That's actually a pretty decent anology. I'd never thought of it that way before. B)

I'm glad I'm limited by being on a console. I know myself too well. If I had access to all the mods available to you PC users, I'd never get anything accomplished in the game. I'd spend all my time messing with the mods.

That's might be true, having just found out I have to reinstall all my mods .... maybe I should get a console.

~ Dani ~

I remember when I had to put up with an ugly clothes selection. So I'd just keep my armor on the whole time.

I remember when guards would mass slaughter tavern patrons for getting a bite of corn.

Mods.. I have no use for them i have been thinking about them though...?

Mods are ok, I have always been a console gamer through and through (mainly because of my 10 year old computer I had) but a couple months ago I got a new PC a really good Dell and I got Oblivion for it and my greatest fear came alive...I have become a slacker and use console commands to do everything, I dont know how to control it help meeee!!!! :ahhh: I cant control the power!

But honestly half the mods out there are either eye candy or some wierd God swords that just look unruly. Some are good though, but the ones I want I cant get to work, I have watched sooooo many tutorials on downloading and using mods but it just doesnt click for me. I guess I will always like Vanilla OB more since almost all my memories from 7th to 9th grade are Oblivion on my xbox 360 hahaha.....sad......

Yes, I remember Oblivion before I installed the "Spell Tomes," "Fighter's Stronghold," and "Horse Armor," mods. Sorry I couldn't resist. I play on the Xbox 360 version, so no community made mods for me.

Sorry I can't add anything to this. I installed Oblivion and my son plays it. I havn't started it yet. All I can say, is I remember when I only had a few options for hair when creating a character. Now I have alot more options for hair, and long hair at that.


What mod is this? I never herd or read about this before.

I remember playing the games without mods and thinking about how boundless and amazing the world seemed to be. How you could be walking down a path and be shocked to see an Ayleid ruin, or how you'd find an interesting NPC you'd never met before. But, it wore off eventually... and then I discovered mods.

My first mod was the Dwemer Skyship (yeah, I didn't start playing the game much until 2 years ago), and after that I was stunned. I haven't nothing against people that do, but I don't download mods that add races or anything lore-breaking. If it adds cats or hawks I'm fine, but once it gets into adding random things that don't make sense in TES I try to avoid it, just 'cause I love TES.

I remember specifically how the cities felt without mods, for some reason. They all felt bigger... and I really don't know why but they did. Imperial city felt massive, you never really felt you knew your way around it. But then I downloaded tons of mods adding things to merchants and eventually I learned "coc ICMarketDistrictDivineElegance".

Loading up the game for the first time felt a world away from how I feel now. When I saw Khajiit and Argonians for the first time I was freaked out, that lasted for a few days, but I got used to them. I remember I wouldn't be a Dark Elf because they had bloodshot eyes, too. I decided I'd be a Wood-Elf since the default male one had my skin-tone (I didn't know you could change skin-tone), and I tried to make him look like me, thinking back it was probably disgusting (I've gotten used to making faces).

I remember walking out of the prison, wandering down to the water, following the lake, being chased by a Bandit, running for my life and wondering how the #%!@ I was supposed to find anything, and then a wolf ended up killing me. I honestly thought the game was going to be much more dark and sinister than it was. The disk-case looked so ominous, lol. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Before mods I made characters who'd always be stealth because I was afraid of being scared... fear of fear.

I never roleplayed before mods, the idea never came to me. I was used to writing stories, drawing comics, roleplaying on forums, and stuff like that, but I took on pretty quickly after I saw how some people did it.

Early on I was afraid of the country of Cyrodiil because I didn't know what to expect. Especially because my friend who gave me the game told me "If you see a troll run to the water.", and I was asking him tons of questions about spells because the idea of being able to breathe underwater and walk on water due to a spell in a videogame was... the most amazing thing I'd ever heard of (at the time).

After I've remembered all of this, Oblivion is going to feel so different the next time I turn it on.

My best guess is that it is Kuertee's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23862

I'm not sure where the comment about most mods being either eye candy or swords of god power came from when the most popular mods are the complete makeover mods (Frans, OOO, and their derivatives, plus MMM of course). Granted makeovers also contain eye candy, but that's not the bulk of the work in them.

Obviously, the character aesthetic mods are hugely popular, but then again, the default characters are just so unappealing that there's no emotional connection, at least for me (and probably most people who download the aesthetics like Ren's mod).

Actually, I've installed a lot of mods to visually improve the game (landscape and characters) and fix minor irritations and flaws, but for the most part gameplay has stayed unmodded for me. I've never used any of the drastic "overhaul" mods since they change the game far beyond anything the developers intended. Maybe I will someday, but with more Fallout on the horizon I doubt it.

