Jathom95

Kind of a strange question I know. I'm extremely organized with my mods, and while I know MO keeps track of what version you have installed, sometimes there's merit to keeping track of such things. Such as an update file, optional esp installed to the same folder, etc. As far as I can tell, it happens automatically whenever you activate a mod inside of MO for the first time, setting it to something like 2000 or something. So yeah, is it in any way possible to disable this feature and keep them the same?

So, I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while now, a couple of years actually. With not a lot of time to really look into modding myself or figuring out how to implement it, I thought I'd at least post it here. Everyone knows the Secrets of the Ayleids quest. And how you can choose which crown to give to Umbacano to complete it. Only thing is, if you're playing a certain type of character then you obviously get shafted by choosing to give him the Lindai crown. Yes, you can use it to level up Armorer, but it's more cheaty than anything imo. So otherwise, there's little reason to choose anything but giving him the crown of Nenalata. My idea is this. You give him the crown of Lindai as in vanilla, it gets "destroyed". Then, from there - you can take it to any place where a magical essence flows (Ayleid Wells, Magicka Fountains, etc) and "restore" it there. Too keep it from being too cheaty, I had the idea to use something like having three Varla stones in your inventory before you can restore it to its full power, where they're removed after. So basically, you take the broken crown up to one of the places, interact with it, and if you have the correct number of stones in your inventory then a choice dialogue pops up like so: "The Crown of Lindai hums quietly in the presence of nearby magical energies. Do you wish to use three Varla stones to restore it to full power?" -Yes -No Whereupon selecting yes, the old broken crown is removed and the functional crown with enchantments restored is placed back in your inventory. Essentially, the idea is that since the crown itself was never physically destroyed, you're essentially "imbuing" it to restore its power.

I was just wondering about this. I have a few mods that have these. The ones where they're typically offered as an alternative in case someone doesn't want to use SKSE for whatever reason. I'd just leave them, but frankly they just clutter up the menu and I never use them at all. Like the ones for Chesko's Wearable Lanterns mod. If I knew it was safe to do so I'd just go ahead, but I wasn't sure if doing so would cause instablity or something. Like if a certain script that adds them would freak out if it can't find them anymore. Could anyone confirm for me? Thanks.

Hey Striker! Long time no talk. :) Yeah, I believe we touched on this on my similar "Vanilla" thread somewhat. With OCO, I've played with it on and off for years now. I've come to the conclusion that I prefer vanilla for one reason - variety. OCO is a lovely replacer for the faces. I can wholeheartedly say I understand why people love it. It gives them a nice stylistic look that also makes the faces more shapely and proportionate in general. But while I appreciate the aesthetic quality nuska applied to her models and textures, I feel that some of the uniqueness of the vanilla faces is lost in the process. The biggest thing about OCO is that faces become sort of homogenized in the process. With vanilla, you have a certain range of ages and whatnot displayed through the default faces. OCO often feels like NPCs that are supposed to be ugly are made beautiful simply because of the one-size fits all approach. It makes the faces look so good that it inadvertently makes everyone a little too proportionate in comparison, if that makes sense. This is just my own personal conclusion that I've reached over time. And I'm in no way knocking OCO, it's an extremely well put together mod, and I can see why you can't play without it now. Just personal preference in both of our cases, eh? In any case, I guess that's why I look to projects like "Undeformed Potatoes" with excitement. Fixes the worst faces of vanilla but keeps the character intact, and those that don't need tweaking really are left as is. Though the bodies are another story. Bodies are certainly not Bethesda's strong suit lol.

Bit of an unpopular opinion, I know. Haha. 'Course this is coming from someone that keeps the vanilla faces as well. While there are some very nice replacers out there, the vanilla UI suits me just fine to where I don't feel the need to change it. The icon art is big enough for me to appreciate it, the bigger fonts don't bother me, and I don't like the bigger map several of these replacers add because I feel like it ultimately makes the world feel smaller. Maybe it's from the years I used to play on the 360 way back when. Some of it could possibly be nostalgia. But I still think it's perfectly usable as is. Best part is I don't even have to sacrifice a plug-in slot to replace it.

