As is pretty obvious by now, I’m a bit of an Oblivion addict.

One of the great things of the game, is its ability to be epic in scope.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m currently replaying the game, and the other day, I took time away from the main quest to replay the Knights of the Nine expansion.   In truth when I first played the game, I made a point of getting through the main quest as quickly as possible, as the Oblivion gates were annoying the heck out of me.   This time I’m trying to resist the urge, as I later read about how useful the higher level Sigil Stones could be.

Playing through the Knights of the Nine quests at a much earlier point in the game I’m really appreciating how good the Divine Crusader armour is.   I was only level 7 or 8 when playing it this time, whereas first time it was after I’d completed the rest of the game, and so was pretty well kitted out with powerful magical equipment and armour.  I’m actually trying to resist using it too often, only grabbing it from the Priory for tough missions, where I want the edge of the better equipment, not to mention one of my fellow Knights for some backup.

However, the point of this post, is the end fight in the Knights of the Nine questline.   It finds you finally face to face with Umaril the Ayleid sorceror.  The plot of the quest has it that the Divine Crusader defeated him during the first age, however now that he has returned, you must find the weapons and armour of the Divine Crusader, and defeat Umaril fully.  This time, you must use the blessing of Talos to follow him in to the spirit world, when you do battle in the skies above the Imperial City.

Its a great plotline, dealing with the original fate of the Knights of the Nine, as you rebuild the order while finding the Crusader’s armour and weapons.  The end fight in the skies above the Imperial City is brilliantly epic, so I thought I’d capture it to a video for you to see.  Enjoy.

Kind of a follow up post this. Since I’d ranted about the grief I had installing the Oblivion mod, it seemed only fair to mention how it played.

The mod in qestion was the Fighter’s Stronghold mod available from Oblivion Downloads. Filling in an obvious gap in their player housing mods, this one introduces Castle Battlehorn, a player-owned castle aimed at (you guessed it) Fighter-based characters.

I’m not a big fan of the huge houses. While they look impressive, personally I tend to find them a bit impractical. I prefer somewhere I can duck into, rest and stash my equipment, without having to wander through 5 different rooms first. Small wonder then that my houses of choice tend to be the Imperial City shack and the Bruma house.

The castle itself is impressive. There’s loads of rooms, with player quarters and a grand dining hall. However, my only complaint was the ease at which the castle is aquired. Once you have the quest, its a simple matter of defeating four enemies (with help from the guards) and its yours. There is apparently another quest that can be unlocked, but I’ve not played that one yet, and I was a bit dissappointed by the lack of a proper quest to own the house.

If your very own castle floats your boat, then I’m more inclined to recommend the Castle Ravenpride mod. Available freely, you are presented with an incredibly satisfying quest before you are given lordship of the castle. The mod is probably the best player-created quest I’ve played, with several hours playtime needed, full voice acting, and some nice scripted bits (the bridge to the castle is visually stunning when you first see it, and provides a great backdrop to one of your fights).

Check out the trailer for the mod:

Ok, so I’m a bit of a hoarder in real life, and that transfers to my RPGs.

Anything that I got in Oblivion, either by defeating enemies, or completing quests that was interesting, or had a good story behind it, got stored in my trusty locker in the Bruma house.

I was also trying to collect full sets of the various suits of armour, but realised the problem was that I was continually having to dig through the cupboard in Bruma to see what I did and didn’t have. And with the Mannequins mod installed it made more sense to display the different suits, and then it would be more obvious which parts I was missing.

Of course, as those who’ve played the game will know, the Bruma house is quite cozy, and not really setup to have loads of mannequins on display. So I started scouting out the other houses in the game, when I had a better idea.

I love the RP aspects of these games, and will usually (in my head at least) have my character fairly figured out. I suddenly remembered about the Bravil Sea Domes mod I had installed. Perfect I thought: my character has his main Bruma house where he stores his main equipment he uses all the time, but keeps an armory secured underwater where no one can get at it.

So, here’s the result. I added 8 mannequins into the main room of the Sea Domes, and equiped them with some of the armour and weapons I had collected. Some of the weapons that I had collected could also be stored in the display cabinets as a bonus.

Well, after spending some time with Star Wars Galaxies, I’ve gotten sucked back into Oblivion.

I’ve now rolled a couple of new characters and started playing through the game again, although to keep things interesting, I’ve made both variations on a theme. The first I’ve designed as a stealth character. A thief/assassin who uses a mixture of blade and magic. To me, the thieves and assassins guilds represented some of the most fun missions in the game. While hack-n-slash can be fun, I find it gets repetative quickly, so I’ve always enjoyed RPGs that actually have a stronger role-playing element.

One of my first orders of business is always to get a house sorted out. Getting the money together doesn’t take too long, especially if you go for the Imperial City house.

