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Arrow wrote:
Assuming I've finished modding the shit of Oblivion.

What are you up to mod wise? I'm adicited myself to Oblivion mod forums since there's constantly great stuff coming out.

Mr Bean wrote:

Arrow wrote:
Assuming I've finished modding the shit of Oblivion.

What are you up to mod wise? I'm adicited myself to Oblivion mod forums since there's constantly great stuff coming out.

Off the top of my head, I've got the following:

-Oscuro's Overhaul 1.2
-Natural Environments 2.1.3(?, the one that came out on the 19th), using HDR version
-Weather Inside (if its raining or blowing outside, you can here it inside, except for places you shouldn't, like basements and dungeons)
-Illumination Within Revised (lights up the windows in exterior cells at night - churchs look fucking awesome)
-CaptNKill's LOD textures, Border Land Textures and No-tiling textures
-DarkUI mods with BTmod
-Well-used Map mod (color)
-The first three official mods (I get the latest at some point)
-Natural Faces (serious cleans up the face textures)
-Dragon Knight Armor
-Conan's Atlantean Sword (I adjusted mine to swing slower, but do a little more damage)
-Conan's Father's Sword
-About half a dozen house and building mods
-My Personal Chest mod

And I've got a few others installed. I've gone through a ton of others that I decided I didn't like. The next Oscuro's will supposedly add a ton of new content, getting a lot of weapon, armor, facton and race mods to play nice together. The graphics mods I've installed really make the world come alive. The LOD and non-tiling mods make the game look like a next-gen PC title, and not some watered down console port. The Natural Environments, Weather Inside and Illumination Within make the world dynamic and feel real. Once a dynamic interior lighting mod is done (and not that cheap Sunlit Interior mods), the only thing left to break immersion will be the load screens themselves.

The best part is the modders are really beginning working together (at least on the bigger mods) to ensure compatibility. Only good things can come from that.

Two I'm looking forward to are Kvatch Rebuilt (gives quest where you can help rebuild the city, and become the Count or apparently the head of a new factor or two) and another that completely remodels the imperal city to be more like the descriptions in earlier TES games (I wish I remembered the name of it!).

Got any recommendations for kick ass weapons, armor, places or environment mods?

Arrow wrote:
Got any recommendations for kick ass weapons, armor, places or environment mods?

I'm using pretty much what you have(Minus the armor and sword mods)
-Attack And Hide Mod(Makes sneak ala Thief, after you duck around a corner or go invisble, mobs will search the area rather than have the Thermal vison they have now)
-VA Better gold
(High quality Septim Skins)
-CM's Better Wine and Beer(Improved skins for the Wine and Beer ingame)
-Imperial City Reborn(Still WIP) will VASTLY increase the size of the Imperial City and the number of
-Epic Dark Brotherhood(Still WIP about 90%)
Improves the hell out of the Dark Brotherhood Santuary you get, plus adds a series of Epic quests for the DB.

More to come later, have to run and I'll split this when I get back.

IC Reborn! That's the other one I'm looking for too. Does the current version break anything?

Oh, and I've got the Parallex Maps mod installed (the Giga-pack one). Stone walls look super sexy now.

Arrow wrote:IC Reborn! That's the other one I'm looking for too. Does the current version break anything?

Oh, and I've got the Parallex Maps mod installed (the Giga-pack one). Stone walls look super sexy now.

Same here

Other mods of note
-Ruined-Tail(Compain Mod) has recieved rave reviews\
-Mighty Magick 4.2(Think less back-pedaling mages, and more one-shot Hadoken mages, mana regens much slower but all magic has been rebalanced to be more deadly/diffrent. Also adds end-game style epic spells(IE Rain of Fire, Thunderstorm, Cone of Cone ect) and rebalaces Conjured creatures so they level up with you. Some to a greater or lesser extent. Also adds "sustained spells" Spells versions that don't end until you run out of mana or cancel the effect.

Also want to add one more
-Vagabond's "Real" Katanas
Think katana's. Think very SHARP looking Katana's
http://vagabondangel.com/Oblivion/Scree ... tami04.jpg
Think very IMPRESSIVE looking Katana's
http://vagabondangel.com/Oblivion/Scree ... tana01.jpg
I mean, the thing just screams polish. Sad to say Vagabond is taking his time with these.
http://vagabondangel.com/Oblivion/Scree ... tana05.jpg

Those are some sweet looking Katana's. I'm gonna buy Oblivion tomorrow. It looks awesome but due to lack of cash i've been unable to indulge.

