Oblivion

Although I would like nothing better than to...what is the word for wanting to rant about how much you like something? Anyway, I would be doing that a bit more than a did for the Dance Of The Thrashing Dragon Quest in CQM, but I'll hold back.

Anyway, I got the Game Of The Year version, with the Shivering Isles and Knights of The Nine expansions. The game itself? Pretty good, although some things in the story I guessed before hand(bloody TVTropes), but I still like it. As for the two expansions, both are good but the Shivering Isles is better(and LONG AS HELL).

I just have one thing to ask about SI - Why are there no horses or some such to ride? I had to RUN most places, since I didn't go around exploring much. I do have my eye on a mod that adds some horses, which I'm going to have to use, since I don't like running around like that.

Also, why is it, that although you certainly can explore pretty much everywhere, the game seems to have a serious problem in scaling mountains? Some I can understand, but in some places, it seems certainly possible, but I have to fight an invisible wall, sometimes to get to a location a quest requires. Sure, there may be a path that might be easier, but that might require going around the bloody mountain.

Hm, Oblivion? I got bored with it after a few weeks. Plus I really don't like the leveling and haggle system.

As for mods, there is so much junk around that it probably takes more time to sort the good things from the BS that it would be easier to learn modding the game yourself.

-

I got Oblivion too, quite some time ago now. Never got the expansions though, which is a shame. I was quite interested in Shivering Isles. Sheogorath is awesome!

Anyway!
Just use a horse to get around mountains. Just like in Skyrim, Oblivion horses don't give a fuck about gravity. Though they may need a little more persuading. And it's not that difficult to find good mods. Providing you sort the whole lists on thinngs like 'most popular' and 'most downloaded'.

Alas, I still have yet to give Oblivion the solid play-through it deserves. I played Arena and Daggerfall years ago when I was a kid, but knew nothing about Morrowind or Oblivion due to... circumstances. So Skyrim was my next TES installment, and I have to say that it has spoiled me. I've tried playing both Morrowind and Oblivion (in fact, I still have them installed), but I just can't get into them. Which is sad because I know that there are aspects to those games that are far superior to Skyrim, but the overall experience is much less satisfying for me.

Vorax, join the Dark Brotherhood. It's an amazing questline. Truly. Far better than the one in Skyrim. In my opinion at least.

Believe me, I know. I've heard so much about the difference between the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim and Oblivion, as well as the Morag Tong in Morrowind. But certain aspects of those games just make me want to play Skyrim again. I guess I'm spoiled by superior mechanics and graphics.

stop complaining, get yourself a graphic overhaul mod, AND JOIN THE FREAKIN BROTHERHOOD!

The way I see it Daggerfall has the best character creation, Morrowind has the best worldbuilding and lore, and Sykrim has the best gameplay and character progression. Oblivion used to have the best gameplay until it got dethroned by Skyrim so it isn't best in the series at anything anymore.

The Shivering Isles are long as hell? You obviously havent joined the Mages Guild yet.

SaulottheGentle wrote:

The Shivering Isles are long as hell? You obviously havent joined the Mages Guild yet.

I did join in my first playthrough, but I only went as far as getting all the recommendations, or rather the quest to get a "personal" staff. Which sucked, because I already had a staff in my inventory that was better than it.

I went through the Dark Brotherhood quests too. I'm not too fond of the way it ends, although I do like the position I end up in. Between the Brotherhood and (spoiler - although I don't think I'm opening the bag for the cat here) being considered a "MadGod" was interesting. Pity it doesn't go too far beyond that. Also, the name for the Character? Jackal.

I hated the MG questline. The villain used to be so cool, why did they have to ruin him?

I also dislike the FG questline, the ending just didn't make sense for me. Why couldn't I just inform the guards about what was going on and let them handle it? Instead my supposedly honorable character was forced into vigilantism.

DB was lots of fun, though the ending was a little meh.

TG was one of the best three questlines in the game, the other two being the expansions. The reason is that it's the one questline that doesn't revolve around killing enemies which is a refreshing change. And the "steal stuff to get promoted" mechanic was very fitting.

