I think different people have different ideas of what is an RPG. I too think that levelling up is not the core issue. But it isn't just levelling up that this mod removes - it also removes any differences between classes or races, which means that all NPCs are now the same. This is what removes the role playing, I think, unless I read it incorrectly somehow. Obviously, I have no intention of actually trying it...

If I wanted to play a hack and slash adventure, there is no shortage of games like that. I could just play Viking for example.

Yep, we all do. I like to break it down to its literal core. Some gamers think that without constant dice-rolls for instance (i.e. Daggerfall or Morrowind), a game is not an RPG. For me, it's the actual fact that the entire game is focused on whatever role we choose for our character. Or even better: whatever role our character chooses for him/herself.

I can roll a character who does nothing but picks flowers and ingredients all day (and I have done this!) and never engages in combat. Never does quests. Never steps outside of her little realm of existence. In that situation, the actual game is focused on just this character, picking flowers, and selling them at market. That is the role being played. Nothing to do with Gates or Dragons, nothing to do with saving the world. Who's to say I'm not still playing the game, right? Because playing the game with her means getting into her role. Role Playing Game.

What does RPG mean to you?



Oh my gosh. To me it's like What's the point? Especially if diversity is also being removed. I'd be so disappointed and bored.


Ha ha you're right. I could go back to Tomb Raider.

I had to think real hard about what you are saying here... dice-rolling? Oh, wait... I think it might be an American thing. We played different kinds of RPGs as children - each player chose their actions freely. Imagine like chess but the figures are animated and represent characters. There were rules of course, but within the rules you were free to decide what to do. And the others were free to react to your actions in any way they wanted (within the rules).

Oh, now I remember - sometimes we'd have external events done with dice-rolling, like for example a massive earthquake or a tornado and such. But never personal actions.


Exactly. But if you remove the difference between the classes and races, all roles become pretty much the same. In particular, the AI of NPCs relies on those class and race characteristics to determine behaviour, so I wonder what happens when this is made the same. Do they all react in the same way now? That would be boring.

You play a role taken on by a particular character, but that character does not exist in vacuum - it relates to other characters in the game. If all the characters are essentially the same apart from their looks, do you even get different roles? I wonder.

But then again, the author of that mod does state immediately that with this mod enabled, Oblivion stops being an RPG.

A note on performance. There is any number of mods that improve performance of the original Oblivion allowing it to take advantage of modern hardware and software. They still don't make Oblivion multi-threaded, but they do improve graphics a lot. Well, whenever I tried any of those "Oblivion for Win10" enhancements, it invariably got my Oblivion to crash. Why is that?

That's because my Oblivion is from GOG. It already has such modifications built-in, it is meant for modern computers. So when you try to modify it further, you get a conflict. I hear that the Steam version is similar.

Bottom line: if you get your Oblivion from GOG or Steam, you get more than just the original game. It is modernised, so you don't need to bother with performance mods. All other mods that I tried, worked as intended.

Cool, that's good to know about GoG or Steam versions, Lena.



Sort of. Dice rolling is what is done in a lot of old tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons, but I'm sure there were European table-RPGs as well. I'm not sure of their names, maybe SubRosa would know.

Rolling dice was necessary because if our character swung a weapon at an enemy, there had to be a way of knowing if the weapon connected or missed. Or if the weapon did double or triple damage. Or if it got dropped. Or broke. All of this was simulated via dice, as we all sat around the table (literally, we'd be with our friends).

The early Bethesda games. (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind) simulated all of this as well, but arguably in a bad way. Like, we'd see our character hit the enemy, but the game would roll invisible dice in micro-seconds, so our "hit" could register as a miss. All of this was based upon our character's skill. There was more of a separation between player and character skill, you see. This is why some gamers regard the older games as "true" RPGs, while Oblivion and Skyrim are merely "action" RPGs. Bah!

But the newer games still use dice rolls sometimes. When we make a Speech check, for instance. Or try to open a lock. Not during combat anymore, though.



It just sounds incredibly dull to me!

Oh my gosh, I never knew this is how it works with tabletop RPGs! We didn't play that way when I was growing up. Our tabletop games were not RPGs, so when we role-played, it was in real life, like theatre. So you'd pick a plastic sword and swing it at a "real" monster (your friend making a scary face), etc. No dice-throwing but real skill that determined whether your weapon connected or not. I suppose that was not a "real" RPG then but merely an "action" RPG!

