Oblivion mods - current selection?
 

Oblivion GOTY (German)

Which mods should I install and in which order? I want to maintain the original gameplay but get rid of the major annoyences. Slightly better graphics also wouldn't hurt.

Hey.

Graphics mod : Qarl's Texture pack iii.

I don't know the order for this mod to be added but its an amazing graphics one.

Enjoy.

Get BOSS (Better Oblivion Sorting Software). It will make your life easier if you plan to use a lot of mods. It keeps a record of most mods and then sorts them for you in the best order. I've found it catches pretty much all but the most obscure or minor mods.

You can also use it in combination with Wrye Bash and make a Bash patch that merges aspects of various mods together. It takes a little reading to get the hang of it but once you do it's really quite easy to use.

There are also versions of BOSS and Bash for Fallout 3 and New Vegas incidentally.

*Edited to add if you are just using texture/mesh replacer mods they don't really need a load order, though you'd probably need to do the archive invalidation or use the archiveinvalidationinvalidated mod.

Unofficial bugfix mod, IIRC, is an esm and goes after the Oblivion, DLC and expansion esms.

The Unique Landscapes mods make it much more fun to explore, and add in paths leading to some of the locations which would otherwise be a random door in the middle of nowhere.

http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com/index…que_Landscapes

There's quite a few body and clothes replacers out there, too, but those will depend on personal taste. Google "Oblivion body replacer comparison" and you'll find a page at UESPWiki that shows the main ones.

As for fixing the gameplay, there's several ways to fix the level spawns, and things like Francesco's levelled items/creatures are highly modular if you don't want to have lots of other random stuff changed too. You can also find smaller mods to address other problems. You can add in spellmaking/enchanting altars, non-guild fences, and other things to get around the "you must join all guilds to play the game" issue. A low cost magic item recharge or Morrowind-style enchantment mod is a must, unless you want to constantly pay a small fortune or micromanage soul gems to keep your flame sword of doom working.

I've never had many problems with loading order, but something like BOSS helps if things go weird.

The mods really saved this game from itself, but even now they can't quite recapture the Morrowind feeling.

Thanks. :)

All this sounds pretty complicated.

Most mods work better with the English GOTY edition.

There is definitely a learning curve with many of Oblivion's mods. Basically, if you're going to change anything other than graphics, get BOSS, OBMM, and perhaps WyreBash. I've never setup Bash, because it's quite painful. The others are fairly simple. Nudity additions and texture upgrades really don't require anything. If you start changing gameplay though, then you'll need to do some study.

So there's still not really a 'just download and install one damned file' and be done with it mod solution after all these years? That's disappointing.

For Morrowind I looked into Morrowind 2011 but found out there was a whole load of drama about that. Drama in the Morrowind modding community? *gasp* Who knew? :p

Anyway, when I managed to finally track down the file and the install instructions it was complicated. I'm tired of a complicated. That is what makes me not want to re-play Morrowind and Oblivion but at the same time I just can't even entertain the thought of playing them vanilla.

Playing a modded Oblivion is more like a dream than a reality. If you limit yourself and you have the patience - it's doable, but you DO NOT want all the good stuff, because it's almost a miracle if it works.

Coupled with the crash-prone core game, it really is a nightmare process most of the time.

I once managed to get most of the great ones working in a reasonably stable fashion, and I actually completed the main quest with them. Oh, there were oddities and quirks - and it was a matter of constantly adjusting throughout - but it did work.

I think that makes it around 1 success out of ~20 attempts to get it stable and playable with the mods I really want.

First of all, install the three Unofficial Oblivion patches (vanilla + KOTN & DLCs + SI).
About combat: Oscuro Overahul, Francesco's and Deadly Reflex if you're going melee a lot, up to you.
UI: Darnified Ui is the best I think, it improves the standard interface in many ways, altough it leaves the main structure.
Map: there are several Map mods at TESNexus, like Elven Cartographers which is very good.
These are the first that came in my mind.

Posted some updated recs to the Morrowind mods thread.

I managed to get a good setup with a ton of mods that I felt really improved everything once as well. I also spent a ridiculous amount of time to get there and couldn't shake the feeling that if I sneezed the whole thing would come crashing down and never work again. :p

I don't have the patience and time to do that now and besides, thanks to digital downloads I have a huge backlog.

Here are some of the mods that I personally found to be essential (I would not go back to playing Oblivion without these).

All listed mods can be found on

the Elder Scrolls Nexus: The Elder Scrolls Nexus - Oblivion mods and community
the Engineering Guild: http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk…-Scrolls-Forum
Planet Elder Scrolls: Planet Elder Scrolls - Maps, News, Oblivion, Cheats, Downloads
Bethsoft Official Mods Forum: Oblivion Mods - Bethesda Softworks Forums

Essential mods that do not change gameplay…

• 4GB patch
• CraftyBits - HIGHLY RECOMMEND - improves crafting system over 9000%
• OBGEv2
• ENBSeries Shaders
• Qarl's Hi Res Texture Pack
• Natural Environments
• Ambient Town Sounds
• Illumination Within
• Elaborate Eyes
• Tamriel NPCs Revamped (finally all the NPCs will no longer be ugly)
• Ren's Beauty Pack
• Bananasplit's Better Cities
• Unique Landscapes
• Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul
• Atmospheric Oblivion
• Symphony of Violence
• Oblivion Crash Prevention System
• Oblivion Stutter Remover
• Vampire Aging Disabled
• Windows Lighting System
• COBL Races

