Relativelybest

Oh, I still play almost entirely vanilla. Have yet to get bored enough to do any really major modifications. Well, you don't actually have to do them. Except for the main questline, of course, provided you want to finish the game. But then it's not really "pointless", so to speak. I don't mind the Gate Weather itself, but what does get a bit silly is the way you are apparently expected to stop and gawk for a while every single time you find a gate, because it takes a while for the Gate Weather to kick in. Also, the weather follows you rather then being reserved for that specfic location. That means I can find a gate but just keep riding because I can't be bothered closing it, and the weather is fine until a few hundred meters away where the sky suddenly turns red and thunder booms as I pass an innocent farm. It would be better if the Gate Weather was actually localized around the actual Gates.

Hm, now I wonder if doujin renditions of Touhou Project music are legit. I mean, they should be, but what do I know? Research time!

Well, I'm a writer. >> Not sure about "Lore Friendly", though. So far, the Elder Scrolls lore has been kinda background noise to me. Anyway, might jot down some children stories or Shivering Isles literature. But no promises; I've been all writer's blocked all year.

Of course not. I wouldn't be able to create anything if I believed that. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not good at learning about modding in the pace required of me. The lesson five steps ahead always looks more interesting. Speaking as someone from a family of many artists; you would be surprised just how rarely art is produced "in a moment of inspiration." In fact, I'm willing to call that a myth. Way ahead of you. Oh, I wasn't going to make everything from scratch. Some would have been borrowed from other mods (with permission, of course) or modified from vanilla material. At the most I'd do some retexturing, but that was actually the one thing about modding I seemed to understand and be relatively good at. Of course, that mod won't be going anywhere in the forseeable future, since all my notes is on an HD I can't get to due to the computer collasping from viral attacks. (Coincidentally caused, most likely, from all the programs and stuff I downloaded in order to get into modding.) Right now I just want to learn how to build a castle in Oblivion.

Well, he's Essential during the whole Thieves Guild questline,, so he shouldn't be dead. I'd try using the command console to teleport him to the location.

Look, I don't know a lot about Elder Scrolls, having not played the earlier games, and I'm kinda new to the community in general so I hope I'm not speaking out of turn... ...but, well, isn't this exactly the kind of huge project that tends to implode in the pre-production state due to lack of free time and motivation, other newer games that need playing, and massive disagreements among the fans of what an Elder Scrolls V "should be like" and how to "improve on the canon"? Not trying to be discouraging, mind you, just realistic. But hey, I don't really know what I'm talking about. For all I know, you guys might be the most unified, resourceful and disciplined fanbase on the entire internet.

The goddamned Goblin Warlords. I hate those things. Haet. And some of the grummites are equally annoying.

What I want to know is: How the heck did the mountain lions get into the city in the first place? 'Cause the other end of that hole is still inside the city walls.

Speaking of which, I'd like sneak attacks better if I could actually assassinate people with it. Like, sneak up on a dude and stab him dead in one attack without his friends noticing, that sort of thing, instead of scoring a bit of extra damage before everyone breaks out the broadswords and warhammers.

The great irony being, it was probably caused by the rats in the first place. I was divided on the rat issue. On one hand, the lady herself got very annoying in the long run. On the other, the actual rats were pretty cute. In fact, it kinda made me want a pet rat as well.

And they wouldn't have breasts. 'Cause they're not, you know, mammals. With khajiit we've got the opposite to the argonians: realistically speaking they should have up to eight breast rather then just two. (Though, I suppose they wouldn't need that many provided they typically give birth to one cub at a time like humans. Any word on khajiit being born in litters?)

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Miscarcand_%28place%29 Miscarcand has a huge exterior for an Ayleid ruin. Sure, it's one of the larger ones. I just think they all feel more like small palaces, including Miscarcand despite it being specifically refered to as a "city." And seeing as I've always prefered jumping around on the facades to actually going inside them, I would have loved exploring a larger exterior complex. (Plus, what was the deal with the Ayelid and living underground anyway?)

Probably the most bizzare glitch I've ever experienced was when I tried to mount my horse, only instead my character bended forward as if trying to touch her toes, and then kept bending until she had rotated her torso around her pelvis 360 degrees. :blink: As for pure awesome moment, I recall meeting a bandit on that big bridge without rails south-west of Imperial City. I lure him out to the middle of the bridge, we have a duel, and my final blow sends him flying off the bridge and into the waters below.

You know, I've never used torches at all. I mean, maybe once or twice in the beginning but I just didn't see the point. I got a hold of a Ring of Light early and mostly used that one, primarly because I liked the idea of my character glowing in the dark, but then I stopped as I found rings I'd rather use and just went without any lightsources. Most of the time, I can see just fine in the dungeons.

