I just started playing the Elder Scroll series a couple weeks ago. All the hype about Skyrim coming out got me curious, so I picked up Oblivion, just to check it out. I haven't stopped since, except to eat, sleep, and other necessities of life. I just hit level 21 this evening, and I'm currently in Sancre Tor, looking for the armor of Tiber Septim. I've no idea how far along in the main quest line that is (feel free to give a percentage, if anyone feels like it), but it feels like I've barely scratched the surface. I've never played a game with just the sheer amount of [censored] to do as this one, lol. I have to force myself to go back and do another step in the main quest line every day or so, just to keep things moving along. There have been a number of times I'll see somewhere on the map I want to check out. I'll get on my horse and start riding there. I'll come across a dungeon, or Oblivion gate, or quest giving NPC, or something else, and I'll stop to take care of that. Sometimes it'll take a couple days just to get to my original destination because I keep getting sidetracked by stuff along the way. The amount of content in a single game really is staggering.

Also, for having been made 5 years ago, the graphics really are gorgeous. I've started a screenshot collection of some of the more beautiful scenes I come across, and it's growing fairly steadily. My computer's a couple years old, and it would've been considered high-end when Oblivion was first released, so it's nice that I can all the settings at high and still have awesome performance.

I'm tabbed out from the game right now. I just wanted to come and rant about how amazing it is, though I'm sure everyone on these forums already knows. I played the crap out of Fallout 3 back when it first came out, and I've heard of Elder Scrolls for a long time. It's a wonder I've never played it till now. This is one of those times where better late than never is definitely true


Oh, I do have one question. I see a lot of people posting mods and whatnot. I've yet to install anything outside the Unofficial patches. Are there really any benefits to using mods, and what are some favorites among the tons and tons that exist?

Your poll is pointless, therefore I refuse to vote.

However, you are correct, Oblivion is a great game.

The Elder Scrolls games are in a class by themselves. Even though each game is flawed in some way, they all stand as unique, and can't really be compared to other games (not even really to each other.) "Great" or "Greatest" doesn't enter into it. There just isn't anything else like it.

That depends. Are you satisfied with vanilla Oblivion? If so, you won't see many benefits from using mods. On the other hand, if there are things about the game that you would like to change, there is a great deal of benefit to using mods. Mods allow you to change those things (in most cases). Do you want different house for your character besides the ones in Oblivion? Download a house mod. Do you want more armor or weapons? Download armor and weapons mods. Do you want a companion or two to keep you company on your journeys? Download companion mods. Almost anything you want to change about the game can be changed. It's up to you to decide if you want to change your game and, if so, how. Then go to sites like http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.List&game=4 or http://www.tesnexus.com/ and look for mods that change those things.



I choose my mods on a character-by-character basis. Each of my games has a slightly different mod list. It all depends on what my character needs. But I have a few mods that 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, allowing the player to concentrate on roleplaying. Realistic Leveling tends to be the better mod for the more jack-of-all-trades characters or for characters that change during the course of a game. nGCD tends to be the better mod for characters that fit conventional Dungeon-and-Dragons archetypes and never deviate from that during the course of a game.

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=12149 by tejon. Attempts to expand on Bethesda's concept of Birthsigns and make them for interesting and fun, at all levels.

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35300 by ZenshinZenrei. Introduces three special advantages to each of the predefined Oblivion classes in order to make them more unique. Advantages are similar to special class traits from Arena and Daggerfall. Custom classes pick three Advantages manually.

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 of the plugins 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.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 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=35908 by Shezrie. A compilation of five of Shezrie's superb villages, all in the Tamriel worldspace. Lakeland Village (south of Imperial City), Ravenwood Village (north of Chorrol), Woodland Village straddling the road between Imperial City and Skingrad (my favorite up to now), Haven Bay (in Valenwood) and the centerpiece of the mod, a complete makeover and expansion of Pell's Gate. Shezrie has been an excellent house modder since the days of Morrowind and her villages for Oblivion are Bethesda-quality in my opinion.

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. Those who are familiar with Tamriel Rebuilt's work for Morrowind will know that this is high-quality modding with an eye towards accuracy in matters of lore.

Modders: greatest game.

Hmmm, I'm kinda set up similar to Pseron Wyrd. Where he uses Better Cities, I use Open Cities Reborn. He uses a combo of leveling mods, I just use progress. But for the most part, minus his villages he has, it's real similar. Armor mods are chosen on a character basis. Homes chosen either by design or something I do myself for my own characters. It depends.

There's one mod I can't do without and that's Portable Campsite. I love being able to make a fire, pitch a tent and toss out a bed roll anywhere I'm at without having to worry about "finding" some place to stay.

I'm a big fan of pointless polls





Holy crap, I hope you had that saved somewhere as a Word doc and didn't write that entire thing out from scratch. Either way, thanks a ton! There's quite a few things in there I'm likely going to get, that hadn't even occurred to me up to this point.

So far, I've only discovered one thing I actually don't like. I used a Night Eye signet stone on a piece of gear, not really knowing what it did, exactly (hadn't used any potions or spells for it before), and now, everything's grey, regardless of what time it is. I'd kind of assumed it would only affect the nighttime, but I'm finding I have to take my gauntlets off during the day, just so it's not gray and washed out. If there's a mod that changes that, that'd be awesome. I'm not even sure how to search for one like that, though I'll give it a shot.

Actually, another one that just occurred to me that I'm going to have to look for is something to allow more interaction with my horses, lol. Like in Fallout 3, you could pet your dog companion, or give him treats. It'd be nice to have an animation of petting my horse, or giving it a carrot or something. What can I say, I'm a big softy

It's funny you should mention Open Cities Reborn. In the game I'm setting up right now I'm using it for the first time. I've used Open Cites in the past but never Reborn. We COC'ed to Chorrol and Bruma last week to look at what he's done and I'm really impressed. I think I'll be keeping this mod for a very long time. Of course I just had to tear down the walls in a few of the cities...

