Well, then. Ms Gade the Third and her posse better head down to Bravil; Lothran just entered the joint and is currently sitting in his little abode

So RG 3 is like Elise in some ways, only without Dremora bodyguards and a boomstick. Elise's speed is pretty high from running all the time, too.

I'm running Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul. Everything's supposed to be leveled, but I'm pretty sure I've enabled the thing where dungeons that are farther away from civilization have higher-leveled enemies and the Nibenay Basin is as far from civilization as you'll get. But that just means the rewards are better, too. She's a glass cannon, so only melee monsters like the Skeletons are a real threat. In spite of how successful she's been and as fun as a full magic build is, I sort of want to play a sturdier character soon. :T

==

Anyways, Dungeon Hopping led Elise to Wendelbek, which was much easier to deal with after the previous ruin. Full of nothing but necromancers, even the strongest enemies couldn't do much against her. She arrived in time to see the Necromancer's Moon in action, and got two more Black Soul Gems for her morbid little collection. She didn't think to used them until a little later when she was attacked by a very familiar escaped convict. She might enchant a pair of shoes later on that she may or may not lose somewhere.

From there she's found herself on more Daedric adventures. First was doing a favor for Peryite, and now she's decided to follow the lead she picked up on Mehrunes' Razor, since she's in the neighborhood.

Morndas, 10:26 am, Sun's Dawn 11, 3rd Era 435

Level: 8

Finally, the Imperial Orrery is done in Joan of Arkay's game. What exactly is this place supposed to be? I really don't know, but we are pretty psyched about the place. WHOA wow wow wow!!!

But what in Oblivion is this place for? I don't get it.

Oh okay. We can receive a new Greater Power due to phases of the moon. Something like that. Let's try this. Ha! Joan got a power called Masser's Might, which fortifies ST by 20 for 60 seconds, but also drain 20 points of Speed. Weird. What a weird GP. Not really something Joan would ever use, but who knows?

I think Joan can have fun playing around with that thing, trying out different Powers


And I see someone is utilizing Renee's Compass Removal Mod™

Elise's settled into Rosethorn Hall, finally. With an automated ingredient storage and just a place to warp back to for unloading treasures in general, adventuring will be less of a bother. 'Course, she had to barter virtually every treasure she had to fully furnish the place, but at least she had plenty left over for taxes. And a Nord maid.

Now it's time to see about these Ayleid statues she picked up in the Nibenay Basin.

That sounds neat, monkey!

Well it is Fredas, Morningstar 17, 4th Era Year 22 in Renee Gade III's game. She is headed back to the Imperial City to catch her next assignment from the Order of Virtuous Blood, which has quests added by a mod. There's so many of these vampire quests though; I wonder if she'll ever be done with them?

Elise's now-sponsored statue-hunting led her to Malada to retrieve a special carving from the ruin. Long story short, someone tried to take the carving from her as she left and, while he got away, he won't see his associates ever again. She plans to do terrible things to him if she ever sees him again.

In the meantime, I decided to gut my Oblivion install to remove Integration: the Stranded Light because I honestly lost interest in it again. Elise's save might fall apart later, but eh, I'm used to it.

I did this so I could start a new warrior character to contrast her playstyle. I almost made Guadalupe, but she makes use of Restoration and Mysticism and I wanted to try something without magic.

(Playing Oblivion and blowing so much gold on spells reminded me why I decided to make each character focus on a single school in Skyrim instead of having a pure wizard, although I guess I do technically have a character like that. Ironically, Skyrim has a less impressive selection of magic lol.)

So I rerolled Gavin from earlier and made him a pure warrior with heavy armor. He's still too low level to really tank too many hits, and since he doesn't have access to magical healing, taking too much damage is something to be avoided. It's taking him quite some time to clear out Vilverin, but I like playing with something different.

Welcome Gavin, have a Fishy Stick! I don't understand though, why do you have to "gut" Integration? Can't you just turn it off while you roll Gavin?

I'm also about to switch characters. I'm getting back with Lady Saga again, my Bosmer archer gal who specializes in Conjuration and Mysticism. Whenever I switch from one PC character to another, I have a list of mods I turn on and off, or disable altogether. I keep these mods around though, since various character saves depend on them.