I had a really nice red broadsword, for example. Hollow and light, easy to swing. I always dragged it around with me (you never know when you might come upon a monster), and after all that exposure to sunlight, it faded to pink... Those were the days!

Lena, it sounds like you were LARPing. I did that once, and it was fun. But the laziness in me much preferred sitting around a table rolling dice and drinking warm diet pepsi.

We were young kids when we role-played like that, may be between the ages of 3 and 12... then we grew up. We did play board games, they were just not RPGs.

My brother and I and some friends went to a medieval reenactment sort of game like you did. It was also real-life, out in the woods somewhere, and we had to make our weapons and armor out of duct tape, foam, and PVC pipe. It was really fun, but they had some dumb rules. If somebody just touched you with their weapon, you were "dead" for instance. Then again, I guess this rule was made so that people didn't start bashing each other until the duct tape started flying around. But it was fun to run around and stuff.

I have a vague memory of some rogue chasing me through the forest, and when he finally caught up to me he touched me with his foam/duct tape sword and immediately said "HEY, I TOUCHED YOU! YOU'RE DEAD!!!" when I didn't immediately fall over. Aw, those were the days...

Well, this was my childhood, day in, day out.

Our re-enactment festivals use steel weapons and steel armour. Nobody dies but bruises are common... Could you wear 40lb of armour all day? And joust on a horseback with a real lance? You'd need to train for that first... I was only watching!

Nice that sounds really fun, Lena. That's as close as it gets to our games. Only thing missing are fireballs and imps flying round.

No styrofoam here...

Halleluja!!

Every girl should have one.

They're all dead! Falanu would love it.

What do you expect after falling from such height? Besides, they can't run away now. Falanu's got a point.

Just when I thought things were getting better on the Nexus. Well at least they're clothed.

If they were not, they would not have had pockets, so you would have had nothing to loot. Unless you are Falanu, they have no other use.

Lena is back in Cyrodiil and I decided to liven things up a bit and downloaded this: Cats and Rats. Sounds like fun!

Well... we certainly got lots of rats! Proper small rats, not the Champion of Cyrodiil sized ones. And they are everywhere! But cats? Nope, none to be seen. Which explains the rats.

Oh wait! In the Jerall View in Bruma we finally meet a tabby graciously walking up and down the dining room completely ignoring the rats. Hafid shouldn't feed him, I'm telling you.

But now the place is getting busy (Crowded cities redone), many people are having dinner, everyone watching the rats - who wants them up their skirt or trouser leg? No one. Suddenly one of the Imperial Forresters spots the cat, jumps up and attacks it! Kills it! Everyone stands there gasping for a moment, then they settle down and resume dinner, still watching the rats.

Is there anything wrong with this story?

I think I'll try just cats next. Cats are nice. Who needs rats?

Sounds like some mod shopping going on, fo sho. And some wacky AI. No, eradicate the rats, not the cat!

I have a cats mod in both Oblivion and Skyrim. Can't recall the name of the Oblivion one. Pretty sure it was made by Emma though.

Edit: and I agree, we definitely don't need more rats! It's always rats for the new Associates, sure, that makes sense. But otherwise...

She actually started shooting arrows at the cat - inside Jerall View dining room! Hafid wasn't happy when she hit the bottle he was drinking from instead (there was even the appropriate sound). Someone got an arrow in the boot. Ouch. Then she drew her dagger and went after the cat up close, killing it in two strikes. Poor tabby. But all things considered, I am thankful she didn't try to shoot the rats - those were very fast moving pests, I'm sure most of the guests would have gotten shot instead.

The cats and rats was new this time, I've had the other mods for ages already, they are nice. I got that just cats mod now, and it's much better. At least in Bruma, I hear things go a bit crazy in the Imperial City. We'll see. Lena is headed there next. She's in Cheydinhal now where she spotted a couple of cats in the street and NO RATS!!

On no!

Well it's good that they appear in Cheydinhal. I wonder if that mod adds a black cat into Dark Brotherhood's sanctuary.

Nope, no cats in the Sanctuary - that would conflict with the Schemer who is a resident rat. He's been there for so long... some suspect he's undead.

