Arwen's Realm

Ryft

Ah, to be young again... :) Welcome, Rebelmaiden. I imagine Arwen might be able to fix your login name, if you asked nicely. We are not a large community, but we are a fairly long lived one, and while the conversation isn't always at break neck speed it's always worth checking in here once in a whil...

Ryft

The menu stuff is really geared for the 360, and the analog stick for walking speed is a nice perk. Otherwise, the PC controls aren't bad at all.

Ryft

I've had a hard time of late getting Firefox to be steady and actually view any of Arwen's forums... very odd. Jumping through hoops to post this. I noted that, while the later Elder Scrolls games use mp3 files for the music, older games often do not, and figuring out how to record those tunes can b...

Ryft

I've had good luck with recipes found on food containers of late. Here is one of the better ones. I've experimented a bit with it. Get: Chicken (boneless, skinless... somewhere from 1-2 pounds works fine) A 16 oz can of peaches 1/4 cup malt vinegar tablespoon brown sugar (regular sugar works ok, and...

Ryft

Basically, it looks like they were only going to remove the service from China and its territories. But hey, that's what they get for being communist.]

Ryft

Welcome to the forums. Again.

Ryft

It is Neverwinter Nights 2, a graphical RPG based on the D&D 3.5 ruleset. It's free to play online if you own the game and its one expansion.

Exodus is one of many NWN2 server communities... it just happens to be a very high-RP oriented one.

Ryft

Or unless you mean the kind you pay every month...? Isn't that what a subscription is? What other type of subscription could you be thinking of? And I agree that the 15/month business plan is arse. You pay to play a boring game every month. They add continual amounts of busy work to make sure you ke...

Ryft

Well, the plus side of the forum is that I discovered a whole forum full of cool character stories. The downside is that your images are way nice enough to deserve their own website or something.

Ryft

Edit: Er, figured out the solution to the second complaint, and it seems obvious, now, and I feel silly. But hey, problem solved, and I'm happy, right?

Ryft

Gooch... this journal is incredibly crafted, and bravo on the level of polish and brass, so to speak. I've a few problems, though: You've gotta figure out a way to host it someplace that isn't an internet forum. Load times are awful! Imagine if every image was on a different web page, with a simple ...

Ryft

Yay! That goal is plenty fast enough, given your circumstances. I'm not complaining.

I'm the meanwhile, Gooches journal is... really really... journal like...

Ryft

Hey, Arwen. How is the leg healing?

Also: when is chapter 16 coming out? It's been a while since you hinted that it was going to arrive... mid May, wasn't it?

Not that there is any rush. I have Gooch's journal to start reading in the meanwhile.

Ryft

Nice link. There's an old FPS game called "Killing Time" that had a very good musical score. I've always been a fan of that game. Most of it is unsuitable for Oblivion, but the track "mansion" would make good dungeon exploration music, particularly in Ayleid ruins. http://killing...

Ryft

The mod drops the torch automatically when you unsheath a weapon. And provided the weapon is sheathed, it auto-equips it again when you pick it back up.

Ryft

Yeah, he's not PG or PC, at all. Funny, though.

I've been a long time fan of his reviews. Even his reviews of games that I haven't played can usually get a chuckle out of me.

Ryft

The only spelling error you made was not capitalizing proper nouns. ;) I really enjoyed playing a warrior of House Redoran, actually. The Telvanni are too cut-throat, and with the Hlaalu my membership feels like a business transaction. It's only with the Redoran that I feel like I can rest easy and ...

Ryft

Brighter Drop Lit Torches With Weight.

Never cast a light spell again.

Ryft

You put the chunks of everything in a bowl, mix it up good, and drizzle olive oil over it...

Ryft

Nice work on the mod list, Arwen. Just when I think I'm finished modding my game, you come along and show me more good tidbits to pick up.

By the way, how many hours a day do you spend researching these mods?

Ryft

Illumination Within? Beyond that, I wouldn't know... I'm not really into all of the alternate armors, weapons, and character appearance mods that are out there. I always get a chuckle out of people who want their characters to look like something out of Assassin's Creed, or a Final Fantasy game. Whi...

Ryft

No, not the dice game. Zero Punctuation reviews Oblivion this week. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/75-Oblivion His delivery style is hilarious, and his comments are spot on, as always. Of course, he's only playing the vanilla game, so you expect it to be flawed, but tha...

