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Never played Oblivion? Really? Go get it now. The Gods of Gaming will send you to gaming hell (where the only thing you can play is Tibia) for all eternity if you don't! I'm serious! Nah, not really, but still, missing that game should be a sin. razz

Srsly. Oblivion, even in its vanilla (basic) version, is one of the best RPGs ever created. Fallout 3 comes a close second, but doesn't quite make it (lots more bugs in the vanilla than Oblivion, for starters, and a dominance of "ranged" characters makes for a not-so-flexible character setup.)

Screw crap like WoW or Neverwinter. You don't need other players around to have fun in an RPG. And when the world you move through is as realistic as Oblivion's graphics are, then you will soon forget you called blocky stuff like the WoW graphics engine "good graphics."

Now, for Oblivion, there's a few things you will need to maximize your experience. A good computer with a good graphic accelerator (256 MB or better, 512 MB modern cards are the way to go.) No, built-in pieces of s**t aren't graphic accelerators and thus won't do a thing for you. But if you want to play Blocklivion, by all means, be my guest.

Second thing you need: The Knights of the Nine collection (several mods that add sidequests,) and the Shivering Islands expansion (a whole new land to explore, with a bastardly god sending you on quests that will test your morals time and again.)

And third, mods. There's plenty of mods out there, but here's what I basically use:

1- Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul - While the vanilla Oblivion's 'level up mobs' system may look awesome at first, once you get to around level 20 or so, you realize something: Lame-a** bandits, even if they're wearing Magical Armor Of Uberness+9, are still lame-a** bandits. Wolves and other bugs remain the same, and the Skeleton Guardians and such in caves and tombs just take two or three more hits to go down. Boooooooring.

What does OOO do? Change the leveling system so enemies only level with you for a while, and give different enemy group different level ranks. No longer will you be able to get into any cave at level one and destroy everything on your path: Some caves will have level 20, 30 or even 40 enemies who will be more than eager to show you the meaning of "Pwned." It changes plenty other things, brings in new items and ingredients, and generally improves the game's balance while making it a lot more challenging for the seasoned players and newbie players alike.

But the BEST thing about OOO? It changes all the second-person dialogues ("Your vitality is being drained") with first-person ones ("I made a new potion") It helps inmersion a lot, really, when you're not being constantly reminded by the system that you're in a game.

2- Adrenaline Oblivion. - My other "must have" for players looking for challenge. What does this do? Simply multiplies spawn. See, a problem with Oblivion is the lack of wild life and enemies all around you. You walk into the Cave of Despair and fight two rats and an imp. You enter the Necromancer's Lair and find... Four necromancers. You run through the grassy mountains for hours, and maybe you find a half dozen deers, two wolves and a bear. Adrenaline changes that. Now when you enter a cave, you can hear the squeaks of dozens of rats, when you enter a tomb, you will see the shadows of many skeletions, and the hideouts of Necromancers and other such foes are now infested with evil mages and monsters. And, of course, the Plane Of Oblivion will not be your favorite picnic spot anymore, for now you will be ambushed by an army of Dremora as soon as you walk through a portal.

3- Exnem's Eye Candy - I personally like this, though others might disagree. See, in Oblivion, women look like s**t. Yes, I said it. They look like freaking fridges with smaller-than-A-cup breasts. Exnem's mod is a 'cosmetic' mod, as it changes the female body to look way more realistic. For the kiddies, there's an underwear version (using the same underwear texture as Oblivion has,) and for the grown-up pervs like me, there's the full realism (aka naked) version.

4- Companions - With this mod, you can hire NPCs to aid you in your exploration of dungeons, in the main quest, or to beat the s**t out of those annoying Bruma guards. You'll find dozens of companion mods to download, some with godlike companions, some with balanced ones, but there's a companion out there to suit every player's tastes. No more Adoring Fan as the best sidekick you'll get (until he gets mauled down by a level 1 rat.)

5- Harvest Flora - Modifies the artwork of plants, so you know when you harvested something.

6- Living Economy - Makes getting millions of gold harder, by giving the traders fluctuating gold. What does that mean? You buy something from a trader that costs 25 gold, and the trader gets that gold added up. You sell them something worth four hundred gold pieces, and the trader gets that gold substracted to them. No more traders with permanent five thousand gold purses willing to buy all your crap and make you millionaire in a few days.

Also, prices of items (both sale and buy) change from region to region, in a quite random way, making it even harder to get rid of that Claymore Of Shock you won't use and get good gold for it.

Really, one of the things that annoyed me most about Oblivion was how I could have a character get a hundred thousand gold pieces in less than a game month. Not anymore, say goodbye to your millionaire paladins, and hello to realistic economy.

7- Kobu's Leveling System - Changes the leveling system so you don't need to sleep to level up, and gives you full control of the way and speed with which you reach new levels. Want to only level up based on your Blade skill? You can do it. Want to level up so slow you think you're a level 80 Paladin in a MMORPG? You can have that too. Want to train your warrior as a mage but don't want to overlevel? You can stop leveling for good, too.

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I might be forgetting a thing or two here, specially for mods I use, but those are the best. There's enough clothes mods out there for everyone, too, but I'd recommend Goddess Store. It is basically for use in Exnem's body, but can be used with the vanilla bodies too... And it has some pretty nice suits of armor (and some pretty non-covering ones, too, but that's a whole different matter.)

A must play, if only for the fun of grinding up an incredibly powerful mage, then going to any city and summoning a couple high level Dremora on peasants, and zapping guards dead with lightning blasts until you get bored (or run out of mana.... "Magicka.")

Another one of the "bad" points of the game is their definition of stamina. I don't really think that running out of fatigue would let you, you know, fatigued, but all the way around. biggrin Luckily I use Kobu's mods, one of which changes "Fatigue" to "Stamina" so that part of the game makes sense.

Now for mods "nobody should ever try," there's a couple zombi mods out there... Don't get them. They're bugged so badly they will crash any savegame you try them on, even if you start a new game to use them.

Also, most of the "new lands" mods have severe bugs and thus are best left untested. That is, if you want to keep your level 73 archmage/knight/sniper in one piece.

As for graphics, only things that really can screw you up are the grass and the water texturing/reflections. My computer can handle those, but even then, I turn grass off most of the time, since I'm using some mods that up the creature count everywhere I go. You just haven't experienced dungeons in Oblivion until you try OOO and Adrenaline together. "Oh my f'ing deity whose name I can hardly pronounce, why am I suddenly being chased around by three spirit wolves, two giant spiders and a dozen stone imps?" rofl

Slightly on topic I quess. I have been playing Radiata stories for the PS2 lately and it seems like Triace was trying their hands at an open ended Elder Scrolls like RPG but just had no friggin idea how to make one. At the end we have this barron empty game that tricks you into thinking you have freedom to do whatever you want but the game still forces you back into the story when it wants.

Nice try triace but you really did not have a clue did you?