Essential Mod Utilities

• OBSE
• BOSS
• OBMM
• Wyre Bash
• COBL

Essential Mods That Affect Gameplay (improve balance or otherwise affect gameplay)

• Duke Patrick's SCA Combat Archery
• Duke Patrick's Basic Hypothermia
• Duke Patricks Melee Combat - massive improvement to melee combat
• Deadly Reflex
• Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul
• Martigen's Monster Mod
• Francesco's
• FCOM (this allows you to combine OOO, MMM, Fran's and Warcry)
• COBL Real Hunger
• COBL Real Thirst
• COBL Real Sleep Extended
• Thievery
• Ashes to Ashes (adds a lot more to the experience of playing vampire, or hunting vampires - new quests, animations and vampire system)
• The Necromancer (adds 2 joinable Necromancer factions with lots of quests)
• Oblivifall Losing My Religion (adds 9 new factions - the followers of each of the Nine Divines become different factions with quests and reputation system)
• Oblivifall Let's Talk (adds a lot more interesting dialogue with NPCs
• Myths and Legends (adds 14 legendary artifacts with quests to find them)
• Shadowcrest Vineyard (cool player house near Skingrad with quests)
• Fighter's Guild Contracts (adds lots of new Fighter's Guild quests)
• Lore Dialogue 300 (adds massive amount of extra dialogue for NPCs)
• Enhanced Economy

Fun Magic Mods

• Less Annoying Magic Experience (L.A.M.E.)
• Supreme Magicka
• Midas Magic (I don't think this one works together with the other two, but SM and LAME work fine together)
• Duke Patricks Combat Magic - massive improvement to magic system
• Advanced Magecraft (adds new ways of using material components for spells and better enchanting system)

I admit these sound really interesting and seemingly solve two of my biggest complaints about Oblivion and KoTN.

Looking at that lengthy list and pondering searching, downloading, installing and configuring it all gives me a headache though.

Gah, you're making me want to install Oblivion again, but damnit-all-to-heck if it don't take all day to DL all those mods and get them installed properly before you can play.

There really needs to be a better way to get mods for the Elder Scrolls games. Maybe a browser type interface like Civilization 5 has where you can search in game, get descriptions and then do a one click install?

I don't know, it just needs something to work better than the current system because it is a huge pain in the ass to find and get mods working correctly which is unfortunate because if there's one game series that really need mods and I can't imagine playing without it's TES.

Here is what the new Chapel of Mara looks like:

Chapel of Mara (Bravil) Pic 1 Pic 2


Up until around December of last year, the only mods I had ever tried were a couple of small things like disabling vampire aging, etc.

After playing FNV, I wanted to try some mods for Oblivion that would add survival features like hunger, thirst, hypothermia, etc., and I read about all the fantastic overhaul mods like OOO, MMM, etc. Then I saw some of the screenshots and Let's Plays from people with lots of graphics mods installed and I realized I was going to be installing a large amount of mods.

So I researched a bit (FCOM was the most complex but absolutely worth it), made a long list of every mod I wanted to install, and then posted my planned installation steps here:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php…oblivion-mods/

I quickly got some expert advice from lots of people who made those very same mods and adjusted my planned installation steps accordingly.

Then I proceeded with each step in order and within a couple of hours I was playing a brand new game with every one of those mods listed above. In total I installed something like 150 mods and the game has been running just fine ever since.

Wrye Bash is a really powerful tool because whenever there is any sort of conflict, it allows you to choose which elements from each mod you want to incorporate.

Most mods don't really conflict with other mods, especially not the popular ones, because modders go through a lot of work to make sure this doesn't happen.

It still looks very Catholic, but I suppose there is not a whole lot you can do about that without creating entirely new meshes and textures for both the interiors and exteriors.

Oh believe me, I have done the whole 150+ mods thing before, but I definitely remember it taking a good bit of time and effort and am not exactly chomping at the bit to do that again.

Having to get the mods and situate them is always the main thing that prevents me from reinstalling and playing Morrowind and Oblivion again. I one click (or okay a few clicks) solution is really what I'm looking for. I also can't bring myself to play vanilla so that leaves me just not ever playing them again. And I re-bought them on the Steam sale they had recently with the cloud save feature enabled even. :p

Yeah, I've used all the tools that help combine mods and manage them before, but even still it can take awhile, and be quite irksome if one thing goes wrong and makes the game crash. Been giving it some thought today though, and I figure with Skyrim only 7 weeks away, its probably best if I not get into a TES game right now and just wait for that instead.

It'll be a lot easier to just add a few small mods here and there as they get released or reconfigured to work with Skyrim all-the-while having fun playing through a brand new world.


Last time I modded out Oblivion I had close to 18gb of mods installed and that takes a very long time to get, especially from all the mod sites that make you watch 40sec ads before each DL.

This is probably being way too optimistic on my part, but I am really hoping with Skyrim being a new engine and all that the way it handles mods it easier and more user friendly without a ton of fiddling and third party programs required.

Probably won't be the case but I can hope. :p