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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 9, 2019 5:09:06 GMT
I've had a very long break from Oblivion due to all kinds of life issues, but I'm back now. I'm still trying to find where I archived everything and I've just validated my Nexus account again. I presently have a bright shiny new Steam install of Oblivion partly because I couldn't find my original game discs and partly because my present computer has all the disc drives disconnected and I really didn't want to drag the monster of a thing down (it's a massive old dual processor Xeon workstation) and open it up and reconnect everything.
Perhaps once I've found everything I'll be looking at doing some modding again, but for the moment I've got a vanilla race Wood Elf running around in-game just so I can get familiar with the landscape once more. I have to say though that the game world looks wonderful with the GTX 960 video card I now have. (My previous video card was something fairly underwhelming and forgettable) And with 8 Xeon cores pushing the data Oblivion runs very sweetly indeed.
Otherwise my health issues are much the same with narcolepsy making things difficult, but at least all the bad times seem to be well over and done with now.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 10, 2019 1:47:21 GMT
I'm still getting to grips with the Steam version of Oblivion. It seems to work Ok, but there are issues over OBSE and OBMM that I don't care for. If this keeps up I'll have to dig one of my old gaming computers that have Oblivion installed out of the store cupboard and get it working again.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 10, 2019 2:53:08 GMT
Star, - who is a Bosmer is my 'return to Oblivion' test character. I've always liked the standard game leather armour, - sometimes combined with a leather armored skirt, - and most of my past stealthy characters have worn it almost exclusively. I'm running Dreadcore's Goblin Realswords and Tribal Shields mod and I have to say the Goblin bow is a real gift to a stealthy archer character. The shields are worth picking up too as is the Goblin cleaver which is a great melee weapon. I've been looking at what mods are new since last I played and I have to say I don't like the skanky pornagraphic ones at all. Otherwise there are some very good sensible and useful ones around that I'll be looking into.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 10, 2019 6:45:33 GMT
Anyone else find the battle for Kavatch really disorientating? I think Star is in trouble though because one of the Kavatch guards suddenly ran through her line of fire and was killed by one of her arrows. Of course that annoying voice from nowhere, 'Someone has been murdered', was immediately heard. It's a thankless task being an archer in a melee battle. I'm using SM Combat Hide by Strategy Master for the first time and it works well. Star got pushed off the edge of a non fatal drop by a Dremora Churl and because he couldn't see her anymore he didn't come after her. With the typical sneak arrow shot from the shadows the aggrieved victim can't attack if they haven't see you which allows for a second 3X hit shot to be made. I really do need to work on her shortsword skills though, because while she's fast and agile she can't hit anything much for toffee.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 0:32:07 GMT
I've parked playing Star for a while. She's a nice character, but playing as a lightly equipped archer has always been difficult in Oblivion and even though I've got her working on her alchemy skills to use poisons it's all too easy for her to get into trouble. So I'm back with playing immortal UnDead custom characters. Queen Eiolynn was my former immortal UnDead character that I played for many many game hours, but I decided not to resurrect her (excuse the pun) as she essentially hates everybody, but only managed to complete the main quest (twice!) because she hated the Mythic Dawn and the Daedra more than everyone else. She also hates necromancers and vampires in particular. She also drinks wine to excess and picks fights simply for the joy of doing so. Queen Eiolynn was also thrown out of the Dark Brotherhood and banned from joining again for killing a good few of them because they annoyed her. The Dire Shade (I think that's what it was called) sent to punish her she found amusing and enjoyed dispatching it. So I made a new character, - Night, - why she was given that name is lost in time and she doesn't remember the details. She is essentially a good person, so she's very different to Queen Eiolynn. Night has joined the Blades, Queen Eiolynn refused; she also believes in the cause to have Martin crowned as emperor, whereas Eiolynn was a hive of seething jealousy and only allied herself to the cause because she hated the Daedric Lords of Oblivion. I decided not to use any custom idle poses because they don't suit risen UnDead very well. This screenshot is of the moment when Night first saw the city of Kavatch in flames. I think she was considering turning around and forgetting all about it at this point, but of course she didn't. So why do I chose to play this kind of character? It's because I have severe type 1 narcolepsy, - which affects the cognitive processes in my brain. I get micro pauses and it also makes me slow to react in a random and unpredictable fashion. There's nothing wrong with my intelligence, - it's just that it's slowed down. So absolutely perfect for role-playing a risen from the grave UnDead character don't you think? My UnDead characters have stats and abilities that in the hands of a quick thinking younger player with sharp reactions would be a total game breaker, but with me they aren't. Two more screenshots. Night is a light armour and blunt weapons character. Not so good with swords, but Ok at hand to hand having punched out a few stunted scamps when her mace broke while in the Oblivion realm.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 1:17:08 GMT
Just some additional thoughts. My approach to making a successful and believable risen UnDead character is to give them high strength, endurance and willpower stats, but to keep their intelligence and agility stats always trailing well behind when they level up. For this reason they aren't great magic users, make hopeless archers and they do tend to get staggered and knocked back a lot in combat, but when they do land a blow it's like being hit by a truck.
