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!

Fantasy Faire Trip Report in Second Life

Yesterday was the final day of Second Life's Fantasy Faire, a charity event benefit for the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life. For two weeks, a special group of fantasy-themed sims host shopping, concerts, performances, literary and roleplay events, a special quest, and probably even more things I'm forgetting about. Point is, there's a lot going on.

I always enjoy visiting the Faire. This year, I did the Quest, caught a fun performance from the Misfit Follies, shopped a little, and found lots of new designers to follow and people to watch on Flickr. Of course, there's also the sims themselves, which are always beautiful and creative. On the one hand, it feels a shame they're only around for two weeks, but on the other, the limited availability motivates me to take it all in when I can.

The standout this year had to be Queensgarden, a lovingly detailed sim gorgeous at practically any angle.

Like most Second Life events, this one is organized and put on by the users, which makes it doubly impressive to me. You can see a lot of passion for the cause- after all, who doesn't know someone who has struggled with cancer? I found it impressive that even in the midst of a pandemic, people ended up giving the equivalent of ~$73,000 to RFL, according to the website.

This hot take has been expressed many a time already, but in the middle of a quarantine, I can really feel the power of Second Life as a platform. I don't think Corona is some opportunity for a new golden age of renewed interest in SL as some have suggested, but it does make me value the scraps of social gathering I can have there more highly. The fairies and fantasy landscapes are a nice bonus.

Magical Waifu Wonderland in Minecraft

Like the Ark post previously, this is a wrap-up/showcase of the Minecraft instance I've been playing. It used a weird, self-made pack focusing on magic, new dimensions and weeaboo trash; fun while it lasted, though of course I didn't get nearly through all the available content before my interest waned.

Here's a overview of my base. I tried to keep my building above-ground for a change, adding new buildings for each purpose. The result was a cute little hamlet, though I couldn't manage a consistent architecture or color palette. The Torchmaster mod was so nice for being able to keep the base area safe without spamming torches all over the place. Especially with the very nasty nighttime mobs from Grimoire of Gaia to deal with.

Here's the interior of my house. The first building of the base, over time it grew less important as storage and the like was moved elsewhere. I enjoyed decorating it, though. A lot of the furniture here came from the Chinjufu mod, great for that Japanese aesthetic.

A cozy place to relax with your Friends.

This is the storage room, using a neat mod called Arcane Archives. I really liked it as a relatively simple yet aesthetic storage solution.

Featuring a shy bunny-maid.

Finally, the room for enchanting, potion making, and other magic goodness. Also functioned as a trophy room; you can see some of my progress from the Twilight Forest.

Like I said, I didn't get nearly as far as I wanted and only visited a few dimensions, though I did defeat the Ender Dragon, for a a change. After a while I started getting the urge to try a more low-key, rustic playstyle again, going for a "Terrafirmacraft-lite" experience. However, while I was contemplating, I stumbled upon a standalone game, Vintage Story, that appears heavily inspired by the TFC, with hopefully less of the jank that results from being bolted onto the Minecraft engine. And it even has mod support! Be still, my heart.

My Ark: Valguero Server for Little Babies Who Don't Know How to Ark

My partner and I recently wound up an Ark server we'd been playing on. It was on the new Valguero map, with some mods, mostly QOL stuff and decorative bits. Server settings were pretty easy, both of us were pretty noobish when it came to this game so we treated the server as kind of a training-wheels learning experience.

We divided the labor- he is more interested in building and infrastructure projects, while I enjoy the exploring and combat and animal raising aspects of the game. We shared resource gathering duties. It worked out pretty well, and for the most part we were able to focus on the parts of Ark we enjoy while still progressing as a mini-tribe.

I wanted to share some pictures he took of our base, which was cool as hell if a bit laggy. Castles, Keeps and Forts Remastered is responsible for the building pieces- my partner spent a lot of time looking at real castles to get an authentic-feeling layout.

The trees were provided by one of Eco's mods- more on them later.

We took over the whole peninsula in the center of the map. Took a long time to secure the area, and the massive wall we had to build probably contributed a lot to the lag in the base. It was so huge you couldn't even load it in all at once, which was such a shame.

This doesn't even show the whole peninsula. It was a lot of space to try and keep spawns out of.

It was functional as well as pretty. All our crafting and storage was conveniently located near the animal pen for easy drop-off of resources. My only issue was finding space to stash breeding projects; my partner vastly underestimated just how much space a bunch of bangin' dinosaurs take up.

His pride and joy was our garden. Beautiful, with plenty of crop plots, and small pets ambling about. Eco's mods are so much fun to decorate with. I ended up coming to the garden sometimes just to sit and take in the atmosphere.

It's hard to pick a favorite spot, but mine might be the dinosaur topiary garden.

On my end, I got to experiment a lot with taming, breeding and using dinosaurs. There were successes- like figuring out how to breed for and stack mutations, or stealing and hatching a wyvern egg, and failures... but that's Ark for you.

RIP Jade, my beautiful Aberrant Spino, died to my own stupidity.

We had fun, and certainly learned a lot. Next time we play we decided we want to do a progression series, starting on the Island and working our way through the bosses and story. I also have more mods I want to try out, naturally. I recently got an SSD, so hopefully loading in will take less than 20 minutes this time...hopefully.

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.

Status: Always Modding

Even if I'm not blogging about it very often, I'm still always modding my games. It's just how I am- something integral to my experience of playing PC games. In the last couple months, I've bounced around between a few:

-In Ark: Survival Evolved, I played for a time on a small private server with my partner. We were on the Ragnarok map and had a fair few mods going. One of the standouts was Castles, Keeps, and Forts, which let us build suitably grand castles that fit the style of the map quite nicely.

-In Minecraft, I puttered around building a new modlist for a magic/exploration themed playthrough. Still waiting on a couple of mods to update to 1.12 before I get going (including Thaumcraft, assuming the author doesn't quit again), but so far I'm liking the direction of the pack. Open Terrain Generator makes some gorgeous worlds to explore, and mods like Ice and Fire add cool new magical beasts to fight and tame.

I'm also planning new playthroughs of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim... eventually, and probably not in that order. Morrowind especially will be a lot of work, as it's the game I'm least familiar with in terms of modding. I watch a pretty neat Youtube channel called Morrowind Modding Showcases; he does a great job showing off a lot of cool mods the Morrowind community has produced over the years. Even if you're not looking to mod Morrowind, the love and dedication of that community is pretty incredible- and for a game that's 17 years old!

I've also spent some time in Second Life, trying to find interesting and beautiful places. I recently went to an art installation called Eidola- a fascinating exploration of vision and perception. I really liked the tone of the build, a mix of informative and artistic, grounded and spiritual. There was so much to take in that I definitely think I'll need subsequent trips to really get everything out of the experience.

So, that's my little status update. I always say I'll post more, and I always forget. What can I say? There's just so many games, and so many mods, and so little time.