New to Oblivion for PC, need to clear a couple of things up

[wats6831]

Hi, I played Ob alot for 360 but I just bought the Game of the Year Edition. I installed it and I read several optimization and mod guides and I downloaded about 60-80 mods that I plan on using.

 

OOO is one of them.

 

I also saw that there is a patch for Oblivion (1.2x) I think. I downloaded the one for Shivering Isles since I do have that installed, and I tried to install it and it wouldn't work. It gave me an error saying "old file could not be found....etc".

 

I do not have the Direct2Drive version, I bought the physical DVDs and installed from them.

 

My questions are:

 

1. Do I need the patch? If so why do you think it's not installing?

 

2. Also, I remember the downloadable content for the 360: fighters stronghold, wizard tower, the underground lair etc.

 

Can you tell me how I can get those on PC? I saw a page for plugins on the BGS site but it was for Morrowind.

 

Thank you very much in advance.

[Vagrant0]

Hi, I played Ob alot for 360 but I just bought the Game of the Year Edition. I installed it and I read several optimization and mod guides and I downloaded about 60-80 mods that I plan on using.

 

OOO is one of them.

 

I also saw that there is a patch for Oblivion (1.2x) I think. I downloaded the one for Shivering Isles since I do have that installed, and I tried to install it and it wouldn't work. It gave me an error saying "old file could not be found....etc".

 

I do not have the Direct2Drive version, I bought the physical DVDs and installed from them.

 

My questions are:

 

1. Do I need the patch? If so why do you think it's not installing?

 

2. Also, I remember the downloadable content for the 360: fighters stronghold, wizard tower, the underground lair etc.

 

Can you tell me how I can get those on PC? I saw a page for plugins on the BGS site but it was for Morrowind.

 

Thank you very much in advance.

Should probably start off using fewer mods, try to stick to just the ones that need to be present at the beginning. This is to make things easier should you run into any problems later. Most mods can be added later, once you have the game running, and have gotten somewhere outside the tutorial area.

 

"old file could not be found....etc" usually comes up when you are using a different version of the .exe than what the patch needs. If you installed anything like OBSE or a no CD crack, these things overwrite the .exe, and will prevent patching. It is suggested that you uninstall completely, reinstall again, and apply the patch before doing anything else.

 

As for official mods, you will likely have to pay for those again as the xbox versions are different from PC versions. You should still be able to get them from the main site, but as you are probably aware, they aren't really anything too great, and probably aren't worth buying again. Official mods afterall cannot be used in modding legally. And there are certainly different mods available which are made by other players which fit the same sort of role. Bethsoft should have really tried to do something more spetacular with them to be honest, most of them actually seem to be things which were planned for the main game, but were either taken out, or were unfinished at the time of release. Although it's not as bad as say, selling a book, then charging people extra for the last 20 pages, it does seem close to that in some cases.

[wats6831]

Should probably start off using fewer mods, try to stick to just the ones that need to be present at the beginning. This is to make things easier should you run into any problems later. Most mods can be added later, once you have the game running, and have gotten somewhere outside the tutorial area.

 

"old file could not be found....etc" usually comes up when you are using a different version of the .exe than what the patch needs. If you installed anything like OBSE or a no CD crack, these things overwrite the .exe, and will prevent patching. It is suggested that you uninstall completely, reinstall again, and apply the patch before doing anything else.

 

As for official mods, you will likely have to pay for those again as the xbox versions are different from PC versions. You should still be able to get them from the main site, but as you are probably aware, they aren't really anything too great, and probably aren't worth buying again. Official mods afterall cannot be used in modding legally. And there are certainly different mods available which are made by other players which fit the same sort of role. Bethsoft should have really tried to do something more spetacular with them to be honest, most of them actually seem to be things which were planned for the main game, but were either taken out, or were unfinished at the time of release. Although it's not as bad as say, selling a book, then charging people extra for the last 20 pages, it does seem close to that in some cases.

 

 

Hi, thank you for the informative reply.

 

Regarding the patch: I have just installed the game from the retail DVDs. I do not have a NO-CD crack or anything else. Is it possible my version of the game has the patch included on the retail Shivering Isles disc? I cannot think of any explanation why it would not patch.

