Relativelybest

First thing I did on my recent vanilla playthrough was actually to search the area around Megaton, killing raiders and taking their weapons. Then I visited the nearby Talon company base, shot the three guys in there and looted the place. They have a ton of good stuff, like a combat armor (which can be repaired with their own armors, natch) and some pretty good weapons. Best thing is, even if you just left the Vault, they'll try to shoot you on sight. So it's not like I'm the bad guy here: I was just exploring and maybe looking for someone to trade with. It not my fault those guys tried to kill me, forcing me to defend myself and then take all their stuff becuase, hey, that's the law of the Wasteland. If they didn't want me in there they should have locked the door!

I didn't like Mothership Zeta that much, honestly. It was basically just shooting aliens, turning off generators, shooting more aliens, turning off more generators, shooting more aliens... it got kinda boring in the long run, everything looked mostly the same everywhere and you couldn't exactly leave until you were done either. Ultimately, I found that it was all about the loot: Once you get to go back to the Wasteland, the access to infinite alien weapons quicly makes you economically independant and hoarding Alien Epoxy's means you never have to worry about weapons degrading. The Pit showed promise in having an interesting set-up and I looked forward to the challange of having to do without my gear. Of course, that was kinda ruined when I kept tripping over weapons, armor and health items everywhere, until I had almost as much stuff as I had to give up. And, of course, the "grey moral choice" I was promised was pretty much the easiest moral choice I've ever had to make. It was a fun change of pace, but it didn't leave much of an impression. Broken Steel was okay, as a continuation of the original storyline anyway. The Old Olny mission and Presidential Metro were pretty much my favorite parts, though. Once I got to the mobile base, my reaction was basically: "Oh look, another interesting location I'll never get to return to a second time!" (I'm kinda bitter about Raven Rock.) Honestly, I actually liked Point Lookout the best due to the sheer atmosphere. It was the first time during my playthrough I actually didn't want to run around with a machine gun or laser rifle with a cloaking field on full-time - I wanted to use the Lincoln Repeater or the Magnum revolver and actually walk slowly with the pipboy light on just to get into the right mood. If anything, I wish it would have had more mystery type stuff with more spy secrets and hidden passages and wierd cults. You could probably make an awesome Call of Cthulhy-style mystery mod using mostly Point Lookout stuff.

140: It's possible to nobly sacrifice your life without actually dying. This is, of course, the best kind of noble sacrifice. 141: Even with a simple concept like "free, clean water for everyone" people will find a way to mess it up. 142: Not only do the Pit Raiders allow their slaves to walk around in armor and carrying guns, but if you do a good job as a slave, they will actually pay you... in more guns and armor. This makes them the best slave masters ever. 143: The Pit Slaves are a bunch of spineless liars who'll try to trick you into doing their dirty work for them, and then act condescending when you refuse. 144: The Mechanist's Forge makes for a nicer player home then the actual player homes. 145: Eating pre-cut human flesh gives you rads but no karma loss. Eating human flesh straight off a corpse gives you karma loss but, oddly, never any rads. 146: If they have the caps, no merchant can refuse to buy what you are selling, even if it means you walking away with whatever you wanted to buy and all their caps -including the ones you spent earlier- leaving them with whatever junk you didn't feel like keeping.

Usefull! :thumbsup: I thought it looked kinda familiar, though I can't quite place it. Which game is it originally from?

I'd like to know what this guy is wearing: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/images/8513-3-1262390340.jpg Anyone have a clue?

Same reason the vanilla game doesn't let us wear ten rings at once? (Which I assume to be: "Bethesda thought it would be too awesome.") Incidentally, there is a Multiple Rings mod I always use that fixes this. Very recommended.

I don't really play mages so I haven't used those altars much, but isn't the charge for so and so many seconds thing optional? In fact, doesn't it cost more to make a timed effect? As for sending people flying, I always assumed that was just a result of dealing enough damage in one go, not something inherent in the Sigil Stones.

Not if you are a Master of Heavy Armor (or, heck, even just Expert) in which case wearing the armor is actually the best way to not be bothered by it. So, yeah, just take your boots off. The rest is mostly up to your sneak and security skills, plus the usual chameleon/invisibility stuff.

