Striker879

That's it ... the proto-plasm and the fledgling robin have ganged up on me, and the dinosaur will not inherit the earth. Woe is me, woe is me, all is lost. I've been many times infected by them vampirey types, but only once tried sleeping on it after waiting too long (you won't become a vampire when sleeping until three days have passed since you were infected). I loaded an earlier save (chick, chick ... chicken!! ... they are after all the modern day version of the dinosaur). Looks like we'll be treated to a complete report of how much fun it is sleeping all day and prowling at night.

Hey ...come back with those worms. Ike and I were saving them for dinner. We got lots of hungry chicks to feed you know! I'm not 100% sure, but did you try going to talk to Nerussa after the fact and see if that clears the quest? If not let me know and I'll look at it in the CS and get the quest stage to complete it using the console. The game's quests will in general move to your completed quests tab once the stage is at the final stage (note some user created quests may not ... depends on who created the quest, but Emma's quests will certainly work the same as vanilla quests and clear when done). - Edit - That's the stutter remover I've seen plenty of people say works. I don't use it because I'm an XP dinosaur with only 2GB RAM.

Blade !!! Such a mean side to you ... we never knew (and don't worry, I could never get my leg high enough to kick Ike anywhere higher than the ... ). - Edit - And sorry Blade ... no more worms for you in this nest!

Won't work if you just drop the items on the floor or on the ground ... they'll be there for ever after you've had them in your character's inventory. They must be placed in a container that respawns. Any of the crates in the Talos Plaza around the statue will respawn. Be aware that there are some containers (chests, barrels and open top grain sacks) that do not respawn, some on the upper floors of fort exteriors, some in dungeons and some just out in the wilderness.

If you don't want to use BOSS to sort your load order you could download the masterlist here and then find your mods in the masterlist and sort them manually from that. Tedious, but I know TheRomans uses that method (use Notepad's "Find" to locate your mods in the list).

Do you get a little tight in the throat and blurry in the eyes when they fledge the nest too Ike?

Ahh, you're well on your way Blade. If you do a search on Nexus Mods Oblivion for mod author Emma you'll see she has created quite a few very nice houses. If you also use Companion Vilja some of those houses (but not all) have extra things available that work with Vilja. You can use the Companion Keys with any companion you have along to make them go to a different part of the house, do some gardening or look for ingredients (as long as you are in the cell for the house, either inside or near it's exterior). With Vilja you can turn any NPC into a follower for her (they follow Vilja not you). Kind of handy when you're trying to put together an army.

Suggestions are just that Blade ... alternatives for you to consider. Ike and I wouldn't make a good team if we always thought along the same lines. Neither of us will ever be able to suggest all the best mods for you ... some of that will take some grunt work browsing the categories from you. After a while you'll develop a feel for what is a good, well made mod and what should be avoided, but I'll avoid some of the stuff Ike likes, Ike will avoid some of the stuff you like etc. If everything tasted like vanilla we wouldn't know the difference ... but way back somebody suggested trying an apple I think the story goes. - Edit - Missed your edit Ike ... see, all he needs is lovin' and somebody to pilfer every now and then. I thought your lungs did the Day After Tomorrow and your computer the Apocalypse Now ... now I'm so confused ... again, or is that still ?? - Edit 2 - So you download the top listed download on the Maple Cottage (Maple Cottage ver 1 04) and when you extract that you'll find two folders (Comfortable version esp and Purist version esp) and three loose files (MapleCottage_location.jpg, MapleCottage_readme.txt and TinyHouse.bsa). First copy the TinyHouse.bsa to your Data folder. Next decide if you want to have the house with all the fixings (kind of the full meal deal) or the same house without some of the extras like nicer furniture, more fully developed basement etc). I use the Comfortable version myself and just don't use things I think shouldn't be included in a house mod like curing yourself at the Mara statue ... I just consider it decoration. Once you decide copy the file TinyHouse.esp from ONE of the folders to your Data folder. You couldn't possibly use both at the same time as they have exactly the same name. The Optional Files downloads are for people using other mods alongside Maple Cottage ... you don't use those unless you also use the other mods (COBL and UL IC Isle). Then just activate TinyHouse.esp and go talk to Nerussa at Wawnet Inn about "A good place to stay". - Edit 3 - Do you sometimes still hear them Ike ... those lambs. I thought I felt a tingling ... musta been when you fired up the CS. Nah, I got miles to go before I sleep, but I think I'll stop and watch the snow.

