So, I'm coming back to Oblivion and would like to pretty it up...spice it up a bit.

What are current the best compilation of textures avaible? LoD and Normals...in your own opinion.

Is FCOM still the S*#T?

Best weather mod?

4 or 5 must have quest mods?

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciate!

Qarl's Texture pack, IMO, is the best texture pack. RAEVWD is good for distant lod.
FCOM is still very good and probably less buggy since you tried it out.
The best weather mod is, to me, All Natural, but I enjoyed Enhanced Weather as well.

Sorry for no links, didn't have time to put them. About to start a online game

And another MUST-HAVE...Unique Landscapes...there are now 25 of them...someday 29...maybe 30?

This is the list of mods I use with every character.


http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3953 by Oscuro, dev_akm, MadCat221.
Not just a 'creature-adding' mod, not just a 'difficulty' mod, not just a 'gameplay-tweaking' mod, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is actually one of the finest finest roleplaying mods around. http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=1757 by Martigen, Corepc Dev_Akm Shadowborn is the perfect complement to Oscuro, adding much-needed spontaneity to Oscuro's static world. Crank Martigen's mod all the way up and Oblivion will feel as wonderfully unpredictable as an MMO. These mods are so inseparable to me I count them as one.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2764 by, of course, DarN.
This essential mod goes a long way toward making Oblivion's consolized interface useable. Configurable from within the game via a menu. I modify it with one of Luchaire's re-colorings, either http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16387 or http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16897 I also use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14822 by WillieSea and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19063 by Badmagic to enliven the map with color and to replace what I consider to be ugly map markers with more aesthetically pleasing X's.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14065 by tejon, or http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13879 bu ABO.
Two excellent character-levelling mods that do away with stat management, excel spreadsheets, visits to Wiki pages, etc, to research "builds". With these mods a player can just play and let a mod handle leveling seamlessly and invisibly in the background. I tend to prefer RL but I am using nGCD in my current game and am very impressed.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14304 by tejon.
This mod allows the player to control the speed of advancement of each skill. Easily configurable via an .ini.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11237 by tejon. Willpower again has an affect on the player's vulnerability to magic, as in previous ES games.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7484 by Deathless Aphrodite.
Makes the player lose fatigue when running. When the player's fatigue hits 0 he starts to walk. Also allows the player to sprint for a brief time.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25078 by TheNiceOne.
Using this mod merchants' gold goes up and down with each trade. Also does away with the haggle slider (what a relief!) Allows the player to specify how much gold they recive from looting containers, enemies, as quest rewards, etc. All configurable via .ini.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2037 by Quarn and Dejunai.
Removes flowers from plants after you have picked them. This is a great little visual aid when picking many plants very close together.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1840 by Woodman, http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=21 by Tandem, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5138 by Soor, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5919 by b3w4r3, http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=129 by Talonhoff and http://morrowind4kids.com/pseronwyrd/PWRunSpeed.zip by Pseron Wyrd are a collection of small tweak mods that I cannot bear to play without. Chase Camera Mod is essential to me because I play exclusively in third person and will quickly become nauseous without it; Bethesda went to great lengths to create the illusion of a seamless worl when they made Oblivion and then went and ruined it by spamming messages onto the player's screen everytime they enter a new cell, and No Load gets rid of that; Initial Glow gets rid of what I consider to be a very ugly 'plastic wrap' enchantment effect; Sleep Rest Wait Any Time, because no game has any business telling me when I can sleep, or where; No Psychic Guards tones down guards' clairvoyance a little bit; Run Speed Tweak slows down the base running/walking speed of the game to Morrowind's running/walking speeds.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16005 by mmmpld'
A fun little 'immersion' mod that allows the player to see their character use the same getting-into and getting-out-of bed animations used by NPCs.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11449 by RamyEnfant.
Adds a collection of new jump animations. The characters execute a cool Night-Elf-style forward roll with weapons sheathed and a variety of other jumps with different weapons drawn. I often jump just to watch these animations. I'm easily pleased.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4387 by CorePC.
Adds much-needed life to Cyrodiil's roads. The merchants are great if you like to spend extended time away from cities as I do. To this I add http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20575 by LazyAltmer. These two mods do a lot to make Cyrodiil a lot less lonely when travelling the roads. They also help fight, too, which has saved my character's life more than once when playing all these overhaul mods.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513 by Bananasplit, Wolfslady, Reckless, SilentResident, Nernie, Vorians and Ismelda.
The way the cities of Tamriel should have looked. Spend hours wandering around like a tourist, awestruck at how different (and gorgeous) everything looks. Comes in modular form - you can choose to redo all of Cyrodiil's cities or just one. It's your choice. When I'm not using Better Cities I use Arthmoor's http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1019807, which tranfers the vanilla cities into the Cyrodiil worldspace, ala Morrowind. Wonderful for those of us who love to ride horses through town.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2536 by Max Tael.
This is one plugin in Max Tael's Natural Environments suite of mods. It adds several non-hostile flying animals such as birds and butterflies.