Ooh, this is wicked!

Ha ha yeah, what a crazy idea. I suppose if somebody had a very specific roleplay. "Turn ye mate, or I'll turn you into a book!" I wonder what happens to certain quests, though. That's why the mod author says use with caution...

I was thinking of this: "Come on darling, let me take you somewhere private..." Zap!

Better than a soul gem. You can flip through their pages. Wonder if they come with pictures?

I cannot believe I've only just now installed this mod: Nice to Meet You. What it does it remove the Post-It notes from everyone's foreheads that show their names... Isn't it odd that you instantly know who is who?

This mod comes with an extensive configuration file that is present on a "mild" setting (other stuff shown instead of the name). I made it quite a bit more stringent - if I've never spoken to a person before, I cannot possibly know their name, class, faction, occupation or culinary preferences. None of the above. I might guess their race, if it's easy to tell - I can usually spot a Khajiit in the crowd, but then I don't really need them labelled with it.

My game just got a lot more interesting. There is now actually a need to talk to people!

I downloaded this Nice To Meet You in 2011. Played with it installed for quite awhile. You’ll get descriptions like this. I didn’t install it this time thinking I'd save a space and wouldn’t miss it but there are I times that I do.

Indeed, detailed descriptions is another function of this mod. I never want to see anything other than the name, and that only for people I know. So the way I set it up, by far most NPCs have no labels at all, and only a few have their name displayed like in vanilla. I was a bit unsure at first, but having no name displayed does not prevent you from "activating" them to talk. Also, you forget the names of people you just met, unless you talk to them a few times first. So now when there's a person with a big hammer charging at you, you don't automatically know whether he's a bandit or a marauder or an important named NPC. But then again, it doesn't matter, he's the man with a big hammer charging at you.

Nice, very cool Lena. It's sort of like People are Strangers for Skyrim. Just a little touch which adds realism and makes sense.

I installed the blankets one a few weeks ago too. Some gamers say they've had problems with it (mostly, NPCs who continue wearing their blanket even after they wake up) but so far I haven't seen anything like this.

Well, my dog does it when it's raining out, so keeping your blanket on is quite realistic, actually.

Has anyone played this mod: The Lands of Solstheim Vvardenfell and Mournhold - SoVvM br3? It adds Morrowind to Oblivion, but unlike Morroblivion, it does not recreate TES3. This project was abandoned a long time ago, while Morroblivion survived. Yet it has some very recent comments, and as one commenter points out, the fact that it doesn't recreate TES3 makes all the difference for many players. They seem to have come quite far with filling in the land, too.

Oooh, I have not even heard of that. Maybe macole has though.

As always, I usually start with the POSTS section at Nexus, especially for these older mods, and I see this one was last updated 2011. Looks like there are a lot of recent posts for Lands of Solstheim, which is good.

"TOOK ME 8 HOURS TO DOWNLOAD THIS s*** MOD AND THERES NO f***ing GROUND" says berrytreethebrony.

"Ok the voice acting is actually terrible it was like he was rubbing his face all over the mic while speaking is their any way to turn this off?" says User7111.

"am i the only one who cant get the models and sounds file working? when i try putting it on nexus mod manager it says its building mod but doesnt progress past that" says cheezydaddy... Yikes.

See, all of that is enough to steer me away, it just sounds like a series of headaches. But you've already had experience with outside worldspaces, so maybe you'll be okay, Wolf.

Well, it's just people not following instructions, mostly. I am not worried about technical difficulties at the moment - I'm sure there will be plenty, seeing how this is such an old mod.

As for downloading for 8 hours... yeah, this is a very big mod, something over 1.5GB, so for me it would be downloading for a day as well. As would be Morroblivion. As was TWMP. As is any game what-so-ever. Not surprising, really, when your internet moves slower than your garden snail, like ours. I think our broadband is still very much on the level of 2011!

I was particularly interested if someone played this mod and also Morroblivion - to hear their thoughts how the two versions of Morrowind compare. (Wink-wink SubRosa! )

That is true. I also always try to weed out the messages left by folks who sound like they don't know what they are doing, not following instructions properly, and so on. We both know the signs, by now.

'Rosa might've come across Lands of Solstheim, as well as one of the new folks. Good luck!

