Is "Base" Oblivion Good Enough?

[Zedo Mann]

I got Oblivion on the Steam Deal (because the GoTY edition was new on Steam) and I purchased the Deluxe Pack. I was wondering, what do you guys think of Oblivion? I would have played it by now, but I don't wanna go over the Bandwidth cap...

Is it better gameplay than Morrowind?
Is the base version Good Enough?
If no to the above, what are some essential mods I need?

Also, don't forget to rate it above.

[Serio]

It was good enough to keep me playing the console version for a year before I got the PC version. I do, however, recommend that you play through the main story before turning to mods. That being said, there's only two recommendations for mods; The Unofficial Oblivion Patch and The Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch . Be careful about choosing mods at random, as I recently had to reinstall my Oblivion due to several mod conflicts(And remnants of Qarls Texture Pack III).

[N88TR]

Let me help you out bro!

Essential mods vary GREATLY depending on what kind of experience you want to have.

But I would say "essential" mods would be

Darnified UI
Makes text smaller and less scrolling in inventory

Qarls Texture Pack
High resolution textures for walls, doors and other static objects

Mighty Magic
Adds TONS of new spells along with wide areas spells ie spread spells like fireballs in a line, summon new beasties, new abilities, etc. This is THE magic mod to get and use.

Obscuros Oblivion Overhaul Mod
Tons and tons of bug fixes, new weapons, armors, etc. If you don't download anything else, use this. That is how important this is.

Unoffical Oblivion Patch
Tons of fixes. More than Obscuros mod but not at all any less important. This patch basically fixes whatever stuff ie clipping, audio errors, trigger events that the official oblivion patches missed. Again, a very important file. I believe OOO needs this file.

Latest Oblivion Patch
For obvious reasons and compatibility issues, use this.
The order of patch installs goes like this:
Install oblivion [or have a non-modded directory clean]
latest Official patch
latest Unofficial patch
install your mods

ScriptExtender [latest version]
Might not be necessary but it helps with compatibility which is important for the mods. The more you use, you will def need to use this.

Oblivion Mod Manager
Manages you mods and often times the load order will need to be tweaked. All mod readme files that I have read will tell you if their mod needs to be under or over a certain mod or base file. This will be an essential tool once you start adding a lot of mods or if the readme in the mods' folder says you need it.

Just doing these, and they're all compatible, will GREATLY enhance your experience. And these are just THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG that fun you can have in Oblivion.

Myself, I have a LOT more mods like:

Dalls Merchant
Adds TONS of new armor and weapons meshes for mid and high level loot, weapons, armor, etc. Lots of cash needed but it doesn't make you a God. This mod is fun if you play on Hard mode where the game actually is a challenge.

Apachii Hero store
Similiar to Dalls Merchant but some items are more about just looking good if you're more into role playing hardcore.

Armamentarium [all parts]
Again another mod that adds new game content like Dalls. Just because the mods are similar does not neccessarily make one more or less important or less fun to play then the other. The more mods you can get together with compatibility that add a ton of content will keep you playing longer and having more fun!

The Lost Spires
This is an awesome mod! New quest line, meshes, everything bascially.

Martigens Monsters Madness
He also made a similar mod for Fallout 3 [and that game and mod rocks hardcore!]. This adds new monsters like skeleton warriors, bugs, spiders, wolves, bears, pretty much all the old monsters have a twin of some kind. The newest version of this mod is just phenomenal and that is not an understatement. New monsters and tons of them. Some are unique like giants are are story-line dependant but if you go looking for trouble you'll find it I guarantee it. The harder you set the game [the slider] the more beasties you will find. So the game is much more challenging and interesting. I played on Easy the first time with the mod and didn't find much but some spiders and new wolves. Just a heads up because the difficulty slider is important in a lot of "harder" mods.



.... many others I can't remember at the moment

[KingDino]

I though vanilla oblivion was a very good experience.
some that I recomend along with the above post is"
Francesco's leveled creatures/items mod
and
FCOM(it makes it so alot of the big mods, like Francesco's and Obscuro's, work together)

[N88TR]

Honestly if you use OOO and MMM, Francesco's mod is overly complicating your installing process.

The less conflicts you can have, the more fun your game experience will be. You know, less CTDs, more fun!

Once you get into installing specific patches for mods to work together, I mean like more than a dozen mods working together peacefully, anything that will cause a conflict, ie Francesco's mod, should be avoided in my opinion.

I'm not trying to bash your mod choice there, but OOO and MMM will revolutionize your Oblivion experience, they are top-tier mods.

I recommend loading at least those two mods, at the very least. I've loaded all those I listed in the previous post and they all worked together peacefully for me.

The more mods you can get to run together, like the list above that work, the more content will be added to the mod and the more fun will you have. If you think you're having plenty fun with it vanilla you will be blown away if you start to mod it up like I showed in my previous post, it's a world of difference!