Just as an FYI guys ... the best place to do the coc/wait trick is "coc center" (without the quote marks of course) and then wait 72 hours plus a bit for good measure. "Center" is a place completely outside the game world (or at least that's my understanding). Afterwards you "coc weye" or any other location in Cyrodiil that you know the correct location name for ("center" has no other way back to the game world it is so far removed).

If you don't sleep you won't level ... after you clear your next dungeon that has a bedroll in it have a little nap ... it'll do you a world of good (actually it'll do the world a world of good, because the bad guys will also get stronger and new types will eventually start appearing). When you get tired of sleeping on cold hard dungeon floors give Maple Cottage a look. You can't beat the price ... bonk some bandits on the head, get some nice loot from them to sell PLUS get a nice home to live in ... can you find a better deal?? Emma has another mod that might be of interest ... Companion Vilja. You will find no other more complete companion in all Cyrodiil (even comes with a wolf companion for the two of you a little ways down her questline). - Edit - Sorry Ike, but CM based will never get me to stray from Vilja ... well now if I could just figure out how to get Umbra over to my side ...

So the question remains how much memory is on your video card? That info will determine what (if any) of the big environmental texture mods you can use (example Quarls). I'm going to link you another wiki article by Bben46 ... Oblivion reinstall procedure. Use it as a framework to make sure your uninstall/re-install doesn't leave you with different problems. I'm a non-Steam type myself but it's my impression that Steam makes uninstalling/re-installing rather easy. There are probably instructions somewhere on Steam concerning best practices for uninstall/re-install. Have a look at the "Moving your Steam install location" link near the top of that wiki article page. You don't need to move yours from what I understand (sounded to me like you have Steam installed on a different drive than Windows, in a non-UAC protected folder path). Just have a look to see if there's any pointers that may apply to your situation. I don't use any mod manager to start my game ... just use a good old fashioned desktop shortcut. To me it seems pointless, and just one more running task in the background robbing Oblivion of precious RAM, but I'm a dinosaur. When I close either Wrye Bash or OBMM when finished doing what I'm doing in there it has no clue what I do with the game after that. On a previous install, before I started using Wrye Bash I used OBMM and manual installs, but generally just used the vanilla game Data Files for activating/deactivating mods. OBMM wouldn't show all the mods that were activated correctly, but that didn't cause me any concern or trouble (but then again OBMM had no clue what I did with my game once I closed it and played ... if you use OBMM or NMM to launch the game your mileage may differ). Often when going through a re-install you need to delete Oblivion.ini (or rename it as I prefer) to get the game to build a new one. I think that may be what you went through when the game launch stalled at the Bethesda logo screen (your Oblivion.ini is found at Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Vista and newer Windows versions). The whole idea behind the UOPs is that they fix what needs fixing but will allow any other mod to re-fix things how it needs it. That is the reason that the UOPs are loaded near the top of your mod load list, so that other mods can overwrite the changes if required. Some mods don't use an ESP and so aren't load order dependent ... then INSTALL ORDER is paramount. That's why you always install the UOPs before installing other mods. OBMM isn't a very intelligent mod manager so it reports other mod's overwrites of UOP stuff as conflicts ... conflicts that were anticipated by the UOP's authors and are intended to be "the other mod wins" situations. No need to close this thread ... it's yours to do with as you please (and Ike and I will do our best to hijack ... err, I mean help you on it).

