Hello, new to Nexus and what mods to get?

[DelightfullyDemented]

Hello, I've been getting bored with games and after looking at a few mods for Oblivion (Heart of the Dead, DBC), I downloaded Oblivion on Steam and decided to play through it with mods. The only question is what mods should I get, and is there any problems on installation/clashes with esps I should know about? Also, what exactly do .bsas do?

 

The mods I plan on getting:

Dark Brotherhood Chronicles: Awakening

Mannimarco Revisited

Deadly Reflex

Ren's Beauty Pack

Heart of the Dead

Midas Magic Spells of Aurum

Unofficial Oblivion Patch

 

The mods I'm contemplating on:

A Oblivion Overhaul (don't know which one, really. The best working one, I suppose?)

A Map updating mod (Changed the map to make it look like it's surroundings, seen at 6:25 in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYT_MRnm_FM )

 

Kvatch Rebuilt (I've looked for it on here, but it said the author withdrew it?)

 

Well, is there anything else I need to know? Advice and mods are greatly appreciated. :3

 

[Woggsy]

Hi, here's welcoming from someone who's kinda new as well.

 

To answer your first questions, .bsa's are Bethesda Archive files. They just store (and compress? not sure) game assets such as sounds, textures, meshes, etc. They're found in your Oblivion\Data folder. So the game looks for files within folders, such as "Meshes" first, and if it's not found there, it'll look inside "Meshes.bsa" rather than your modded "Meshes" folder. Unless you're developing mods yourself, you won't really have to worry about .bsa's, and only the bigger mods use .bsa's in the first place.

 

And just as a note, the Unofficial Oblivion Patch also comes with the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch and the Unofficial DLC patch, if you use either of those. Good choices. Also, you might benefit from some UI mods. Darnified UI is my personal favourite; it sticks to the original flavour of the UI, but makes it a million times less cluttered. Semi-configurable as well. On overhauls, I can't really help you with that, I just preferred to change my game with hundreds of smaller mods.

 

Anyway, you might want to consider getting a mod manager. Because it's likely that you'll eventually want to use a lot of mods in conjunction, and these mod managers make your life infinitely easier. Try Wrye Bash, which takes a bit of learning, but will save you a ton of trouble. If any of the more scriptier mods require something called the "Oblivion Script Extender" (OBSE), you can get it right here. It's just an .exe (supported by .dll's) that you run instead of your Oblivion.exe, which allows modders to use awesome commands to make the game better. Almost certain that some of the mods you listed require this.

 

Overall though, I think it'd be better to take it easy when you're starting out with mods. Makes it easier to look out for incompatibilities and changes, etc. Plus, you won't get stressed out reading boring walls of text like the one I'm writing as of now. Heh, take your time, and have fun. Ask me if there's something I wrote too confusingly.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Woggsy

[HondaTrip]

I read on another forum that the author of Kvatch Rebuilt hid the mod page until they complete the MAJOR overhaul of the mod, and that it will be finished relatively soon. No word on why. Perhaps they didn't want people having to download the old one, then uninstall it to download/ Install the new version. Some authors don't like making long strings of updates to upgrade their mods and prefer to completely finish it before uploading.

 

Woggsy is correct, .bsa is an Oblivion Archive file extension. You can unpack/ edit/ repack them with BSA Commander. I'd normally post a link here, but I haven't been able to get the Nexus to load for over an hour now. Just type BSA Commander in the Nexus Search Engine.

 

Some people have problems with some of the eye textures/ meshes in Ren's Beauty Pack. It seems to be a file structure issue and isn't hard to fix.

 

I just finished DBC Awakening last week, you'll love it. No issues of any kind. You have to complete the vanilla Dark Brotherhood quests before you can start it though. And if you want to read all of the dialogue (they've had a hard time finding voice actors) you'll need Elys' Universal Silent Voice and Oblivion Script Extender to run it.

 

Midas Magic is a great mod to have.