Would you guy recommend that i play it unmodded first? If not what mods are best for a new player?

Lord Pounder wrote:Would you guy recommend that i play it unmodded first? If not what mods are best for a new player?

First off, any mod that fixes the levelling system; the system for levelling your character and matching the environment to your level is badly broken in the vanilla version. In vanilla the best way to build a great character is to pick the skills you don't want, i.e. you build up to level 100 in blade before you even get to level 2. Also, in vanilla, your character actually gets relatively weaker the higher his level--not because you start to get more and more epic quests, but because every jackoff bandit lurking in the swamps starts carrying Daedric weapons and armor.

After those essential modifications, anything else you want is just gravy.

I'm currently running 72 mods. I think I search and download more than I play.

Pablo Sanchez wrote:

Lord Pounder wrote:Would you guy recommend that i play it unmodded first? If not what mods are best for a new player?

First off, any mod that fixes the levelling system; the system for levelling your character and matching the environment to your level is badly broken in the vanilla version. In vanilla the best way to build a great character is to pick the skills you don't want, i.e. you build up to level 100 in blade before you even get to level 2. Also, in vanilla, your character actually gets relatively weaker the higher his level--not because you start to get more and more epic quests, but because every jackoff bandit lurking in the swamps starts carrying Daedric weapons and armor.

After those essential modifications, anything else you want is just gravy.

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul fixes those problems (makes it more like Morrowind, actually, in that you can get your ass handed to you in lower levels), and its the most popular rebalance mod.

I highly recommend Natural Environments, since it adds a lot of ambience to the world. I also recommend any mod that improves the LOD textures (you see exactly why once you get outside the first time you play). CaptNKill's mod can be found over at nvnews.net, in their forum in Games->Oblivion subform (Link).

The official forum also has a thread on highly recommend mods: A List Thread

Seconded, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is a great improvmenet of the game.
Bandits come in GROUPS, for example instead of somehow running into a full-ebony plate bandit at level 25(Vanilla), instead you'll run into a group of six inculding a caster, and yes the other bandits will run interference for the caster. And yes they will still all be using crap bandit weapons. Meanwhile you might also run into much better equiped maurader band if you go far enough into the hills. Or even worse a kitted out Mercenary band. Who might not be hostile, or maybe they are. Either way they stand a good chance of putting you on your arse.

Likewise CaptNKills LOD mod EXTREMELY improves how the ground looks at a distance, Normaly over 200 meter the ground turns a super-ugly shade of crap. With his mod it looks much better, and for only a two FPS avarage hit.

And third Natural enviroments, what's not to love? You get improved weather patterns. More varried effects. And storms on level with Morrowind, IE storms you WANT to take cover from.

Please don't take this as trolling, but I do find it ironic that there are so many Oblivion mods out there specifically designed to make the game.. more like Morrowind.

Ah well.. I'm not so upset that my PC is a PoS unable to play Oblivion anymore. *slinks away to play Morrowind*

Please link to the mods

Faram wrote:Please link to the mods

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

CaptNKill's Landscape Texture Mods

Natural Environments

Weather Inside

Unique Landscapes

Might Magic - Haven't tried this one yet, but it looks good.

Kvatch Rebuilt - Not released, but should be damn good.

Lakewood Village

Parallax Mapping Giga Pack - Parallax textures for all cities.

Sewer Parallax Maps

Ayleid Ruin Parallax Maps

Improved Facial Textures

Cities Alive at night

Illumination Within (Revised) - This one is a must have!

Crowded Roads Revamped - Puts travellers on the roads.

The A List Mods Thread - A collection of links to other great mods - note that many of them will conflict with/overwrite each other.

Edit: I've tried two of the A List's quest mods - good stuff!
I've got a lot more than this installed, but these are the big ones (meaning I had them bookmarked already).

Cao Cao wrote:Please don't take this as trolling, but I do find it ironic that there are so many Oblivion mods out there specifically designed to make the game.. more like Morrowind.

Ah well.. I'm not so upset that my PC is a PoS unable to play Oblivion anymore. *slinks away to play Morrowind*

Facts aren't trolling (at least not on this board...). Bethesda really dropped the ball on several gameplay aspects, all in an effort to bring in a larger crowd. And they hyped the graphics and then gave us shitball LOD textures. At least they gave the community enough tools to change the majority of the game, and the modders have been doing a good job of building their own tools as well. IIRC, the only tool that's missing is an animation plug in for doing creatures (due to a legal issue with Havok, supposedly...).

