While this was an admirable effort to keep the game refreshing, it had its problems. After all, what’s the point in investing so much time to improve your character if you can’t “lay the smack down” on all the lesser beings once in a while? This seemed to be the biggest complaint about the new levelling system, especially among players who had previously spent a lot of time on the previous chapter in the series, Morrowind.

As I mentioned before, one of the biggest selling points of Oblivion is the ease with which the game can be modified, to not only add new content (dungeons, items, etc.), but to also change the core gameplay mechanices. Faced with the gameplay issues of levelling, enthusiastic modders quickly responded by releasing their own updates to the core gameplay aspects of Oblivion, effectively changing how the game works in order to address the needs of the community. This was a great move on the part of Bethesda Softworks, (the developers of Oblivion), as it allows people to play the game the way they want – without Bethesda having to tweak the game for everyone.

One of the more successful gameplay mods has been Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul, (available for download here or here), which features a huge list of hand-picked changes to improve gameplay – in many ways it changes things back to how they were in Morrowind – high level items are no longer off limits to lower-level characters, provided you can find a way to beat up the tougher enemies that are now out there. There are also many other changes included, as well as some smaller mods that have been incorporated. I won’t paste the whole list of changes here; I suggest you check out the aforementioned links to get a full idea of what’s being changed.

When I first saw this mod, I was very impressed and it seemed like it was exactly what I was looking for. However, one thing turned me off: Because the mod changes how NPC level data is changed/stored, if you don’t being a new game, NPC levels can get screwy if you apply the mod to an existing game. This doesn’t affect other aspects of the mod, however, since NPC levelling is a major part of it, I was hesitant to adopt the mod – I had already invested a lot of time in my existing character and didn’t want to start from scratch.

However, all that changed when I discovered the Wrye Bash utility for Oblivion. This utility, written in Python, can reset the NPC level data in your saved games, allowing Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul to use its corrected levelling data for NPCs, thus removing the need to begin a new game! (It’s available under the “Import NPC Levels” option of “Save File Commands”, if you read the page linked) The utility is a little complicated and can do much more than just this, and the documentation is a bit lengthy, but it’s well worth it when you consider the alternative of starting a new character. I highly recommend the mod and this utility for a better Oblivion experience.

However, those of you who invested a lot of time in Morrowind and have gotten used to its style of play will be rewarded, since Oblivion doesn’t fundamentally change this. Pretty much the same types of races are available, as well as the same system for class creation. (You can either use a predefined class or make your own, which I suspect most people will do.) Most of the same skills are present, and the attributes are identical – for the most part, the major changes are the improved graphics and the changed interface for managing your character’s journal, quests and inventory. For the most part, these UI changes are for the better, except for the large default font-size used in the screens.

From this, it’s clear to see that the oversized fonts were designed with the XBOX 360 and consoles in mind, where typically you have to worry about someone playing the game on a TV that doesn’t have the best resolution. PC gamers don’t have this worry since typically even the lowest PC resolution is better than a standard TV’s. This resulted in screens that don’t display enough information; for example, you have to scroll once you have more than 4-5 items listed in your inventory.

Thankfully, Oblivion is mod-friendly, perhaps even more so than Morrowind. This is evidenced by the appearance of over 1000 mods since the game debuted – no small feat! One of the quickest mods to come out was BTMod, which changes the UI screens to use a smaller font so more information can be shown at once to make the game more PC-friendly. Since then, other UI mods have come out to further tweak the display of screens.

Other mods have also come out, even major ones that change the fundamental gameplay and levelling of Oblivion. You see, Oblivion has a distinct levelling system where NPCs also increase in level as you do – so monsters you fight at level 24 are tougher than those you face at a beginning level. The idea is to keep the game challenging, but it does decrease the sense of accomplishment – after all, everyone wants to level up and become a demi-god that can toss around guards like sandbox toys, right? Oblivion’s default levelling system makes this much more harder, and may diminish the sense of accomplishment. Again, modders have come to the rescue, and Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul fixes many of these problems.

This isn’t the end of it though, as with the many Oblivion mod sites (Oblivion Mod Wiki, TESSource File Database), you’re sure to find something that adds to, or changes Oblivion to your liking. Personally, I’m having enough fun with the original game that I doubt I’ll have time to fully try out every good mod out there! If you’re enjoying this game, don’t forget to check out OblivioWiki for help or information about the game or quests that are troubling you.