Oblivion Mods

Reviving an old thread. For those who haven't followed in awhile, the Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul 1.3 was just released. The changes included are numerous, and are getting me back into the game again, with yet another new character. Well worth a look.

Here's a summary of the changes and a link to the download and trailer pages.
http://jorgeoscuro.googlepages.com/ooo1.3readme.html

http://jorgeoscuro.googlepages.com/oscuro'soblivionoverloaddownloads

Enjoy

Malkiel wrote:

Reviving an old thread. For those who haven't followed in awhile, the Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul 1.3 was just released.

Looks interesting, but I simply can't justify changing the game so comprehensively. I've got a balance of good working mods that I like (including some of those in the OOO), and I don't have a problem with the way it runs now.

If I were starting the game fresh, it might be an option, but not now that I'm set in my ways.

You need to fix your URLs. Remove the extra "http:".

Edit: Nevermind! You're fast.

Fixed the links. I'm not seeing a summery of exactly what the mod changes, what are some of the bigger differences between this one and vanilla Oblivion?

Looks like you can view the entire list at: http://jorgeoscuro.googlepages.com/o...

Hmm. It all sounds very interesting, if it works. I'd say that if I ever go back and play Oblivion (which is probably itself very unlikely), I'll give this a go from the very beginning.

Certis wrote:

Fixed the links. I'm not seeing a summery of exactly what the mod changes, what are some of the bigger differences between this one and vanilla Oblivion?

Sorry about those links, first time posting links. :0

The author made many major changes to the structure of the game, and the overall feel is that of a more alive world. The wilderness is much more dangerous, and the author has moved toward more of a static system than vanilla oblivion's levelled system.

I've been playing with the 1.23 version for the last 2 weeks, and it makes major changes to the game that I feel make a better playing experience. If you're at all curious, I'd say check out the trailer:

Edit: Link changed to Google Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3898109583850800025&q=oscuro+overhaul

Its a good watch, and summarizes each of the major changes.

edited to add google video link

good gravy, that's a link to a link to a link to a link with half a dozen attempts to confuse you into downloading some dumb screensaver along the way.

Still, it was a cool video, they could have let the text stay up about twice as long, I had to keep going back to find out what the changes were :p

polypusher wrote:

good gravy, that's a link to a link to a link to a link with half a dozen attempts to confuse you into downloading some dumb screensaver along the way.

i think i got the vid from another source, sorry about that. i edited my original post to add a google video link. much easier. here it is again:
Google Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3898109583850800025&q=oscuro+overhaul
YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4pPuPFFuQbQ

1000s of new weapons, armor, and items!? Sign me up!

You will not draw me back into Cyrodil just as school starts!

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

You will not draw me back into Cyrodil just as school starts!

Sounds like a challenge, how about if we post screenshots of how much fun we're having, hmmm?

Stylez, if you check it out, make sure you watch for the different levels of armor that the imperial soldiers wear. More female guards too. I also noticed that the look of the armor degrades as you go through combat, and gets fixed when you repair your armor. Lots of thoughtful little touches.

Sorry for the thread resurrection, but I'm behind the new-game curve. Quick question about these Oblivion mods-- I want to try them out, but I'm new to PC game modding and I have no idea how to "install" these mods. Do you have to put them in a specific folder somewhere or is there a program to put them into the game?

I have a file called "MaxArrowIncrease.esp" for the number of arrows mod that I want to try out first.

You just put the .esp file in Oblivion's Data folder and then hit "Data Files" on the initial Oblivion screen. That will list all the available mods in the Dat directory and allow you to enable and disable them.

Thanks Danjo, that works. Now what about "BTModCustomizationPackage2.2.rar" (for the user interface mods)? When I put this file in Oblivion's Data folder, it doesn't show up under "Data Files" on the initial screen. Is this because it's a "rar" file instead of "esp"?

Edit: So I figured out that a "rar" file is a zipped archive, so I found a program "WinRAR" that will extract the archive. Now I just need to test and see if it works.

You can also use the Oblivion Mod Manager; I think it's pretty user friendly.

First of all, a big Thank You to everyone who has posted mods here. While reading this thread when the game first came out, I knew that I would need to one day explore the myriad of options popping up every day here. I'd like to give special thanks to The Machine for all the wonderful links and descriptions he'd posted. It's a shame that most of his links pointed to the Bethesda Forums, where most of the threads have simply expired.

