I'm new to Oblivion and would like some mods advice.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Here's the gist:

 

I've bought Oblivion recently as I was given a gift card to Amazon and installed it. However, I have been led to understand by years of laughing at reviews of Oblivion that the base installation is frankly crap - something like 3,000 poly rocks and stuff, and how the game was basically unplayable on even gaming PCs without heavy modding.

 

And it's been out for many years now. Like Neverwinter Nights, this leads me to believe there must be some good mods. So, what are the generally reccomended mods?

 

What are the mods that, in order of importance, would be reccomended for the following purposes:

 

1: Make the game playable on a machine between the minimum and reccomended system requirements?

2: Eliminate auto-leveling enemies. I want to gather power, vastly overpower my foes, drive them before them and hear no lamentations of their women because I'm so awesome their women dropped them like a bad habit to flock to Camp Me. (Or possibly get my arse served to me with a flourish on a gilded silver platter because I got in over my head.)

3: Nudity. Why the heck not, I'm the kind of person who'll patch WoW for that, and I've already seen mention of a few mods that look awesome for that.

4: Expanding game features.

 

I'm using the Game of the Year edition from Amazon, on PC-DVD, with Knights of the Nine/Shivering Isles installed. I tried to download an official patch but it didn't work, citing a "file of the same name but not the expected file" error. Are there any official patches I need? What's this Unofficial Patch business, I presume I need it?

[Megatarius]

You have made a wise purchase. And you're right. This game is severely limited in scope unmodded. Monsters and Items that level with you, badly done music system (but great music), guards that know way too much for medieval times. If you've been laughing at online reviews, you know the score.

 

 

2: Eliminate auto-loading enemies. I want to gather power, vastly overpower my foes, drive them before them and hear no lamentations of their women because I'm so awesome their women dropped them like a bad habit to flock to Camp Me. (Or possibly get my arse served to me with a flourish on a gilded silver platter because I got in over my head.)

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "auto-loading enemies". The enemies in this game respawn after 3 game days. The world is large enough that this should not be a problem for a while.

 

3: Nudity. Why the heck not, I'm the kind of person who'll patch WoW for that, and I've already seen mention of a few mods that look awesome for that.

 

See number 12 of my list. You're in luck on the nudity department.

 

4: Expanding game features.

 

Are there any official patches I need?

 

They are all taken care of with the Game of the Year edition. :thumbsup:

 

What's this Unofficial Patch business, I presume I need it?

 

More or less, yes, you need it. Search here or Planet Elder Scrolls for the Unnofficial patches. (I think that's where I got it...)

They are modder-created esp files that correct a number of quest bugs and stuff like floating rocks.

 

 

While it may not all suit you, this is my cut and paste mod list:

 

1. OOO. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. The changes will not be that noticeable at first, but trust me, they're there, and they're awesome.

 

Or you could get FCOM, which is a combination of Francesco's Leveled Creatures and Items, OOO, Martigen's Monster Mod, and War Cry. I just use OOO.

 

 

2. 3rd Person Animations in 1st Person View. You'll know how stupid Oblivion's 1st Person is if you grew up on games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. Yes, it's true. Old games from the 90's totally spank Oblivion's 1st Person.

 

You could also get Immersive First Person, but it's a bit too buggy for my taste. If you have an Nvidia card, expect Black Screen City. It is cool though.

 

 

3. Better Music System. The music in this game is awesome. But it was programmed terribly. This fixes it, and allows for music in other locations as well, such as, oh, I don't know, the actual Oblivion Realm!

 

Side777 was kind enough to point me towards a version not on this site that's upgraded. It might be on Planet Elder Scrolls. Google Better Music System perhaps? It's out there. You can disable battle music entirely!!!!! As well as have music tracks for a lot more stuff, including the f-ing Oblivion Realms, the namesake of the game!

 

 

4. Deadly Reflex. Chopping off heads, hands, more combat moves, it actually makes fighting fun!!!

 

I had to stop using it because it constantly resets my .ini file. Nobody can or wants to help me with this problem, so I had to stop using it.

 

It also conflicts with 3rd Person Animation in 1st Person View because the new skeleton in that mods bugs when you do a certain move. You'll have to make a choice. I made mine and never really looked back, too much.

