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Another thing to remember is by offering a "compilation you also make it so that the end user does not know which mod is adding what to their game and when they inevitably start adding other mods later they have no clue how to fix any conflict that arises so you wind up making things harder on them in the long run. Sure it may be simple to add several mods in a single compilation but then how do you know what each of those compiled mods adds to the game. Then when you decide you want to make other changes you have to spend twice as long figuring things out than you would have if you simply took the time to learn how to add single mods first. Every person is going to have a different vision of what the perfect Compilation would be and introducing newbies to the modding scene by giving them a compilation of 20 or so mods that each make different changes to the game is not going to help them learn to adjust the things they want to get their ideal gaming experience and only causes more headaches later when they add one more mod and it conflicts with one or more of those twenty and they can not figure out which because they have no idea what each of those 20 or more is adding\changing. Then they expect the community to figure it out for them and explain how to make it all work together or get frustrated when they have to learn what they should have learned when installing the first 2 or 3 mods !! If you want to mod a game you need to take the time and invest the effort to Learn what you are doing and having others put together a "compilation" that changes every aspect of the game is not going to provide that for you ! All this arguments could be said on GNU/Linux systems as well, albeit Nephenee13 does not acknowledge the analogy, he didn't bother to explain why, and I suppose he just misses any real experience with any of these. As newbie you don't know which package does what. No one actually agrees on what everything should be included or not, yet there are a some good start packages called "distribution". Strangely enough it all works there... Honestly I give up on you guys if you cannot imagine or want to acknowledge the possible. I shared my experience not having grown with Oblivion with the start, but coming new to it, albeit being a long timed computer savy. I found the sudden negativity to be confronted against to be very discouraging. Why do you just suddendly go aggressive (especially Nephenee13)? I'm finished with this mess you seem to be found and stubborn of. - Signed Off for good.

Maybe I had the title wrong. Well I don't think all need to agree on one compilation. But I think anyone should be able to put out a compilation. Like a detailed install guide, that just runs through like a batch file on a vanilla install. I don't think its too "impossible", if you require just that: A vanilla, yet unaltered install, to run upon. Maybe just needs a couple of if-calls depending on which vanilla: steam/game of the year/ etc. Or put it differently, OMM-like application with the ability built in, to a) download mods for you of know locations, b) provide it a meta file for a module configuration like a list: First install: mod a- version x- this URL Second install: mod v- version x - this URL. Yes for one compilation configuration file this versions would be fixed. As more end-user type, you don't need to have the newest versions of everything all the time. I don't see the major pain for a pro-modder to go through once a year for a compilation and update the version tags and URLs and see if everything still works out together.

I like this mod (also comes with OOO) http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3172 You get a chest in the banks vault for 200 gold or so. Cave at to own house: you can only access the vault on day time.

I can understand why houses and dungeons are separate maps beside the world map, since they contain tons of items that would be painful to dynamically load the cell. I just don't quite get, if they really gain enough for what it is worth to not have the major towns in the world map as well, similar why dungeons are almost always 3 maps instead of 1 larger. To be fair for other games you mentioned (going back to dungeon siege which had no load screens): they hardly have nearly as much items lying around as the standard TES house/dungeons. EDIT: Maybe its the amount of NPCs that require major cities to be seperate maps to be still performative... hmmm...

I would put forth that you may not nearly as much be capable of imaginative thinking beyond the current status of affairs than you think you do. If you copy your whole harddisc to a different computer it won't work. But there is an installer CD, and you say update/modding a single game is so much more complicated than a whole operating system? Nephenee13, you do not contribute, except throwing around negativity. So please just quietly leave this thread? In my opinion you just feel endangered by your imaginated geekdom if someone else seeks to make the same things more accessable. Making mods is still geeky, but applying them should not be.

I see where you come from. You just don't want it to work.

Because people would have to put them together, get permissions from all the mod authors involved, maintain them with updates, deal with supporting people who use them, and just generally it would be an unbelievable pain in the ass. Modding is not handed to you on a silver platter. It is the result of thousands upon thousands of hours of unpaid work by thousands of people across the world. I only became involved with Oblivion modding a little more than two months ago, but I didn't ask for things to be given to me fait accompli, I sat down and learned this stuff. There were screwups, borked installations, numerous crashes and all sorts of headaches along the way, but that is just the way things are if you want a modded game. The same used to be true for GNU/Linux systems. Except the Open Licenses used there from begin on allowed repacking. Anyway, because of the copyright restrictions every mod has, maybe instead of one big file, an installer that downloads and installs the mods. Where you can simply supply one configuration file, as "compilation" that pulls it all together downloads it for you, and gets it in the correct order and so on. Maybe NMM is what can do it. I will look into it. The idea is, you get some mod list worked out that works all well with each other, the load order and all that, put that configuration online, and I can simply install it within 10 minutes at most (excluding download time) I can't believe that my vision of being able to play a modded Oblivion without having to be a geek is so difficult to get across.