Ryft

I made this tonight with dinner... it turned out pretty good. I got the recipe from a display at work that had everything you needed to make it, which is an obvious marketing ploy, but a tasty one! Very simple and easy. -Chunked roma tomatoes (or any tomato, really) -Chunks of mozzarella cheese -Sli...

Ryft

Now I remember why I promised myself never to take Alchemy as a major skill, ever again. So I'm using a 4x slower level up modifier. Alchemy is a minor skill, though I get a +5 from being a Breton, and magic specialization gives me another +5, so it started at a 15. I just got to level 2. I started ...

Ryft

Beat this at 7th level, finally. Restarted my last character, and am having fun again. Wow, what a horrible end to the quest line. And at the end of it, despite being proclaimed champion of the empire, I didn't actually do anything more heroic than I did at any other point of the game. I didn't even...

Ryft

The new version of Open Better Cities will not require a new game for people who have been using either Better Cities or Open Cities of Cyrodiil to begin with.

They've released two cities so far. Huzzah!

Ryft

I have thus far stayed away from cobl anything. I am spending far more time playing around with mods than I am actually playing the game, which is a bit sad. There are other mods that stop you from running backwards, I'm pretty sure. Some of them make the backwards button do a combination of alterna...

Ryft

Thanks for the tips, Arwen. I agree that I could probably live with See You Sleep not working on bedrolls and still find it worth using. This is so weird, I just discovered Real Thirst not two minutes before checking these forums! I'm strongly considering using it instead of V&V, and going back ...

Ryft

Finally decided to take the plunge and seriously try Vim and Vigor Overhauled. And since I wasn't using Real Sleep anymore, I figured See You Sleep was a strong possibility. However, See You Sleep is causing me to crash to desktop partway through the Bethesda logo loading screen. Does anyone know an...

Ryft

Your humble opinion was well taken, mind you. I did say "nice list" after all. ;) Zimmer's score for Pirates is really identifiable. It also IS very good. Have you tested the score for the movie Gladiator at all in the game? I've always enjoyed the score for that movie. I wish I had scores...

Ryft

The mod sounds like it would make the end of the main quest absolutely impossible, what with getting attacked by a dozen guys at a time.

Ryft

Nice list. One of the things I've always avoided doing with custom music is adding tracks that are strongly iconic of another game, film, or series. Because certain songs are so identifiable as "not belonging" it tends to jolt me out of my game mindset. John Williams' Indiana Jones Theme i...

Ryft

Can't wait to see all of this at work!

Ryft

Pancakes: I use poison constantly. It is a little bit of a hassle to use, but the results justify it to me. It counteracts troll or clanfear regeneration very nicely, and at higher alchemy levels it's absolutely brutal. Poisons with two or three types of damage plus silence can eliminate enemies of ...

Ryft

Yes, Arwen has the definitive starting point list of mods for me. I continuously watch her list as it updates and give each of her choices a goodly amount of consideration, as she's pretty hard-core as roleplayers go for Oblivion. I also wish I had her desktop system, but I wouldn't give up my big w...

Ryft

If you get your stealth high enough, you can almost always use a bow for a whole fight, as enemies never manage to see you. Less effective in the daylight or at close range, of course. This means training your stealth to 75+ early on, though, which is a poor option for qualifying your need for a str...

Ryft

I've always wanted to get into the Thieve's World stories more. I've only read a few of them, and he was instrumental in getting that project going.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of humorous fantasy, either, so don't feel bad.

Ryft

Welcome! Stay a while! Maybe even longer!

Ryft

Not sure.

Games Workshop's universe is popular, though. And unlike WoW it actually revolves around reasons to kill things in a believable way.

Ryft

I tried version 3.1, and it was causing crashing everytime I walked into Sancre Tor. Very annoying. And that was only with Streampurge running. Streamsave is horrible. It makes my game pause at awkward and unexpected times. My saved games aren't bloated anyways... I save with the console with specif...

Ryft

Ah ha... changed my version of obse and it works fine now.

Most excellent!