In general, you can turn off the esp for a mod, but you can't easily undo the mesh/texture replacements it makes. A good mod, and I hope mine fit the description, doesn't replace, but adds new ones, even if they're clones. Wrye Bash helps undo the installation of a mod, but that only works if you used it to start with.

If you really want problems, then replace a mesh that has animation events that interact with a script in the base game. E.g. a drawbridge that triggers a quest stage when it's lowered.

I don't know what Integration got up to, but the more sophisticated the mod, the more nasty tentacles it has.

Sure, I understand. I was just asking because monkey sounds like Integration is going to get removed, and then that's it for that character. monkey mentioned Elise's save "might fall apart," as though this is going to be the end of Elise. Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but monkey made it sound like after Integration gets removed, there goes her save too. It'll fall apart and won't get salvaged.

Or am I just reading that wrong?

It reads like Integration needs to be uninstalled for Gavin, and then that would leave Elise unplayable.

There's also problems unwinding mod dependency chains that can mean taking others out. If you're not careful with install and load orders, it can be painful putting them back so an old character is playable again. I've broken a few of mine that way.

Yeah, Integration: the Stranded Light is basically an Oblivion overhaul on its own. It messes with character textures, spells, and even races, the last one being the most likely reason Elise's save would explode. (Specifically, it adds a racial power to Dunmer, and the mod page itself states that uninstalling the mod can potentially break a save because of that Power.)

I actually booted up Elise's save and played for a bit and it seemed fine, but then there were several other mods overwriting Integration's non-quest changes from the start. My last attempt at a mid-game uninstall ended with the save being immediately unusable, but there's always tomorrow. :v

I was just kinda sick of the altered spell effects and characters with faces that aren't "compatible" with OCO. :/

Are you saying Elisa is done because of this? Wait. "There's always tomorrow." So Elisa is not done.

I'm so confused.

Elise's current save is fine, so she's still playable for now. I'm not sure if it'll stay that way, since it could easily break sometime in the future, based on my experience.

I've previously played with the mod and the save I played with it broke when I uninstalled it at least 2 years ago.

Elise knocked out a few more Daedric Quests, Sanguine's being more notable in that she got in trouble with the law and the only reason she's doing okay is because she can teleport. :v She may have let sticking it to Clavicus Vile and Molag Bal and getting away scott-free go to her head. If the amount of Infamy she has were quantifiable, it'd be at 3 now.

No one seems to think to check in Rosethorn Hall for her except Lucian Lachance. Incidentally, Eyja had a nice present for Falanu Hlaalu the next day.

==

Meanwhile Gavin's making his way to Kvatch on Blades business. Unlike Elise, he has no access to either Guild Guides or teleportation magic, so he's taking the long way there and doing some treasure hunting along the way. It's been a long time since I played vanilla Oblivion so idk if it'd be the same, but I'm glad that Maskar's Overhaul has bandages, otherwise I'd be going through a lot gold for potions. There are so many enemies in dungeons.

His last stop was at Ceyatatar, where an insane amount of mages waited for him so he's resting before pressing on deeper. The thing that will always keep me going back to Bretons is how tanky they can be thanks to the natural half damage they take from magic. Elise has been immune to it for some time, actually.

There was one incident of note when he first got there. As he was dealing with one of the mages that chased him outside the ruin, he ended up losing her. Before he could set out to chase her down before she recovered health, he heard a scream. A few moments later a brown bear came barreling up the steps, thankfully stuck on the root on the last step. One swipe of its claws did a lot of damage, so he decided to hang back and pelt it with arrows. As it began to wear down, Alessia Otus of all people comes out of nowhere and charges at the bear with her, uh, bare fists, with predictable results. Gavin gave it a stabbing with his sword to finish it off.

So today I was reminded why I love this game series.

Aww, Alessia made a bad decision there! Oops.

Those daedric quests sound interesting.

Joan of Arkay is in Fort Rayles, which is full of conjurers and daedra. She is with one of her Battlehorn followers. Joan keeps this guy in a room on his own. If things get too tough for her, all she has to do is run back to where her knight is hidden, and now she's got some instant help. Since Joan hasn't got a full armor suit (her steel cuirass got destroyed), she's been relying on her shiny knight's help quite a lot.

Joan's game is pretty aimless these days. She's not doing any official quests or anything, she's merely going from lair to lair, attempting to earn money so she can keep improving Battlehorn. Her game is at 136 hours, and my personal goal is to get it up over 300, so the A-bomb shows up and I can finally transfer her to PC!