Well, I finally got my hands on a copy of the PC version, and I've been having a blast checking out, installing, and configuring all the mods that I missed. Just a quick list of the major mods I've got going right now (It's easy to check with the Oblivion Mod Manager that Yon Rabbit linked):

Atmospheric Weather System - Adds a variety of new weather conditions
Illumination Within Revived Retrofitted - as mentioned previously, you'll see lights coming from inside windows at night.
Retros Fletching/Imbueing - Arrow crafting. Also I'm about to try the Balanced ESP (separate download)
Unofficial Oblivion Patch - Fixes some bugs that haven't been patched yet in the lastest version from Bethesda
Beautiful People - Adds Oogaba and some more races. Some of those are easier on the eyes than others.
Living Economy - comes bundled with OOO. It's a reworking of the economy system.
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (OOO)
Darnified UI 1.1 - An overhaul of the Oblivion UI that takes advantage of high resolution screens. DarN has made his mod compatible with Book Jackets)
Harvest Flora - Plants disappear after you harvest them

Now, I have a question related to that last mod. In the 360 version of the game I remember being able to harvest the fungi pictured below. But now I can't target them.

EDIT: Okay, I just checked the 360 version and you cannot harvest these things, period.

IMAGE(http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/8692/fungusvx4.jpg)
IMAGE(http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1773/fungusclosewy2.jpg)

Harvest Flora came bundled with OOO and from what I understand was supposed to be activated automatically with the full version of OOO. However I had to manually add it into the game from the OOO-Addons folder in order to get it to work. Perhaps I've screwed up modding in such a way that I can't harvest these things anymore?

Yoyo, you've inspired me to go back and start a new character, fresh install, with a new collection of mods. Well, you and my increasing boredom with game after game of cIV.

I'm not sure how I feel about OOO, or at least all of the additions in the mod. I might go with the Lite version and see how it plays. How's your experience been, Yoyo? I'm skeptical of how crowded the outlands will be, and how the leveled lists have been changed. But it does include the Natural Wildlife mod, and the arrow damage and speed increases that I like.

Book Jackets and Illumination Within are going in, though I'm adding Natural Interiors to pair up with IW.
I'm going to give AWS a shot, along with the AWSO Mod to tweak it slightly. But if I don't like it, I'm going to go back to Natural Environments (with the color override), which is what I used previously and really liked.
I'm also adding:
Attack & Hide 2.1
Crowded Roads
Elven Map Redux with Borderless Map Icons
Immersive Interface or the DarNified UI, one of the two.
Immersive Health Indication

I'm going to use the Mod Manager for the first time, as well to try and keep all this straight!

I really enjoy looking for mods that have had time to develop. When I first played, it was hit or miss with some of the quality. Now, its like kitting out for a big expedition and trying to pick the best gear.

Just as an update, I've decided not to go with OOO, because I can't justify all the crap that he's included. So, instead, I've aimed to recreate the bits I like about OOO without all the bits I don't. So far, it looks great and is running well, after a few minor hiccups.

If anyone's interested, I'll post a list of what I'm running.

I'm interested in seeing that list.

I'm also interested in seeing that list.

You know what, I'm gonna have to give Natural Environments a shot. It looks gorgeous. And it's got rainbows! Now if only they had a Pot O' Gold mod.

Also I was just thinking: If you want to post a list of what you're running, a cropped screenshot of OBMM might be simplest.

Finally: My game crashed a few times in the middle of fights with Attack and Hide enabled. I think I've played about 10 hours since I turned it off, and it hasn't crashed during a fight since then. I've had OOO on the whole time.

Haakon7 wrote:

I'm not sure how I feel about OOO, or at least all of the additions in the mod. I might go with the Lite version and see how it plays. How's your experience been, Yoyo? I'm skeptical of how crowded the outlands will be, and how the leveled lists have been changed. But it does include the Natural Wildlife mod, and the arrow damage and speed increases that I like.

Hmm, where is the outlands? I've been playing this game for a combined total of maybe 60 hours and I've never even heard of it yet. So I'm not sure how that's changed. I'm using the OOO-Full esp. In regards to arrows, I think he added range, speed, and damage across the board and then tried to balance it by establishing a fatigue penalty cost for nocking an arrow and holding it there. It seems to work that way if your Marksman skill is under 25, but past that, there's no fatigue penalty at all. I'm not sure if that's intentional, or a bug, or a personal problem with my mod list. I don't have Thieves' Arsenal in there yet because it seems to require that I add a bunch of .dll's to my game - a little much for me right now. But I digress. I want to talk about Natural Wildlife. I didn't realize it was a part of OOO until I read your post.

