Help the Handicapped!

[Sauvage]

Ok, a bit of background first:

 

I got turned on to Oblivion on accident, the spring of 08. I just finished building my first (ground-up) gaming computer and was looking for games to purchase for it. I had originally looked over Oblivion and decided against it. That is, until I found out about the modding community for it! I went out and bought the game and spent weeks learning about the modding for it, downloading and installing mods, and pulling my hair out.

 

When all was said and done, I had about 220 mods installed including FCOM. I was only about 10 hours into the game and still tweaking a few mods and load orders, but pretty much had everything working together. I had other new games I was playing at the time, so I would get sidetracked from time to time till I beat them, then would come back to Oblivion. The way I had it set up was very near what I would concider the perfect game.

 

The summer of 08 I decided on a career change. Construction was not cutting it anymore with the start of the downslide of the economy. I went to school for my CDL and started driving truck. This left me no time to game. In the fall of 08 I decided there was no reason to hold on to my computer, so I wiped the drives, and got it ready to sell. Well, I never could part with it, and now I am glad I didn't.

 

A few months ago I got hurt on the job due to faulty equipment. I ended up with 2 herniated disks in my neck. I've been in therapy since, and have just scheduled surgery after no improvement in the last few months. During the time I have had off, I have rebuilt my gaming rig, and have been installing and playing the games I had. Every day wanting to play "my" Oblivion, but knowing full well what that would entail. This weekend I finally broke down and started the immense downloading and installing procedure, but have run into a big snag. It's killing me to do it.

 

Its one thing to sit down and play a game until I have to take a break due to the pain. It's entirely different to sit down and read and search and download and get confused. The pain pills I am taking make it even harder to comprehend and retain what I have been reading. This is frustrating me to no end.

 

I told you all a bit of my story, so you know that I am not just some noob asking for handouts. I have been there. I have done it once. I just really need help right now. The following is what I am looking for:

 

I am looking for a list of all the mods, tools, load orders, installation orders from anyone else out there that was really looking to make the game as pristine, and as long as it can be. Best textures, gameplay changes, QUESTS, etc.

 

Almost 2 years ago I had every quest worth it. Every city, terrain, npc, item, avatar upgrade. The game was full of life. There were new buildings, new terrains, new everything.

 

I want it all! I know thats pretty selfish, but its ok to be sometimes. So if anyone can help me achieve that again, I would appreciate it.

[Megatarius]

Well, you're in luck. I happen to be a huge curmudgeon about this game. I'm not afraid to speak my mind about things I don't like in the game.

 

But of course I love it. Modding and the possibility to create my own stuff, which I find myself dabbling in more and more each time I play it, have not only saved it, they've opened up leagues of potential.

 

 

The point is, I have a lot to say about mods and a lot of advice. You may be more experienced than me though, having installed FCOM. I merely use OOO. I know.... but I'm kind of afraid of FCOM to be honest.

 

Anyway, I don't have time now, as it's 2:16am, but in the near future, like in the next day or so, I will sit down and pretty much describe how I've modded the game and why it's night and day from the regular version.

 

 

In the meantime, I'm sure others will do the same. Just letting you know, in case people don't respond or something, that help is on the way from at least one person. (Not to disparage anyone else here, I'm just letting you know I intend to help you out.)

 

 

Later.

[Sauvage]

Thanks Megatarius!

 

Though I will eagerly keep my eyes open for your post, I am still chugging away...

 

12 gigs downloaded this weekend, with the initial FCOM installed, I think I am running out of things to download. I am not sure they are all going to work together, and some will be deleted after finding a better or more compatible version of mod.

 

I still have a couple downloads left that I haven't got yet, but know about. I am pretty sure I grabbed all the quests I wanted. I have decisions to make on a couple for sure. The first go around I am pretty sure I was using Bananasplits Better Cities, but thought I was using open cities as well. I haven't seen a patch for Banansplits yet, but found a completely different mod based off of his, called Open Better Cities. Not sure if it is as good, nor do I know if its going to be compatible with the other mods I have.