Nice to see you guys still playing. If I didn't live off-grid during summer I would play too

What do you mean, off-grid? How are you communicating in your post?

Yes, I'm still playing. I don't know why, I just can't get enough of this game. Like for instance, Lady Saga is still around, and she's been living in Leyawiin lately. She still lives in Cingor's house, and gets sent off by the count to take down various dungeons in the vicinity.

It's winter in her game (Morningstar) and I guess it's sort of like Lothran / Bruma, except that Saga's going to be spending her in-game winter down south, not like Lothran, who spends Earth-time winter up north.

Hope that made sense.

I get permission to visit civilization from time to time


Yup. Lothran follows my Earth calender more than Cyrodiil's

*THIS JUST IN*

I just saw it. What did you see? I saw the Animation Bomb's first effects in Joan of Arkay's game. And yeah, I'm smiling. I'm psyched!

Usually the A-bomb is a bad thing, but in this case, I'm looking forward to it.

It's great because now you can actually fix it!

Joan of Arkay is in Roxey Inn. She just ascended to level 9, and I managed to get a genuine +5, +5, +5 this time. I am certain this is the first time I've ever managed to do this! I put 5 each into Strength, Willpower, and Endurance.

She's taken up Umbacano's quests too. Headed back to that creepy Dunmer with the statue from Vilverin.

Wow, I don't think I ever got three +5s without using a mod to increase the bonuses.

Usually I have to carefully plan what skills I use to get the big 5/5/5 to the point where I basically don't have fun so I don't do it anymore lol

Congrats on the critical level up, Renee!

Oh, I actually did not plan 5/5/5 at all. It just sorta happened. I don't even know how to make 5/5/5 happen.

Nice getting that trippel five, Renee

I know, and it's what makes it better. I usually have to plan them. :T

Remember the days when soooooooooooo many people were obsessed with +5 +5 +5? It seems like half the threads in the old forums were about perfecting this technique. Me? Once I learned how to not use all 7 Major skills, I did not have to worry about the game leveling out of control.

Anyway, it is Sun's Dawn 8 in Lady Saga's game, and she is is in Bravil right now. I've written a series of "repeatable" bounty quests in her game, so basically the Count's court pays her money to kill the leader of Anutwyll (which is a minotaur), Pothole Cavern, and some fort which I'm forgetting. I'm pretty psyched about these endeavors! And Lady Saga finally got a break from Leyawiin.

She persuaded a big orc named Brokil gro-Shatur to join her in Anutwyll. None of mine have ever befriended an orc before. "Bro Kill" will basically be sort of like a backup guy. if things get too tough for Saga,* she'll run back to hwere Bro Kill is, and he'll step in with his BIG Battlehammer.

* As an archer, she's not as frail as Buffy, but is still too weak for extended melee stuff.

Sounds neat having a nice circuit of Bravil local repeatable quests for Saga!

Thank you, Acadian, yes they are a lot of fun to make, those quests. I've made at least a dozen of them so far.

In First Seed 25, 3rd Era 435 however, in Joan of Arkay's game, there are no mods All I can do is play the game, not the Construction Set. Joan's game is still very fun though. She just upgraded Battlehorn Castle's bedroom area, which she's been putting off for months because she wanted to add stuff for her the castle's men, first. And after a good night's rest, she is off to Moranda, where Umbacano has hinted one of the ten Ayelid statues might be.

Battlehorn Castle would be fun to add to Lothran's game. Guess I could if I wasn't stuck in my old ways


-------------------

The Dunmer has spent his day wandering Blackwood. He started out in Blankenmarch, went east-south and stopped by one of Renee's character's treasure trove in the hollowed-out rock. And yes, all 600 gold was there when Lothran left the site

He then followed the shoreline to Leyawiin and entered the gates when sun was setting. He took a stroll around town followed by a visit to the local Fighters Guild to repair his gear. After a good night's sleep, it is now morning and I reckon a visit to most everybody is on the agenda.

So things are slowing down in ESO so I can pick Oblivion back up where I left off.

When I last left Elise, she had gotten pretty bold about abusing her power. After a VERY brief stint in jail and an exciting jailbreak, she's caught up in some Blades business. She's positively giddy.

