Oblivion

[Tapewolf]

Was anyone else disappointed by the Dark Brotherhood?  For such an evil organisation they seem to be a bunch of losers living underneath a derelict house.  I guess that's why they didn't want to show me around before I got to decide whether to join.

[Reese Tora]

Was anyone else disappointed by the Dark Brotherhood?  For such an evil organisation they seem to be a bunch of losers living underneath a derelict house.  I guess that's why they didn't want to show me around before I got to decide whether to join.

Yeah, whadda ya know, they're a bunch of socially maladjusted kids wearing dark clothing and living in their (night) mother's basement...

[Kasarn]

Was anyone else disappointed by the Dark Brotherhood?  For such an evil organisation they seem to be a bunch of losers living underneath a derelict house.  I guess that's why they didn't want to show me around before I got to decide whether to join.

Don't worry, you get to kill them all later.

[Janus Whitefurr]

Was anyone else disappointed by the Dark Brotherhood?  For such an evil organisation they seem to be a bunch of losers living underneath a derelict house.  I guess that's why they didn't want to show me around before I got to decide whether to join.

It was my perception that it was simply one small sect of the entirety of the Brotherhood, which may or may not be more epic. After all, if Lucien is the Speaker for that particular group, who are the other Speakers talking to/for?

[Reese Tora]

Was anyone else disappointed by the Dark Brotherhood?  For such an evil organisation they seem to be a bunch of losers living underneath a derelict house.  I guess that's why they didn't want to show me around before I got to decide whether to join.

It was my perception that it was simply one small sect of the entirety of the Brotherhood, which may or may not be more epic. After all, if Lucien is the Speaker for that particular group, who are the other Speakers talking to/for?

Between Morrowind:Tribunal and Oblivion, I was under the impression that the dark brotherhood cells in the imperial province were independant cells of a larger organization similar in nature to terrorist cells that may or may not exist in different parts of the world(but are often portrayed on popular TV).

I suspect that the dark brotherhood hideout in Morrowind:Tribunal could be considered apocryphal or otherwise unlikely to ever have occured except under special circumsances...

Dark brotherhood certainly has some of the more interesting quests in the game.

Out of curiosity, how far along are you in the dark brotherhood storyline?

[Tapewolf]

Out of curiosity, how far along are you in the dark brotherhood storyline?

Backwards, actually.  I couldn't easily revert to before killing Rufus or whatever his name, but when Lucian turned up to induct me into the Brotherhood, I said nothing, ignored everything he said and then whacked him one with my lovely Glass Fireblade.  Unkillable, sadistically evil child of Sithis he may be, but he certainly can scream like a little girl if you set him ablaze.

Prior to that, I got as far as killing the pirates.  The next quest sounded utterly boring so I left in disgust, and promptly got an equally naff quest from the Fighter's Guild.

I might try it again later, assuming they haven't done the sensible thing and barricaded the house in Cheydenhal.

[Ryudo Lee]

There's an obscure tome somewhere that talks about the history of the dark brotherhood.  IIRC, it's in the second floor of Francois Mottiere's house.  The name of the book slips my mind at the moment.  In the book it describes the dark brotherhood as, in so many words, a splinter group of the Morag Tong.

If you do a little searching around, you'll see that the Tongs are not without at least a minimal presence in Cyrodiil, though not in any official fashion.  In the official expansion "Mehrune's Razor", there's a Morag Tong operative in a prison.  Also, somewhere around Lord Rugdumph's Estate, there's a camp called Walker's Camp that is occupied by a couple of Camonna Tong thugs.  They aren't hostile, even if you're in the Thieve's Guild, but they don't seem to be there for any other reason than to just be there.

[Tapewolf]

Also, somewhere around Lord Rugdumph's Estate, there's a camp called Walker's Camp that is occupied by a couple of Camonna Tong thugs.  They aren't hostile, even if you're in the Thieve's Guild, but they don't seem to be there for any other reason than to just be there.

Yes, I ran into them.  I made it my business to try and eradicate that group in Morrowind, so I was tempted to murder them out of hand - force of habit, you know.  I decided not to in the end, though.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Heh.

I get the vague feeling that I'd be tempted to see if I could depopulate the entire country... Probably better that I don't have a copy of the game here...

