Hello Oblivion fans! I'm basically new to Oblivion and I want to make the game better through mods. I have Natural Environments, Unique Landscapes, and Qarl's Texture Pack III installed. Not sure if they are showing up in game though. However I need help finding a mod to make the NPC's of Oblivion better looking overall, and a mod to make the world more dangerous when exploring. Could you guys please recommend any essential mods that would fit? Looking at some of the mods makes my head spin because they seem very difficult to install.

Start http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/449239-oblivion-mods-faq/.

http://tescosi.com/wiki/Main_Page is another excellent resource.

You can find 'prettyfication' mods on TES Nexus, under textures, and such like.

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul will make the world a much more interesting place, and adds a lot of content as well. Martingens Monster mod also does neat things to the world, and goes really well with OOO. if you are just getting started with mods though, best to start easy, instead of just leaping off into the deep end. (FCOM)

Oblivion Mod Manager and Wrye Bash both have the ability to help out with installing mods. There is a lot of overlap between the tool tools, but, I find them both Useful. BOSS is a must have, once your load order starts getting fairly long.... (all available on Nexus.)

If you modded for morrowind, you will find that some aspects of oblivion modding are easier.....

Thank you very much. Can someone help me out a little here. In game I have yellow stars that says "WTF I'm missing mesh." I thought I had better Cities, Natural Environments, Unique Landscapes, and lastly Qarl's texture Pack III loaded. However I don't see anything different in game and I have no different weather. I noticed there was no snow in the mountains near Bruma and Cloud Ruler Temple. I start up OBMM and then go to utilities/Archive Invalidation(check BSA Alteration, and BSA Invalidation). I get a lot of errors I have to click "OK" to. The mods are listed in blue in OBMM and I don't know where I'm going wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: UGH now I can't even load the game. It just crashes back to desktop. I'm on a newer PC with Windows 7 if that helps.

Use Redirection instead. It just works. There is also a mod on nexus Archive Invalidation Invalidated. That works too.

You are probably trying to add too many mods at once. Start small, make sure the game loads, and the mod is working, then move on the next install. It wouldn't hurt to play the vanilla game up to the point where you are about to exit the sewers, and then enable mods. (make a save there, so, if you decide to restart later, you don't have to go thru all the tutorial again.)

Okay I got it working again yes! Anyway can some very nice person please walk me through installing Qarl's Texture Pack and Enhanced Weather? Those are the only two mods I'm going to install the rest of the game will be default.