Speaking as a full Swede, I'd rather they not do that. English spoken with our accents have a tendency to sound incredibly silly. Hence why it's usually substituted with watered down Scottish or German or something in fantasy games and movies. The only one who can make it sound cool is probably Stellan Skarsgård, and that's because he has an awesome voice and only a very faint accent. When I managed to get a beggar to tell me how to contact the Thieves Guild, she explained it in the normal lady voice. I took that to mean it's actually something Bethesda did deliberately.

Skyrim. Here there be dragons. And they mean business, apparently.

I only recently started playing Oblivion again after a period of doing other stuff. Back during my first run, my computer had this tendency to go into sleep mode completely randomly for no apparent reason. And I mean, literally, utterly randomly. It was like some Schrödinger's Cat kind of setup where you could never know if it was going to happen or not. And of course, whenever it happened while I was gaming, it usually caused Oblivion to crash. In time I learned to save very frequently, but it was still annoying whenever it happened. Since then, the sleep mode problem has gone away, Now the most frustrating part is the crazy lagging. See, there is something wrong with my computer that makes everything involving graphics in any way cause the computer to lag. I think my graphics card is damaged or something, It's just bad enough to make playing Oblivion annoying but still not bad enough to make it unenjoyable. I kinda miss the time when the battles did not give me a headache, though. Actually, I don't think I've ever played Oblivion on a computer that wasn't messed up somehow. o_O

NPC: You have the hands of an Illusionist. Me: I can use my illusion, yes. NPC: There's a charge in the air. Been casting some Destruction spells? Me: Indeed, I also have an appetite for destruction. NPC: Look at the muscles on you! Me: *in Arnold Schwartzenegger voice* Yes, I like to pump iron! NPC: Looks like you're pretty handy with a blade. Me: *in Spanish accent* I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die! NPC: You've got some nimble fingers. What have you been getting into? Me: Your mom! Highwayman: This is a holdup! Me: ...You know, I've never thought about it before, but why are you guys always khajit? Highwayman: Your money or your life! Me: Like, are you all from the same litter or something?

*counts on fingers* Spider Daedra, Storm Autronarchs, Dread Zombies, Will-o-the-wisps and Goblin Warlords. I liked the Knights of Order, personally. They were straightforward and intimidating, and actually pretty fun to battle - like fighting Dremora except without the annoying spellcasting. Really, I prefer straight up swordfights.

Forget stealing silver plates. If you knock an item off a counter or table, like an apple or something, and you decide to use the Z key to simply pick it up and put it back where it was, that counts as theft. o_O

Playing Shivering Isles and running into an active Obelisk of Order for the first time. It kept spawning Knights of Order and I didn't know I had to turn it off. So I basically killed a small army's worth of Knights of Order, wondering when they would finally stop coming. At one point I lost my Madness Claymore and had to pick up one of their swords to keep fighting. The fallen were strewn all over the place. It was epic.

Valen Dreth: "I must surely be dead, and in the halls of Azura to look upon such a vision. You are so beautiful, my dear Dunmer maiden..." PC: "So, I take it you're in jail for bad pickup lines?" Valen Dreth: "One of the guards owes me a favor, you know. I could get us put in the same cell. Would you like that?" PC: "...I don't even want to know what you had to do to earn that favor." Valen Dreth: "You should have some fun before the end. Yeah, you heard me. No matter what the law says. No matter what they told you. You're going to die in here! You're going to die!" PC: "Yes, yes, you have crushed what little hope I still had, leaving me a broken wreck in a dark void of misery and despair. Now shut up." Renault: "What's this? Guard, this cell is supposed to be empty!" PC: "Does that mean I can go free?" Uriel Septim: "Let me see your face. You are the one from my dreams! The stars were right, this is the day." PC: "...So, I take it you're in jail for bad pickup lines?"