 

Still up in the air on which body replacer mod to get. I have downloaded a bunch of HGEC files. Haven't looked at them yet. I remember running a Ren's mod before. Mystic Elf or something. It kills me how many different mods there are for the same things!

 

Blah! My head hurts!

[Sauvage]

Oh, I should add that the creator of BOSS is a lifesaver! Where were you 2 years ago?! lol

 

Also, I know that this game is crazy old now, but if there are still peeps making mods for it, let me give a small point of advice: When packing the mod up in a file to upload, PLEASE make the filename something that hints at what it is!!!

 

Dowloading as much as I have the last few days, it is really frustrating to look in my download folder and see a file called "OMOD v1dot###". Now I have to load it into OBMM or open it just to figure out what it is. Not fun when you are dealing with lots of files and trying to sort through them!

 

/rant

[mccrab]

For the quests I would suggest The Lost Spires, Dungeons of Ivellon and Nascosto Isles (adds a new worldspace with a quest line). For more quest mods this site has many good quest mods: http://knol.google.com/k/toql-the-oblivion-quest-list# I could be able to recommend much more mods but I don't have any mods on this computer and since I'm running about 80 mods I don't even remember all.

[Sauvage]

Thanks mccrab!

 

I have those quests, along with many others.

 

After searching through as many sites as I could, I think my downloading has come to an end. Final tally after weeding a few things out, and getting rid of duplicates, is 10G, 311 files. This is a conciderable amount more than my first go around. Though, a few are the program downloads like wyrebash, and BOSS, and I am still not sure if I am going to use the HGEC bodys, and which city mod I can use. I am not sure that the open cities mod or open better cities mod are compatible with some of the others I have installed. I'll give a list of mods I have picked out so far. Maybe that will get me more feedback.

[Sauvage]

Thanks mccrab!

 

I have those quests, along with many others.

 

After searching through as many sites as I could, I think my downloading has come to an end. Final tally after weeding a few things out, and getting rid of duplicates, is 10G, 311 files. This is a conciderable amount more than my first go around. Though, a few are the program downloads like wyrebash, and BOSS, and I am still not sure if I am going to use the HGEC bodys, and which city mod I can use. I am not sure that the open cities mod or open better cities mod are compatible with some of the others I have installed. I'll give a list of mods I have picked out so far. Maybe that will get me more feedback.

 

I take that back. After looking at the link to the TOQL site you gave me, I realized it had a lot more quest mods listed than the one I was looking at. Just downloaded a handful more. Thanks mccrab!

[Sauvage]

Well, I am sitting on about 340 files, 11G worth. There are still a few handful that have to be decided on, like which magic mod out of the 4 I have downloaded. I have 55 quest mods, and most are large quests. That should make Oblivion take a long time to play through.

 

It seems I have to use Banasplits Better Cities as opposed to the Open Cities mod due to mod conflicts. I am pretty sure I am using HG eye candy for the bodys. I will be using FCOM, and am extremely glad that they have put so much time into their mod, and detailing how to get many other mods to work with them. I will just have a lot of reading and bashing to do as I install.

 

I ran into a bit of a snag with Kvatch. I guess there was something that had happened here with the Aftermath creator. I did some digging and found that he was up to KAftermath 7.4, but I needed CURP to use it. I had no luck finding a full current version of CURP, but found out on another forum that the Dragon Captions Quest mod i have downloaded actually has CURP in it. Unfortunately, right after that I found out that the last Aftermath (6.6) that FCOM has info on, will not work with FCOM, and haven't been able to find out if the newer version (7.4) of Aftermath has been made to work with it. Guess I will be using Rebuilt.

 

I guess its time to start installing again. Wish me luck.

[ZareCograth]

Hi, I'd like to suggest a few mods as well. They aren't all top notch, but they add some nice things to Oblivion.

 

Armamentarium - Adds tons of weapons, and more armor.

Akatosh Mount - Adds dragon mounts which are nice for great views of the land, and for travel.

