General Update on Stuff and Things

So! Here's a rundown:

    Yesterday, I released my Arcane Market mod, at long last. It's got most of what I wanted, and I learned a few things making it, including just a little about scripting--begrudgingly, unwillingly. I'm glad it's out and done, at least the releasable version, so I can work on some of my other mod projects.

    I mentioned I wanted to do a new modded Stardew Valley playthrough. Well, the 1.5 update ended up dropping in the middle of it, lol. I kept going for a while, but since not every mod updated right away, I had to keep my run on 1.4.5. Eventually the momentum just petered out. I have yet to have a save that lasts the whole two years until Grandpa's evaluation (though I was cruising for an easy four candles anyway). Oh well, it was still fun while it lasted. You can see my forevially in-progress farm below. Notable mods include Vibrant Pastoral Recolor, Seasonal Japanese Buildings, Lungs, Mermaids, and Element Spirits.

    The 2021 Fantasy Faire in Second Life ended just a bit ago. Was fun as always. Shopped, explored, caught some performances, did the quest. The usual. There's some other events going on now that I want to check out, including the Raglan Shire Artwalk.

    Fun stuff. 

Oblivion Update and You Tubes

     So, an update. I have my Oblivion install up and running with what I consider essentials. I also decided to do a more relaxed playthrough with Haela Long-Strider to test things out. As a bonus I decided to roll with some mods I rarely use or wanted to try for the first time, that I don't see fitting in any of the characters I want to play for the near future.

    Game looks super pretty. I actually ended up making a video doing a before/after from a vanilla installation. Was mostly an experiment to see if I enjoyed making videos, maybe I'll do more in the future idk. As if I need another social media void to scream into about breaking video games.

    Performance was actually pretty solid with all the graphics mods... buuuut I couldn't stop there, obviously. I threw in a bunch of heavy mods like Better Cities, which I haven't used in years, and FOMO Imperial Isles, which I'd never used at all. Lots of very pretty scenery, but my fps gets pretty rough in places, especially in areas like Weye and the Waterfront. And I get the expected out-of-memory crashes occasionally. Not a huge deal, as I said this is a more laid-back testing run anyway, so unlike a normal playthrough of mine I'm not really RPing or avoiding fast travel.(Yeah, I know, neeerrrrrrd)

    But in typical fashion, by the time I've gotten everything set up and can just play the game, I'm feeling the urge to play something else. Oh well, at least I've got the modlist ready and waiting when I come back. Maybe I'll mod Stardew Valley next! 

   My brain is absolutely, irredeemably broken.

Adventures In Re-Installing Oblivion

     I'd been putting it off for years, but recently I was finally forced to upgrade to Windows 10. I decided to take the opportunity to do a full re-install of Oblivion- though I had all of my previous files, my old install was held together with dark magic and tape, and thus prone to crashing if I changed anything.

    After creating a clean vanilla slate, I decided to run around ingame to check that everything was in working order... and ended up doing whole playthrough. Including finally, after 1500+ hours of game time in Oblivion, playing the main questline to completion.

    Anything I could say about the main quest was said years ago. Suffice to say I enjoyed my time with it, but am not eager to play through it again any time soon. (Okay, but for real, Oblivion Gates get real tedious, real fast.) That being said, I found myself surprised by how much I enjoyed playing vanilla. Don't get me wrong, I miss modded- sooo many times I caught myself trying to use my UI hotkeys- but it was nice recapturing what I loved about this game in the first place. The world, the quests, the core experience of Oblivion is just fun for me. I also realized a few things I didn't need to mod; For example, I actually enjoyed playing with the vanilla timescale of 30 and remembered that I'd originally modded it lower to work with basic needs mods I no longer use. 

    Other games, like Minecraft, don't hold my attention unless modded. But when it comes down to it, I really like Oblivion for itself. (In spite of the bugs, holy crap I forgot how buggy this game is. It makes my creaky old modded install look pretty stable by comparison, lol.)

    All that being said, I am going to be once more modding the shit out of Oblivion. It's been ages since I did a full re-install, and I've learned a lot since then. There's been more work by the community to compile modern Oblivion modding guides, too, such as bevilex's popular one. It's going to be a bit of an ordeal to get back to where I was, and I don't even know how much I'll be able to save of my personal mod projects, but it'll be fun, too. 

