Not really a standard mod but it helped me improving performance when running big mods like Better Cities -> Oblivion RAM Booster?.

Judging from the pix, it just looks like CFF Explorer repackaged. Admittedly that is a program that every PC Gamer should keep by, especially if (like me) you tend to play decade-old games.

[Cue discussion as to whether you should reset the header flags for every single dll, not just the .exe. I'd say yes, as it can do no harm and might do some good. Not forgetting to include the CS, of course...]

Though I've already mention it elsewhere, I just wanna draw everyone's attention to the still fairly new Bettys Sewer Textures. Comes in "wet" and "dry" variants, with a "small bricks" option available. I swear by the "wet" variant. Been looking for a satisfactory Sewer textures for ages. These are the first I've been wholly happy with. (My two screen captures are amongst those seen in the mod's "FROM USERS" image section.)

Those are Awesome !!!! I love that brick, it looks almost like one JBVW made/used that I fell in love with!

Adventurers and Travelers is one I just tried for Skyrim, and really like. It adds more people on roads, but the cool thing is, we can configure all the different NPC types (Adventurers, Dovahkiins, Robbers and Travelers) in different ways.

For instance, for Bjorn's game, it makes sense for Adventurers to be hostile to him, since he often goes around dressed and acting like a bandit. I also made Robbers indifferent to him. These choices wouldn't make sense in Claire or White Wizard's game though, so for them Adventurers are neutral, while robbers are hostile.

All of these NPCs are generic too, so if one gets killed, the game will respawn another one somewhere.

Found something of interest at OblivionNexus. Not a mod but someone's recommendations for mostly graphics replacers, utilities, plus a few odds and ends. Nice thing about this list is that it's brand spanking new (as of Mar 2017) so includes some of the more modern texture/mesh replacers. Also includes some foreign mods I was unaware of 'til now. From the list already downloaded and installed Engine Bug Fixes and can happily report that, at the very least, it causes no harm. Admittedly I've played only one reasonably lengthy Oblivion session with it in place, but have hopes it might reduce random wilderness crashes, which I tend to get more often than than city/interior crashes.

Wow, this is an Awesome find, Decrepit !!!

A newly posted YouTube video (not mine) showcasing 2017 modded Oblivion graphics, utilizing many of the graphics mods from the Nexus List linked several posts above. It's limited to a walk through the woods, but boy o boy is it impressive! Graphics are to die for, which is what my increasingly ancient PC would do should I attempt to install the lot of them. Makes me yearn all the more to assemble a shiny new computer. A word of warning. For understandable reasons this video offers only 720p and higher resolutions. Those with slowish connections might experience periodic pauses. My DSL connection certainly does. Worth it though.

Oh my gosh. That is beautiful. Thank you for this resource, Decrepit! It has been a long time since I had a functioning Oblivion game. When I put one together again, I will look at this list first!

Beautiful, but boy what a reminder of how that camera angle was messed up in first person outdoors in Oblivion! It is hard to imagine why they thought the camera should be in the grass when you were walking outdoors, was it attached to your feet? But yeah, before ESO it was the most gorgeous game I had ever seen.

I can't for the life of me recall the first-person oddness you describe. But then my entire second play-through was/is almost entirely third-person. Had I continued making YouTube vids back in '14 I would have needed to mix in more first-person. I found noticed several instances where, viewing purely as an audience member rather an a participant, third-person didn't quite cut it. Speaking of first person, I believe there's at least one mod that lets our avatars see their bodies when looking down. If of decent quality I might add it to my experimental install.

That "grass view" camera is the whole reason I started playing in 3rd person while out in the world. Ooh, that mod sounds Awesome!

Gotta mention one not previously aware of mod added to my experimental Oblivion install, Kaizits New Animations for NPC and Player?. I got it to replace Talk With Your Hands, a staple of my second play-through. It does that, in spades! Adds a lot of immersion to the game, imo. Snapped this view of a shopper in the IC Market District, but you will find many more images at the mods Nexus page. Seems perfectly stable in my load order. An easy recommendation.

Wow, that looks like a great find, Decrepit. (Like you, I've always used Talk With Your Hands - which also has the spin-off that the widened fov means I don't mind the vanilla faces at all. Actually I quite like them, but admittedly not when they're too in your face.)

Only problem is that the readme here suggests that the mod only works in 3rd person - not my thing. But the pix look 1st person. A tad confusing, but maybe I'll try it anyway.

I believe what is meant is that the PC will only play the animations in third person. An NPC is always in that mode (or are they the second person?)

