Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

[GM Mad]

Following up from something discussed in the main video game thread that now merits its own thread. I finally picked up Oblivion again and gave it a whirl. The edition was looking for was the Game of the Year edition that comes with the main game and the two major expansions, Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles.

Once I started to get the hang of it I began to have a blast with it! The other RPG’s that I played right before my first attempt are long in the past, so the transition was much better. This game is HUGE! I’ve already put in about 25 hours and am nowhere near in sight of running out of things to do and have barely advanced the main quest.

I purchase the extra DLC for the game and it added some neat things. One DLC I got for free, as an Xbox Christmas gift back in 2006. You could get the Mehrune’s Razor download for free for a short time, so I snagged that. Once I got going and went back and grabbed virtually all the other DLC’s I could.

There is much to admire about the game. The game adapts to your style of game play, not the other way around. After the short introductory scenario you then decide what class you’re going to be and a few other details. The game will suggest what class best fits you based on your performance thus far. Your character can do everything, but just not very well. As you do things those skills automatically get better and better. There are no skills to buy; you just get better by doing.

I’ve gone through the introduction three times thus far and ended up with a different class suggestion each time. This most recent past I ended up with an assassin class character. She sneaks around taking enemies out by surprise. I did this kind of sneak and snipe thing in the No One Lives Forever Games, so am comfortable with it. She wears light armor and takes enemies out with either her sword, her bow, or a few destruction spells she knows.

She has her own castle! Battlehorn Castle is one of the DLC’s that you can get. Save the castle and it’s given to you, but you have to purchase all the good stuff back and that’s what I’ve been doing as of late. I’ve got a nice set of quarters to keep stuff, complete with a hidden vault and a maid. I’ve added the kitchen, dining areas, training rooms, and extra guards.

One thing that you don’t see in other games is that you can purchase clothes here! Steph has her adventuring outfit that is constantly being upgraded and then a nice dress she wears while in town or at home.

Some of the quests are entertaining. One involved finding an ancient artifact for a countess based on the clues provided in an old diary. I figured out what I needed to do to complete the quest and managed to do it without a whole lot of combat. Another you had to rescue a potential sacrifice from a bunch of cultists.

On the downside, the creature collection doesn’t seem to be that large. A lot of undead roam this world and that can get tiring. But I will say that even though dungeons are ruins are all the same set pieces, they are put together in different ways so that not every ruin is the same as others. There are some games where you’ll get the same layout over and over. The caves themselves are very well designed. They ramp up and down and are never just on the same horizontal level like you find in many other games. They feel like real caves.

Based on this game alone, I think the main difference between this and the Bioware RPG’s is that in those you are actually the leader of a group. The sizes varies from 1-5 other NPC’s, but these other NPC’s are well rounded out and after a time become real people to you. It’s the closest you can get to live gaming without being in a live game. With that much extra data, those games are smaller in comparison because of it.

I’m already thinking of different class and race combinations to try, as I like variety. Looks like I may have to give Morrowind a try if I can find a copy and Fallout 3 might now be a possibility on the horizon.

[GM Mad]

I'm now some 45 hours in and have reach level 18. Still plodding along on the main quest, but making progress. I'm at the point where I want to get the main quest out of the way and have been concentrating more on that than anything else. Then I'll take more time with the side quests in the game.

I will say one thing, if you like playing big heroic knight type characters, than this game is for you! My character is an assassion class, so not really that mold, but she's already the member of several knight orders and it looks like several more are possible. May time I'll try a more true-blue hero type just for that purpose. Also want to try a pure thief type character, as those annoying locked chests are tough for a non-thief!

One thing that is very different when compared to your typical D&D faire is that non-humaniod PC races are common. It takes a bit to get used to having orcs living among humans and elves, along with a race that's similar to lizard men and another that is feline. Too used to kill the orc!

[GM Mad]

Here's the latest update. I've had the game for some 20 days now. I'm 75 hours into it with the same character. She's a 22nd level Assassin and there are still no sign out of running out of things to do.

The main quest was completed nearly a week ago. At this point I have stuff! Battlehorn Castle is competely upgraded.

(When you gain places and buy houses, there are upgrade packages you can buy to improve upon it as it's typically bare bones. Anything to separate you from your gold!)

In addtion to Battlehorn Castle, I have a thieves lair, a mages tower, and 3 other regular houses in various cities. The thieves lair is fun, but a pain to get to as you have to swim to reach it. But you fence your goods there and even have a pirate crew sail forth to plunder for you. A nice chunk of gold just turns up in your chest there each week.

With the main quest completed, I've mainly be advancing through the guild quests. Steph is a member of the Fighter's Guild, Thiefs Guild, AND the Mage's Guild. Talk about jack of all trades, master of none. Both the mage and figther's quests are going well. Both seem to be in combat with an other organization opposed to them and will probably come to a head soon. With the mages it's the Necromancer's, and with the fighter's it's a mercenary outfit with fewer scruples.

What I've been coming across lately is what I'd call 'logic errors' I then game. The game is huge with many quests to it. I've done over 80 quest thus far and still have many left in the main game, as I've avoided the expansions thus far. I understand that some oddball situations are bound to arrise, so what follows I found more amusing than anything else.

I arrived in one of the towns. A major battle in the main quest took place here and I have a house there. Anyway, rumor has it that a famous vampire hunter was in town and that he discovered that one of the citizens was realy a vampire and the he dealt with the problem. That triggered a quest and so I went to investigate. I got to the house and the guards investigating the scene didn't know who I was and that I should leave. I had no other text options at this time.

Okay, sounds normal enough, but here's where the game seems to forget what's already transpired. At this point I am a member of the Order of the Virtious Blood. It's a group that hunts down vampires! So at the very least, some text saying that I'm familiar with vampires and can help would have been appropriate.

That's the minor issue. Like I said above, a major battle transpired in this town in the main quest. Upon completing the main quest, folk will say to you, "Hail Champion!" "What do you need, Champion?" and things like that. Plus, in this particular town there is another thing they'll say to you. "You look just like your statue!"

So, everyone else in this town knows me, knows that they errected a statue to me, and yet this shmuck doesn't know who I am? I just wish I would have had a "I'm the one with the staute" dialogue option.

