A Departure, and OMOD Tutorial

I messed my game up somehow, I think. So I'm doing a total reinstall and making some changes:

Only install via OMOD, except for mods which are an .esp or .esm only. In other words, if the only thing they have is .esp or .esm, they are installed normally. If they need to add any textures or some such, they are installed via OMOD only. This is so if I uninstall I don't leave crap behind.

The thing about OMODs is some need scripts. Scripts are not particularly hard to write, especially if you have scripting/programming knowledge (which I do.) They may be slightly harder if you've never coded, but it shouldn't be too bad. Basically, scripts are needed if you have any choices to make on files to install. For instance, if you have two versions of an .esp (one for Shivering Isles, one for if SI isn't installed), you'd write a script to detect that (only 2 or 3 lines) and install the correct file. You can also ask the users questions, such as "File A is more resource intensive, but looks nicer. File B is reduced resources but looks worse. Which do you want?" Most mods that have really complex scripting (OOO, for instance) come in premade OMOD form.

However, most stuff I have that isn't in OMOD have no choices. I can just tell OBMM to make an OMOD out of it and be done with it. Alternatively, you can customize the archive to have the setup you want (take out the files you don't want) and OMOD it that way. But, the downside is it isn't easy to change configurations.

I think my problem was I left unneeded information behind in the textures directory when I uninstalled mods and that lead to causing problems with my game. Also, Kobu's Leveling system appeared to not be working correctly. I had plenty of Major skill ups (more than ten) and hadn't leveled. As a result of this, I'd never be able to survive using OOO (which gets rid of scaling that'd otherwise enable you to play the full game without ever leveling.)

It's easy to create an OMOD that doesn't need a script: Go into OBMM, look at the bottom of the screen on the right. See where it says Create? Click that. On the new screen that comes up, click "Add Archive", navigate to the mod you want to make into an OMOD. Select it. Press "Create OMOD" and wait. Activate it when the creation process is finished. Keep in mind, if it's something huge (Like Qarl's TP3) the creation process could take 15 or 20 minutes or more, depending on your system speed.

This is basically the same procedure used for creating the Better Cities OMOD. Also, if you created a script, just toss it in the archive and OBMM should know what to do.

I'm also trying out a few mods (Natural Environments, as opposed to Arthur's Version) as well as Oblivion XP (with Elys' Uncapper) since Kobu's didn't seem to do much. This pretty much necessitates me starting a new save. I only had 8 hours on my old save, so I'm not losing that much. If I had 100+ hours... yeah, I might be sorta pissed. One mod I will miss from Kobu's is the lighter backpack mod. I haven't seen much in the way of a replacement, and lighter backpack won't work without the main Kobu's level system mod. Kobu's also had a nice mod to skip the annoying tutorial at the start. I'm sure someone else must have done that as well, though I haven't looked for anything.

And that's it for this time!

The correct setup of Better Cities and some thoughts on mods.

Setting up Better Cities is pretty easy. The recommended way of doing it is to use OBMM to create an OMOD and install it that way, and that's what I'll cover in this entry.

As of today (6/25/10) there's 3 files you need. A master file and two resource packs. This could change in the future.

If you read the instructions that come with BC, you'd think you just need to combine the three archives into an OMOD. This is wrong. It'll appear to work in OBMM, but you'll have missing textures all over the cities when you install it. Some people on the forums (the jerks, anyway) will act like you're a huge idiot for thinking that's the correct procedure, but the truth is (no matter how much they insist otherwise) that's what the instructions that come with the mod tell you to do to create an OMOD.

Here's the correct procedure:

Leave the master file archive alone. You don't need to do anything to this except put it in the OMOD. Take the two texture packs and unzip them to the same directory as the master archive is in. Now you'll have two 7Zip files. (Why did they archive it twice? I have no idea.) Unzip those to the same directory and they should form one huge file. Go into OBMMand click on Create OMOD. Click on the "Add Archive" button inside the OMOD creation window. Add the Master File first and then the giant resources file you just created. Click Create OMOD and then activate after the OMOD is done compiling. This'll take a pretty long time (at least 6-8 minutes unless you have a super fast CPU) so be patient.

See? That wasn't so hard.

Thoughts on mods:

I recently gave up using the weather mod in Arthur's Natural Environments because it did nothing but rain. It rained nonstop for 5 game days. I switched to Enhanced Weather and it's nice. If you ever want to switch weather mods, I recommend going into the console and typing the following:

fw 38EEE

This will set the weather to clear. Hit escape IMMEDIATELY after closing the console, save, quit, then install the new weather mod. What can happen if you don't do that is, if the weather is in a state specific to the weather mod you just deactivated, the game will crash when you try to load the save because Oblivion can't figure out how to handle the current weather. It took me a half hour to figure this out last night.