I’ve always had a lot of fondness for that house. While its just a shack on the waterfront, I’ve always found it has a nice, basic charm to it. The location’s excellent, down by the docks, and perfect for avoiding any soldiers if I’ve got into some bother. I also discovered that you can steal the necessary deeds for some of its upgrades, so I’ve gotten the kitchen, wall-hangings and storage upgrades for nothing. Yeah, its basic, but its got everything you need, with a chest for your excess equipment, and a bed for resting in.

My other character maintains the blade/magic theme (it tends to suit my playing style best), but is focusing more on the fighters and mages guilds as a more heroic character. I’m also trying to avoid just going for the imperial city shack with this character, and hold off and get maybe the Bravil or Anvil homes first, to give a better sense of difference between them.

Wandering around the game again though has just brought back to me how rich the graphics are. The landscapes are nicely varied and great fun to travel through, be it the woods or the snow-covered mountains. I always forget just how much fun it is just wandering around this game admiring the scenery.

As mentioned below, I setup the mannequins mod in Oblivion the other night. Its really nice to have a good way of storing those nice suits of armour I just can’t bring myself to flog.

This mannequin sports the Imperial Dragon Armour you get for completing the main quest

While this one sports the trusty Kvatch curiass, chain mail armour, Northwind sword and Turtle Shield that got me through most of the main quest.

Well, as predicted, I ended up playing with those Oblivion mods last night.

The mannequins mod (Reznod Mannequins) is a really nice bit of kit. As someone who collected various complete sets of armour in the game, and didn’t like throwing various nice outfits away, its great to have something to display them on. My only problem now is that I tend to prefer using the Bruma house, which isn’t filled with a huge amount of room. However so far I’ve got two set up. One in my Imperial Dragon Armour, while the other is wearing my trusty chainmail and Kvatch Curiass, complete with the Northwind sword and shield that saw me through most of the main quest. I’ll need to get some screengrabs of them sorted out.

The Bravil Undersea Domes mod is a great bit of eye-candy. As I say, I tend to use the Bruma house as my main base of operations (I grew to love that town during the main quest), but this provides a really nice house (and I’ve not even done it up with the upgrades yet). The ability to swim down and see the domes from the outside is a really nice touch as well.

Here’s a second video. This time the interior of the domes.

Although I’ve been playing Morrowind a bit recently, I ended up browsing the Oblivion mods listed under the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages today, and found a couple that look really neat.

One adds the ability to buy mannequins for your houses to display your armour on, while the other is an undersea house, just outside of Bravil. I guess that sorts what I’ll be doing tonight

Well, as promised, I played a bit more Morrowind last night. This time I decided to create a custom class, focusing on mage skills, but adding a few of my favourites (long blade, light armour, sneak and security), just so I’m not completely lost.

I’m also trying to avoid joining the fighters guild this time. Previously I’ve always used them as one of my first sources of income in Elder Scrolls games, but in this instance, I’m trying to take myself out of my comfort zone, so I’ve joined both the thieves and mages guilds and I’m curious to see where their missions take me. Certainly in Oblivion the thieves and assassins guilds offered some of the more interesting quests, so I’m looking forward to it.

Well, over the weekend, I completed the main quest for the Shivering Isles. Of course, there’s still a bunch of side quests I need to do, but completing it gave me itchy feet to play Morrowind again.

I bought Morrowind years ago, but missed out on the expansions. I’ve never played that deeply into it, so I’d never bothered buying them, however I decided I’d pick up the Game of the Year Edition so as to have all the expansions now.

So now I’m being a complete Elder Scrolls geek, and I’ve got the disc for both Oblivion and Morrowind sitting in the DVD drives on my main PC.

Playing Morrowind again is a bit of a wakeup call. With the compass, and fast travel system, Oblivion gives you a fair bit of hand-holding (partly, I suspect to entice console gamers), however Morrowind is far more about the immersion.

Sadly, my gaming session last night didn’t go as planned. I rolled my usual longsword/archer, started to find my way around the first town, and was promptly slaughtered by a bandit mage in the first dungeon. And I’d forgotten to save. Nuts.

However, I think restarting may be a blessing in disguise. I always tend to roll archer/swordsman characters, so I think I’ll be a bit different this time, and roll some sort of mage. I last did this ages ago for the Shadows of Undrentide expansion to Neverwinter, and it was a lot of fun. It should take me out of my gaming comfort zone, and force me to approach the game in a new way, which I figure can’t be a bad thing.

Well, I managed to get through a couple of bouts in the Arena, but it was tough going. Fortunately I had just enough money to get myself a “Summon Scamp” spell. Given how much grief those sods gave me in Kvatch, I’m hoping it’ll make things a bit easier. I definitely need to find myself some better ranged spells though…

Once I’ve got some more time I’m definitely going to invest some time in X3. Although at the moment, it looks like it might be easier playing it at the weekend, where I can devote some time to letting the freighter fly around.