InAComaDial999

The game installs from the CD, but Steam downloads a patch that was released at the same time as the game. The patch is about 150mb so depending on your connection speed YMMV. At any rate, installing the game from CD for me was no worse than installing any other game.

Yes, even with the retail disc version, Steam is required to activate and play the game. The game will install Steam if you don't already have it.

If you have earned enough XP to go up multiple levels, going to the level up screen will force you to take all of those levels and assign all of the attribute increases. However, you do not have to spend all, or even any, of the perks, you can save those for later and assign them any time by going to the skill screen. Not really sure what the point is of trying to spend all of the training slots for each level, since training increases count toward leveling.

Long story short, the events at the conclusion of TESIII:Morrowind cause many of the Dark Elves' pseudo-gods to lose divinity and become mortal. One of these pseudo-gods had used magic to keep a massive rock, that had been hurled from the Void, from crashing into the city roughly at the center of Morrowind. When he becomes mortal, the magic begins to fail, and the rock eventually crashes into the city below it. The massive energy release causes the Red Mountain to explode, completely destroying the island of Vvardenfell and laying waste to much of the rest of Morrowind.

In Oblivion, crashes on fast travel were usually caused by having auto-save turned on. Try disabling auto-save on fast travel and see if that makes it go away.

First or third person works equally well. I was annoyed enough by the arrow that was stuck in me for several hours that I watched myself get shot 3-4 times in third person view to see what would happen. The third new arrow caused the original stuck one to disappear. After a couple of minutes, the three new arrows disappeared and I was back to my old arrow-free self.

Just for future reference, modav adds to an attribute (and works with negative numbers to subtract). If you just want to set a value, use setav instead.

Had the same problem with an iron arrow stuck in my chest. The arrow isn't an unequippable item - even doing "removeallitems" in the console didn't get rid of it. However, I just walked into a cave and let myself get hit by 3 or 4 iron arrows from a vampire thrall archer. The third arrow replaced the one that was stuck, and after I killed the thrall all of the arrows disappeared. So it's annoying but not permanent. Doing "sexchange" to change sex, then again to change it back, will also fix this. However I didn't want to do this in my real save for fear that it might have some other side effects I don't know about.

It's possible to make good looking characters, just not in every race. I tried making a decent looking Imperial female and finally gave up, I couldn't get rid of the old/haggard look no matter what I did. I'm not asking for a barbie doll, but I would like my toon to look healthy. On the other hands, it's not hard at all to make a good looking Nord female. http://i.imgur.com/LKbJW.jpg (Album here) I wanted a girl who looked tough but still attractive. As some other folks have posted earlier, you can definitely make super sultry looking Nord females as well.

Oblivion Face Exchange Lite. I use this all the time. Allows you to import faces to and from savegames, and from NPCs in mods. Simple to use.

Kind of. The problem is that if you are running enough visual mods to drop your normal framerate to around 30, then when you get into crowded areas, large fights, etc, the game will lag very noticeably. Whereas if your baseline framerate is high, then even large battles won't lag the game enough to notice. But whatever, it's a matter of taste in the end.

Play at 1920x1080 and have 60 fps pretty consistently. This with an i7 920 and a 1GB ATI 5870. I have a reasonably modded setup, but not running body replacers, environmental texture replacers (e.g. Quarl), or RAEVWD really keeps the framerates high. Gotta say that for actually playing the game, I prefer having high framerates to eye candy.

Yes, like I said, it's an engine bug and not specific to the UOP. However, it does seem as though it only happens in cells that are touched by mods. I have never seen this happen in unmodded games. The current version of the UOPS has changes that address the known issues like the one at Fort Magia, the one under the bridge south of Bravil, etc, by moving the items that tended to roll into neighboring cells. These seem to have cured those particular manifestations of the bug, though of course it can still happen due to items placed in the world during the course of play (e.g. items dropped by dead bandits).

I don't use those specific mods, but one thing holds true for every animation mod: animations will only work if you are in third-person view. And you must start the animation (from the pose menu or however it works), you cannot start the animation in first person and then switch to third person.