http://morrowind4kids.com/pseronwyrd/PW_MorrowindFog.zip by Pseron Wyrd.
Oblivion's near-infinite view distance is ugly, in my opinion, and it also makes Cyrodiil feel much smaller than it ought to. This is my attempt to simulate Morrowind's fog. Combined with Run Speed Tweak, Cyrodiil feels as large and wonderfully mysterious as Vvardenfell once did.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=942911 by Arthmoor.
Adds Morrowind-style transport to the game. A nicely immersive touch.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13099 by WillieSea.
This little mod adds spectators (and tweaks their animations and clothes), allows the player to loot equipment, adds a bone clock, new posters and keeps the place open all night. I added a smith in my version, the only thing the mod lacked.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=984109 by XMarksTheSpot, Brumbek & Ismelda.
Another mod I can't play without anymore. It adds windows that turn off and on in synch with day/night cycles and also, optionally, smoke from chimneys. Comes with a nice variety of window color tints too.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28977 by Emma.
An Alchemist-oriented companion with a mind of her own (and, as a bonus, dialog voiced by Emma herself).

http://oblivion.brashendeavors.net/bows/ by Brash.
A wonderful mod for anyone who loves light, ranger-ish amror and slightly more natural, non-fantasy-type bows. I also love the ranger camp just outside Weye (conflicts with Weye TICS, but not AFK Weye).

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22828 by afk_dwip - or - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9514 by TamaraVico.
I tend to alternate these two mods, as I love them both. I absolutely and without equivocation adore Tamara's Weye mod - but it does come with a framerate hit. I just love her cramped medieval-looking alleys and its attention to detail. It is quite possibly my favorite town expansion mod for either Morrowind or Oblivion. The area occupied by dwip's mod is smaller and, thus, conflicts with fewer mods and also does not hurt framerates quite as much (in my experience). It comes with some interesting quests though and is also nicely-laid out.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21562 and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30000 by Arthmoor.
Faregyl is a nice little farm south of the Imperial City. Feldscar is a wonderful village north of the Frostcrag area. Both are excellently crafted.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22401 by The Tamriel Rebuilt Team.
Stirk is a small but highly detailed island in the Abecean Sea west of Anvil. Anyone who has seen what the multi-talented folks at Tamriel Rebuilt have done for Morrowind will know this is high-quality modding with an eye towards accuracy in matters of lore.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1073491 by onra.
If you like to explore, this is the mod series for you. Replaces the 'placeholder' landscape of Valenwood and Elseweyre, Summerset Isles and Black Marsh with fully-realized, detailed terrain with pathgrids, ready to be modded. Which goes perfectly with:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1072969 by Side777.
Adds seven ships of varying sizes you can pilot around all this new coastline.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25023 by Iliana.
An ambitious project whose aim is to recreate the province of Elseweyr, home to Khajiits and, of course, Moon Sugar. Compatible with Tamriel Heightmaps.

I recommend "rolling your own". Or at least, that's what I do. For example, I consider AmpolX's textures to be the best out there, but there is not a "complete set" of those, so I must mix them with other things (for example, some parts of QTP3R). Also, "best" in this case is very dependent upon your PC hardware, to put it mildly.