 

 

5. Unnecessary Violence. Isn't supposed to work with Deadly Reflex but it can if you tweak it enough. I don't know how, but I know people on here have done it.

 

It also might conflict with 3rd Person Animation in 1st Person View. I haven't tried it because of that.

 

 

6. Supreme Magicka. Fire, Ice, and Lightening actually do more than just damage with fancy graphics. Telekenisis isn't stupid. A host of other changes.

 

There might be a bug that causes your character to flash pick and play a sound effect every few seconds. I don't know why it's happening to me yet, but as usual, I run into problems nobody else has, so you probably don't have to worry about it. :thumbsup:

 

 

7. Midas Magic. All new spells that don't affect the regular ones.

 

Not to mention a bad-ass hood in Midas' upstairs closet that contains a black mesh over your face so your face is hidden. Very nice looking.

 

 

8. Better Cities. The cities are just as empty, yes, but damn if they don't actually look good now!

 

You can also get Crowded Cities to make things actually feel real, but be careful because it can slow down your FPS really bad. There's also Crowded Roads.

 

 

9. Arrive by Ship. It's a quick way to start off the game if you're sick of the tutorial dungeon. Play the real start first though.

 

 

10. Hoarfrost Castle. Very nice mod with a new home, a downright bad-ass Lovecraftian dungeon quest to obtain it, and other quests to improve it, including the ability to generate funds from it, GTA style.

 

 

11. A Bloody Mess. It's simple. You get covered in blood. It even lowers your personality until you wash it off.

 

A few problems:

A few alpha channel issues with some of the blood on your hair having white blocks around it sometimes.

You appear a little too white in fog if there's any blood on you.

It's only on you, not other characters.

Lowered personality rating WILL bug out your mercantile skill if you try to buy anything bloody.

It might bug out in the Oblivion Realm and disappear, but it's technically still on you, so you better wash up anyway before buying anything.

If it disappears, you might just want to save a new file, exit, uncheck all the esp's and esm's of it, load again, save, exit, and recheck them. Should be fine then.

 

Small prices to pay, all of them. Trust me.

 

 

12. Body Replacers. I use Robert's Male and Female replacers, nude versions for both sexes. It really depends on the kinds of things you want to wear. Robert's bodies are UV-Mapped differently than the two popular HGEC and Exnem Eye Candy bodies. Some things will look really strange if not meant for Robert's. If you don't care, then I say Robert's still, because it's just a better modeled and textured human form. Once again, a fan is more talented than the paid "professional".

 

 

13. Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) so you can set your load order. Very important sometimes. Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) is also required for a lot of these mods.

 

There's also Wrye Bash, which I'm not very familiar with really, but it does have the ability to copy a character face from one save game to another, which is very useful if you want to restart.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Erm... Typo.

 

I meant "Auto-leveling" enemies, not auto-loading. I don't like the idea of the auto-leveling enemies - kind of entirely defeats the purpose of leveling up, doesn't it, when you can come back twenty levels later and the thieves who were a hard fight when you were a level-1 nobody who had to decide between parting with 100 coins (which is like, all you have) or parting with your HP... Are still a hard fight, now wearing gear worth many thousands of times the paltry sum they're trying to shake you down for and the only thing keeping you from just rolling your eyes and paying them the pocket change is pride (and possibly the desire to kill them and take their gear for sale).

[Megatarius]

Erm... Typo.

 

I meant "Auto-leveling" enemies, not auto-loading. I don't like the idea of the auto-leveling enemies - kind of entirely defeats the purpose of leveling up, doesn't it, when you can come back twenty levels later and the thieves who were a hard fight when you were a level-1 nobody who had to decide between parting with 100 coins (which is like, all you have) or parting with your HP... Are still a hard fight, now wearing gear worth many thousands of times the paltry sum they're trying to shake you down for and the only thing keeping you from just rolling your eyes and paying them the pocket change is pride (and possibly the desire to kill them and take their gear for sale).

 

Your worries are over with FCOM Convergence.

[bben46]

I recommend playing it some first. so you will see what the mods actually change.

 

Be sure you have the latest official patch installed - the GOTY (Game of the Year) version is already patched IF you install the Shivering Isles part also. For some reason, Bethesda put the Oblivion patch in the Shivering Isles install.

