Post your reason for playing Oblivion!...

[Exodus]

This is why I played oblivion...

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s67/exodus212/ScreenShot3.jpg

I mixed and matched the black sword saint armour with the white and dual wielded some very sweet katanas. It was because of this mod that I enjoyed Oblivion. Of course actually playing and seeing your characters awkward movement/animations killed it but...it looks badass!

[Goronmon]

What was the mod and what did it do?

[Panthera]

Because I felt I was enjoying my life too much.

[Exodus]

It's hard to say anymore I just know that I was at the point where I had 20 mods runnings. A preset type of elf model that you could select from about 20 moon elf moels that looked good, the blindfold was from the same author..the only problem with th e oblivion community is they are the western equivalent of the japanese people who puchase and dress up live dolls...and have body pillows...they're perverted...they have 3d models of japanese characters with animations that are...and...they have outfits that...

I can't remember the mods and I wish I wrote them down but you can goto some of the major oblivion mod sites and mix and match. Hell I just found one that adds DMC animations...I'm almost curious enough to pull out fallout 3 and see if modding it up will make it bearable for me...if it worked with oblivion...why not fallout.

[Lithium Flower]

That is Black Luster Armor with Exnem's body mod, Deadly Reflex and Ren's Mystic Elves, along with DMC stylish animation pack.

Links:-
DMC Stylish (http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16459)
Black Lustre Armour and Weapons for Exnem's (http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10544)
Deadly Reflex Mod (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8273)
Ren's Beauty Pack (http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4431)

[BigJonno]

I love DMC Stylish. OTT, anime-esque stuff wouldn't be my first choice for medieval fantasy combat animations, but they're a darn sight better than the normal ones.

[Stoke]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Zatenks/box-l.jpg

I thought it was going to be as good as Morrowind. It wasn't, but it was still really fun. I didn't use any cool mods, bought it at launch and had played it to death by the time most of the good ones were coming out.

[Hawkzombie]

The boob mod. Plain and simple.

...Or that's what my wife would say if she were asked why -I- played :p

Honestly, I thought it would be fun, and it was, but I just lost interest, even with all the badass mods, and realistic boobs :p

[BigJonno]

The boob mod. Plain and simple.

...Or that's what my wife would say if she were asked why -I- played :p

Honestly, I thought it would be fun, and it was, but I just lost interest, even with all the badass mods, and realistic boobs :p

How long did you play it for before you lost interest? I've still not completed the damn game, but every time I fire it up and play it for a few days I end up losing more time to it than I spend playing most games in their entirety.

[Hawkzombie]

I ended up loading a lot of those side quests, and played through all the DLC stuff as well. I played for about 80 hours, and never even went to Kvatch :p

One of these days, however, I'll probably fire it up again.

[DarkDay]

I spent about 4 hours one day kneeling and jumping, trying to climb what I thought was an unclimbable mountain, hours later I got to the top, was stoked to look around, turned left and there right beside me was a trail.......I opened another bottle of wine.

[Hawkzombie]

I spent about 4 hours one day kneeling and jumping, trying to climb what I thought was an unclimbable mountain, hours later I got to the top, was stoked to look around, turned left and there right beside me was a trail.......I opened another bottle of wine.

I think we've ALL felt the pain of that one :p

[jpublic]

Because it was a fun, awesome game that ate my life for 100h and almost got me divorced?*

(*No not really, I just got in trouble with my wife.)

[Goronmon]

Man, this thread is making me want to pick up Oblivion (I already have it for the 360) so I can try playing it on my current rig with some mods.

[Karak]

With mods 100+ it was awesome.
Vanilla it sucked donkey dick and was far far uglier than I ever thought it would be.

And the music. I adore some of the tracks.

[TheKeck]

I really loved it. It was unlike any other game I'd played before.

[Hawkzombie]

It's probably one of the few games I've ever played that is only good with the proper mods.

[jpublic]

I strongly disagree there, HZ. I played it through without mods, and I had a blast.

A lot of the mods I hate anyway. Especially the ones that revamp the way skills advance or remove the monster leveling - bandits with Glass Armor may be silly, but I don't care, I had fun.

