1) It wouldn't make sense to make a mod instead of a full game if modders had to "do almost everything themselves". That's the elephant in the room.
Sure some mods are very complex and required lots of work & effort. And it should hint at how complex building from scratch is.
Some modders could, and some do, go on to make their own game. But most won't and many of those who try fails to achieve big projects because that requires more man-hours. It ends up requiring a more productive organizational model which in turns, sadly, filters out some of the creativity at hands.
Given the (relatively) precarious work conditions in the average video game studio, saying developpers "don't care" or are "not creative", etc is wrong. People who chose video game industry could earn more and for much less stress in a different area. They do love their craft and when they don't, they switch away. There exists many instances of small subset of employee forming their own small studio when they feel they have enough experience in the field to regain control over creativity and while it's more rewarding when it works, it also is more risky and can ends up in that small studio asking for help from publishers. There's comfort in modding in the sense that lots of ground work is already done.
It relate to my width & depth argument :
Most developpers are frustated by the need to switch away from a feature because of dead-lines. But for any feature to have value, there needs to be an overall context in which those feature makes sense. I.E. a super genius smithy feature has not the same value within the context of an awesome RPG than it would have on its own.
So the "width" is required as a way to improves the value of every parts and the "depth" has to be cut many times to allocate the work-hours on the rest of the project. In virtually every cases mods are working on the rough edges of an existing project that already possess a sufficient width that enable the features/modification to have value. And that's why people who mods, mods, and don't design from scratch. Because for a given quantity of work and effort the value produced and the satisfaction they get out of it is higher than if they had to include the work for everything else.
And from scratch I include working from engine such as unity/unreal.
2) Quality of code. I agree with your statement for the most part.
But my point was that building a whole project from scratch forces a minimum of quality. You can't build upon crappy noodle code without adding more crappy noodle code to the soup and at some point it becomes insanity.
That's why modders can make crappy noodle code : because it's unlikely anyone will build upon what they did. And it didn't imply modders are unskilled developpers or always do crappy work. They still need to refactor their craft when they want to build more on top of what they did or accept the soup.
Developping game is a specific IT paradigm in which whatever is "expected to be fun" isn't necessarly fun when it's done and may requires so many consecutive rewritings that making crappy noodle code is sometimes the fastest way to find "what should be implemented" based on how "it feels" for the player. Because it's pointless to try to format an idea to high standard if that idea ends up being thrashed.
This constant prototyping plays a big role in the video game code being rough on every edges. Still need solid trunk and branchs if you want something to grow big. It's not aero-spatial engineering but it's still big IT project.
It's also different when you have to deal with dead-lines in a team (average case of game development) than if you are alone on your free time (average case of mod development).
Sure, but still there are more mods that fix the core issues of the game than breaking the game...and if a mod breaks the game just don´t use it, but I have no option to use a working siege AI if I don´t use mods...
I still don´t get how modders are able to improve/fix major issues while TW just "ignores" (yea, I know, they`re working on them yada yada yada) them.
Never forget, modders do this stuff in their free time without receiving anything. And they could stop anyday if they like to, but TW also could do this so...I don´t know...and this game sold millions of copies over a year ago and still we have this state of the game with like 8 months left according to TWs latest statement...
Either it makes sense for the game designer vision (I.E. after battle, soldiers are free to roam and this frustration has to be accepted)
or it's going to be reverted as a polishing work once features related to battle are all implemented.
It's a matter of accepting what one consider a flaw in someone's work. That said I relate to being triggered by some decision (I wouldn't be a code digger otherwise) but I raise my optimistic gaze up to God and remember that He opted for darwinism as a way to sort those issues through "Essential mods" / "Community Edition". Maybe it can be compared to fans critisizing the cast for a movie or certain scenes they watched 10 times and got angry at because they spotted inconsistencies/mistakes.
IMO early access tends to create those situation where the freshness of what has been done fades away while the expectation of more/better grows, leaving a bitter feeling to hardcore players. The benefits of first impression is diluted and ends up making it looks worse than it would, had it been published later on.
Banned
