Yep. Even Half-Life can't quite be as modified as TES games can. It's a miracle that what those games do even works. You see, HL mods and ... Well, any other mods are usually hacks - yes, even when implemented by official tools. The problem with this is that it's really not easy to just go and add a, let's say, cup on top of a table in-game. And it's even harder to make 4 mods, 1 which adds a cup, another one which adds a broom, third one which adds a gun on the ground and fourth one which expands the room, work together properly - they usually change the same files and so are incompatible.

Not so TES mods - they work completely differently. You can throw all the content you possibly want at it, even into the very same room, and the game will most likely handle it somehow. That is just a small miracle all by itself. I have never seen any other game than a TES game being stable and fairly bug-free with 80+ mods installed at the same time, within the same save file.

I agree... :P I'm just unfortunate the game showed me it's anus after the first mod installed... :P After it was properly installed... :P

Although maybe something already fucked up when I tried to load the mod without the necessary DLLs even though it didn't load.

Even though the mod didn't visibly work it was still loaded and could cause errors for the rest of the game. I would suggest going back to a save prior to loading the mod and trying again. Maybe use a different mod that does the same thing. I have a mod that lets me access my saddle storage by "activating" the horse while crouched. There are no extra files needed for this version, just the plugin.

But I share your annoyance that this seemingly simple mechanic wasn't already in the game to begin with. This also goes back to why some mods need other mods loaded first. There are some functions that were never put into the game by the developers. So modders created tools such as OBSE, the Oblivion Script Extender, which don't actually do anything by themselves but other mods can make use of the new functionality. This is what allows mods to do things that the developers never even dreamed possible. I have a combat mod that allows shield bashing and dual wielding. Stronger characters can even dual wield two handed weapons.

Doesn't it screw tih the game balance? I even hesitated to install this mod for horse saddlebags, because I was afraid I may get too rich too fast.

That's a bad thing to worry about, if it does, you raise the difficulty :-P

I'm sure some guys will jump on that, claiming that they can roflstomp through Oblivion with a lvl1 char.... yet I'm still waiting for that youtube video of someone tackling a mountain lion with difficulty set on 100%.

Yes it did. I used to be able to get a big head start in the game by becoming a champion of the arena right away when exiting the sewers. Then I plug in this combat mod, as well as one that makes arrows more powerful, and suddenly my level 1 character fresh in the world is in real danger. You see the mods don't just give the player new combat abilities and skills, all of Oblivion can now fight better as well. This definitely changes the balance, but I feel it changes it for the better.

You don't need help from mods to get too rich too fast in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. I usually end up using mods that make it much harder to get gold.

The mod load order is done in a fairly stupid way, if I recall. I had to change my hard drive out, so I backed up my Oblivion directory before doing so. After new HD, I reinstalled Oblivion, and then unzipped the archive back over top. This didn't restore the mod load order, and I am still unable to correct it. The game now loads a bit, then exits to the desktop. I had a lot of mods installed too, and my saves are dependent on them.

Oh, sounds pretty cool, sounds like an awesome mod. I asked, because sometimes the mod only suits the player. I reemember the mod for Max Payne 2 for example that allowed you to shoot through doors and boxes, but the AI wasn't changed, so they were still hiding behind cardboard boxes and stuff, being easy targets.

But if this mod changes the combat for both player and enemies, it sounds pretty good. Maybe I will jump on few Oblivion mods, but rather after I finish the vanilla game or get bored of it. I don't want to accidentaly loose some of my progress because I didn't read the readme carefully :P

I don't know how to break this to you gently but this is not something new.

There are many many commercial games out there that contain all sorts of things that the devs thought was a good idea at the time when they were making the game but in the end it was scrapped from the final release. (Or still in there - just not accessible to the player).

In fact there is even one game out there that is rumored to have no end. The game was going to be cut so the developers thought "stuff it, we'll just release what we did so far" so they jacked up the difficulty of the last (almost-) finished level to extreme proportions so that they didn't bother having to put in the rest of the levels or a proper ending! I don't know how true that is but I think its amusing. Not sure why. (Ever played a game that you couldn't beat? Well maybe nobody CAN! Now you know!)

You are so smart and sarcastic!

But what I said is true!

(Dunno how true the unfinishable game rumor is but)

To answer to you seriously though - all they had to do is to unlock one door. They didn't. In fact, the key to said door isn't even present in developing tools.

It just shows how sloppy their work was and how little they gave a shit. I'm a "core" gamer since 1999 and haven't found many instances of such sloppy work in AAA titles.

Especially not in so very praised by community AAA titles.

But so far, it was only one cave. So it's not that bad.