Let's Play Oblivion

[Astromarine]

Well, actually let's not. I don't have the time, patience, and creativity to do one of those threads, especially screenshots. But I *am* playing it. After I got involved in a discussion about it in another message board, I realized that I was mostly spouting Codex talking points, since I played Obli for about 2 hours when it came out. Since the Codex is a bunch of inbred rednecks I disagree with about almost everything anyway (but I wubs ya), I decided to check for myself what the current state of the game is.

However, I am not a retard. I've read enough about the game to know that I disagree with almost every single design decision Beth made. I wanted to try to play the game as an immersive experience, not necessarily to finish it but to see how well the game gives the feeling of exploration and immersion.

This led to two solid days of installation, and around 3 gigabytes of mod downloads. I have mods that change:

- the levelling system
- the creature spawns
- the item spawns
- the autolevelling stuff
- the whole magic system
- the whole persuasion system (original was a gamebreaker for me.)
- the whole sneaking system
- the whole race and sign balance
- the whole economy
- the whole Daedra Invasion (now they do war parties and go attack cities, and get attacked by soldiers at the gates as well. The player's not the only one who notices the invasion anymore)
- the whole UI

additionally, I've installed a lot of mods that improve the immersion experience. I have a sleep cycle, a hunger cycle, fatigue actually matters, gold coins have weight, lockpicking is done blind now, there's a lot of thieving additions, etc. Most importantly, I disabled the compass completely and removed the stupid window that feeds you what to do next on all quests. What I haven't done is mess with the environment. Stuff like darker dungeons, better forests, better textures, etc I've postponed till later because I just wanted to get in and play.

The result is... OK for now. I've decided on a balanced mix of stealth, diplomacy, combat, and magic, so I can experience a bit of everything and worry about tailoring my class in a later playthrough. My character, Grimnuz, is a slightly amoral Breton, with the following custom class:

Spec: Stealth

Majors: Speech, Blade, Mercantile, Stealth, Illusion, Alteration, Alchemy.

Adventures so far: Haven't had time to do much yet. After escaping, had to sleep so I saw the ruins ahead and decided it looked like a nice place to lie down. Swam there, and saw it was occupied. Tried to approach, was attacked, responded. I was amazed at how hard the fight was, with the new changes. Just the fact that healing potions aren't instant any more, but a timed effect, is *huge*. The khajiit that attacked me made a chameleon spell first thing. And the fatigue mod makes that a wimp like me gets tired after a bit of running and swinging a sword, so had to fight it blind, with the screen blurring due to lack of breath, and with every hit I blocked rocking my screen a lot. After I killed it, his friend appeared, with a huge fucking battle axe. Managed to live, but with like 5 life left.
After that was done I got into their beds, rested till morning, then took the bedroll with me and explored the place a bit. gathering plants and loot on my way to the city. Once there, it's been a bargain-fest. I'm exploring the market district, got a couple quests to check out, but as soon as I'm resupplied I want to go to the Abby the emperor told me to go to. I want to play it as a "real" character in that world, including deciding what's urgent and what isn't.

So, the verdict so far is positive. Then again, I haven't done much that would sour the experience for me. All of the gameplay systems are tweaked to remove annoyances, so they can only come from the actual world, like quest design and so on. I'm wondering when I see the first thing I'll consider bloody stupid.

Damn. Apparently this is a LTP thread after all. Someone tell me how to do the screenshot thing so it isn't *completely* boring.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

This is "The Ultimate Let's Play Thread". All hail Astromarine, God Speed.

 

[JarlFrank]

Damn. Apparently this is a LTP thread after all. Someone tell me how to do the screenshot thing so it isn't *completely* boring.

Press the print button, minimize the game and put the screenie into MS paint and save the pic.

Then upload it somewhere like Photobucket, then paste the link here and put it into

 

[cardtrick]

Press the print button, minimize the game and put the screenie into MS paint and save the pic.

I'm assuming this is a joke . . .