[Hawkzombie]

I strongly disagree there, HZ. I played it through without mods, and I had a blast.

A lot of the mods I hate anyway. Especially the ones that revamp the way skills advance or remove the monster leveling - bandits with Glass Armor may be silly, but I don't care, I had fun.

We can respectfully disagree :p

I played vanilla...HATED it. Seriously. Then I added a few of the overhaul mods, and it was like a whole new game.

[menage]

Virtual tourism for me. I could just explore the map for hours and find new spots. I even kept a log with places I raided already or not, and if I had to go back there. I was in it for the journey, not a specific goal.

Only Fallout 3 beats that in my book up until now. I'm sure PC games have a lot more of that stuff, but on a console it worked pretty well for me for the first time.

[DarkDay]

I played it 200 plus hours on my 360...dam walked so far out into the ocean I had to tape the controller down and go out for coffee to get back.
First thing I did when I build my new rig a bit ago was pick it up for my pc and upload mods..Wow...epic got more epic. The beautiful mod really helped, I think thats what it was callled.

What other mods were really good? I think im going back after this thread.

[ClannerDelta]

I strongly disagree there, HZ. I played it through without mods, and I had a blast.

A lot of the mods I hate anyway. Especially the ones that revamp the way skills advance or remove the monster leveling - bandits with Glass Armor may be silly, but I don't care, I had fun.
After the Fallout 3 thread... and now this?!

Why must you make me agree with Hawkzombie?! Vanilla Oblivion is just so terrible I don't even know where to begin.

The faces... that's where... holy shit.
Then the animations... those are pretty awful.
Scaling enemies and equipment. There's no reason for level progression at all.
DID YOU SEE THAT MOTHERFUCKING MUDCRAB ON THAT MOTHERFUCKING SHORE!?

That said, awesome platform for mods and Bethesda will always be one of my favorite developers as long as they keep creating such solid frameworks for modders to work on.

[TheKeck]

Scaling enemies and equipment. There's no reason for level progression at all.

I will always call bull crap on this. At the beginning of Oblivion I could get owned and had to be super careful not to die at certain points. By the end, I was a dealer of death.

[Narradisall]

I think the various other skills you pick up help that too.

I loved Oblivion, yes vanilla wasn't that great looking etc, but some of the story lines were just awesome.

I loved being able to go all Theif like and become the guild master. One of the most fun quest lines I played imo.

[jpublic]

Why must you make me agree with Hawkzombie?!


Hey, if you two want to be wrong together, that's none of my fault.

My first and only complete playthrough (over 100h) was with vanilla at release. I think the only thing I modded was the GUI to de-console it.

There wasn't any beautification mods at the time. They came after I moved on.

Vanilla Oblivion is just so terrible I don't even know where to begin.


See what I mean? Wrong. Oblivion, as shipped, was awesome.


The faces... that's where... holy shit.
Then the animations... those are pretty awful.


I have little problem with the beautification mods. Hell in 5 years time I *expect* the community to make it look better.


Scaling enemies and equipment. There's no reason for level progression at all.


Now you're just being silly. Evn with the scaling enemies, there was lots of areas you had to level up to handle.

The last time I played it I ended up installing some massive mod pack that was recommended, including OOO. I ended up quitting after 30h or so, but I *hated* the skill progression in OOO and despised the removal of scaling enemies.


DID YOU SEE THAT MOTHERFUCKING MUDCRAB ON THAT MOTHERFUCKING SHORE!?


Nope. Was too busy killing him, looting his corpse, and looking for herbs.

[Hawkzombie]

I have no real problem with vanilla, or people who enjoy it...but it was painful for me to play. Unless you leveled specifically what you wanted, and how you should, you could easily end up with a severly gimped character by the end. I was full on stealth, but after a while things out leveled me and whenever I couldn't do stealth combat (almost the entire time) I was out matched and killed in 2-3 hits. I got tired of it. Tried an overhaul mod (Think I did the one that combined the 3 major) and ended up really liking it MUCH more.