Indeed! I kind of expectet that flippant answer, so thank you for giving my chance to go into that. Why do we expect from someone coming in 2012 to Oblivion (maybe over Skyrim and now wants to see the earlier as well) to first play old "crappy-looking" Oblivion, while there are so many great mods out there than can enhance his/her experience by a great deal. While I agree about the game-changing mods, there are so many that just enhance Oblivion to look like a more a recent game, or fix simply broken stuff (the big patch e.g.) Likely if you ask 12 people, you might get 12 different answers. But why not have different compliations available then for those of the 12 that want to pull their sleeves up to make one. Like for example as a new comer I trust David Brasher to know far more about Oblivion modding than me, and think his compilation is a cool thing to start with. If Nephenee13 comes up with a different compilation, its my freedom then to decide which one sounds better. It would be really cool if there was one simple way to get yours or David Brashers compilation installed without getting all geeky about the Oblivion modding details. There are some guides out there, and even if you want the modding result just like the guide says, and you work your way down step by step, you are still busy for a day, and you need to be somewhat more computer-savy. I'd compare it to Linux in the 1990s. Back then installing Linux on a system required some planing and testing. You compiled your own kernel, your tool-chain etc. and a few days later you got even X running! Nowadays you trust your distribution of choice to make many basic decisions for you and when you ran through the simple installer you got a decent system. At the end you can still personalize it. And if you don't like the standard choices debian does for you, you choose Ubuntu, or Mint, or Gentoo, or Redhat, or Suse, or Slackware ...

I would too like to see more depth to the Thalmor story. Hopefully they are not all evil as every single one of them (racism view much?) but got a bad government. Might be nice if you could help to overthrow it.

Indeed. I think it makes the game too much into a dance dance revolution machine. When did you last stop at a crossing to look at the signs to decide which way you need to go? A compass that gives you only north/east etc. would be fine. But the medieval GPS system? Seriously, yes IMHO you lose more than it brings. I remember when I first played a game that had this quest pointers all the way (Lineage 2) and thought, oh dear where has this world come to. Can they do it any more simpler? Could as well add a big white transparent HUD over all. WALK WALK WALK OPEN DOOR WALK TALK SAY YES TO QUEST WALK FAST TRAVEL WALK FIGHT! FIGHT! LOOT! WALK ...

This is standard procedure when installing mods in the old school way. It is nothing to really be afraid of. It is wise to watch what is being overwritten and abort installation if something is being installed that you don't like, but all these changes are reversible if you make a mistake. So when the process asks about merging folders, say yes. When it asks about overwriting files in the merged folders, think a second about each file, and then most likely say yes. Most mods will come as .7z files or .rar files. It is how files are compressed to make downloads faster. You should expect to have to decompress files when you download mods. One thing that has not really been talked about yet is that you should not install a bunch of mods at once. Your game will likely break, and you won't know which mod did it. It is best to install a couple of mods, play-test them, and then install a couple more mods and play-test them. It sort of stinks when you discover you have a bad mod problem, and you have to diagnose a system of 100+ mods and narrow it down to one specific mod causing the problem. It is much easier to know that the last mod you installed is the bad one, because your game was running just fine before you installed it. Yes, this all so much tinkering. I can do it. But what my suggestion was about, was the ability to offer some "compilation". Like a set of mods that are known to work with each other, and that install in one click. "Playtesting" is a pain when you are about the start playing Oblivion. What do you test, if you don't know the game at all?

I got my nose full of MMOs. I don't want to play with all these idiots on the 'net you meet in WOW all the time. TES isn't designed as MMO from start, and I don't get it, why everyone believes its all going to be better with just more players.

For me the empire is much better resembled by Victorian Great Britain in the 19th century than Rome. Mutual Welfare through trade, albeit taking the slightly larger part, colonies with some independence, but if they get any ideas, and they consider the colony valuable, their force gets there. Also until Christianity very late Rome was very free and open to religion. Whenever they claimed a new region, they took the gods that the natives had as new ones and accepted them into their god-heaven. Thats why eventually they got multiple gods for the same thing. It only failed big time on Christianity, because of the very concept of Monotheism. In particular the problems started since in Rome, one payed his taxes as sacrical offering - which was refused, not accepting those gods, while Rome was pissed not what people believed, but because they didn't pay their taxes. Well I have just much less fascination for that national socialism thing Ulfric is up to.

One can argue if its "rightful", but one could claim you're of the Septim Bloodline, despite it being true or not, no one can prove. So its about convincing Tamriel. Anyway, I too like to be going back to Cryodill and/or Morrowind. I hope the expansion doesn't take us further north.

Thats why I wielded a sword and a dagger.