Definitely an improvement, though I think the blade is far too bright. Could use some tweaking. I gave it a quick run through photoshop myself. Something like this: http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9223/newshadowrend.jpg I blurred the blade a bit to smooth out the grainy look, and I gave it some sublte blue and purple highlights. (I think one needs to be a bit careful when using black in general. I've always though things that are all greyscale black look a bit strange.) Hm, maybe I should try giving texturing another go myself? Though I'd still have no idea how to turn it into a replacer.

Much appriciated. Since it came from the shadow clone, I think it's fitting that it's shadowy looking. Just as long as it has some detail to it so it looks like a black sword, rather then just a sword-shaped piece of black. Less glossy as well, if possible, so it doesn't look all super-smooth. Along the same lines as Umbra, I suppose. If you can make it look somewhat distinct from the Dragonsword of Lainlyn, that's a plus. I don't have Fighter's Stronghold, and if I do get it at some point it would be nice if Shadowrend still had it's own look. (As for the axe version, I don't really use it, but if you want to throw that one in as well I suppose something like a black Daedric Battle Axe would do. At least as far as I'm concerned, though that's entirely up to you.)

I'm unimpressed with Oblivion magic in general. Seeing as we're not talking the type of sorcery that blasts cities into ruins and other major stuff, I can kinda accept that it's so commonplace. However, I don't really like the whole rechargable magical weapon system, and the fact that those things are everywhere. I'm of the opinion that magical weapons should be rare, found mostly in ancient tombs and shrines, and generally kick ass all the time. Once you actually find a magic sword -which should be at the end of a major quest or at a plot point or something- you shouldn't feel any need to stop using it until you find an even better one, and absolutely not spend a lot of time and energy keeping it "charged." I was actually surprised when I went out into the forest and suddenly ran into these mythic creatures instead of the bears and wolves I was used to. I was like: "Where did these guys come from?" But yeah. Minotaurs should live in labyrinths, not forests. Old school, yo. I found the main campaign in Oblivion to be sort of uninspired. It was basically: "This evil demon god from Hell is invading. To shut him out, we need to find the heir to the throne, then a ton of rare treasure, and then the magical dragon neclace. Que ambiguously happy ending with implied complications to come." So, yeah. I wasn't really in any hurry to stop Mehrunes Dagon. Now, Shivering Isles, on the other hand, really managed to pull me in. Sheogorath quickly became my favourite character, period, and one of the few I actually sympathized with and cared about towards the end. (Which says a lot considering that he was criminally insane half the time.) I actually through there were too few farms, or too little agriculture in general. Not that I was hoping to run around in barns or vast fields of wheat or whatever, but I always wondered how this supposedly huge empire kept its people fed. I mean, where do they get flour for all that bread? There aren't any mills anywhere. And speaking of food... has anyone else noticed that everyone in the game seems to eat their meat raw? :blink: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/8073/Sylvester-Stallone_Judge_l.jpg "The Law says no."

Aside from "most of the Shivering Isles": -The waterfall west of Fort Nikel. The whole place is really pretty, and I had a lot of fun jumping from the top and swimming around in the small lake below. (Of course, then I found the corpse of Nath Dyer and had to drag it out of the water. Ew.) -Everything between Nagastani and Newt Cave. Particularly the area around Cropsford; it's quite idyllic and reminds me of something out of an Astrid Lindgren story. I can see why those people wanted to settle there. -My horse really loved the plains of the Nibenay Basin. Lots of space to run around on! I also like the Ayleid ruin exteriors, though I find that most are too small. I'd love to find one that's actually city-sized, or at least in the neighbourhood of a village.

I specialize in blades, either longswords or claymores. I'm probably more likely to use claymores, but either one will do. Ranged, I use bow and arrow when I need to or feel like it, though I'm mostly an up-and-close type fighter. For magic, I don't particularly care as long as it makes the opponent dead, but I guess the lightning spells are the ones I find the most fun to cast.

I have not played the mod in question, but as someone who liked Shivering Isles roughly 517 times better then the original Oblivion storyline, I am simultaniously sceptical of and inrigued by that statement. Anyway, it's not like all these mods are going to poof out of existance just because ES5 shows up. You can still play them, provided you are not busy going crazy over the new game. And I rather doubt the modding for Oblivion will just up and die either. You list "removal of mods" as a possible con, but a new Elder Scrolls game isn't going to "remove" anything. It's more like it's adds more room to put even more mods. Heh. Well, I can't say I'm really worked up about it, since I only recently picked up Oblivion and then mostly because of all the fun I had with Fallout 3, having never played any of the previous Elder Scrolls games. True Elder Scrolls follower, I would not call myself. So, yeah, I'm taking it easy. Qué será, será, and all that.

