Travis, I noticed you have it on Steam, too. Does the XBox version include everything that's in the Deluxe edition? I'm beginning to realize that it really must not bother us to buy a game multiple times to play it on different consoles or the PC. We must be serious gamers (I think that's an understatement). I'm also thinking that if I had an awesome PC like I do now back when some of these games came out and I had a Steam account, I might have saved some money by not getting the console versions of these games. Honestly, having this PC is getting me away from console gaming. I'm really glad that I finally have a PC that can play the latest games flawlessly. I'm also really glad that I have a Steam account. I should also once again say that I'm really glad to be an active member here at Cheerful Ghost. You guys have really had a big influence in my gaming life. So, thanks again for creating and maintaining an awesome website! =)

Ah. Hahaha. In my Google searches about the differences between the two PC versions and information about the Data Files, I saw things about mods. Apparently, if you want to use mods, you'll find them in the Data Files section. I still haven't used any mods. What kind of mods did you end up using for Oblivion?

One quick note I want to make about Alchemy in Oblivion. Each ingredient has four effects and right away you're able to see the first effect. In order to see the other effects, you have to create some potions and get your Alchemy skill leveled up more. Since I've been collecting ingredients and using them to create potions, I've managed to get my Alchemy skill high enough to let me see the second effect of each ingredient.

After about 30 hours into the game and at about level 20 or so, I've decided to start the game over from the beginning. There were a few things I wanted to do differently. One of the things I wanted to do was spend more points in Intelligence to increase my total Magicka so that I could use higher level healing spells. I also wanted to loot more so that I could have enough gold to purchase a house in Skingrad while the NPC was still alive. While I played the game on the PS3, this character had died due to a bug. Even if he does die, I can use console commands here on the PC to bring him back to life. Another change was that I wanted to spend less gold on furnishing Deepscorn Hollow (one of the places you get a deed to thanks to the Deluxe edition) and save it for my place in Skingrad.

I made my decision last night after looking at a recommended quest timing guide (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Quest_Timing). Although I'm probably not going to follow that guide completely, I've already started out by doing the Zero Visibility quest right after I left the sewers at the very beginning. This gave me a free bed and storage space.

I was also thinking of doing the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests earlier in the game instead of later as I had done on the PS3. I wanted to kind of line those quests up along with the Knights of the Nine add-on so that I could more easily get rid of infamy.

Although I did not even consider quest timing while playing Morrowind or Skyrim, I see how helpful it can be in Oblivion. Since I love the game so much, I don't mind starting over and keeping the quest timing guide in mind. One other, insignificant, difference I've made is that I have blue hair. I was able to do that on the PS3 and some how missed doing it on the PC, but I've now corrected that. You've already noticed that I pretty much play characters very similarly in most of my games. If I can change colors of hair, eyes, clothes, or whatever, I choose blue, just because I love blue. =)

I might not worry about the quest timing guide's suggestions for allies. While they didn't bother me so much in Skyrim and actually served the simple purpose of being able to carry things, helping me loot more, I find that in Oblivion they just get in my way and I accidentally attack them, which sometimes causes them to turn against me.

Oh and I wanted to make a slight correction to something I said earlier. I said that I didn't remember coming out of the sewers with a warhammer, but doing the quest again proved that to be incorrect. It is lying in the middle of a small room and easily visible, so I'm sure I had it when I left the sewers the very first time I played the game.

I am curious as to when Steam's summer sale will be over. I believe that I will buy the Game of the Year Edition of Morrowind on Steam next. Even though I have the game, I don't own the add-on disks, so there may be an advantage to getting it from Steam. Although I can get the game running on my computer by running it as an administrator or in compatibility mode, I'm not sure how it will behave by getting it on Steam. With or without taking advantage of the summer sale, I'm sure the game is now very cheap.

Oh and the only issue I've had with Oblivion thus far is that it sometimes (or often) crashes upon exit. While this really isn't a problem, I did look for a solution and apparently the fix is to get a mod. At the moment, I'm not interested in getting any mods, although I am interested in knowing what mods you got for it, Travis.

(This comment post of mine ran over 3,000 characters, so I've separated it into two comments. This isn't the first time I've written too much for a comment post. Hahaha)

Care to recommend some mods? I didn't see a Workshop link on Steam, but I did find a post with a link to http://www.nexusmods.com/. There's a lot there. I'm not sure what I'm particularly interested in. Something to make it look better would be cool, although I never thought that it looked bad. I saw a higher encumbrance mod, which could be helpful as well. Perhaps something that removes the level cap would be interesting, too.

