Feeling like replaying Oblivion.

[weltall]

I am a fan of Elder Scrolls since Morrowind back there in time. I did play Daggerfall after Morrowind but never went through it. When Oblivion came out back then I remember I was running around the block I live to calm down the excitement. Only seeing the opening I remember made me feel like I was about to play a real movie. But for one or another reason after playing a handful of hours I was not able to get drawn in it and thus I left it half done and unfinished.

 

And now came Skyrim that made me get stuck on my PC for hours and play till my brain could not get more. So after playing Skyrim and opening the map as much as possible and then starting over the game progressing faster the second time I felt like I wanted to explore another land and after shoveling through my old games i decided the world to be Oblivion's which I hardly have explored back then when I played.

 

After playing the vanilla game though for hardly an hour, I do not know if it was the graphics or something else but I could not even feel like moving another step. So who did I think of first, I thought of you, uhhhhh I mean Nexus forums, lol. I looked a bit here and there and all around for different mods and added them but it did not so much work for me and so after a while I uninstalled it. This time though I decided to look around in here and I found a post that mentioned this thread >> http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/466448-noob-up-and-running/ << .

 

All I want to know is if following all the direction of that thread, and maybe some extra from suggestions, will make Oblivion look a bit more appealing than its vanilla state, and no I do not expect some magic that it will make its engine the same as Skyrim's, just a little bit of this and that that will make me enjoy looking at it with nowadays standards.

 

My PC is kind of old but it runs skyrim fine with ultra settings (not with the new HD patch they released though, makes it laggy) and a handful of graphic enhancement mods. If I put Shadows down to high it runs, if I put them on medium it flies. Well if you still need specs I will stop being lazy and look them up =p

[Striker879]

If you do follow Nitefox98's thread do yourself a favour. Don't add a whole boxfull of mods and then expect the game to run. Sure you may beat the odds and become the exception to the rule, but there is a much greater likelyhood that you will join the masses who come looking for help to get the game to even start after that kind of treatment.

 

Start a new game after getting just OBSE and perhaps OBMM installed (you don't really need either for this stage, but you will need them eventually). Play as far as the sewer exit and make a save. Then exit the sewer and go to the IC Market District. Make another save there at around noon gametime (when it's good and busy). Decide on what mods you are going to start out with and add one. Test it using your Market District save. Don't add another until you are certain that the game is stable and playing to your liking (i.e. all options set to your preference if it's a graphics mod). Adding one at a time makes troubleshooting a cinch.

 

Modding is a journey, so why not enjoy the trip.

[weltall]

If you do follow Nitefox98's thread do yourself a favour. Don't add a whole boxfull of mods and then expect the game to run. Sure you may beat the odds and become the exception to the rule, but there is a much greater likelyhood that you will join the masses who come looking for help to get the game to even start after that kind of treatment.

 

Start a new game after getting just OBSE and perhaps OBMM installed (you don't really need either for this stage, but you will need them eventually). Play as far as the sewer exit and make a save. Then exit the sewer and go to the IC Market District. Make another save there at around noon gametime (when it's good and busy). Decide on what mods you are going to start out with and add one. Test it using your Market District save. Don't add another until you are certain that the game is stable and playing to your liking (i.e. all options set to your preference if it's a graphics mod). Adding one at a time makes troubleshooting a cinch.

 

Modding is a journey, so why not enjoy the trip.

 

Thanks a lot Striker. Truly a great suggestion which I am going to follow. I do know the game is crash prone but I am used to crashed with many other games so I will just have to remember to quicksave a lot, or regret not doing it. Well I guess its time to go and visit the Marketplace for some testing. Thank again :) Kudos for you.

[Pixeldust]

*With the unofficial patches Oblivion becomes quite stable. I never have crashing problems since I installed it.*

When I first bought Oblivion it actually sat on my shelf for a year because when I first tried playing it the character creation screen had overwhelmed me. Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game and it's probably due to that reason that I actually have a fondness for it that I don't feel for Skyrim. Also, I loved it's main questline... more so than Skyrim. I really feel like I had earned my fame by the end of the main quest. You're Oblivion hero is just an average person who does amazing feats, but in Skyrim I had to be a Dragonborn to feel special... which I didn't like. Though with Skyrim I felt dumped off and forgotten, what really broke Skyrim for me was how the guards got on you for using your Shouts in the towns.

 

-Get the Unofficial Patches.

-Get Shivering Isles, it's a very unique expansion that provides it's own special experience that gives you the same feeling as Morrowind did of being in an alien unfamilar world.

-Get the Official Addon's if you can.

 

~Suggested Mods~

 

-Vilja, shes an amazing companion mod done by Emma that is probably the best known mod for Oblivion, she makes the world feel a lot more alive.

-Try some of the house mods by Korana, and Emma, they have unique features such as being able to cook many baked goods, coffee, grow plants, sew your own clothes, make your own soap, etc.

-OMOD Oblivion Mod manager is such an useful tool, and is very user friendly you'll be able to figure it out within less than 20 minutes.

[Striker879]

A word about quicksave ... it's a known problem causer (save file corruption being at or near the top of the list). Use either the save off the Esc menu and save in a new slot each time (I call that manual save) or by using the console command 'save <YourSaveNameHere>' (without the quotes and bracket thingys ... I call that named saves). Even with named save avoid overwriting saves (e.g. my new character is using a custom class, so his saves are named 'CustomClass1' 'CustomClass2' ...). When you start to find the Esc menu gets a bit slow to open (as it's got to read all those saves to display the list) I archive my older ones by moving them to a different folder (in my case on a different drive as well, but as long as the folder isn't the default the game won't read them).