[Exodus]

looking for decent mods for fallout 3 any suggestions?

EDIT: Warhammer 40k Terminator armour? If they have a gun with a chainsaw attachment I think I just might...just might...be sold...oh hell and maybe a lightsabre and a jet pack/boost pack

annnnd omfg...

Batman(keaton)/Catwoman(classic)....

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10334

with glide ability!

[ClannerDelta]

I have little problem with the beautification mods. Hell in 5 years time I *expect* the community to make it look better.


I have little complaint about the rest of your post. As it's clear to me that you forgot your dementia medicine. :p

However, these mods were out just a little while after the tools were released. It doesn't take much time at all to look at a character and say 'Those proportions are seriously fucked' and just fix them. I'm fine with a company using a random face generator, so long as they spend the extra five minutes to trim the FAS kid off each face.

[Hawkzombie]

looking for decent mods for fallout 3 any suggestions?

EDIT: Warhammer 40k Terminator armour? If they have a gun with a chainsaw attachment I think I just might...just might...be sold...oh hell and maybe a lightsabre and a jet pack/boost pack

annnnd omfg...

Batman(keaton)/Catwoman(classic)....

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10334

with glide ability!

LMAO that's insane.

[TheKeck]

I think the only thing I modded was the GUI to de-console it.
Same here. Well that AND a mod that made underwater visible. And I loved it.

[MagGnome]

I need to get back into this game!

[Karak]

looking for decent mods for fallout 3 any suggestions?

EDIT: Warhammer 40k Terminator armour? If they have a gun with a chainsaw attachment I think I just might...just might...be sold...oh hell and maybe a lightsabre and a jet pack/boost pack

annnnd omfg...

Batman(keaton)/Catwoman(classic)....

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10334

with glide ability!
The Warhammer mod is awesome.
The drivable motorbike.
Marts Monster mod for Fallout
Those are my 3 main ones.

[jpublic]

Do have to admit I once loaded up the nudity mod in Oblivion for the giggle factor. I don't remember which one it was, but I would chuckle every time I stripped a female body and her chest went from A's to DD's.

[BigJonno]

Tailor Maid (http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5424) is a really great armour mod.

This (http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5694) is just made of awesome.

[Deadend]

Cryodil or whatever the name of the country where Oblivion takes place is damn good looking and has a great layout. The idea of having the main city in the dead center of the map and kind of visible from anywhere made it possible to have a great sense of location, while still having so much to explore.

[Hawkzombie]

Do have to admit I once loaded up the nudity mod in Oblivion for the giggle factor. I don't remember which one it was, but I would chuckle every time I stripped a female body and her chest went from A's to DD's.

Only reason I went with it was to have a more believable female body, instead of a male body with a bra on :p You can get other mods that adjust the armor and clothing to meet the size of whatever bust you install :p

[Karak]

Most of the mods I used were just to get Oblivion to run the way it was originally planned. Leveling, size difference with races and so forth. But I still remember one of my favorites was the one that fixed the Goblin totem wars.
Originally in Oblivion if you stole a goblin totem and took it to another goblin's area you could watch them battle it out but that only worked about 2% of the time.
The mod fixed that, had them gather for war and battle it out. So awesome.

[Hawkzombie]

Most of the mods I used were just to get Oblivion to run the way it was originally planned. Leveling, size difference with races and so forth. But I still remember one of my favorites was the one that fixed the Goblin totem wars.
Originally in Oblivion if you stole a goblin totem and took it to another goblin's area you could watch them battle it out but that only worked about 2% of the time.
The mod fixed that, had them gather for war and battle it out. So awesome.

...I need to reinstall this JUST for that. Wow.

[Stoke]

Most of the mods I used were just to get Oblivion to run the way it was originally planned. Leveling, size difference with races and so forth. But I still remember one of my favorites was the one that fixed the Goblin totem wars.
Originally in Oblivion if you stole a goblin totem and took it to another goblin's area you could watch them battle it out but that only worked about 2% of the time.
The mod fixed that, had them gather for war and battle it out. So awesome.