Thanks, I should have thought of that. Though I think it was a bit ambiguous. And they'd only be 2nd person if you were directly addressing them. Hmm, or... [Unfortunately, you've now made me start thinking about the implications of '2nd person mode'. I think I feel a migraine coming on...]

If they don't overdo it by sticking something in every NPC's hands, then I love the idea of this mod; and most of the animations look well done in the images! Great find, Decrepit!

But in second person mode, that's his problem, not yours.

Wrong thread. oops.

Hey all, I am tentatively considering loading up Oblivion on my not so new anymore rig and playing Julian for old times' sake, perhaps bringing Maz into the 3rd Era (she is one of my primary ESO toons). I'm not sure of the modding scene, what has changed, what is still good, what has been replaced by better? I'm looking for a STEP wiki much like the one for Skyrim, which has been kept more or less up to date and has had much of the guesswork already done by braver souls than I.

There is no rush to load up TES IV on this computer - I am still having so much fun playing ESO and taking all of my toons (including Julian, renamed to Julian al-Anvil in keeping with Ra Gada naming conventions). I also have some hardware purchases in mind before I get back into the older TES games. But I am looking!

"toons" I never used to say that word until one day in the old forums Pseron Wyrd began ranting against it (along with other typical MMO words like avatar and "build" and tank...)

Anyway, yes, hope you have some fun. Ask questions if you've forgotten a few things, I am still well aware of them.

I have been using Betty's Sewer Textures for my new playthrough of Oblivion. They are outstanding. Better than Quarls. They don't simply recreate the original textures at a higher resolution. Betty's have a whole new look to them, that is really dank, and creepy, and decrepit.

Betty mods are awesome, right? I use her Spring and Autumn plug-ins during appropriate months. Haven't tried the Sewer retextures but I should, next time I get back into this game.

I too am using Bettys Sewers the Wet Version. Picked it up with Bevilex's mod list. That list by its self is tremendous. I used it when loading out my current game and only have a couple issues with its suggestions.

Browsing Bevilex's List for the first time in some while, I noticed what looks to be a very nice graphics mod added to the list since my last visit. It is housed on the Russian site TESALL, another site I've not visited in a few years. Signed in and tried to DL the file. Got a message saying I'm not authorized. Is anyone else experiencing this with TESALL? If so, have you found a solution?

ADDENDUM:
Never mind. Figured it out....I think. The problem is that when the DL page is translated into English DLs don't work. I left it in the original language and all's well. Not sure what I downloaded. I'll extract the file and see if it's what I hope it is.

Let us know how it works out.
I think I found my favorite dungeon crawling music though I don't understand a word of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue...eature=emb_logo

Got to get that ladder on the back.

That's German band Rammstein, the song which plays at your link is called Rosenrot (rose red), here's the link.

Found it, thanks. Also like Engel. Wondering if I should change two of my NPC ladies' names to Rosenrot and Engel?

If you ever wanted a different kind of vampirism... I made a mod Recessive Vampirism which I use in my game. It is a chronic condition that might trigger proper vampirism when you fight certain types of undead. Feeding or drinking bottled blood puts it in remission again. There's a better description on the mod page. Feel free to modify it to your own needs.

Very awesome, congratulations Lena. Last time I had a vampire in this game was about 5 years ago, but if I ever roll another I'll also use Recessive Vampirism. bottled blood makes a lot of sense.

I think most people thought that bottled blood in its vanilla version was a missed opportunity. May be it was one of those things that Bethesda had bigger plans for but then had to abandon. Not surprising then that pretty much every vampire mod changes something about bottled blood...

PS. I decided to release that mod, imperfect as it is, so that others could have fun with it too. It works fine in my game, but I guarantee nothing!

I always wanted Holy Water in the game, since we had this in our table games, though Holy Water probably doesn't fit lore.

Anyway, good luck!

A Takes All -- Haven't tried this yet but later I will. Wonder if there's a Morrowind version...

Personality Idles 4. This mod promises to add something I've always wanted in Oblivion, without even knowing that a plug-in exists. Personality Idles is not a Pose mod (like Actors In Charge), instead, it promises to automatically add idle reactions to our player characters, such as yawning, clapping when appropriate, shivering if our character is in a cold area, and so on. And these animations work in real-time instead of via menus. Apparently they work if we're in 3rd person, and haven't moved our character in 15 seconds or so. Cool. Sort of like Sims, actually.

(Sorry if y'all already know about this one! I just discovered it.)

