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[Toaster]

Crossposted from the sales thread, but the 1994 X-Com is free at the Humble store right now.

[Rolan7]

For massive ease-of-use impovements, pick up XCOMUtil.  Installation is easy, and I swear it's worth it.
It offers various options for experienced players, but it also improves the interface.
And I suggest taking "new laser weapons".  They make the heavy laser an actual choice, if barely, and that's good.

[Egan_BW]

Openxcom gives you a lot more options, and some nice mods.
And it's open, so that's gotta be good, right?

[Rolan7]

...Openxcom is maybe better, though you might be overwhelmed by the amount of choice   The interface in particular seems a bit smoother, since it wasn't coded in the 90's.
And it still requires grabbing a legit copy of the original.  Which...  well, here's your chance!

[GiglameshDespair]

I would argue OpenXcom is a straight improvement over Util, with more options and easy installation of a plentiful amount of mods.

[Rince Wind]

It also has XPirates, which is an automatic win.

[jocan2003]

Woo, I finished Iron Man normal difficulty on my second try of the game.  That last area was terrifying and I felt like I almost lost the game 4 times.   

now that you are done with the tutorial, hop back on the long war mod!

[Levi]

Woo, I finished Iron Man normal difficulty on my second try of the game.  That last area was terrifying and I felt like I almost lost the game 4 times.   

now that you are done with the tutorial, hop back on the long war mod!

Haha, I dunno.  My roommate was playing it and it looked like it would take forever to finish.  I ended up deciding to play again, but trying to make it so I only have Specialists on my team for the laughs.

[Chiefwaffles]

Y'know, I'm not a huge fan of the way people call the bad game a tutorial for Long War 2.

1.) It's not. They're very distinct styles of gameplay focusing on different aspects.
2.) Yes, while the base game is definitely much easier than Long War, it's still it's own game. I think it's much better than Long War 2. To call it a tutorial dismisses the game as exactly that - a tutorial.
3.) Yes, Solomon did call Enemy Unknown a 30(?)-hour tutorial for Long War 1, but this was in a much more jesting matter than how lots of people say it. And this was for Enemy Unknown.

This isn't meant to be hostile or even provocative, I've just been always annoyed by those people saying it's nothing but a tutorial. Even semi-sarcastically.

[jocan2003]

Oh not at all for me, there was no negative insight or anything, its more because long war adds soo much that the base game *feel* like a tutorial, i really enjoyed base game, like i enjoyed many fallout games before mods got in.

[EnigmaticHat]

Sometimes the mod playing crowd gets a teensy bit snooty.  "Who plays vanilla anymore" -someone who would doesn't realize the answer is "most players," isn't bothered by the trouble of downloading and maintaining mods, probably recommends linux to casual users too, probably playing the game on linux somehow, weirdo

[Neonivek]

Sometimes the mod playing crowd gets a teensy bit snooty.  "Who plays vanilla anymore" -someone who would doesn't realize the answer is "most players," isn't bothered by the trouble of downloading and maintaining mods, probably recommends linux to casual users too, probably playing the game on linux somehow, weirdo

It helps that with any game most mods (even popular mods) suck... with varying degrees and types of sucking.

At least of the ones that do anything.

It is weird that popularity doesn't cull bad mods as much as it should... but ohh well.

---

Besides the majority of people who play mods simply compare mods to the base game in terms of "What doesn't the base game do?" rather then how the mod actual functions within the game it is made for, what it does to the game, and all that.

While many mod designers are very creative with various amounts of artistic and programming skills. A lot of them don't know a lick about game design.

[GiglameshDespair]

Cull bad mods?
How, precisely?

[Culise]

Sometimes the mod playing crowd gets a teensy bit snooty.  "Who plays vanilla anymore" -someone who would doesn't realize the answer is "most players," isn't bothered by the trouble of downloading and maintaining mods, probably recommends linux to casual users too, probably playing the game on linux somehow, weirdo

It helps that with any game most mods (even popular mods) suck... with varying degrees and types of sucking.

At least of the ones that do anything.

It is weird that popularity doesn't cull bad mods as much as it should... but ohh well.

I'm a bit uncertain, but what would you classify as a bad mod?  The first thing I immediately think of is a buggy, error-ridden heap, but those do tend to be relatively unpopular ("filtered out by popularity," so to speak) precisely because they do things like crash the game constantly or fail to perform in their advertised roles.  Otherwise, all I can think of is personal taste.  Not everyone plays games for the same reason, and not everyone plays mods for the same reasons.  Some people go ultra-historical, ultra-realistic, or what have you.  Some people love complexity.  Some people go for a power fantasy.  Some people are...ah, let us say they are somewhat licentious in their mod preferences.  A person with certain interests may not consider other mods to their taste, but a ultra-unbalanced BFS-9000 mod for Skyrim (for example) isn't bad just because it isn't particularly congenial to my sense of verisimilitude or fair play.

EDIT: Reworded a bit.

[Neonivek]

If the game is meant to be a sort of "New End game" or "Super powerful end game items early on" I have no problem with it. If that is what it is for there is no issue.

Heck your example of the BFS-9000 mod? No issue whatsoever.

I mean more what I always call "Special snowflake syndrome" with mods. If a mod adds in something it MUST be better, more special, and more amazing then anything currently in the game no matter what it is.

So if a Skyrim mod added, for example, enhanced martial arts system with its own tree, weapon types, and stuff.. basically to make it viable. 9 times out of 10... It will either be
1) Far too ridiculous to use
or
2) Far better than everything else that breaks the game's curve in two, shattering the game into pieces.

Heck if the mod was for allowing you to use books as blunt weapons... those books will be more deadly then swords.

It has nothing to do with "Being fair", but more to do with the fact that to me... a good mod takes the base game into account. Assuming it isn't trying to break the base game intentionally.

---

Basically it is why I like The Long War 2... It actually tries to take gameplay into account, its modifications are based around the meta and gameplay.

As opposed to "Screw the gameplay!" mentality.

---

Mind you this all excludes other types of Mods... which I kind of wish the Steam Workship would separate "Quality of life" mods, "UI" mods, and "Content" mods... I've used quality of life and UI mods and sometimes they are essential... But they are very popular and sometimes MORE popular then content mods. I'd love to wade through mod content.

Rimworld is the only game I currently heavily mod... But I've culled a lot of mods.