The net magazine RPG Watch just did a feature on Oblivion mods. The article mentions both TES Nexus and Planet Elder Scrolls as places to download Oblivion mods. It may bring attention to the thousands of great mods for Oblivion to more people. You can find the article at: http://rpgwatch.com/ (currently on the front page). Be sure to read the comments as the author makes several additions and corrections there. The article lists "The Exceptional Six" as good examples of creative mods. They are:
Vilja by Emma and DCCooley
AFK_Weye by Dwip
Virconia by SultericDrums
Lost Spires by Leo Gura
Hentia Mania by Hentai, and
Abandoned Mountain Shack by Vince Bly

Not to be disparaging towards any of the mods on that list, but there are a lot of better ones that could have been chosen. Regardless, it's good to see the ES modding community getting the attention it deserves

That was a totally random compliation of mods. I've used only Vilja, Lost Spires and KOTN from those (And they are good mods), but there is no common theme in these mods. You'd need many more quest mods, overhaul mods and even minor tweak type mods to make Oblivion realize its true potential as a great RPG. What these mods are - you already know if you are reading this...

Yeah I've played AFK_Weye, Abondoned Mountain Shack and Lost Spires and they were all great, but I'm guessing they spent 10 minutes trawling through the files of the month on the nexus and chose them at random

Hentai Mania? Out of all those other fantastic mods, like The Dungeons of Ivellon, or Immersive Interiors, or even FCOM, they chose Hentai Mania?

This disappoints me.

Perhaps... there are swathes of manic gamers obsessing about hentai?

Feh, that sounds ridiculous.

Sure is a strange list, mind you.

Lol, hasn't anyone noticed that TES Nexus since not long ago has a feature that cycles through 5 mods that are "hot mods" at the moment and they have just copied that.
If they went to see Top 100, they would had Midas Magic on their list for sure.
:)

You need to read the article to get the correct context. The author was not suggesting these are the 6 best Oblivion mods. As for Hentai Mania - he picked it for the (apparently) epic combat not for the Hentai element.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that these mods don't deserve to be among tops (they sure do), it just does seem to me like these are the mods that were recently Hot Mods on Nexus.

I did read the article, but I don't agree with something he said. To me, Oblivion's main quest is very involving and the first time that I played I just couldn't ignore it.

The fact that I haven't replayed it ever since is because I just can't get into another quests when I'm at the same time country's greatest hero and an errand boy or what ever.
It's like "[Gasp!] The Champion of Cyrodiil !!! You really closed all that Oblivion gates by yourself? Good for you. Go buy me box of matches boy. Here's ten gold, keep the change."

EDIT: I misread it, it would seem. Comments withdrawn.

@wrinkleyninja: The author made it clear he was selecting 'adventure' mods and all those he selected (apart from, as he admits, Hentai Mania) add quests and activities. I, like you it would seem, prefer game-play mods but the whole point of modding is to have the game you want not what the other bloke wants. This particular person wants adventure - all power to him.

Oh, I missed that. That certainly clears up his reasoning then.

Look... it seems to me that you might not have read the writer's introduction. He isn't claiming that these are the 'best mods' for Oblivion, and his intention hasn't been to cover all mod cathegories. The upshot for his review was this:



I'm honored to see Companion Vilja by me and CDCooley on the list, but it doesn't mean that I believe it is a better mod than for instance DarNUI, Midas Magic or any of the other you bring up. And it doesn't mean that the reviewer thinks so either. But these mods belong in other cathegories - cathegories that obviously deliberately hasn't been covered in this particular review.

(As for the 'top-5-on-Nexus', it only cover the 'most popular recently added files', and I believe only Hentamania belongs in that cathegory - all the other mods have been around for a while, in some cases for several years).


Edit: I see that Wetblanket just covered this while I was slowly typing

I'm not really feeling how Hentai Mania fits what the article was supposed to be about - quest mods.

Yes, AFK_Weye is way more than just getting to own a cool manor house. It's loaded with quests.

Personally I would much rather have seen something like Heart of the Dead on that list, which is why I recommended the author look into it.

