You know… (replay) Oblivion, yes or no?

I've goofed on Oblivion just as much as the next guy… but really, if you add one of the total conversion mods, like Oscuro's, perhaps a combat mod and a few other tweak mods here and there, it's really not a bad gaming experiance. Given, the lack of meaningful dialogue is surely missed, but modded up like that, especially with the lvl scaling issues fixed by the mods, the pace of the game and the first person combat is actually pretty good… far better than Gothic 3 combat, and only a little worse than Mount & Blade.

My major grip now is the use of only four or five actors for the numerous NPCs in the game, and those butt ugly faces… (although I think there's a mod for that, too) I really would have prefered reading the dialogues than listening to those bland, charactorless voices. Jez, those actors could have at least tried to vary their accents a bit from NPC to NPC… they are, after all, actors, right? Jon Luc Picard notwithstanding…

Anyone else give Oblivion a second chance?

Originally Posted by CarcusRex
Anyone else give Oblivion a second chance?

I haven't looked at Oblivion in over a year and never finished the game, because it bored me to tears. But someone said that I must try the "Shivering Isles" expansion: It's not really a realm of madness, but at least it doesn't look like taken out of the LotR films. Finally, I gave in.

This means that I just bought the expansion and plan to run a heavily modded Oblivion after I'm finished with The Witcher. Let's see how far I will come this time . I was told that I'd at least appreciate the original voices after experiencing some voice-acted fan mods. It should at least be interesting.

Actually, yes. I'm playing it again right now. I was in the mood for a free-roaming actiony RPG and tried to give Two Worlds a second chance but it just didn't work for me. Some posts on another site got me thinking about Oblivion + mods, which I figured would be pretty advanced by now.

So, I've just kicked off with a bunch of mods and I'm enjoying it, although I was disappointed I couldn't find too many "roleplaying" mods (quest mods with an emphasis on multiple solutions and the like).

I think I might write an article on the experience in due course.

If anyone has any quest mod recommendations (I'm good for UI and tweaks to the game mechanics), I'd love to hear about them.

I too was bored to tears playing the vanilla game when it first came out. And when the lvl scaling became apparent to me, it just turned me off completely. Hence I quit playing and never bought Shivering Isles.

I'm actually loath to discribe, catagorize or praise Oblivion as a real RPG. Like I said in my initial post, it's a pretty good "gaming experience", and I mean that apart from an RPG experience. I think to get the most out of Oblivion, one must resign ones self to the fact that it's not a real RPG, but rather something different unto itself. Less roleplaying, less hack and slash (thank God), more simple adventure. Except that, and you may enjoy it for what it is.

Modded to my liking, it is a what I'd call a wonderful "adventuring" game. It's fun to just get on my horse, roam the really great countryside and see what kind of trouble I can get myself into. It does look incredible, runs, loads and saves much better than the Witcher and Gothic 3, and the world on the trail is very immersive. And now, with the lvl scaling fixed, I can definitely get myself into a world of trouble. I like that. It makes me want to advance my character and become stronger. I'd say that Oblivion is a very good charater advancement game… or, perhaps "simulation" would be a better term.

I'm using the deadly reflex 3 mod for advanced combat. It really enhances the combat in a satifying, visceral way. Very cool. Unfortunately, I know of no roleplaying mods… although I'm pretty sure I've seen a catagory for it on Planet elderscrolls site. We'll need to check that out.

I'm not sure whether it makes much sense to debate whether Oblivion is an RPG or not, as you cannot change much about the basic game and its quests. Oblivion lets you choose your character and skills, unlike The Witcher, where these elements are very limited. But the poor implementation with the counterintuitive skill management kills this typical RPG element for me. But enough complaints, that's why we have mods .

I haven't tried any mods yet, but I would count the TNR, and here especially the TIE mods as RPG mods, the latter specifically for stealthy chars. The Cobl mods seem also to fall into the RPG category. Personally, I might pick a few things from there, but much of it seems a bit extreme for my taste.

I know you don't want to talk about it, but which of the overhaul mods do you use? I thought this FCOM stuff was a bit too much, and although I like the basic idea behind Oscuro's, I'm not sure whether I like the execution. I don't need bunches of weird monsters every two meters. I just don't want each and every fight to be similarly exhausting. That gets old quick. Does anyone know how Fransisco's alone works out?

I'm using Francesco's because it's modular and I wanted to tweak things in the right direction, not dramatically overhaul everything. That said, I'm not an expert on the differences.

TIE looks interesting but I'm looking more for quest lines with good dialogue and multiple solutions.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
……
I think I might write an article on the experience in due course.

If anyone has any quest mod recommendations (I'm good for UI and tweaks to the game mechanics), I'd love to hear about them.

I do like a review of modded version of Oblivion!.

As for mods, i recommend atmospheric weather system, Oblivion stereo sound overhaul, better storms and weathers, Cities alive at night, original color darker night, illumination within (window light), purse of wonder, better bell sounds, Realistic force (physics), less NPCs conversation, Chase camera mode (more stable third person view), horse combat, GP lockpicks (make junks into lockpicks), Oblivion script optimizer (improve performance), deadlyreflex, dude wheres my horse, thieves arsenal, alternate start by ship, Gorier blood,

Unfortunate i couldn't say how much better after using the mods as i never played plain vanilla version of Oblivion. At least the mods above never mess up my game or computer.

PS - Also recommend Phinix's Immersive Dark UI or alternatively Immersive Interface to change the console friendly interface.

Good mods download site:
http://ballofflame.googlepages.com/b…blivionmodlist

Got Shivering Isles from a mate, gonna reinstall Obliv and give it a try, see if it is any good. As a free roaming dungeon crawler, Obliv + mods aint bad.