And it's funny you should mention Portable Campsite too. I took my character on a little test drive tonight and after a half hour I decided we needed a portable tent mod before we began the game for real. Portable Campsite was one of the ones I downloaded. I swear, I just downloaded that mod like twenty minutes ago. :laugh:

OMGosh too weird! LOL And you'll LOVE that campsite mod. I couldn't believe what a huge difference that tiny little mod made for me. Be careful with see you sleep with that though. I'm not sure what it was but my system couldn't handle those two together. Froze or crashed on me every time. Well to be honest, my puter hated see you sleep from the jump so it's probably something on my end. I can't use it


salihe66 - You want "Pat my horse". Except now I can't find it *sighs* ... I think Acadian has it, he's likely to pop in here. If he does, I'll nab it myself again.

Oh awesome! I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.

Oh, I am somewhat curious, as well, as far as my percentage in the main quest line. I got Tiber Septim's armor, and I'm retrieving a Daedric artifact right now. Whereabouts would that be, as far as completion? The reason I'm curious is because I want to make sure I cram in as much side-stuff as I can before actually finishing the main quest line. I'm trying to pace it out as I go; just curious how I'm doing. Judging from what I've read, level 21 is fairly high for where I am at the moment. I have been doing a lot more side-stuff than main quest stuff, so I'm sure that's mainly why.

Welcome to the rank of The Elder Scrolls fans. Jammed packed with content and overwhelming, isn't it? Take your time and enjoy. And get ready for Skyrim!

In my personal opinion, that no-one has to agree with, Oblivion was the worst Elder Scrolls game made so far.
I once for fun wrote an entire page listing my gripes and dislikes with the game, without ever touching elvel scaling or features ruined by the level scaling

From the fat-suit armours to the arbitrary gimps and caps on spellmaking and enchanting.
From the inane dialogue to the horrible procedurally generated world.

That being said, when compared to other games of its generation that are not Elder Scrolls, its one of the best.
Says something about Bethesda that even when they fail they still outdo the competition by a long shot.

It's a Great Game. For a game to be "greatest", it has to have everything I want, which is impossible, of course.



It's a shame you're getting into it now, because it sounds like you're rushing the game a bit, instead of having the time to really explore Oblivion's depth.



I keep hearing how Oblivion's graphics are "dated", but I haven't really tried any of the newer games out there, so I can't say myself. Personally, I still love the graphics. It's like an Impressionistic painting in motion at times.



If you can get them running, you will never ever want to play another video game for a long time, from what I'm hearing. I just have a PS3, personally. I'm sure if I had access to mods, my "job performance" would fall, I would never leave the house, which would fall into receivership while I sit there playing.

Have a http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fishy-stick#.Tmn0Hezwm7s btw.

I was about to give you a fishy stick but I see Renee Gade III finally gave you one.

Oblivion is a great game, I would even say Awsome game but not the greatest ever. To me that would be Daggerfall or Morrowind. Oblivion is just missing something that Daggerfall/Morrowind had. Oblivion has been "streamlined" "dumbed down" what ever you want to call it, but it is still an awsome game. I think if it wasn't so "streamlined" it could have been the best game ever.

Yes Morrowind was hard. Instead of streamlining or eliminating the failure part of the game, they could have tweaked it so you didn't fail so much. That is my main fault with the game, you don't fail in casting magic spells, you don't fail in hitting your opponent and I Hate the mini games. I don't think a low level thief should be able to pick a high level lock or in my case, a high level thief can't pick a low level lock.

I think taking out the mini games, having a chance to fail, getting rid of level scaling and have an option for the indicators on the compass, and Oblivion could very well become one of the greatest games ever.

I'm finding, actually, it's impossible to rush it, lol. There's just too much. Plus, I'm deliberately spreading myself as thin as possible and doing a large number of quests from all over to make sure the game lasts as long as possible. When I do finally finish it, I don't want there to be a single stone left uncovered, which, I gather, is going to take quite a bit of time. That's ok, though; as long as I finish a day or so before Skyrim comes out, I'll be happy




To compare, the character models and textures in Oblivion are somewhat dated, but the landscape graphics are as beautiful as any I've seen in any other game.




Hell, I don't have any mods installed yet, and I still haven't wanted to play any other game since I got it, lol. There are a few from the list above that I'm going to try, though they're mainly minor, topical things, like flowers changing when harvested and whatnot.




nomnomnom

LOL ... we all keep getting sidetracked and not answering your question. We have short attention spans around here. :whistling:

If memory serve me, (that's always a bit shakey) I think you are at about 60-65% complete with the MQ.

It will be the greatest game, once I've finished writing my latest mod. But only for a short time, until I get an idea for another one. :whistling:

hehe, it happens. And tyty, I didn't realize I was that far along. I'll have to start doing other stuff, like getting max rank in every single guild, lol. That alone should occupy a fair bit.

Great game.

One of the awsome things is there are quests and things to do after the main quest is complete. I am still working on finishing the expansions for Morrowind. Strolled into SI last weekend, and got overwhelmed in New Sheoth. So much more still left to do. Finising the the main quests are really just the begining IMO.

Not the greatest, not want it to have my babies as it does have its share of flaws. However since I still play it after four years and to top it off, with the same character, I′d say it qualifies as a great game

It's a great game no doubt about that.

I absolutely adore Oblivion but I won't go so far as to say that its the greatest. ( I don't have the pc version though..so if I did have it with mods then I might commit to it being the greatest until skyrim comes out)