I enjoyed it, too, but I believe I had more issues with it than any other game I've played. I had some similar issues with the New Vegas DLC, but not as serious nor as often. While I was unable to get through a lot of Fallout 3's DLC on the PS3, I was able to get through all of NV's DLC. I can only recall maybe a could of issues with Skyrim on the PS3. There was one quest I wasn't able to complete, but it wasn't part of the main quest. Also, when I first fought the end boss he was invincible. Luckily, getting around that issue was easy, you just had to let him finish speaking before attacking him. I saw other "glitchy" kind of things, but they were a bit minor. As for Oblivion, I wasn't able to purchase a property in Skingrad because the guy I was supposed to see about it died. The game showed his location, but his body couldn't be found. I'm hoping that I don't have that same issue on the PC, although having one less property isn't a major issue.

All that said, I've had issues with my PS3 for quite a while now. It often shuts off on it's own even not long after turning it on. It apparently has to do with the heat sink gel drying up or something similar. I can't even think now what we call that stuff. I could send it back to Sony for a price and they'll send me back a refurbished console. The issue is probably due to how old my PS3 is and also that for a time I had it standing vertically instead of horizontally. I have done some research and I found things that can be done to resolve the issue, but those fixes are only temporary.

Well the warranty has expired. I have vacuumed the vents, but that didn't seem to change anything. The PC I was using before this was had fan issues, not the CPU heat sink fan, but the case fans. Some of those fans died and I had to replace them. I built that PC. I think it supported about three case fans, although I think the case only came with two. I know it still gets hot. As for this PC, I didn't build it. It features a liquid cooling system. I haven't kept an eye on it's temperature though, so I honestly don't know how hot or cool it is inside. With the old PC, I was using some Windows Gadgets along with Speed Fan to tell me what the temperature inside was like. I could also feel the heat that was coming out of the fans. Ah, I so very much love my new PC! =)

Oh hey, how's that new GPU working out for you? Have you tried playing Terraria with it yet? If so, did you notice any difference? Remember, in another post, I said that I found that high-end and low-end PCs suffer from a slow motion glitch. I also read something about the game running off of your refresh rate or something similar. I think it's interesting that the "fix" for this issue was to turn on Frame Skip, yet I found that it worked better if I turned Frame Skip off.

=) I'm glad it's working out for you. Yes, I saw that you were playing Terraria, I figured you were testing it out. It surprises me that people suggested turning frame skip on, but it works better when it's off. I still want to play Terraria again. I'm still waiting for a Starbound update. Even though I enjoyed the game the first time I played it, I got very disappointed in that the only thing that got me to explore new worlds in new sectors was so that I could get better materials to make better weapons and armor. I'm hoping that the change in game progression will fix that a bit, although the real fix would probably be to add more quests and give players more reason to visit other planets. That's one thing that I like about Terraria, there's much more to do than to just mine for better materials.

Awesome, thanks for the comment, Zach! I think a bit of what you're talking about with regards to making games do what you want could be considered mods or cheating. I don't really think those are extremely unethical, perhaps some what, but developers seem to support and allow some mods. I'm not sure how many hours I've spent on Fallout and New Vegas, but I enjoyed them. I doubt that I will play New Vegas on the PC as I played it on the PS3 with very few issues. Still, I might some day.

I think Morrowind is kind of hard to get into, so I can agree with you there. Skyrim, on the other hand, is awesome. Oblivion is the one that comes in between the two and out of the three I believe Oblivion and Skyrim are the best. That said, I think if you like Skyrim, you'll like Oblivion.

I didn't have issues with Little Lamplight. I did rescue the kids from Paradise Falls (I think that was the place) because I killed the Slavers instead of working with them (that is when I played the PC version).

I liked New Vegas. I liked how the actor who plays Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the voice of the computer in the game. The one thing I didn't like about it was that you don't get to choose a new perk every level, it's every other level. Eventually, that wasn't such a big issue for me.

Yeah, I don't think Morrowind is as great as Oblivion and Skyrim. I'm not sure what lead me to play Skyrim, but I enjoyed it. Jon would agree with you about the first few hours. Oblivion really exceeded my expectations. I'm currently playing it on the PC even though I played it on the PS3 for the first time last Fall.