Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul
From Oblivion Mod Wiki
| Authors: | Oscuro and dev_akm |
| Thread(s): | Official Forums OOO Homepage |
| Version: | 1.34alpha7 |
| Download(s): | Planet Elder Scrolls, FilePlanet (7-Zip), FilePlanet (.exe installer), TES Nexus |
[edit] Summary
Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul aims to make Oblivion a much more interesting, challenging, realistic and dangerous place, and also offers great rewards for the daring adventurer regardless of your level.
You must be prepared to cast aside your previous notions about Cyrodiil. The world no longer revolves around you, the player. Do not expect to be able to beat every monster or NPC you meet. Previously familiar areas may now be much more dangerous and you will frequently be forced to retreat from enemies who are too powerful to beat until you are stronger. You will probably die a lot more often now. However, if you have the ingenuity, skill, and luck to survive the odds stacked against you then you will be justly rewarded for your bravery!
OOO changes many aspects of the game and adds a lot of new features. It would be impossible to summarize that here in an acceptable form. My advice to inquisitive people is to download the read me for the official website and spend a while reading over it. That will give you information to help you decide if you do or don't want to use OOO.
[edit] General Overview of OOO Game play Vision
Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul changes the ways in which the core gameplay elements of TES IV: Oblivion relate to each other. The aim of these changes is to create a more immersive, rewarding, believable and enriching experience as you adventure in the world of Tamriel.
The structures responsible for game play could be divided into several areas. The lines separating them are somewhat arbitrary, and we could be more specific and nuanced, but first it is important to define these areas in general terms. OOO considers them in the following blocks:
A. Gameplay meta‐rules
1. Immersion
2. Risk
3. Reward
B. Game play mechanics
1. Player Character (PC) abilities and Non‐Player Character (NPC) abilities
2. Quests
3. Economy
C. Game play resources
1. Environment
2. Inhabitants
3. Objects
Each of these areas has subclasses, and each subclass can appear as the sum of lower rank classes. For
example, the PC abilities include the statistics system, the skill system, the combat system, the magic system,
and the faction system. Likewise, Environment is built by smaller resources, like sounds, music, architecture,
flora, weather, etc.
OOO does not change every single variable responsible for gameplay, but it does affect many of those listed above. Each of these changes has been carefully measured against every other change to the gameplay structures in order to enhance the ultimate goal of gameplay: to absorb you into an exciting experience that entices you to overcome the many challenges you will face in Cyrodiil through rewarding your skill, ingenuity, and exploration.
[edit] Credits
Thanks to the following people for making this happen:
• 5hakes • Addikt • Adeliedreams • Adonnay • Aleanne • AshLad • Atronarch • Axeface • Bofra • Baksheesh • Bo Straightarrow • BradRinWI • Belenos • creepyfellow • Ceano • Cethegus • Chiz • dev_akm • doofdilla • Dejunai • Dheer • DagothBalls • Daeger • Demonizzer • DieterWeb • Dejaside • DragonFireSG • ElementalNimbus • Eikona • Elhoim • Eyren • iron golem • Jounks • Josef K. • Kal Choedan • Lyrondor • Madcat • Natalia • OmegaRED • osprey15 • Soor • Ubik • Frugal • Gristle • Hero2014 • Lap • Laurinque • Momaw • Scruggsywuggsy • Stabbey • Phoenixamon • Tandem • Turgothh • XMarksTheSpot • Xui’ al • Gosu • Growlf • Kafeid • Kearsage • Mark Quinn • Mealmoran • NorrabMaster • Oriphier • Perditio44 • Phitt • Praetorio • Rdjeke • Razkhul • Severian • Silverthorn • Sin • Sleeper25 • Someone1074 • Tda • Tegeal • TemplarGFX • ThrottleKitty • Ulath • VagabondAngel • Vine‐Au • Winter • Zardalu • Star Boi • MiSP • Wrye • Quarn • mmmpld • Wolfbain5
And all you other playtesters out there! You know who you are.
[edit] Reviews
[edit] Review by Kal Choedan
As the author mentions, this mod addresses two major "issues" with the game. The first is the linearity of challenge. In vanilla Oblivion, all NPCs and creatures in the game world scale to the player's level. This concept does offer some good gameplay elements (freedom of choice - you can complete any quest any time you like, and an easy learning curve) but implemented as indiscriminately as it has been much is left to be desired in terms of challenge. The other issue addressed by this mod is are the elements of realism and immersion, which are somewhat destroyed when encountering puny bandits outfitted in Daedric armour or level 50 rats.