See, I've played the game for a total of at least 150 hours and I'd never heard anything about that. Oblivion is awesome.

[Lithium Flower]

As Keck put it, Oblivion was just unlike any other game I've ever played. I hadn't tried out the earlier elder scroll games but even with substantial RPG background and having dabbled in MMOs, it was such a unique experience.

1. Absolutely beautiful setting and open world.

In 2006, I had to upgrade my rig to max out the settings and see the gently swaying grass and trees as far as the eye could see. Rolling clouds, dynamic weather that changed with location and season. Over 4 years, three graphics cards and two processors later, it can still blow me away from time to time. I love that the graphics are so scalable. And once you tire of the vanilla textures and LODs and they start to look dated, there are mods which can crank it up significantly. The HD texture mods and crazy draw distance mods have totally upgraded my experience.

2. Radiant AI.
I guess you either love it or hate it. I frankly loved that NPCs had their own lives. It was such a different experience compared to the traditional RPG where an NPC would wait at a location until needed for days at an end, at all hours - time stayed still for you and him, even if the game otherwise had standard time progression. I loved that I had to manage my time - if I didn't get to the Bookstore before 6 pm to speak to Phintias, I'd have to come back the next day. I also loved that Phintias didn't disappear from the game when he was supposed to be 'unavailable' - he'd be getting drunk with his buddies at the nearby Inn or sleeping or visiting a friend.

All the NPCs had their own little lives, with their own little details. You could stumble upon Samuel Bantien's little affair, notice that he always spent the night at his mistress's house across the plaza, whenever his wife was visiting her family in Chorrol. A little NPC detail, that had absolutely no bearing on anything on the game.

In other RPGs, NPCs generally are always one-dimensional props unless they are part of the 'supporting cast' essential to the story.

3. Plot Quest, Main Quests and Side quests.

At first I thought that comparatively, the central plot quest involving the Daedra Invasion was a little underwhelming but then I approached the game from a tabletop D&D inspired direction.

Traditional western RPGs generally have one grand, over-arching plot that conveys the PC's journey from start to finish and flesh out the playthrough by a number of 'along-the-way', incidental side-quests. Oblivion doesn't really work well in this model. The Plot Quest is underwhelming and short, compared to other RPGs - it doesn't draw you in and involve you as much as you would expect and the Main Quests/Guild Quests are often just as substantial. There are countless sidequests, which have no bearing or relation to the Plot Quests or the Main Quests/Guild Quests.

The comparision leaves you a little lost.

Instead, I found that treating Oblivion as a mini-setting makes much more sense. Cyrodiil is teeming with adventure, and roleplaying opportunity. I stopped trying to playthrough the whole content with one character - it didn't make sense. I found it odd that the same character could have such diverse expertise - Archmage, Fighter's Guildmaster, Grey Fox, Dark Brotherhood topdog, Daedra Lord, Champion of Cyrodiil. Instead, I divided playthroughs between a variety of different characters. One defeated the Daedra, another pursued the Thieves Guild, yet another battled Necromancy, etc etc.

The Oblivion setting is so awesomely vast, each of these heros are a totally different experience. They settled and bought homes in different cities, according to their predelictions. My assassin hopeful had no interest in the mages guild or the daedra invasion. My paladin type wouldn't dream of joining the Thieves Guild or DBH or dabble in Daedra Questing.

I was able to experience the entire body of content, never needing to redo/replay anything. Bethesda was my DM, Cyrodill was my setting and I played many different heros embarked on unrelated adventures.

4. Mods, Mods and Mods!

A huge reason why I love this game so much is because of how much value and fun the 100+ mods I use have added. I don't use any of the level progression altering mods because I didn't really have a trouble with Oblivion's default set up. But I did add a lot of Immersion Mods that utilised otherwise neglected aspects of the game. Two of my essential favourites were:

1. Eat/Sleep mod. There is such a variety of food in the game, and owning a house and the quaint little Inns all over the place. All these things become so much more relevant once you add a mod that makes you need them.