    After all, as they say with Skyrim, modding the game IS the game.

Dungeon-Making In Oblivion

In my last post, I mentioned my project to add a wizard-themed marketplace to Oblivion with vendors and attractions. An idea I had for one of said attractions was a dungeon run with random loot including some of the fancier wizard swag in my mod collection. Thing is, I'd never made a dungeon before, and I didn't want this to be my first effort, especially considering that I'd want it to be interesting enough to run multiple times.

So now I'm making a "practice" dungeon, loosely following the official My First Dungeon tutorial put out by the CS devs. I've got one cell completed with lighting, clutter, enemies, pathing etc. Now that I've gone through all the steps for one cell, I want to add at least one more with a boss room, then create the exterior worldspace linkage to integrate it into the game properly. 

yep, that there is a dungeon alright

It's been an interesting process, and I've expanded my knowledge of the CS a bit. Level design is its own skillset and I'm definitely a rank amateur. Lighting has been one of the trickiest things to get right, even more so than normal interiors as there are more considerations for gameplay. Since I'm deliberately copying the vanilla devs' style closely, the dungeon itself is going to be pretty generic and not worth a mod release. But I'll have some experience I can put into making a really cool dungeon for the market! It's a useless hobby, but I'm enjoying myself.

Catching Up On My Oblivion Adventures

It's been a while since I mentioned Oblivion on this blog, but that doesn't mean I haven't been modding or playing. Thought while I was here I might as well post an update on my adventures.

First off, my Khajiit thief Kzhirra, after many adventures in Cyrodiil and Elsweyr, eventually managed to complete the Thieves' Guild questline and inherited the title of Gray Fox. She immediately decided to shirk any and all responsibilities as Guildmaster and retired to the desert with the Cowl and all her ill-gotten gains. It was refreshing to have a character come to the end of their story naturally rather than have the playthrough end prematurely due to boredom or bugs.

gg skooma kitty

The same could not be said for my subsequent character, an Imperial whose goal was to make his riches through crafting and business mods, and who largely relied on companions to stay alive. Sadly one of said companions broke in a big way and I stupidly did not keep backup saves from far enough back. RIP Vilja, never came back from shopping in Skingrad :(

So I decided to take a break from playthroughs for a while and focus on modding. One of my quarantine projects was to learn how to convert clothing to new body types. My preferred body mod is Luchaire's TGND2; I feel it manages to be both naturalistic and attractive. It also has conversions available for most of the big overhaul mods I use. 

I'd been "converting" various mods' clothing that was simply retextured vanilla meshes by taking an already-converted model and pointing it to the mod's retexture, then saving over the mod's mesh. In other cases I used outfits that covered the whole body, as in the above picture of Kzhirra, and didn't care if that meant the character went up a couple cup sizes because I am very lazy.

But there are other modded clothes I want to use where that simply won't work. While TGND2 is based off the HGEC body and uses the same UV maps, the wrists and hands as well as feet and ankles are smaller. This creates a noticeable gap in those areas when you wear a HGEC outfit in a game with TGND installed. (The mod attempts to circumvent this with equippable "HGEC" hands and feet, but they never made a difference for me). Now, there is an automated tool called the Clothing Converter that can attempt to make the appropriate edits to meshes based on a configured "lattice", but even in the best of times the results are imperfect. 

Eventually, I realized there was no other option. I'd have to learn some Blender.

I'd been brainstorming an Argonian mage character for my next playthrough, so some cool mage robes seemed a good place to start. My first project was to convert the vanilla robe remodels by yuravica aka Fly. These remodels vary, some are skimpy, some are just odd, but there's some that I could totally see fitting into my game. Once I converted a mesh, I could have a huge variety of robes by pointing the models at various robe textures, as done in this mod.

some are very odd

The process has left me a broken shell of a human being. First, all the Oblivion tools for Blender are based on the ancient 2.49b version (though at least there is a handy compilation of said tools available here from Room207). This makes general Blender tutorials hard to follow as so many are meant for later versions of the software that made significant changes in the UI.