My current character is a Male Mystic Elf (comes from Beautiful People) with waist-length hair. Most of the time when I'm sneaking around, I take off all the armor and run around in my over-sized loincloth. From the third person perspective, he reminds me of a Native American Indian trapped in Tamriel, especially with the bow and arrow.
Last night I was riding horseback up the hill for the Fingers of the Mountain Quest. It's the recommendation quest from the Chorrol Mages' Guild. Not too far from town I spotted a couple of deer in front of me. I dismounted and immediately went into sneak, and once I got within 20-30 feet I took one down with an arrow. The other one took off away from me. I chased it up to the top of that particular ridge, and on the other side I discovered a tiny forested valley. After looking around a bit, I noticed that the other deer was already dead, lying on its side and dribbling blood from its mouth on the other side of the valley. But I couldn't tell what had gotten to it. I crept a little into the dip and all of a sudden I saw a couple of white and gray blurs coming out at me from the brush, and before I knew it I was fighting some wolves that seemed to be defending their kill. I managed to kill one and wound the other, but it disappeared on me. Once I got closer to the fallen deer, it appeared again a bit ahead of me and came at me. While I was fighting that one, a third one came up from behind and almost got me.

That whole part was really fun to play. I don't know if you can get that kind of experience in vanilla Oblivion, but if it is possible, it's probably more rare. After I recovered all my arrows and claimed all my pelts and meat, I went back to check on the horse to make sure that a fourth wolf hadn't gotten to it while I was away. It seemed fine, so I mounted up and followed the path up the hill a bit more. After coming around a particular bend, I saw a flash of something casting a spell on itself, but I couldn't see what the heck it was. I dismounted and started sneaking around again, but within moments I was getting hammered with unknown green spells from an invisible "Mythical Imp". Before I knew it I was on the ground wishing I'd saved after fighting all those wolves. I reloaded and went after it again, but killing it required notching the difficulty down by 3%, the use of a couple of daily powers, and all the charges on the first magical blade I've acquired so far, at level 3. It's a clear example of the kinds of wilderness creature level differences you'll find in OOO. It could kill me in only 2-3 blasts while I had no trouble with the wolves. The other imps in the area were not quite so powerful.

Actually, from the hindsight of writing this post, I'm thinking it's quite likely that the deer and wolf encounter was semi-scripted (via spawn point placement) by Bethesda and/or Oscuro. However I was able to get much closer to the deer than I could in vanilla. Has anyone else seen this?

I've only gone through one dungeon so far in OOO; Vilverin is directly north of the Imperial sewers exit from the tutorial. In the very last room of the dungeon, there's a high level necromancer which I was absolutely no match for. He had surrounded himself with several spectral summons. I had no choice but to activate an invisibility daily power in order to sneak by him on my way out. According to Gamefaqs, he's a leveled enemy, so I'm guessing in vanilla I would've been able to face him and survive.

From what I gather from the Readme's mission statement, one goal of OOO was to add mods that increased the immersiveness of the game.

After 10-15 or so hours spent with it, I can say that he's somewhat succeeded at increasing it and that the increase is tangible. It's not massive, but it's there. It comes somewhat in the way of small things like the way the item prices are changed by Living Economy or from Harvest Flora, but also in more abstract ways such as with the creature AI described above. At the same time though, I can think of at least one thing that's hurt the immersion-level. Since he's added female guards to the rosters of several towns, they have certain dialogue responses that are supported only by text and not by voiceovers. They were never recorded and do not exist.

I've found that a bunch of other mods I've added in have gone the rest of the way in increasing the overall immersion of my current install. I'm talking about mods like Book Jackets, Atmospheric Weather, and Illumination Within.

The "General Overview of OOO's Gameplay Vision" also says he's trying to make it more believable and rewarding. I think that looting the torso armor off of female bandits and finding that they all have highly athletic physiques sporting Double-D's underneath is simultaneously unbelievable and rewarding. Unbelievably rewarding, even. Oh wait, that has nothing to do with OOO, that comes from another mod. Whoops. Oscuro's changes seek to increase the rewards alongside the risks. I can't say that he's really done that for me so far. There didn't appear to be any gold-filled suitcase equivalent at the bottom of Vilverin, and that damn Mythical Imp gave me nothing more than a Mythical Imp Sack worth 50g.

I think if you've played enough vanilla Oblivion to be able to understand all the changes in OOO after going through that massive Readme, then you'll probably be able to make a more accurate judgement than I can as to whether or not it's for you. Initially, I approached OOO as kind of a one-stop shop for jamming a whole bunches of changes into my game without having to worry if it all worked correctly and without spending too much time on it. It's more or less filled that niche for me nicely.

Yoyoson wrote:

Initially, I approached OOO as kind of a one-stop shop for jamming a whole bunches of changes into my game without having to worry if it all worked correctly and without spending too much time on it. It's more or less filled that niche for me nicely.