2. Dynamic Timescale Mod. This complemented the mod above. What it did was simply, adjust the rate at which in-game time passed, according to your location and activity. So if you were simply admiring scenery or shopping around in a city, the timescale would slow down to 1 realtime minute: 5 gametime minutes. Likewise, if you were travelling, the rate would speed up to 2, or 3 hours per real time minutes, so that it actually took you several in-game days to travel from city to city, combined with the eat and sleep mod, you then needed to plan your journey and break for the night/day(when I was playing a modded, sun-sensitive vampire) at those quaint little Inns all over.


There is so much more I can carry on about, but I think this wall of text is intimidating enough so I'm going to stop here, but I've still got Oblivion installed and I keep upgrading it with graphical mods as and when needed - the original vanilla install is 4 or 5 GB, I think my Oblivion install directory is somewhere around 20-25 GBs now.

[Hawkzombie]

WALL OF TEXT

Huh, I might have to give it a go with that timescale Mod and the Eat/Sleep one...How was dungeon diving with the eat/sleep one? Do you lose stats or health for however long you go without sleep?

Give me links! :D

[Hotcod]

there was a thread in general gaming about oblivion and it almost made me pick it all up cheap on steam to replay using this list

http://sites.google.com/site/ballofflame/balloffire'soblivionmodlist

it's a mega list of mods that the writer thinks works well togathre and it's the most up to date write up of it's kind i could find... still very very tempted to do it heh

[Karak]

...I need to reinstall this JUST for that. Wow.

Ya. It was hard to do because sometimes you would be running from goblins the entire way but you could even set it inside a city and they would storm the city. To test it I set it in the city as my first action on a new save game. About once every 3-4 nights I would return to see warriors dealing with 10-25 goblins. Sometimes the goblins would win, other times the archers in the city would pick then apart but it was like a fucking real world.
Hearing people start screaming and the goblins "Bah Harg" sounds just made me laugh.

[Karak]

There is so much more I can carry on about, but I think this wall of text is intimidating enough so I'm going to stop here, but I've still got Oblivion installed and I keep upgrading it with graphical mods as and when needed - the original vanilla install is 4 or 5 GB, I think my Oblivion install directory is somewhere around 20-25 GBs now.

As was mine. I had 200+ mods running and merging was a bitch but playing OOO, MMM, Fran, Battlecry, Dragonlance, the old underdark Mods, and the DND creatures mods made it a whole new world. The ONLY thing I did not like is that Oblivion was one of those bitch games that if even the smallest thing was out of order it would corrupt game saves or not work. Then the old mmpeg. file issue that would crash every hour or so. FUCK.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I strongly disagree there, HZ. I played it through without mods, and I had a blast.

A lot of the mods I hate anyway. Especially the ones that revamp the way skills advance or remove the monster leveling - bandits with Glass Armor may be silly, but I don't care, I had fun.

Theif class is completely busted without mods.

The main problem was that the auto-leveling only applied to enemies. NPCs didn't level, and loot in people's houses never got any better. :(

[jpublic]

there was a thread in general gaming about oblivion and it almost made me pick it all up cheap on steam to replay using this list

http://sites.google.com/site/ballofflame/balloffire'soblivionmodlist

it's a mega list of mods that the writer thinks works well togathre and it's the most up to date write up of it's kind i could find... still very very tempted to do it heh

I'd love to see someone take that list and just do the 'Essential' parts, and tell us how they work together.

[ClannerDelta]

I'd love to see someone take that list and just do the 'Essential' parts, and tell us how they work together.

I've been using most of the essentials and a few of the others and it works great. There's a link on that page that explains in which order you should load them. So that you don't run into any real issues with compatibility or instability.

Can't remember offhand what specifically I didn't use and which extras I supplemented though.

[miah]

I played this game TONS on the 360 without any mods, but with all the DLC. I loved the game. The physics were totally broken, and the same voice actor over and over sucked. But still, it was a HUGE world with lots of dungeons to explore. I loved just walking around and having random encounters with black bears, evil people, and goblins.