Apparently the folks in the game have very, very short memories. As I mentioned above, I've been going through guild missions for the fighters, theives, and mages. Typically going back and forth among them, but not as much for theives as they are harder to get assigned. You basically have to fence so much in stolen goods to get quests from them, and that's a bit harder to do.

Anyway, I was on a mission for the thieves in a different town. Another thief was dispatched to steal a book and hadn't returned. The mission was to find him and return the book. I hit town, hunted down some info and found out that the thief had been arrested and thrown in the dungeon. He was bragging in a tavern and was heard by the wrong ears. Twit.

So I have to find a way to speak to him in the dungeon. So I make my way to the castle. (I should note that I'd been to the castle before as part of the main quest and most call her champion.) I talk to a low level offical and end up being offered a job as a drool slinger, basically feeding the prisoners. I take it, find out that the thief is dead, but he told his cellmate where the book was. I help him escape, I grab the book and leave town.

Sounds innocent enough, but the very next mission I did was for the mage's guild. It involved me retrieving a book, again, from the very same castle! So I go right back in there, the same offical doesn't recognize me as being the champion, nor as the girl he hired to feed the prisoners the day before!

Amusing situtaions, but at times a bit of a head scratcher too.

Loads of fun and still so much to do.

[fanchergw]

Hey Mad!

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying Oblivion. I plan on getting a copy once I have a computer powerful enough to run it well. Probably around the end of summer or so. Meanwhile, Morrowind and others (I'm currently on my second trial account for City of Heroes/Villains; the EU servers are nearly unoccupied, so I don't have to deal with the kiddies asking stupid questions) are keeping me plenty occupied. Of course, my new job and the work we're doing on the house are keeping my free time at a minimum anyway. Perhaps someday I'll even get a chance to try Fallout 3!

I'm not surprised by the "logic gaffs" you're finding. In something as big and involved as these games, it's very hard to anticipate and program for every possible eventuality. (I'm a programmer by profession, so I tend to have that viewpoint.) If you're not hitting huge numbers of these, then that's pretty good in my estimation.

If you do end up trying Morrowind, let me know. I can help you pick out mods that will help you develop the flavor of game you're looking for.

BTW, does Oblivion let you build custom "classes"? Morrowind provides that option, which allows you to build pretty near any kind of "class" that you want. Also, I really like the racial variety; as a bonus, there are now numerous mods that add more races in case there's something specific you really want to play.

Game on,

Gordon

[GM Mad]

Hey Gordon,

No, not that many logic gaffs. And nothing that's been a deal breaker thus far. Like I said, I found them more amusing than anything else. In something this large there is bound to be things like this. It was funny the way some of those just played out. My guess is that they figured you'd be doing the guild quests before completing the main quest.

And to answer your question, yes, you can customize your class. I imagine the set up is similar to Morrowind, but having never seen it cannot be sure. There are 10 races to choose from each with it's own perks and minuses. The game comes with 21 pre-defined classes that you can choose from or you can make your own.

There are also 21 skills types and these are evenly divided into the 3 main classes: Fighter, Thief, and Mage. So there are 7 fighter skills, 7 thief skills, and 7 mage skills. Your class has 7 primary skills and these are all at least at Apprentice level and the other 14 skills you have at Novice level. You can mix and match your 7 skills to make whatever chararacter you're trying to make. Mine has more thief skils than any other-- Sneak, Security, Light Armor, Marksman & Acrobatics. The Fighter one is Blade and the Mage one is Alchemy.

I'll let you know if I ever get around to doing Morrowind. Some interesting new things coming up in the fall, so that may take president. Of course, I may still be playing this character come the fall!

[fanchergw]

Hi Ken,

It sounds like there are lot of similarities in character creation between the two games. Morrowind has 10 races, which are probably the same ones since the two games are set in the same world. There are 27 skills, divided up into Combat, Magic and Steath groups. The game provides 21 pre-defined Classes, but you can build your own if you don't like any of them. Each class, has 5 Major skills and 5 Minor skills; all others are considered Miscellaneous. The main differences between Major, Minor and Miscellaneous are what level they start at when you begin the game and how easy/hard they are to improve. For even more differentiation, you also get to pick one of 13 Birthsigns, each of which add one or more minor abilities to your character (though they aren't very balanced against one another, in my opinion).

Gordon

[GM Mad]

Gordon,

Yes, it seems quite similar. Here's a case of Irony being ironic. Last Friday I happened to be in Best Buy as I had a gift card from my birthday. No clue what to get with it, as there was really nothing that I had to have at the time. So wandered around, ended up in the PC games section and lo and behold before my eyes was the game of the year edition of Morrowind! I grabbed that, so it's now in my possession and it includes the expansion packs for it. I just hope my computer can handle the graphics as its really sucky in that department, even with games that were 4-5 years old.

Anyway, glanced at the rule book and it is the same 10 races for the 2 games. The skills were tightend up a bit and some were combined and others were dropped. For instance I saw that Bladed Weapons were seperated into Long and Short skills. In Oblivion, it's just Bladed weapons. It sounds like they did some changes in how skills are used in gained, as you have access to all 21 skills. There are birthsigns in Oblivion too, so it should be very familar turf for you.

Right now, I'm over 110 hours into the game. I've completed the Fighter's Guild, Mages Guild, and Thieves Guild missions and am currently the master of all 3 guilds. Currently I'm in the Assassination Guild missions.

Still a very enjoyable game. There have been some, shall we say, questionable story choices. There are still the occassional logic error, but nothing as bad as I've reported before.

Its probably because I've done D&D so long, that I feel there should be some restrictsion on which guilds you can join and how far you can advance. Let me explain further here. For instance the fighter's guild mission involved, well, fighting. To advance in the guild you have to know how to fight.

With the Thieves missons, you typically needed to steal something, so stealth and lockpicking was a must. Okay, that makes sense.

With the Assassins Guild, you go out and assassinate people. You're seeing a pattern here? Each guild gives you missions that require the right set of skills to complete and advance.

So what does the Mage Guild missions do? Well, you sometimes fight things or collect things. Only one of the missions actually involves the act of casting spells! You can complete the entire mage guild missions and cast a grand total of 4 spells. And if you don't have those 4 spells, they are available on scrolls. So you can advance in the Mage Guild and even become the Arch-Mage and not have any significant magical talent.

I guess that's what rubbed the wrong way. There should be some sort of limits on that, otherwise any smuck can do them.