Eh. By the time you are Grey Fox you can basically steal anything you want and kill anyone with impunity as well, and it won't even effect your karma. This is Oblivion we're talking about, the game were you can leave vital questlines hanging for months and it won't matter. Dagon himself can be stomping around in the middle of the Imperial capital, it still won't make any differance until you show up and deal with it. So if you're the emperor, how is that different from the way things normally are? The game has a finite amount of quests, so eventually you will run out of new things to do unless you install more stuff via mods. Actually, this kind of thing does happen. See, the whole royal blood thing is a nice romantic idea, but actual kingdoms and empires are still founded on good old fashion politics and common sense. If a particular bloodline dies out, all it takes is for the guys left in charge -Ocato and the Elder Council, in this case- to decide on who will gets to wear the shiny hat. (Because the alternative is civil war and nobody likes that.) I'm from Sweden and we've had something like eleven Royal houses. The most recent shift was 1810 when the last of the Holstein-Gottorp house died without an heir, kinda like the Septims but way less dramatic. The one they picked out to be the new king was this guy: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Charles_XIV_John_in_his_days_as_a_French_field_marshall.jpg/398px-Charles_XIV_John_in_his_days_as_a_French_field_marshall.jpg Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the then Marshall of France. He didn't have anything to do with Swedish royalty - heck, he wasn't even Swedish! And he absolutely wasn't some kind of epic hero who'd saved the world from a demon invasion. They just thougth: "Yeah, this guy would make a good king, plus it might keep Napoleon from invading us. Let's ask him." They did, and he was like: "Sure!" And the Bernadottes are still the Royal House today. And that was just because we didn't want to inconvenience ourselves with switching to being a republic or something. It's not like the king was actually important at that point. In Oblivion, they had a whole damn empire suddenly without any emperor. They can't afford to talk about royal blood or the will of the gods or whatever. They need to figure something out right now or there will be uprisings in every corner of the realm, widespread deadra worship, innocent orc villages burned down by savage bosmers pillaging the countryside, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Frankly, even if Ocato handles all the administration and you don't really do anything as emperor, just having you as a figurehead would still be better then having no emperor at all. All good points, I agree maxing out the faction questlines should award you way more respect and influence then they actually do. Still, I read the original question as: "Why can't I become emperor?" Which is actually a valid question when the game lets you become pretty much everything else, up to and including a Daedric Prince. (Albeit in a formal sense.) Whether or not becoming emperor would actually be fun is a different cup of tea.

Actually, I could totally see the main character becoming the new emperor/empress. All it would take would be some "creative liberties" with the truth: Ocato: By the Nine! What happened here? Me: Martin sacrificed himself to stop Dagon. He's gone. Ocato: But then we have no emperor! The Septim blood is gone forever! Me: Yeah, about that. As his last act, Emperor Martin named me his heir and successor. Ocato: ...Is that true? Me: Yes. Yes it is. Ocato: But even so, this is most unprecedented. What will people... Me: I just saved Tamriel more or less single-handedly. Have you been to Bruma lately? Seen that huge statue they have of me? Seriously, the people love me, Ocato: Yes, but... Me: I also know most of the counts and countesses personally, and half of them are in my debt for life. And I'm the archmage, the master of the fighter's guild, and the Divine Crusader who leads the Knights of the Nine. Plus, I control basically the entire criminal underworld. Ocato: But we can't just... Wait, you do? Me: Pretty much. Honestly, at this point making me empress would mostly be a formality. Ocato: ... Me: Did I mention that I am also Sheogorath, Deadric Prince of Madness and the ruler of the Shivering Isles? Ocato: ...So, when would you like us to hold the crowning ceremony, my empress?

So me and the Kvatch militia are storming into the ruins of Kvatch, being heroic and fighting daedra. One of the guards get in the way of my sword and happens to die. Oh well, I guess that's bound ot happen in this kind of thing. Then I go to bed inside the church to regain some HP, and suddenly I'm roused to find this creepy dude who accuses me of being a cold blooded serial killer, hands me a dagger and tells me to keep up the good work. I was like: "...Wat?"

Oh, yeah, something I forgot to mention last time I visited this thread - I love the interior of The Missing Pauldron in Bliss. I want it as a player home. Also, a real home. One day, when I have somehow become a wealthy man, I will have a real life replica of that smithy built. Then I'll spend my days inside of it, forging swords. I'm totally serious.