 

Regarding mods: what do you mean by mods that "need to be present at the beginning"? Most of the mods I'm using are immersion and balancing mods like OOO, MMM, Hunter mod, and most of the mods listed in this guide:

 

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/article.asp?SC...D=36919&p=3

 

I guess my thought is I'd rather not have the risk of corrupting game saves etc. I haven't even ran the game yet and I'd like to have all the kinks worked out before I put hours in.

 

I'll be using Mod Manager, Wyre Bash, and the Invalidation error checker to get things running as smoothly as possible before hand.

 

If i end up having to get rid of some of the less essential mods than so be it.

 

Do you think this is a good idea?

 

Thank you again for the information and any advice is much appreciated.

[bben46]

I believe the 1.2 patch is included with the GOTY version.

 

Playing Oblivion with mods on a PC is not at all like playing on a game console. On the console, you don't have to know anything about how it works to play. On a PC, you have to know at least the basics of where Oblivion puts all of its files (Not where you would expect) and how to manipulate files. - such as how to move and copy files to other folders, and how folders and subfolders are structured.

 

The big mods Vagrant was referring to are the OOO, MMM and other large world changing mods. The site you are looking at tends to recommend mods that I don't use. I would at least finish the tutorial dungeon and exit the sewer before adding any mods at all, or messing with the .ini file.

 

Then, NOTE, THIS IS IMPORTANT! Stop playing, make a save and BACK UP your game. Then you will have a fall back position if you do have to reinstall because some huge mod totally trashes your game.

 

Back it up every so often - weekly or biweekly when you have a stable game. But NEVER loose that first back up. A good time to back up when you are considering adding a big mod, or a bunch of smaller ones. It doesn't do any good to wait until after you have installed the mod that crashes 3 weeks work to back up.

[MrCooper2006]

Good way to see if its already patched - If youre in UK then get 1.21 patch UK, if your USA get the english version, or just try either. If it still comes up with this error its most likely already patched.

 

Also when you start Oblivion with the Launcher, go to DATA FILES and ssee if DLC _ Shivering ISLE is there, if it most likely your game is already patched

[wats6831]

Good way to see if its already patched - If youre in UK then get 1.21 patch UK, if your USA get the english version, or just try either. If it still comes up with this error its most likely already patched.

 

Also when you start Oblivion with the Launcher, go to DATA FILES and ssee if DLC _ Shivering ISLE is there, if it most likely your game is already patched

 

Hi guys.

 

Thank you both so much for the replies. I actually started the game for the first time (lol I'm sort of anal) and I saw that it appears to be patched already. It's says v1.2xxx I'm assuming that's the most current.

 

Thank you again. I have several questions regarding the mods I plan on using but I'll take them over to the mod forums. :thumbsup:

[Michlo]

Another tip -

 

Make a backup of your data directory before you install any mods so that if the worst should happen you won't have to uninstall and reinstall as you'll have your "clean" copy of the data directory to replace the modded one with.

 

Good luck.

[hybridfan]

Another tip -

 

Make a backup of your data directory before you install any mods so that if the worst should happen you won't have to uninstall and reinstall as you'll have your "clean" copy of the data directory to replace the modded one with.

 

Good luck.

 

Actually what I do is make a backup of all my mods that go into the data folder, what I do is make a "data" folder on my desktop and use 7zip to "copy to" the desktop data folder, then I use 7zip and err is it ultra compression setting and compress my data folder, this means I have a back up of all the mods that I use without the large bsa files that Bethesda use.

[tyreil829]

its also a good idea to do a backup of your save games as well

 

Col John Sheppard

[Michlo]

Another tip -

 

Make a backup of your data directory before you install any mods so that if the worst should happen you won't have to uninstall and reinstall as you'll have your "clean" copy of the data directory to replace the modded one with.

 

Good luck.

 

Actually what I do is make a backup of all my mods that go into the data folder, what I do is make a "data" folder on my desktop and use 7zip to "copy to" the desktop data folder, then I use 7zip and err is it ultra compression setting and compress my data folder, this means I have a back up of all the mods that I use without the large bsa files that Bethesda use.

 

Ah well I have all of my downloaded mods still in their download folder on my data drive, quite seperate from my game drive. I was talking about having a "clean" data folder that you could replace a corrupted one with instead of having to uninstall and remove everything.

 

Also, keeping data on your desktop is a very bad idea. That means you are keeping it on C. Not only are you sucking up space that the swap file may eventually need but you are causing more fragmentation of your OS drive and finally, if your OS goes kaput, you'll lose your data too.

 

Keep data on a seperate drive or partition, always.