Also, I strongly recommend OOO + MMM. I am loving it so far. I have two companions with me (courtesy of the CM Partners mod) and they're basically keeping me alive. This game is HARD with those two mods installed, so be careful if you use them. The game is total Chaos. I was riding from the Imperial City to Skingrad and was attacked out of nowhere by two magicians summoning Daedra and Clannfears. I thought I had gotten near an Oblivion gate or something and was being attacked, so I ended up attacking the summoned creatures instead of the real menaces. (Luckily, my companions saw through it and beat the hell out of the real enemies.) However, after the fight, I realized there were no Oblivion gates because I hadn't done Kvatch yet. I'm experimenting with a Bashed patch to see if I can get better integration of OOO + MMM without needing to set up FCOM. I'll post about that some other time.

Still no opinion on Kobu's, yet... but I haven't leveled at all since starting, which seems odd to me.

I'm experimenting more with Wrye Bash. Experimenting with the Bashed patch. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Finally: I must issue a correction about the Bartholm mod. It isn't a copy of Battlethorn castle except on an island; rather, it's an island with completely new quests and a new city on it. I haven't gone there yet, but I plan to after I get some levels.

Next article will probably be on simple tools to use to improve performance if you're having problems. Even my system (4 core 2.3ghz Phenom, HD 4870, 4 gigs of memory) is stressing under my Oblivion setup. I also have some new mods installed I'll tell you about as well.

Basics of Oblivion Modding

I'm downloading right now, so I figured I'd make the promised post on Oblivion modding basics. Keep in mind, this is how to install them not design them. I really have no interest in designing them, so you'll need to go elsewhere for that.

There's three essential tools for using mods: Oblivion Scripting Extension (OBSE), Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) and Wrye Bash.

OBSE - Oblivion Scripting Extension basically lets mods do more. A lot of them don't use it at all, but a good percentage of them do. You want to install this even if you don't have any mods right now that use it. You eventually will get one that does. A very few mods are OBSE optional; they have more functionality with OBSE than without, but you can get by without. Link: http://obse.silverlock.org/

OBMM - Oblivion Mod Manager is my most used tool. It lets you install mods via OMOD (think of it like an automated mod installer), lets you rearrange loading order, do archive invalidation, and a lot more. Generally, when I install a non-OMOD mod, I copy everything into the correct directories, then fire up OBMM and activate ("check") them all. OMOD files are even easier: double click the OMOD and it'll load into OBMM automatically. Highlight it and click the "activate" button. OBMM will copy everything to the correct directory for you and sometimes even activate the mod for you. Archive invalidation is good for things like Qarl's, as they won't work without archive invalidation. Link: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097

Wrye Bash - Mostly the same functionality as OBMM. Instead of OMOD, it uses BAIN packages. (Same general concept, though.) The thing that makes Wrye Bash so useful is it can create bash patches. These are useful for getting mods to work together, but they need a bit of explanation. Perhaps in another post I'll talk about those. Generally, I only use Wrye Bash when I need to work with bash patches. Link: The Wrye Bash website seems down ATM. I'll get a link as soon as I can.

Not essential, but extremely useful, is BOSS. (Better Oblivion Sorting Software) BOSS automatically sets your load order. Believe me, load order is IMPORTANT. Put your mods in a random order and then try to play Oblivion. Unless you're the luckiest person around, you'll be getting crashes and weird behavior aplenty. BOSS will sort everything out and sometimes can warn you of conflicting mods. It won't always catch conflicts, but it sometimes does. (For instance, it missed when I accidentally had Robert's Female Body Replacer and Eve HGEC active at the same time, but it caught an MMM mod that conflicted with OOO.) Link: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516

The basic idea of most mods is to copy them into your Oblivion data directory. On Vista/7 it's usually something like "c:\Program Files (x86)\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data", XP would be fairly similar: "c:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data". Just a note: Be careful, as most mod documentation gives you the old XP file structure. There IS a c:\Program Files on Vista/7, but that's only for 64 bit programs, which Oblivion isn't. I'm not sure how it'd work on 32 bit Vista or 7. I'd imagine it's just c:\Program Files ... If anyone knows for sure, please inform me.