Keep in mind also that racial attribute and skill bonuses really only matter at low levels. At higher levels, there's nothing stopping a Breton female from being stronger than a Nord male, etc. The racial abilities, like Breton enhanced magicka and magic resistance, High Elf enhanced magicka and weakness to magic, etc, are probably more important depending on the class you want to make. But again, after a number of levels, a +50 or even +100 to magicka isn't that big of a deal when you can wear multiple items that all provide bonuses equal to or greater than those.

There are quite a few really good Big Quest Mods out there that add tons of replay value to the game. My current character is level 27, and the only big vanilla quest she's done was to complete the Mage's Guild questline. A good chunk of her adventuring has been from third-party mods, including: Frostcrag Village: a nice series of smaller quests in this one Feldscar: same as above The Lost Spires: bigger than most of the vanilla questlines Zira's Demonic Mounts: Not really a big questline, but plenty violent and lots of fun The Ayleid Steps: Just started this one, interesting so far Also, I didn't do it with this character since I haven't even touched the main quest with her, but I played Kvatch Rebuilt with my previous character, that was also a great time. One question though: what problem are you having with OBSE? You're really going to need that to run most quest mods, if nothing else just so you can run Elys Silent Voice so you can see the NPC dialogue in non-voice-acted mods. OBSE is really easy to install and works with both the Steam and CD versions of the game, so it shouldn't be a problem.

It's not that hard to make good-looking PCs if you have the right facial textures. I always use these two mods: Improved Facial Textures and Facial Textures by Enayla. Install them in that order and you'll immediately notice all characters look better, and it's much easier to make good looking PCs. With those textures, you can get a pretty good looking character just by doing a "Reset Face" and then sliding the Age and Complexion sliders. One technique I used to make a character was to find an NPC I liked, then using Oblivion Face Exchange Lite to transfer their face to my savegame. Then I used the console and "showracemenu" to tweak them to my liking. For example, my current character is a female Breton whose face was based on Bernadette Peneles, a Breton who works at the Tamika vinyards near Skingrad. I used Face Exchange Lite to transfer her facegen data to a new savegame (making sure to check "Select Features" and then uncheck "Geometry Asymmetric Data"), made some tweaks, and came out with: http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k90/in_a_coma_dial_999/Oblivion/vivienne00.jpg I like her, she doesn't look like most of the other characters I've made, and at the same time she actually looks like a real Breton.

Currently my load order is thus: Oblivion.esm Kvatch Rebuilt.esm Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp Increased Training Limit.esp DLCShiveringIsles.esp Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp Idle Dialogue.esp kalikuts_raretradegoods2_0.esp DLCHorseArmor.esp DLCHorseArmor - Unofficial Patch.esp DLCOrrery.esp DLCOrrery - Unofficial Patch.esp DLCVileLair.esp DLCVileLair - Unofficial Patch.esp DLCMehrunesRazor.esp DLCMehrunesRazor - Unofficial Patch.esp DLCSpellTomes.esp DLCSpellTomes - Unofficial Patch.esp ElegantVests.esp KDClothCirclets.esp KDDwemerSpectacles.esp ORM -Travelers' Cloaks.esp Sinblood's Widow Dress.esp vahi_clothes.esp vermillionandsilverthorn.esp 300_Brocade_Outfits.esp Black Courtesan Dress.esp darkrosearmor.esp EbonyAppearanceTweaks.esp DLCThievesDen.esp DLCThievesDen - Unofficial Patch.esp KnightlyArmory.esp A Imperial Outpost - Fort Nova Varos .esp A_ship_near_Anvil-7781.esp The_Imperial_Battleship-6844.esp Council of Mages Reconvened.esp Kvatch Rebuilt.esp OldCrowInn.esp PinePeakLodge.esp Region Revive - Lake Rumare.esp SingingStablehandInn.esp SleepyCatInn.esp To Feed an Empire - Wickmere Farm.esp DLCBattlehornCastle.esp DLCBattlehornCastle - Unofficial Patch.esp DLCFrostcrag.esp Kvatch Rebuilt_Frostcrag.esp DLCFrostcrag - Unofficial Patch.esp BrumaGuildReconstructed.esp Knights.esp Knights - Unofficial Patch.esp The Lost Spires.esp Feldscar.esp SRGottshaw0.9 Beta.esp Vergayun.esp Verwen Brewery.esp A Imperial Outpost - Fort Novi Sad.esp Frostcrag Village.esp PhaidAnvilSmallCog.esp tag_NaturalWildlife.esp Corean_hair_for_Original_race.esp This is about the least-modded setup I've played in a long time, but I wanted to "go back to the game's roots" and play without any body replacers or major changes like UL. I'm playing through a bunch of large quest mods (currently The Lost Spires) and I prefer the stability and compatibility, not to mention performance is really great this way.