[Tapewolf]

I get the vague feeling that I'd be tempted to see if I could depopulate the entire country... Probably better that I don't have a copy of the game here...

The guards are quite badass.  I have on occasion gone on a bender when things go wrong, but they always seem to nail me in very short order, even though he's quite tough nowadays.
Also, there are a lot of people who are marked as unkillable, e.g. Lucian after his first visit.  Though there is a mod to disable that 

[Azlan]

You can never eliminate random bandits permanently (they respawn periodically in various areas), but named NPC can be killed and they do not return... with a few exceptions.  The thieves quest chain is broken for me and I can't trigger the journal update that flags a completion, so I cannot progress... so for fun, I've been assassinating the Greyfox.  It is very handy for skill training, as he is one of the NPCs that cannot be killed (at least at this point) he respawns within a few moments having forgotten that I just killed him.

I have run through the whole area and killed everyone for fun.

[Ryudo Lee]

There is a mod called Battle4Morrowind that gives you an opportunity to help an army take over the Imperial City.  Of course, it breaks most side-quests since just about everyone gets killed who can get killed.

[Tapewolf]

You can never eliminate random bandits permanently (they respawn periodically in various areas), but named NPC can be killed and they do not return... with a few exceptions.

The Dark Fissure is currently my favourite haunt as the necromancers respawn every other time I visit, which gives me the opportunity to load up on Daedric and similar goodies which I can sell for just over a grand each at Anvil. 

The thieves quest chain is broken for me and I can't trigger the journal update that flags a completion, so I cannot progress...

Have you tried setting the journal flag manually?

[Tapewolf]

Now I'm Arch-Mage.  I notice that the Necromancers still don't give up even after I de-souled Mannimarco.  In a way that pleases me - pickpocketing the Worm Anchorite in the Dark Fissure is a fun sport - seeing the evil cultists running around yelling "Help!  We have a burglar!" amuses me no end and I actually postponed finishing that quest in case they all shut up shop and vanished.  The only snag is that I think I've now killed more Necromancers than there are people in the Imperial City, if not the whole world.

Anyway, having taken over that particular guild I figured it was time to start work on the main quest.  All I can say is "Oof".
Really, there should have been an extra dialogue option when Cat-Dude was told to go into the Gate in Bruma - one where he curls up into a little ball of post-traumatic stress disorder and sobs about how he "can't do the Gate thing again..."
Waiting until I was level 28 doesn't seem to have helped as much as I'd hoped, either

[bill]

yeah, the burma quest is about where i gave up with the game

[Ryudo Lee]

Now I'm Arch-Mage.  I notice that the Necromancers still don't give up even after I de-souled Mannimarco. 

Have you played with his staff yet?  Reanimation can be quite fun...

Also, have you figured out how to use the altars yet?  Funny thing, they keep working even after you kill Mannimarco.

[Tapewolf]

Have you played with his staff yet?  Reanimation can be quite fun...

It wasn't quite what I had in mind, since it just seems to make people float around creepily.  I was hoping to use it on the mages in Wellspring Cave whom the Necromancers murdered.  Didn't quite pan out.

Also, have you figured out how to use the altars yet?  Funny thing, they keep working even after you kill Mannimarco.

My understanding was that it was a natural phenomenon rather than something he was doing himself.  But yes, if you meant the Black Soul gems, I've been stockpiling those myself.  I could very easily have made Traven regret having sent me on that particular mission, but he took matters into his own hands first.

[Tapewolf]

I got the idea of trying to fill the Dark Fissure in using the Scroll bug.  The Worm Anchorite was not amused, but then again I guess I did pickpocket him.


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[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I guess they must be hungry. ;-]

[Tapewolf]

I guess they must be hungry. ;-]

There's something like 2300 watermelons there, so I hope so.  I tried it with tomatoes at one point, to see if I could make a ball-pit, but the game quickly bogged down until it was taking minutes to render each frame and I had to kill it.  You should have seen it when the guy tried to attack me... he kept casting spells and blasting the melons all over the place.  Pity you can't seem to destroy them.

[Ryudo Lee]

I never could get that little trick to work.  Maybe they fixed it in the unofficial patch.  How is it supposed to be done?

