Nutty about games!

I did once play a lot of Oblivion through with just a couple of mods installed - one to make stealth a little better, and one to improve damage from arrows, I believe. I have to say that since playing from scratch again - not really out of choice since I forgot to back up my save games during a system reload - I have been experimenting with rather a lot of mods and am enjoying the game even more.

Firstly, we had better start with the ‘official’ mods, which can easily be downloaded here. A word of warning for Vista users - do not download these, as they will not install. An all-round better option anyway is to purchase the Knights of the Nine compilation, which includes all official plugins to date.

Basically for £15-ish you get a large quest giving new armour at the end of it, a huge dungeon with a dagger reward, horse armour, tomes with new spells, a magical ‘orrery’ giving spells linked to ingame lunar cycles, your very own pirate cove for thieves, a lair for evil characters (especially useful for vampires) and an impressive looking mage tower. Worth it, I think, although many beg to differ.

Ok, now, on to the free mods - I have the greatest respect for the wonderful people working on these creations; I have started to learn to use the contruction set, and it is taking me quite a while! Anyway, I digress; here are the mods I am currently using, with links to download locations and in some instances their official forum post location.

Most of these mods have been updated to work with the new v1.2 patch. Do not install them without it!

Unofficial Oblivion Patch
Does what it says on the tin! Forum thread is here.

Francesco’s Levelled Creatures/Item mod
Fantastic mod, do not miss out on this! Tons of new items, creatures, bandits no longer with stupidly rare armour, rare drops rarer, skills level more slowly, more enemies, increases difficulty (so, for example, you can’t beat the arena at level 5!)….I could go on. Fully customisable too; forum thread here.

To get this working since the patch (until version 4.3 is out), try this out:

Edit the oblivion.ini file. Go to
My Computer
Your documents (named after your computer)
My Games
Oblivion
Oblivion.ini
Once in the oblivion.ini so a search for “SArchiveList” (leave out the ” and then add to the end of the list:

Francesco’s optional new items add-on.bsa, Francesco’s optional new creatures add-on.bsa

Don’t forget the comma after the previous item in the list or you will crash to desktop!

Quest Award Leveller
Annoyed that you can no longer use that level 8 quest reward now that you are level 30 and the stats are useless? Grab this handy little mod, which ensures that as your level increases, your quest reward items level alongside you, so you don’t have to wait until higher levels to get that better quest reward.

Official Mods Unofficial Patch
Fixes little bugs in the official plugin content, that Bethesda don’t see to want to fix. Forum thread here.

Mart’s Monster Mod
Tons of new creatures, npc’s, and more! Upgrade Patch is here. Forum thread here.

Dark IU
Excellent darker version of Oblivion UI.

Dude, Where’s My Horse
Never lose your horse again!

Natural Wildlife v1.3
Sick of being attacked by Mudcrabs and rats? This mod is the perfect solution! Mod for Mart’s Monster Mod compatibility is here.

Atmospheric Weather System
A very large weather addon, with 5 times the weather types of standard oblivion.

DarNified BTMod
Excellent looking interface. You must have Oblivion Mod Manager installed to run this. Install AFTER Dark UI.

Reneers Guard Overhaul
Changes guard behaviour, making them more realistic. Thread is here.

Rens Beauty Pack
Another must-have. More options for your characters, and a new race.

Artifacts of Tamriel
New weapons and armour that are a challenge to obtain! Read all about it in the mod description.

Stealth Overhaul
Make stealthing more worthwhile. Requires OBSE (see below).

Thievery in the Imperial City
A mod especially fot thieves, including a new fence and quests!

OBSE - Oblivion Script Extender
Needed for a few addons, including Decorator Assistant (below).

Decorator Assistant
A handly tool for decorating your home. I am still rubbish at it though. Requires OBSE.

Bookplacing
Again, for decorating purposes.

Better Gold
Erm….better looking gold.

Short Grass v2
Can make systems run faster - I just think it looks better.

Right, that’s all for now! I haven’t included housing mods because I am going to write a little ‘review’ of them later. I love my houses!

My eldest boy and I have discovered the joys of Mio and Mao, which can be seen here.

All together now!

Mio Mao…Mio Mao! Lalala la-la! Mio Mao…Mio Mao! Lalala la-la!

We recently started playing Battlefield 2142, and the change from the ‘quest/raiding’ of WoW to ’shoot-em and scream at the screen’ awakened a longing for another online shooter we used to play a few years ago - Planetside.

When we first started out we played for hours every evening and weekend - having no children back then did wonders for our gaming time - and we had our own outfit. Friends also used to play and we would shout and scream into voice comms into the wee hours.  Back then I had a stealthy character who used to sneak into bases and hack consoles. I was pretty poor at it, but I had fun trying! Next I changed to a combat engineering class - my fave - where I would lay turrets and mines to kill unsuspecting troops. Oh how I love my AMS too.

The game has come a long way since that and not only is there a whole new area with new vehicles through the Core Combat expansion, but can you now command giant mechs or BFR’s and they changed the layout of the world.

What did it for us though was the prospect of a whole new expanded engineering skill system, which now boasts Fortification, Assault and Advanced Engineering (a combination of the two), with new flying and stealthed turrets to boot.

Get the game downloaded, join Vanu Sovereignty, and message N1GHTSH4D3 in game (yeh, stoopid name I know) - you’ll have great fun, I promise.

I’m guessing the former…

So, on the launch of the Playstation 3, the Oxford Street branch of Virgin Megastore gave out 100 HD TV’s worth £2,500 to the insane people who had queued outside the store for the past 2 days (as well as keeping them tanked up on coffee and coke).

I’m not jealous. Honest.