Ryft

I seem to have my killing of stunted scamps down perfectly. Two shock spells kills one, or else a shock spell and a fully charged claymore swing as they charge at me. Clanfear runts are a dose of poison. Dremora are poison if they summon things and run away, or straight up shock/swing fests if they ...

Ryft

I'm assuming that anyone reading this has beaten the main quest once already, but just in case I'll be light with the spoilers. Even though I've been playing this game for a couple of years, on and off, I've never beaten the main quest. I got a little ways into it once before, but started it at high...

Ryft

I'm assuming that anyone reading this has beaten the main quest once already, but just in case I'll be light with the spoilers. Even though I've been playing this game for a couple of years, on and off, I've never beaten the main quest. I got a little ways into it once before, but started it at high...

Ryft

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index ... streamline

Has anyone tried Streamline at all? It's supposed to help with certain things, and amazingly so.

Ryft

It looks like someone has been busy tweaking her mods page... ;) Good show, Arwen! I'll give Better Cities a try at some point - but first I think I want to check out open cities. http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=841133&st=0 Open Better Cities is now available!* *yeah, there...

Ryft

You get what you pay for. You aren't going to find a free game that is even close to one of those. If such a thing existed, EQ2 and CoV would go out of business, wouldn't you think?

Ryft

http://www.cabalonline.com/

Scam? Who is buying anything? I thought all of those games were free?

Or were you talking about the "stl pl8" for "200 glds"? That's not meant to represent a scam, but IS meant to represent bad grammar.

Ryft

Found this the other day. An interesting read. Apparently it's done by the same guy who wrote the Half Life 2 webcomic "Concerned" (the Life and Death of Gordon Frohman). The first few pages are background on the build and rules and such, but the rest of it is great fun. He's up to day 20 ...

Ryft

I stay away from MMORPGs.... as far as free ones go I heard someone at work talking about Cabal (sp?) but I otherwise don't play them. I like Oblivion because it's immersive, and insular. The last thing my immersion needs is some 12 year old trying to sell me something in the marketplace by spamming...

Ryft

This is so cool. I didn't even know what forum to put this in... gaming, or music? Very articulate.

http://kotaku.com/387830/this-hands+fre ... weet-music

Ryft

What did you use to overclock your processor? I have an old AMD Athlon 3000+ but have always been too timid to overclock it, since I really don't know what I'm doing. The processor is really the key performance problem for my system. Also, from a non-performance ini editing perspective, some people ...

Ryft

Eh, it's not worth that much trouble, honestly.

My controls are all still set to defaults, at least for the keyboard. I have my mouse set up differently, but that shouldn't matter too much.

Ryft

Quick question: I've not once gotten Denock Arrows to work, despite loading it dead last of late. Mod list is similar to the one above, though I've taken out a few things. Know anything that it interferes with? Also: if you use the bedroll mod (which I personally love), don't get thrown in jail. It ...

Ryft

Spore is currently surpassing Daikatana for "pre game release hype".

It better be ALL that, and a bag of chips, or I'm going to cry.

Ryft

Conan is great, if you are okay with the casual racism.

And welcome to the forums, Turpin. Looking forward to hearing more about your Oblivion game experience.

Ryft

Grind is one of the key reasons I stopped playing games like that, actually. I don't find it all that interesting. If I want a grind experience, I usually go for more of an action game, like Diablo 2 or Dungeon Siege, which is a bit faster paced. It's not to say that the process of accumulating weal...

Ryft

I agree that most of the Oblivion quests are more involving than most Morrowind quests. Despite having only 4 main guilds, and despite some minor complaints with the Mage and Fighter guild questlines being completely solvable by someone who has never used a spell or sword, respectively, and despite ...

Ryft

Grinding is... the process by which these games keep you playing them. You grind to gain levels, better equipment, etc. Quoting Wikipedia's article on MMORPGs, "In nearly all MMORPGs, the development of the player's character is a primary goal. Many titles feature a character progression system...

Ryft

The best of 2008, including anticipated releases and concerts. This seems to be a pretty interesting year in music, so far... Stone Temple Pilots - A reunion tour has commenced, with Scott Weiland's departure from Velvet Revolver following in its wake. I thought I'd never get to see this band play l...

Ryft

Propogation

Ryft

Sounds like you don't have much time for personal enjoyment reading, Xit.

Cheers, and hope that changes.