Then there's the models themselves: I may have chosen a rather poor place to start as the remodels already suffer from clipping issues and the like before I bumble in with my poorly-done conversions. I can't really blame Fly, as they're deliberately doing weird and experimental things with these meshes while keeping the UV maps the same. But after converting 8 of the 15 or so unique models, I decided it was time to take a break. Perhaps permanently. I may try and see if I have an easier time on other conversion projects before going back to this one. I definitely have a newfound respect to the effort that goes into converting dozens of meshes from the big overhaul mods and the like!

After putting that effort on hold, I turned to other projects. I scoped out various house mods for my next playthrough, and really liked the look of one from Trollf called Alchemists Cave. It had a few issues that needed fixing, and after cleaning it up I decided I might as well chuck it up on Nexus in the rare case that someone else found themselves in the same situation as me. Most of the modding I do isn't shareable, as I mostly tweak, compile, or build on the contributions of others to make my own perfect game world. I might as well put up what I can without running afoul of permissions issues.

My new project is a marketplace to house vendors selling the robes, staves, and other magical swag from various mods I've collected over the years. The original mods usually dump their wares in a chest somewhere or into the inventory of a vanilla shopkeeper. My vision is a sort of weekend wizard farmer's market with various vendors and activities, that also serves as a handy way to compile all these resources into one .esp. I may put up the marketplace itself as a modder's resource, sans actual modded content, then add what I want to my local version. Don't know if anyone would actually care or have a use for it, but hey, that's modding for you!

Going Elsweyr in Oblivion

Oh, I have a blog? I forgot.

Well here's an update, then, before the end of the year. I've been playing a few games, including some less-moddable ones, for a change. MMOs and mobile games- just the worst! 

But of course, in the end, I always come back to Oblivion. After bungling a Thieve's Guild job, my clumsy cat burglar was forced to flee Cyrodiil 'til the heat died down a bit. This gave me a great opportunity to explore the province mod(s) of Elsweyr. I use the plural because there have actually been several mods that add on to the original work of Iliana. I think it's a sign of a truly great mod that creates its own mini-ecosystem of submods like this. After spending some time in the province, I understand why.

The amount of work that's on display here is incredible. The desert land of Anequina has been realized to a remarkable degree; everything from the cities to the landscape itself feels very unique and distinct from the vanilla game, with tons of custom meshes used. Even within the province there's distinct cultures; the rough-and-tumble Orcrest is very different from the shining domes of Dune. The new breeds of Khajiit are very cool, and helped sell that this was an alien culture.

 I almost had a Morrowind-y feeling exploring the province; Elsweyr is a much less safe and civilized place than ol' Cyrodiil. In fact, because of this mod, some of the biggest baddies from WAC were wandering the deserts looking to chomp my poor kitty's butt. She really isn't a terribly effective fighter, and I ended up turning the difficulty slider down (way, way down).

I've been to most of the major cities of Anequina at this point, and am now wandering about looking for adventures. Most of the quests available here are short but sweet; my favorite adventure so far has been thwarting a fiendish saboteur from Valenwood in his attempt unleash a plague upon the cat-people.

The mod has been relatively stable- I've encountered a few bugs here and there, but I can't be certain that they're the fault of the original authors since I'm actually using an unholy merged ESP of several Elsweyr mods (no longer available on Nexus), and who knows what trouble that's caused. A little bit of Construction Set knowledge goes a long way to deal with such things, though. 

All in all, I'm having a lot of fun so far, and I still haven't seen everything in Anequina. Then there's a newer mod that adds some of Pelletine as well. Well, here's to many more adventures in 2019! 

Playing a Klepto-Kitty in Oblivion

So, I started a new character in Oblivion. I've been wanting to do a new thief playthrough, with the goal of actually doing the whole Thieves' Guild questline- something I have yet to accomplish. I've played thief and stealth-focused characters before, but none of them found the Guild a very good fit. I had a Bosmer who stole purely for the thrill, and didn't have any interest in dealing with fences or Robin-Hood codes of honor. Another, "ethically-challenged" Argonian, joined the Guild but soon found that he preferred the more exciting (and less self-righteous) life of an assassin.

But I figure that it's high time I actually played through the Thieves' Guild proper. Introducing Kzhirra, a fun-loving Khajiit open to new and radical interpretations of the concept of personal property:

She loves fashion, especially when she can get her clothes for free!

She's actually one of the Khajiit sub-breeds added by the Elsweyr mod, which I am very much looking forward to playing through for the first time. I actually have a number of mods revolving around the province; the nightmare of sorting through and patching all these has been one of the biggest things delaying this playthrough. Hopefully I've got it all sorted out right (hope is a lie).


