Best Place for Oblivion Mods?

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Hi guys,

I've been out of the Oblivion scene for about a year, but now I wanna break in my new 8800GT with this game.

Sadly, I lost my DVD with all the mods I had downloaded in the past and so much has come out or changed in the past year that I don't know where to go for the best selection of good mods anymore. The only site I remember seems to have been disbanded. (tessource).

Of most importance are texture packs...I REALLY love my eye candy. who's got the latest textures / LOD / etc? What are said to be the best sites to browse through for mod-finding?

fwiw I have Knights of the Nine, and Shivering Isles... if it matters. (received as gifts; not yet played them).

Thanks in advance!

 

[m1ldslide1]

qarl's texture pack is the shiznit for texture replacement. It takes most of the textures to a whole new level - almost photorealism for grass, rocks, doors, etc. Definitely not for the faint of GPU (which doesn't include you). You also will want OOO (Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul). If you're not familiar with these, there is volumes of information available on them both. From what I understand they're generally considered two of the best and most widely-deployed mods.

For an exhaustive list of mods:
http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com...hp?title=Category:Mods

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

wow... that oblivion mod wiki is pretty amazing! Everything I remember having is there, and it's good to see Qarl, Jarrod, and CapnKill still have their work available. Thanks a ton!

Oh... I HAVE heard of OOO (Oscuro's), but I also remember hearing about Francisco's pack which seemed to also be an overhaul mod. Anyone know about key differences between the two?

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: giantpinkbunnyhead
wow... that oblivion mod wiki is pretty amazing! Everything I remember having is there, and it's good to see Qarl, Jarrod, and CapnKill still have their work available. Thanks a ton!

Oh... I HAVE heard of OOO (Oscuro's), but I also remember hearing about Francisco's pack which seemed to also be an overhaul mod. Anyone know about key differences between the two?

I have tried both and this is what I can tell you:

I switched from OOO to Francisco's for one reason. OOO is insanely hard. It takes forever to level up skills and the only thing that you will even come close to having a chance to kill at the beginning is mud crabs and after you go beyond that don't expect to kill anything in a cave until much much later. It is a mod designed to appeal to those who are willing to put in a TON of hours in the game before you can truly experience the fruits of your labor. Too much patience and time for my blood.

Franciscos is different. It provides what I wanted and more. The biggest thing I wanted was the removal of level scaling. It does remove most of the level scaling but it leaves a little in. For example, maybe there are sets of mobs throughout Cyrodil which scale with you from level 1-5 but stop at 5. Another example is the arena. When you first begin you can progress a little in the arena. However, you can't finish the entire arena chain of quests at level 2 like you can with vanilla Oblivion. The same goes for other major chains like the guild hall quests, the main quest, daedric shrine quests, etc. You progress through the game and you can return to old caves which kicked your butt and then tear the place apart because you leveled and got stronger equipment.

The best part is that the mod is fully customizable in game! There is an in game interface which allows you to change most options even after you create your character. One small example of what I am talking about is chest loot. You can make it so chests drop more gold than normal or more magic items. You can control the rates of these kinds of options although it is still very random which increases the fun. You can also choose to disable just about everything individually if you do not like certain features.

There is a full site and guide explaining this entire mod somewhere which is easy to find via google. Take the time to read it all. It is long but it is worth it if you want a great experience.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Xavier, thanks a bunch for that writeup. If that is true, then I may be interested because I'm not going to be the guy with 100's of hours to invest.

 

[Fulcrum]

A link also found by navigating the UESP Wiki linked above, this site provides a great list of recommend mods with useful commentary on each.

 

[vesuvius333]

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsfor...3b9c52422&showforum=25

 

[shortylickens]

Way back in the day I found a single site that actually had most of the mods available (NOT links to a hundred other sites. The actual files themselves.)
Havent found it since. Maybe they died.

I have plenty of mods right now anyway. Especially considering I havent played it recently and I lost interest very quickly after I beat the main game and each of the expansions. It was OK, but didnt hold my attention nearly as well as Morrowind.

 

[NoSoup4You]

There are mods to allow faster skill advancement in OOO. This is huge for those of us that can't invest huge amounts of time into the level grind stuff.

I've used both Fran's and OOO, and I prefer OOO due to the fact it's far more of a complete overhaul than Fran's. You do need to keep one thing in mind though with OOO, make sure you select major skills based on how you plan on using your character. If it's a warrior, you need either Blade or Blunt as a major skill...etc. In un-modded Oblivion, you could get away with leveling up minor skills primarily to get +5 at every level advance. Don't try that in OOO or you'll get smoked early on. So in other words, OOO plays like a real rpg and starts you off as a weak character. By the time you reach level 7, you'll be more than a match for bandits...etc. And by level 15, you'll be able to start beating most of the enemies you encounter. However you'll still get smoked by certain enemies, which I think is fantastic. I hated how I could always defeat any enemy in regular Oblivion as long as I actively tried...etc.

 

[EvilComputer92]

I liked Francesco's the best.

 

[Molondo]

im gonna try francesco's mod with MMM. that should be interesting

 

[Cellulose]

Not sure if this has been mentioned but

http://www.tesnexus.com/

is the new TesSource - one of the best sites for mods.

 

[shortylickens]

EXCELLENT resource! Thank you very much.

Heres the page with all the catergories of mods, for both Morrowind and Oblivion.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/categories.php

This is a prime example of how a mod site should be run. Easy to view and navigate, and a buttload of downloads.
It might acutally get me playing again. Nothing is so fun as loading up a new module and exploring it in the game.

 

[Molondo]

Oh man, i downloaded so many mods that work with OOO.