Funny list. Speaks more about the author than of Oblivion quest mods in general. Not that there's anything wrong with the quest mods listed there, they're excellent and clearly deserve a place in top lists, it's just that they're only representing very narrow view on quest mods and are redundant in that (which is to say, companion mods and quest mods mostly following Bethesda's design, if they're even quest mods at all). Other kind of quest mods are entirely left out of the list.

And that makes me kind of sad. The community did a lot to make Oblivion a better game, in most of its facets - yet all but companions are ignored.

Abandoned Shack IS one of the very best house mods. I don't know a lot about quest mods, or overhauls or companions mods, but I have and need to have extremely good knowledge of the variety of house mods out there, for ORE. You know, one of them 'standard "free" download sites that also carry mods but usually with a much smaller selection, little or no user comment, and often without the latest version.' <_<

The article would have been a little more informative to players if it had featured a small variety of house mods of different size, or even just one more on the opposite end of the size scale to Abandoned Mountain Shack, and also showing real artistry, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32737.

I think the author lost me when he said of Abandoned Mountain Shack, 'Your abandoned shack will not even be in the same league with all the other great home mods. It does not hold a candle to the mansion in Weye, or Frostcrag. But you will still like it a lot.' That is, to put it bluntly 'crap', no offense intended to the article author or the authors of the other mods in any way. Mountain Shack is ground breaking, immersive and brings entirely new house mod gameplay into Oblivion. It stands above most other house mods.

It is good seeing some lesser known mods getting some well deserved attention. That said on reading the article it really does seem like the author has no knowledge or real experience even playing Oblivion mods and actually just grabbed these mods from Tes Nexus, read the description and took it from there. It is a little deceptive to call the mods 'The Exceptional Six' as it does imply these are the cream of the mod crop, so seeing people dispute this is understandable. No offense intended to the amazing mods themselves, their mods do deserve the limelight. Whether they are or not the cream of the mod crop I don't know, I can only speak for the house mod. Perhaps the writer would have been better off calling them 'My Preferred Six' or something like that.

Overall it is an interesting read and kudos to those mods that were featured. :foodndrink:

I don't have a problem with the list of mods he chose to review. the list was perhaps eclectic, but I'm sure everyone would have a different list of 7 mods they thought suitable, even if you limit the selection to those adding 'entertaining things to do'. He also seems to have played the mods blind, presumably selecting them from the Tesnexus descriptions and feedback.

The only point of contention I have about the review is that he missed the most important thing about the Abandoned Mountain Shack, ie that it is in the exterior worldspace, you are outside even when you're inside. Beyond this notable mistake i found it an entertaining read that will, hopefully, persuade a few more people into the vworld of Oblivion mod users.

It's not even that. He says:


Basically, he's reviewing six mods that he that he thought would be the best for his game, not in general. Calling them "the exceptional six" is unfortunately misleading, as evidenced in this thread, but it merely means that they're the six mods he was most interested in using. He also goes on to list and briefly describe several other mods, like Apachii Goddess Store and CM Partners.

And he closes up the article with:


Sounds like a hearty endorsemant to the modding community to me.

The way I read the article, he's saying "I took half a dozen mods, essentially at random, and they were all exceptional." Of course, using the DLC as a yardstick may have made that easier, but still...

The article doesn't compare the mods to the rest of the possible mods he didn't pick, how could it? The conclusion of "Oblivion with these mods is exceptional" is spot-on, especially as it continues by pointing out that you can choose your own poison with the volume of mods available.

I kinda agree with the critics. That list seems to be done in a typical newspaper-way (grab the first things you see from what you want to talk about, write a 10 minute article, and publish it). No respect for what he's writing about, which leads not to bother to look deeper.

And I say that because if he wanted to center on "adventure" mods, he's lacking several ones of the most important out there, and that he could've noticed with a little effort (looking on TesNexus for questmods, and classifying them by their Endorsemants/Downloads).

- Gates to Aesgaard.

- Ivellon (already mentioned),

- Haunted House Quest.

- Five Blind Mice.

- The Oubliette.

- The Hearth of the Dead (also mentioned).

And along some other (non-adventure, but incredible) mods like Elsweyr: Deserts of Anequina, and Deadly Reflex.

A few things, here.

- Honor for AFK_Weye to be mentioned at all, let alone in the same breath as the rest of his list.