I could also be too used to the Bioware way, where the adventures you have can be limited by your class. It also gives you a reason to replay the games as different classes as you get a different experince.

Apart from that point, the Guild Missions were enjoyable. But there were some odd storyline choices. Again, probably just me since I do write and run some many things that I have my own ideas on how to tell a story.

The Fighter's Guild is locked into a struggle with another guild. Eventually things come to a head and you're sent to take them out. No one, else just you. I mean, they have done group combats before in the game. Why not just send a group? It wasn't very satisfying end, but it could also have been the character. She's not a stand up fighter anyway, she sneaks around and took out most of the enemies with backstabs, so that might be skewing my view of it.

At least with the Fighter's Guild you get some perks afterwards. It is disappointing that nothing else comes from it. It's just a minor source of income, but there are no more guild missions after you become Guild Master.

What happens after the Mages Guild quests is a bit of a puzzler as well. In a sense there was a civil war within the guild. The old Guild master is gone, as is the Mage Council. Do you get to do anything as the Guild Master? Do you get to rebuild the guild and form a new council? No to all of those. It just ends, you get access to a few things, but all in all nothing significant really comes from it. (Nothing that you couldn't get from other sources anway.)

There were no issues with the Thieves Guild missions for me, as such a thing is typically a solo event. At the end of them, you become Guild Master and again, that's where it ends. You don't even get a cut of guild activities or the ability to direct them in any manner. Basically the reward for surviving the whole thing is another place to sleep and one unique magic item.

I guess I'm just annoyed that there was so much more that could have been done with them, but wasn't. I don't mean to sound too negative here, its just obvious storylines that the game builds up and then seemingly abandons once a certain point is reached. It just feels as if you don't get a conclusion to some of the stories. They're just left hanging and never really resolved.

Oh well, enough of my rambling.

[fanchergw]

Ken,

So you picked up Morrowind, eh? Cool. If your computer can run Oblivion, it's more than capable of running Morrowind - even with lots of mods intstalled. Morrowind's vanilla graphics are pretty crude, comparatively. Personally, I recommend loading up some decent retexturing mods (I can point you toward some if you like) before playing the game.

As for the guilds, there is some limitation on your ability to rise in all three guilds. For one thing, advancement is dependent on not only doing the missions but also on your levels in the appropriate skills. Also, each of the main guilds (Fighters, Thieves, Mages) has missions that hurt the other guilds; performing them can limit your standing in the affected guild, so you have to be careful there. In fact, the dominant faction in the Fighters guild is pretty much at war with the Thieves guild. There are ways around most of these issues, but you do have to be careful. Also, there are some excellent mods that tighten up the restrictions on joining the guilds and qualifications for advancement.

However, there still isn't a lot of payoff once you reach the top of a guild. Mostly, I think it just increases your fame rating. I do know of a mod or two that let you give orders to people lower than you in a guild, but that's about it. There are also mods that open up new missions for guild master of at least one of the guilds.

Also, in Morrowind, there are many other groups besides the guilds that you can do missions for. Both of the religions can be joined, which opens up long mission sets. You can become an honorary Ashlander (native Dunmer) and do missions for them. If you become a vampire or werewolf, those open up new mission strings. Of course, whether you get sufficient story closure on any of these is up to the player.

As for me, I will be ordering a new desktop computer soon, so I will finally be able to give Oblivion a try! Hopefully, it will also be powerful enough to run Fallout 3 well.

Gordon

[GM Mad]

Here's the latest updates from this thing. I started it on July 5th and have played, at least a little bit, every day since then. I'm now closing in on 170 hours of game player. Character is 29th level, closing in on 30.

All the major quest lines are done. There are a few smaller quests to do, but I can see that the end is nearing. The character has worn more hats than you can imagine. Since my last update, she's completed the Assassin's and now has a nice couchy job there.

Since I deal so much with stories, how they are structured and telling them, I really appreciate things that go in directions that I don't foresee. There have been some quests that have done that. And some that were nice twists on a theme.

For instance one of the assassin quests was to fake an assassination, instead of just carrying one out. Another was straight out of a Agatha Christie novel where you're a member of a dinner party and you're assignment is to kill everyone else one at a time!

Also completed the Arena quests and am Grand Champion of that.

Finished Knights of the Nine, a fun expansion for those who like to play paladin like characters. The only downside to that is that to maintain that status, you really need to have 0 infamy. Fortunately, you can eliminate any infamy you have at the start of the quest which is helpful when you have over 30 murders to your credit!

Finished the main quest of Shivering Isles and that one was neat, in a bizzare and twisted sort of way. The outcome of all the larger quests were satisfactory for the most part. Only the Mage's guild one was a let down as it just left a whole lot of questions unresolved.

That reminds me of the biggest goof up in the game that I've found! During the mage quests you're sent to see what is going on in another guild branch in another town as they've gone quiet. You get there and the inside is on fire, everyone there is dead, and undead are on the loose. You go in do your thing and leave.

Much later, after becoming Guild Master, I went back there and guess what I found. No dead bodies, or undead, but the place was STILL on fire! The inside is still burning! I mean, either put the fire out or have the building reduced to ashes! But still burning months later?

So you picked up Morrowind, eh? Cool. If your computer can run Oblivion, it's more than capable of running Morrowind - even with lots of mods intstalled. Morrowind's vanilla graphics are pretty crude, comparatively. Personally, I recommend loading up some decent retexturing mods (I can point you toward some if you like) before playing the game.

I've been playing Oblivion on my 360, so a different animal. The computer is now 3 years old, but I had no idea it was so graphically weak when I bought it. I knew it was weak when I was having trouble with Tomb Raider: Legend. The game would slow to a crawl in the graphically intense spots.

I played the PC version of Halo on it, but when I tried it on my dad's new computer the visuals were so stunningly different that I realized just how crappy my computer's graphics were. It wasn't long after that I went to a console to get away from that problem.

Yeah, any help with texture mods would be appreciate, and any other fixing mods out there. I've been looking at the UESP site and they have quite a list of them, but coming from someone who's dealt with this can only help.

As for the guilds, there is some limitation on your ability to rise in all three guilds. For one thing, advancement is dependent on not only doing the missions but also on your levels in the appropriate skills. Also, each of the main guilds (Fighters, Thieves, Mages) has missions that hurt the other guilds; performing them can limit your standing in the affected guild, so you have to be careful there. In fact, the dominant faction in the Fighters guild is pretty much at war with the Thieves guild. There are ways around most of these issues, but you do have to be careful. Also, there are some excellent mods that tighten up the restrictions on joining the guilds and qualifications for advancement.

