Gauging interest.

[Luinithil]

There's at least one very good resource detailing the proper procedure for mod installation and maintenance, as well as touching on mod creation for Oblivion-- I'm working on updating/modifying it for Skyrim actually, though it's taken a backseat to RL (and keeping up with SR changes; no more time to play even!).

 

What makes me sad is that there's nothing like STEP, much less SR for Oblivion. I've a few mods on Oblivion Nexus tracked at present e.g. Darnified UI, and Nuska has an absolutely fantastic looking overhaul of Oblivion's character faces coming soon, which I plan on adding before I fire it up for my first playthrough of Oblivion; but yeah, that's about it. I've no idea at all what there is for body replacers, weather and lighting, armors that aren't skimpy/illogically designed, etc. and honestly am NOT looking forward to spending more hours trawling Oblivion Nexus for the 1% of good mods buried under the remaining 99% dreck. Add to the fact that MO doesn't work properly with Oblivion... *sigh* I'm thinking that if any guide like SR was to be made for Oblivion, the mod manager of choice would have to be WB, doubtless, and not only because of the fully functioning bashed patch.

[WilliamImm]

This site seems like a good starting board for Oblivion modding - they have a detailed guide to setting up and modding Oblivion there. As for textures, I've seen Dubiousness link to this thread a few times - detailed recommendations about textures there. He also linked to TES Texture Guide for a comprenhensive list of textures for Oblivion - maybe we can look at that and see?

 

Maybe all the people currently intrested in this should start up a new planning thread for this project. Hopefully, others still will be instrested and provide good advice, or even assist in setting up the guide for the first time.

 

Luinithil - was TESCosi the site you were thinking of, or was it some other site? (Please link if it is another site)

[Kal]

A guide like this for FNV would make me very happy indeed.

[EssArrBee]

For some reason I keep thinking on names that play on the STEP acronym, you know like Wrye Bash->Mash->Flash->Smash. Oblivion is easy it would just be OTEP, and maybe FO3 would be FOTEP, but FNV is a bit harder.

[WilliamImm]

NVTEP? At least that sounds reasonable...

[cicer0]

Well, this is certainly encouraging! Please keep the responses and ideas coming. :D

 

I think the best way to approach it is a "work backwards" approach. If your starting point is each iteration of the game engine got progressively better, then it is reasonable to assume that the modding approach for the latter games would be somewhat simpler for the latter games and degrade into progressively harder for the older games.

 

Given that, I think it would be best to "cut our teeth" on NV, take the lessons learned from that experience and then incrementally apply them to FO3 and then Oblivion.

 

On naming, given this topic resides in the Skyrim Revisited forum, I was thinking more along the lines of NV Revisited, Fallout Revisited etc. Perhaps we could have a naming competition decided by community voting to settle that issue. To be honest, there are about a million steps we need to work through to do this and the final name is probably at around the 500,000 mark.

 

Would those interested in collaboration with me please drop me a pm to indicate interest?

 

Thanks again,

 

Cicer0

[WilliamImm]

Interesting. However, I would like the assistance of the STEP team for this massive undertaking. Together, we can make this happen. I'd prefer the *TEP theme naming myself - would be really nice to see a suite of Total Enhancement Projects for the Bethesda games - as long as the STEP mandate is abided to, this will be a very beneficial project for everyone involved.

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[EssArrBee]

I agree with Will, just because SR would probably not exist without STEP (the description even says it is a STEP-based guide) and trying to make an SR type guide without a base like STEP would be specific to a certain type of game. This is because SR uses gameplay mods like Dual and Frosfall that go much farther than vanilla tweaks. The initial goal would be much more achievable for a team of individuals if it is to make a baseline guide that almost any user can get into, then once a proper guide is constructed something like SR could spawn from it.

 

I do like the idea of working backwards for one reason though, and that is more modders are still working on newer games than older games. It might be easier to get them to fix or make a mod compatiblewith other mods if using newer titles. One thing we would have to do unlike STEP is only support the GOTY or Ultimate Edition of the games since they are so old. Trying to manage the games with and without DLC at this point would be a nightmare and lots of mods don't support the game unless you have all the DLC.