[Daytime_Lantern]

Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

Grinding the same theif's den over and over for enough levels to take on the later dungeons. Trying to find exploits to take out the boss characters (ugh!) like running them through the dungeon and into traps etc. OR out of the dungeon into a lake and tricking into drowning themselves!

Yeah... good times.

[Karak]

Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

Grinding the same theif's den over and over for enough levels to take on the later dungeons. Trying to find exploits to take out the boss characters (ugh!) like running them through the dungeon and into traps etc. OR out of the dungeon into a lake and tricking into drowning themselves!

Yeah... good times.

Yep one of the top 5 mods ever made. I still like it better than the others of its kind, it just never gave me the headaches the other mods gave me.

I also loved the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Armor mod. Chaos armor for the win.

[jpublic]

Karak, I can't tell if you're actually joking, or just so insane you need to seek treatment.

That's seriously fun to you? Mindless grind and having to take advantage of cheap tricks and engine exploits?

[ClannerDelta]

Karak, I can't tell if you're actually joking, or just so insane you need to seek treatment.

That's seriously fun to you? Mindless grind and having to take advantage of cheap tricks and engine exploits?

It's not actually like that, unless you really want to sit in a dungeon and grind for no real reason.

Part of the fun is that you have some easy fights and some ridiculously hard fights. Just like in Morrowind, chances are you'll use a lot of different tricks to win. I'm not sure if "exploit" means what you think it means in that context.

Planning ahead is most of the fun in an RPG. At least for me. Yes, I giggled when I gibbed Darth Malak with 50 average mines.

[Karak]

Karak, I can't tell if you're actually joking, or just so insane you need to seek treatment.

That's seriously fun to you? Mindless grind and having to take advantage of cheap tricks and engine exploits?

:0 I loved it, did not have any of those problems, especially the grind. I am not even sure what that means in connection with OOO.
And cheap tricks and engine exploits...? I am being 100% honest when I say that the 2 times I beat the game I never had to use anything like that. In fact exploits doesn't seem to make sense in the sense that I never found any. No my OOO game was nothing but fun. I beat Oblivion 4 times. 1 with OOO, battlecry, MMM and about 50 other mods, 1 with OOO and MMM, and one with OOO, MMM, Fran, and Battlecry. All were insanely fun.
The OOO and battlecry and MMM version was by far my favorite.

EDIT: I keep calling Warcry Battlecry. Sorry guys.

[Daytime_Lantern]

Karak, I can't tell if you're actually joking, or just so insane you need to seek treatment.

That's seriously fun to you? Mindless grind and having to take advantage of cheap tricks and engine exploits?

Exploits are fun~! You mean, in FallOut 2, you wouldn't run out of the vault straight into the military base and jack a power armor at the very beginning of the game?!

Can't blame me for taking on a boss a few too many levels above me so I can get his armor earlier than was intended so I could run rampant of the lower level dungeons.

TBH OOO did level a bit too slowly, but you know what, you could mod and change that too!

[Hawkzombie]

I read the initial post as the reason FOR OOO...was so you wouldn't HAVE to use the exploits to kill bosses. Lord knows playing vanilla everything leveled faster than I did (in the areas that mattered...damn stealth) and I HAD to do stuff like that.

[Wasson_]

This is why I played oblivion...

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s67/exodus212/ScreenShot3.jpg

I mixed and matched the black sword saint armour with the white and dual wielded some very sweet katanas. It was because of this mod that I enjoyed Oblivion. Of course actually playing and seeing your characters awkward movement/animations killed it but...it looks badass!

WITH the hair covering the eyes too even.
/sighs

I rolled as an Orc. I explored and enjoyed the openness of the world presented to me spontaneously and with imagination. It sounds like you should have been playing FFXI...you would have loved it...all the characters look like that. Plus when they fight, it's almost like they're still standing still*

[jpublic]

I guess part of it for me was that the combat aspect was totally fourth place in the game for me.

I was into Oblvion for the exploration, the role playing, and the simple ADVENTURE aspect of it. The combat was an inconvenience that I learned to tolerate, especially when I cheesed out with my Heavy Armor+Marksman+Stealth class.