I have run through it a few times, with no mods at all. That was to do the Knights of the Nine collection and then the Shivering Isles …

Definitely a fun console action game port.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
I'm using Francesco's because it's modular and I wanted to tweak things in the right direction, not dramatically overhaul everything. That said, I'm not an expert on the differences.

I'll probably do the same thing. I like that Oscuro's places difficulties specifically (easy near roads, very difficult in remote dungeons), but there's so much in it I don't like that I'm not keen on trying it.

TIE looks interesting but I'm looking more for quest lines with good dialogue and multiple solutions.

I haven't played any player-made quest mods yet, but here you can find a quest mod list:

http://devnull.devakm.googlepages.com/quests

I liked Oblivion. Didn't love it, but I quite liked it. It's neither Daggerfall nor Morrowind, but I found it to be entertaining despite the small size. But as I gave up the PC as a gaming platform after my video card suicided, I never got the addons for Oblivion… the only Elder Scrolls game in my collection to remain incomplete for now.

Originally Posted by Jaz
I liked Oblivion. Didn't love it, but I quite liked it. It's neither Daggerfall nor Morrowind, but I found it to be entertaining despite the small size. But as I gave up the PC as a gaming platform after my video card suicided, I never got the addons for Oblivion… the only Elder Scrolls game in my collection to remain incomplete for now.

No pc games? Not at all? Ever?
What is it then - Your gaming platform?

Could someone please give this discussion a better "telling" title ?

Everytime i visit this board I wonder what's this about …

Originally Posted by Zakhary
No pc games? Not at all? Ever?
What is it then - Your gaming platform?

Oh, I guess I mis-expressed myself. I still play PC games allright… Heretic, Hexen, Catacomb 3D, RoTT… pretty much all the old shooters and even the occasional favorite elderly CRPG or adventure like Lands of Lore or Realms of the Haunting - basically games that don't demand my fullest attention because I know every nook and cranny by heart, anyway. But the last newer game for PC I bought was DMoMM, and my Radeon 9800 ate itself straight afterwards; I decided against going to the storeroom and take a newer video card from a shelf… I took an old Radeon 7000 nobody wanted, thus castrating my comp on purpose. I even skipped the latest installments of my favorite PC franchises of old, like UT or C&C.

The same is also true for my old, modded Xbox: I use the Xbox mainly as an emulator (for Atari 2600, SNES and some old PC shooters) nowadays. The only platform I still use for serious gaming (i.e., playing games I haven't played before), is my modded PS2. Yeah, I know it's an old system as well, but I have a whole bunch of PS2 games I haven't played through yet, and with the free time I currently have for gaming it'll last me another two or three years. *Then* I might get a 'newer' gaming platform, like a Wii…

Originally Posted by Turjan
I haven't played any player-made quest mods yet, but here you can find a quest mod list:

http://devnull.devakm.googlepages.com/quests

Yeah, that's where I started looking for quest mods. As far as I can see, the best ones there are companion mods, which don't really suit my stealthy thief. Otherwise, it seems a short list, which I found disappointing. It's interesting that Oblivion modders have tackled every aspect of appearance, gameplay and interface tweaking but they don't embrace storytelling with the same verve (as far as I can see, not having followed the game closely).

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Yeah, that's where I started looking for quest mods. As far as I can see, the best ones there are companion mods, which don't really suit my stealthy thief. Otherwise, it seems a short list, which I found disappointing. It's interesting that Oblivion modders have tackled every aspect of appearance, gameplay and interface tweaking but they don't embrace storytelling with the same verve (as far as I can see, not having followed the game closely).

Well, there are some mods that take tens of hours. Some even look as they might have good stories (I will probably only know when I actually play them). The first one in the list looks a bit eclectic from the screenshots. The "Spires" mod is quite involved and sounded interesting, but seems to be mostly fights. Stuff like "Kvatch Aftermath", "Necromancers" and so on seem to tell long stories, too, but the voice acting is painful. Not sure about "Blood and Mud".

I guess the problem with quests is writing meaningful dialog trees and getting all the conditions and triggers right in the editor. Unfortunately, not many people put up with that. The other thing is that users seem to see voice acting as requirement. Personally, I prefer no voice acting to bad voice acting, but I seem to be alone in this regard. It doesn't help that Bethsoft broke the lip synch module with their latest patches.

I did get Spires and Blood & Mud. The first one on that list is a companion mod, so it doesn't suit my stealth-oriented game (might try it another time, though).

As for writing dialogue and scripts in the editor…fair enough but contrast it with the NWN/NWN2 community, which is all about telling stories. Even though NWN2 has a much smaller mod community, I'd get overwhelmed if I tried to list all the decent mods.

Originally Posted by Turjan
I'll probably do the same thing. I like that Oscuro's places difficulties specifically (easy near roads, very difficult in remote dungeons), but there's so much in it I don't like that I'm not keen on trying it.

I'd be interested to know what the things are you dislike about Oscuro's? Besides the lvl scaling and the loot scaling, I often wonder what else is going on under the hood in Oscuro's mod.

@Dhruin: I think that much of this has to do with the editor. Even running several mods together in Oblivion is a science (this became worse compared to Morrowind). There are quite a few bugs and functions that don't work in the editor. It's a resource hog - I can run the game fine on my computer, but the editor chokes my system. The possibilities to screw the main game up are countless. It's simply not very user-friendly. Doing some retexturing job on a piece of equipment is definitely easier than a quest mod.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Could someone please give this discussion a better "telling" title ?

Everytime i visit this board I wonder what's this about …

I appologize for the vague subject header. Fortunately, we have a fine moderator who has remedied the situation.