chrisb46 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 With Oblivion, you can literally, spend your entire train ride just foraging for plants to make into alchemy potions. You'll kill some wild animals but otherwise it can be relaxing.I know many people have spent hours just exploring and foraging and loved every minute of it.I promise, you will occasionally come across a sight that will make you pause and stare at the beauty of the digital world around you. On another note: I am pretty sure you can put on subtitles for everything so you can have the volume low. Big "yes" to all the above. Sometimes I find myself just wandering around or doing odd quests and barely fight anything. I love running over the crest of a big hill and seeing the explosion of landscape open itself up. I've had to stop and take it all in more than once. I usually play with low volume too, and can confirm that the subtitles are really helpful. I've learned lockpicking will be a chore, but I've managed. Ssounds like it's a game that you can play at your own pace and lasts for a long time, which is what I'm looking for. Need to get out of the WOW/LOTRO "I must be online and progressing" mentality. Sounds like much less of a grind! Thanks for the subtitles tip but headphones are definitely the way forward on the train :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 If you are looking for a relaxing experience that can still have unexpected moments try Companion Vilja. Take a look through the mod comments and you'll get a sense of the quality of the mod and support it receives (both from the mod author and her team and from it's users). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponyboy10 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 If you are looking for a relaxing experience that can still have unexpected moments try Companion Vilja. Take a look through the mod comments and you'll get a sense of the quality of the mod and support it receives (both from the mod author and her team and from it's users). YES, I forgot to mention this mod specifically. I just installed it the other night, but she can add a lot of fun to exploring. It kind of adds a whole new dynamic to the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponyboy10 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Ssounds like it's a game that you can play at your own pace and lasts for a long time, which is what I'm looking for. Need to get out of the WOW/LOTRO "I must be online and progressing" mentality. Sounds like much less of a grind! Thanks for the subtitles tip but headphones are definitely the way forward on the train :-) Yeah, I think that might be one of the big reasons new people to the game find it boring. You're kind of kicked out into the world to find your way along. There is a main quest, but I haven't even touched it yet. A lot of people put hundreds of hours into the game with more still to do and discover, not to mention the addons and mods that add all new quest lines and gameplay, etc. It really does reward exploration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisb46 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 If you are looking for a relaxing experience that can still have unexpected moments try Companion Vilja. Take a look through the mod comments and you'll get a sense of the quality of the mod and support it receives (both from the mod author and her team and from it's users). YES, I forgot to mention this mod specifically. I just installed it the other night, but she can add a lot of fun to exploring. It kind of adds a whole new dynamic to the game.I was thinking I should avoid adding any mods at first - the advice seems to be, play the game for a bit without them before you add any so you understand what they do. Would you recommend adding Vilja from day one then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 (edited) If you intend to do the main quest on this play through, no I don't recommend loading Vilja at the start (although you can load the mod and then just not go and meet her, which is what I'm doing with my new guy on my current install ... I like to go back to my old guy, who is traveling with Vilja, from time to time). The main issue with any companion when doing the main quest revolves around closing Oblivion gates ... if you have them with you when you grab the Sigil stone they'll often lose their inventory (one of the main attractions of having a companion along then, other than an extra sword arm is using them as a pack mule to carry loot). It's certainly possible to use a companion while closing gates, just make sure to either send them home before grabbing the stone (if they offer that option, as Vilja does), or have them follow to outside the gate and tell them to wait while you go back in and close the gate. The downside here is if you don't kill everything in that plane of Oblivion before you lead them outside you'll have a little solo work left to do before getting to the Sigil stone again and/or some planes of Oblivion are quite large and have complicated paths to get to the location of the Sigil stone (the Sigillum Sanguis found in the main tower). It's perfectly possible to hook up with Vilja at or near the start of the game, do a bunch of adventuring with her along and then when you decide to do the main quest either leave her behind when going to close a gate or leave her behind while doing the whole main quest. That's one of the cool aspects of the game in general ... you can start a quest on day one in the game world and then leave finishing it until you feel like and, for the most part, it will have no impact on your game (there are a few quests that change an NPC's status from essential, i.e. unkillable, to non-essential, reducing their usability and value in some later parts of some quests). Companion Vilja is a game changer without a doubt, and compared to other companion mods out there has very few of the gameplay flaws that they introduce (i.e she can be set to stay out of the fight unless you're about to die if you want to level up your fighting skills ... with most other companions you need to lead them well away from the scene of the upcoming battle and tell them to wait to keep them out of the fight). The only downside to starting out with Vilja in tow (or leading you ... a novel and exclusive Vilja