Aww Ike, why you bein' so hard on poor Ryan?? Just cuz he's klepto, and Mr Unreliable, and Mr WhereTheF*IsHeNow?? Maybe the poor guy just needs some luvin', like all the rest of us. Another alternative to consider for the ever present encumbrance issue is Packdonkeys. First thing any of my guys saves up for. Reliable, configurable, summonable ... not related to Ryan in the slightest.

If you have the gold Shady Sam is the man to see. Go through the stable paddock at Chestnut Handy and down the path just past the big rock on your right. You'll see him standing right next to the city wall, but you need to walk past the rock a bit to see back behind and to your right to where he's hiding. What do you think needs to be improved or is missing from your game?

Your CPU speed will limit things a bit. When you say Memory 3.3 GB are you talking system RAM or video card ? The primary limiting factor for the "look better' type mods is video memory, but that said a machine with a slow CPU will limit how effective a fast video card with plenty of VRAM can be. I'd say your machine specs puts thorough testing at a premium for you. Get a good baseline feel for a number of different situations in the game before adding mods (big bandit fights with multiple enemies & crowded cities with lots happening will be the biggies). Even some armor/clothing mods with high poly count meshes can bring a slower machine to it's knees. If you have a good baseline and add a mod you'll know when something has exceeded your machine's capabilities. You can use more than one mod manager at a time. They both won't always report the same things so you need to understand their differences. For example I use Wrye Bash and have OBMM (which I only use for BSA extraction of files I want to use from the vanilla game BSAs). I have manually installed most of my mods, have used Wrye Bash's BAIN installer on a few, but mostly use WB for activating/deactivating mods and it's bashed patch. When it builds a bashed patch it will offer to deactivate certain mods that it then includes in the bashed patch. WB marks those mods in a way that shows that they are deactivated but active in the bashed patch. OBMM has no clue about such stuff and just reports that those mods aren't activated. This doesn't cause me any concern or confusion because I understand what each is doing and what OBMM's limitations are. If your quicksave isn't very old (i.e. hasn't been repeated overwritten many many times) chances are it will load fine providing the mods that that save relies on are working correctly. Many times the "missing content" warning can safely be ignored and an old save with mods in the save record that aren't installed any more will load just fine. It depends on what the missing mod or mods added to that save and if it can continue without them. All you can do is try and see what happens. Now that you are back to vanilla it's time to start getting a solid base to work from. First in OBMM open the Utilities menu and select Archive Invalidation. In the Archive Invalidation dialogue that opens select BSA Redirection, click on Reset BSA Timestamps and then click Update Now. This is a do once and forget about it procedure that will enable the game to use replacement assets (textures, animations etc.) without the need for an ESP (primary use is body/clothing/armor/animation replacers as well as some environment texture replacers). Steam should have your game up to date version wise (version 1.2.0416 is the latest version), but the latest version still left many many things undone or unfixed (ever seen a floating rock or tree??). The Unofficial patches (UOPs) fix most if not all of those. Get those installed and remember to test afterwards. The UOPs are just mods, and in some cases very large mods, so see how having them installed affects your machine performance. You will probably see an increase in "crash on exit". It's a "feature" of modded Oblivion ... learn to live with it as best you can. Get your game UOPed and then tell us what you're thinking of next. Also note that there are quite a few Oblivion mods that won't install using NMM. That's also just something you'll need to learn to live with. Get into the habit of reading mod descriptions, mod install instructions and mod comments.

Wha ... what??? I don't have any secrets!! Don't be a stranger Spyder. Ike and I need somebody to keep us from picking on one another.

