The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of the most overrated games of all time. The original, unmodded Oblivion was, without a doubt, nothing out of the ordinary and should never have achieved the level of praise that it did – although I can understand how some people might have gotten entangled within the hype. Not only was the plot unoriginal and predictable, but the very game seemed rather humorous and one-sided.
Oblivion was not a “bad” game, but neither was it a “good” one – and certainly not a one that should have been given “100%” by most reviewers. Now, if you are playing a modded game, things are different, but the original was nothing to laud.
After ages I started to playing Oblivion again cause a friend came up with something about Oblivion in our Skype conversation and talked about a great experience, beautiful characters – wait! You’re lying aren’t you? Beautiful characters? Don’t be stupid – and a few minutes later he send us a few screenshots. My first thougth was like “What a beautiful face and those breasts…” and I got interested in this stuff.
After reading a lot of stuff about Oblivion mods, manuals and tutorials, faqs I started finally to create my “own” Oblivion. A Oblivion filled with life, beautiful places and “vista points” that u want to explore. Hours of working and frustration about “How to Install those Mods”, “Troubleshooting” I finally made it. I had serveral hours of fun, till I reached a another point of frustration.
Oblivion is using the “Gamebryo” engine and “Havok” engine for physics, they are old and outdated, but often underestimated. Thanks Bethesda for creating an overrated game in so many ways. With Oblivion your team lacked in everything regarding game development. Logic, level design, gameplay, interface design, quest design and audio. Less then four voice templates for NPCs… I hope you are not going to make the same mistakes in Skyrim. I really love the impact that Skyrim created with just the announcement and the music sounds incredible. So far what u showed us from the world design looks fantastic. But what about the gameplay? The story and logic behind the game?
A beautiful and living environment, a world that u will love to explore.Sorry, I’m drifiting away, back to topic. I used all kind of mods and addins to create a living Oblivion. Mart’s Monster Mod, Better Cities, Oblivion Graphic Extender, Oscuro’s Oblvion Overhaul, HGEC Bodys, Qarl’s Texture Pack, Enhanced Weather, Dungeon Packages and so many different other mods – an Oblvion worth to play.
Now I reached a point of frustration where I had to do something about all kind of problems.How are the mods interacting with each another? They’re loading unnecessary files, using a lot of ressources. For what reason? None. Not that there are stability issues, also performance decreases and crashes all over the place, also you have to care about a load order and which mods are not working together and which aren’t. The latest size of my Oblivion folder reached over 39 GB, now I decreased it to 37 GB. Goal: 25 GB with the same amount of stuff but less mods and issues you have to take care of.
That was the point to come over with an idea to create a solution. I wanted to avoid all the troubles and started to interact with the engine itself. Now I’m working on a package that doesn’t require a extended graphic system (OBGE) or weird shaders without any use. Throw OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) over board, there is no need for it. Except the mods that are still requiring OBSE.
Thanks to all modders out there, without u Oblivion would never be completed and should not called a game of the year – only u made this game to a GotY title!