Gaming

It's been a while since I saw any thalmor. I keep getting the comment that they've been "taken down a peg" but I'm not entirely sure what I've done to them

I've been trying to finish that quest with the aethersomething shards... One more place to find. The last one was a bit... odd. It was just lying there undisturbed for how many centuries, again? in plain sight, unguarded and near a bridge that I assume anyone coming that way would have to use. Then again, there were forsworn in the area. And bears. And a dragon. And I found a total of four dead bodies that were none of my doing... so I guess maybe most folks stay away from there....

Probably has something to do with the way you ruined Elenwen's party.

I also tend to intervene when they're persecuting Talos worshippers so most of the ones I encounter don't like me and one of them usually carries the execution order about me so...
Oh, and I have two of those shard things. I haven't quite worked out where to go for the others but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

I also had a little quick go on Oblivion and had another sleep to level up again. Then I tried to get in to a display case to acquire a book to sell on to that nice lady who pays well but I used up every one of my 35 lockpicks.

Yeah, let's not bother saving after that.

I called back into Whiterun to sell some special stuff to Ysolda but it was a bit too late when I arrived, certainly past the time when you can have a drink with her in the Bannered Mare and she's probably in bed by now.
So I went back in to Breezehome to dump some heavy stuff in the chest there and maybe spend some time trying to balance another traveller's skull on my shelves and-
Don't you just hate it when the chatty guard comes in with you to finish his little phrase?

 

Yes, I smell like a wet dog, etc. Now get out!
He started telling me something else as Lucia ran at me from behind, "Mama, You're back. Did you bring me anything?"
Well at least she doesn't want money this time as the guard continues to say stuff. Yeah, yeah, fur coming out of my ears, I know.
So what do you want from me, girl?
"A dress. Or a doll."
And I'm supposed to be carrying that as well as my heavy weapons?
Well lucky you...

 

And she went off to play with it!

 

Still not quite sure why she wanted to do all this at 3am but... kids!
And the guard has finally gone.

I thought that while I usually want to finish a game before installing mods to it, Oblivion might be an exception, just because it looks like crap as it is.

But then comes the problem of finding mods. NexusMods has some 14,000 or so pages of Oblivion mods. So I googled "best Oblivion mods" and found a list of 20. And a link to another page with another 20 or so mods just to improve graphics.

And each mod I look at seem to be the same. I check Requirements and it says it doesn't have any requirements other than the base game. I then check the text further down on the page, and here we usually find an essay or two. And they always state that "you need this too. And this. And you really should install this and this just in case." Not to mention that most mods seem to be fixes of older mods that you also need to install FIRST even though this new one is really a replacer... Apparently the fixes and replacers just don't work unless you also have what they're replacing.

And then about half of them also tell you to do things I have no idea what it even means. Like something about basher files or using Wrye Bash. Which I guess is also related to basher files, judging by the name. But it seems to have to do with a lot of mods being inompatible with each other if the people making mods didn't use Wrye Bash, well heck I want to USE the mods, not make them

Well, that was about an hour of wasted time in which I didn't manage to find a single mod I could make heads or tails of whether it was actually usable.

...also (just remembered this) when you give your child a gift in Skyrim it goes into your inventory but only lists the items that are suitable for the child.
Like... *reads list* ...doll, dress, wooden play sword, book of riddles, Ebony Soul Trap Dagger...
As if I'm gonna give her THAT!

For Oblivion I use Wrye Bash and it's quite easy to use when you get the hang of it. You just download the zip or 7z files and put them in the Bash Installers folder. Then run Wrye Bash, go to the Installers tab and right click/select install. Then go to the mod tabs and make sure they're selected. You can then come back and deselect or uninstall them easily enough.
Looking at my modlist, just for the graphics I have Blockhead and Oblivion Character Overhaul (to get rid of the potato faces), Grass Overhaul, OSR stutter remover (also Improved Moons, which I forgot about) and I have the enb and the Cyrodiil preset. I also remember installing something called ShadeMe to improve the shadows but that was a slightly different process that I can't fully recall now.
The one I found hardest to install was DarnifiedUI (which makes the text smaller and the map bigger) as the original mod really needs the Oblivion Mod Manager, which I don't use, and I instead had to download an alternative BAIN version. Whatever those words mean.

Anyway, I got it working in the end through lots of trial and error and INI tweaks.

EDIT: Or... instead of trying to find the Bash Installers folder (which may be in a completely different place for GoG Games) you can just open Wrye Bash, click the Installers tab and drag the zip files into the window beneath the tab.

Valence wrote:

...to get rid of the potato faces...

 poor faceless freaks. What did the potatoes do to deserve this? 

Well, I now have Wrye Bash downloading (it just said 7 hours left ) but it's annoying that each game seems to require a separate mod manager thingy.

I've also book-marked some possible mods. But I really should get to bed. Tomorrow I need to take the train, so I can take a bus, so I can take a long walk, so I can get my car. Because the usual direct buses from here to there don't run during school holidays.

They did this to Patrick Stewart...

 

And when not being scared by potatoes I successfully picked the display case lock and got that expensive book.
Now filled with misplaced overconfidence I got tempted by another display case with a lovely-looking glass sword.
I bet that's a fantastic weapon.
Let's try for it.
*snap*
*snap*
*snap*

*snap*
A few more lockpicks later and... It's open!
I pick up the glass sword and... it's a replica that has no value and does no damage at all.