Actually, it's proabably a good idea to keep in mind that what the developers intended may not be what was shipped as the packaged game. This is because the developers are not free to simply offer the game they'd truly like to offer. They must chip away and offer something that can fit the technical limitations they have at the time, meet deadline dates, and meet other elements such as ratings restricttions. What developers would really like to offer, and play, and see the public play, may be very different from what is shipped after restrictions of media space, technical limitations of all possible platforms are considered, and publisher marketing concerns are factored into the development process.

In other words, developers ship a compromise product in the vast majority of cases, particularly for major titles. A company such as Bethesda has been very successful because they get around such restrictions by offering consumers the tools to work around said restrictions and limitations, therefore meeting both the restrictions of formal publishing as well as the needs of their paying customers. In short, modding by the consumer is what the developers intended, but exactly HOW a mod might take place is quite open-ended and uncontrolled. We can certainly see that the developers did not intend for the game to be unmodded or they would not have provided the tools to do so.

What I remember the most about Oblivion before mods is how new and unfamiliar the world was, and how much I loved getting lost in it. I took mental notes of which Conjurer's lairs were my favorites, which bends of road were the most scenic, what exact time of day was best for revealing the warm light of a Gold Coast sunset, where patches of my favorite alchemy ingredients grew. It was captivating to me. Captivating enough to play and enjoy without mods.

I do play a modded Oblivion now, and my list of mods is pretty small. Bug fixes, and a few mods that enhance what I already liked about the game- the landscapes, the cities, the music. I've added more quests, and cosmetic mods to spice up character generation after all these years. But I don't use a large overhaul, and I still pick flowers by hand, one by one. Is it, objectively speaking, a better game than vanilla? I guess that depends on what you're looking for. It is certainly a more customized one, that much can be said.

It is my own mod, not released. It's not perfect yet, I have to manually "equip" an item after I die (my character is set to Important so he doesn't die). Then I am transported to a random inn and have a random chance of losing certain amounts of gold or certain items or even everything. An NPC will have all your items and you can buy them back at a very inflated price.

I might release it once I get it working correctly.

I bought the game the first week it was out but I've only recently begun to add mods. It just didn't seem to need anything,

But.

Angel loves to travel through the wilderness but always had to return to the city at night if she wanted to sleep and she doesn't like that nighteyes effect. She now has a great campsite she can set up when it gets dark. As she settles down on a stool in front of her campfire, I can hear her saying "I love magic."

well, I've read a lot about mods but I'm on the xbox with no xbox live so the only difference from vanilla oblivion was when I got the GOTY. That had a surprising change on events. I think Cyrodiil is awesome without mods. Obviously other people will disagree. bliviongate:

I just use a night-eye shader replacement that makes the effect brighten without the blue tint. And it never made any sense that a khajiit should "cast" spell repeatedly to see in dark, so i have it toggleable, now if i only could get it without the casting animation, which i have replaced with a fingersnap animation. And i use the toggleable scout abilty from RBP's Thief birthsign which combines night-eye with life detect, an improved version of Hunter's Sight without the vampirism.

Cheating? Maybe. I'll stop it once i get a formal letter of complaint from mr. Dagon

Have no problem here. Never modded it, it′s awesome as it is. Not AS awesome as when it was new to me, but still

I have to agree with AiTenshi1. I have a 300+ mod install (actually, raising it to 400 now), which includes over 100 merged weapon and armor mods. None of these are the steel underwear eye-candy armor mods (although, I suppose some come close). But even that's only 25% of my mods. Most of mine make my character tired, thirsty, hungry, give her more places to explore, places to live, less money, and so on. Mods can add so much to the game, far beyond strange swords and armor.

@ Cpt. Krunch: I understand how some mods are hard to install (having just went through an FCOM install). Maybe you should look at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15256? This is very easy to install and adds a lot the game. Also, maybe take a look at Adonnay's weapons http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9185 and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5024. They are very cool and very realistic.

Sometimes, tho, you just have to look through a lot of mods to find something that appeals to you.

~ Dani ~

When half the books had the same cover.(Book Jackets High Res)
When placing books on shelves was a test of patience.(Bookplacer)
When ragdoll physics were extremely poor quality.(Realistic Ragdolls)
When the UI was huge and I could only fit 5 items of my inventory on my 1920 x 1200 screen. (Darnified UI)
When wine bottles has blurry textures.
When Magic was generic. (Midas Magic)
When nobody turned their lights on at night.
When Lava looked like jello. (Real Lava)
When 3/4 of my inventory was keys. (Keychain)
When Textures were low res. (Qarls Texture Pack 3)
When you couldn't cut people to pieces(Deadly Reflex)

EDIT: I changed the wording of a few ones.

Idk why people with mods like to hate on Vanilla.

I mean cmon....

When the game used to truly be......TES IV

Wait that counted as hate on vanilla?

Before... mods?

I don't follow.

It's not hate exactly, but mods allow to improve things that i feel are poorly designed. Modded Oblivion is still Oblivion, but with a shinier, smoother, and better mechanics and presentation

Opinions differ, naturally, but i couldn't play without nGCD or Darnified UI anymore.