Ren's Beauty Pack - adds some great hair styles, and the mystic elf

Shadowcrest Vineyard - An amazing house mod, haven't got to far into it, but from what I can see you won't be disappointed.

Xenius Race Compilation - More races, and hair styles for those races.

[Megatarius]

Okay, first off you should know that Oblivion can only run about 256 .esp files, or around that. I don't even have half that many and already I'm getting three times longer saving and loading. Also, modding en masse is asking for trouble. It's best to load up a few at a time.

 

It sounds like you may have heard of everything I'm going to talk about, so I'm not going to bother listing stuff like Deadly Reflex or Elsewyre. If you have 10gigs of mods and don't know about them, I'd like to know what all new treasure trove of mods you have found. If you do need help with some of the more popular mods I'd be glad to offer what I know, however.

 

Of the popular mods that I use, Elsewyre, Supreme Magicka, Hoarfrost Castle, Robert's Male and Female nudes, Better Cities, and Oscuro's are my favorites. They are beyond necessities. Looking at the Vanilla cities after using Better Cities is like looking at some student project.

 

 

I'm going to talk instead about catch up mods. Mods that correct all the design faults of the game, whether caused by rushing it for the XBOX 360 launch, or just by being designed by a large committee of people who don't always know what everyone else is doing. Probably my biggest pet peeve with the game is having to pretend something matters, when in the back of my mind I know that I don't actually need to think about it. These are mods that actually make you need to think about it.

 

(Oh, and as I'm sure you've already guessed from my tone, this will be a rant. I'll try not to be too long winded.)

 

 

1. Better Music System http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26892

The crown jewel of Oblivion mods. People say Deadly Reflex, with very good reason, but this is something much more subtle and awesome. Music is so important. The quality of the music in the game is very good. But whoever programmed it.... If you haven't gotten it, get it. Do we really need epic trumpets and battle drums for every f'ing wolf in the forest and crab on the beach? Really? Do we actually even need battle music at all? How can it not get annoying and immersion breaking? You can add music to other locations as well. I think it's a travesty that the namesake of the game, the Oblivion Realm, gets the standard dungeon music. Not anymore. This mod changes the game in ways not obvious at first glance.

 

2. Automatic Difficulty Increaser http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28589

This little gem forces the difficulty slider to remain in a certain position that changes as you level up. Customizable in an .ini, but no longer can you break immersion by divinely affecting how strong everyone else is. Those Orc vampires in the Azura Shrine Quest are some bad-ass Samuel L. Jackson m---f---ers. Where's the satisfaction in defeating them if you weren't actually scared to death to face them? Also, 100 hits for a mudcrab just so you can farm your blade skill?

 

3. Dark Dungeons http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8802

Torches practically burn forever, they're all over the place and free, and you never even need them! Maybe for Namira's Shrine, but I wouldn't know because I was already using this mod before that. It's just plain more fun when everything you find has a real purpose, you know?

 

4. Actors have Torches http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11169

This also adds a lot to dungeons.

 

5. Enhanced Quest Roleplaying http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12828

Doesn't affect every quest, but basically you have more options now. No longer will your Thieve's Guild character who wants nothing more than to be the Gray Fox jump at the opportunity to help the nice honest working shopkeeps get rid of Thoronir. Now you can select "Maybe Later", instead of "Start from the beginning!", like you actually care :rolleyes: . It's a dog eat dog world you guys. Deal. This is just one example. It makes a lot of difference if you like role playing.

 

6. Stolen Horse Ownership http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4243

Stealing a horse in Chorrol, riding it to Cheydinhal, getting off in front of the stable and guards, changing your mind, and getting back on, will no longer result in everyone psychically knowing you stole it.

 

7. Merchants Buy Stolen Goods http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7983

You probably know about it, but here it is just in case. One of the most unrealistic parts of the game, merchants somehow knowing that you stole something.

 

8. Actors Can Miss Now http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17706

Just a nice little mod that makes anyone shooting at you actually miss sometimes.

