So, I haven't played Oblivion in a good 3 years. My disks got scratched over time, and finally a spoon of icecream melted onto them. I didn't notice until the next day, and they never worked (even after carefully cleaning, but too much of a mess). The disks were stacked, which was probably already not good anyway. However, with Oblivion being likely to go to go on sale at a good discount in these winter sales (I think gamersgate has a good deal, but site is down right now)...gonna pick everything up again.

Aiming for 70 esps and esms at most (maybe a few over). That is not 70 mods I should clarify...some mods come with a lot more than 1 or 2 esps/esms. I like to keep the mod loader list around here, because I find it is most stable on my PC. I find Oblivion crashes on my PC (even though its way way newer than when Oblivion was out) too much at over 100 esps/esms, and slowly gets bad past 70 or 80. Fallout 3 has the same exact mod limit for me, and Skyrim is a little less. No idea why my limit is this, but its been true for every PC I've had...and my PC is like a sci-fi computer compared to when oblivion was first released

So with that said...any mods you recommend?

Mod I'm definitely getting:

FCOM

And that is actually it on my list of mods I know I want. There is a lot of new ones, so its kinda overwhelming. I never play without FCOM though.

Mod I might get is Tales from Elsweyr Anequina...looks to have the link in the comments to download the full version. Not sure if this mod makes Elsweyr more finished or not...but I always liked the idea of Elsweyr, and it was a rather huge mod. Just never completed back when I played 3 years ago.

Mod types I really like

-Sound/music/graphics (I really like the mods that add a lot of ambient sounds, and adding music (not replacing it) to the game) (and well graphics are self explanatory)

-gameplay

-new lands and other places to visit (not sure how many new land mods there are, or if any of them have ever been finished...but I think there were a couple I used that added new land masses) (plus new dungeons and towns or whatever are always good)

-new quests (the more epic the better)

-weather (who doesn't like more, epic weather )

-new homes (more homes the better )

-Vampire overhaul (I use better vampires by brehanin for Skyrim, very customizable and can even set it so I can roam around in the day. But lots of tweakable options with this. I probably will play a non-vampire game, but its nice to have an option of not having to play the boring vanilla vampires for when/if I make one)

-Immersion mods (I like them for non-vampire characters...well things like hunger/thirst and what not)

-magic overhaul or/and new spells

-Maybe melee combat mod, not sure if any out there change it or what not...

Think that sums it up.


Mods I like but will probably avoid-
-adding life to to the world (but I will probably avoid these unless the ones for Oblivion have been improved, the ones I used for Oblivion and Fallout 3 and Skyrim all caused massive CTDs (really really bad), and people report massive ctds with all of them for each game...so engine probably can't handle it or they aren't made too well or something. In any case, I like random npcs roaming around and making the world feel alive...my PC obviously doesn't, even though I've upgraded it many many times since oblivion was released. Well haven't tried it with this latest pc...but probably will avoid trying, I would rather have a stable game and not have to mess around with stuff)

So with all that...any recommendations and staying in the 70 esp+esm limit (a few over isn't that bad, I'll push it to 80 depending on what is recommended. Prefer to stay lower)...that is esp/esm btw, and not mods like I said in the opening of this post. Some mods come with more than one esp and esm file.