That all makes sense. In Oblivion, they seemed to get away from that. There was only 1 time where there was a cross-guild issue and it was after I was the Arch-mage of all things. Got kicked out of the guild and had to find stuff to let them take me back. In fact, you can probably do the guilds in an order where there are no problems. I'd say go thief, assassin, fighter, and then mage. One of the thief missions involves stealing from a mage, and that's what gets you kicked out.

Also, in Morrowind, there are many other groups besides the guilds that you can do missions for. Both of the religions can be joined, which opens up long mission sets. You can become an honorary Ashlander (native Dunmer) and do missions for them. If you become a vampire or werewolf, those open up new mission strings. Of course, whether you get sufficient story closure on any of these is up to the player.

There are no werewolves in oblivion, just vampires.

As for me, I will be ordering a new desktop computer soon, so I will finally be able to give Oblivion a try! Hopefully, it will also be powerful enough to run Fallout 3 well.

Before you do get a new computer, your old one might be able to handle some of the more recent Bioware games. They are strong in the field like Bethseda, but seem to concentrate on games where there is more role playing, your character is usually someone important to the story, romance is possible, and just how the story ends depends on what your character does or does not do. Thus each game has at least 2 endings and the romances depend on your gender.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a great, great game. It's set 4000 years before the movies, so no extra knowledge beyond a few basics is required. You just need to know what Jedi is, what a sith is, and not much more beyond that. This one takes about 30 hours to complete, but given how the game play changes based on what you do, you'll play it multiple times to try different things and different NPC party combinations.

Jade Empire is also on PC and it has much of the above things too. It's based on chinese legends, so its a different twist on the europena medival scene. It's also kind of short, coming in at about 15 hours.

Once you get a new computer, Mass Effect is a must. This one can run as much as 35-40 hours depending on how much exploring you want to do.

Bioware doesn't drain as much time with their games, but they make up for it in deeper NPC's and multiple endings which makes you play the game more than once.

[fanchergw]

Yeah, any help with texture mods would be appreciate, and any other fixing mods out there. I've been looking at the UESP site and they have quite a list of them, but coming from someone who's dealt with this can only help.

Hi Ken,

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you on this. I hope you're enjoying your games. I have put together a little guide to useful mods for Morrowind that I hope will be of use to you.

For this list, I have focussed on mods that improve the visual appeal of the game through textures and meshes, fix bugs in the game or improve gameplay. I have personally used most of these mods, and the newest ones I look forward to using the next time I start a game.

Before I get started with mod recommendations, I want to point you to Telesphoros' List of Mods. While there are many mod sites and lists on the net, this and the official Bethesda Morrowind Mods Forum are probably the best single resources for finding mods. Please note at the top of Telesphoros' List the yellow links to Starting Out With Mods and Tools For Mod Users. If you're going to be doing anything beyond just adding a few textures, I would strongly encourage you to do some research on these pages and in the sticky Morrowind Mods FAQ in the forum. Mods will inevitably conflict with one another, and it is vital to a good game experience to know how to resolve these issues before they start. For the tools, I use ZipGenius for handling archive files, as it seems to handle all of the formats I've run into. Also, I use TESAME, TESTool, TESPCD, ReOrder Mods and Leveled List Resequencer. (Note that the popular Wrye Mash can perform many of the same functions as those I use, but the learning curve is a bit steeper.)

Now for the mods. The most critical bugfix mods - and I think everyone should have at least these installed every time they play - are: the Unofficial Morrowind Patch and the Morrowind Text Patch. Note that there is an addon to the UMP called the Unofficial Unofficial Morrowind Patch. Admittedly, it's a pretty silly name, but a very nice addon to a critical mod. While these will handle 95+% of the bugs in the game, there are still others that may be encountered. Feel free to check out this BugFix Mod List from the Bethesda forums for more information on bugs and fixes.

Now lets start with the textures. There are numerous texture packs and even nearly-complete texture replacers. However, the current king of the texturers is Connary, whose work has to be seen to be believed. He is now working on a complete texture replacer that is intended to replace every single texture in the game (a massive undertaking), but until that is ready, I highly recommend you grab and use everything he's done. It's also worth checking out the work of Darknut, who also does beautiful work and has probably covered everything that Connary hasn't yet. You can then flavor your texture library to taste with other texture packs, such as Earth Wyrm's excellent Shacky Shacks and Swampy Swamps. Earth Wyrm is also working on a signpost replacer which will be great when it's done (I've gotten to do some testing on it for him), but until then the old standby Real Signposts should serve you well enough. Consider also a sky texture upgrade; I use Better Sky (and the Better Sky Transparency Fix ), which really makes the night sky more attractive.

It is worth noting that Morrowind doesn't deal very well with joining neighboring ground textures. To address this issue, Slartibartfast created the Texture Fix and Texture Fix - Bloodmoon mods. These mods fix literally hundreds of the worst texture seams throughout the game, greatly improving the overall visual appeal.

But what about all those ugly characters in the game, I hear you ask. Well, fret not, for we can fix this problem with a small selection of excellent mods. First off, grab copies of Better Bodies and Better Clothes, which are the current standards for body and clothing meshes and textures. However, Better Bodies doesn't do much for the beast races (Argonian and Khajiit). Fortunately, LizTail's awesome New Beast Bodies fills this gap wonderfully. Similarly, the Better Clothes mod doesn't include robes for some strange reason, but CanadianIce's Robe Replacer is so beautiful, we can forgive the oversight.

Of course, this still doesn't do anything about those horrible Bethesda faces and hair. To fix this, I recommend starting with Vvardenfell Visages. This mod replaces every default head and hair with the cream of the community textures, which affects both the NPCs and PC options. Since the number of default heads and hairs is pretty small, you can add one of a number of good NPC replacer packs to get some real variety. My personal favorites are: World of Faces and Beryl's Head Replacer. For more options in PC character creation, add one or more of the great face packs available, such as UQForgotten's Master Face Pack or Tarnsman's THE Facepack Compilation. Be certain to use the No Stock Face Change version so it doesn't overwrite Vvardenfell Visages. Tarnsman also created THE Morrowind NPC Makeover addon that is pretty good and can be used instead of World of Faces or Beryl's Head Replacer. Be sure to check out Westly's Head Packs (and other mods); all of his work is beautiful and you cannot go wrong with any of it. Note that all of Westly's race addition mods are Better Bodies compatible. Lastly, since the beast race face options tend to be kind of slim, you may be interested in looking at Bravo's Argonians and Khajiit Faces (and KF_Replace NPC replacer).

