After a long time away from Oblivion I decided I would load it on the new rig and have a few help questions

1. (uno) Are there any people hosting up to date listings of recommended mods? My old links are either dead or have not been updated in a while.

2. (dos) For a $10 download Shivering Isles Expansion? yes or no? Never had it before but is cheap these days.

3. (tres) I know from postings in the forums in the past that trying to transfer an old save into a new build often just does not happen. Has anyone figured out what to do to make this possible or come up with a utility that strips a save of offending entries?

Thanks!

1. Just go to TESNexus and look at the top 100.
2. Yes. Yes, and yes. Oh, and yes. If you like Oblivion, you will just love SI.
3. Unsure.

I'm able to load old save games with my new game even though I've dropped many of the old mods, added many new ones and updated most of the rest. I think keeping the mods "clean" by using the features of TES4EDIT helps.

2. Lets just say that SI is a step up in quality compared to Oblivion, it's what Oblivion would be like if more time was spent on it.

3. This is just yucky, you should always start a new game when you majorly change your build. Just from my experience it can lead to a lot of problems. Oblivion has no shortage of those

Here's my favorites. 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.

Thanks! Looks like some of my old favorites are still around and updated!

And from one old timer to another - Have shome shoup old fella :foodndrink:

Links to the UOP's

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296 - UOP

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9969 - Mods patches

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10739 - Shivering isles patch

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27710 - Arthmoors UOP Supplemental, continuation of closing shut the flaws of Oblivion, Knight Of The Nine too.

Something here you may not be aware of Oblivion Stutter Remover http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23208 even just with default settings can be good

And a recent development is TomLongs dedicated and rapidly growing tome of Oblivion knowledge http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/

Definitely get SI, if for no other reason than mod dependency. Far too many worthwhile mods require that you have SI installed. From a modders perspective, it adds new resources to the game that enhance the original.

There are mod lists at the top of this fourm (as I'm sure you know), but oddly enough, I find a lot of cool mods when people start have problems and post load orders. Browse a few threads, look at a few load orders, you might find something you overlooked. Pseron Wyrd's post is actually a good list, although I'd substitute FCOM for OOO, but that's just a preference (and FCOM can be a challenge to install).

Whatever you do, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516. It will make your mod-installing life so much easier.

~ Dani ~

You will need (or, possibly, just want very badly) BOSS, Wrye Bash (and *maybe* OBMM as well), BOMM (but only if you use MS Word), Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE), Streamline, Oblivion Stutter Remover, Fast Exit 2, Darnified UI or DarkUId DarN, Toggleable Quantity Prompt, TES4LODGGen, Ely's Universal Silent Voice (if using any unvoiced mods, that have "speech" anyway), RefScope (or FormID Finder, if preferred), and quite possibly Cobl (mainly a resource mod, but used by a lot of others)...

But before anything else, install: Oblivion, SI, the latest official SI patch, the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (and supplemental patch), and Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch. In that order. From there, choose as you will.

Oh, and check out http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/ - it has a *lot* of excellent advice and info, including links, real load orders, overhaul details, and so on. Highly recommended, to get you back up to speed.

The other thing I suggest doing is scanning the first, say, half a dozen pages of threads, for release or work in progress (Relz or Wipz) threads, and having a look at the OP(s) for them. You'll learn a lot this way, about what's popular, in the works, etc., as well as possibly issues people might be having, patches, and so on. Going back further will only net you more.

As for personal favourites, well, it's all very subjective (I suppose even things like TQP are, but oh well ) but anyway, here are some of mine:

* An alternative start mod (e.g., Alternative Start Arrive By Ship or Start Choices)
* A character leveling mod or combo (e.g., nGCD + Progress, or Oblivion XP)
* A difficulty / world leveling (and so on) overhaul or, or more than one (e.g., OOO, Francesco's, OOO+MMM, Fran's+MMM, FCOM, TIE, TIE+Fran's, etc.)
* An economy fix (i.e., Enhanced Economy)
* Some world retexturing (e.g., Ampol's, Bomret's Detailed Normals + Vibrant Textures, Mikal's, QTP3, etc., etc.)
* Some character and clothing/armour retexturing - and adding (e.g., TGND or HGEC or BAB, Robert's Males, New Face Textures, Armamentarium, etc., etc.)
* Race, magic and birthsign balancing/fixing (e.g., LAME or Supreme Magicka or Fearsome Magicka [...], Race Balancing Project or Cobl Races, etc., etc.)
* A city improver (i.e.,, Better Cities or Open Cities Reborn)
* New areas to explore (e.g., Elsweyr - Deserts of Anequina)
* A weather mod (e.g., All Natural - note: this one goes superbly with the [still in progress, but fully usable] Immersive Interiors; recommended!)

And a lot more. But, I forget, and also... there are many!

I hope your gaming exceeds expectations. All the best. :twirl:

Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like the UL project has come a long way! BOSS had just come out about the time I signed off, good to see it is still around and Wyres stuff is essential as always. OOO, MMM lots of familiar names and FCOM.......still not for the faint of heart lol Will keep me busy for a while just setting it all up.