GregHowley.com

Recently, I've gone back to playing Oblivion. This is my second character, and I picked him back up at about level twenty-something. Now, I've got him up to thirty, and I've got a Conjuration skill of 100, and my strength and intelligence are both maxxed out. I've written about all the great mods this game has to offer before, but I thought I'd give a list here of my ten favorites, including links.

1. The BTMod - I cannot imagine ever playing Oblivion again without this mod. The game developers from Bethesda have even praised this mod. It simply reduces the font sizes and increases the viewable area of the inventory screen to improve the overall user interface. It's such a minor change, yet such a dramatic difference.
2. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul - Jorge Oscuro has written a mod to change the scaling in Oblivion. As the game stands originally, you fight only enemies who are perfectly suited to your level. With this mod, you have a chance to encounter an enemy or monster who dramatically outclasses you, or one who is far weaker than you. I found out quickly how this works, when after installing this mod I was mauled by a mountain lion at 2nd level. I highly recommend that if you're starting a new game, you install this mod. It is the single greatest improvement to the game I know. It's only second because the BTMod is downright indispensible. The overhaul also improves enemy AI - enemies will actually run away now - and adds variations on the standard monsters.
3. New Music - There is a ton of very professionally done original music you can add to Oblivion just by dropping the mp3s into your music folders. This music is my personal favorite, but there is a ton out there if you google around.
4. (Tied for 4th) Natural Environments and LOD Replacement Textures I'm grouping these two because they both do a great job of making the game much prettier. The replacement textures replace the original 1024x1024 landscape textures with 2048x2048 textures, making distant scenery much less blurry. The Natural Environments adds seasonal weather patterns, increasing the weather types from 7 to 40, and adds minor effects such as birds and insects. It also makes water less opaque, which in itself is huge.
5. Darker Dungeons - Ever feel like torches are worthless? Have you ever actually used light spells or NightEye? With this mod, you will, because without them you can't see a thing while underground.
6. Drop Lit Torches - This one only becomes important once you're using Darker Dungeons, but it allows you to walk around with a torch out, and as soon as you draw a weapon, you will drop the lit torch on the ground, where it will lie and continue to provide light.
7. No Psychic Guards - Ever broken into a house in the game and picked a lock on a cabinet only to have a guard run into the house from outdoors and arrest you? This mod prevents that - guards have to see or hear a crime in order to come after you.
8. Lightning Strikes - This mod causes lightning to strike the ground during thunderstorms. It's pretty wild. Lightning storms aren't incredibly frequent, but this really adds to the effect. I believe that it's actually possible (albeit incredibly unlikely) that you can be hit by a lightning stroke.
9. Reduced Backwards Running Speed - By default, you can run backwards as fast as you can forwards in Oblivion. Players quickly learn that it's easy to run backwards and shoot spells and arrows at an enemy as it gives chase. It's an incredibly cheap technique. This mod prevents that, and makes combat much more interesting.
10. Elven Cartographers Map - A very pretty, full-color map to replace the sepia-shade default map.

There are many other mods I use - the smaller-crosshairs mod and that chameleon improvement come to mind - but the ten listed above are the best by far. I've also noticed that while there are plenty of mods out there to make your character more powerful, the ones I enjoy are the ones that improve the gameplay experience.

I'm the arena champion now, and I'm well on the way to completing the thieves' guild and mages' guild quests. I did the Fighters Guild with my first character, so I'll skip that one this time. I've also been approached by the Dark Brotherhood after killing the arena champion - apparently that somehow constituted murder. Funny though - this time I'm really ignoring the main plot of the game.

I want to get my block skill up to 100 - the shield attack and counterattack abilities sound very cool. And I'd like to get my acrobatics up to 50 to try that dodge ability. Trying out master-level destruction magic might also be nice.

I got a copy of Warioware: Smooth Moves a couple days ago, but I haven't played anything other than Oblivion in the past week - I'm even ignoring Eternal Darkness. I suppose eventually I'll get burned out on the game. Until then, I'm certainly enjoying it.