Striker879

I'll second Balakirev's nomination of Companion Vilja. Without a doubt the best companion you'll find. With her in tow you'll forget how to use your own healing spells (and how was that am I supposed to use these potions??).

Don't use it myself, but I recall reading that the preferred method is by editing the OBGE.ini (it creates that the first time you run it if I recall correctly). Look for it either in your Oblivion\Data folder or in Oblivion\Data\ini folder. - Edit - Don't listen to me ... watch the video. Thanks talvern, glad you've got my back.

You're in the 'way back machine' now. Have fun.

That was my point in wanting you to make a save just after exiting the sewers, before you go to the Market District to make your 'mod testing save'. When you add your first mod you use the Market District save to test it. If it works OK there you exit the game and when you reload it you load your sewer exit save. Let's say you plan on delivering the amulet right away ... so from the sewer exit you go to Chorrol and find Jauffre. Then you decide you want to try out 'JoesReallyReallyCoolUberSword' mod. You save after seeing Jauffre (remember always in a new slot), exit the game and install JoesReallyReallyCoolUberSword. You start the game and load your Market District save (and it turns out, like 99% of other modders Joe put his sword at the foot of a statue in the Market District). You go find the sword and decide, ya ... this really is a cool uber sword. You don't save, exit the game and restart, this time loading your 'after seeing Jauffre save'. You say to yourself, "You know, Joe's uber sword might come in handy when I go to Kvatch to find this Martin guy ... maybe I'll swing thru the Market District on my way to Kvatch". Or maybe you say to yourself "You know Joe's uber sword is so powerful it might make the finding Martin mission too easy ... think I'll wait and grab it after I go to Kvatch". You don't need to worry, except under the circumstances that a fight breaks out in the Market District (and your character would need to be very close to the Market District for that to happen) and one of the unarmed NPCs needed a sword ... Joe's uber sword will be sitting there on the ground in front of that statue long after the Oblivion Crisis is over and you're the head of all the guilds if that's what you chose to do. I generally pick up stuff like that and then stick it in one of my houses, where I can safely forget about it (guess that's what happens when you prefer to enchant all your own gear). The short version is you have a save which you use to continue you character's journey through Cyrodiil, and you have a save which you use for testing mods. When you find a mod that breaks your game (notice I didn't say 'if' ... given time you will find one) all you need to do is exit the game, remove the mod completely and your character's save is completely untouched.

Follow the second link (Mage's Guild questline). Hannibal Traven wants to know why the Bruma Mage's Guild has stopped corresponding (I imagine you are still doing recommendation quests, so you've got a ways to go).

Good to know WhiteGandalfs. I'm a Win XP dinosaur myself using a power user account for normal use and upgrading it to full admin when installing under that profile. My solution to OBMM not running under the power user log-in was to set the desktop shortcut to 'Run as ...' so that it prompts for an admin log-in. I'm not sure if it's because I use a power user account for my normal account as opposed to a limited user account, but I don't see any 'limited' folder in my OBMM folder. I didn't consider just changing permissions to get around the admin log-in requirement.

Something to try is exiting the game every few hours and restarting. As you are playing along the game is accumulating 'changes' your actions have made to the vanilla world stored in the BSAs, Oblivion.exe modified by the data in the save you loaded when you started. By saving and then exiting you are giving the game 'a clean slate' to start keeping track of your most recent 'changes' on. I save once every hour or hour and a half (unless I'm about to start something that may be tough to survive of course ... i.e I always save before diving into a dungeon). Every few hours I save exit and then restart if I'm going to continue to play. About the only time I crash is when I'm being silly with console commands (I love setting up wars between bandits, marauders and conjurers/necromancers).

Well perhaps I jumped to a wrong conclusion about the 'common' part of where your game was installed then Theme57 (I thought it was referring to a 'common' subfolder in your 'Users\[username]\Documents' folder). My advice stands that the best place for Steam and Oblivion is C:\Games, and thanks talvern for helping clean that up for me. I always say "It takes a team to solve problems".

Jeanne Frasoric needs to die for you to get them, but she's essential (unkillable) until a certain point in the Mage's Guild questline. Looks like you're joining the Mage's Guild.

I used to play with the music turned way down so you couldn't hear it. Since I've started to play with it turned up to normal you know when combat is about to start by the music change. I still don't save then, but then again my guy is mostly a tank once I get to level five or six (kuertee's Magicka-based enchantment limits to the rescue).

You've got it. Create the folder C:\Games and then when you follow the instructions for moving Steam you move it there. I don't use Steam myself, so I could be wrong about the folder names here, but it should wind up something like C:\Games\SteamApps\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion. The instructions on Steam tell you how to move the Steam folder so that your other Steam games will still work, and then when you re-install Oblivion from Steam it will automatically look for C:\Games\SteamApps.