Knights of the Nine was really good. It captured the spirit of being a questing night, even though the final boss battle was anticlimatic (or maybe my character was simply too optimized).

I loved Shivering Isles. So delightfully twisted.

Missed a few things, so...

Childe of Malkav wrote:

Hm, Oblivion? I got bored with it after a few weeks. Plus I really don't like the leveling and haggle system.

As for mods, there is so much junk around that it probably takes more time to sort the good things from the BS that it would be easier to learn modding the game yourself.

-

Yeah, the leveling is somewhat odd, at least in comparison to either Bloodlines, or KotOR, since here you don't gain general experience, but you raise your skills as you use them, which in turn allows you to level up. It does cause the interesting problem, since it seems most of the game the enemies, either the ones you encounter no matter what, or the ones that depend on you being a certain level, you won't have an issue dealing with them(save for if they can keep knocking you back, or to the ground). It also means that, depending on how much you level up, you might not see certain creatures in a single playthrough.

As for mods, you almost have to cherry pick them, since some will require other mods to work - the "other" mods being ones you don't want to install.

Nachtrae wrote:

I got Oblivion too, quite some time ago now. Never got the expansions though, which is a shame. I was quite interested in Shivering Isles. Sheogorath is awesome!

Anyway!
Just use a horse to get around mountains. Just like in Skyrim, Oblivion horses don't give a fuck about gravity. Though they may need a little more persuading. And it's not that difficult to find good mods. Providing you sort the whole lists on thinngs like 'most popular' and 'most downloaded'.

*hand on chin* Oh really, do you mean me?

Anyway, even when I do use a horse, I still have to fight the damn walls. Soon enough I get past it, but it is quite annoying.

Pretty much all of the mods I'm using are from here: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/. I haven't looked on their top lists much, since most I'm using I've searched for(mostly using the "Tag Search" feature).

You should be able to disable the invisible walls if you go to the .ini file and change

bBorderRegionsEnabled=1

into

bBorderRegionsEnabled=0.

And this marks my 500th posts on these fine forums.

Dragatus wrote:

You should be able to disable the invisible walls if you go to the .ini file and change

bBorderRegionsEnabled=1

into

bBorderRegionsEnabled=0.

And this marks my 500th posts on these fine forums.

+Rep

Dragatus wrote:

You should be able to disable the invisible walls if you go to the .ini file and change

bBorderRegionsEnabled=1

into

bBorderRegionsEnabled=0.

And this marks my 500th posts on these fine forums.

That just seems to disable the map borders, not the walls. Could go into Skyrim if I wanted too, although I doubt there is much to see.

Anyway, something I have to say is, that Vampires in this game...SUCK, and not in a good way. I found it annoying when I found it how it is for Skyrim, and I don't see much of a difference here. The best thing going for it would be that it does make you rather powerful, but once it gets far enough, I get NPC's acting ridiculous. Either because I try talking to them, or I run past and get something like "You should get to a healer, you're looking rather pale". Then comes the feeding. Sure, it looks fine, but the problem is...well, perhaps I've been spoiled with Bloodlines and BloodRayne, but why the hell can't I feed on enemies? I have to either break into a house, and hope the occupants are asleep(and not ready to yell "You shouldn't be in here"), or almost go without.

On another note, I do realize that SI isn't very long, although it certainly is the first time through. KOTN isn't long either, but it's the fact that the damn map for those wayshrines isn't very accurate(perhaps intentional, but still annoying).

Something I hate about games like this, is just how easy it is to hit allies, when I do NOT mean to. Doesn't help that they seem to go after the SAME enemy I do, and they cannot deal with it in a few hits, where I can. I can also run towards something, try hitting it, and I MISS, because they run PAST me, and attack my allies. In both my completed playthroughs(both the same character, since I had to reinstall the game), I have not saved that bloody Farwil. I TRY, then I can't care anymore, if I have to keep quicksaving after every bloody fight. For KOTN, it gets even worse, since if you kill one of the knights during the last part of the mission, oh sure, the remaining Knights won't say anything about it. But then you talk to a few people later, and somehow they know what went on in a ruin on the coast. LIKE I MEANT TO DO THAT!

