Problems using GotY edition w/ mods requiring DLC

[chaospearl]

Hey folks,

 

I'm new to the forums, so I hope I'm not about to ask something really dumb. I searched all the FAQs and troubleshooting guides I could find, and didn't see this mentioned anywhere.

 

I'm having trouble with a few mods that are designed to work with various DLC content and I'm starting to wonder if the problem is that I'm playing the GotY edition of Oblivion, which includes Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine already on the disc. I have all the other DLC plugins, but I didn't download SI or KotN since there was no need to, so I don't have the .esp or .bsa files for those. And since so many of the mods that won't work for me are ones that specifically require SI or KotN, is it possible that the reason trhe mods won't work is because they're looking for the DLC versions of those plugins, instead of the GotY built-in versions?

 

There are a bunch of mods that I'm having trouble with, but a few that come to mind are the Quest Award Leveler and Qarl's Harvest. Both include separate esp files for SI, and QAL includes one for KotN; I can't get either one to work. SM Plugin Refurbish is another -- it comes with esp's for each of the available DLCs individually and also a single esp to use if you've got all the DLCs. I've been trying to use the latter, and I can't even get the game to load when that esp is activated. Ditto for Enhanced Weather, for which I'm using the version that includes SI content. It's like the mods aren;t recognizing that I have SI or KotN because of the missing individual DLC files for those.

 

Two questions: Am I correct in the suspicion of why these mods won't work, or is it just some weird coincidence that SI mods won't work with my GotY edition? And, if I'm not out of my mind about this, is there any way to fix it and make the mods work properly? What would happen if I get the DLC versions of Shivering Isles and Knights, even though I already have that content built in?

 

Thanks for any advice. It's appreciated.

 

Jenni

[DavidBudreck]

When a mod says "Requires Shivering Isles" or KOTN, what that means is the meshes and textures associated with it.

 

In both of these cases, the meshes and textures are contained within compressed ".bsa" files; to unlock them you need to have the modes activated. Even though you have GOTY, you still have to have the mods activated to play them and unlock the files.

[bben46]

Also, when using the GOTY, you need to install SI to get the latest Oblivion patch - it's included in the SI install and not the Oblivion install - go figure.

Then, if you have a mod that relies on something from a DLC mod, that DLC must be before the mod in the load order.

 

There is a mod that delays the DLC, SI & KOTN quests until you get to a certain point in the game. That will keep you from being overwhelmed by the sudden influx of new stuff.

 

Unofficial Patches and Refurbish - ALL http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19994

[SceneGG]

wow I didn't even realise there was a complete merged version of the UOP DLCs... thanks for enlightening me :)

[chaospearl]

Aha! Thanks for the info, and for confirming that I'm not losing my mind... not yet, anyway. I picked up the DLCs of SI and KotN, and sure enough, as soon as I had those bsa's and esp's in my Data folder, all the mods finally worked. Yay. Okay, almost all of them... still having issues with Fran's, but I'll post a new topic about that if I still can't fix the problem after a fresh install and defrag. For some reason activating the two optional creatures\items esm files causes a total game crash immediately upon exiting the sewers. :(

 

Thanks again for the help!