 

Deadly Reflex is awesome, but has many other file dependancies (Hud Status Bars, Menuque, etc.)

 

Unoffical Obliivion Patch is only good if you have all the original DLC's

 

Not familiar with the other 2, but thanks for posting them, I'll check them out.

 

As for an Overhaul, it depends on what you want your game to be like. Are you a Lore Immersion Player? Do you want all females to look/ walk/ move like real women? Do you want them to wear sexy clothing/ armor? Same for males? Do you want to have to eat, drink, go potty, etc. or have consequnces if you don't? Do you want to be a vampire and have related content and improvements? I could go on for a long time, but I think you get my point, LOL :yes:

 

And finally, Map Mods. I don't use any personally, but there are scores of them. just pick one you like. I agree with Woggsy, start slow and learn the various programs and processes. It can seem daunting at first, but is really pretty simple.

 

ALWAYS READ THE MOD DESCRIPTION AND README FILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

There are several sites that have tutorials, including Nexus and these forums. And honestly, this community is one of the most friendly, helpful ones EVER!!! :thumbsup: If you get stuck, just post it in the mod's comments section or here and someone will help you. Feel free to PM (Personal Message) me anytime with questions/ problems.

Hope this helps. Good Luck and Happy Gaming!!! :smile:

 

I Was going through my mod storage folder last night and found some that are essential to bug free game play.

"Archive Invalidation Invalidated" will save you a lot of time haveing to do it manually in OBMM (Oblivion Mod Manager)

Not Essential, But Nice To Have- 2048 X 2048 skin texture pack: replaces the vanilla skin textures with incredibly detailed ones. And a body replacer of your choice. There are many for both Male and Female Characters and NPC's.

Lig Border Removal: you can disable the borders in the Oblivion.ini file, but it doesn't always work. This mod takes care of it. You'll need this because a lot of mods locate outside the vanilla worldspace to avoid conflicts with other mods, The Chapel Shop by VictoriaG, for example.

No Quest Items: without this you'll soon find your inventory full of essential quest items that causes serious lag time when you activate a container or body. This mod allows you to get rid of them. Doesn't work on mod quest items though, for that you'll need to learn the console commands or the CS.

FastExit: at some point, you'll get enough mods installed that when you exit the game it CTD's instead of exiting normally. This fixes that. Otherwise you end up with a HUGE DR Watson file in Windows (mine was over 5 Gb at one point) and all that crashing isn't good for game or system stability.

TES4Edit: For cleaning mods you download or create. Some mod authors don't clean their mods before uploading which can cause all kinds of problems including CTD's. ALWAYS READ THE README. A few mods read as dirty, but if you clean them they won't work right. The readme will tell you not to clean if this is the case. You'll be amazed at how many people clutter up comments and forums with issues that were addressed in the mod's readme file!

 

If you start haveing stuttering or graphic lags there are things you can do about that too. I recommend following this guide to optimize your system and game: http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

If that doesn't work, there are several mods out there that may help.

 

Happy Gaming!!!

Edited July 21, 2013 by HondaTrip

[modder3434]

Well... all of those mods listed are excellent, but I feel you left out three good ones, that I find essential for gameplay;

 

- Reeners Guard Overhaul: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/5977//? makes the guards less godlike in their ablity to hear and see right/wrong, also separate crime bounties for each of the cities

 

- Oblivion Character Overhaul: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/43612//? makes all the vanilla races less potato like and greatly adds to the realism of npc and player faces..may not work with Rens Beauty Pack

 

- Vampire Hunting- Order of the Virtuous Blood: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/30568//? this is in my personal top ten list for Oblivion. It merges several different mods to create this one a fully standalone mod...and it has it all...dialogue, custom armors, custom weapons, new quests, new bosses, and ranks that takes a minor faction in the game that only had one quest and fully turns it (pun intended) to a full blown guild and quest line comparable to the vanilla guild lines.

 

oh..i almost forgot.. Welcome to the Nexus! :thumbsup:

Edited July 21, 2013 by modder3434