What does that second one entail, out of curiosity?

Ryft

Finished the last book in the Dune series a week ago. I rather liked the series, but I'm not planning on reading the extended series authored by the author's son (and one other guy). Currently reading Ripples of Battle, by Victor Davis Hanson. It talks about three battles where western powers fought...

Ryft

Valencia.

(This again? To be honest, Arwen's forums are the only place I've ever seen threads like these... and I've been to a LOT of internet forums...)

Ryft

Oh? Good to know, and thanks!

Ryft

edit: er, just noticed that this was a double post from ages ago!

Ryft

This is my current load order... no longer relevent, deleted to shorten thread I'm still getting some errors, but so far it's minor. Notably Harvest-Containers is causing certain containers to open and close incorrectly, so I might need to drop it. If I keep it, I need to play with the load order fo...

Ryft

I'm now using brighter drop torches with weight. Great find, and it makes me more self conscious about picking up every torch I happen across, now. See You Sleep is giving me some strange errors. I think it's conflicting with something... possibly Real Sleep. Might need to use Vim and Vigor instead....

Ryft

Communism is inherently well-meaning, but ends up producing evil and greedy leaders. One of the major problems with Communism in the way that it is implemented is that it tends to set up a dictatorship, which is easier to corrupt than a different type of government. An elected council could implemen...

Ryft

Right. And that does work, for simple mods, where the only contents of "Data" are an esp and/or esm file(s). The problem comes with a large mod like Anvil Bay Expansion, or the Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul. In the Anvil Bay Expansion archive, as an example, the folder named "Data&qu...

Ryft

Gah! You are SO not getting this! Xit, you're a smart guy... why aren't you understanding? Especially with your computer background! Here's an example... as simple as I can make it. If you can't follow this logic... I'm hopeless in my ability to explain this. Let's say I have a mod that I unzip to m...

Ryft

Arwen: not used either of those mods, but I'll be sure to check them out. And how is it that ObMM can install mod files directly? I thought it could only do that with OMOD files. Xit: with a very large file directory for a large and complicated mod, it becomes difficult to use copy-paste to do that....

Ryft

Yes, quite. I've had some trouble lately with extracting archived data from downloaded mod files. Maybe someone can help me with this? As an example, I open a file in winrar, and inside the archive is a folder named "blahblahmod" and inside that is a folder named "data" and insid...

Ryft

Unfortunately, you can't really have a game master play a character in Descent. The game is set up so that the "Overlord" player is actively trying to kill the players as best he can. The game mechanic for this is actually really neat. He gets a certain amount of threat points each turn, b...

Ryft

Ouch! I'm just gonna... take a step away from that one... in case someone starts swinging.

Ryft

Agreed. Definitely miniatures war games, those.

Ryft

Seems that all the better body mods are female only... :-\

Ryft

No, not bored games! I play these types of games every Friday with some friends. We actually stopped our roleplaying campaign because some of them are so fun. I grew up with Hero Quest, which is a dungeon crawl sort of adventure board game set in the same universe as Games Workshop's Warhammer Fanta...

Ryft

Yeah, if you already like your game with OOO, don't bother with TIE. Better Cities has been amazing so far, but if you use Qarls Texture packs with it prepare for a frame rate hit... They also add some things that you might not like... gallows, chopping blocks, and bodies and such in some of the tow...

Ryft

Arwen wrote:This is the only problem that I've had with Vista, and I'm not willing to reinstall my entire operating system just to try to fix this one minor problem (at least not during my current semester).

Ah, good call, Arwen!

Ryft

Lynges Thieves Highway: great for the Thievery mod listed above. Adds rooftop access to certain city areas, as well as rooftop access to certain buildings, even. Compatible with Better Cities if you use their fixed version. Fellan Cities of Cyrodiil: modifies a couple more areas of the Imperial City...

Ryft

Thanks for the clarifications, Arwen. And obviously I've visited your load-order page, you quoted me as saying so! ;) The Better Cities mod is amazing, from the little bit that I've seen about it. Not sure if it conflicts with Qarls Harvest yet, but I've been unable to drag myself away from the mark...

Ryft

Very helpful, though it doesn't include everything I use, obviously. I've noticed that OOO has a lite version that takes out most of the stuff that I didn't like about it! Very nice, and I might have to actually consider using this mod, now. Seems that Oscuro is determined to make a believer out of ...