To be honest I am not entirely excited about the PS3. I am able to play on a still-reasonable PC, and Xbox 360 and Wii, and have access to a PSP. I can even play on my little DS if I am truly bored. I have enough games right now to last me months and months, so I don’t really need yet another platform with yet another batch of games that I have no time to play.

Anyway, I digress…check out a ‘microsoft biased’ review here which is actually quite surprising…

They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight.
Shunting trucks and hauling freight.
Red and green and brown and blue,
They’re the really useful crew!
All with different roles to play,
’round Tidmouth sheds or far away.
Down the hills and ’round the bends,
Thomas and his friends!

Thomas!  He’s the cheeky one.
James! Is vain but lots of fun!
Percy!  Pulls the mail on time.
Gordon!  Thunders down the line!
Emily!  Really knows her stuff.
Henry! Toots and huffs and puffs.
Edward! Wants to help and share.
Toby!  Let’s just say…he’s square!

They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight.
Shunting trucks and hauling freight.
Red and green and brown and blue,
They’re the really useful crew!
All with different roles to play,
’round Tidmouth sheds or far away.
Down the hills and ’round the bends,
Thomas and his friends!

Hey, I said there would be some odd blogging on here, didn’t I? This is Nicholas’s fave programme at the moment, and I know these lyrics off by heart now! We love Thomas!

I used to play Morrowind quite a long time ago, before the expansions, but I completely ruined it when I started to cheat - summoning up Azura’s Star multiple times using the console and selling them to Scamp the Creeper, then spending the money on training to ridiculous levels!

This time, however, having learned the error of my cheating ways, I am going to play properly - however, mods are another thing entirely…

It’s safe to say I am using quite a number of mods, and I thought I should ‘come clean’ and list them all here before play commences, with links in case you want to get them yourselves.  Most are listed in my Links list to the right under Telesphoros’ Mod List.

Better Heads

Morrowind Comes Alive
Fantastic mod which basically inserts new non-static npc’s into the game world, and also locks doors at night.

Tamriel Rebuilt
A project to rebuild the world The Elder Scrolls is set in. Some good work here, and downloadable work in progress

Less Generic NPCs
This is really good work, hats off to these people - no more generic conversation, this mod inserts whole new scripts into many towns.

Khalazza Productions (face mods from here)
I grabbed quite a few face/body mods from here

Atmospheric Sound Effects
Another interesting mod which inserts background sounds into Morrowind.

Avenger’s Female Armor Pack 2.0

Avenger’s Female Shirt Pack 2.0

Sell & Sail Galleon
Sail off around the world with your very own boat!

Better Bodies
Much improved bodies, highly recommended.

Delayed Dark Brotherhood Attack
If you don’t want to be attacked straight away, if you are a wimp like me for example!

Morrowind Enhanced
If you go to the website there are other addons to use with it such as stealth/crime and combat.

All Silt Strider Ports
Allows you to travel to any silt strider port instead of having to go through many ports to get to a destination.

Slof’s Better Beasts
Take a peek.

The Latest Greatest Housing Mod Gold
Really good fun, houses to rent!

Potion Upgrade 1.3
Better bottles!

Better Books
Make books look lovely with this one.

Ashlander Tent
A tent you can pack up and take along with you on your travels, looks nice too.

Hendalf Gold
Better looking coins

Pearl Palace
This housing mod is an underground palace with pretty much everything you need in it (including anchemy jars, a fave of mine)

New Argonian Bodies

Better Clothes 1.0

Fast Travel
More for fun, not something I plan on using much really. I don’t have the time to explore that I used to. 

Ultimate Textures
A MUST HAVE. Really improves the game; absolutely beautiful.

Morrowind FPS Optimizer
Another must have.

and if you have Windows with Direct X 9.0c or later get this:

Morrowind Graphics Extender
Unfortuntely I cannot use this as I am running Windows Vista

All the above mods have been created by others with time and patience I do not possess. They are links to other websites beyond my control. Please don’t use their work as your own. Use at your own risk, and back up your save games before installing them!

They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight.
Shunting trucks and hauling freight.
Red and green and brown and blue,
They’re the really useful crew!
All with different roles to play,
’round Tidmouth sheds or far away.
Down the hills and ’round the bends,
Thomas and his friends!

Thomas!  He’s the cheeky one.
James! Is vain but lots of fun!
Percy!  Pulls the mail on time.
Gordon!  Thunders down the line!
Emily!  Really knows her stuff.
Henry! Toots and huffs and puffs.
Edward! Wants to help and share.
Toby!  Let’s just say…he’s square!

They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight.
Shunting trucks and hauling freight.
Red and green and brown and blue,
They’re the really useful crew!
All with different roles to play,
’round Tidmouth sheds or far away.
Down the hills and ’round the bends,
Thomas and his friends!

Hey, I said there would be some odd blogging on here, didn’t I? This is Nicholas’s fave programme at the moment, and I know these lyrics off by heart now! We love Thomas!

This is my Oblivion character, Adelea Wolfsbane (please excuse the lack of anti-aliasing).

Profile
Class:    Agent  (the charming assassin)
Sign:     The Thief

Skills:    Acrobatics, Illusion, Marksman, Mercantile, Security, Sneak, Speechcraft.

 

Guilds

Dark Brotherhood:     Listener

Thieves Guild:            Gray Fox

This is my Morrowind character, Dhania Moonseed.

Profile
Class:            Callidus  (sneaky backstabber)
Sign:              The Thief

Major skills:    Security, Marksman, Light Armour, Speechcraft, Mercantile
Minor skills:    Sneak, Short Blade, Block, Alchemy, Athletics

Guilds

None as yet

It should be noted that I have chosen those skills to level her more slowly, which is a better idea in Morrowind which does not have level scaling. She is going to be less of a ‘charmer’ than Adelea, preferring the stealth/backstab approach. I think this is how she will develop anyway.