Those goddamned epic level goblins. I've said this before, but seriously, when I'm a Level 20 warrior who eats dremora for breakfast, wearing enchanted armor and wielding one of the best swords it's possible to get in the game, no goblin should be any kind of threat to me. Actually, I would have liked more sword-fodder enemies. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a challenge, but sometimes you just want to cut your way through two dozen incredibly weak skeletons trying to zerg rush you. I like feeling unstoppable. Also, I don't like getting the unique artifact equipment as quest rewards, which is how you get the majority of all unique artifacts in Oblivion. It's not as bad as, say, Knight of the Old Republic, where you actually had to buy all the best stuff, but... well, I'm of the opinion that things like magical swords should be found at the end of long dungeon crawls, gripped in the bony skeleton hands of adventurers who came before me, or plunged blade first into rocks, or locked in larger then normal treasure chests that must be opened with the Big Key. It's unsatisfying to get them as other people's sloppy seconds. Oh, and while I'm on the subject, what's with the treasures in this game? I break multiple lockpicks trying to get an ancient locked Ayleid cask open, and inside I find 39 pieces of gold, a brass ring and a pair of green felt linens. What the hell? Some elf way back actually felt that was worth locking away in a cursed crypt guarded by zombies and feral wolves? If there isn't anything awesome in the container, don't bother to lock the damn thing. I'd rather they put one big chest in the lowest level of the dungeon, fill it with gold and precious stones, and make you fight a mutant vampire minotaur or something to get to it. I guess what I'm saying is that I wish the random adventuring aspect of the game was more gratifying in its rewards.

You know how gems (diamonds, rubies, etc) in Oblivion have this faint glowing aura of light around them? I was wondering if the same effect could be put on other things, say the blade of a sword? No idea if it's doable, I just think it would look neat. I've been looking around but I haven't seen it done yet.

-Not allowed to shoot fireballs and bolts of lightning at Bruma from the top of Frostcrag Spire. Furthermore, when asked about it, I am also not allowed to attribute them to "the wrath of the Nine." -Not allowed to speak and act like Sheogorath on a constant basis, even if after completing Shivering Isles. -Not allowed to forcibly relocate a whole tribe of Dark Seducers because their village happens to sit on top of a giant deposit of Madness Ore. -Not allowed to misuse the Staff of Sheogorath for my own amusement, especially not freezing guards, drawing graffity on their armor, and running away before the effect wears off. -Not allowed to shout "ZA WARUDO!" whenever I use misuse the Staff of Sheogorath. -Not allowed to stand in front of a guard and put the Grey Cowl of Nocturnal on and off until his head explodes. -Not allowed to attack orcs on sight "because they are orcs." -Not allowed to put mustard on any khajiit.

Something that has irked me for a long time now is how all blades up to most longswords come with scabbards, but claymores are just kinda attached to the back of the character via some invisible force. Not only is this inconsistant and doesn't make any sense, it also looks incredidbly stupid. (Not as stupid as carrying a staff attached to your back, of course, but that's for a different mod.) I don't really get why Bethesda decided to just not include scabbards for claymores. Sure, drawing a sword that long out of a scabbard on your back isn't really realistic but it sure beats sticking it on like a giant magical refrigerator magnet. And it's not like it isn't doable: my character has a claymore with a scabbard (the Sunfire Sword she raided from the Dungeons of Ivellon) and it works like a charm. Come to think of it, haven't the Zelda games been doing that since the 64 era? It ain't rocket surgery, is what I'm saying. This feels like something someone should already have thought of by now, but if this mod exists my search engine skills apparently won't suffice. So, just throwing this out there if anyone more savvy then me wants to do something about it.

Somewhere inside my head there is a... let's call it a wellspring. Out of this wellspring flows a strong, steady stream of inspiration in its most pure, undiluted state - the very essence of creativity - filling my head with ideas on a constant basis, forming itself into radiant dreams and shadowy phantasm entirely on its own accord. It is a wild and chaotic type of creativity; it cannot be controled or managed, it cannot be reasoned with, and it never ever runs dry. What I'm trying to say is; I suffer from a kind of inspiration surpluss, and thinking of ways I can bend Oblivion to my will and use it to shape my own stories just happens to be one of my many much-needed outlets of that inspiration.