- The author is aware of the uniqueness of Abandoned Mountain Shack, and has said as much in the comments to the article.

- Unlike some others in both comment threads, I think the author did a little bit more homework than might be obvious, or had the space to tell us. And let me elaborate on that a bit.

Seems to me that the best way to approach his list is to think of the six mods listed as representatives of larger categories of quest/adventure mods, since not all quest mods are created in anything like the same mold. I had a brief discussion with the author regarding the inclusion of AFK_Weye, and while I don't want to put words in his mouth, that was what I took away from it - more mods were played than the ones in the article, but he picked these.

In specific:

KOTN is the baseline DLC by which he measures, insofar as he does, the other mods. I have some issues with that, and you may feel free to go read my comment in the article's thread if you care to.

Lost Spires is, well, Lost Spires, and I think you could make an argument that it ought to be included just for being itself, but I think the intent was to include it as a representative of new guild-type questlines, though it is of course more than that.

Viconia and Vilja are obviously companion mods, and though I'm not a companion user, both are pretty constantly mentioned as being in the top of their class everywhere I look. A bit overrepresented as a category, but I think that makes sense - vanilla Oblivion has a, shall we say, certain lack of companions, which is a bit jarring if you're used to playing things like Ultima or Baldur's Gate (anything Bioware ever did, really).

Abandoned Mountain Shack fits in as a house mod and small quest mod. And, really, considering the unique features of the shack, this is probably the one to pick. Again, in terms of amount of talk about it, I'm not sure of anything close. Castle Seaview perhaps?

AFK_Weye, the author tells me, is meant to be representative and best in class for quest mods that are a collection of quests, without a single unifying arc. AFK_Weye has an arc to part of its quests, mind you, but I think his assessment is fair. I don't particularly care to beat my chest about my own work, so I'll let other people decide if AFK_Weye is really the best example of the type, but I think it's fair enough to say that it is an example.

As far as Hentai Mania goes, the author talked up it's Diablo 2-esque aspects a lot, which would seem to put it (I haven't played it) firmly in the "adventure" half of "quest/adventure" mods. I don't know that this is particularly the example I would have chosen - I think most people would say Ivellon (I hated it, personally, but I'm clearly a minority there), whereas I would pick something like The Ayleid Steps.

There are quibbles to be made about particular mods, and I think you could add in more or different sorts of categories, but given the constraints of space and time, for somebody who I would hazard the guess isn't a fanatic like many of us, I found it a reasonably good review and gateway into the rest of what's out there.

What strikes me is that articles like this are nothing but good for Oblivion modding in general.

Once a modder releases a mod or two, I suspect, like me, he or she begins to hope to have an audience.

Good press for 6 excellent, randomly chosen, Oblivion mods helps bring in potential new players for all Oblivion mods. :foodndrink:

Regards,

Hem

Hmm... It's a nice thought, but I'm certainly offput by the dubious choice of mods that did indeed coincidentally appear as the 'hot files' on the Nexus very recently, and he has only looked at quest mods, a tiny part of what Oblivion mods have to offer. There was also one phrase that made me laugh:

What? :rofl:

I'm coming in pretty late here but thought I'd add something. His intention was to have a better roleplaying experience through being drawn into the story(ies) of the added content. Notice his praise of the Vilja mod because she became "...an integral part of the story." He makes similar comments about the Viconia mod.

Of course, you might argue: why did he include the Hentai mod then? He admitted he didn't know what Hentai meant when he downloaded it. It is an adventure mod and, although I haven't played it, sounds very innovative in how it plays out - puzzles, mazes, secret areas etc.

But the one thing he didn't mention is how easy it is, thanks to the combined efforts of the community, to play a heavily modded game with very few compatibility problems because of the extensive toolset and community knowledge and assistance we have access to. This is a vital component for those who want to transform Oblivion to their own tastes, or play a dynamically different game to their last play through.

I'm talking, of course about mods like Wrye Bash, BAIN, OBMM, FCOM, Tes4view, TES4Gecko, plus the many threads started to help people to iron out kinks in their load order.

It would have been good to mention this point as he effectively said: in order to play these 6 mods, you'll need to download these other 5. Of course, that's not always the case, but it does make it seem more complex than it actually is.