Well, the NPCs are more attractive now, but they're still not very interesting. The Less Generic NPC (LGNPC) project aims to address this by adding tons of new dialog and mini-quest options on a city-by-city basis. Similarly, NPC Functionality adds lots of new dialog and interaction options, including a request for the NPC to get out of your way. (You'll be amazed how often this happens.) Also worth considering is Children of Morrowind, which add children (there are none in the unmodded game) and playgrounds to Morrowind. This certainly helps to make the world a little more lifelike. Additionally, Morrowind Comes Alive adds quite a few new NPCs and creatures to the game, including some interesting things like thieves that steal from you and companions that will accompany and assist you. Lastly, Wrye's Less Lore does a pretty good job of reducing the appearance of the same Bethesda dialog options over and over and over.

Speaking of creatures, you can get tired of the ones in the game after a while. PirateLord's Creatures helps by adding quite a few new creatures to the game, most of which are variations to ones that already exist. Also, Abot's Water Life and Where Are All the Birds Going mods really add to the atmosphere of the game. Be sure to consider Passive Healthy Wildlife, which stops creatures that really shouldn't be aggressive from attacking you for no good reason.

As for gameplay, a lot of people aren't very satisfied with Bethesda's leveling mechanics, as they tend to cause you to get powerful very quickly. Fortunately, there are a couple of very good leveling mods available. My preference is MADD Leveler, which mostly removes level caps and decreases the speed at which your attributes rise. It also has great options for tweaking skill and attribute effects in the game. Another popular option is Galsiah's Character Development, which has similar effects, but also is very complicated in how it works and tends to force you to stick to the abilities of the "class" you chose at character creation.

A great site for gameplay mods is Hired Goons. Be sure to check out Wakim's Game Improvements (a must in my book), Bloodmoon Extras, Tribunal Integration and the various other gameplay / balancing mods there. There are also a number of economy-adjusting mods available, one of the most popular of which is PirateLord's Trade Enhancements, which makes a number of sensible tweaks to the game. Also, for a little added versimilitude, consider trying out Necessities of Morrowind, a mod which requires your character to eat, drink and sleep on a regular basis. There is also an update to NoM created by Wrye.

One last piece of advice: Read all of the ReadMe files for any mods you choose to use very carefully. They often have very important information for proper use of the mod.

Happy Gaming,

Gordon

PS, I'll look into those Bioware games when I get a chance.

PSS, I have no idea why some of the links are normal and some of them have the dashed underline.

[GM Mad]

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for all the info. A whole lot has happened on my end since the last time I posted here. Here goes:

Turns out the graphics on this computer are even worse than I imagined. As an example, that video that plays at the start of a new game? I couldn't play it properly. The game itself didn't look good, but then again, its last gen and I didn't expect it to.

Anyway started to looking into Morrowind Mods on my own and started to get a feel as to what you were talking about earlier. I'm not aware of any other game with this many mods to it. Neverwinter Nights might be be close, as they also give you an adventure construction set, but those mods tend to be adventures set in their own locations. They don't add on to the existing world.

I already snagged Better Bodies and a few others that added interesting clothes and items to the game. Won't mess with things that affect actual quests, not at least until done them. It would be silly otherwise.

I really haven't gotten very far in Morrowind, mainly just past the point where you can do what you want to do. It's really not the graphics that I find off putting, rather it's the game interface. Of course that could be more a fucntion of having played Oblivion first. In Oblivion, in addition to getting text answers on the screen, everyone speaks them too you. Plus the text is much, much larger and easier to read. I've just started using reading glasses and that tiny text is tough. All the data screens on top of each other doesn't help. It's very different in Oblivion, and easy to use once you get the hang of it. Think of the OB screens as a book for four chapters in it. Each chapter has 5 pages and that's how you get your data.

The first chapter is the stats. the first page is the main character data, name, race, birthsign, class, health, fatigue, & magicka. The 2nd page is player stats. The 3rd is skills. The 4th is fractions you're a member off and the last is in game data. A very long page with how many days you;'ve played, your fame/infamy rating, and so on.

the 2nd chapter is gear. The first page consolidates the other four pages into 1 long list. Page 2 is weapons only, 3 clothing, 4 potions and ingredients and everything else is page 5.

Magic is chapter 3. First page is all spells. 2nd is ranged spells, 3rd touch spells, and 4th spells that are cast on yourself. The last page is spell affects good & bad active on you.

The last chapter is maps and your journal. Page one is the local map, page 2 the regional map. Page 3 is the active quest, page 4 is in progress quests, and page 5 completed quests.

I imagine that the changes of going from Morrowind to Oblivion will be just as startling, as they are different from each other.

Anyway, back to the tale at hand, I made the mistake of looking into OBlivion mods. And boy there are a ton of those! So many that I decided that I had to get this thing to run on my PC!

To that end, and believe me this is the very short version of the tale, I added a new graphics card thats just barely above the minimum to run the game. Unfortunately, its about the best I could get for this computer as it seems there are now as many as 3 different types of mother board slots. Naturally, I had the least advanced ones.

So for the last 3 weeks or so I've been doing Oblviion on the PC with many, many mods in place. Since I've completed the game, for the most part, I've had no problem in adding ones that modify and change the game. And when you get to this positon, I'll be able to recommend some things to you.

The game runs, but the graphics quality is low. But as I noted above, crystal clear graphics isn't what I was looking for anyway. I probably don't have enough ram as the game bogs down the longer I play. I usually go for about 2-2.5 hours before the drag is too much. Sometimes it'll take as long as ten minutes for the game to shut down at that point!

Anyway Oblivion also have there versions of Better Bodies, several actually and am using one of those. Added numerous gear mods and some adventure ones. I'm about 55 hours into it now and still haven't done a bit of the main quest. This character is essentially the same as the 360 one, with just a few skill switched around. Removed ones that I really didn't use and moved up ones that I did.