Anyway, Astromarine -- just download the free version of FRAPS, and you can use it to save screenshots with a keypress at any point while in the game. After you're done with a play session, all the screenshots you took will be in the FRAPS directory, so you'll want to take a look through and weed out the ones that aren't any good (which should be most of them). Since this is the free version, they're going to be saved as BMPs, which are huge files; so you'll want to do a batch conversion to get them as JPEGs and maybe resize them depending on your resolution. (My resolution is 1680x1050, so I typically resize screenshots to 1280x800). If you don't have Photoshop, you'll need some kind of free software to do this batch conversion; I think Paint.NET might be able to do it, but I personally use IrfanView.

After that, you'll have a bunch of JPEGs in the right size, and only then should you upload them to Photobucket or Imageshack.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Oblivion lets you take screenshots with printscreen that save to the install directory, by adding the line bAllowScreenShot=1 to the .ini file.

 

[cardtrick]

Ah -- that's even better. You'll still want to do a batch conversion afterwards, though. Don't rely on the image host to do it for you; it's likely to look like crap.

 

[Durwyn]

This thread will be EPIC . Im tellin ya'.

Also 3 gb of additional download to make it playable... nice. Too bad you don't have Shimmering Isles, heard it's pretty decent (as for OB and Beth's).

 

[NiM82]

Be sure to get an improved physics mod, so you can move/pose bodies amusingly for screenshots.

 

[Astromarine]

that's the thing though. I'm giving the game an actual shot, so I'll post screens of stuff I liked and disliked, and if I do manage to find something funny I'll post it, but since I'm actually trying to enjoy it, it'll be relatively lulz-free.

 

[NiM82]

This thread will be EPIC . Im tellin ya'.

Also 3 gb of additional download to make it playable... nice. Too bad you don't have Shimmering Isles, heard it's pretty decent (as for OB and Beth's).

It's quite a bit better, there's even a pinch of choice/consequence. The story/world is more interesting, it generally feels more akin to MW.

However many issues remain; the world feels rushed, there's little in the way of wilderness detail (less than Obliv) and outside of the main quest there's nothing really in the way of side quests.

The new monsters and stuff are quite nice thoug, as are the morrowindish vegetation and prefabs. Bethesda also for the first time ever I think created characters with character, in the case of Sheogorath and his butler.

 

[Astromarine]

Before I start today's play session, here's some screenies I took to test out the process. I think I can get it pretty fast with Oblivion, Wrye Bash, and Irfanview. Never knew batch process existed there :D

So here's my guy. I actually made a mistake earlier, he has Light Armor instead of Sneak. In these two screenies, you can see his half-decent mug, the UI mod I'm using, and his stats and skills.

Here's how he looks "in the world".

And this I took just for fun. The screen's all blurred due to fatigue, after I ran and jumped for about 50 meters or so. One more jump and he actually fainted. In any case, it doesn't just blur. It actually pulses with your heartbeat, and it makes a HEAVY breathing sound. To make it even more stressful in combat, your maximum fatigue is related to your maximum life. So if you're almost dead, you're also almost exhausted. This makes you slower and less powerful, so it can HURT unless you plan well.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Uh... This actually starts to look like a fun dungeon-crawler. OOO wasn't enough to make Oblivion enjoyable for me, but now I'm considering giving the game yet another go with the mods you listed. Keep us updated.

EDIT: Oh, you didn't list any mods, just what they change. Do it now then, please.

 

[Binary]

This sounds cool. Could you list the mods that you're using and what each one of them does?

 

[Gragt]

Better, make a pack of it, upload it so we can play that stupid game 10 minutes after the installation instead of two days later.

 

[cardtrick]

Disturbingly enough, that looks/sounds pretty playable. The fatigue mod alone would reduce a lot of the stupid Morrowind/Oblivion training gimmicks.

 

[TheLostOne]

Of all the shitty decision, the one I can understand the least is their levelling system. In order to become powerful you have to pick major skills that you never use. If you want to burn shit down as a mage and pick destruction as a major skill you're fucked.

