Random Mod Musings

[majikmonkee]

I can't always find a good place to record my thoughts on the various mods I've played, so I think starting a new topic on the subject works as well as anything. This time around, I'm going to talk about mods I've played that I felt had replayability. I'm not talking about mods like Deadly Reflex that just change game mechanics, I'm referring to mods with a definite questline.

 

The first mod I ever replayed from start to finish was Heart of the Dead. It was a pretty long mod, easily as long as the Knights of the Nine or Shivering Isles questlines. I replayed it less than a month after the first time I finished it, and one of the main reasons I rolled a new character was to tackle HOD again. So what's so great about HOD that I'd play it twice in such a short time? There are a lot of things I really liked about it, but it comes down to one word for me: atmosphere. The pacing was just right for my tastes, the characters fleshed out just enough to make me care about them, and there was a fantastic musical score that wasn't overwhelming but definitely had a presence. Plus, it's hard to complain about a quest that rewards you not only with a companion, but a fairly expansive home as well. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

The second mod I replayed was Tears of the Fiend. Oddly, with TOTF, I liked it pretty well the first time through, but found myself thinking there was no way I would replay it. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I think it was the fact that the mod took some liberties with my character's past that I didn't really care for. I was roleplaying a good character, and without spoiling the storyline, the mod seemed to suggest that my character was far from the good guy I wanted him to be. However, roleplaying my current morally ambiguous character, the storyline of TOTF seemed just right, so I decided to give it another whirl. I'm glad I did, because story liberties aside, it's a really well put together mod, more story than combat driven. It wasn't quite the overwhelming experience HOD was for me the first time, but definitely worth a second playthrough. :thumbsup:

 

The third (and last, for now) mod I played through again was The Lost Spires. From what I've heard, it's a pretty popular mod, and I can understand why. Like HOD, it has some great atmosphere to it, but even more than HOD, the rewards you pick up during the quests are extremely helpful (a portable spell maker and item enchanter are just a couple of my favorites). The designer also went to a lot of work to offer some truly unique dungeons, and that's one thing about this mod that's always stuck with me. The end-quest rewards aren't anything too special, but really, that's kind of the case with the vanilla Oblivion guild quests...leadership isn't all it's cracked up to be. :thumbsup:

 

Well, that's enough of my random musings for now...feel free to comment or share...or to fall asleep reading this ridiculously long post... :biggrin:

[chaospearl]

As a fellow writer of ridiculously long posts, I feel like I need to support your efforts to stomp out insomnia among Oblivion players.

 

I actually have all three of the mods you discussed installed in my game, but I've never taken more than the first few steps in any of them. I'm the kind of player who likes to have as many different choices and things-to-do as is possible without my game exploding (which happens frequently anyway) even though I don't necessarily really want to go and do everything that's available. If that makes sense. I tend to do things as my character encounters them, allowing for the fact that every character is obviously going to have different priorities depending on personality and background. Some of them rush off to save the world immediately (main quest), some of them sell the Amulet of Kings to the nearest pawn shop and use the money to buy porn at Roxy's Adult Bookstore, some of them start off intending to do one thing or the other but get distracted the first time a NPC asks for help or an opportunity for Fame and Wealth presents itself.

 

Since we're musing about random quest mods, though... I'd like to mention one called Weapons of the Fallen Heroes, mostly because nobody else I've talked to seems to have heard of it even though it's got a fair number of downloads and endorsements. I've often thought about contacting the author and asking to collaborate on improving the mod, or just for permission to improve it myself. It's a fantastic concept and it starts out wonderfully, but the quality sort of peters out as you go along and judging by the comments I'm not the only one who felt disappointed and thought that such a great idea has so much more potential.

 

The quest is a Lord of the Rings tie-in, but not blatantly so -- it doesn't have actual living characters or places from Middle Earth suddenly appearing in Oblivion (those sorts of mods annoy me). You know how in LotR, after Boromir dies they place him in a boat with all his weapons and weapons of his enemies, and send him down the river? This quest begins by having you find that boat with the body and weapons in it. Unfortunately after that it sort of dissipates into a goblin-hunting chase that doesn't seem to have much purpose to it. I still love it, maybe just because I'm a LotR fanatic, but like I said... every now and then I get the urge to email the author and just test the waters about improving it.