Queen Eiolynn was a good test subject for developing this approach. If she had been a powerful magic user in her risen UnDead form, - and in life she had been a seriously skilled user of magic, - she would have been a total game breaker. Her favourite weapon was a two handed sword, - usually a fine iron sword (she loves iron weapons), - and if she'd had normal agility stats she would have carved her way through anything standing in her way. With nerfed agility she was much less of a threat. Ok she was still dangerous, but to win a combat took a lot more work on her part. I role play my characters as you might have guessed, - so knowing their history and personality is what makes them come alive (in a manner of speaking) for me.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 3:52:28 GMT
Amusing moments with playing UnDead characters. Exasperated bandits yelling, 'Why won't you DIE!'
Um... excuse me, but I'm already dead.
A vampire saying, 'I need your blood.'
Are you sure? What I might have left in my veins has been clotted and stagnant for at least a 1000 years.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 9:48:53 GMT
I'm feeling a bit upset because I found the external hard drive I'd backed my very first install of Oblivion to along with all my favourite mods, - some of which I know aren't available anymore, - and while the hard drive was in storage it had quietly died inside its case. Not a chance of recovery either since the drive sounded like a coffee grinder and vibrated horribly. I had some good stuff on that hard drive and now it's GONE!
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Post by dogonporch on Jun 12, 2019 17:00:45 GMT
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Post by jgf on Jun 12, 2019 20:47:48 GMT
I'm feeling a bit upset because I found the external hard drive I'd backed my very first install of Oblivion to along with all my favourite mods, - some of which I know aren't available anymore, - and while the hard drive was in storage it had quietly died inside its case. Not a chance of recovery either since the drive sounded like a coffee grinder and vibrated horribly. I had some good stuff on that hard drive and now it's GONE! I had the same issue with a drive taken from a dead computer stored in a hall closet for three years; put it in another computer and it made the most ungodly racket, but I could still access it. Quickly copied what I wanted from it to a flashdrive, then "recycled" the HD (assume it is now in the city landfill).
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Post by jgf on Jun 12, 2019 20:58:29 GMT
.... I've always liked the standard game leather armour, - sometimes combined with a leather armored skirt, - and most of my past stealthy characters have worn it almost exclusively. ... I've been looking at what mods are new since last I played and I have to say I don't like the skanky pornagraphic ones at all. Otherwise there are some very good sensible and useful ones around that I'll be looking into. Have you tried "Spicy Fox Vanilla Armor"? (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45791) It provides feminine but not blatantly sexy versions of the default armors.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 22:46:08 GMT
I'm feeling a bit upset because I found the external hard drive I'd backed my very first install of Oblivion to along with all my favourite mods, - some of which I know aren't available anymore, - and while the hard drive was in storage it had quietly died inside its case. Not a chance of recovery either since the drive sounded like a coffee grinder and vibrated horribly. I had some good stuff on that hard drive and now it's GONE! I had the same issue with a drive taken from a dead computer stored in a hall closet for three years; put it in another computer and it made the most ungodly racket, but I could still access it. Quickly copied what I wanted from it to a flashdrive, then "recycled" the HD (assume it is now in the city landfill). I thought I might be lucky enough to do that and I managed to get the file contents listing displayed Ok, but then the drive just plain died and became unreadable. Win some lose some I guess.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 23:04:34 GMT
No I'm using this one with the Elf female zombie much modded. www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10688I don't think much of the LoversLab zombie to tell the truth. In my professional life I worked in hospitals as a social worker and I've seen more than a few dead people, - sometimes when they weren't at their best. Anyway my UnDead characters are Elves and are very thin and to my mind anatomically believable. Their detailing such as eyes and skin are reasonably correct for being about four to five days dead. No necromancer would have bothered resurrecting them if they were dead longer than that.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 12, 2019 23:21:11 GMT
.... I've always liked the standard game leather armour, - sometimes combined with a leather armored skirt, - and most of my past stealthy characters have worn it almost exclusively. ... I've been looking at what mods are new since last I played and I have to say I don't like the skanky pornagraphic ones at all. Otherwise there are some very good sensible and useful ones around that I'll be looking into. Have you tried "Spicy Fox Vanilla Armor"? (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45791) It provides feminine but not blatantly sexy versions of the default armors. Yes I have used that mod for some of my characters in the past, but not for my UnDead characters. Queen Eiolynn was often played with upper body Tattoo armour and a mail skirt because she didn't give a stuff about what people thought and if she made them frightened of her so much the better; But Night is much more reticent about her body and appearance and doesn't like anyone seeing any of her skin. Lately she's taken to wearing a mask to hide her face. Like I said earlier I roleplay my characters and they are all very much individual people with their own personalities.
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Post by dogonporch on Jun 12, 2019 23:26:59 GMT
Have you tried "Spicy Fox Vanilla Armor"? (https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45791) It provides feminine but not blatantly sexy versions of the default armors. Yes I have used that mod for some of my characters in the past, but not for my UnDead characters. Queen Eiolynn was often played with upper body Tattoo armour and a mail skirt because she didn't give a stuff about what people thought and if she made them frightened of her so much the better; But Night is much more reticent about her body and appearance and doesn't like anyone seeing any of her skin. Lately she's taken to wearing a mask to hide her face. Like I said earlier I roleplay my characters and they are all very much individual people with their own personalities. Do you use Nifskope at all? It would be pretty handy for making zombie specific armor/clothes.
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