I mean, most everything else can be someone chalked up as poor taste. This, on the other hand... Did they even play their game? Did they try picking one of their stock classes and playing as it? How the hell do you not realize that you've made a levelling system that requires you to play backwards of what's intuitive?

All the other concerns are valid and show the devs to be uninspired and stupid, but that one to me is proof of pure incompetence.

 

[Astromarine]

OK. First of all, making a pack won't work. Before I downloaded the mods, I actually had to install the OBSE (Script Extender) because some mods need more than Beth's simple script language. Then, Wrye Bash, which is sort of an ubertool that lets you merge some mods into a single patch, deals with texture packs automatically, etc. This is essential, without it I'd have given up. The best feature is the load order config, which lets you alter the timestamp on the mods so they load in the right order.

Anyway, here's what I use:

FCOM - This is UBER. It's a mod that full integrates (and thus allows you to play with) the following mods:
- Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul - removes autolevelling creatures, makes levelled lists sane, gives remote areas real danger now. No more winning arena at level 1
- Martigen's Monster Mod - extra monsters
- Francesco's Leveled Creatures and Items - what it says. Is incompatible with Oscure without FCOM, which uses Oscuro's philosophy and uses Francesco for the extra creatures and placements
- Bob's Armory
- Warcry (new items, boss monsters, and more)
- has patches to clean conflicts a lot of other mods have with Oscuro's etc.

Unofficial Oblivion Patch - shitloads of fixes the devs were to lazy to clean up

Sheepherder's Vampirism Fix - if you become a vampire, it keeps your face instead of reverting to the default face for your race. Bug fix

Quest Award Leveller - a lot of quests give you shitty items because they have several versions of the item depending on your level. so people should do quests only after they levelled A LOT or get crap rewards. With this, you do a quest, get the item, level up, then you use a special ring to switch the items with the better versions.

Kobu's Character Advancement System - completely overhauls the way your skills and stats go up. Skills affect more than one stat. Endurance changes change your life retroactively, so no need to level END early or be gimped for HPs. etc etc etc.

Race Balancing Project - completely changes races around to make them much more balanced, and removes the shitty Greater Powers noone used. Signs are also changed in the same way. I had a hell of a time choosing a sign, they were all good.

Less Annoying Magic Experience - LAME changes the whole system, giving more spells, better spells, a much more rational magicka system, a choice of spells to start with instead of the default ones, and lots more.

Persuasion Overhaul - removes the fucking bloody stupid idiot crappy minigame. Now get a speech option "persuade", then all 4 choices. you have to choose which you want to use, and the game calculates for each combination of race, class, stats, gender, which probability you have for each option. You, of course, have to guess / get a feel for it.

Bedrolls - makes bedrolls both purchaseable and lootable, so you can carry one and sleep in a dungeon or whatever.

Reneer's Gold Mod - Makes gold have weight, so you can't carry around millions in gold coins.

Realistic Fatigue - see above

Real Sleep - Give you a sleep cycle, that depends on endurance to see how long before it starts removing stats and so on. It's actually not annoying because it doesn't force you to sleep, but it makes life slightly worse the longer it passes. Since it removes fatigue, and the mod above makes you suffer for it, it's quite realistic without being annoying.

Bank of Cyrodiil - Puts a bank inside major cities, to make the Gold Mod above useable. Gives interest, and has vaults that you can steal from... eventually.

Thievery in the Imperial City - an awesome quest mod for thieves, that also adds a fence unaffiliated with the Guild in the imperial city.

At Home Alchemy - allows you to activate alchemy tools that are in the world, so if you have a lab at home you don't need to pick up your alembic mortar etc to use them from the backpack. Since I'm going for immersion, I refure to lug around anything more than a mortar for emergencies, and will only use alchemy sitting down somewhere. Simple, but allows me to avoid the memory that I'm playing a shitty game

Stealth Overhaul - does a lot to change how sneaking works. Gives penalty for heavy and light armor, and a bonus if you have no armor. shields and weapons also have penalties. Changes the backstab multipliers of weapons, so now it pays to carry daggers (I use a 32x backstab value for daggers, cuz I'm slitting throats :D)

Bag of Holding - puts a bag of holding somewhere in the world. There's just one, and you're supposed to play without knowing where it is. Spices up exploration a bit.