Once they're in the data directory, activate the files through OBMM, Wrye Bash or the Oblivion launcher itself. Most documentation says "check" the files. This means put a tick in the box next to the file name. I prefer the term activate, though.

Most mods come with either an .ESP or .ESM file, sometimes both. READ THE DOCUMENTATION. It'll tell you what to install. Sometimes they come with multiple.ESP/.ESM files and you're only supposed to use certain ones, depending on what you want the mod to do. So far, I've only ever come across one mod that didn't have installation instructions (Origins of the Mage Guild.) Once you have everything activated and sorted via BOSS, you're good to go.

If you have a crash on startup, go into OBMM and deactivate every mod. Activate a single mod, load Oblivion. If it works, exit out and activate a second mod. Load Oblivion, see if it works. Repeat this until you find the one making it crash. How to proceed from there depends on the problem. Is the mod installed correctly? If so, is it conflicting with something else? Check the documentation as the best mod makers will tell you if it's likely to be incompatible with anything else or if it's known to be. A lot of mod makers don't bother to include that (if they even know), but the best will include it. If the mod is conflicting with something else, there may be a compatibility patch out there to make it work with the conflicting mod.

If textures didn't work, make sure you performed Archive Invalidation (or used the Archive Invalidation Invalidated! mod.) If it still doesn't work after that, you may have installed it incorrectly. Check the installation. This is when OMODs come in useful. For instance, if you used Qarl's via OMOD, you could just deactivate the mod through OBMM. If you installed manually, you have to go through every single file (and Qarl's is 2 gigs) and delete them manually. Do you really want to spend 3 hours doing that? Honestly, it'd probably be faster to uninstall and reinstall Oblivion and then reinstall the mod.

That's all for now! Next post will be either Correctly Installing Better Cities or increasing Oblivion performance. Not sure which yet.

Happy playing!

Oblivion mod overview

Generally, it's a good idea to have a "theme" when you mod. Do you want to change the game entirely? Do you want to redo it the way it "should" be? Or are you just looking for anything that seems cool?

A lot of mods fall into the first two categories. Here's an example from each:

Change The Game Entirely: Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (OOO) does just that. It takes out the scaling mechanism entirely and replaces it with static levels. Did you ever notice how Bandits are wearing wimpy weak armor when the game starts out? Have you also noticed they're wearing daedric armor when you hit level 35? That's the scaling mechanism in action. OOO does away with it. It makes the game more like a standard RPG. The bandits you meet at level 1 will be the same when you hit level 35, as an example.

The "way it should be": Franceso's Levelled Creatures/Items mod, according to many, makes the scaling work like it should. Some people feel like the way Bethesda implemented scaling was partially broken and doesn't really work as well as it could. This fixes it.

Just two short examples. As a point of interest, not everything scales in vanilla (unmodded) Oblivion. I remember ending up in a dungeon when I first started playing and getting owned in about 3 seconds by a non-scaling high level NPC. Oops. Usually the NPCs that carry extremely powerful weapons don't scale, to keep you from getting it at level 1 and dominating everything with it.

Another big category are texture replacers. They make everything look good. Really good. Oblivion had awesome graphics for 2006 (and there wasn't a machine in 2006 that could handle Oblivion on max settings), but they're sort of lacking by 2010 (post-Crysis) standards. Machines can run Oblivion on max settings now and not even stress over it. Certain things (particularly faces) looked poor even in 2006, to be quite honest. Texture replacements came out within days of Oblivion being released. Some of them also look crappy by 2010 standards, but they were nice in 2006. Oblivion modding is not all that different from Morrowind modding, so almost all the early Oblivion texture replacers came from people who had done it in Morrowind and didn't need to learn much. A good example of a texture replacer is Qarl's Texture Pack 3. It'll stress out even modern machines, unless they are specifically built for gaming. There's also a mod out there called IFT (Improved Facial Textures) that makes the faces of Cyrodiil less frightening.

Here are the mods I'm currently using, as of 6/23/10:

OOO - I've never messed with the Overhauls much, so I'm trying out OOO first. Static appeals more than dynamic to me, so OOO seems the place to be. Hopefully I'll try out Fran's and Warcry at some point in the future. No opinion on this yet as I haven't seen a difference in my (under an hour old) save game yet.

Arthur's Natural Environments - A very awesome environment changer. It gives better looking water (though there are a _ton_ of mods out there that do that), adds insects and birds, and other improvements. You can also pick which elements you want. do you have replacement water you like more? Then you can disable the water replacer. Very, very highly recommended.