Meanwhile, Gavin's thinking about upgrading his equipment to better face the challenges ahead. He didn't have the best time in his first trek across the Deadlands, and since he's sure he's going to have to jump through one of those gates again soon, his main concern right now is to get access to a working forge and scrounge up some materials. At the very least, some wood and silver for arrows. Nearly getting mauled by a group of Daedra every five steps because he used up all his arrows getting to the tower is not something that'll happen again if he can help it.

Do you have a mod that adds crafting?

Most of my Oblivion characters weren't archers, and gathered way more than they wanted from mob drops. Some of the Dremora had more than we could carry, and there was that one Khajiit working with Claude Maric that had stupid quantities of them. Selling them one at a time for maximum mercantile experience would have been a pain without TQP.

Edit: Looked up "that Khajiit" and identified him. He's well worth leaving until your endgame and then "harvesting".

I'm using Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul, yes. :U Lets you craft regular armor and some unique things as well as mine the materials from caves (randomly generated, replaces rocks, it's as chaotic as it sounds).

But idk, it might be patches or Maskar's, but i can't seem to hang on to many of them, which sucks 'cause it's his only form of ranged fighting. Thankfully, he DOES seem to regularly loot arrowheads and feathers for fletching.

I am finally back onto Beth gaming after taking a needed break. I have been playing Far Cry Primal, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Witcher 2.

Wow! It is so nice to be back in Cyrodiil. The dungeons are great fun to explore and to finally play a game that has proper shadow/darkness is so lovely. Light spells/rings actually mean something in this game and it is a pleasure to spy that chest or ayleid cask in the corner. Skyrim and FO4 are horribly boring with their perpetual twilight both indoor and out.

The other thing I noticed was the decision making that enters your head while playing. Do I go left, right, straight ahead or just leap up onto that balcony? I cannot recall one Skyrim cave having any options except a very linear journey from start to finish.

Bim-Seel (3rd level Argonian) is having fun exploring the ruins and forts of Cyrodiil. Vilverin, Crowhaven and Beldaburo are ticked off so far. Just another 200 to go!

He even swiped himself a neat looking statue and was relaxing beside the lotus lilies when a bald butler paid him a visit. He did not seem at all concerned that a drenched lizard would soon drip water on his nice carpet...

Nice to see you back in gaming and here, WW!

G'day you old wolf! As mirocu said, nice to see you back and gaming.

This is very true. Don't get me wrong, I love Skyrim, but almost all the lairs are linear. They have more detail, true, and they have little plots in them sometimes that surprise me, but the actual dungeons are all one-way, in and out, often with a convenient door which puts the character back in the very beginning.

That's one thing I like about Cyrodiil's dungeons; they require memory skills to get around. And Logic.

Anyway, I haven't added to this thread in a while, even though I've still been playing. Lady Saga has been living almost exclusively in the Leyawiin area. She's got a cottage of her own, and does a lot of respawning bounty quests for the county. Her ultimate goal is to collect enough money, and eventually she will return to Valenwood. I'll need to install the Valenwood mods. Once she's back there, I will made some sort of village where she grew up. She'll return to this village, and then donate most of her riches (thousands of gold) to the village's elders.

Neat, huh? I just thought of that the other day.

Sounds like she's doing a Lothran migration but to the south instead

Thanks Lothran, Buffy and Lady Saga.

Renee, you are so right about those convenient little passages back to the entrance. Man they drive me up the wall. I always felt that if a Skyrim dungeon-cave was connected to a quest it could be quite large, if it was miscellaneous then it would only be a 10 minute dungeon. In Oblivion I could get lost/absorbed in some off the beaten path dungeon for one or two hours that had no connection to anything before re-emerging into the daylight. Yes, most of the designs are repetitive but they are huge!

Bim-Seel is now wearing sexy leather pants (as any self respecting Argonian would do ) and he is using a neat conjured zombie to back him up. Nothing magical at the moment, and only a touch frost spell to knockout down the foes. Last night I was swinging with a iron dagger at a warrior bandit with a war hammer. His reach was 10 times longer than mine and made the battle a comical laugh.

For those wondering, Bim-Seel looks like a cousin or brother to Teekeeus at the Chorrol MG. They both have the same green facial marks. I must RP that they are related. That should be interesting!

No ranged attack? You need something to let you back off and let the zombie take the heat. And go make magicka pots for more zombie up-time.

Sheesh, you can't teach these young necromancers anything these days.

