I just bought a new PC and have decided to give the PC version a go, with Mods. Having only ever played it on the 360, I thought I should give it a try before Skyrim comes out.

Which ones should I get?

I would like to completely change the look of the game. I've seen some on Youtube where the forests are lush and unrecognizable compared to the Vanilla game.

More Mobs to fight, including new enemies.

New armour and weapons.

Are they easy to install, as I'm clueless when it comes to Mods?

Before you do anything, I highly recommend reading thru the information available http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/.

Welcome to Oblivion....the way it could have been...Trust in the Advice given above. (and the site) Read a lot or destine to fail. And since you have played the other version. Get a new UI (user interface) I Highly recommend http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11280 .

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/camaro_69_327/Oblivion%202011/Oblivion_2011_03_07_17_25_37_223.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/camaro_69_327/2010%20Oblivion/ScreenShot330.jpg.
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/camaro_69_327/2010%20Oblivion/ScreenShot2-1.jpg
But It Can turn into http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/camaro_69_327/2010%20Oblivion/ScreenShot319.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee72/camaro_69_327/2010%20Oblivion/ScreenShot323.jpg

The above is Old Video card...8800 GTS . Been havin to much fun running around with my New 560 TI . havent any new Pics...

Happy modding go slow and read a lot.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=294
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25429
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2536
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23398
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19370
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22446
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8011 and http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17345

Apart from these "basic" ones that are just eye candy (apart from OOO) I recommend just surfing the nexus www.tesnexus.com and searching for stuff you want to change, for example just search "Fighters Guild" to get fighters guild mods (I know its obvious)

Oh, and welcome to the world of PC gaming

Welcome!

I suggest strongly that you take HeyYou's advice and do some reading and learning first. In addition, you're going to be better off trying to add only about 2 or 3 mods at first. Make sure you can get them working correctly and get used to using the mod utilities before you start adding more.

Going slow at the start will save you headaches down the road.

Get the Drop lit torches Mod.

Bind it to a mouse button.

Oh and make sure you get OBMM (Oblivion Mod Manager) just search for it on the forum and install it straight into your Oblivion Directory (NOT the Data folder).

All other mods go into the Data Folder

Thanks for the advice, I've managed to download and install 3 Mods so far but have failed to install 3 others, including Natural Environments. I do need to learn a lot more, as my knowledge on this subject is non-existant and I really hate reading up on things like this, especially when I don't understand all the terminology. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a technophobe, which makes this sort of thing very off putting.

I have successfully downloaded OBMM but the only Mods I've installed were self installing the others either wouldn't open/install or I didn't have the right program to open them, even though I did install 7-Zip.

I strongly urge you to read the TES4Positive site that Hey You linked you to in post #2. Read the starting with mods sections, as those were written for beginners like you. It does not give you mod recommendations, but instead provides the best practices that are used to install mods. If you don't follow those, eventually you would have crashes later, and would be pretty frustrated.

With natural environments do NOT unzip anything.

Go onto OMM and down the bottom click "create"
Then click Add Archive
Then select Natural Environments 7zip file.

After that click create OMOD and there you go
It may take a while, but it'll create an OMOD in the right hand menu on the main mod screen (the first one you get when you open OMM) at that point just click on it, and click activate

It took me ages to learn all this and compared to LOADS of people out there, I'm still pretty new to it all

Thanks, direct instructions are always best. I'll download the Mods again, as I'm going to delete the first ones. The reason being, I have multiple files of the same Mods, due to my unsuccessful attempts at trying to get the bloody things to work.

Hi,

I would not recommend installing 'natural environments'. It has some nice features (natural habitat for instance) and it was very popular when it come out but it's very buggy and in my opinion quite oudated.

The best weather mod right now is called 'weather - all natural'. It's the best hands down but unfortunately it's quite challenging to install if you are a beginner. The second-best for many is called 'Enhanced weather'. It desn't do as many things as 'all natural' but it's much easier to install and of couse bug-free.

