Striker879

Umm ... hope that's not too "bright eyed and bushy tailed" for you Paga.

Well as AnJen said, people who come back and update current status are rare indeed. For the most part the OPs only come back if they have more questions/unresolved issues ... otherwise it's poof central. I don't have any stake in next titles from the ES series (if I'm not a potential customer for ES V I sure won't be top of the list for ES VI) but that doesn't mean I don't have opinions and expectations of what may come to pass. I personally think Bethesda fixes those bugs that they have almost no other choice but fix and the rest get ignored in favour of spending all their time at raking in money and spending zilch. The next title will have mods and microtransactions because those equal Mo Money. Maybe they're taking so long because they have too thick a stream of gold coming in already. Hunger isn't a completely bad thing. The EULA for the Construction Set/Creation Kit are pretty clear ... modder owns the assets they create and Bethesda own the game IP and tools used to create it. Stuff created with non-Bethesda tools are the creator's IP (within the EULA of the tool used to create it). You can be sure that if Bethesda wanted something a user created with their tools they'd find a way to make it theirs at little or no cost to themselves. That's business. Commonly held notions of right and wrong have no brook in that situation ... more money for Bethesda equals right, less money for Bethesda equals wrong. Easy to figure out.

We haven't gotten to that point yet. We are merely at the 'civil unrest' stage. Currently, it is open to question whether it will be a political war, or a race war........ It does seem to have some of the earmarks of a "shooting war" though Hey ... keep your head down, powder dry and flints at hand. I live out in the sticks, so, not really in a target area. But, I DO have several weapons, including a couple so-called "assault rifles", and around a 1000 rounds of ammo for them. :smile: I am more worried about the waves of refugees I will likely see coming from detroit. :D I hear ya ... won't be zombies behind them either, eh? Ya just never know. :D LOL ... at least if they're zombies you won't find yourself with any moral/ethical/should I go left or should I go right issues clouding your aim ... start a bit low and to the right of center, squeeze and release once off target (assuming full auto and right handed shooter of course). Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Oh trust me ... I know what's coming (do a little Google drive by on the term "Wabbajack", and I'm not referring to any Daedric staff). Dark0ne and team are working on their own flavour. I'm just not onboard that train yet. Yes it will make "modding bigger", but I'm not a big believer that bigger is better ... it's just bigger. Ever notice how even with all the advances in automobile technology we still have repair shops? Guess I won't run out of troubleshooting threads to keep me occupied. Don't read too much into Bethedsa's role in the CC content stuff. Sure they'll have some people working on it, but my bet is those people are primarily CC server curators. The content itself is just regular folks who have some talent at creating mods (and who have signed a NDA with Bethesda ... so you don't know until you're in, and then mum's the word and the rest of us can continue being mushrooms in Bethesda's garden shed). I'm sure Bethesda has somebody doing the vetting, which you don't get here as of this time (except in the many and various opinions that everybody has of course ... but you know what is said about opinions and what everybody also has). The point of the final clean save is so that any assets that the uninstalled mod may have left in your saves are well and truly gone. When you deactivate a mod all of it's assets (meshes, textures, new world spaces ... the entire enchilada) are still sitting there in your Data folder ... when uninstalled they're not. Granted some of my dinosaur ways will not be pertinent in the MO2/Vortex virtual drive/install world. Gotta' give us dinosaurs something to grumble about ... otherwise how would you know we're dinosaurs, right?? - Edit -Nice job in your Installation Questions thread ... you have a little of the diplomat thread weaving through your weft. Makes the sail hang nicely with good shape ... it'll generate good lift.

We haven't gotten to that point yet. We are merely at the 'civil unrest' stage. Currently, it is open to question whether it will be a political war, or a race war........ It does seem to have some of the earmarks of a "shooting war" though Hey ... keep your head down, powder dry and flints at hand. I live out in the sticks, so, not really in a target area. But, I DO have several weapons, including a couple so-called "assault rifles", and around a 1000 rounds of ammo for them. :smile: I am more worried about the waves of refugees I will likely see coming from detroit. :D I hear ya ... won't be zombies behind them either, eh?