Before I start, let me say this is in no way any sort of bash towards mods like Kvatch Rebuilt and the like. With that one in particular, I think it's a great mod that has had a lot of hard work put into it over the years. However... I've grown ever more increasingly fond of a mod like Kvatch Rebuilt that works wholly in the background, like other events in vanilla. Think something like Cropsford. You help then out, and over the course of several days while you're off doing other things, the town gets built. KR is great at what it does, but it has too much of a hands on approach for me. You have to manually take part in the rebuilding process. Something that not only doesn't happen elsewhere in the game, but also makes all of the going back and forth fairly tedious. What would be ideal is something that works like Cropsford. Maybe over the course of the Main Quest or just time in general, the town gradually gets Rebuilt whole you're away from it. I think you could also work around the issue of having no Count by being a little creative rather than creating a completely new character. You could have someone like Savlian, who gives up being a guard anyway. It's just some thoughts I've pushed around over time. I wish I had the skills to implement this sort of thing myself, but sadly I don't. I was mainly wanting to know what everyone else thought of something like that.

Yes, I saw it just last week as a matter of fact. As I understand it, the author of the tool is working continually to make it a viable alternative to using silent voices. It would make something like my above musings probable, as I'd imagine the "restoration" aspect wouldn't be the the most difficult part for experienced modders. But that would still leave quite a bit of work with creating interesting new dialogue for every NPC. Still an exciting prospect though I believe. It really has the ability to change up things for mods in general rather than being limited to the game's stock dialogue.

Yes, I've been in that situation many, many times. And nothing is worse than not knowing which plugin is causing a specific issue. Generally, that's why I'm very conservative about adding new things. I'll generally add one or two small things at a time, then open up the game and see how they play out for a while. It's why I've always been reluctant to install things like large quest mods that are potentially plagued with issues. Well, it's a two-fold issue for me really. The unvoiced dialogue is something I'm not crazy about. It works in a game like Morrowind where the game is built around it, but in Oblivion to suddenly have very chatty NPCs just staring at you while "talking", it just ruins it for me. But even then, many of the custom quests tend to vary in quality so it's hard to tell at a glance anyway how it's going to feel in game. Take Kvatch Rebuilt for instance. The staple of many a load order. I could just never get into it. I've tried it exactly once, and that was before the most recent betas. I admire the work that has been put into it over the years, but frankly I feel it tried to do too much in an effort to make it more appealing to install. What should ostensibly be about restoring a destroyed city turns out to be a long, drawn out affair through multiple quests, finding a random heir to the Count, a huge labyrinth underneath the city that is very difficult to navigate, etc. Do I get annoyed that Kvatch is a smoldering ruin in vanilla that stays that way through the entirety of the game? Sure, but that is less of a problem for me than all of the "extra" that comes with installing KR. I think @Oooiii mentioned much of the same grievances in his modding guide that I looked over recently. Ideally, I wish there was a different take on a rebuilding Kvatch mod. Something like this: 1. Works in the background instead of having you actively working to rebuild it. Puts it more in-line with vanilla quests, like the end of Goblin Trouble when Cropsford is built over time. 2. Something that does something creative with the ruins instead of "restoring everything exactly as it was." One thing I notice in particular with KR is that it includes the destroyed arena as part of the architecture that's rebuilt. I sincerely doubt that people who have just lived through such a large tragedy and loss of life would be desiring to rebuild a bastion of death. I think something like a cemetery built over the ruins makes perfect sense, especially accounting for how many supposedly died during the siege. 3. Since we know so little about Count Goldwine's history and lineage, I think it makes more sense to have someone like Savlian Matius as either stepping up as Count or acting as sort of an interim with the Oblivion Crisis going on until the Elder Council can pick a replacement. I mean, he even steps down as a guard at the end of "Breaking the Siege of Kvatch", so it makes perfect sense. Would it be smaller in scope? Sure, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If I knew the first thing about scripting, I'd set off on doing in myself. But alas, I'm just an idea guy. I do wish there was someone willing to do an alternative spin in the vein of what I've presented though. I've had that on my mind for quite a while.