Making the combat more challenging is improving the wrong part of the game for me.

[ClannerDelta]

Making the combat more challenging is improving the wrong part of the game for me.
You are such a downer.

To an extent I actually completely agree with you. That is, Oblivion should have been a FPS where you didn't really have to worry about leveling up. Maybe something like Dark Messiah with a barebones "skill" tree you could invest in over time.

The leveling, the scaling, most of the RPG elements were such a let down. It would have been better, to me, if I could have just explored. However, since they did implement those things, I was happy for the improvement OOO brought.

[AversionFX]

I played for the open-world exploration. I like to roleplay in my singleplayer RPG, so a more "believable" world goes a long way towards immersion. There are a few mods that will equip NPCs based on their race, and that was (in my opinion) incredible. Rather than every single person using the same five weapons, you have a very wide range of weaponry in the game. A good archery mod, too. Default archery was incredibly lackluster, and so were the bows and arrows.

Easily my favorite series of weapon mods (this link specifically is for Bosmer, which includes new bows and also arrows). (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3128)

Oblivion was a great game to begin with, but all of the cosmetic mods add so much to the experience. Even before you start modifying the game's basic mechanics, or the items in it. Leveling mod, removing the enemy-leveling, etc.

[Hawkzombie]

WITH the hair covering the eyes too even.
/sighs

I rolled as an Orc. I explored and enjoyed the openness of the world presented to me spontaneously and with imagination. It sounds like you should have been playing FFXI...you would have loved it...all the characters look like that. Plus when they fight, it's almost like they're still standing still*

Actually, that's not hair. That's a bandanna thing over the eyes, like the demon hunters in WoW :p

[Lithium Flower]

Hawkzombie: Tesnexus.com is down for me at the moment, I'll try to dig up the links for you when I get back home.

There are many different kinds of eat/sleep mods (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13588), but the two basic ways in which they all work is by either penalising your stats by a set amount the longer you go without food until complete debilitation OR by modifying how fatigue works completely, by reworking it as a sort of 'energy meter' that is affected by sleep and food or lack thereof.

I prefer the former (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3927). It adds penalties to your stats every two hours without sleep/food so that you basically need three meals and 8 hours of rest every day. Over-eating/Oversleeping extends how soon you will need your next fix.

If you are a vampire, you don't need food but sleep requirements are not affected.

The Dynamic Timescale Mod (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26859) slows time down when sneaking or when in combat, so dungeons typically take about 3-6 in-game hours to complete. Dungeon-crawling ends up being a day-trip, when you take into account - travelling time, eating, sleeping, pawning off loot.

If you use fast-travel, the values are adjusted accordingly. Do not try fast-travelling from Bruma to Leyawiin, you will arrive dead from sleep deprivation and starvation. You will need to break up the journey to top up.

And if you're going to need to sleep, you need bedrolls and tents (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9187)!

Karak: Oblivion gets more prone to break downs the more mods you load up as you're no doubt aware. There are two mods that I know of, that alleviate the inconvenience somewhat. Both require Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10533) (NB: Use the latest beta).

1. Streamline (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10400): Does a lot of little on-the-fly graphical, vram tweaking that significantly imrpoves performance and stability, also has an autosave by interval feature.

2. Oblivion Crash Prevention and Detection (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282) - it will not prevent all crashes, but many of the most common ones and has a log that can help determine the cause of an undocumented crash.

It's also strongly recommended to use a mod manager of some sort. I can't function without Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097), but many other people prefer Wyre Bash (http://wrye.ufrealms.net/Wrye%20Bash.html) (no longer being supported, but the last release is stable and still popular).



I'll update this post later with links when tesnexus sorts itself out.

Mod Compilation Lists are a hit or miss with me. It's handy because it can point you out to mods you would otherwise never have stumbled across but every person's focus is different, as this thread itself demonstrates.