1984

Striker points at Paga, points to himself, raises his shoulders, and arms raised slightly to the side tilts his head to one side. Buddy, I liked your story ... chuckled in the chuckly parts, honest. No need to be all distant and stuff, just 'cause we got these pointy sticks in our hands and stuff. It's just so we don't "lose 'em", you know like if we "put them down" or something (and heaven forbid you happen to step in front of one at the wrong time ... that would be real bad luck, or timing, or something). Still friends then?? :laugh:

We haven't gotten to that point yet. We are merely at the 'civil unrest' stage. Currently, it is open to question whether it will be a political war, or a race war........ It does seem to have some of the earmarks of a "shooting war" though Hey ... keep your head down, powder dry and flints at hand.

Hey mister ... I'l have you know I resemble that remark!! OK this is from another of my "grandpa-isms" with the grandkids: "Back when the Earth was coalescing from the primorial dust cloud ... when I was just a young lad" Another hypothesis for the origins of dirt ... maybe it's always been there. The remnants of that primorial dust cloud are still with us. We see it as zodical light under dark skies during the shoulder seasons, and as shooting stars when one of them pesky little dust grains forgets to get out our busy planets's path (and what's left of them slowly drifts earthward to settle somewhere on land or sea ... tons of the stuff each year). But on to the important question ... just what the heck is dirt?? Pretty certain it's not just our good old primordial dust, at least not primordial dust alone. One of the clues to that comes from the moon of all places. Back when we were ambitious enough to send some guys up there they collected a whole bunch of stuff to bring back for show and tell. Mostly rocks (though none on your "Paga" scale rocks ... the "station wagon" used for this road trip was more Vdub Bug sized). Bags and bags of rocks, and one other thing ... dust. Sure they collected some dust on purpose, 'cause some guys with pocket protectors back home said "Hey, see if you can bring me back some dust" or something. That wasn't the problem. It was all the dust they tracked into the "bus" on their boots (I mean what's so hard about giving your feet a stamp or two before you get in ... did they forget to bring a doormat??). Not a really big deal while you keep your spacesuit buttoned up tight, but it becomes a big deal when you take that suit off. Apparently human lungs evolved after primordial dust and the two don't mix very well. So back to the question, what is dirt? Fairly early (when using the million year scale ruler, not that measuring tape you picked up at Canadian Tire last time you were there) our fair planet (which still wasn't all that fair by the way) was home to more than just dust and rocks (even Paga sized and bigger). Sometrhing we refer to as "life" today (though most of you wouldn't trade yours for the "life" these had to offer I'd wager). Pretty simple to start, a few amino acids tangled up in such a way that one could churn out copies (sort of a Kinkos thing, only there weren't any "stores" per se ... one theory is that hydrothermal undersea vents was the closest thing they could come to a brick and mortar establishment back then). As long as you are using that ruler I suggested and not the one from Crappy Tire it didn't take too long before things changed ... a lot (and also not at all). While some of that "life" got busy getting big and complicated there were those who just went "meh" and stayed pretty close to they way they'd always been. Soon they were no longer part of the "big party" (because they weren't big maybe??) and the big ones lost sight of them ... for a long time (OK now, put away the measly million year ruler for now, we need the billion year one for this next part). That didn't mean they were just sitting there twiddling their metaphorical thumbs (which of course they didn't have because they were all of one cell, no more no less). They found jobs!! Remember that dust we started out with?? Well some of these little guys got their little teeth into that dust and went "Hey ... this stuff is pretty tasty". And what happens to you when you've had a nice big tasy meal? Yup, same thing I'm always telling the grandkids ... "If you don't eat you won't poop, and if you don't poop you'll die!!". And as is always the way, ones man's junk is another man's gold mine, so before long the poop mining crowd got on the bandwagon and a whole ecosystem evolved. The "big" crowd had no idea what was happening under their feet, but some of them decided to turn the plants that had joined the "dust eating/dust eater's poop" party into food, and then of course some wise guy chomped on the plant eater and yup, here we are, one big party hurtling through space. Today we just call it dirt, but you may now have some notion there's a bit more to it than meets the eye. And for the record: Miss on the first part ... my Mom loved to dance. Hit on the second part ... mostly I heard them calling it "swing" and "boogying" and "jive" and stuff like that, and my step Dad was right into it. - Edit - And another thing ... my ancestor from 50,000 years ago (you know, the guy who's drinking implement I'm still using today) say's he resembles that other remark of yours ... the rock moving/ressigning stuff. Just so you know that we know who's spreading these tales. And don't forget to stamp your feet before coming in ... that dust is still falling from the sky. Chicken Little was only a little bit off the mark, it's just part of the sky that's falling. - Edit last - Man I sure have the technology for spelling mistakes and weird incomplete sentences ... no wonder I try to stick to "one word" (for me a paragraph or two (or three) is "one word") posts!! - Edit real actual last - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37XEw3FDEwg I fondly remember The Taste Of Honey, but what I've always looked forward to is the promised "Other Delights" once you made it through all that whipped cream!!