Okay, I'm done. For now, but I don't think I will have any more problems, unless I decide to get more of the DLC for the game.

Problems? Oh no, not really. I am wondering myself why exactly I'm doing this, but my technical bragging aside, I have a few things to say about the mods for these games, although most of it might not be specifically about the mods I'm using.

Firstly, the mods I do use. If there has ever been a list of mods that have been cherry picked, it would be this one(although it's unlikely to be the first).

Sorted Load Order:

Spoiler:

And my OBSE plugins:

Spoiler:

Now, the first thing to mention is the fact that I obviously don't use the much more popular HGEC female body mod. Why? Well, I'll perfectly admit to having used it before, but probably uninstalled it within a few days. The first reason I'd have would be, that it doesn't match up with the basically singular male body mod, even if that too has a few variations(nevermind the varying body sizes provided by the mod itself). I know there are mods that try to bridge the gap, but still. I do find it very annoying that almost every "new" clothing or armor mod seems to be made for HGEC alone(or one of it's derivatives). Which would be understandable if perhaps at least a few were designed specifically for the female body, and some were designed to be worn by either. But no, you have tons of mods that are only for females, which seems to be in great contrast with the idea that some Let's Plays of Oblivion will give you, or the general stance the entire series has on player characters, which might not even count Bethesda's marketing of the games. I know there are some mods which are for both male and female characters, but the problem with them is when the mod is for HGEC and RM, but there is no conversion for RF. This gets even deicer for race mods, since that means you can't really play a female of that race, unless you do use HGEC. It may also be possible to play a RM/HGEC race if there is a RF texture for it, but if it doesn't, the texture gets applied to the model incorrectly. Although, unlike it might seem, the issue is of textures, since if a clothing or armor mod needs to be made for another bodybase, it simply needs to be remapped for those textures, if not also edited to fit the body shape.

Another note, would be immersion mods. To a certain extent, I am fine with them. The main issue I had when first playing the game, was that sleeping was no more than a menu. One of the mods I have is a OBSE plugin, which allows the player to actually get into the bed before the sleep menu appears(by pressing the activate key again). There is an option to simply use the menu without getting into to bed as well, since in at least one instance I know if in the game, causes a bit of a visual bug if the player is in the bed(the "Through a Nightmare, Darkly" quest). But I don't think I'd go any further than that. Mostly because I understood before I tried out a pair of mods that go for things like sleeping, eating, bathing, etc, that while it makes sense, it quickly gets annoying. As much as I might have somewhat recently tried to do some more serious role play in the game, those things would be a hindrance to that.

As for races, while I don't have any problem with them, I find that their looks somewhat dowse the sorts of characters I tend to play. That aside, I did first start the game with a male dunmer(although I never went far with it), and I have a playthrough of a male dark elf, a female high elf, and a male argonian, although I'm not really focusing on them(maybe the high elf a bit). The rest of the saves I have, use custom race mods.

And lastly, what might be the one mod on the above list that can be likened to an elephant, yes. Although there is the obvious point that, in most cases, Vampires having to deal with daytime differently wouldn't be a problem. But given that most of Oblivion belies the idea that many things player will need or want to do can only be done during the day, playing a Vampire can make this a problem. There is the fact that, obviously, at 25%, there is no sun damage. But let that raise one time, and suddenly there the problem is. Mainly, the reason I prefer having no sun damage at all, is because it seems that the damage can kill the character, but it seems random as to if it will drain the health bar first, or drain it a little or a lot, and then the character dies, sometimes without the bar being empty.

This is certainly in sharp contrast to Redemption(even if It was just one level), and BloodyRayne 2. BR2 had the possible sun damage confined to the Warehouse levels, and only perhaps for parts of it. While the sun damage didn't kill the character instantly, it simply chipped away at the character's health when standing in sunlight areas. Which would only end up killing the character if low on health, and no options to feed.