I just hope that for TES V, Bethesda drops the entire Interior/Exterior cell concept. That annoys the piss out of me, because (1) my computer can handle it and (2) it breaks immersion (hey, its dark out, storming its ass off, lets go inside... hey, its nice and bright and cheery inside!).

And now we have the Mr. Bean mod!

Arrow wrote:And now we have the Mr. Bean mod!

*Downloads furiously*

Now if only I can get Blackadder as well.

Do you know of any other good magic rebalance mods besides Mighty Magic? I don't like the fact that it alters the races, and looks like it will have some conflicts with Oscuros and some PC leveling mods (I want to try Kubo's latest after I finish my current game).

Arrow wrote:Do you know of any other good magic rebalance mods besides Mighty Magic? I don't like the fact that it alters the races, and looks like it will have some conflicts with Oscuros and some PC leveling mods (I want to try Kubo's latest after I finish my current game).

Check Might Magic's Dev thread, he's gone out of his way to make sure it does not conflict with Oscuros, as for other's I don't know.

Another mod worth checking out: Split Infinity. This makes some major changes to the loot, and adds in a Diablo-like naming system. Looks like it will be integrated with all major major rebalancing mods at release.

Another amusing mod that add's life to the game

Cat's&Rats
Add's a fact of primitve life! Rats!
Adds fuzzy engines of destructions! Cats!
Now with AI coding so the Cats hate the Rates and the Rats and scared @$@#4 of the Cats and will run like hell.

Basicly combines two mods that added wandering cats in town, and scurring rats near warehouse and the like. Very amusing to watch in action.

*Edit note, this mod will fork up your game if used with any mod that modifies guards like No Psychic guards mod or OOD.

Arrow, those mods look great! I'm glad someone is keeping up with current mods... I might have to play Oblivion again and check them out.

Stark wrote:Arrow, those mods look great! I'm glad someone is keeping up with current mods... I might have to play Oblivion again and check them out.

Thanks. I think I'm going to stop focusing on the environmental and rebalancing mods for a while (except for updates to ones I currently have) and focus more on content mods. Things like The Conan Father's Sword and The Conan Atlanten Sword. What I really want to get is a Better Bodies mod. I know the people that made the mod for Morrowind are working on it, but right now their work is alpha at best - most of the armors don't work for me, and the bodies have seem and alignment issues.

If you do try the new mods, make sure you use Oblivion Mod Manager to package them into OMOD files first; OMODs are basically 7z compressed files containing the esp, esms, bsa, texture, mesh and other data files (including their directory structure). The program then unpacks the files into your data folder when you activate them, and deletes from your data folder when you deactivate them. I've done this for the last couple of mods I installed, namely because deleting some of these mods is a complete pain in the ass if you don't like them.

OBMM can be found here. And I think once the next Unique Landscapes module and the next version of Oscuro's come out (which will be in the next week or two), I'm going to clean out my data folder and follow my own suggestion.

I think I'll do the same thing. What I'm looking foward to most however is the Open Cities Modmakers to finish up. In the order of making things more like Morrowind, the Open cities mod removes the zone borders around cities and the've been transcribing everything by hand into the greater world map. Something that frankly was probably done because of the Xbox 360 version.

Mr Bean wrote:I think I'll do the same thing. What I'm looking foward to most however is the Open Cities Modmakers to finish up. In the order of making things more like Morrowind, the Open cities mod removes the zone borders around cities and the've been transcribing everything by hand into the greater world map. Something that frankly was probably done because of the Xbox 360 version.

I know they don't support Weather Inside (IIRC, its because the build IDs all get nuked, or the like), but does Illumination Within work with Open Cities? That would be bad ass!

Arrow wrote: Thanks. I think I'm going to stop focusing on the environmental and rebalancing mods for a while (except for updates to ones I currently have) and focus more on content mods. Things like The Conan Father's Sword and The Conan Atlanten Sword. What I really want to get is a Better Bodies mod. I know the people that made the mod for Morrowind are working on it, but right now their work is alpha at best - most of the armors don't work for me, and the bodies have seem and alignment issues.

Those swords are simply devastating. And I suppose I could feel like I'm overpowered, if not for the fact that I still have to literally hack away for a while on an enemy before he keels over.

BTW, Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is pretty awesome and certainly didn't make the game less enjoyable like I thought it would.