Though Kzhirra is still low-level and hopeless at combat, she's been a blast to play so far. I've been having a lot of fun moving through the various underground communities added by Nernie's Thieves Grotto mod. This modder does wonderful work with the poor and lower-class areas of the game, creating places that are beautiful, unique, and yet authentically rotten.

I always roleplay my characters to some extent; though I'm definitely not as hardcore as some people, I find that even a little roleplay can really breathe life into the game mechanics. For example, I know that when Kzhirra's stealing something, as long as that sneak crosshair isn't lit up at the moment of theft, I've gotten away scott-free. It could be broad daylight with half a dozen people in the room, yet none will be the wiser. But I find trying to actually remain undetected- working at night when a mark is asleep, staying in the shadows, cut-and-running if a guard does see me prowling about, has been a lot of fun and actually makes me feel more of a proper cat burglar. With the balance changes added by Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, it's more of an effort climbing the ranks and gaining the respect of the Gray Fox. When Kzhirra does eventually earn her place among the legendary thieves (or gets run out of the province), I'll know that she's definitely earned it.

Well-Diving in Oblivion

So I've been back to Oblivion again- testing mods, experimenting with my own additions, and actually getting to play the damn game sometimes. I have a long-running "test" character who mostly goes around murderhoboing her way through various content mods.

Haela Long-Strider, mod-tester and grumpyface extraordinaire.

Currently I've been exploring a dungeon mod called The Well Diver. As you might imagine, it adds dungeons accessible through various wells from the vanilla game. I'm enjoying the mod a lot so far-even though there's no grand quest or storyline here, it's still a lot of fun as a good ol' dungeon romp. The new cells are well-designed (heh); they're unique-looking with some great use of modder's resources, but still fitting to the game's world. There's environmental storytelling, some secrets and a few neat rewards. Plenty to keep the spelunker occupied.

There's an ingame book you can find which will mention the location of a couple wells, but others must be found on your own. I haven't found all the dungeons yet, but I'm having a blast so far. If you're in the mood for some new dungeons to stumble on during a playthrough, I definitely recommend checking out The Well Diver. 

Oblivion, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Potato

Out of all the games I've played, my favorite, the one that has stolen the most hours of my life, is... TES IV: Oblivion.

Elder Scrolls aficionados and people of good taste are probably laughing and/or shaking their heads. Oblivion is something of the red-headed stepchild of the series. From the three "modern" TES games, you have Morrowind, the beloved classic, Skyrim, the stupendously popular latest entry, and then you have... the potatoes.

Pictured: A screenshot of an Oblivion NPC.

I've seen Oblivion described as "the worst of both worlds" between Morrowind and Skyrim, an awkward stepping stone between the more traditional RPG of the previous game and the more action-oriented experience the series was trending towards. It suffers from an incredibly un-fun levelling system, an overuse of random- and procedurally-generated content in a bland setting (made even more so in contrast to the alien environment of Morrowind), a laughably small cast of voice actors, and of course, the infamously ugly characters of the FaceGen system.

Of course, you can mod most of these problems away, and end up with a much improved game experience. But a common opinion is that even considering mods, Oblivion comes up short- that, while you might want to smooth out the wrinkles of Morrowind and Skyrim with mods, you need an industrial-strength hot iron to mash Oblivion into something good.

I don't agree with all of these opinions. I think Oblivion does genuinely have its own strong points compared to the other games in the series. I think it is still a game worth experiencing. But honestly, I find it hard to disagree that Oblivion is a deeply flawed game. So why is it my favorite?

Well, the honest answer is that it was my first Elder Scrolls game, and so my nostalgia goggles probably warp my perception of the game's true quality.

But I think I also really do enjoy the game for what it is. I love the atmosphere, the coziness of the countryside, the beautiful score complementing the game's ambiance perfectly as I stroll along the roads. I love the writing; I genuinely believe that many questlines are among the strongest in the series. I even love some of the sillier bits, like the random conversations NPCs have that seem inexplicably focused on mudcrabs. They make for a nice background chatter, in a more realistic way than the same scripted conversations of Skyrim cycled over and over. 

I love this dumb game. And modding makes it even better.