(updated March 07, 2009)

Chapter One

This journal is both a fantasy story and sort of a role-playing guide to the game of Oblivion. But I'm trying to keep this a bit more immersive than my Morrowind Journal was.  So I'm separating my story from the game itself.

Chapter One (the chapter that you are now reading) is the prologue, or the introductory part of my story.  In the following section "What is Oblivion", I briefly explain the game itself.  Then, in the next section you'll get a little history on my Wood Elf character.  The final section, is about the role playing guide part of this journal . . . along with a bit about how I role play.

Chapter Two (the beginning of the fantasy story) starts off with a very brief preface about Tamriel, which is the realm where this story takes place (and the land of the Elder Scrolls role playing games).

Once my story begins, most of my gaming comments and tips will be at the very end of each chapter. That way, if you just want to read my Oblivion Journal as a narrative, the gaming elements shouldn't detract from it. I hope that this format will work well for everyone, and that you enjoy my Oblivion Journal.  ~  Arwen  ~

This journal will follow my actual experience in playing Oblivion, so it will be sort of a review of the game. But this is also the sequel to my Morrowind Journal, so it will follow the adventures of my same little blue-eyed Wood Elf character . . . yes, the one with the wild pinkish-purple hair (based on my little avatar elf). This time the story takes place in Cyrodiil, which is the capital province of Tamriel.

Even though this is obviously a fantasy story, it will be built upon my actual game play. So I don't really know how this adventure will turn out, any more than the rest of you. When I began my Morrowind Journal, I was a RPG newbie - and I was honestly totally clueless at first. As I played Morrowind I learned a great deal about playing a RPG. So I'm much less clueless this time around - and my little Wood Elf has grown up a bit.

But I'm still the same quirky female as I've always been, and I have my own rather unique way of role playing. And my Wood Elf and I are both a bit clueless by nature (hence the "semi-clueless" part of the title). I'm still not a power gamer, and writing is a very slow process for me (due to my language issues, plus I'm now a full-time college student. So getting through Oblivion is likely going to take me a very looong time.
 Hopefully you'll enjoy this journal, as well as my quirky writing style.

I love to base my game characters on my little Elf avatar.

My Elf Avatar

In Morrowind several MODs were made for me so that I could
play the game with a character that resembled my avatar.

My Morrowind Wood Elf

Just like Morrowind, the very first thing you have to do in Oblivion is create your character, starting with race, then gender, then appearance.  The first two are very much like what you did in Morrowind, and there are exactly the same races to pick from.  Since I wanted to bring my Morrowind character into Oblivion, I picked Wood Elf (Bosmer). And I always play as a female character, so this was really easy so far.  Picking hair styles and eye color is also very easy - the bad news is that there are not nearly enough choices of either. (The first MOD that I installed was one that added more eye colors).  But a big plus is that you can use a custom hair color. So guess what color I made? 

Then things get much more difficult, since in Oblivion, I was doing all this without the help of any MOD. It took me well over an hour to create a custom face that resembled my Morrowind character.  Customizing a face is very easy - getting her to look close to what I wanted was very difficult.  There's like a zillion sliders that change every part of the face. And when you move one slider, it changes other sliders. And there's no "oops" button, so when you mess up, it's really hard to correct your mistake.

My Oblivion Wood Elf

But it was worth it, as I'm very happy with the way my character turned out.  Let's see, she started out in Morrowind as a very skinny blonde (a default character), had an eye color / hair color makeover (my first Arwen MOD) fairly early in the game. Then she had a complete makeover about midway through her Morrowind adventures (thanks to Arwen's-new-look MOD). And this is now my second time starting Oblivion (I didn't get very far the first time), so I had to completely redo her face again - plus I'm now using four cosmetic mods that improved her appearance: Natural Faces, Facial Textures by Enayla, Ethereal Eyes Universal Edition, and BAB Adventuress Body. So this is like her fifth look.  And I think she looks fabulous!

January 13, 2009 update: Actually, if you've been following my Oblivion Journal, you would know that my character now (since chapter 4) has a new hairdo (which came from the Corean Hair for Original Race mod)

I actually started playing Oblivion on March 23, 2006, but never got very far at all, until my Spring semester ended.  Once I had the time to play this game, I found that I was very disappointed with it.  I was expecting an improved version of Morrowind, and in many ways, this seemed like a step backwards.  So I quite playing - as I was getting sooo frustrated with this game every single time that I tried to play it.  Before starting the game again, I needed to find a way to fix some of the game play issues that I had with this game.  (I covered many of these issues on my Intro Page.)

First I had to get Oblivion running better on my computer (see my Oblivion Graphics Tweaks Page). Then I spent days searching for, downloading, installing, and testing MODs that made Oblivion more playable for me.  By "more playable", I don't mean easier; I mean more of a Role Playing Game.  What I ended up with is actually much more challenging than the released version.

If you have the PC version of the game, and would like to try playing with the same MODs that I'm using, you can find out all about them in my Oblivion Journal's MODs Section (including their download links).

January 13, 2009 update:  After graduating with an Associate's degree, in May 2007, I finally bought a new desktop computer (I had been playing on my laptop).  This meant that I could now play Oblivion for the first time at the highest graphics level, I was now able to use more MODs - some of which I couldn't even run earlier (like OOO).  I spent many weeks installing and testing a whole new collection of MODs, until I was finally playing a game that was close to what I was hoping for in the first place (although there is still a bit too much focus on combat).

I transferred to a university in the fall of 2007, where I've had very little free time to play Oblivion.  But the time I have finished with finals and was off for the summer, I was really looking forward to getting back into playing. But first I had to catch up on my life at home - which always seems to include many doctor visits.  Then I wanted to try out a "few" new mods - and I got a bit obsessive about finding just the right ones. So my "few" new mods turned into a LOT of new mods (I now have over 100 mods installed).  And a number of the new mods really required me to start a new game.  Plus I had finally bought the GOTY edition, since many mods were starting to require SI.  So that meant a new install anyway, which I messed up at first (by not deleting the Oblivion folder).  My new game played out quite a bit differently (due to all the new mods I had installed), which meant that I had to update all the previous chapters of  my journal, before I could begin my next chapter.  So writing this journal has been a very slow process.

You need to understand that I don't role play in the same way that most gamers do.  I'm not interested in how fast I can get through the Main Quest, or in how powerful I can make my character.  And I'm not a fan of combat . . . or of blood . . . or of stealing . . . or of game cheats.  I'm more interested in things like exploring, so I haven't hardly bothered with the Main Quest yet. 

My Wood Elf represents me in the game - so she has my personality and my morals (and my quirkiness). I do realize that this is a fantasy world, where there are evil creatures, and not-so-nice NPC's (non-player characters), so my character will be forced into combat (like she was in Morrowind), but she'll only kill to defend herself.  She will never attack a NPC (Non Player Character), unless she is under attack from them.  This also applies to the wildlife - and, even when she is attacked, she will allow them to withdraw from a fight.

My character will try to avoid a fight by using her stealth ability.  The exceptions are the evil, non-human creatures - like the goblins, skeletons, zombies, ghosts, and such.  She will sometimes use sneak attacks against these evil creatures that prey on humans (and on Wood Elves).

Ok, enough background stuff already . . .

Once Upon a Time . . .

Continued in Chapter Two

No Way to Treat a Lady!