[Vond]

To be honest, an Oblivion mod guide would pretty much require gameplay mods as well as "STEP" mods, the original gameplay simply is that bad nowadays. :) Keep in mind a lot of changes they did to combat and such for Skyrim were based on mods for Oblivion (just as the hardcore mode in FNV was based on a mod for FO3 etc)

[Luinithil]

This site seems like a good starting board for Oblivion modding - they have a detailed guide to setting up and modding Oblivion there. As for textures' date=' I've seen Dubiousness link to this thread a few times - detailed recommendations about textures there. He also linked to TES Texture Guide for a comprenhensive list of textures for Oblivion - maybe we can look at that and see?

 

Maybe all the people currently intrested in this should start up a new planning thread for this project. Hopefully, others still will be instrested and provide good advice, or even assist in setting up the guide for the first time.

 

Luinithil - was TESCosi the site you were thinking of, or was it some other site? (Please link if it is another site)

Ah, no, wasn't TESCosi I was thinking of; what I was thinking about was actually more the basic nuts and bolts of modding Skyrim/Oblivion-- basic primer to modding actually. It's the Oblivion Mods FAQ over on the Construction Set wiki. As you can see, the focus of that FAQ is very different from what we propose here: I apologise if I gave that impression. BTW, TESCosi is a nice find. I'll probably be taking a look at it later.

[Vond]

TEScosi is (or atleast was, it hasn't been updated in some time while I know there are certain mods I've had tracked on nexus for years that still get updated) a great resource to get into Oblivion modding, so it's a good starting point for sure

[WilliamImm]

To be honest' date=' an Oblivion mod guide would pretty much require gameplay mods as well as "STEP" mods, the original gameplay simply is that bad nowadays. :) Keep in mind a lot of changes they did to combat and such for Skyrim were based on mods for Oblivion (just as the hardcore mode in FNV was based on a mod for FO3 etc)[/quote']

Similary, I couldn't find mods that improve the bodies without replacing them. To be fair, Robert's are really good and not overly extreme, and TGND/TFF don't sound like they will be unimmersive.

[EssArrBee]

To be honest' date=' an Oblivion mod guide would pretty much require gameplay mods as well as "STEP" mods' date=' the original gameplay simply is that bad nowadays. :) Keep in mind a lot of changes they did to combat and such for Skyrim were based on mods for Oblivion (just as the hardcore mode in FNV was based on a mod for FO3 etc)[/quote'']

Similary, I couldn't find mods that improve the bodies without replacing them. To be fair, Robert's are really good and not overly extreme, and TGND/TFF don't sound like they will be unimmersive.

I'm not saying that Oblivion doesn't need a gameplay overhaul, especially for leveling, but there should be some kind of base to build from that doesn't pigeon hole the user from installing the gameplay overhaul they want. Not everyone will like Duke Patrick's or WarCry or Fran's and a guide should be able to have the ability of the user to choose.

 

I really like Robert's male replacer too, I wish he'd finish his Skyrim one. I have the unfinished version and it was already a step up from Better Males, too bad.

[Vond]

Yeah well, there's plenty of guides out there already if people want OOO or FCOM or whatever so I wouldn't recommend adding that. But leveling-overhauls such as nGCD (well, anything by tejon really :P) etc

[WilliamImm]

I'm not saying that Oblivion doesn't need a gameplay overhaul' date=' especially for leveling, but there should be some kind of base to build from that doesn't pigeon hole the user from installing the gameplay overhaul they want. Not everyone will like Duke Patrick's or WarCry or Fran's and a guide should be able to have the ability of the user to choose.[/quote']

This is where packs could come in. We could offer a choice between several popular overhauls (those that come to mind are OOO, MMM, Frans, Arthmoor's TIE, FCOM - among others. That way, no one is locked into only using one overhaul.