Thanks for those musings, Yoyo. That's seriously helpful. Particularly the bit about the DD's. Yes. Very rewarding. Very.
However, I know that it might be shocking and perhaps unbelievable, but animated breasts aren't enough!

I'm really aiming for the immersion and 'realism' factor, I think. (It could be termed 'continuity with my Morrowind experience'.) I'm not wanting Bosmer Rangers roaming around with bear friends and hordes of Raiders and Amazons and Golems dancing throughout the countryside with bells on. That just breaks the 'continuity' for me. So, I guess I want the gameplay balances and the realism without all of his extra content that he feels enhance the game. To that point, I was disappointed that his 'Lite' version removed almost all of the 'gameplay' I can understand wanting to keep and left in all his 'extra content'. I've poached some of his included content, though, as they are ones I feel fit what I'm trying to accomplish.

So, as I've said, I've decided to scrap OOO and go with some of what I knew worked, while trying to find a good mix of realism, moving scenery & weather, and challenge.
The Majors:
Atmospheric Weather (Paired with some of the Natural Environments mods below. I left out the Weather & Water mods)
Natural Interiors
Better Levelled Lists
Tom Servo's Rare Items 1.8
Living Economy

The Minors
No psychic guards 1.1 - HarderAttack & Hide 2.1 (Medium)
Lyrondor's Combat Behavior
Immersive Health Indication
DarNified UI & Book Jackets mods
Immersive Interface (works with DarNified if you install it afterward)
Illumination Within Revived - Optimized (must have IWR)
Harvest Flora - Lite
Crowded Roads
Natural Interiors - Slightly Louder Sounds
Natural Interiors - Cities
Book Jackets
Natural Habitat
Natural Vegetation
Natural Wildlife - Resized
Larger Ogres & Trolls
Elven Map Redux
New Nebular & Night Sky - Fire & Ice (I'm frankly not sure how they've mixed, so I dunno what I have in there currently)
OOO: Level Rates Modified x3
OOO: Dangerous Traps
OOO: Armor Perks Wear Rate & Repair
OOO: Drop Lit Torches (Immersion)
OOO: Magic Effects+Spells
OOO: Magic Gameplay Settings
OOO: Combat and Marksmanship Skills & Perks

Mods I'm Considering:
Eagle Eye's Archery Mod - If OOO's Combat & Marksmanship Skills & Perks doesn't work out.)
Natural Environments - If AWS doesn't really sell me on itself, I'll go back to NE. Keep me updated, Yoyo, on what you think about it.
Francesco's Levelled mod (to replace Better Levelled, but again, there's more to it that I don't want)
Might shift to Attack & Hide Easier

This stuff makes me want to start playing again.

So, after about ten hours or so, I've concluded that the mods make bears vicious opponents, and there may be way too many of them.
Also, if you are going to install Natural Interiors, be sure to patch it to cover the Bravil Mages' Guild.

Bears are savage, soulless killing machines. Were you not aware?

For further proof, walk up to Brian Urlacher and say something about his mother.

I've only learned it in the past couple days. After the way they rolled over and died in the Super Bowl, I figured they were a push-over.

But I meant this sort of bear.

Haakon7 wrote:

I've only learned it in the past couple days. After the way they rolled over and died in the Super Bowl, I figured they were a push-over.

But I meant this sort of bear.

No, that was just Winnie the Grossman giving away all the honey. I thought the linebackers still did a reasonable job, given the amount of time they had to spend ont he field.

Okay, now the mods are getting ridiculous.

Property Taxes

Every month your character will need to make a payment to Vinicia Melissaeia down at the Office of Imperial Commerce. The amount of taxes owed will vary greatly and is based on the original worth of your home as well as any current housing upgrades you may have purchased. This can range from several hundred gold to several thousand gold depending on how many homes you own and their present worth.

If you cannot afford your taxes or you don't have time to swing by the Market District at the Imperial City, you can take up to 90 days. That is more than enough time to schedule in a short trip to pay your dues. I suggest using a horse or (gasp) Fast Travel if you don't enjoy walking everywhere, like me. However, if you fail to pay your taxes after the grace period, you will find that it is the Imperial Legion who will be collecting your taxes instead of Vinicia Melissaeia. If you still cannot afford to pay your taxes, you can pay society from the confines of a jail cell.

I can understand the desire for these a little more:

Hungry
Thirsty
Sleepy

I haven't tried any of these myself yet. I still want to give Atmospheric Weather some more time, but I'm inclined to replace it with Natural Environments soon. So far I've gotten some really dark nights (clouds blocking the moon) and some random periods of fog. The weather patterns don't make a lot of sense, at least in comparison to the North American climate that I know best.

Can someone rework the thirsty mod into an alcoholism mod?