition, but if the company didnt want to put it in there, I'm not miffed.

#4 What do you feel about companies like DICE removing support from their games? ie BF2 could be modded, BF3 cannot.
My honest answer for that particular circumstance is I don''t really care one way or the other since I'm not a BF fan. If Bethesda suddenly stopped allowing modding well....yeah, I'd be sad.

#5 Anything else you feel is relevant.
Chili cheese burritos.

You didn't mention Classic Doom 3.

You should.

Classic Doom 3 is what Doom 3 should have been, instead of the System Shock rip off it tried to be.

Matthew94:
snip

I have never heard of this "nameless mod" until now :O
looks great from the trailer, gonna have to check it out some time. I loved the first deus ex's mechanics, so i should enjoy this :P

OT: I'm not a big pc gamer, so there isnt many mods i have tried :X I do have the good system shock 2 mods though, the new gun sounds are much better. Although the comparison you have shown is out of date. People complained about the midwife having a face, so in a patch they removed it to make it look like the original.

Modding really does help keep a game fresh and alive, but as you said few developers support it now. But also as the technology increases the amount of work put into a mod does also. It is a far bigger undertaking now than it was 10 years ago, which is why I think we are seeing less mods.

As for favourites? I have 2 and for the same game. Roma Surrectum 2 and Lord of the Rings: Total War for Rome:Total War.

In b4 "modding is a betrayal of the developers trust!"

I first started to really mod in Oblivion and have hardly stopped since. I do not think I own a single game on my PC that I have not modified.

#1 What do you think of mods?
MUST ADD MORE!

#2 What ones stand out for you?
It's not really a mod as such but the Nexus Mod Manager is a godsend, but it's still pretty buggy.

#3 Do you care if a game has modding support?
It a bonus and increases the chance I will get it.

#4 What do you feel about companies like DICE removing support from their games? ie BF2 could be modded, BF3 cannot.
It's stupid, even just something like Forge for Halo 3 will increase customer usage of the product keep them playing it for longer and more likely to buy additional items and be quite an effectice tool for recruitment (Valve anyone?) No mods means the onus is on the developers to keep the game going providing new modes, maps etc.

operation flashpoint is a good example. get one of the latest overhaul mods for that and its graphics will bring your average modern computer to its knees.

1. I think they are a great way to extend the life of a product beyond its initial appeal.

2. The biggest mods I've used to date are the OMOD for Oblivion which combines 3 major mods together and basically adds hundreds of new stuff to the game, from creatures, weapons, armour, named bosses etc. It rebalances certain aspects of the game and it also makes other elements more "realistic" (like bandits not wearing Glass and Daedric Armour).

Then there is Oblivion Lost for STALKER: SoC. I'm not sure how it differs from Stalker Complete, but it adds tons of new stuff, mechanics and events to the game... essentially bringing it alive well beyond the initial products capacity.

There is also a mod that changes up how gameplay works in System Shock 2. I can't remember what its called, all I remember was that it was awesome.

3. Not really, the initial product should have its own appeal for me to buy it. The lack of mod support just means I will not play it as much (or as frequently).

4. I'm indifferent about Dice or EAs policy towards Mods. I've long since abandoned them as potential purchases.

5. It's another reason why people should be weary of Online only games. It just makes the lack of mod support excusable in the eyes of the developers. Not sure how Diablo will manage it, but with blizzard side servers being the only way to play the game at the moment, I doubt the players will be seeing any modded servers anytime soon.

Wow man you forgot a massive one!

Crysis Mechwarrior Living Legends!

From

to

This!

I almost always play through the game unmodded first, unless it's something halfway that I feel is needed like a UI mod or something.

Minecraft has some lovely examples of how modding can breath a hell of a lot of life into a stale game, I've just started playing again with reis minimap and mo' creatures installed. It's made exploring immensely more interesting again as I purposely didn't look into Mo' Creatures too much so that when I came across a bunny hopping along it was a lovely find. Then came across a big golem thing that chased me to my house on hardcore, only to find that it can smash through my door and almost beat me to a pulp where I thought I was safe, it made for a great gaming experience.
Minecraft isn't the game I've modded most, just the most recent.

A game which advertises easy modding as a selling point immediately gets my interest as I know I could potentially get so much more out of the game than one that's locked down, but I wouldn't buy a game solely on that. I adore companies that actively encourage it like Runic Games with Torchlight, giving out achievements for modding and even releasing their own official mods so give examples (like the ferret pet that's in TL2, has been in TL1 since it released).

It saddens me to see people not open to mods for reasons like "most of them are crap" and "it's not what the developers intended" which sometimes can be true but you're missing out on all the truly amazing mods that get the creators hired.