Putting out a request for a new texture to Shadowrend. I really like this sword. (Blade specialist here.) Aside from being the most powerful weapon currently in my character's arsenal, I love the idea of taking the sword from her own dark clone, as if it's materialized from a metaphysical part of herself. It makes it feel more personal somehow. Heck, for some reason, I even like that it's shorter then the regular claymores. What I don't like is the looks. The design is fine, and I don't mind that it's black because, hey, shadow weapon and everything. But the fact that it's completely smooth without any features besides the general shape bothers me; I can't shake the feeling that it's unfinished, like they got lazy and just threw a plain black skin on the basic mesh. It bothers me and ruins the immersion. Hoping something can be done about it.

...I honestly don't get the concern here. A new ES game* might show up, meaning we get to play more ES, and we'll eventually make awesome mods for that one as well. This is a good thing, no? *Hopefully made with some of the stuff Bethesda learned from FO3 in mind. Is it just me, or was FO3 in some ways actually a better fantasy game then Oblivion?

I recently played through Vaermina's daedric quest, and have to say I did find some parts of Arkved's Tower kinda disturbing. Incidentally, I doubt I'll be playing Gates of Aesgaard or similar mods anytime soon, since I don't actually like this horror stuff very much.

Heh, I actually always try to start simple, since I know my limitations. It's just that it always runs away from me. Can't help it, really. Yeah, see, it's kinda like that. Also, nice questline concept you have there. I have no doubt all my ideas are doable, at least going by what I've seen around here. It's more the sheer scale of it all, and the fact that my mastery of modding doesn't even allow me to create a basic dungeon, let alone what I actually want to create. I'm afraid I'm a bit of both, though. My drive for modding is the same as my drive for writing, or craft, or doing anything creative: I have an urge to create something amazing, and I want to create it for me to give to everone else. I want to make exactly the kind of mod I know I would myself love to play, in hopes that other people will also love to play it. That way, what I create from my own desire can bring joy to others. So you see, I can't in good conscience say I'm doing this for myself. Actually, by "menacing" I meant more of a aestetic approach. Better uniforms, more striking appearance, that kind of thing. The idea was that they'd have different ranks, and the higher up you got the better equipment and more intimidatings looks they'd have. Incidentally, while I'm not an expert on the Elder Scrolls setting, I strongly suspect my proposed questline would dance a flamenco on the established Lore until it looks like a tortilla. Yeah, I've pretty much always considered canon to be a suggestion at best. :thumbsup:

I really like the idea of mods, and I would love to make my own. This is probably because it's the closest thing I've yet come to making my own games. But therein lies a certain problem that I keep running into when I start thinking about making one: my ideas always get entirely out of hand. They grow and evolve and expand until they are finally so large that what I'm considering more resembles an entirely new game or major expansion then a mod. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if I was a really skilled modder. However, I am not. Quite the contrary, I'm a rank amateur with only the bare basic knowledge of how the construction set even works, and no inherent talent to speak of. I should be focusing on something relatively easy, like making a treasure chest with actual items inside or something. It started back when I was playing Fallout 3, and got this idea that involved improving the Talon company to make them more menacing. From that came an idea for a series of quests that would involve a lot of encounters with the new and improved Talons. And then that led to a quest about finding these secret pre-war AI computers. And then that led to a giant mess of conspiracy theories, alien invaders and dark secrets. And all of this would culminate in this huge battle in the vast underground tunnel-compex I was going to put underneath Washington DC. It was a great story. Unfortunately, I never even got as far as step one. Oh, I tried, but while I'm good at thinking of ideas for mods, I really don't have the talent for realizing them. Well, now I'm back, playing Oblivion and it's the same thing all over again. At first I just wanted to make a huge castle, but then I started thinking about what to put inside that castle, who would live there and why, and then I started thinking of various quests to take place in that castle, and then those ideas led to more ideas, and out of that grew this epic mythology and now I have the same kind of enormous project in my head that I'm pretty sure would take years to complete even if I did have the necessary skills. (Which I don't. In fact, I've managed to forget what little I did learn back when trying to mod Fallout 3.) I have a long, long list of places and people and quests I want to put in this Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan-style pipe dream of mine. And even thought I know it's an unrealistic ambition, I can't really stop thinking about it because -at least inside my head- it's just really, really awesome. I dunno, does anyone else here experience this? I figure I can't be the only one, or at least I hope I'm not.