 

Bben's Patch Advice

http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=327

 

At this point, before installing any mods, make a back up copy of the entire \data folder. Having this can save you from having to reinstall the game when you have a a serious problem. By replacing your cluttered and problem filled \data folder with the back up (COPY do not move it) you will have the same thing as if you had reinstalled. And saved several hours. Plus, if you rename it to something like \oldata instead of deleting it, you will have the original for reference.

 

Before starting on mods Get the tools you will need to work with the mods. I recommend OBMM (Oblivion Mod Manager) and OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) to start with. These are not mods and do not install like mods, so read the instructions first.

 

Get OBMM here: http://timeslip.chorrol.com/obmm_download.html

And OBSE here: http://obse.silverlock.org/

 

Then, get the unofficial Oblivion patch - it fixes many small bugs and annoyances http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296

And the hotpatch for it http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27710

 

And if you have Shivering Isles, the unofficial patch for that also: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10739

 

Next, don't make the noob mistake of installing a bunch of mods without testing. The time you think you will save will more than be made up in trying to figure out what mod is causing your game to crash. Install one at a time, and test each one before installing the next. If it doesn't work right, either fix it or remove it completely before installing another one.

 

Now, pick a mod, preferably a simple one and install it. See how the process works. Then a more complex mod. make sure it works. I know the zealots will insist that you install their favorite game changing mods - OOO, MMM, FCOM, deadly reflex, unnecessary violence and others, but I don't recommend you start with those - for two reasons - first, they change so much it is a different game. second, they are all very complex mods and cause many problems even for experienced mod players. (read through the forum entries to see the results) Wait a while on those. And be sure you have a backup before trying them at all.

 

When you do have problems don't be afraid to ask for help - we have all had problems with mods and understand.

[grmblf]

Hi there! Listen to the advices Bben has given you, play the game for a while if you didn't before so you can then truly appreciate what mods change and how does it all works. Official and Unofficial patches are needed. OBMM comes in really handy and some mods require OBSE wich isn't a mod and it's easy to un/install.

 

1: Make the game playable on a machine between the minimum and reccomended system requirements?

I don't use any mod for that purpouse but I think Streamline is one of those that people uses.

 

2: Eliminate auto-leveling enemies. I want to gather power, vastly overpower my foes, drive them before them...

Francesco's. Consider also some mod that affects your skill/leveling, like nGCD. Tweaking it so you level slowly, if you don't mind that, will make you get more skill/attribute per level so you'll be stronger than leveled foes.

Overhauls like OOO and FCOM most likely will make your game much harder by default.

 

3: Nudity. Why the heck not, I'm the kind of person who'll patch WoW for that, and I've already seen mention of a few mods that look awesome for that.

I'm afraid I can't give any suggestion here.

 

4: Expanding game features.

Craftybits: Craft stuff in game, not via menus.

Unnecessary Violence: Adds dual weilding and some new combat animations.

Chargeable Spells: my mod, it doesn't add new features but it changes spellcasting drastically.

Doc Magic: Adds new features like deflecting or retaining spells catched on the air and more.

[ShadowDragon8685]

All right...

 

What version of the script extender should I get? The latest stable build, or the latest Beta build since it says something about how mods compiled with version 2 or later of the beta build require it due to the way they optimized their bytecode at the expense of backwards compatability?

 

I'm just going to get the stable for now, am I making a mistake?

[ptbptb]

I'm just going to get the stable for now, am I making a mistake?

 

Some mods specifically require version 18. That's why I switched, and I haven't had any problems with it yet.

 

If you don't have any mods that need 18 you should be fine sticking with the latest stable version.

[ShadowDragon8685]

How much testing do I need to do to be sure the mods I've picked up are working?

 

Do I just need to ensure that I can get to the main screen without crashing, or will I have to actually get into the game itself?

[ptbptb]

How much testing do I need to do to be sure the mods I've picked up are working?

 

Do I just need to ensure that I can get to the main screen without crashing, or will I have to actually get into the game itself?

 

At the very least you should load your game and wander around a bit. Some glitches only show up as crashes-to-desktop after you have gone through a few area transitions.