I have not, though I was aware of that one. I really need to try one of these Vampire tweaks mods in general. Though I really wish there was one fairly close to vanilla, and most seem to change the whole system. Ashes to Ashes sounds nice for changing things up slightly in combat though with vampires. Do you happen to play with Music enabled Striker? There is this particular mod, Silent Tracks Expanded, that I installed in the last year or so and I can't begin to describe what a difference it's made in my game. I'm sure you're aware of how normally the game soundtrack plays constantly with no reprieve whatsoever. What this basically does it add several folders of "silent" tracks of varying lengths. Instead of going from one track into the next, it adds a nice delay between each one occasionally before starting another. What this really allows you to do is appreciate the ambient noise more. Birds and wind and such in particular when you're outdoors, even some interior noise as well. Of course, it hinges on someone playing with it enabled in the first place haha! I know a few people who play without. I like having music playing personally, just not all the time without pause.

Right. I should've clarified that I look for that as well, what it adds to my gameplay that is. It just happens that smaller mods or ones with a more narrow focus tend to do that the best for me personally. SPAWN though does sound interesting. Strangely enough, I'm aware of most of shademe's work, but I never gave that particular one a glance. I'll have to look into that one, sounds interesting for sure. The difficulty of a Chosen One motif is that it really takes someone who knows what they are doing to utilize it effectively. Anyone can write a world ending narrative with a grand hero swooping in to save the day, there's thousands of examples out there to draw inspiration from. But yes, it can be used in an interesting way. I'm not totally against such a path, but it all boils down to what can be done to really avoid treading over the same tired tropes endlessly. Something where I can at least go hmmm, y'know? FNV is also a great example of choice in general. There's really almost no way to play it the same way twice. But perhaps most interesting is that you're never given a clear cut "right vs wrong". It's all based on the perspective of an individual's capacity to reason what they consider to be the "best" course of action for a particular ideology.

@Striker879 So Striker, I'm curious. When you add a mod to your own game, do you tend to favor smaller additions as well over ones with big sweeping changes or change systems entirely? Since I can remember, I've always found mods that do a single thing well are often more appealing to me than large overhauls where I'm going to have to "turn off" large parts of the mod to have it how I want. A good example is a mod I just installed recently, Safe Roads. It removes all the wild animals and bandits and such from the roads. I'd never considered how much just such a small addition like that would add, because traveling is much more enjoyable for me now. And another positive element is it remedies an issue with the vanilla game. Guards will often tell you, "If you've got to travel, by the Nine Divines stay on the roads. The wilderness just isn't safe anymore..." And with that, the statement holds true. I typically tend to stay away from large overhauls, for one fairly big reason. Overhauls often try to do too much at once to varying degrees of success, and often they entail what the author finds "fun and challenging". As we've discussed, what is so for one person may not be so for another. The biggest addition I've added in the last couple of years is Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul. I'm a fan of Maskar's work already because he integrates it so seamlessly into the game. About a year or so ago I decided to install MOO. It is a big mod, and I did a fair amount of tweaking to get it just right for my playstyle. But the additions are great because they add to it, not substantially change it or take away from something else. It integrates with his other mods like BPN, where you can cook food to provide greater benefits. You can harvest more material types like wool from sheep for things like making clothes. It also makes many of the lesser used miscellaneous items serve some purpose, like using bolts of cloth to create bandages as an alternative to healing spells. Those are just the smaller parts as well. But as I was saying, I feel as though that's why I'm enjoying having it in my game much more than I'd have thought I would.