For many people, myself included, the combat/gameplay is much less important than exploration and immersion.
I love mods that diversify the landscape and climate (http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/other.html). The ones that update textures and LODs (http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/obliviontextureoverhaul.html). Certain (http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=717) GUI (http://btmod.beider.org/) and camera angle mods are indispensible to me. I love Immersion Mods, from little atmospheric details like feral cats in the back alleys and scurrying rats in the sewers (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=527) to City-Wide renovation mods (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513) (Beautiful Lush garden in the IC Aboretum). I do love MMM though!

There's a Crowded Roads (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18251) mod, that adds travellers, random adventurers, merchant supply trains, even prowling vampires (that you greet you as kindred if you're a vamp) on the roads.

I use my own mod for vampirism, which I haven't uploaded to tesnexus, but I will if anyone is interested. What it does is firstly, reverses vampirism - so that when you awaken after the change, you are ravenous and weakened, and are in top shape if you feed once every 24 hours. Each day without blood drops your stats until you are back to ravenous and weakened. When you are fully sated, you can regenerate up to a factor of 3. In addition, there is a basic level 3 Sun Damage on you at all times after the change. A fully sated vampire can because of the regeneration, withstand the sun for a little while in the early morning and evening or when it's heavily overcast. Because of the way Sun Damage works in-game, the intensity of glare adds or subtracts from the base Sun Damage value. Also, for emergencies, the bottles of blood you can find here and there in game, will satiate your bloodthirst.

[Hawkzombie]

Wow, thanks a lot Lithium. That was a great post. I'd love to try that vampirism mod of yours though.

Ugh. Now I need to re-install it :p

[MagGnome]

I should not have read this thread! The urge to install Oblivion is almost overpowering.

[Exodus]

WITH the hair covering the eyes too even.
/sighs

I rolled as an Orc. I explored and enjoyed the openness of the world presented to me spontaneously and with imagination. It sounds like you should have been playing FFXI...you would have loved it...all the characters look like that. Plus when they fight, it's almost like they're still standing still*

I couldn't play FFXI it looked terrible.

To be honest with you I thought the idea of a dual wield katana blind female elf with power armour was worthy of an epic anime heroin!

I blame the anime I was watching and the samurai movie of the wandering blind sword master at the time of character conception. Call it stereotypical but dammit I'm korean and it's the style that we like! At least give me the benefit that I didn't go over board and go for bondage strap armour ala lineage II because even I think that shit's ridiculous.

Besides, I think she looks pretty bad ass. Like the simpsons episode with the little yakuza fella in the white suit that they want to see do something and gets thrown into the house via a window and says 'forgiveness...prz'. :P

[Karak]

Karak: Oblivion gets more prone to break downs the more mods you load up as you're no doubt aware. There are two mods that I know of, that alleviate the inconvenience somewhat. Both require Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10533) (NB: Use the latest beta).


Sorry if I made it sound like it crashed alot. It didn't that much more than it does on its own.
I just used master resorter and programmed 2 of my own programs to do what OMM did until they came and improved it.

I also don't like mod suggestion lists either. So many different configs and such ug. It almost never works perfect. I always tell people to use what works for them. Getting deep into Oblivion is sort of like being in Oblivion. Your desire to add increases your CTD:)

[Lithium Flower]

Hawkzombie: Sure, whenever you're ready to install, shoot me a pm and I'll email you the Vampirism esp. It just a mechanics tweak which adds no textures or anything so it's only a few kbs.

Karak: I found a great collection of lists on the Bethesda boards once (I think), which instead of going for a 'recommended mod' route, went for a 'notable mods in xyz category' structure. So you had a 'Recommended Weather' mod list, recommended 'combat mod' list, 'recommended environmental mod' list, 'recommended texture mod list. And you could just pick your poison according to your preference.

Incidentally, the updated top lists feature on Tesnexus also helps sort mods category wise according to rating and number of hits.

I'm currently halfway through Mass Effect 2, and would love to go back to Oblivion and continue my accidental vampire's journey to Anvil. Maybe we could all playthrough simultaneously and share a screenshot journal of our adventures! I love Oblivion screenshots; whenever I return to oblivion, I set my desktop background to rotate through my Oblivion Screenshot folder. It's like a holiday photo album! :p