Yeah, I always hold off ranged attack at the start of any play through. I mostly focus on raising block and armorer, getting armorer to 50 as quickly as I can. Plus they both help with endurance at level up too.

At this point I need more gold to build the enchanter at Frostcrag Spire later on, as I am a sucker for that drain speed bow that our lovely Buffy always uses. There is plenty of time later for the deadly sniper build. Woo hoo!

Bim-Seel has set up his first home. Deepscorn Hollow. It suits his Argonian tastes quite well, plus he has noticed that the heat and cold play with the arthritis between the scales in his knees. The swamps of Leyawiin are a very nice place to relax.

He is now 4th level and has just cleared out Darkfathom Cave and Onyx Caverns. The bandits of Fort Blueblood attacked him in the dark and paid the price in a very gory way. Rather than exploring it he slipped away into the swamps. Bim-Seel also broke two lockpicks on a very easy lock. Though he is not talking about that.

You got that right. She's always loved the Blackwood area the most.



Pseron Wyrd just called, he's got a new Argonian crush. (Wyrdo would always say he had a crush on Dar-ma on the old forums).

Pseron Wyrd. You are bringing back old memories now. Those days were great- discovering new things every day about Oblivion on those forums. Just when I thought I knew everything- bang- something amazing was discovered.

Ahh, the lovely Dar-Ma. And City-Swimmer. And Kud-Ei sipping her cup of tea.

Does Skyrim even have npc's? Or just plain and boring ones?

Bim-Seel is now exploring up into the hills above Cheydinhal. Quickwater Cave has been cleared out- I think my Argonian must have something against Slaughterfish, must be a food-chain thing...

He is leveling up his blunt at the moment.

After a long trek into the Valus Mountains Bim-Seel's right knee is now playing up horribly. He is no longer the young Shadowscale that emerged from the depths of Blackmarsh those years ago. Although on reflection the other problem with his knee is the moment that he got it caught in the jaws of a Timber wolf. That did not help.

The disappointment there was that the mangy cur also ripped a large hole in his leather pants and they had to be replaced. He is now dressed in bright red bloomers.

The battle with the wolf was quite embarrassing. The flea biter had cornered him in the dark and pulled him quickly to the ground. Crawling back outside and dropping items as he went (the battle took place inside Fanacas) he slumped against a tree and healed himself. Hissing in anger he re-entered the Ayleid ruin and explained to it that violence was unnecessary. The wolf died a horrible death.

Even worse was the wolf gave him the helljoint disease. My Argonian. With a disease. How insulting!

Well, at least Bim-Seel managed to grab a second Ayleid statue. Woo hoo!

Hello again Winter Wolf!

How about some pics of Bim-Seel so we can see his red bloomers?

As a Shadowscale, will he join the Dark Brotherhood?

Lopov! Thanks for the welcome back.

I must duck over to the other forum pages to see what you are playing now. No doubt it will be something that involves a cool clothing mod, or is that a lack of clothing mod?

I am playing Bim-Seel on 360 so no pics this time. Plus no mods either... I do have the game on PC but I am too lazy to set things up. He will do the DB quest line at some later point. I am just dungeon exploring for now.

Bim-Seel is now 7th level and has headed off to visit Skingrad. He has heard from a cute blonde Bosmer riding a huge black horse that Skingrad is the place to be- with the most delicious Tamika wine. Having a chat with Davide Surilie convinced him that Tamika is indeed the best!

The people at Skingrad must have been impressed with his red bloomers as they invited him to sample as many wines as he wanted. Bim-Seel was last seen resting under a tree with a hat over his snout.

The day before an Imperial Legion horseman helped him lay the smackdown on the 3 Skirmisher Goblins outside Derelict Mine. Most times I find this to be the hardest low level battle in the game. This time it was a breeze.

I play Fallout 4 ATM for the first time but in fact I mostly play with my newborn daughter so I don't game regularly. I have only three or four mods so far, nothing clothing involved yet, so far I don't have any real need (nor time) to mod Fallout 4.

Tamika's is better and Tamika is also prettier than Surilie brothers.

I hear that one paranoid Bosmer is happy because there's a stranger in town.

Bim-Seel heard right about the Tamika's wine!

Lothran is moseying around Bravil /Leyawiin counties. He's basically just enjoying the scenery and the Nirnroots he thankfully never picked. They are quite abundant in this area