That method you describe is called a "clean save" (when you deactivate, save without the mod active and then uninstall). For the full deal meal version you make another final squeaky-clean save after the uninstall (primarily if you're an Nth degree sort). I didn't know that you could get regular Nexus versions of the CC content ... I was under the impression that CC content was exclusive to only Bethesda. The people who make CC content are modders, many from here. It's Bethesda's way of getting content, for which they pay the modder a nominal fee (as far as I know a one time fee, Bethesda are the only ones running the constant revenue stream scam). The devil is always in the details, but you are the sort equipped to deal with that.

Pretty sure that SKSE64 works the same as OBSE in so far as it keeps it's script extender specific save info in a co-save. To explain, in Oblivion the vanilla game saves your progress in a save file with the ESS file extension (e.g. MySave09.ess). Once you install Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) you will now see a second save file each time you save (so now it'll be MySave10.ess and MySave10.obse). After you get your load order set up and want to continue that previous character it's just a matter of copying the backed up save into your saves folder, start the game and then save. You should now have both a new save plus the SKSE64 co-save. Some caveats on saves and mods, but first a bit of background on what your "menu screen" mods are (I believe). Those will be Creation Club (aka CC content), which are mods same as from here except they are only available via the Bethesda site (and from what I've gathered reading, only available via the in-game menu). I can't say for certain how that is handled by MO2 ... maybe something to get some info on beforehand. The reason you may want to find out more about that is because your character's current saves are dependent on that CC content. Now sometimes, depending on what a mod does or changes you can still use a save that includes a mod that is no longer in your load order. The game will alert you to missing content but it will load fine and allow you to carry on. Other times you'll be stopped dead in your tracks until you re-install the missing mod(s). Like I've said in the past, one of the big things that the MO/Vortex crowd tout is the "clean Data folder". If you need to have that CC content in order to continue your character's saves then you'll either need to find a way to migrate the CC stuff off your data folder and into the MO2 virtual file system or live with a "dirty" Data folder (taking on a little of my dinosaur ways so to speak). I'm an experienced retired guy these days ... just a little over 12 years experienced. Before too much longer maybe I'll achieve "old hand" status.

On the Nexus Forum site (this interface) click on your username top left corner and select My Profile. On your profile page click on the Edit my Profile button (top right). On the top of the list under General Account Settings click on the Change my photo... button.

No I'm a retired dude, so I don't have a job (and I'm always looking over my shoulder to make sure a job isn't looking for me!!). It's always important to start a game up and let it create it's settings etc before adding anything, including script extenders (your SKSE64 or my OBSE). I like to tweak my settings at vanilla and even play for a bit to get a baseline before adding mods (and it doesn't matter if we're talking about graphics mods or gameplay ... that baseline gives you a point of reference on your machine as they all aren't equal, even with identical specs as there are slight variations in individual hardware components). When you use my old school "one mod at a time" method you know how each mod has moved you from that baseline and in which direction. I keep a variety of saves for testing mods etc. Before I make the rare commitment of adding a mod to my existing load order and saveline it has been quite thoroughly tested using those testing saves. Some of the time I'll use a more recent save, sometimes it will be one of those early saves (to get an idea of how the mod affects low level characters). The saves I create while installing mods to get a load order set up are never used for gameplay on my character. I get the load order to my liking and then start a new game. Hard drive space is cheap, so I have more saves backed up than I'll ever need (part of my packrat problem). I got dragged onto Discord for a mod collaboration/team thing but I haven't been back on since (except when trying to track down one inactive team member). I have more than enough time sinks in my life ... not looking for another.

