I have recently been very much into follower mods! My current favorite is Xelzaz, an Argonian member of House Telvanni. I like the commentary he provides, as well as the utility. He will make you potions and meals if you ask for them, as well as mixed drinks while in a tavern. He has a quest related to crimson nirnroot that I enjoyed, and he has a short quest to get him a guar to ride! I have heard that he has a lot of interactions with Neloth on Solsthiem, but I haven't gotten around to the Dragonborn DLC in this playthrough yet since I wanted to defeat Alduin first and complete the civil war questline for once before that.

I also have a lot of character customization mods: RaceMenu, Total Character Makeover, KS Hairdos, Improved Eyes, Apachii Divine Elegance, Wolfpaint, and Simple Belly Paints. I don't use any body changing mods though because I play on a laptop and when I tried using HIMBO it wrecked my preformance to the point it was unplayable.

I am definitely going to check out Project AHO and Clockwork (especially since it seems like it will have to do with Clockwork City which I really wanted to see more of in Morrowind and I haven't had the money to buy ESO).

Alright, so long as NPCs will still get randomly launched by enemies :)

Yes when I played I definitely underleveled. I remember not having points in the combat categories I needed several times. After leveling about 5x in a short time period because of leveling my conjuration a bunch with a cheap spell, suddenly every time I approached an Oblivion gate I was getting 2 shotted by spider daedra. I will definitely check out that +5 leveling mod if it will help with that problem.

I'm a bit iffy on the unofficial patches. Obviously I don't want my game to crash or to fall through the ground and other annoying bugs, but I also want to keep the features that add humor and character. I will probably keep playing without it unless other mods require it.

That seems great. I have RDR2 on my wishlist but unfortunately it would require more storage space than my entire laptop has at the moment.

I have yet to play a game where NPCs have the same speed as the player, have you? I get it on the game design level, since NPCs need to move at a speed that their animations look natural at but player characters need to move fast enough to not feel frustrating to the character.

Fast travel that is just a game mechanic with no story ties in open world games.

Disclaimer: My main experience with games so far has been some Nintendo stuff, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls.

Of what I've played I like Morrowind's fast travel system the most. You don't just open your map and click a button, you talk to people or use a spell/item. And NPCs mention these travel systems and story wise would use them.

I like Oblivion's (and to a lesser extent, Skyrim and the 3D Fallout's) the least. Time passes like your character walked to where you fast traveled but not much is timed so that has little effect on immersion. Too much of the journey has to have gaps filled in by the player's imagination because walking on the road normally has a lot of encounters and wandering off to check out random buildings and people. It encourages less exploration and taking some time with the game.

Obviously I want a balance, I don't want to be walking the same road with 2 wolf encounters a thousand times because it's between two areas I need to frequent. And I don't want 90% of my playtime to be traveling. But I also don't want to keep instantly fast traveling to all places and feel "lazy" and like I'm missing experiences and encounters. And I want more immersion. More character interaction instead of UI interaction.

There is no downvotes on the instance this community is a part of

I am pretty sure it is just crossposting and the communities are otherwise seperate.

Ooh I will have to check that mod out. I accidentally washed my computer mouse earlier this month so I've been relying on using a trackpad or controller. I only played Oblivion recently, and I tried to stick to the vanilla experience but I didn't like it much. Maybe I will go in with a better build and more mods and enjoy it more this time.

As someone who always joins the Theives Guild, I am not a fan of Mjoll. I do always bring her back her sword, though. I like J'zargo too.

Serana's personality doesn't irk me, but I don't like using necromage followers because I always confuse their thralls for enemies, and sometimes they reanimate something stupid like a chicken or a skeever that doesn't help us fight at all. On my current playthrough I have Meeko with me, but he keeps sitting in doorways and making me reload to revive him.

Oh dear. Are Fallout 1 & 2 like New Vegas in their gambling where you just need a high luck skill and the money will roll in? I've played the both of them once but I never did any gambling.

You have also inspired me: next time I go back to Fallout 2 (never completed it because I made it close to the endgame with a shitty build and it got too hard for me) I will do a low int run for a little while since I heard there is some unique dialogue with other dumb characters.

I would like to hear how your low int build goes! I have heard that it will lock you out of most quests.

I like to play the NYT mini crossword every day. I like asking other people for advice on it when I get stuck so it's both a fun daily game and a good way to do a bit of socializing.