If you want a weather mod, go for "Enhanced weather'.

/agrees with tiny lampe

Also, the nice thing about Natural Habitat is that you can install it separately, it works fine, and it doesn't conflict with anything that I'm aware of. Certainly not with All Natural, or Enhanced Weather either.

Regarding All Natural, it can do one of the other things that Natural Environments did too - that is, you can have it adjust "colour moods", according to weather, etc. It actually does a lot more than that, especially if you maka use of (i.e., edit) the ini. Plus, All Natural actually includes all the weather types from Enhanced Weather, Natural Weather, and Atmospheric Weather System - and you can mix 'n match from those types as you like. The other things it does, straight away without any editing, is add Real Lights (more realistic lighting) and Natural Interiors, so stuff like looking out windows and seeing stuff you actually might expect to.

You *need* http://obse.silverlock.org/ and http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22368 in order to make the mod work, is the only "downside". But these are great things to have anyway, I think you'll find. The http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35230 would be your best bet, to get started with that incredibly useful mod tool.

A couple of other mods I like to add to All Natural are http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35099 for darker dungeons and such, and http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34199 for looking out windows and *really* seeing the stuff you'd expect to - the next level of that, basically.

As for Natural Vegetation, try http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23783 instead - a better version of the same thing.

And that's it - everything from Natural Environments covered, and then some. :yes:

Enjoy!

Agree with Breton Paladin

If you go for 'weather - all natural', the best combo to get a more visually appealing oblivion is full 'all natural' + 'immersive interiors' + cava obscura.

Unlike immersive interiors though, cava obscura can be used with any weather mod so if you want to keep things simple in the beginning and install 'enhanced weather' instead of 'all natural', know that you can still use cava obscura.

Special mention to 'enhanced vegetation'. Not only does it make trees worlds better than vanilla oblivion but it also improves game performance since the textures this mod uses are smaller than vanilla's. So definetely a must.

Continuing with the idea of making oblivion look better, your key word is "retextures". Search in tesnexus 'qarls texture pack', install it, and you will not recognize your game. Search for 'mythic creatures' to greatly improve the appearence of enemies.

Finally one last thing: there is a 'mod' called 'oblivion graphics extender' or 'OBGE' for short. The current version is OBGEv2 and there has recently been a new update. This 'mod' has further ways to improve oblivion visuals. I recommend that you look at it at some point but first go for texture mods, weather mods and the like. And oh, don't forget gameplay! there are many gems out there to improve that aspect as well

I'm newly back to Oblivion myself, but I have a couple of suggestions.

First, if you use mage-oriented characters, I'd suggest both http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12466 (requires OBSE) and http://www.theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=219. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9562 is definitely worth checking out, and I've heard good things about http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30973, but haven't tried it yet.

Second, I never play without http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12249. It allows you to use OOO, MMM, and Warcry at the same time (plus a lot of other mods). See http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1079933-50-steps-to-ctd-almost-free-fcom-game/ thread and the FCOM thread for more details. But FCOM is difficult to setup, so unless you're patient and willing to put a few days or more into just getting your game ready, don't do it. Any of the main three (OOO, Fran's, MMM) are great, but you can't run them together without FCOM.

As mentioned earlier, Wrye Bash is an amazing tool, and a requirement if you want to use a lot of mods. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516 is also very helpful if you use many mods. It will sort (redate) all of them for you into a "best known" order, and print out an html log that provides details such as known conflicts or problems for each mod.

I'm interested in Enhanced Vegetation, tell me which version should I download, as there are 3 resolutions (low/medium/high). Personally I'm only going to bother with Mods that are either self installing or that I can install with OMM (OMOD, etc). The others are too technical for this technophobe. Any other suggestions for suitable Mods would really be appreciated, as I can then build up a nice little portfolio. As I mentioned in my opening post, I would like to change the look of the game, i.e. vegitation, weather, towns, interiors (dungeons, etc), graphical tweaks, armour and weapons.