After you uninstall Oblivion follow the link near the top of the page. It will bring you to a Steam page that explains how to move your Steam install location. I myself don't have any problems caused by autosave (that's what happen when you go thru some doors ... like when you first enter a dungeon). Quicksave (by default the F5 key) is what you don't want to use. Hit the Esc key, which opens the game menu and select Save from there. Always click on an open slot, don't save over top of your last save (when the game overwrites a save it doesn't save the same way as a fresh save). Those three saves I suggested are to help you when installing mods or starting a new game. OBMM can be installed anytime after you get the game re-installed. The reason I suggest re-installing the game is because I believe that the 'Common' folder you have used now is still protected by User Account Control (UAC). Oblivion is an old game. It was last updated long before Microsoft dreamed up UAC. When you add mods to the game UAC see the changes and blocks them (thinking it's 'protecting' you from unauthorized changes to the game). The slowly part refers to adding mods. A lot off people install the game and right away before they even see if the game will run they add twenty or thirty mods. Then they post here wondering why the game won't start or won't run. It's like untangling a plate of cold spaghetti in the dark with oven mitts on.

Hmmm ... I would have thought the other way around, as it's recommended to exit to the desktop before loading a save. Don't have much experience with 'during combat' saves as I only ever save while doing boring stuff like standing in a road or outside a city gate.

Are you exiting the game to desktop and then trying to load the 'in-combat' save?

My own Oblivion.ini has 'bUse Joystick=0' rather than 'bUse Joystick=1' (I use mouse and keyboard for controls). This is what Koroush Ghazi has to say about that setting in his Oblivion Tweak Guide: Any specific reason you have yours set to one?

First off get your game installed and working correctly. Follow the recommendations in Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure. Don't miss the link near the top of the page about moving your Steam install location, and don't neglect the registry cleaning step ... it's important. Once you get the game installed in C:\Games start a new game and create a character. Go through the tutorial dungeon up to the part where you can see the sewer exit in the distance (just before you get the character finalization menus). Make a save using the Esc menu (never use quicksave, it's a known corrupter of save files, and always save in a new slot ... never overwrite a save). This save prior to the sewer exit will come in handy if you ever start a new character but don't feel like doing the whole tutorial again. Exit the sewer and make another save (this one will come in handy for continuing your game after installing mods). Go to the Imperial City Market District and make another save (this will be your mod testing save). Then start adding mods one at a time, using your Market District save to test how it impacts your game (and quite often the armor/clothes mods will add their items to a container in the Market District). Slow always turns out faster when modding Oblivion. Take a look at the threads here with people needing help to get the game to run after they've added a whole bunch of mods at once. If you add one mod and the game stops working it's pretty easy to figure out where to start troubleshooting. Most Oblivion mods will install best either using Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) or manually installing (if you are good at picking up new stuff then Wrye Bash and it's BAIN installer are the way to go ... just be prepared for a bit of a steep learning curve). In general Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) has trouble installing all but the simplest Oblivion mods (unless you know how to reorganize the mod's files and folders in a manner that NMM can understand). Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) is a requirement for many of the more recent Oblivion mods, so it's a good idea to get it installed right off the bat. There are specific instructions for the Steam compatible version of OBSE (read the readme). Also if your Steam version of the game includes Shivering Isles (SI) then make sure you get it installed right at the start (a fair number of mods require it as well). Not sure how the Steam version of the game handles it, but I know with the disk version you can't add SI after you've installed Oblivion add patched it up to the most recent version (Steam handles the patching for you I believe). If you run into trouble we're here to try to help.

Oh great, so I'm back to Striker 0 Hickory 999. What's a guy got to do to get ahead in this world (just kidding). Any time I've created a copy of a vanilla object by giving it a unique editor ID I've never created a unique reference ID (that field is always blank if I select Edit from the right click menu on the object shown in the Cell View window list). Hickory will know far more about whether or not a unigue refID needs to be assigned for scripts to reference (I'm no scripter) but I looked in the CS for an vanilla example. The rats in Arvena Thelas basement for the Fighter Guild quest have a script attached to the base object shown in the Object window list (FGC01RatScript). When I look at the rats in her basement (AnvilArvenaThelasBasement cell) none of them show anything in the Reference Editor ID field (Base Object shown as 3571f). Like I say, Hickory will know far more than I can guess at.

Createfullactorcopy just creates a copy of the NPC with no AI. You can assign AI packages with 'addscriptpackage <AIpackageEditorID>' but the packages aren't persistent on the NPC (you leave the cell and they revert to no AI). For experimentation use 'addscriptpackage a3a59' (wander current location), 'addscriptpackage a3a5a' (sleep current location) and 'addscriptpackage 9828a' (follow player ... will persist as long as they stay with you). Generally speaking NPCs created this way aren't very satisfying. In fact their limitations is what got me started tinkering in the Construction Set.

Would the UESP Wiki help: Oblivion Ingredients

Striker 1, Hickory 999 ... it's a start.

Cool. Not too often I get to ninja the big dog to a solution ... woohoo!!

My thinking around that suggestion was that perhaps the 'state' of things in that location was saved in your save file (I'm assuming you went there in game and checked out the location before setting up the camp). Start a new character and travel to the location ... if I'm right there should be absolutely no issues with a new game.

You may want to look at this ban notice.

@ garmick ... you may want to look at this ban notice.

Perhaps a bit off the wall ... but have you tried the 'coc center wait 72 hours plus a bit trick'?