 

9. Denock Arrows http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9670

Canceling your bow attack? Oh yeah, of course you'd be able to do that! It makes so much sense! This seems to be a German version, but it doesn't matter. It's just pressing the grab key. Nothing to read.

 

10. Reneer's Name Mod http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26369

The man who fixed the guards also fixed NPC interaction in a very nice way. I can't remember the last time I knew a stranger's name before actually speaking to the person.

 

11. Spell Delete and Item Remove http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23069

Get rid of those unwanted old spells and quest items just cluttering up your inventory.

 

12. Andrew's No Quest Items http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6729

Negate quest items.

 

13. Rowboats http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6690

Actually use the rowboats on the shore. It's a little clunky. Maybe could have been done better, but it's still very nice. But why use them though, when you can just swim across the bay with all your heavy armor?

 

14. No Encumbered Swimming http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3331

I love this mod. It unfortunately does not affect NPC's, but it's still leagues better. Water is almost like lava now, to certain characters. Now you have to locate a rowboat to get across, or even better, use a walk on water spell that actually means something now. Changing the value is kind of a pain, but I posted in the comments section how to do it. The readme is misleading.

 

15. More Staffs at Rendir http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16716

You know that shop in IC Market that sells staffs? Me neither.

 

16. A Bloody Mess http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11182

I'm guessing you're aware of it. But it bears mentioning just in case. Really adds to the game. Also, the cleaning rags are very hard to find. They aren't at nearly enough vendors. Just so you know.

 

17. Keychain http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3409

Just something nice to reduce inventory clutter.

 

18. Natural Rings Limit http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8635

Of course you don't want to wear all rings and become a god, but only one on each hand?

 

19. Third Person Animations in First Person View http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18617

One of my favorites. I grew up with Doom and Duke Nukem 3D and all those old 3D games had way better first person. Oblivion's first person looks like a floating camera with a sword and shield glued to it. Combine that with the crosshair and I feel like I'm in an editor, not the game.

 

20. Improved No Crosshair http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2260

If you turn off the crosshair, you can't see the other icons. This keeps those icons, but gets rid of the immersion breaking crosshair. I don't need it to aim a bow, and I certainly don't need it when walking around town or using a sword. Don't know if it works with DARNified UI, but it does work with Immersive Interface as long as you load this crosshair after installing that.

 

21. Hand to Hand Idle Stance http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24587

Ever get tired of seeing your dainty female mage in an elegant silk dress putting up her dukes in the menu like she's spoiling for a bar brawl? This mod fixes the hand to hand "weapon drawn" pose to be the regular idle so you don't roll your eyes every time you press tab. As for actual hand to hand combat, small price to pay.

 

22. Perfect Working No Quest Markers http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8680

The simplest of the No Quest Marker mods. Just a straight file replacer. It gets rid of the purple custom marker too, which is kind of a pain, but in a good way I think. There are other mods, but this is the one I use. The less .esp's the better. Now God will no longer tell you where to go.

 

23. Dangerous Night and Storms http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5517

I haven't tested this one yet, as I just got it the other day. However, it looks very promising. Yet another thing that should have been in the game. Having to seek shelter is the perfect excuse to explore those crumbly ruins. (Dungeon diving is not so great for money. Lugging all your treasure back is a pain and it's actually pretty easy to get by with items you find outside.)

 

24. Nirnroot Quest Rewards Replacer http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2322

Instead of the standard Nirnroot reward, you get a potion that increases your attributes. It still has the same name, but don't worry.

 

25. Side's Backpacks http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29120

Another very nice addition. It should have been in the game already, even though some may disagree. From the maker of Better Music System himself, no less. I haven't had any big problems yet. One little nigling one, but it's alright. If you drop the backpack while it's equiped, it sometimes stays showing on your back, but this can be gotten around very easily by unequiping it first.

 

 

And there you have it. My Top 25. :thumbsup: Good luck with getting everything to work. It can be trying ordeal even with a clear and sober head.