Second Chances and New Beginnings?

[angrybuffalo238]

Hey everybody.

 

The last experience I had with Oblivion was one of those traumatic breakdowns that leave you unable to cope with what you are dealing with. Keep in mind that this all occurred on Xbox so the vanilla game was quite permanent throughout my experience.

 

Im not going to give my life story so dont think im coming on here to vent about this or that. What I really want is to explain myself a little then ask for help.

 

In vanilla Oblivion the system was rife with glitches and problems that made the game virtually unplayable if you were not on your toes the entire time. The biggest of them all being the 'leveled lists' in which basically every bit of unique equipment would be useless once you moved on to a greater level. Things like this compelled me to grind to level twenty before I even did my first quest to ensure that I would not be throwing away something that I would otherwise want to keep. Finally after a long list of horrible experiences I decided that I would never play the game again because the knowledge of what would await me was too terrible.

 

And now, several years later, I find that I have very little to choose seeing that skyrim is pretty much the same if not a worse disappointment. I remember the little things about oblivion that I enjoyed so much and while in those days there was nothing that could be done to fix those problems the modern day some ten years later with a whole experienced modding community, I think that everything that was then impossible may now be very possible...

 

At this moment, I still have an extreme amount of very bad emotional baggage that I dont know how to deal with. So trying to go this alone is going to simply be too painful for me.

 

I would ask that members of the community would take pity on a poor wounded soul and help me break through what I have to deal with and find new life in an old flame...

 

 

 

The first thing that I would want is a full breakdown of all the patches, bug fixes, optimizations, and everything else that makes the vanilla game behave the way its supposed to trouble free. Secondly I would like to dive head long into overhaul mods that would make everything in the game look sound and feel new. Everything from new landscapes to character and race overhauling both in stats and appearance. I remember seeing a skin replacer for the races in a passing glance one time that made Oblivion look alot like MassEffect. With real looking faces and textures and so on.

 

I am huge on the concept of realism, so I would want to have brutal realistic combat with a lot of damage being one hit kills because thats how it is in the real world. I frankly just cant play role playing anymore without the need to eat drink and sleep, so those are going to be big. Crafting and maintenance of equipment is a big deal so on and so forth. I wont get into everything i want here because that would take to long. lol

 

I dont need a baby sitter, but I would really appreciate people holding my hand and helping me walk through this, because I honestly dont know if I could do this on my own. I am totally new to modding in Oblivion and not having emotional strength is not a good way to start learning something that is usually stressful by nature.

 

As I am by nature steeped in pessimism I have great hope and a willingness to trust in the community. Seeing as how a game like this has been out for so long I cant imagine anyone but the most passionate and appreciative of fans would remain. I would look to that passion and appreciation as an example and as hope that what I have always enjoyed in the past could be enjoyed into the future.

[Striker879]

Rule number one ... play the game vanilla to the end of the sewers tutorial. Make a save just before exiting the sewer (you can use this for creating a new character without redoing the entire tutorial each time). Exit the sewer and make another save (you can use this save for continuing the game after you finish installing at least your base mods). Go to the Market District of the Imperial City during the daylight hours and get a feel for how your hardware handles the base unmodded game. This will be valuable when you start adding mods and you suddenly notice a change in your game's performance. Make a save close to or in the IC to use as a mod testing save.

 

Rule number two ... never overwrite saves. Always save in a new slot using the save from the Esc menu or console save command. Never use quicksave (it's a known corrupter of saves) and always exit the game to the desktop and then reload (you start out with a fresh computer memory as the game completely reloads, from the reload menu it only loads what it has to and carries over some memory contents).

 

Rule number three ... install one mod at a time and test thoroughly before adding another mod. When you break something it's a trivial matter to figure out where to start troubleshooting. If a mod has requirements install those beforehand and if possible test between steps. Read the install instructions in a mod's description and/or readme. If it doesn't say "Using Nexus Mod Manager ... " then don't even think about using NMM. It may work great with newer games but other than some recent mods designed with it in mind it's a minefield for installing Oblivion mods. Read the recent comments for a mod before downloading. If it's got lots of complaints and you don't understand the problem and/or solutions offered you'd be better to wait until you have more experience and know what you're doing. JoesReallyReallyCoolUberMod won't be really cool to you if all it brings is frustration.

 

Rule number four ... start small and build your skill set. Yes you want a super over the top modded to the Nth degree game and you want it now, but modding isn't something we are born knowing how to do instinctively. If you parkour jump before you know how to crawl it will do nothing except leave a mess on the sidewalk. Don't believe me ... read through mod comments and these forum for a while and you'll see the picture come into focus.

 

OK, if I haven't discouraged you here's my suggestions:

 

Maskars Oblivion Overhaul - Recent, completely customizeable using the included INI and if you look through the recent mod comments you'll see that crafting is coming very soon. Take the time to download and study the manual.

 

Realistic Fatigue plus Basic Physical Activities - The changes these two make have completely changed how I play the game. No more carting an entire dungeon's worth of loot all the way to town chugging feather potions along the way. They are both also customizeable using their INIs. Packdonkeys ver 2 goes well with the combo.

 

Basic Primary Needs - Compliments RF and BPA very well. When you are tired, thirsty and hungry you know it (also configurable using the INI).

 

Enhanced Economy - Maybe a bit hardcore, but makes staying alive a job when coupled with BPN ... finding enough food, drink and beds to sleep in, all while getting a fraction of the gold for your loot. No more 1 million gold before you hit level 15. Stolen Item Ownership helps take some of the sting out of EE's changes (if you are not seen you can do a bit of "grocery shopping" for instance).

 

HUD Status Bars - Makes staying on top of your hunger, thirst, tiredness and encumbrance a breeze.

 

Oblivion Character Overhaul v2 - The current state of the art for character's faces. Couple it with the appropriate selections from the Seamless series (current state of the art for bodies and clothes/armor) ... the Seamless Equipment mod description has links to the rest of the series.

 

You'll need to look elsewhere for advice on the many and various beautification of Tamriel type mods. The current state of the art for how the game displays whatever you choose is Oblivion reloaded OBGE v4 and it has benefits that go far beyond how the game looks (read the readme).

 

The Unofficial Oblivion Patch is indispensable for fixing those problems that Bethesda has never addressed. If you also have the DLCs use the unofficial patches for those too.

 

Don't for an instant think you are going to install all of these today and be playing. Some are not simple mods to install and configure. Some work best with a bashed patch (a feature of Wrye Bash that allows conflicting mods to work together). Start with those that are simple to install and configure. Read the install instructions for each mod and start with those that you understand. Took me weeks to get my current install's base game mods installed, and I had a few years of experience manually installing mods under my belt (in part perhaps because some of my "test sessions" lasted for long enough to qualify as "gaming sessions").

 

Modding is like taking a trip ... enjoy the scenery along the way

Edited May 20, 2015 by Striker879