Just my own load orders ... working for the world's worst boss and I have the world's worst customer ... sort of a worst of both worlds situation (but at least I know who to blame, so that's something). When I'm throwing a party for my enemies I just need the closest phone booth. - Edit - More stumbling about today ... have you seen this one:

It'd be a pretty boring world if we were all identical. Multiply that by a factor of 10 if everyone was identical to me! Not sure why the GamerPoets videos didn't come to mind sooner for me. They did an interview with him here on the site a while back (maybe a year ago or so) and so now if I notice a GamerPoets video I tend to watch even if it's not on a subject I'm into. Sometimes I make it to the end, sometimes the Back button beckons and wins. Then as fate would have it when I Googled his name to get a link to post his MO2 video was right there, front and center. Occasionally when I feel like I'm stumbling around blindly I'm actually being directed or something. For a frame of reference, when setting up my current guy's load order the process took well over two weeks. I'm not one to walk and chew gum at the same time so the mantra is install one mod and test thoroughly. Once I'm satisfied I move on to the next. What really soaked up the hours was getting my core gameplay changing mods tweaked to my liking, first individually (so I got a handle on the ins and outs each offered) and then as a group. Granted to an outside observer many of my "testing sessions" would appear to be "playing session" but they were crafted to explore the interaction between the mods at my current INI file settings. I've only had to retweak the settings a couple of times as my guy leveled, and now I have a ton of various level saves backed up (money in the bank ... whoohoo). The next build will be streamlined (to the extent that I will allow myself at least ... I'm my own worst enemy).

My stint at writing training mauals taught me one thing ... everybody learns differently. Some people could watch a video and they have it. Me ... I watch a video and the only way I "get" anything is via constant use of the pause function. Even then it's mostly a waste of time. Now if I could read the script once you could query me in a few years time I could give you at least the broad strokes after that one read through. Everybody is wired up the way they are wired up. The power move is figure out your wiring diagram and then use that to your advantage. And yes ... GamerPoets is geared to the 3.5 second attention span crowd. I see you are already doing this, so I'm preaching to the choir, but you get better mileage by asking questions than challenging other peoples beliefs. If they think that C:\Program Files (x86) is the perfect spot to install games because it has worked for them they are 100% right ... for them. That doesn't make it 100% right for me.

I wasn't meaning to "call you out" on anything. Bear in mind that I am acutely aware that the only view of myself I can possibly have is from the inside looking out. It's simply impossible for me to see anything from any perspective except my own. I consider that a limitation. I also know that I'm not unique in this limitation. If I didn't think you could benefit from a different point of view I wouldn't offer it, but my read on your personality was that you would be able to find some value in a different perspective. Looks like you've generated some interest in your other thread. I personally don't see what problems could arise from having games on a separate drive (been my way of doing things for a few decades, since the first machines I built). One benefit I'd like to point out is that in my opinion the operating system (OS) drive is the more likely to suffer problems (sees more use/wear and tear and is the one more likely to be targeted by all the wonderful bad stuff out there). If you lose the OS drive and your games are installed there you are well and fully back on square one. If your games (and mods) are installed on a drive dedicated to them then the loss of the OS drive means you'll be reinstalling Windows, and yes you'll go through a game reinstall but that is just to generate the Windows registry entries required for the games (i.e. the games reinstall doesn't overwrite your mods ... with the exception of maybe an INI file or two that can be backed up after OS reinstall but before the games). That's my take on it for what it's worth. - Edit - Have you watched any of GamerPoets videos ... Most of his other videos cover both MO and Vortex installs of things.

Another possible option would be Vortex. It is being developed by the same person responsible for Mod Organiser and Mod Organiser 2 (Tannin42) ... he's just getting paid for what was done for free before. As a result of my dinosaur ways I'm not up to speed on all of it's ins and outs but it has much in common with MO2 (the whole "clean Data" folder thing and the like). I'm sure you'll see plenty of posts regarding using it to install Skyrim/SE mods on those forums. HadToRegister is one of the go to guys regarding Vortex questions. - Edit - Yes, at times I can drone on and on. - Edit 2 - Had a peek at your "Newbie would like help ..." thread. Only advice I can give isn't related to a solution but rather more along the "presentation" lines. Slip into your thicker skin for a moment (if you don't mind) ... I'm merely giving a view from a different perspective. Doesn't make it right, doesn't make it wrong, but it is what I see from where I sit. As is the case with your original post here, there is a tone that will discourage many from answering. I hestitate to label it demanding, as in my eyes it isn't, but that is perhaps because I know where you're coming from. It is very specific as to the exact "flavour" of help you request though, and many will be put off by that. I'm more an opposite case type guy, so I found it nice to know exactly what you were after, in fact I purposely waited before replying because I knew what I had to offer wasn't inline with what you were seeking (I often wonder whether or not my posting in somebody's question inhibits others from joining in ... though Lord knows I've often enough said "It takes a team to troubleshoot"). If you look, most help/advice request offer little or no information in the original post ... more often than not it is simply "Halp my game don't work", leaving it up to those who will help to drag the pertinent info from them one bit at a time (at times a very laborious process). I'm not suggesting sliding into those clothes (heck they wouldn't fit or look good on you anyway). I'm a bit of a fisherman. Presentation of the bait/lure is important. In general people respond to questions, but the questions need to allow room for their answers. Example ... "What mod organiser do you recommend" will get answers. Granted not answers specific to the direction you would like to go, but the answers allow a starting place for discussion. The "Wrye Bash" answer would allow a further question of "Why do you recommend Wrye Bash", to which the answer may be "BAIN installs allow you to remove mods, and anneal fixes all previous overwrites". That then allows the question "Doesn't Mod Organiser 2 have something similar, at least in function" (notice how I didn't set the hook immediately ... bait needs to in the mouth first). Yes, I tend to be a bit of a thinker, and one of my favourite "mind games" is trying on shoes. Not my own, or even my size ... whatever somebody else wears will do.

