As an old Morrowind player, I have recently started playing my first Oblivion game, and while it looks great etc, I think it lacks variaty. I'm now lvl25, and it seems the game doesn't offer anything new at that stage, so I'm thinking about starting a new character and use a few mods to make it more interesting, but one thing, I haven't been able to find is any mods which alter the oblivion realms, which really lacks variation. The only thing I found so far, was a mod adding npc's to the area around the gates, but nothing, which changes anything inside.

So are there any mods to change these realms to make them less generic.

Not really. You'll get more variation/challenge with OOO, MMM and FCOM but basically they're the same. It's the one part of the game that is in serious need of an overhaul IMO and dev_akm was working on just that for FCOM, but he has been AWOL for quite a while now so wouldn't hold my breath on that. It would also be great if there was a "Unique Oblivion realms" project as there are only seven random planes in vanilla. I'm doing Oblivion realms for the umpteenth time right now for the MQ (and Sigil Stones) and it gets more boring for each time...

AFAIK, dev_akm wanted to replace the color of the armor of the Dremora. So you can recognize them by their color.

And I agree. The OB realms are really boring and generic.

This topic comes up a few times a year with much the same thing. Sometimes people get enthused and get enough work done to take some screenshots, but no one's ever managed to release anything that could seriously be described as a realm overhaul. I'd love to do it myself, but I very much doubt I'll ever get around to it at the rate I make progress on my existing projects.

Vac

IMHO, the whole design concept of the Oblivion realms is monotonous and was one of the design flaws in Oblivion (something that sounds cool and interesting, but falls flat when implemented). I suspect it is for this reason that modded Oblivion realms have not been created and released. Let me add, however, as I realize anew each time I try out a different game (including some of the latest offerings from competitors), overall Oblivion is an amazing, and in many ways as yet unsurpassed, achievement (thanks in no small part to its unique and robust modding tools and modding friendly structure).

Just my two cents...and somewhat off topic... :wink_smile:

Regards,

Hem

Full ACK.

I actually like the somewhat randomness of the OB plane but seen on a whole it is too monotonoes. I think what it needs is some more varied environment. It might break the lore a bit but the gain overall will be great, imo.

edit: Even small additions will help. The only skill one needs is the creation of interiors. Those can be added to possible destinations from doors.
And some exterior design to maybe create some new exteriors to travel through on the way to the tower.
There are already some reskins and stuff one can use to spice up the plane.

What about just adding clutter? If you think about it, the main thing that makes noteworthy ruins, dungeons, and caves fun to explore is the amount of random stuff to look at on your way through them. Just adding more furniture, containers, and the like would really produce an entirely different atmosphere. At least inside of the buildings and Nether Halls.

I think Waalx is working on a mod that has Oblivion Gates occasionally takes you to Hircine's real, where you have to survive the Wild Hunt.

I thought I'd replied to this one, but it must have been a previous incarnation of the same request.

One major hurdle at the moment is that the "random teleport door" lists have the same issue that levelled lists used to have: the last mod to change them overwrites everyone else's changes. I tossed a request for an "add to list" function in the OBSE thread at the time, but it got lost. Without that ability we can have only one mod that adds new Oblivion planes, unless individual gates are changed to go to specific worlds, and with the gates spawning randomly, that wouldn't be popular.

The same issue comes up again with the random Sigil Towers and the random tunnels, so one OBSE change would go a long way (if it's actually possible).

I had a feeling, that this was the response, I would get on my question, but it still seems odd that a game with a busy modding community for 6 years didn't do anything with this.

I read that there are I think 7 different versions of the oblivion plane, which are random chosen, which is not a lot. But it seems the towers themselves have no variation at all. So you fight the same enemies at the same places every time while advancing to the top. Except for the fleshpods there are also nothing to explore, with no extra areas and nothing unique, so it's just a tedious exercise on getting to the top as quickly as possible. Having the interior of the towers being more random, would greatly help. With all the loaddoors you encounter, it should be possible to randomize them greatly by having just (f.ex) three versions of each cell. Wouldn't that be possible and make the towers more interesting?

Since I have not modded for oblivion, I don't know if the game itself limits the variaty, but it sounds from Ghastley like there is.

One of my biggest surprises after getting the game like six months ago and exploring the vast mod work that's been done is that there isn't a single complete hi-res retexture of the Oblivion realm. I agree it'd be great if there were mods to add variety to the realm, but as mentioned there are limitations preventing work being done in some cases, while a simple retexture only demands one spend a little time. I'm just surprised after five years it hasn't been done (note that there is an incomplete texture pack out there however).

It might not be high-res, but Corepc's vibrant textures makes a big difference to the visuals of oblivion realms: it looks *so* much better than vanilla. However it doesn't change the fact there's ony seven random realms.

Vac

It would be interesting to see a Unique Landscapes style mod for Oblivion realms.... that would be pretty sweet.

Really? When I checked out the screenshots for Core's replacement textures all it seemed like to me was that there was an increase in saturation. And because I use ScreenEffects with 1.10-1.20 saturation, I figured the mod wasn't for me since I effectively already have "vibrant" Oblivion. Not to mention I felt kind of bad for Core putting all that work into something you can accomplish with ScreenEffects. But is there something more to the textures I'm missing? The comparison screenshots just made it seem like an increase in saturation was the biggest difference.

Also unrelated but I'm looking for your thread that included the falling leaves resource since I just got the Autumn Trees mod that uses them and want to make a note of it there if it hasn't been updated already. Been a while since I found it linked in the All Natural thread I believe.