She has a companion to travel with and is now a vampire. As I understand it, vampirism works different in OB than it did in MW. For instance, the benefits and the disadvantages grow the longer between feeding. On the first day you can go out in the sun and still look normal enough to not put off others. I've rarely gone beyond that point as on day 2 the sun starts to burn.

I've tried out several of the free house mods and few vampire lair ones. Some are okay, but most really didn't appeal to me. There are plenty of, shall we say, adult mods out there. I have a few, but then again there are no kids here and not really anyway to see anything they shouldn't on the screen.

All in all, having a good time with it. Most likely I'll have to stop with Oblivion and let some time pass before taking another stab at Morrowind so that the differences are not as jarring. I'll certainly be checking out the mods on your list, Gordon.

Oh and Morrowind does run much better now, so will add more and more things to that when the time comes.

[GM Mad]

Here's some more on Oblivion, and this time I finally have pics! The game isn't set up to save screenshots, so you have to do it yourself in the game INI file. A bit of pain, but now working. Now don't let the poor quality of the pics make you think this is how the game looks. On a scale of 1 to 5, my graphics are a 2.

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Okay, my character is on the horse. The horse is Shadowmere, whom you gain as part of the Dark Brotherhood quests. Yes, she almost always wears black. The body is a mod. There are at least 5 different body mods out there. I use the Exnem one. From what I can tell that one and the Babs one seem to be the most popular. Here's a page where you can compare and contrast the various body mods.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Body_Mods

Be warned that some clothing mods only work with certain body mods. It can be a bit of a PITA at times when you find something you like, but it doesn't translate to your body. All the clothing is from Mods. The hair is actually a wig that's basically designed as a helmet to replace the vanilla hair styles. It's part of the Goddess Store and if you're looking for any kind of fantasy female attire, they'll have it! Ranging from dresses to armor that barely covers your skin to just about anything in between. Some of the gear you can buy there is unbalancing, and you're probably better off not using this mod the first time through the game. Here's the link to it on TESNEXUS, the place where I get most of my mods from. Check out the pictures to see all the gear that they have there. The long gloves, which are magical, and the headband are also from this store.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13437

The bodysuit is from this mod. All the clothing, including the wig, are what she's wearing right now. These change as over time to other armors, wigs and outfits.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9529

The girl on the ground is Aliyah, my companion. She tags along on adventures, helps out in fights, and most importanly, helps carry loot! Here's the link to her mod:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12082

As you might have gathered, she's not a good girl. Here's her rap sheet.

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Here's our pair of thief/assassins stalking through a dungeon.

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The blue of the pic and the glow around Aliyah are the effects of the vampire's Hunter's Sight ability. It allows you to see in the dark, the blue, and not the presence of creatures, even through walls, close to you. That's the glow around Aliyah. Very handy to have as a thief!

Gordon, once you do get to Oblivion, this mod here is a must. It's the Oblivion Mod Manager and it basically replaces the data files option in the game menu. This is a program that manages your mods outside of the game. You can move their loading order around to what you want, and most importantly among the utilities it has you can run a Conflict check to see if what mods you have are in conflcit with any other mods. That alone can save you a lot of heartache! Here's the link to it.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097

That's all for now. More pics to come!

[GM Mad]

Some more Oblivion Pics.

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Returning home for the latest adventures. This is White Rose Estate, its a MOD home and not one I recommend for the first time through the game as it is unbalancing. I like the size and the layout. Some of the other homes and castle mods are just too large to be practical to use. I don't want to have to go through four or five loadscreens just to reach my bedroom!

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Here's a shot of the bedroom. Steph has changed into something more comfortable. Aliyah has changed into what is called Vampiress Armor, a clothing mod. Those things in the background wearing other clothes are mannequins, yet another mod. A nice way to display your wardrobe and armor! These you have to buy in various stories, so they can be used right away in Oblivion, as they are not a freebie.

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The bedroom from another angle to show the other four mannequins.

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Aliyah turns in for the night.

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This one gives breakfast in bed a whole new meaning!

[GM Mad]

And some more pics.

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Next morning, setting out on more adventure. Forgot to mention that I changed wigs with the outfit above and the new adventuring clothes include yet another wig. The gloves, face mask and headband are the same as the earlier outfit. Everything else is different. The curiss and gloves are part of the Shadow Armor collection. The boots are part of a the Dragon Armor set, while the pants are just something that I added. The shadow armor came with either a skirt or a panty and it was really too much skin for someone who hugs the shadows.

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Here's the shot looking out from the house. It's on the shore of a lake and if I actually had good graphics, you could see the Imperial City across the water.

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Here's an example of just helpful Hunter's Sight is. Here's a cavern with the characters not carrying any lightsources of their own.

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And now the same shot but with Hunter's Sight on. There was someone hiding in the pic that you couldn't see otherwise.

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And now for something completely different, here is another character, a High Elf who's more magic orientated. She's wearing Elfin Princess armor and a wig from the Goddess Store.

[GM Mad]

Here's some more pics and musings from the land of Oblivion:

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And the horse jumped over the moon!

Actually, its a bug in the game. For some reason, if you're riding a horse and you stop to look around, you might take off! It's happened to me 3 times so far, but forunately its not fatal. The first time was definetely a WTF! moment. Managed to take a pic of it in action.

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There are now two companions in interesting attire. Aliyah is on the left in the silver bodyglove, and Sonia is on the right in the red passion bodyglove. These are form-fitting armor that look very much like shiny superheroine costumes!

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And here's Steph in the 3rd varation of the bodyglove, called moonlight. It's a stylish coordinated unit!

A word about the mask. There's another bug in the game that comes into play when you have a female character become a vampire: it sticks the default male face onto your body! I find out about it too late to do anything about it, but it wasn't a big deal as she used the masks all the time anyway. As I read elsewhere, this bug is reffered too as the 'Tranny Vamp Bug' and it can be disturbing! Be warned!

That's also why you haven't seen her face as of yet.

At any rate, I didn't intend to remain a vampire forever. Some of the unbalanced home mods will provide you with the cure, and there is an in game quest to cure vampirism. While she had the former, I still did the later anyway to 'honestly' earn it. I didn't pursue vampirism on the 360 version of the game.

The plan was to do all the 'evil' things first before becoming nicer. Removing vampirism was part of the plan as well. I had a particular point in mind to make the change, and that was after completing the Thieves Guild Missions. I did that last week and finally took the cure. Below is the result.

