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Post by Sniffles on Oct 12, 2015 23:05:32 GMT
That us very well put, dogonporch. I'm going to take license to expound and expand on it.
"Oblivion is meant to be modded, frankly." Let's change that a little: Oblivion is intended to be mod-able and tools are provided to do so. However, endorsements are not necessarily a weather vane. We watched a game walkthrough the other night which had over 100,000 endorsements. Of the random sampling of around 1000 of those endorsements, they were ALL illiterate trash. Tailgate parties at ball games could be considered endorsements in a very similar vein. Popularist noise from people acting like barbarians. A typical example would be a person who's car was hit by a lit flare. The person throwing the flare explained why he did it with the endorsement, "Hey man! Niners!"
I installed OBSE. It isn't as much a mod as a necessary adjunct. OBMM is viewed in the same light.
We need fast exit. That semi game crash when exiting is irksome. We both speed read so we don't need extended time to read text messages. Everyone really should re-learn how to read that way but they first have to unlearn the moron approach to reading as taught in pubic skoolz.
The purpose of this thread is a critique of one persons mods that regularly maintain a very high standard in the process of enhancing the original game without causing it problems. This seemed fitting on this forum which is based upon a mod that establishes an exemplary criterion of what extensive high quality mods should be. That's all, really.
Our criteria in this is to alter the landscape, enhance it, and more or less give the game a second chance. We were thinking of thenryb and his post on getting tired of Oblivion and losing interest. So we wanted Oblivion Mark II but as free from mod messes and disasters as possible. Brashers mods filled the bill admirably. Other mods selectively chosen and installed are helping though I'm not mentioning them mostly due to the raging debate that so often gets going. (Especially so with the body mods. If you go by endorsements alone massive unanatomical breasts will always win hands down)
PS There really should be three endorsement categories. EE, Educated and analytical Endorsement, GE, General endorsements based on a wide criteria and BE, Barbarian Endorsements based primarily on pituitary gland stimulus.
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Post by jgf on Oct 12, 2015 23:58:14 GMT
"If you don't use OBMM, you are unable to properly adjust your load order..."
BOSS? LOOT?
My thoughts on OBMM have been expressed elsewhere in these forums, suffice it to say it takes away my ability of controlling what is installed and where, what is or isn't backed up, what edits are made to .ini files, etc. And too many mod creators insist on releasing their mods only in .omod format, forcing players to place blind faith in this program. (Kudos to those creators who still release their mods with a manual install option.)
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Post by jgf on Oct 13, 2015 0:01:29 GMT
... We need fast exit. That semi game crash when exiting is irksome. ... After dealing with that a few times I just exit to the menu then ALT+TAB out and kill the process in Task Manager (which is always running on my system).
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 13, 2015 0:19:28 GMT
"If you don't use OBMM, you are unable to properly adjust your load order..." BOSS? LOOT? My thoughts on OBMM have been expressed elsewhere in these forums, suffice it to say it takes away my ability of controlling what is installed and where, what is or isn't backed up, what edits are made to .ini files, etc. And too many mod creators insist on releasing their mods only in .omod format, forcing players to place blind faith in this program. (Kudos to those creators who still release their mods with a manual install option.) What is your preferred alternative? I agree OBMM has a number of shortcomings but we don't rely entirely on it. We have our own filing system and back ups and we always manual download then let OBMM create it's own from the compressed file. Seems to be working quite nicely so far. It is very simple to run. I think all mods should be offered in generic format and have optional forms for whatever mod managers. I'm using what techy said about Linux OS programs: If it is proprietary we don't want it. We may rewrite it though. Think Men in Black; the same old piece of shit in a new wrapper?
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Post by jgf on Oct 13, 2015 2:20:24 GMT
My alternative? I do not use any mods released solely in .omod format. Fortunately most creators using this also upload a manual install version. Otherwise the only viable alternative would be to back up the entire game before installing any mod; the time and drive space required for this renders it an unacceptable option for me.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 13, 2015 12:30:12 GMT
Re: Blood Raven mod. I highly recommend this mod if for only one reason. The layout, scenery of the graveyard is really well done. It's a little hard to take in and appreciate when you are constantly fighting for your life but it is worth installing the mod just to see how pretty the place is!
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Post by jgf on Oct 13, 2015 16:41:31 GMT
BTW, one of Mr. Brasher's mods I've considered a "must" is "Always Foggy". No longer do you see all the way across the map with perfect clarity; now the distance disappears into fog as it did in Morrowind.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 13, 2015 20:44:15 GMT
(I had this mod next on my agenda!)
Always Foggy. Well, it is! No more will you have to suffer through those lovely sunsets. No more clear mornings where you can see forever! Hey! We had a half RL year of snow which is just a little weird down in the southern climes around Leyawin so what the heck. The mod works right and delivers.
On the down side it enhances other Oblivion foibles like your shadow being visible in the fog as well as in the middle of the night. And of course, there are no dark nights in that little slice of Tamriel.
But it's a nice break now and then to turn on the fog machine. To really get into the feel of the mod, go to the options and turn off shadows then slide the brightness down a few notches. The forests, especially if you have Unique Landscapes or similar installed really work well with this added ambiance.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 14, 2015 2:18:35 GMT
Skyrim Nord Tombs Since I have Unique Landscapes installed I'm unsure what areas if any were added by this mod. UL offers some hints of Skyrim which is nice, and it's a shame Bethseda didn't take the hint and add more forests as found in that mod.