Better Cities - Makes cities better. Rearranges them, perks them up. This is an awesome mod. Keep in mind, though, if you use Better Cities it'll likely conflict with any other mod you have that alters the cities in any way, except for texture replacers. Luckily, BC is popular enough that you can find compatibility patches for a lot of conflicting mods. Also, this mod is slightly confusing (and, no matter what the people on message boards say, the installation instructions that comes with the mod DOES NOT give 100% complete instructions. I plan on doing a tutorial soon on the precise way to install it. I installed it incorrectly twice before I got it right.) Definitely give this one a look, though. Recommended.

Qarl's Texture Pack 3 - Mentioned above, you'll see immediately changes. If your computer has trouble keeping up with Qarl's, try Qarl's Texture Pack 3 Redimized. It looks nearly as good but isn't nearly as hard on your machines. Highest recommendation.

Bomret's Texture Pack SI - Qarl's only covers the original Oblivion. Bomret made a texture pack for Shivering Isle. If you own SI, this is also a must have.

CM Partners - True companions are added by this mod. I have a nice fellow named Arthur following me about in my game currently. The mod itself adds 70 companions, and there are "plug in" mods for more companions from other authors. However, don't think you'll have a small army of 70 people following you around. Your computer would roll over and die if you tried that. The mod author knows this and, thusly, there's a 6 companion limit. You can talk to them and give them orders. (Such as "harvest everything around here" which is so insanely useful for clearing out farms.) This is a great mod. I enjoy it a lot, strong recommendation.

Cute Elves - Adds a race called "cute elves", I only have it for some CM Partner plug ins that need it. If you like the idea of the race, get it. Otherwise, skip it. I'm neutral on this mod.

DarkUID DarN - Perhaps the ultimate interface mod. Only screenshots can show you the greatness of it. I love it, and I'll give you a link so you can see it: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11280 You can also download from that link. Very recommended.

Eve HGEC - A body replacement mod. Let's face it, the bodies in Oblivion are nice, but not that great. This changes it, but only for the women. You can pick multiple body types to get just what you want. You can even set it up so they're naked when they take off their armor. Let's face it: That's one of the biggest selling points, I'm sure. However, everything looks nicer overall. Recommended.

Robert's Male/Female Body Replacers: Same as Eve HGEC, just made by a different person. I prefer HGEC, but that's just me. DO NOT load Robert's Female Body Replacer and Eve HGEC at the same time. Oblivion will get confused and crash almost immediately. Eve HGEC and Male Body Replacer should be fine, though. Recommended only if you don't like Eve HGEC.

Low-Poly Grass: Having FPS troubles? Why not try out Low-Poly Grass? The grass looks about the same (some think slightly better) as vanilla Oblivion, but due to the lesser complexity of it, you'll see an FPS boost. Highly recommended.

Ren's Beauty Pack: Adds new hairstyles and a new race, the Mystic Elf. It seems to be conflicting with another mod I have so I'm not running it at the moment, though I have in the past with no problems. Recommended overall, however.

Oblivion Cats: Adds cats, simple as that. It gives the world a little more life and I enjoy it. It's exactly how you'd imagine it. Recommended for all cat lovers.

Crowded Roads: The roads are awfully empty, don't you think? This adds lots of life to them, with travelers. It even comes with plugins to modify the foot traffic on roads. Think the Silver Road needs more travelers than the default? Just install the proper plugin to increase the traffic. Highly Recommended.

No Psychic Guards: Have you ever noticed how, when committing a crime and someone yells about it, guards from all over the city come rushing in? That seems silly. This mod makes it more realistic, and basically limits it to guards within earshot of the person yelling. Recommended for those who dislike the way the guards act.

Mods I have installed but have not tried out yet (ie, not enough time to fully evaluate them or haven't gotten to the point where they're useful):

Kvatch Rebuilt: Don't you think it's odd that Kvatch stays as burning ruins for no matter how long you play the game? Yeah, me too. This fixes that. I haven't done the Siege of Kvatch mission yet, and this mod doesn't take effect until after that. No opinion as of now.

Sentient Weapon 2: There's a blacksmith who will build you a talking weapon. Sounds cool, might be annoying if done wrong. Haven't found the blacksmith yet (no map marker), so neutral on this one.

Origin of the Mage's Guild: Revamps the Mage's Guild a bit. My character just joined the Guild but this mod hasn't shown itself yet. (Literally, I joined the guild and then saved and quit.) Neutral.