As far as market expectations, it does seem to shift through each successive game. It's very likely TESVI will have its detractors and view Skyrim as the pinnacle of the series. However, that isn't something unique to The Elder Scrolls series I think. People for whatever reason seem to find joy in having this constant battle of "my game is better than yours." But the thing is, people can often back up why they like their respective game or type of game more. I'd say it's less about the series becoming more mainstream per se, and more that Bethesda is just going where the profits are. Basically what you've already stated, but with the additional point that if hardcore RPG mechanics of the 90s suddenly became popular again, Bethesda would likely follow that trend. If you look at their portfolio, very little actually changes between games but the setting and some facets of gameplay. But at their core, they are Bethesda games and anyone who plays it can tell. Oblivion was actually my first Elder Scrolls game, I've been told time and time again that that's why I enjoy it as much as I always have. And in one sense, yes it was the first game that gave me the amount of freedom I could've only dreamed of with a game. But with the whole "it was my first, therefore it's the best", do I think that's the case? I don't think it's that simple. When I started backtracking to Morrowind before Skyrim's release, I found that despite its age even at that point I could enjoy it with a little persistence and adjustment in my playstyle. Morrowind does give much freedom in one sense, and I can definitely see the appeal. But here's the thing. Talking strictly about vanilla games, with Morrowind despite anything else you do in the game, you will always be the Nerevarine. The motivations of why you are can always be an interesting factor, but at the end of the day you were still decided to be the great chosen one to save the day. You work hard to get to that point, but it still stands. Skyrim is much the same way. You are told even earlier than Morrowind that you're the great chosen one who is the only one who can save the day. That in itself it just a product of time and environment in the gaming community. In the 80s and 90s and much of the early 2000s, gaming was considered a "nerdy" hobby to have, and the games reflected as such. People remember RPGs with strong narrative structures because that was prevalent for much of video game history. You didn't have graphical quality to consider because it wasn't there, so devs had to make their games appealing in other ways. By the time of Skyrim's release, online gaming was becoming more and more prevalent, and so games began to reflect the mindset that gamers in general like to "win" and don't want to put much thought in their time playing, to unwind basically. I've heard for years that singleplayer games are dying, a sentiment that's been proven false mind you, and that games that don't provide instant gratification are considered not worth playing. I suppose that is part of TES Online's success as well. There's a constant steady stream of content that keeps people interested. Maybe it all does keep going in that direction, who can say? All I know is, I'm much like you. Oblivion is not perfect for everyone, it's not a perfect game. But it's perfect for me I'd say. The freedom I have to make any character I want and make them exponentially different everytime is what keeps me coming back, and will do so for as long as I possibly can.

No, your points were actually among the most respectful compared to what I've been used to. I was actually worried I was coming off too brash in response, hopefully not. And I've always understood how someone could prefer a game like Morrowind. Narratively, it's the best game Bethesda has ever produced and next to Daggerfall the one with the most actual RPG elements. When someone presents their points such as you have, that's perfectly fine. What appeals to one may not necessarily to another, and I can see where Oblivion could be a case of "been there, done that" with a lot of people. Truth be told, the game honestly holds some personal significance to me as well. I don't talk about it often, but it got me through a very difficult time in my life. While most found the temperate forests and valleys to be boring, I found comfort in those places. I love Morrowind as well, but for very different reasons. Morrowind, I love the sense of adventure and stronger narrative emphasis. And just like Oblivion, I don't really ever tire of it. But what they both have for me personally at least is the feeling of a living breathing world. Morrowind, because of the ever present culture and political dynamics, and Oblivion for the sense of communities and each town having their own little stories to play out. And yes about dragons, that has irked me ever since Skyrim's release. They're wyverns as you said. But wyvern probably wouldn't have been as "cool" of a sales pitch as slaying dragons. And that's all I'll say about Skyrim. Sure, like I said, me liking what I like and someone else potentially not has never bothered me. What would be the point of preference otherwise, y'know? But frankly, I think the mass appeal of the series hasn't attributed to the "dumbing down" so much as game audiences shifting a lot since the early 2000s and back. From Morrowind to Oblivion, the gameplay might've been "simpler" on a technical level, but you still had enough interesting concepts to make it a worthy successor even if it wasn't what most were expecting. And just like many other works of fiction, you have many different opinions. Some love it, some hate it, some are indifferent. This is in contrast to Morrowind and Skyrim which are almost universally liked. I don't use a stronger term like adored because not everyone may feel that strongly about it. Whereas Morrowind is sort of seen as one of the last great "true" RPGs before saturation hit the market and devs began streamlining, Skyrim is loved by mainstream gamers for its relative simplicity. The game doesn't really require you to think at all. Puzzles are laughably easy, dungeons have obvious return to start paths at the end to avoid backtracking, and you get to be the Chosen One who can shout at other people. Which is frankly another reason I'm drawn to Oblivion's take. I find the Chosen One concept in games to be tiresome. A self-made hero who has crawled up from nothing is much more endearing to me personally. Morrowind does well with making you earn the title of Nerevarine, and having you question the implications of what it means, but something about having absolutely no claim to fame at all at the start of Oblivion and becoming Champion by your own volition just scratches that itch for me something fierce. I'm really enjoying this conversation by the way everyone. :happy:

Understand that completely haha. At least now I know someone like-minded for mod recommendations and general gameplay grievances. Sometimes you feel as if you're the only one who plays this way. :laugh:

@Striker879 That does make quite a bit more sense. I still find vanilla encumbrance values to be unnecessarily restrictive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not lugging around 12 cuirasses and 16 warhammers at once. But to me max encumbrance should be the equivalent to where in reality you'd be so overburdened you literally can't move, and I feel that vanilla values hit that ceiling too quickly. I can deal with a lot of other "annoyances" but having to drop what I'm doing to find a container to drop 3 daedra hearts so I can move again is something I can do without. You'd actually be surprised to know that real life weaponry was actually made to be much lighter than we're led to believe. Fantasy weaponry like in Oblivion would have been considered impractical, because more weight would be a tactical disadvantage. Oh, if it's able to be tweaked, I'm doing so. And most of the time I tend to be on the "hardcore" end of things. I have RF and BPA, both tweaked. Basic Primary Needs, anything to add a little more challenge plus I like that there's actually consequences to having a character who drinks heavily other than draining attributes like the vanilla game. But "worst" of all, according to most people, is that I have fast travel disabled. Most that I've come across would never dream of playing like that, too inconvenient they say. But that's precisely why I love it. It encourages exploration, not to mention the immersive quality of stopping at an inn in town for the night and getting a good night's rest before heading off for adventure. I just love it. My earlier mention about the interface has also led me to go looking for alternatives, and I've just discovered MajorJim's UI was updated a year or so ago by a different author. I haven't used it in years, but with this new update it does feel surprisingly vanilla. I'm going to play around with it some more, but I could very well have something close enough to vanilla for me to be satisfied with it. Yes, I'm aware. That's why I titled the topic as such. I'm aware that many people hate the game to its core and believe it accomplished nothing worthwhile. What I have a hard time understanding is why people treat Oblivion as if it's the first to delve into "generic fantasy" territory. Do we just forget about Arena and Daggerfall, which were arguably worse in that department? In Arena, the Emperor talks in butchered Ye Olde English? Or the entire setting of Daggerfall at that. But most give them a pass because of their age and that most people today don't consider them part of the current identity of the Elder Scrolls series. But even Skyrim, the game that made the series mainstream, draws its influence from other places. Dragons? Norse folklore? Everyone shits on Oblivion for ripping off LOTR, but let's not pretend Bethesda wasn't ripping what was popular at the time of Skyrim's release, i.e. Game of Thrones. I don't have an issue with people not liking the game. It's when people become so militant about it and seem to think others have no reason to have different preferences in what they want out of their respective games. I have been called "stupid" for playing this game for so long. Stupid, over a damn game. Like seriously? What kind of childish nonsense is that? People who read extensively don't chastise others for liking different genres. I just largely ignore it and go my merry way, Makes everyone happy.