option) is that if you then decide to leave Vilja behind and go adventuring on your own you'll find Cyrodiil a rather lonely place (hence my switching back to 'the old guy' for a little play time). - Edit - An addendum about your WoW/LotR comment a few posts back ... while you do have less of a 'grind' as you put it, keep in mind that this is a highly addictive game ... expect some late nights. Edited December 7, 2011 by Striker879 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisb46 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 It's perfectly possible to hook up with Vilja at or near the start of the game, do a bunch of adventuring with her along and then when you decide to do the main quest either leave her behind when going to close a gate or leave her behind while doing the whole main quest. That's one of the cool aspects of the game in general ... you can start a quest on day one in the game world and then leave finishing it until you feel like and, for the most part, it will have no impact on your game (there are a few quests that change an NPC's status from essential, i.e. unkillable, to non-essential, reducing their usability and value in some later parts of some quests). Companion Vilja is a game changer without a doubt, and compared to other companion mods out there has very few of the gameplay flaws that they introduce (i.e she can be set to stay out of the fight unless you're about to die if you want to level up your fighting skills ... with most other companions you need to lead them well away from the scene of the upcoming battle and tell them to wait to keep them out of the fight). The only downside to starting out with Vilja in tow (or leading you ... a novel and exclusive Vilja option) is that if you then decide to leave Vilja behind and go adventuring on your own you'll find Cyrodiil a rather lonely place (hence my switching back to 'the old guy' for a little play time). - Edit - An addendum about your WoW/LotR comment a few posts back ... while you do have less of a 'grind' as you put it, keep in mind that this is a highly addictive game ... expect some late nights. It sounds like she could be well worth hooking up with from day one. Anyone who has had some of their dialog written by Terry Pratchett is definitely something I'll enjoy. And who knows, maybe following her in her quest would be a nice way to start the game, being led to interesting places. The grind comment more referred to the need to level to get to see new places and so ending up grinding mobs or charging through quests without really reading them. It sounds like for the most part you don't need to level to enjoy Oblivion, it's just something that happens. My most enjoyable experience in LOTRO was easily up to level 20 or so with a hobbit character in the Shire. Having charming and silly quests that didn't involve kiling stuff like pie delivery set in such a beautifully rendered environment was pretty magic, to be honest, and since then it has felt like grinding quests just to see the next Middle Earth landmark. i'm hopeful that Oblivion will offer some of that Shire style experience. I'll be careful of the addictiveness, but I'm pretty good at handling that in games these days. I was seriously hooked on Everquest back in the day, and that game was so addictive that it set the bar really high! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponyboy10 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 (edited) I was thinking I should avoid adding any mods at first - the advice seems to be, play the game for a bit without them before you add any so you understand what they do. Would you recommend adding Vilja from day one then?It's kind of up to you. I would probably recommend at least playing for a little while to get started before doing too much modding. I didn't take my own advice and jumped into doing a lot of the popular graphical mods before even playing at all. Personally I don't have a lot of time to game anymore so just wanted it to be pretty from the start, as well as some things I remember being annoying from playing Morrowind years ago. There is something to be said for seeing the vanilla version first and then the after-mod version. As far as Vilja, I would say maybe add her after the Oblivion honeymoon wears off a little and you want something new. Edited December 7, 2011 by ponyboy10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisb46 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 Oh and I'm kicking myself that I ordered a physical copy and didn't think to buy from Steam. If i had I'd have been playing by now rather thn pestering you all with questions, but I didn't realise it was an option. Doh ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 (edited) There are a few things that can't been seen unless you do the associated quest but for the most part the game world is your's to explore (you can even visit the Oblivion world at Kvatch without starting the main quest by delivering the amulet ... don't talk to anyone and go into the gate ... a cool place to pick up some of the hard to find Oblivion ingredients for alchemy, level dependent however for availability even in Oblivion ... don't close the gate and return whenever you feel the need). As I started off saying in my previous post, I concur with ponyboy10. Get a feel for the vanilla game and then go pick up Vilja. If nothing else, you'll have a proper frame of reference to measure her gameplay additions against. One more caveat to add ... if you managed to snag a Game of the Year disk version make sure to install the Shivering Isles right off the bat. For one, it patches the game up to the current for you, but more importantly it will make your game compatible with any mods out there. If you don't install the SI and patch your game up to the latest then you won't be able to install SI later without a complete reinstall and any mods that have SI as a requirement won't be playable for you. If you install SI right at the get go all that will happen is you'll get a message just after exiting the tutorial sewers about a 'strange door'. Nothing more is required on your part, and you can never visit the Shivering Isle and no one will ever notice. Edited December 7, 2011 by Striker879 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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