Hoarfrost Castle: Similar to the official DLC Battlethorn Castle. Get control of a castle, build it up, add stuff to it. Personally, Battlethorn Castle is my favorite official DLC. I got Hoarfrost more for comparison purposes. No map marker, haven't located it yet. Neutral.

Bartholm: Similar to Battlethorn Castle, but your own ISLAND this time. Again, got it to see how it compares to Battlethorn. And, again, no map marker and I haven't located it yet. (Plus, even if I had, I couldn't afford to buy it yet) Neutral.

Kobu's Leveling System: An alternative to Oblivion's stock leveling system, which a lot of people (including myself) dislike. I logged 105 hours on Vanilla/lightly modded Oblivion, so I know I hate the vanilla system. Kobu's sort of falls into the "way it should have been" category. There's tons of other leveling mods out there, though. I plan on trying more of them eventually. No matter what sort of system you want, someone has made it. Neutral.

Unique Landscapes: Completely redesigns parts of the landscape. Comes with dozens and dozens of compatibility patches, so it should work with every popular, well known mod that alters cities. (for instance, Better Cities and UL conflicts.) Keep in mind, there's a huge series of Unique Landscape mods. I recommend you use the mod at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19370 which is a compilation of almost all of them. And is you use that, you'll want the compatibility all-in-one patch at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21496 I especially enjoy the patch because it auto detects what you have installed and only installs the needed patches. Much better than having to go through a list of 90 compatibility patches, hoping you didn't miss one you need. Literally installed it as I was typing this entry out, so no opinion yet.

Martigen's Monster Mod (aka Mart's Monster Mod or MMM) - One of the biggies. Revamps the monsters in the game. Hideously incompatible with a ton of other mods. OOO, Fran's, Warcry are all incompatible. Luckily, the people who maintain OOO have worked with the MMM team to develop a compatibility patch. It can be made to work with Fran's and Warcry via a mod called FCOM. FCOM is hideous to install, it is NOT for people new to modding or people who don't like doing a LOT of work. Rather than torture myself and try to setup FCOM for OOO and MMM, I just used the compatibility patch. If I ever want to integrate Fran's or Warcry, though, I have a lot of work in front of me. (To top things off, OOO and Fran's are incompatible as well.) Anyway, MMM is very configurable. I have never used it, though. It's installed and waiting to be tested, though. Neutral, but a lot of people say it's awesome. Probably a safe bet to download this one even without my review.

Unlikely to Ever Use:

(This is for mods I have but can't/won't use for some reason, unless fixes and/or compatibility patches come out.)

Cheydinhal Pet Shop - Incompatible with nearly everything that modifies Cheydinhal. Critically flawed and author has left the Oblivion modding scene. Unlikely it'll ever be fixed or see compatibility patches issued.

Insanity's Pet Shop - Developed as a working alternative to Cheydinhal Pet Shop. I just decided not to run it because I can't ascertain if it's compatible with Better Cities. CM Partners pretty much filled my need for companions anyway.

Hillsbourough Estate - Looks really, really cool. Buy a large estate, fix it up. You get a jewelry maker, wine maker, farm animals, etc. It looks like Battlethorn Castle on steroids. However, it's completely incompatible with both UL and Better Cities. There's lot of mods out here like this (I have two of them installed) so I decided I'd rather drop this and use UL and Better Cities. I am actively looking for compatibility patches for this one and they don't seem to exist. This mod is getting installed the second I find one, if that ever happens.

And that's everything! This entry is getting way long, so I'm going to end it here. The next few entries should focus on a basic introduction to modding (tools to use, etc), a short tutorial on installing Better Cities properly, and maybe an entry on the hell that is setting up FCOM. (I did it once. It wasn't fun.) And, of course, I'll add entries on my opinions of the mods I haven't rated yet as soon as I feel I've used them enough to make an informed decision.

Happy playing!

First post, overview...

I intend to base this blog mainly on Oblivion. I have experimented with Morrowind modding as well, but I've mostly stuck to Oblivion. Morrowind still has an active community (it's a really good game, better than Oblivion in some ways) so it's possible I will make posts about it in the future.

My goal is to just give opinions on mods and tell you what I have. I know there's probably thousands of lists like this out there, but I'm doing this for two reasons. First, I want this as a reference for my own use in the future. Second, it's to help newbies out.

I was thinking about alternating posts between mod talk/info and an in character recap of what's happening in my game, but that seems like it'd be awkward to read. I decided I'd also rather play than type up a summary of what I just did.

Next post will be an overview of several mods and my current mod list.