Ok, I am downloading it now. But I don't know when I will get around to poking around with it. I wrapped up Oblivion and Morroblivion playthroughs recently, and am not really fired up to go back to that game engine again right now.

But you're downloading it... Then it will sit there on your computer and wink at you. Then you'll just want to take a peek and see if it installs all right... That being an old mod and all... Yeah, we know how that goes! Gets me every time...

You're downloading it, meaning you've never heard of it! Wow! Ok! I'm flattered that I discovered something new! Eleven years old new - even better!

Kids these days, they just don't know any better.

I looked at it many, many moons ago. Lacking the city Vivec was my reason for not using it.

Yes, I noticed that. Settlements on Vvardenfell were still "to do". But they seem to have filled in Solstheim and some of the places on the continent. Morroblivion is definitely more complete, and I would play it first, I think, since I could never get into TES3, after I got lost in Vivec City for days... And I mean real-time days! Weekend gone - just trying to find stuff in Vivec City! That place is infuriating! I am not going to miss it one bit!

Here is a mod with new and exciting creatures: wasps! This is a modders' resource really, the author made us some new creatures to play with! It is the same author who also made carnivorous plants and monster trees, and I just thought that Valenwood might get a slight insect and vegetation problem in the next instalment of my TWMP Valenwood Cities. I think those three monster types just beg to go together. Also may be with snails (by the same author).

Ok, this isn't exactly a new mod... But it's a new release and it's new to me, so here it goes. Oblivion Reloaded. What?!

I always thought that OR would require bigger and better hardware than the standard Oblivion, and for that reason I never even tried it. That and the bugs and incompatibilities that you read about. But yesterday someone told me that the latest release 10.0.1 slashed Oblivion memory usage by 40% and improved FPS by half... Wow! That really warranted an investigation.

Turns out, starting with version 9 OR is becoming very modular and everything can be turned on and off. Plus, it has a very significant memory management and FPS management. Plus, in the latest version 10.0.1 they've finally solved the disappearing water bug!

The write-up says that you are required to use HDR and to set everything to maximum in your Oblivion.ini, or as good as. Well, I found that not to be true. Indeed, if I enable HDR and set everything to maximum, performance suffers. So I restored all values to what they were before and switched back to Bloom, and lo and behold, OR is still working just fine. May be because I disabled almost everything in it except for the memory and FPS management.

It still needs tweaking and tuning, but I'm very pleasantly surprised: much reduced memory usage, better FPS and better graphics? Yes, please!

I use Oblivion Reloaded, version 6.2 from 2017. It does make the game look real good.
I did have to tinker with the shaders fix the missing water. Something to do with reflections and shadows on the water surface, if I remember correctly. aA clue to the solution was a night time storm. As the clouds rolled in the water underneath the clouds disappeared. The water under the clear sky remained. Wish I had written down exactly what I did. If they got it fixed that's a plus.
3rd person combat is a mess, barrel rolls everywhere. I turned off everything that had to do with combat and I still don't like it.

I too have all combat, equipment, horse riding, and other aspects turned off, as well as most shaders. With this version, I don't see a difference from vanilla so far, but will test more and report back.

When you install OR, you can skip the Meshes folder - this contains the altered animations. Just don't copy it to your Data folder, that's all. Perhaps that's why your movements get overwritten? If you look in the file list of the latest version, you see exactly which files to delete from your Data folder to restore vanilla animations.

By "barrel rolls" do you mean that the character performs a roll every so often (too often)? I had the same issue. You need to disable dodge - that's what's doing it. And if you can't disable it in your version, you might have to upgrade...

I have been playing with it for a while now and I can confirm that when you disable enough things, all animations remain completely vanilla.

PIZZAAAAAAAAAAA!
And I'll have your credit card details, thanks.

Well, pizza IS one of the three basic food groups. The other two of course being chocolate and coffee.

I like pizza but I'm not that desperate. Pretty innovative concept for a mod though, hats off to the originator.

The Lost Spires website apparently went down. So if you were planning to get that mod, that's a problem. However, some kind soul re-uploaded version 14 to Nexus. Don't know how long it will stay there since it was originally not allowed. I myself grabbed it while I could. Just an FYI.

It didn't last on Nexus very long at all. Truly sad to hear about The Lost Spires portal. Lost Spires is a top 5 if not #1 quest mod, IMO.