I'm not really complaining ... heck they keep me "in business". I wouldn't have learned half what I know if I'd had to make my own mistakes. It is kinda' "generous" of them to share something as valuable as mistakes with the likes of me, so I'm not looking in any mouths. By and large the ones I've tried to help are decent folks (like you), they just have a different set of priorities than me. I'm certain of one thing ... my priorities are right for exactly one person, no more, no less. Things are quite a bit quieter on the Oblivion part of the Nexus since the Skyrim crowd took over, so you see me poking my nose in other corners of the site now (like here). If I notice your name bubble to the top of the Nexus Site Forums or Commenting posts you can bet I'll be taking a peek to see what mischief you're getting into.

To me Steam epitomizes the worst of what happens when profit is the primary (and perhaps only) motive. When Valve created the company it was under the premise of stopping online game cheating and game piracy. Then they caught on that it was also a gold mine, platinum mine and diamond mine all rolled into one (i.e. their license to print money). They started with the promise of stopping piracy (a promise they have obviously never fulfilled) then as game companies moved away from hard media distribution they incorporated their digital distribution pitch. Today my biggest beef with them is how they do as they please. Here's an example: Many Oblivion mods depend on a method called BSA Redirection as their form of archive invalidation (which is a way to get the game to use assets that replace vanilla game assets that are in the game BSA files like Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa without using an ESP to direct the game to the replacements). BSA Redirection (the newest of the methods tried by the modding community over the years) requires that the vanilla game BSAs all be their original file date (i.e. year 2006). Steam changes all the file dates to modern dates, thus breaking BSA Redirection for their hapless users. Steam knows about it but has no intention of changing (the old my way or the highway attitude). Contrast this with Good Old Games (GOG). When GOG got distribution rights to Oblivion they had the same problem (modern dates on the BSA files). As soon as they were alerted to the problem they changed the file dates back to year 2006 ... problem solved. GOG relies on customer good will to promote and expand their business. To Steam their end user customers simply represent andother revenue stream (i.e. more pockets to grub around in). Their business model rakes money in from the front end, the middle and the back end. My own isue with them wasn't related to todays situation directly, but what they have evolved into certainly hasn't regained them any of the points they lost with me via the customer support. I'm a poor choice for mod manager advice. For one I'm Oblivion only focused, plus I believe that mod managers are part of the reason we have so many people who are "experienced modders" that can't solve even the simplest problems. Use a mod manager and all you learn about modding is how to use the mod manager ... doesn't matter how long you "mod". Learn to manually install mods and you can do anything you want. Feeling a bit bored, pick up whatever the latest flavour of mod manager that is being foisted to the masses and play around with it. You'll know immediately what it does well and where it's shortcomings lay as you know what it is supposed to do to get mods installed properly. If all you know how to do is press the "Download with Manager" button then all you know about the process is that button on the site interface that says "Download with Manager" ... well that's the one you click. Whether or not the mod works is completely in a different universe to those people.

