Hey everybody. I have a problem with mods I downloaded, they don't seem to work right. If it contains things that normally couldn't appear in the game (like new weapons, armour) I only see big exclamation marks, and my servant of the dawn mod doesn't work properly either: the conversation lines go by way too quickly, and even though the author said it contains voice acting, I don't hear anything.

When I download the mod I get a .rar or .zip file which I open with winrar. I then move the .esp file to my data folder where my other dlc's and mods are located, I then start up oblivion, check the box of the mod and proceed to play.

What am I doing wrong? Are mods incompatible with the steam version of oblivion? Please tell me. thanks.

Does that rar or zip file not also include a Data directory, which would then have a meshes/textures/sounds/menus/etc. directory inside of it?

Those are called the resources, and they contain all the needed files for the mod to work. They have to be installed as well or the mod can't find the stuff it needs.

You'll also want to change the dates on the "BSA" type files that came with the Steam version of Oblivion. You can either do this with a program called OBMM, which is recommended, or by googling a "file date changer" program. Give them a date in Jan. 2006 for best results.

Okay, thanks for the quick reply. I'll post another time let you guys know how it works now.

Okay thanks very much! It works now. but I can't find the bsa files, and also what are they used for? thanks again.

BSAs should be in Oblivion/Data directory. They are like Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures.bsa, Sounds, Misc etc. What are .bsa files? They store all vanilla meshes, textures, sounds, voices and so on. Like archives. Game can read bsas or loose files, with the priority of newer files. As in Steam version .bsas have "younger" date stam, Oblivion may not read mesh/texture raplacers , but use vanilla .bsas. Redating them back to 2006 fixes that.

Sorry for my English if i made some mistakes, i'm still learning it : ) Hoe you understood me.

That's weird, I saw them before in the data folder, but I can't seem to find them now.. well, still thanks for trying to help.

When you install OBMM, Windows (at least Vista and 7, possibly XP) has a tendency to take away the BSA extension and start labelling them as "Bethesda Softworks Archives" instead.

If you sort your DATA folder by file size, they'll likely be the largest files, ranging up to about 1.5GB

Whenever you see those yellow triangles, that means that a mesh is missing that a mod is looking for.