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This is Steph in yet a different wig with completely different clothing from yet another mod. I probably should take a pic of her without a wig so you can see the vanilla in game hairstyle.

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Here's another group shot in front of the White Rose Esate. Aliyah is now in a Rogue Enchantress outfit from a Mod. Sonia is in Golden Saint armor. The PC can possibly gain this armor in game in Shivering Isles, but a suit of it came with the house, along with matching Dark Seductress armor.

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Here's a close up on the face. She's standing in front of the gates to the town of Anvil.

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And here's the view into Anvil. That large building on the left is a chapel. While you can't really tell from this angle, that's an open air garden on the right. Those are houses further back. The one behind the garden is Benirus Manor and I own it.

This character is now almost 100 hours in and still haven't touched the main quest. There are several very large mods that I want to try out, but they take place at specific times. I won't go into any great details on those. I will say, that one of the existing towns in the game is trashed right at the beginning of the main quest. The mod in question rebuilds the place and potentially installs your PC as the ruler! Otherwise it remains trashed for the rest of the game, and contines to burn if you visit it days and years later. Another large one doesn't take place until after the main quest is completed.

Right now, the plan is to take care of the evil missions before starting the main quest. Also hitting some areas as they are locations for various clothing mods. Otherwise, just plugging along and having fun.

[GM Mad]

Still more pics, thoughts, and musings from the land of Obilivion.

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Here's a pic of the main character sans any wigs. That's her 'natural' hair without any mods in place. One of the things I have added since is a natural faces/hair pack mod that might tweak the defaults in character generation. (It was needed for another mod.) That might open up some other options in character creation.

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Here's a series of pics showing of various armors and outfits. I've become such a clothes whore! So much so that I actually discovered that there are only so many mannequins that you can use. 64 is the cap and I had more than that. Fortunately, there are 2 types of mannequins, wood and marble, so 128 is the maximum. Sometimes I think I spend more time sorting and coming up with outfit combinations than actual adventuring.

The above pic features Steph in a blond wig wearing Rogue Commander armor. Aliyah is in Rogue Enchantress armor and Sonia in black Gloria armor.

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Here's the trio in a series of full female armors. There was three styles in the original mod, but have since added three more in a similar style but different color schemes. These come with multiple pieces that show either skin or chain mail. Sonia seems to have the skin version of hers own. The hair is part of the helmet, but you can have a helmet with no hair showing too. The group is standing on the battlements of Hoarfrost Castle. Thus far, this is the best castle mod for my money. You have to earn this one by carrying out quests. All her gear and collection of clothing and armor has been moved here, along with her 70 mannequins.

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Many armors come in sets of three, which is handy to coordiante three characters. All these armors are from the same set, just in different colors: white, black, and brown.

[GM Mad]

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Another set of armors with the ladies on the streets in Skingrad. I believe these are called Akavi armors they are in the freebies chest at the Goddess Shop. Each is a 1 piece suit

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Here's yet three more different armors, although these don't all match. The front one is another from the series of full female armor mentioned above, while the last two I think are part of a Dark Illusion set, but I could be wrong. Hard to keep these things straight over time.

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Three more outfits here. Steph is in Snowfur outfit, which is handy on the chilly streets of Bruma. Not sure of the name of the other two outfits, but the one on Sonia has many similar ones with various color schemes. Hope they are warm!

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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

[GM Mad]

Meet Viconia, a very special drow maiden transported into Oblivion.

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For those who don't know, Viconia was one of the potential NPC's from Baldur's Gate 1. It was a D&D game where you could lead a party of up to 5 NPC's from a pool of about 16. Since the PC could be any regular race, class and alignment the NPC's reflected this as well. You had good NPC's, evil NPC's and those in between. Good NPC's wouldn't put up with you doing to many evil things or they would leave, and vice versa for the evil ones. Viconia herself was a cleric in that game and served Shar. She was your typical drow, arrogant and scathing in her comments. In fact I'd go as far to say that Viconia was the one who provided me with a template on how to portray drow characters!

Baldurg's Gate 2 upped the stakes significantly. Viconia returned, but this time as one of three romance options for your male PC! Of the three romance options, Viconia was by far the most interested and satifisfying. Well, some one else thougth that as well as they lifted much of Viconia's vocals from BG2 and brought them into Olbivion as a companion and a source of romance. The romance plays out similar, but is not exactly the same. Much like in BG2, it plays out over a great deal of time and in the process you learn more and more about Viconia. She's got a dark edge to her, but that's part of her charm.

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Here's a pic of Steph and Viconia in the two styles of Gloria armor, black and white. These are also 1 piece armors.

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Here's a shot of the girls in yet another style of color coordinated armor. More on these in the next post. These ones are multi-pieces and multi-colors as well. There are matching overcoats for these, but the girls don't seem to want to wear those even if you put them into their inventory.

[GM Mad]

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Here's a shot of the five of us in the courtyard of Hoarfrost castle showing off more of the color coordinated outfits. The name eludes me, but this guy has been putting up a whole wardrobe of various items some useful to me, some not as useful. It all really depends what appeals to you.

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That's right, I did say five. The new girl is the one of the left. She's Katie, and she's from yet another mod. But this one is very much adult fare as it involves cannablism and slavery. You can gain Katie at the end as a travel companion.

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And here's all five showing off the full female armors that have appeared in the last few posts. As I mentioned three are six sets and I do have yet another lady to use a travel companion, but haven't done so as of yet. It gets a bit chaotic having that many traveling companions so I mainly just have 1-3 of them around as need be. Most of them can just be summoned to you by spell, so its easy to call them. Getting their wardrobes together and their gear repaired can be time consuming.

[GM Mad]

Here's the last set of pics for this time around. There are some strange and unusual quests in Obilvion. This has to be the strangest one of them all.

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You're eyes do not decieve you! Those are dogs, on fire, falling from the sky!

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This is one of the Daedric Quests involving the Prince of Madness. Here's how it goes. Oblivion is this game worlds version of hell. The Daedra are creatures from Oblivion and they have powerful princes who cover various concepts. Sheogarath is the Prince of Madness and the giver of this quest. There's a village that he finds terrible dull and boring, so he wants your help to spice things up. Cat people live there and they are a very superstitious lot. They have a 'end of days' myth that you help set up the first two signs of. The final myth involves fiery dogs falling from the skies.