Something I find quite interesting is that, although many others have taken time to voice their distaste at some of the design choices Bethesda made, some of them being things I agree with, and others that I simply don't. Most of the vanilla quests I can't cite nearly any problems with, and save for a few choice things(some of which I have rectified with mods), most of the game I can't complain about. But when one considers quest mods, oh my. Some of them have great stories, fun gameplay - and a few story/gameplay sections that make me wish I didn't care about keeping my hair like it is.

To start with, while I haven't played many mods that concern it(two basically, both of them listed above), the obvious is that there are some possible story additions that could hinge on, or simply change if the character is a Vampire. With the two that I have played(one of them not all the way through as of yet), no consideration is made for that. My thinking is that the game MUST have some kind of script that can determine if the player is a Vampire, otherwise you wouldn't have npcs alluding to the fact. I'd think it would be a simple check, since I'd imagine the script would just have to check if the player had one of the Vampirism levels, and go from there. Though this is a minor concern, since I can't speak for really knowing much, if anything about scripting.

Now onto the main point. Although a while ago I installed a mod(this one here: link), I didn't get too far before I found myself annoyed to the point that I deleted the save I was playing on(though I still have a save for that character), and removed the mod. Recently I've started playing it again, and I've gotten much farther, but I haven't finished it. Thus far, I can't say exactly that it is a bad mod, but some things i just...cannot wrap my head around why it was done.

I do certainly hope I don't find anymore issues like these, but given how present at least the first one is, there might be. Oh, and obviously some of these might spoil some of the quests.

-Locked In a House
There are ways that such a thing could be made sense of. But this, I can't. Why? Well, lets start with what even the Nexus page for the mod would tell, or at least what the readme might. To start the mod, it requires having done the Main Quest, meaning that you've already left the Temple of the One after the fight between Mehrunes Dagon and the Avatar of Akatosh. So, one can imagine that, any player having went through that might be quite strong, even more so if one or more of the guilds are joined/completed, and perhaps even some of the DLC content has been done. What is the problem? Well, in one of the first quests, you have to find the Niece of a man called Auger. Once you find information about her whereabouts, you take this info to him. He runs off to the city to confirm you are telling the truth, leaving you standing in his house. Confused? Well, the problem is, you cannot leave it. The door to what might be the basement doesn't work(meaning the activate key does nothing, not even a message appears), and the main door, has apparently been barred. Now here is where the problem lies. There is a complete discount on how powerful the character is, or might be. While I can imagine the task of having to possibly account for things the player might've done at that point would be a task in itself, but the idea that the character has to be RESCUED from the house, when the only thing blocking their way out isn't a horde of, say fully armored Dremora, but the door being barred. I guess that my main problem with this, is the lack of an option, to escape yourself. Actually, it's that in the message that pops up when you try to use the main door, the character ACCEPTS that they have to be rescued.

-Locked Out, A Crime to go In
Now for something completely different. One of the first people you talk to, is one that can get frustrating. This is because there is no point that entering his house isn't trespassing, and the door is locked to boot(and never unlocked). There is also the fact that the walkthrough doesn't even list a time where you can speak to him, and thus you have to simply wait. Perhaps far too long. My main problem with this, is the fact that, especially for the first meeting, he is the one you sent you a message. Thus, he wants to speak with you. Why would anyone wish to talk with someone, and then be in a location that, at least legally, is inaccessible?

At this point, that is it. Although there is one instance were you get into a fight club scenario, which annoyed the hell out of me. Both because I HATE times where I get my stuff taken(not just armor/weapons, but everything in my inventory), but also the fights were basic hand to hand. I mostly don't use that, because it seems you have to use it right out of the gate in order to really make use of it, and I can't be bothered. Especially when SOOOO much more damage can be done with blades or magic.

I hope there isn't anything else, but there is the next quest to deal with, which I think might be just me not being fond of it, or what it seemed to be. Hopefully it isn't like I think.