As for the Tombs, they are barrows. Rather small burial chambers that aren't any serious change from the rock galumphs of the original Oblivion game for the most part. They present a little mini quest here and there, a chance to improve lock picking skills, offer quite a lot of treasures well above my what my 10th level character normally encounters, and for lower level PCs, a chance to get your arses royally kicked by some industrial grade monsters.
It's a rather uninspired mod that works well. A little northern augmentation to the original game that keeps in theme pretty well and if your lock picking skills are up to snuff, another way to turn your PC and game play into another logistics operation as you endeavor to haul your loot up some pretty steep climbs.
And oh yes. Always Foggy doesn't seem to apply beyond the borders of Cyrodil. This is a blessing in disguise as some of the terrain was made entirely for aesthetics and was never meant to be negotiated. If fog was added where your navigation is limited you could spend quite a lot of time just trying to get around in the area.
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Post by jgf on Oct 14, 2015 22:23:18 GMT
...Always Foggy doesn't seem to apply beyond the borders of Cyrodil. .... "This mod only edits the Cyrodiil area in the Tamriel worldspace. It makes it so it is foggy 90% of the time, and normal weather from the region you are in is present 10% of the time." It also doesn't work in towns, so it could be foggy outside the gate and clear skies and sunshine once you walk through it. As for denser forests, it is easily done but not practical. Each individual tree is another mesh to be loaded and more textures to be rendered, frame rates would quickly plummet.
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Post by Sniffles on Oct 14, 2015 23:55:58 GMT
As I discovered the hard way when I used that mod to create a forest west of Whiterun. When we had that pure crap video card and the game didn't crash it could take 15 stuttered minutes to walk to the western watch tower. On the bright side, that was a good test of CPU and graphics card power.
Not speaking of which, the Colovian highlands are our favorite place in Oblivion and we want to remake the scenery into The Tetons. Is there a mod that could help with this? Not the topography, just the trees and bushes.
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Post by jgf on Oct 16, 2015 0:19:25 GMT
I'm reminded of a Morrowind mod which added about 50% more trees to the Solstheim forests. It looked very nice but once you started walking in the woods frame rates went to single digits, even worse if there were NPCs or creatures nearby - stutter stutter stutter for several seconds then pause for twenty seconds while the hard drive gets thrashed. After a few minutes i decided there was no way this was viable unless I had the game on a liquid cooled Cray, so removed the mod.
What you want would be a simple job in the CS. Just add perhaps 20% more trees/shrubbery to the area, see how game performance is affected, then add more if it seems feasible; the limit is whatever your computer can handle. Wander all around the area in various directions and see how fps is affected, especially with NPCs and creatures around; you may have to thin out some areas while being able to make others even more dense.
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Post by dogonporch on Oct 25, 2015 16:38:55 GMT
I'm reminded of a Morrowind mod which added about 50% more trees to the Solstheim forests. It looked very nice but once you started walking in the woods frame rates went to single digits, even worse if there were NPCs or creatures nearby - stutter stutter stutter for several seconds then pause for twenty seconds while the hard drive gets thrashed. After a few minutes i decided there was no way this was viable unless I had the game on a liquid cooled Cray, so removed the mod. What you want would be a simple job in the CS. Just add perhaps 20% more trees/shrubbery to the area, see how game performance is affected, then add more if it seems feasible; the limit is whatever your computer can handle. Wander all around the area in various directions and see how fps is affected, especially with NPCs and creatures around; you may have to thin out some areas while being able to make others even more dense. You can also add the low poly grass which really helps with FPS. Even the Loy-Low Poly grass looks great under most conditions. www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/5434/?
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Post by dogonporch on Oct 25, 2015 16:56:43 GMT
"If you don't use OBMM, you are unable to properly adjust your load order..." BOSS? LOOT? My thoughts on OBMM have been expressed elsewhere in these forums, suffice it to say it takes away my ability of controlling what is installed and where, what is or isn't backed up, what edits are made to .ini files, etc. And too many mod creators insist on releasing their mods only in .omod format, forcing players to place blind faith in this program. (Kudos to those creators who still release their mods with a manual install option.) I don't use OMODs. I just prefer to manually adjust my Load Order. BOSS doesn't list many of the additions I use (all 255 slots are full) thus isn't suitable for arranging my load order. The conflict detectors on OBMM are quite accurate....plus, the archive validation feature is one-step. Couple of good points.
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Post by jgf on Oct 25, 2015 23:12:06 GMT
....I don't use OMODs. ... Nor do I. But my complaint is not regarding OBMM/omods, rather with those who wish to force everyone into using it by ONLY releasing their mods in omod format. There are numerous, borderline acrimonious, threads on other sites - "I have the right to upload my mod any way I want to" (quite true) "But I don't want to use OBMM" (valid point) "Then don't use my mod" (arrogant and inconsiderate; since creating the omod is an EXTRA step after creating the mod) The conflict detectors on OBMM are quite accurate....plus, the archive validation feature is one-step. Couple of good points. There is a small .esp which removes the necessity for the "archive validation" (Bethesda must have hired some ex-Micro$oft programmers, this is their mindset).
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