[Tapewolf]

I never could get that little trick to work.  Maybe they fixed it in the unofficial patch.  How is it supposed to be done?

The scroll trick is on UESP - they have three different duplication bugs.  I'm running the latest non-Shivering build.  What you do is this:
1.  Get at least two scrolls of the same type, so they're stacked
2. Click on the scrolls to highlight them as the current spell
3. Drop the item you want duplicated, e.g. a single watermelon.
The watermelon will multiply by the number of scrolls, e.g. if you had two 'silence' scrolls, you'll get two melons on the floor.

I found it was a bit flaky at first if the item you're cloning is stacked - best to duplicate only a single item to begin with.  Once that's working, you can step up to duplicating stacked items.
It's possible to duplicate the scrolls but it doesn't seem to work if the last item you're copying has been copied.
I got around this by having a two stacks of spells - I used the 'Silence' scrolls to duplicate some 'Ice Blast' scrolls, then used the Ice scrolls to duplicate the Silences, then used the Silence scrolls and so on until I had 512 'Silence' scrolls and 768 'Ice Blast' scrolls.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Pity you can't seem to destroy them.

... You can eat ebony, but you can't eat watermelons?

[Tapewolf]

... You can eat ebony, but you can't eat watermelons?

'Course you can.  However, you can't hit them, burn them, freeze them or drop them from a great height.  Time was in games like Ultima 6 (1990) you could throw a jug of water and it would smash when it hit the ground.
Or earlier still, Knight Tyme (1986!) where if you tried to drop the mirror at all it would smash (you had to give it to an NPC to hold onto, and sometimes they refused to part with it afterwards...

The watermelons in Oblivion can only be destroyed by eating them or making them into potions and in view of the fact they can apparently survive a ground-zero nuclear strike, I'm not sure I want to know how they're eaten.

Sadly I haven't found any raw ebony, and I don't think he can eat silver ore, though I'll have to try it.  I did get a kick out of eating Pinarus Inventius' prize Minotaur horn in front of his face, though.

[Tapewolf]

I may have to make this my wallpaper at work, replacing the Morrowind one:

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/games/oblivion/ScreenShot125.jpg

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/games/oblivion/ScreenShot126.jpg

[Gamma]

It's been so long since I bothered with the game. I have a Pyramid head mod, buster sword addon, and Dragon slayer addon from Berserk.
I'm a freakin mage and on normal whooped up on everything without those, but I never have updated it.

With Pyramid heads helmet I get a 50 point increase in strength so I can wield the Dragon slayer easily. That thing is fun, ridiculously overpowered but fun. Killing a town takes no time at all. I created bits of armor that together would exceed 85% damage reduction if they would let them. I have another set that makes me completely invisible. I joined the thieves guild and dark brotherhood. They overlap now and again but I have yet to be kicked out of either, always found a way so far.

I kinda got bored with the game a year or more ago but it was fun. Never have finished the main arch.

[Tapewolf]

Apparently it is not possible to kill the spectators in the Arena

[Ryudo Lee]

It's also not possible to "help" the combatants when you are a spectator.  You can't jump out of the balcony and you can't shoot into the arena. 

[Azlan]

I've been able to eat everything I've found that falls into the ingredient area... more or less, but my version is very old.

It is very fun to swim in lava, but this was obviously never intended to be, because there are areas one can get stuck in and nothing you do will get you out.

[Tapewolf]

It is very fun to swim in lava, but this was obviously never intended to be, because there are areas one can get stuck in and nothing you do will get you out.

I managed to shortcut a number of Oblivion gates by doing that, though it was just a short dip since it tended to kill him if he stayed there too long (surprise surprise).  Did you figure out a way to do an extended swim?

It's also not possible to "help" the combatants when you are a spectator.  You can't jump out of the balcony and you can't shoot into the arena. 

I haven't tried this yet.  Sounds like it might be fun.

On another note, I notice that the Black Horse Courier is now running around the countryside on foot.  Is this common?  I've found what I think is probably the horse, in a little heap between Brina Cross and Gottishaw inns.

**EDIT**
Doesn't look like the Staff of Worms works on horses either.