I'm coming back for a fresh start after years of being unable to play Oblivion on a capable PC. I remember a few mods such as MMM, Frans, a graphics update, and one (can't recall the name) that fixes a large number of bugs found in Oblivion. These, among a few other small mods that add a good touch to the game, were essential for a great Oblivion experience in my book. I'm now completely out of the loop and looking for good quest mods (that don't break the storyline), house mods, bug fixes, armor, weapon, and monster mods. Basically everything.

If someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. Recommendations on mods that aren't necessarily in the top 100 on TESNexus that you find great would be helpful as well.

I believe the large mod that that fixes a large number of bugs is the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296. There's also the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch and the unofficial Official Mods patch. Then on top of that is the Unofficial Patch Supplementals.

But asides from patches, I would highly recommend OOO, and if you want to take it a step further, FCOM. It's a hassle to install, but I've heard it's well worth it. (I'm trying it again since my hard drive crashed befre it was installed).
Lost Spires is a wonderful quest mod, and I personally love "The Blade of the Haunted". Simyaz's mods are excellent, too. Ruined Tail's Tail and Tears of the Fiend are my favorite. There's also Companion Vilja, and Elsweyr Anequina, which was just reuploaded to the TESNexus.
There are quite a few good dungeon mods that I've yet to play but sound great, like the Oubliette, The Sundered Keep, and the Forgotten Realm.

http://tes.multimediaxis.de/?go=dlfile&fileid=349. 80+ quests 60-100+ hour playtime, several great storylines, extremely fleshed out characters, unique and interesting quest/gameplay structure with choices and consequences, multiple solutions, skill checks, riddles, think-outside-the-box-situations, and much more.

Also:

Generic copy/pastes for these topics:



The important parts being:



Recent quest mods that look good, but I haven't really been able to try (for the past year my computer access has been stunted a great degree):

Dark brotherhood renewed (I was able to try this one, it's pretty decent)
northern front
golden crest
Nehrim
Claudia's little Secret (I have played this one... it's one of the better, and slightly more believable "six quest mods")
Gweden Brothel (Theabove mod reminded me of this one, basically a business style mod where you recruit actual prosttutes for the vanilla location... I've played this one, it's decent.)
Adash - City of Magic

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I love how the things I actually write up for individual people slowly become generic copy/pastes themselves.

House mods there's http://oblivionsrealestate.com/ and a number of quest mods get you houses. In Integration you can earn like 3-4 player houses; I actually tried to submit it to ORE on their "Quest-Large" category, but they said it was too much of a quest. Funny thing is I would regularly see people asking for houses that they actually have to earn through epic, long, enthralling quests; and there was no way to really link them to the ORE site because the quest houses there are largely just buying it, or killing a few goblins to get it.


Bug fixes: There's the U patch as mentioned, other than that it's mostly isolated small stuff fixes, and game oversight type fixes like: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25462 http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22894 http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5977, or http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19847.

Armor/weapon: Check the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1167983-list-integrated-items/

Monsters: MMM or Waalx

If you plan on using numerous mods, use http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22368. Incredibly useful utility. Also, http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516 is almost necessary as it automatically sorts any recognized mods (over 12000 of them). http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097 is also useful for installing/uninstalling mods. You can also try using the http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37952. Alot of good mods require this.

Here are a few good ones:
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18305
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34199 (Requires All Natural)
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19370 + http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13834

You can also try looking at dev_akm's guides. http://knol.google.com/k/toql-the-oblivion-quest-list# one lists many quest mods and http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/obliviontextureoverhaul.html one has links to many texture mods you can use to make Oblivion look better (if your build can handle it). Speaking of making Oblivion look better, http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30054 + http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37825 can work miracles. And bring your system to its knees, depending on which/how many shaders you use.

Best thing to do imo is to look around http://tesnexus.com/, http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/category/1-oblivion-mods/, and http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.List.

NGCD + Progress
Lame + SM
Natural Environments
All Natural
FCOM
Duke patrick's mods (all of them)
Sneaking detection recalibrated
COBL
Better Redguards
AV Uncapper + JCN's ini
Enhanced Grabbing
Ren's Guard Overhual
Cava Obscura
Dremora Females
Freindly merchants buy stolen goods & Enhanced Economy
All the Unique Landscapes
Open Cities & Immersive Interiors
Cyrodiil Travel Services
Nice to meet you
Advanced window lighting system
John's Leveled list overhual