 

Oh. And even though I just said that blatant "wrong world!" mods annoy me? One of the funniest and most fun things I've ever played is that mod that uses the Oblivion engine for a Super Mario Bros. platformer game. It doesn't even try to be RP-correct. Just teleports you off to the Mushroom Kingdom. It's fantastic, I haven't laughed that much in ages. I don't know if the author is a fellow child of the 80s (read: Mario groupie) or just has way too much time on his hands, but either way, it definitely gets my vote for one of the best mods ever imagined even though I very rarely use it.

 

Okay, okay, and one more. Possibly my favorite "pointless" mod ever is the Oscar Meyer Wiener wagon. I use it in every game I play. It puts a hot dog wagon with a bright rainbow umbrella in the middle of the Imperial City marketplace. It's even RP-correct (to the extent that a wiener wagon can be) and it doesn't conflict with any other mod I've used, including Better Cities. Sometimes after a long morning of adventuring you just need to stop and grab a dirty water dog for lunch before heading back out into the wilds. Don't knock it til you try it. Along similar lines there's also a mod that puts a Brooklyn pizza joint out by the Waterfront, but unfortunately it doesn't work well with Better Cities due to the placement of the building.

 

Just my two cents.

[majikmonkee]

Hah. Those are definitely some interesting mod suggestions, and I haven't actually heard of most of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm very ADD when it comes to Oblivion. I played through these mods but not straight through, for example, I started HOD the first time but then got distracted playing with the Akatosh mount, then further distracted with Druid mod gaining the werewolf transformation. Playing through a mod start to finish and following everyone else's agendas is too much like work. =P

[majikmonkee]

So here's my mod rant for the day. Woo hoo, right? :thumbsup:

 

I don't know if I'm missing something or if I'm just not trying the right mods, but the so-called "romance" capable companions I've dared to try in my game are anything but romantic. Mind you, I haven't tried a whole lot of them, and I'm very picky about who and what I download, because personally, I like to keep my Oblivion PG-13 (I myself am in my 30's, this is just a personal decision, not a religious imperative or anything). The companions I've used so far though either limit their affections to putting alchemy ingredients in your pack before you head out for a long day of shooting rats at the Tamriel dump, or refer to you with mild terms of endearment (ie "my love") but otherwise treat you exactly like they'd treat one of the guys (or girls, if that's the case).

 

Now mind you, I'm not actually looking for anything that simulates the physical aspects of romantic involvement, I'm willing to use my imagination, and indeed, some things are better left that way. But with these companions with whom I'm romantically involved, would it be so hard to have a *kiss* or *hug* dialogue option slipped in there among all the other commands you're allowed to issue them, after which they would respond with appreciative (or maybe not appreciative if you hadn't earned it) dialogue? What I sort of envisioned when I thought of romantic companions was something sort of like the Sims or Sims 2 (big time fan of both here). Say when I first meet my companion, I have these options, and if they like me enough, I gain disposition points by doing them, but if the companion doesn't like me and I try to put the moves on them, they insult me (or call the guards...something) and I lose disposition points.

 

Like I said, I don't even need to see the corresponding "kiss" or "hug" or "goose", I just would like to have the companion acknowledge that I do these things and I'd be happy. Have I passed over the mod or mods that do this already? Isn't there a happy medium between having people stuff fruit in my pack and this "sexblivion" I keep hearing whispers about? If so, I'd dearly love a push in the right direction. Thanks for listening! :thumbsup:

[chaospearl]

Hmmm. Honestly, I haven't ever tried any of the romance-capable companions, so I've got no idea what's out there. I do know there's a mod that allows you to romance the existing NPC Eyja -- she's the girl from Skingrad who originally lives with the merchant, but if you talk to her after buying the Skingrad house, you can get her to move in with you and become your housekeeper. That's all in the vanilla game, but all she'll do is move her stuff into the basement and set up a cot, and then she just randomly wanders around the house. You can ask her to bake you a pie via a dialogue option. That's about it.