If you like FCOM, then yes. Otherwise, you can mix and match parts of that in other ways (e.g., OOO+MMM, or Fran's+MMM, etc.) Another more recently created alternative is ROM (a heavily modified OOO++). Or, there is TIE, and you can use that with some other mods (e.g., parts of FCOM) - though, not "perfectly", I hear. Just for starters...



All Natural.



It's very much a matter of taste. What kinds of quests do (or might) you particularly like, or not like?


As for other suggestions: Get comfortable with using Wrye Bash, including BAIN for installation. Have a good look through http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/. Keep up with current threads for mods you're interested in. Make sure you know how to search intelligently for mods, for example at TESnexus.com, as this can save you much time, or the bother of posting questions at all, on occasion. Likewise, always RTFM. But on the other hand, don't be *afraid* to ask questions, no matter how stoopid they might sound, to you.

Excellent, Thank you all!

As for what type of quests I would like. I like quests related to the guild factions. Fighters, mage and theives guild.

What should I use for LoD's and Normal maps?

Is Unique Landscapes compatible with FCOM?

In a shameless bout of advertising i would also like to recomend the "Hammerfell Project" (link is in my sig), of which i am a member. We've just had our first alpha release, and already you can see the level of detail and lore that is defined by the projects "Tamriel Rebuilt" heritage (You can also Download 'Stirk' from the site, as it was origionaly intended as a practice/teaser for Hammerfell anyway).

JD

excellent! Still wondering what the best LoD and Normal replacements are.

Also, some awesome dungeons mods would be great!

I use vibrant textures + bomret's normal map, its a good alternative for QTP. For LOD, use RAEVWD + teslodgen. As for faction quest mods, there is Choice and consequences for FG, and origin of the mages guild for MG.
In my opinion FCOM is still the best overhaul in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality T.I.E matches up to it. As a bonus T.I.E is excellent for playing a thief. I myself just got into playing oblivion again after almost 1.5 years.
And for a city overhaul, i highly recommend Open cities Reborn.

If you like awesome dungeons then get Lost Spires. That'll give you lots of massive, awesome dungeons and a very good quest line.

As for cities, basically you've got the choice between Better Cities or Open Cities Reborn (you can also get open cities classic, though I can't see why). I'd take a good long look at each one, maybe even try both out before choosing. Its even possible to use a combination of both, though at this point it looks like Better Cities will be losing modularity in future releases.

Overhauls really come down to FCOM or T.I.E (which can be patched to work with Fran's).

Never heard of T.I.E....how does it set itself apart from FCOM?

For one, it only uses vanilla resources and is only 3mb in size. bliviongate:
Try it, i dont know how to explain it :shrug: , but for me the gameworld is much better than vanilla or FCOM. :rock:,
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1123328-tie-tamriel-immersion-experience/ if you like reading, it has a features list

TIE has been described as even more difficult than FCOM - I haven't tried it myself, but I get the impression you'll end up with a much more realistic combat scenario, where trying to fight a mad demigod, or even just a mad goblin or two, is going to end with you dead every time unless you come really, really prepared. Crazy prepared. Stealth is the main focus of play.

I find FCOM to add a lot of "clutter" to my game, with an endless amount of new creatures, NPCs, items etc. And not all of it is placed in the game that well. When I was playing FCOM, this started to annoy me. TIE uses only vanilla resources, but still adds plenty of (mainly) NPCs, and the most outstanding feature for me is how well it is all integrated into the game. Everything in the game is unleveled, meaning that you can see every enemy and item at level 1, and that you'll get the crap beaten out of you if you rush into every dungeon that crosses your path. Combat in general is a lot more difficult, and sneaking tactics are made more effective, but sneaking in general is made more difficult too. Running away to the nearest guards is something you'll do very frequently when you start a new game, but gradually you'll become stronger, and you have to run away less.
For a full list of features, read the manual

From my topic:
...Also it might help to state when you left because some of the recommendations(like lost spires) have been around FOREVER...