I keep saying the word "promise" because I haven't used PI4 yet, and I expect it'll be somewhat buggy. I don't care though, it's just going to be rad seeing my characters making their own idle animations, without me delving into a bunch of menus, as per Actor's Ball.

There is also Personality Idles, which is from 2007 and therefore older than PI4. Sometimes the older mods are more to my taste, though. Or they work better, somehow. Anyway, I'll be updating here to let you all know how these mods work.

Edit: since both of these include animations for lying down in bed, maybe See You Sleep might no longer be needed. Or it'll get mixed in when I use Wrye Bash or something.

Looking forward to your assessment on this mod.

In a previous game 2010-2013 I used this mod with the nopc.esp, no player idles just Npc idles. Since I primarily play in 1st person it worked well for me at the time. It seemed natural to me since I was the one who stood at the edge of the bandstage watching everyone else have good time. Don't do that anymore.

Don’t know why I didn’t include it this time. Probably has to do with conflicting with other animation mods I’ve installed.

It sounded really nice, so I tried it... Sorry, but Lena does not stand like that. And neither do Garrus or Hauk. Very disappointing, really.

I have used all the Personality Idles versions including the 4. They all worked really well and added a whole lot of immersion to the game = but any mods like these need to be as much on the bottom of the load order as possible (just like "See You Sleep" did) in order to minimize conflicts or glitches in the mod's function.

Lena: It's okay, no apology necessary. In fact I am noting that the default idle for females is some sort of 'sexy pose', and that might only work for some really specific characters, none of whom I roll with currently. So maybe I can axe that somehow. Maybe if I ever play a vixen or prostitute they would work. But it's unlikely I'm going to roll anybody like that, or anybody new for that matter.


mALX & macole, thanks for your assessments. I can't wait to mess around with Personality Idles.

There are several idles you can choose from for your own character, and none is neutral. Well, they don't fit Lena. The vanilla default is better.

Another thing is that it adds idles to NPCs, and there you can't choose what it picks. And... I didn't like it.

Not if you choose the PC only version.

Continuing with immersion here is a mod I've been using for a while, it is quite new: Radiant AI - NPCs Alive - Cyrodiil - Beta. You suddenly see a lot more people around without adding new NPCs (which you can still do, for even larger crowds).

Awesome, that does look really fun, Lena.

Personality Idles won't work...not enough options. By default ladies, go into a 'sexy pose', which won't work for Saga's game. Maybe Renee Gade's game (she's supposed to be sort of saucy). But overall the mod hasn't got as much. I'll try the more recent version of PI.

So you've defeated Mehrunes Dagon and think yourself a Champion... Try this!

Terrifying.

I came close at least once

or

twice.

Whoa!! Look at that winged one...

I do hope those pants are enchanted, because otherwise the girl in the second picture is going to have a very bruised bum...

Another mod for those who find Oblivion too easy: Carnivorous plants.

Yikes, those things look scary. That would be fun to lure some baddies into one of those!

Do they say: "Feed Me! I'm hungry!"?

In a nice piece of synchronicity MonsterTalk just dropped an episode on Carnivorous Plants

Here's something I found today: Super's Oblivion Overhaul. It's different. From the description:


It is what the author says: Oblivion is no more.

How do you people feel about this?

So the mod-author says he or she has changed Oblivion so that it's no longer an RPG? I didn't read the entire page, but that seems to be the gist of what the mod author is saying, going by the part you quoted.

The way Oblivion levels upwards (esp into the teens / 20s) is very jarring and abrupt. A lot of folks had problems with it, including me. So that is what a lot of the overhaul mods attempt to change.

But none of this has any bearing on Oblivion being an RPG. In my opinion. When we play a role in a role-playing game, we play a role. That is the focus of the game, our ability to play that role, to me that is what an RPG actually is. All the other stuff (skills / leveling ... and so on) have little do with whether the game is an RPG or not. Leveling progression, the building of Attributes, the progression of skills, those are RPG elements for sure, since they are put into place so we can see our characters grow stronger or weaker with time. But they don't determine what category of game Oblivion is, IMO.

So I won't be installing this one. I like the idea of character leveling. I like seeing my character grow stronger over time. This mod sounds like it gives up the ability to level upwards while sleeping, which is something I enjoy.

I also am noticing toward the end where he or she says something about needing to reload a lot. For gamers who need a lot of challenge this is fine, but I'll pass. I use realism mods (food, drink, sleep, etc.) to make my game more complex, I don't need to see every fight go on and on 'til my Xbox controller's worn out again.

Am I off base? If so, how far?