It might be premature, but a 'pack' of sorts that included many of the fundamental scaling visual/graphic mods, and some of the more essential landscape expansions would probably be the most helpful. That's what really helped me with morrowind, having a set of about 60 plug-ins that included all of those types of mods so all I had left to do was install gameplay tweaks and a couple extras. That way somebody with expert knowledge would be able to get all the load orders and compatabilities taken care of for somebody like myself who has to ingest large amounts of text everytime they install a mod because they don't know really what they are doing. might be too soon for that though, I don't know.

Psymon: that guide is mostly a graphics guide. Actually, it is a good base if he added options for the lesser computer (Never tried QTP Reduced Max, but I'd imagine that at that point it'd be better to use a different texture mod).

I found a great themed http://arwenevecom.ipage.com/Oblivion/OB-mods.htm recently. That was the type of guide I was searching for when I just started. Too bad I found it after all that struggle I've had finding/choosing my mod setup.

If you guys do end up doing this project, linking to these guides like these (as alternatives or as complements) would be nice.

Arwen's site is dated. As are most of them.

I posted that in jest actually - to point out that no matter how thorough - most lists will become outdated.

or that no matter what list is constructed that someone will always post that it is not enough or has the right stuff.

I was wondering why she recommended Real sleep/thirst/hunger + alcohol mod when Basic Primary needs covers all 4 o.O Guess BPN came out after she made her list.

Way after.

Arwen's site was good 2.5 years ago.

Realism mods is another area where there just isn't going to be agreement. Some still think real hunger is the best, Others don't even know about BPN or Masker's mods or Kuertee Eat and Sleep. There are so many choices the best one could do is recommend what doesn't conflict much.

There are mods we all use here ... RAEVWD, AWLS, AN, UOP, EE, EH, MMO ... but to do the list justice some would reverse engineer the excuse of using these mods as if there are categories to fill. This is easy for categories with no competition - then it gets complicated when there is a lot of categories.

Combat mods for instance. How anyone can recommend Deadly Reflex or that other one by Hex off when the threads are filled to the brim with problem reports is beyond me. On the other hand I would think that Duke Patrick would be a shoe in - others would complain it is too extreme.

Overhauls are another very contentious area. While we can say 'oh well we just won't recommend FCOM to the new comers' the truth is as soon as the new comer gets wind of what FCOM is (or promises to be) they are going to pursue it. Moderation in new comers is not a common thing. I have rarely met the new comer who didn't want to get the best mods (or again what seem the best mods) right off the bat.

They don't learn that things are far more complicate than they seem (unless they have modded another bethesda game) until after the fact then they will espouse moderation.

As a newcomer, I heard FCOM was the best, thus I tried all I could to get it. Any of the other overhauls were downplayed when put next to that one, so it seemed like it was miles ahead of the others. Now having been lead by the bit by forum goers about all the different overhauls, I realized that I didn't need a full FCOM to be happy, the other overhauls actually fit what I wanted nicely (not that I dislike FCOM, I think it's great! so please don't misunderstand me regarding that). So if you guys enter the overhaul area with this idea, please give really good explanations about each. The scaling guide was good for me to see the different stances overhauls can take which is nice, but it was kind of like 'here's a part of FCOM and it's methodology' 'there's a part of FCOM and it's methodology' and, oh, yeah here's FCOM. I get the feeling that was made early in FCOM's life when the different pieces were considered solid overhauls themselves (rather than now which says to use certain parts together if you can't deal with installing the real deal FCOM).

Personally, I never found any of the major overhauls like FCOM or OOO appealing.

Anyway, what is needed is not the recommendation of one over the other, but an honest, straight out appraisal of what they are, what their advantages and disadvantages are, and how they compare against each other.

Same thing with the various leveling systems. Personally I think OblivionXP is basically required, but a lot of people don't. So having a section to describe the most prominent leveling overhauls, and what exactly they change, and advantages and disadvantages compared to vanilla, would be useful.

Dark0ne said we can use the Nexus wiki. I'll be checking it out later, and perhaps create a temp page for starters?