My Mark I Gray Lump is my mod manager of choice for installation. I have a few mods installed via Wrye Bash, but primarily it is only used for the bashed patch. I am well known as a self proclaimed dinosaur. Maybe if Skyrim ever comes available on GOG I might consider it ... notice the italics (i.e. don't hold your breath). Steam and I had a difference of opinion way back not long after it's inception, so the chances of me buying the game from them are at the center of a triangle defined by the three points named zero, zilch and nada. Actually the Morrowind disk (a gift) requires Steam for activation so it's unlikely to see my hard drive other than possibly as a resource source for Morroblivion (haven't spent any time looking into what may or may not be possible). The only Steam account I will ever have is the Steam Support account that I've had since the time they started up the company. I don't form my opinions from what others say ... I do use what others say as a guide to my own investigations though. When I'm watching a Skyrim playthrough video more often than not I have the sound turned off (so I don't need to listen to the presenter drone on and on, or explain how they don't know how this or that works). I'm watching how the game is played (e.g. combat, leveling etc). What I have seen so far concerning Skyrim gameplay hasn't piqued my interest (including Joseph Russell's Lucien videos, about the only ones I watch with sound). I'm an edge case. If game companies consulted with me and produced games based on my input they'd have a single sale for their efforts, not the millions they all desire.

Same as everybody else, all I have for certain is this next second (as I'm indoors sitting at my computer, not currently experiencing any physical distress). Guess that's partly why I live in the moment (in the next short while I'll be headed to the grocery store ... will I come home from there, and if so will I be bringing home just groceries or more than groceries ... uncertainty abounds in time that extends even a short distance into the future). I've watched a number of videos (can't recall the presenter's name off-hand) that compared the various entries in the ES saga and pointed out how each represents a mere subset of what the previous title held in term of gameplay and story. My own "sticking with Oblivion" isn't rooted in that, but it does play into my choices regarding the ES series. What if I played Morrowind (i.e. not Morroblivion) and doing so allowed me to see Oblivions shortcomings (or see them more clearly I guess as I am aware that Oblivion is not perfect). Much of what I see in Morrowind's gameplay mechanics (really ... chance based hit chance ... Todd, couldn't you think of something a bit better??) tells me that I would find plenty to be unimpressed by in Morrowind. Considering that "pretty pictures" do little to mask things from my eyes I'm quite certain that Skyrim would be an overall disappointment for me. I'm not disenchanted or "feeling left behind" with being stuck in Oblivion ... after all I'm the one who sent me there.

Morrowind will likely happen someday (after all I do already own the game) ... I just haven't run out of things to do in Oblivion (I was "late" starting on it too ... owned it for a couple of years before installing it). I'm a decade or so into Oblivion, whatda' ya think, maybe half way done?? From what I've seen of the game mechanics in Morrowind I'll proably go the Morroblivion route, so Oblivion game mechanics with Morrowind story. Heck my current Oblivion character (my third) is over 5000 hours, though I will admit I may be getting close to starting a new guy as I find myself getting the additions I want to try on the next guy lined up. I'll start adding them to the current guy's load order someday, and tweaking things to my liking. Then I'll probably do a bunch of testing on lower level saves to see how my tweaks scale. At some point the load order will be morphed into the new load order and I'll click that New Game button. Maybe you get an idea of how I can spend 10 years in Oblivion and still not be "done" with it.

Started with Privateer. My intention was to get Sid Meier's Pirates! but then after I bought the 8088 laptop I found out it wouldn't run on it. So I learned all I could about DOS and simple programming in Basic. My next machine wasn't obsolete before I unboxed it (386 SX25 Toshiba ... bleeding edge for about two whole weeks). I'd get home from work and disappear into the Privateer universe until it was time to catch a few hours ZZs and do it all over again. The only Elders Scrolls game I've played is Oblivion. I have Morrowind on disk but haven't ever installed it. Most of what I see concerning Skyrim doesn't raise my interest in it one iota (though Joseph Russell's video series Lucien the Dragonborn has come close to piquing my interest). The older titles would suffer the same fate as I recently ran into when giving Privateer another go ... same as your problem ... graphics. Oblivion isn't well suited to achieving modern graphics standards. That doesn't mean it is stuck back with 2006 limitations, but you will find it more jarring going backwards that what I have found. It also helps me that gameplay has far more importance to me than simple appearance. If you want an idea of where the state of the art lays right now for Oblivion give Bevilex' modlist for Oblivion - Graphics a gander.

The bashed patch does a lot to carry the UOP changes forward (and if your changes change the same things as the UOP load order wins the day). Chances are any of your users who don't use a bashed patch are also unlikely to use the UOP (though they aren't mutually exclusive I suppose).