OK, so with your D: install location we shouldn't run into any UAC issues (Vista is the OS that introduced that wonderful love to hate/hate to love feature). As far as I know the game should work on Vista ... perhaps not quite as well as XP or 7 but the game will still be largely limited by your hardware more than OS. So considering you haven't progressed very far into the world of mods let's get your game back to square one vanilla state. I suggest Bben46's wiki article Revert to vanilla data. Take note of the differences on whether or not you have Shivering Isles (is your Steam version the GotY or GotY Deluxe). Read through the article and ask about anything that you're unsure of before diving in ... I'll be lurking here. Get the game back to vanilla and check that everything is running correctly. If you don't have a save from immediately before the sewer exit (where you can see the sewer exit in the distance, but before you get your character finalization pop-ups) then I suggest you complete the tutorial and test your baseline performance outside and in the Imperial City Market District (preferably in the day time when it's busy). Before you exit the sewers make a save at that point before you finalize your character. A note about saving ... never use quicksave, it's a known corrupter of save files. Use save from the Esc menu or console named saves. Don't overwrite saves, always save to a new slot (gives you a fallback position if/when you run into a snag with a game crashing save). After making your pre-sewer exit save make another just outside of the sewers. This save can be used to continue your character after getting your base mods installed. When you get to the IC Market District make a third save. This will be a handy mod testing save (but doesn't need to be your only mod testing save).

This is just a theory, but maybe one of those nVidia driver updates didn't sit well with the pre-existing Realtek driver. The link I posted was from a Google search for Realtek ... my Realtek link is on my non-gaming laptop that sees little or no use when I'm at home. Good that you're up and running again. As far as I know the only way to lock a thread on here is by contacting one of the staff.

So you have started to learn a very important lesson ... install one mod and then test thoroughly. Don't worry, all is not lost. Give us a bit more info on your situation and we'll get you sorted out and modding away. First, do you have the disk version or the Steam version? Next, what operating system are you running (e.g. Win 7, Win 8 or Win XP) ? Last bit of pre-info ... where did you install the game (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86) or C:\Games) ?

There are clues to watch for when you are copy/pasting. With FOLDERS the clue is the Windows warning that "There is already a folder named <whatever the folder you have copied>". If you don't get that warning when copying folders there is a very good chance you've pasted into the wrong folder (the only exception is the rare occasion you are copying a folder that didn't already exist in your target). With FILES there will be no clue you've done it right. You'll need to use Windows Explorer to examine your game's folders to make sure the file is in the correct folder by comparing to your extracted download. With loose files if you get an overwrite warning it should clue you to recheck what files are in which folders from mods you already have installed, because your new mod is trying to overwrite another mod's file. The only time the overwrite will possibly overwrite any original game files is for shaders, music or video ... all of the other game files are safe inside their respective compressed archives (the BSA files).

The rule of thumb for copying and pasting FOLDERS is always paste into one level higher than you copied. So the game's structure is always Oblivion\Data\Meshes and Oblivion\Data\Textures. If you right click/copy a folder named Data from your extracted download the rule is you will paste into a folder named Oblivion (one level higher up). The rule for loose files like say footfemale.dds is to paste into the folder you want the file to wind up in. So if your extracted download had Data\Textures\characters\imperial\female\footfemale.dds and you were copying just the FILE footfemale.dds you would paste into female folder in your game's Data\Textures\characters\imperial\female folder path. So the short answer is yes, you would put the Data folders into your Oblivion folder.

Everything you wanted to know about pathgrids (but were afraid to ask): Category:Path Grids - The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki

Did you "f" key drop the grid nodes after putting them into the cell? How big of a wander range does the NPC's default wander package have? I think the Energy setting at the top of the NPC's AI package window has something to do with how often they'll evaluate and move on a wander package. I generally set it to a moderate number in the range of 40 to 70 for most NPCs I create.

Ahh ... don't tell on me Drake, but I have a secret weapon. Shhh ... you have it now too ... mum is the word.

Where would we be without you Drake ... I knew that but didn't think of it!! Alright Spyder ... next time you go into your game and after you get your settings the way you'd like them open the in-game console using the tilde (~) key found just below the Esc key on standard keyboards. The console prompt is just a slowly flashing - in the lower left area of the screen. At the console prompt type "saveini" without the quote marks and then hit Enter. Close the console again with the tilde key and exit the game. Start the game again and see if this has been another case of "Drake to the rescue!!".

OK ... let me know if you reconsider. Editing Oblivion.ini will be a walk in the park for you now you've gotten your feet wet.