 

Good save habits are to save every hour or so (depending on how stable your game is, which will vary from person to person depending on mod lists). I have left autosaves at the default myself, although many people advise to disable them. I don't often see a crash while autosaving, but seldom load an autosave (only if I haven't been keeping up with my manual or named saves, and don't want to lose my progress). I also find that exiting to the desktop and then restarting the game every few hours is helpful (or you can research one of the crash prevention solutions).

 

I'll second the motion for Companion Vilja, an extraordinary mod, and you won't find one that is better supported.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Striker879

[weltall]

Thank you pixeldust for your suggestions about the game. Personally I remember I did get too much into Oblivion because I not only did not follow the main quest very much but I also became a vampire which I did not want and after finishing the quest with a witch if i remember well to become a human again I was tired, exhausted and out of mood. Last thing I remember was me running in a golden armor around a town killing random people and then I stopped.

 

Now after so long I want to try again and its kind of sad that graphics actually make me feel bad about playing. I did try to play Morrowind and it loved its graphics, aw well. I did get at a point shivering isles but never the addons, I guess I could buy them if they add enough fun to the game, I remember one was a cool castle. Also I will definitely check your suggested mods :) Kudos for you too thanks a lot for your time!

 

Also striker thanks for pointing out about quicksave, it's kind of sad about quicksaves having problem, lol I would love a mod that could fix that or it would force quicksave to save in a different slow every time. I might go with the console command I guess, sound easier :) Its nice to have someone to point out such things before I even start. I will look about the crash prevention mods and see if I can find something helpful. As for exiting and entering back into the game, many games have memory leaks so yeah I have done this with many games, I do not remember if oblivion was one of them. The only reason I am not worried that much about bugs, crashes and glitches is because one of my all time favorite game series is Gothic (up to the 3rd one at least). Never played a more buggy game and still I love it XD I will go for Vilja because I have seen that mod mentioned even in random sites before so since you both say its good I kind of really want to see how great that companion is.

 

One more thing I want to ask though about the managers. I am guessing both OBMM and OMOD Oblivion Mod manager are the same software and of course they are to control your mods turn them off and on, etc etc. I have been using The Nexus Mod Manager since I wanted to add mods on my seconds playthrough of Skyrim and it looked fairly nice and it is connected directly to Nexus letting you know if a mod has an update. I use BOSS to arrange my mods in order and NMM to turn mods off and on. It looks fairly stable but if you believe I should better go with OBMM I will.

 

Thanks again for all the help :)

[Striker879]

If you are already familiar with Nexus Mod Manager you should stick to it rather than Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). NMM is new, will be supported and developed further for quite a while. OBMM is getting quite outdated (hasn't been updated since Nov 2008) and support for it is largely left to the community. Another option is Wrye Bash (WB), which is considerably more powerful (and complex). If you get into certain mods (some of the big overhauls for instance) having WB will not be an option but rather a requirement. A lot will depend on where your personal journey takes you.

 

On the subject of quicksaves, there is another option there too (modding is all about options after all). The utility Streamline has an option called Streamsave that many people swear by. It's another of those 'not updated since 2008' vintage tools. Many of the features it offers were only really relevant back when Oblivion was released (it could bring the stoutest machines to their knees back in the day, and Streamline was designed to help those less than stout machines), but with study you can disable many of the features not needed today.

[weltall]

I heard Wrye Bash from a member on here when I asked support about a message BOSS gave me for Skyrim saying that I needed to bash level/delevel one of my mods. I am guessing for the case like the guy explained I would have to use Wrye Bash if I would add a mod that would change the whole level system of the game. Also mentioned something about drops. I guess I need to study a bit about that one. As for NMM yes its very easy to use and the only negative I can say for it up to now its that randomly deactivates all the mods, or it happens when I change the game settings from the launcher or when I run the game through the actual skyrim.exe and not the one that loads the mods. I need to look in it a bit more but afar from that its really handy.

 

I bow to you Striker :). From a quick look on the Streamline's save system I can understand its exactly what I needed. I am going to look to see how it will be possible to keep only the save feature on and turn off the rest. So I guess I can replace the quicksave F5 with Streamline's save and it alakazam, magic trick saved my day :) Your great!

[Striker879]

Nah, the great ones create these works of art. I just read a lot.

 

If you ever want to know more about Wrye Bash than you thought was ever possible here's a link to the Wrye Musings WB portal. An excellent resource for the less reading oriented is alt3rn1ty's Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide.

[weltall]

Thanks a lot for the guide Striker. Year it definitely looks like I will need Wrye Bash in the future, the guide is great. Also since they are great for creating them then your great for finding them out reading so much and well helping players =p. For now I decided to install Quarl's Texture pack as is and not the lite version that Nitefox suggest. If I will see it will be very heavy for my computer I will probably follow his instructions. Hope I will not regret it lol.

 

My PC is rather old and well the main parts are a Q9400 @3.2, 4GB ram and my poor 4870 with 1GB ram. I keep pondering about adding more ram but I am not sure if i want, lol.

Edited March 13, 2012 by weltall