Ditto spiritshadowx. First thing I did when I got this PC was disable UAC. I use avg along with adblock for my browser, and have never had any issues with spyware or viruses. Oblivion runs just fine from the program files directory with UAC disabled, and I don't feel like restricting my installation options or getting spammed constantly with popups asking permission for a program to do something.

My current character is level 25, has never worn armor. Who needs armor when you can enchant clothing, cast defensive spells, and create potions that weigh 0.1 and give you 40+ points of Shield for 200 seconds?

As I said in another thread, recently I've been sticking to mods that fit in with the look and feel of the game and, for lack of a better phrase, "don't look like mods". Here are some of the mods currently in my load order, I think they really work well with this concept: Mods with big quests: Kvatch Rebuilt The Lost Spires Several village mods by Arthmoor (Vergayun, Frostcrag Village, and Feldscar) The Old Crow Inn Villages, Towns, Inns (some have quests, some don't): Region Revive: Lake Rumare A Legion Outpost - Fort Novi Sad A Legion Outpost - Fort Nova Varos Cyrodiil Inns To Feed an Empire - Wickmere Farm Verwen Brewery Gottshaw Village Minor stuff for atmosphere: A Ship Near Anvil The Imperial Battleship Bruma Guild Reconstructed Council of Mages Reconvened Clothes and Shops (note that I am not currently using a body replacer, so these are all for the vanilla body): Vahis Wardrobe Knightly Armory Travelers Cloaks Brocade Clothes Elegant Vests by Kafeid Vermilion and Silverthorn Robes by Kafeid Dark Rose Armor by Kafeid Sinbloods Widows Dress Black Courtesan Dress Cosmetic / Graphics: IFT Improved Facial Textures Facial Textures by Enayla Vibrant Bodytextures Femmes Glass Armor & Weapon Retex (by Kalikut, get it here - makes glass armor and weapons the same color as in Morrowind) Toeless Elven Boots Vampire Race Disabler (removes the shader and the aging effect, leaves the eyes / fangs / morphs, fixes the bug where female vampire PCs turn into hideous males) I'm sure I am forgetting some, but those are ones I consider indispensable.

Eshenaleros' Non-Sexy Armor List

For me it's like chronosmagus said earlier: if it's obvious it's a mod, it's not for me. The game has a certain aesthetic that I want mods to maintain, and things that just don't have the right "look and feel" get booted out of my load order. One thing I wish more modders would keep in mind is the distorted scale that Oblivion uses. Almost all structures in Oblivion are bigger on the inside than on the outside - in some places it's glaringly obvious, like Battlehorn Castle or Castle Anvil. They did that because the Oblivion worldspace is actually really small (when compared to say Morrowind) so they gave it the illusion of size by scaling outdoor objects down. But a lot of modders try to create environments where the size and number of structures is "realistic", particularly in towns and villages etc. As a result, they end up with a place that doesn't mesh with the rest of the world. A classic example for me is the various mods that expand Anvil Bay; by stretching the dock across to the castle peninsula and filling it with stuff, they make it really obvious that the castle is just a tiny thing up on a hill, rather than a majestic fortress seen in the distance. The point being, you can't fix the scale issue, so it's better to make a mod that fits in, than one that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Thanks! Well, Arthmoor just released an excellent mod that does that: Bruma Guild Reconstructed. His mod is what got me thinking that someone should go ahead and do this. It's nice to have the guild return to normal life after you become the Arch-Mage, rather than being stuck in limbo with a guild hall in flames and no Council to help run things.

Well, it turns out this is actually pretty easy. I went ahead and released a little mod on Nexus that implements this. It makes Raminus, Tar-Meena, Ocato, Borissean, Gaspar Stegine, and Delmar all meet in the Council chambers every Tuesday and Thursday for two hours. http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k90/in_a_coma_dial_999/Oblivion/councilofmages001.jpg