The mod's author has in short, gone through every single NPC, dungeon and encounter in the game and manually tweaked it. This makes for a much more satisfying game for many, but it may not be to everyone's tastes.
[edit] Review by Steel_Grunty
As I'm sure, the hype for the latest version of OOO must indicate something! With version 1.3, more than 10 new factions have been added, over 30 new creatures, 250 new weapons, a staggering 2,200 hand-placed unique containers, and many, many changes to the core gameplay.
No longer will you be able to smash through every dungeon, killing everything in sight. Not only do most enemies have static levels, but combat is also much deadlier. Take five hits of a battle axe and you're, quite possibly, finished. Head further into a dungeon, and the difficulty ramps up.
However, not all is focused on making your life harder. Don't you hate it when you defeat that powerful Chief Necromancer or Bandit King only to find that they carry a weak iron sword, or puny staff? No more! In OOO, enemies will drop items related to their strength, and then some.
I've only touched the tip of the iceberg on the changes that OOO v1.3 makes, so get it now, and find out the rest!
[edit] Review by Keyser_Soze
After winning the main quest, I decided to restart a new character using the mod and here is what I have found:
The amount of work put into this modification is *extremely impressive* in its scope and magnitude, but there are parts to it that have made the game so unbalanced against the player that I have not enjoyed it as much as I would have hoped. First, the amount of time and work that a new character has to go through just to advance their basic skills is staggeringly longer. For example, prolonged sneaking or running, which would previously advance those skills fairly regularly seemed to take at least 4x the amount of time. Next, while the prices and value of enchanted items and major finds has exploded, methods of making a regular income, such as the areana, have been made virtually unbeatable at lower levels. The increased value of the magical items found that you wish to sell is then rendered worthless, because while an item might be worth over 45k gold, no merchant has more than 1K in which to offer for it. I also noticed that training has also been made pricier, which makes the most efficient and quickest method of improving your skills harder to come by.
The goal of the mod was to make it more difficult in some areas and easier in others, making more risk earn you more rewards. I like that concept because if you are a lower level character but want to try making a mad dash into a dungeon in the hopes of making off with some loot in a smash-n-grab assault, you might get lucky. But the way it has been implemented makes it nearly impossible to know what your getting into until you have your ass handed to you on a platter by the same creature in the dungeon down the road that died in five hits. For example, just NNE of the Imperial City there is an Inn on the main road where the bartender asks you to get rid of a trouble-making witch in a cave about 300ft north of the Inn. Small dungeon, nothing special. The zombies spawned by the necromancers were so powerfull that they drained fatigue and regained health faster than I could take it off. I got so frustrated I finally went into God mode just to finish it. There was some treasure, but nothing outstanding, the reward given by the bartender was a few hundred gold pieces, no different than it was without the mod but not nearly enough compensation for the amount of BS the character would go though to get it.
I'm still going to explore the mod to see some additional changes and enjoy the visual improvements. If you want to make your Oblivion experience more prolonged and challenging I recommend this mod, but if you've never played the game before I would try playing without it first.
[edit] Review by Slvrbuu
Very large mod, new features are nice as well. It adds more difficulty and more fun. What can be looked at is some of the glitches but I'm sure those will be looked at. It would be great to see more of this mod, and more creations by the modder. I give it my 5
[edit] Review by NN.TFO.TTS.S
Great mod, probably one of the best, if not the best. It doesn't add a dragon that ejaculates naked elves into the game, it actually improves it on so many levels. This mod has single handedly rekindled my interest in oblivion. You have to play the game without it first to truly appreciate it... I especially love the fact that breaking into a nobles house fetches you a very pretty penny. No more one gold/zero gold trash. Great work.
[edit] Review by Closing-Gap
This mod is still being used by me and is what brought me back to playing Oblivion. It introduces new armour, new quests and basically makes the game more challenging; which is what you want in a game. New factions give you a sense of a more realistic world as you see them roaming roads and raiding others fortresses, it's a unique thing to stumble accross.