I gave up trying to mod Bethesda games a couple years ago.
Half the mods broke the game worse then Bethesda did to start with, and that's saying something!

Love the concept, hate the execution. I'm positive people have had better experiences with this stuff, but for me. If the game takes longer to get working then what I'll spend playing it, its not for me.

Fallout 2 Restoration Project is a good mod since it adds stuff the developers had to cut out.

oblivion mods are a double edged sword.
on the one hand you have improved graphics and new gimicks, on the other hand you have underaged half naked anime girls dancing and singing in japanese.

Mods are great for everyone.

- Modders get to show the world their skills and, if they're any good, they might get paid work out of it.

- Gamers get to extend the life of their games, tweak their experience to be closer to what they were hoping for, or play old games that are much easier on the eyes.

- The original game might sell more copies as a result of popular mods (see ARMA 2 being on Steam's "Top Sellers" since the DayZ mod became popular).

It would be nice if all publishers realised this.

I don't play as many mods as I used to now that I have a job and buy more games, but back in the day when one game might need to last me a few months, mods were a godsend. Max Payne was one of those games where you could play through the "vanilla", eight hour game once, and then go mod crazy and keep playing the game for weeks without getting sick of it.

I think that ideally a good game should stand on its own without mods and should have that longevity with its vanilla content.

However I am not claiming that games can be played forever without getting bored, you are always going to eventually want to move onto another game. In fact I love modding, there have been many times where I wished that I could tweak things more towards my liking, and in those scenarios modding support would be much appreciated. Modding could turn a great game into an even greater game.

If I might add I have always found it disappointing that consoles don't have modding support as extensive as that seen on computers. I hope one day that consoles will get greater modding support as I prefer console gaming.

I love all of the total war mods ive ever tried. Darthmod RS2, DLV etc. Most mods ive tried have been from total war.

Mods add in features that aren't available in the vanilla game, or change the original game completely. Which funnily enough is both the reason I think they're amazing and the reason companies are going to kill off modding. Removes DLC support if some enterprising character can just put his favourite faction into the game.

#3 & #4
Yes, I care. DICE actively killed the esports scene around Battlefield because of this.

The excuse is that Frostbite is an engine ill-suited for modding. So instead of the community creating the features necessary for there to be an esports scene at all, DICE promised us that they'd add these features in the default game. They neglected us, and made a console-port instead, because that's where the money lies.

DICE broke their promise, betrayed the esports community, and made sure that large scale teamwork-based FPS esports was effectively killed off. All other FPS esports is either small-map and/or non-respawn.

Funny how the biggest FPS esports was originally a mod, then DICE decides to go the opposite way and actively prevent that from happening by lying to the esports community...

Some Mods are alright I guess, but some modders and modding communities on the other hand should be purged with fire and salt.

Matthew94:

klasbo:
- snip-di-snappy-snoo -

Funny how Valve is making CS:GO to cater to the esports scene.

Maybe this is another reason for the games creation.

There's still a lot of bullshit with CS:GO, but at least the devs are listening, and there's already a community of people willing to play and mod it.

GO will supposedly have a bunch of new game modes, but what I've seen so far (and I haven't been paying too much attention because of other things in my life) have been the classic small-map and/or non-respawn stuff, which is just not my thing.

I LOVE mods. They're a way to change the game to something that each individual gamer wants, without impacting the entire community. I wouldn't have been able to play great games like Shadow of Chernobyl or Skyrim without them.

And, as others have already said, mods extend the life of games by years. I doubt the Elder Scrolls games would be anywhere NEAR as popular if there wasn't a huge modding community involved since Morrowind.

Kahunaburger:
It's all about the mods. They make Bethesda games playable and Rome: Total War awesome. What's not to love?

yup, if a game has mod support it will probably catch my eye for much longer than your average AAA dump ware game.

I love mods to death and it is one reason why i will always adore pc gaming.

#1 What do you think of mods?

- Amazing, I couldn't support them anymore unless I threw money at the screen.

#2 What ones stand out for you?

- as you mentioned the kotor 2 restoration mod, fucking amazing (match it with a couple other patches and that game is a fucking treasure chest.)

brotherhood of shadows mod for kotor is fucking huge and amazing also, i didn't rush through it but if i remember right it took me a solid 8 hours or so to get through the content..and for being fan made, it REALLY adds well to revan as a character and a character that is

and as mentioned by the OP, just about any HD graphic update...dat resolution

#3 Do you care if a game has modding support?

- oh yes, as mentioned, if a game has modding support, i will definitely keep my eye on it better than if it had not

#4 What do you feel about companies like DICE removing support from their games? ie BF2 could be modded, BF3 cannot.

- Atrocious.

#5 Anything else you feel is relevant.

-