Real Hunger - changes food type alch ingredients to have "remove hunger" and gives you a food cycle. It's not annoying, and you can use alch to make lightweight potions of cure hunger for dungeons

Enhanced Daedric Invasion - adds spawns to Ob Gates. Adds humans that are attacking the gates to help you out. Gives you a chance at controlling these to attack the gate itself. Conversely, adds daedra spawns to cities, and makes daedra war parties that spawn at gates and move towards cities even without you being close. You can find them anywhere, including inside a city killing the populace. :D

Vaults of Cyrodiil - more stuff for thieves to do. Adds a treasure vault to every major castle.

Martigen's Hunting and Crafting - adds pelts, bones, etc and lets you make armor and arrows with them, etc. Also makes hunting be worth it.

Martigen's City Defenses - adds archers to city walls.

Safer Roads and Spawn Rates Reduced - makes the world more realistic by not having a huge predator every 10 meters in a main road. :D

Living Economy - Prices change over time, by location, and by stock levels. Mandatory, and it comes with Oscuro's.

DarNified DarkUI - the awesome UI you see in the screens. Configurable to remove a lot of the clutter in the main HUD as well, as you can see. Fuck You Quest Compass.

that's pretty much it.

Not installed due to a server outage yesterday, but will be soon are the following mods:

Crowded Roads Revamped - makes roads actually be travelled.

Lynge's Thieves' Highway - makes roofs of the Imperial City usable by budding thieves.

Stealth Entrances - makes hidden entrances into some of the cities in case the guards don't let you in. One of those "don't read the readme" mods. The point is to find them.

Blind Lockpicking - makes the lockpick minigame not show you the actual tumblers. Do it by sound and feel like the pros, you faggot. Of course, then you need...

Lockpicks by Grumblepunk - makes lockpicks craftable. You'll need it with the mod above, otherwise don't use this, it become cheating soon.

small note: to make sleep and hunger mods playable, I usually open the console and type "set timescale to 10" which makes each real minute into 10 in game minutes. default is 30, so this makes time pass much slower. Gives a better feel, and makes the cycle mods bearable.

 

[Kingston]

Whattefuck? The list is that long? I thought people always meant half a dozen when they say "a ton" because they are exaggerating cunts. Does Beth ever thank their community for fixing their games?

 

[Astromarine]

dude, that's tiny. Of course, I have most of the really huge game-altering ones, but the dudes on TESF usually have upwards of 50, just for extra skins, weapons, houses, quests, etc. I didn't even get into those. The Unique Landscapes project, for example, is on my plans. check what it does to the environments here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itgFAEwV_uA

 

[somnium]

Whattefuck? The list is that long? I thought people always meant half a dozen when they say "a ton" because they are exaggerating cunts. Does Beth ever thank their community for fixing their games?

That is nothing, currently I have 200+ mods installed for Morrowind.

 

[NiM82]

Actually sounds pretty good with all that. Do know if the war parties and trade route stuff is compatible with any of the open cities stuff?

 

[Astromarine]

what open cities stuff?

 

[SuicideBunny]

The result is... OK for now.

30 mods and it's just ok?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

I'd also recommend Choices and Consequences, by our very own Lingwe. It adds skill requirements for guilds along with adding written directions so that you don't need a quest compass.

Also get Enhanced Quest Roleplaying, which makes the sidequests a lot less linear.

 

[NiM82]

what open cities stuff?

I don't know if it's merged with anything but there was a big project that made all cities (Bar the IC) a part of the game world, meaning you could levitate in if you wanted or walk in/out of seamlessly. Made it a bit resource hungrier.