 

The mod in question is a huge elaborate thing that adds a whole romance side-quest where you have to woo and win her, including taking her on dates and such. I've had it for ages but I've never actually played through it (sensing a pattern here) mostly because it's been awhile since any of my chars managed to have enough money to buy the Skingrad house, which is necessary to begin the romance of your housekeeper.

 

Mind you, I don't know what the mod's rating is. I don't THINK it includes any actual physical in-game contact, but having never played it myself I can't guarantee that. It probably has info in the readme and docs that lets you know exactly how risque it is. I am pretty sure there's a scene of Eyja in revealing lingerie, but that may be as far as it goes.

 

Here's the link: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6960

 

Edit: Aha, found what I was looking for. From the FAQ:

 

Is there nudity or any hot coffee action?

 

No, this is a romance mod, not p0rn.

[majikmonkee]

Thanks. I heard of this one before but have yet to try it. I guess I was a little wary and unsure how far it took things. Plus my current character is female and I'm not RPing her as into other females. The farthest any mod I've played has taken things romance wise is simulating a kiss through dialogue, showing the lights turn out from outside the window, then having the characters wake up the next day in their underwear. This was just part of the story, though, not a recurring interaction.

[majikmonkee]

I know with TES:V right around the corner that the probability of something this expansive coming out for Oblivion is highly unlikely, but that doesn't mean I can't wish that it would. One thing I've always wished for more than anything is is a multiplayer arena experience. No quests, nothing fancy, just a place where fans of the game could get together and hack each other to pieces the way most straightforward FPS games allow you to.

 

I know that multiplayer Oblivion has been a dream for a lot of people for a long time, and there there's a host of technical problems involved with making it that way. I also know that with a game like this that allows modding, it can get complicated matching players together in a deathmatch if they don't all have the same mods installed. I'd settle for a mod that took the players' stats without special gear or anything and stripped them of all gear aside from vanilla arena raiment and choice of vanilla weapon. Something is way better than nothing, and that would even things out aside from differences in level and acquired skills.

 

Like I said, at this point, the best we can probably hope for is some similar component in TES:V, but with my junky PC, there's a strong chance it will be a while before I play the next installment, so I'll still be hunting for good Oblivion mods long after others have already made their home in Skyrim... =P

[Megatarius]

Hoarfrost Castle gets my vote. I haven't played all the way through, but the initial mission is downright Lovecraftian. You get a rather nice player home (nicer than what I've seen in Vanilla anyway), and then go through several missions to improve it further.

 

My only complaint with it is the way the courtyard is laid out. The chapel is relagated to the corner of the courtyard, and the other corner has the stable taking up equal space and prominence. I didn't think this was appropriate at all, so I moved the chapel to the middle of its wall, and turned the stable 90 degrees and stuffed it into the corner by the entrance. Then I put some nice rocks and things in the other corner for a park-like feel. Also there's a huge rock on the hillside over the courtyard, with a giant glob of snow on its side like it's about to fall off. I grew up in the mountains and this does not happen. I looks wrong so I deleted it out. I also put some cheydinhall archetechure house meshes up in the ramparts to make it look more like a palace and less like a fort.

 

Those are minor things though, and fun to fix in the CS. I highly recommend this mod. The first mission alone makes it cool.

[majikmonkee]

I may check this one out, haven't heard of it before. I'm currently up to my eyeballs in player homes, but if the mod itself is interesting, it doesn't matter what the end reward is really...

[majikmonkee]

Well, I was ranting a while back about romance mods and companions not having any options or depth, and it appears I was just not looking in the right place. I've since located at least a handful of romance companions that feature "flirt" type options with a pretty wide range of interactions. That's more along the lines of what I was looking for. I always feel guilty when it comes to romance companions, though, just like with anything else, I eventually get bored of them and move on. Battlehorn Castle's main hall is filled with wandering "former partners" who I took on then more or less got bored with and decided to let them live in the castle and eat free food and drink free booze.