Ryft

Thanks, good to know.

Sounds like the Better Cities mod has a lot of conflicts... one of those situations where you use it and little else as far as built content is concerned. Hopefully I can overcome its limitations.

Ryft

I'm currently playtesting a whole heap of Oblivion mods. Does anyone know of any obvious conflicts between any of the popular mods, or have any specific load orders that they would like to suggest? I'm noting that some of the mods that I'm pretty sure I learned about from Arwen's site are no longer ...

Ryft

Some Mods I'm using are listed below. A nexus search will pop up any of these, though. Anyone played around with the Better Cities mods? They look really attractive. Bananasplits Better Cities. You can get a merged mod, or individual ones for each city. Imperial Market and Arboreatum included. Custo...

Ryft

Hopefully this comment doesn't get taken the wrong way, but... from what I can tell support for a free Tibet is far more popular in India or America than it is *in * Tibet. From what I can see, the current wave of protests are largely aimed at getting attention before the upcoming Beijing Olympics, ...

Ryft

I was also pretty sad to hear about this. Clarke was the last of the "big three" in sci fi. For that matter, I've not seen a single sci-fi writer of the calliber of Clarke emerge in ages. Thankfully the best sci-fi writers are quite prodigious, so I have quite a large catalog of writers fr...

Ryft

Heh, I'm actually quite addicted to the turret defense (TD) games on that same site, in the strategy section. In particular, "Bloon Tower Defense 2" is a lot of fun, as it primarily revolves around monkeys throwing darts at balloons. Highly recommended. Balloon Defense (also recommended) i...

Ryft

I found out about this last night. I was kinda sad to hear it, even though I didn't know him personally.

Without Gary Gygax there would be no D&D, and certainly no Elder Scrolls as we know it today. He has my thanks for helping shape most of the hobbies that I play and love today.

Ryft

http://www.break.com/games/age-of-war1.html This little webgame seemed stupid at first, but it's actually really addicting. Haven't beaten in on impossible, yet. My strategy to beat hard is to turret up, and fight on your half of the map as often as possible. The best turret on the last civ-level ca...

Ryft

Not bad. Really busy, though. Finishing up my last class for grad school... and it's a doozy.

Not much time for Eldar Scrolls of late. Been playing a bit of Dawn of War with my clan, and I roleplay as often as I can via Neverwinter Nights 2.

Life is good. How have you been?

Ryft

Welcome back, mate. I'm Heng Pu from the old forums, if you remember me.

Cheers!

Ryft

No one is moaning... just no is buying it! (Yet.) I did, after all, mention that in another two years, a lot of bugs would be worked out. And yes, we expect that from any MS OS... XP had all sorts of similar analogies, as you keep pointing out. And that's why we don't trust Vista (Yet!!!) In fairnes...

Ryft

My sidewalk is glare ice...

So,um, yeah, us northern states get dumped on pretty frequently.

But hey, at least you don't live in Buffalo!

Welcome back, L. Night!*

Ryft

Yeah, if 97% of the population is Mexican, you can expect any community of writers to be predominantly Mexican. Common sense, there.

The area I've largely been studying in my research is NYC, which has a much broader ethnic survey.

Ryft

Ouch. Poor Arwen! Take care of yourself and keep in touch.

Ryft

Yeah... the setting is very class oriented, and half orcs aren't treated very well. My character and another were drinking and talking in a middle-upper class establishment, where half orcs aren't even supposed to be. This fellow came in off the street, ordered too many drinks, but thankfully left o...

Ryft

I hope so too, because they seem like exciting places where you can potentially meet a lot of cool people. I played RSC until RS2 came out, then I played that for maybe a week before I got bored with the whole affair. Like other MMORPGs, the emphasis is on character build and grind, and not much els...

Ryft

Yeah, plus once you know a heal spell, you can always make a heal other spell at the crafting altar.

The Oblivion Wiki has a list of interesting and creative spells, I highly recommend giving them a look over.

Arwen's Realm

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Peachy Chicken!

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Re: Oblivion Mod conflicts and load order notes

Oblivion Mod conflicts and load order notes

R.I.P. Gary Gygax

Age of War