The Daedric Princes are a strange lot. They are not all evil or even malevolent, unlike what you'd expect from princes of hell. Some are nice, some are not.

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Speaking of Oblivion, here's an Oblivion Gate. This is the main quest of the game. The boundries between this world and Oblivion are breaking down. Gates like these are popping up all over, including a super gate in Kvatch that destroyed the whole town. You have to go into the gate, into Oblivion, to close it down. The gals are getting ready to do just that.

You can just make out the overcoat on Steph for the colorful outfits mentioned above. That's is all for now!

[GM Mad]

And yet again, still more thoughts, musings and pics from the world of Oblivion.

An Oblivion Portal Tower

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Continuing on from where I left off, here's a look at one of the towers in the land of Oblivion. Inside these towers is the magic item that is keeping the Oblivion Portals open.

Near the top of the tower.

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There's a massive discharge of magical energy shooting up the center of the tower.

The top of the Tower

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At the top of the tower is the Sigil Stone, the item that keeps the portals open. You have to go up there and take it. It's easier than in looks. Once you take the Sigil Stone, the gate cloeses and you end up back where you started. These Sigil Stones can be used to make magic items. Get used to these towers as you have to close at least a minimum of 10 of these to complete the main quest. Many other portals turn up, but they are not essential to the main quest. You also get to tackle a Super Gate, where you have a time limit where you have to close it be fore the city buster siege engine can be pushed through the gate. Fun!

[GM Mad]

Here's probably what will be the last round of Pics of Steph and her companions in various outfits.

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I say last because not long after these pics were taken, I started getting into playing with some of the tools you can use to Mod the game. The first of these was a program called Nifskope. A nif in Oblivion is a type of graphics file. Basically, everything in any of these pics is a NIF! A nif is a 3 dimensional Mesh that has a certain size and shape, on which a material is place and on that a texture. Material in this case is how shiny or dull an object is, if you can see through it or not, and so on. A texture can just be a color or a pattern. With NIF Skope you can edit nifs and change textures.

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Is there a part of an outfit you don't like? Remove it! You want to change the color of something? Change it! You want to combine parts of different outfits to make a new one? You can! I ended up quickly playing more with Nifskope figuring out how it worked then actually playing the game.

Nifskope isn't the only program out there. The next one is called Blender, and with this you can edit the actual meshes. With Nifskope, its more like a giant paperdoll program. You can mix and match, but you can't really change a mesh into something else. With Bledner you can, but that all remains beyond me right now. It's horribly complicated.

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And using Nifskope isn't a picnic either. It took me a couple of weeks of trial and error to get it figured out. It doesn't help that there are some many different female body types and that clothing for body A doesn't look right on body B doens't help. Even worse there are variations even among the same base body types! You can choose your chest size all the way from small to ridiculously large. (My characters are about in the middle for the curious.) You can even go more muscular or less and even choose the size of the hips. So not only it is a hunt to find what garments you want, but what bodies they will fit on without any clipping! It can be a headache.

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The last program is the Construction Set itself. With this, you can go into the game and make changes to it or to any of its add ons. I've dabbled with it, but nothing major. For instance all those minor complaints I had about Hoarfrost Castle I went in and fixed. I turned up the lights in those areas I commonly use. I re-arranged the bedroom to my tastes and added a second bed.

All of this quickly turned from adventuring to seeing if this change worked or that change worked and so on. Then I got Fallout 3 and Obivlion pretty much stopped entirely. Steph put in about 180 hours of gameplay. One of the last mods I added was called Kvatch Rebuilt. Kvatch gets destroyed in the Main Quest and was never restored. With this mod the town gets rebuild, over a long period of time, and you have the chance to become the Count of Kvatch.

At the moment, this character appears to have come to an end.

[GM Mad]

It seems I missed these pics here. These are the results of goofing around with Nifskope.

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These are the mercenary outfits mentioned several times above. I didn't like the boots and gloves they came with, so added my own. These are all 1 piece outfits, including the coats. It was the only way to have the companions wear the coats.

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And here's a closer look at the gals wearing the various colors of this line of armor.

[GM Mad]

After what happened with Fallout 3, and covered in that thread, I headed back to Oblivion and decided to start over with a clean slate. To that end, I deactivated about 95% of the mods I added, added a few new ones I wanted to try, and made a new character. Meet Ivy.

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She is decidedly a hero and doesn't have a single point of infamy. She has no companions and any clothing I want I can just add into the game on my own, so the majority of those mods were not needed. Here's a word on some of the new mods:

Knights of the White Stallion - this is an expansion of something that's already in game. I gives more quests and a better headquarters than in vanilla Oblivion. Ivy is currently the Knight-Captain of the Knights of the White Stallion. She has a nice set of private rooms in their headquarters and she's riding her white stallion in the pic.

Another mod allows you to advance as a member of the Blades. Again, this builds off something already in game. The Blades are the elite private guards to the Emperior.

The other mods are all by the same author and work with each other. These include another Kvatch rebuilding Mod called Kvatch Aftermath. This one has Kvatch not as destroyed as in game, so it takes less time to rebuild. Much like the vanilla version, the Count of Kvatch is dead and you end up replacing him. You actually get to rule and make some decisions in this mod. There are some aethetic parts I don't care for, but overall this is a good mod.

The Elder Council is the companion Mod. In this one, as you game fame and recognition you start to pick up titles in the Empire and these give you certain perks. At the moment, Ivy is the Countess of Kvatch, a Viscountess of the Empire, a Knight Captain of the Blades, Knight-Captain of the Order of the White Stallion, and a member of Knights of the White Thorn. Yeah, she's a hero!

Also started to work on the Knights of the Nine quest where you become the Divine Crusader.

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Here's a shot of Ivy on her throne in Kvatch. You can summon the court in this mod.

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And here's the court.

That's all for this time around.

[fanchergw]

Looks like you're still having fun with this game, Ken. I get the impression that it's definately been worth the investment for you.

Gordon

[GM Mad]

Looks like you're still having fun with this game, Ken. I get the impression that it's definately been worth the investment for you.

Gordon

I've certainly gotten my moneys worth! Between the PC and 360 versions, we're talking about 400 hours of game play. And there are still ruins that I have yet to explore! Someday.