I can't decide between three of those screenshots which would be my fave! Awesome screen of Aravi in a pose - but the textures in the panorama and the sky one - WHEW !! Awesome !!!

The vid: Holy CRAP! GAAAAAH !!! I thought that zombie was a summon, and when he kept coming after everyone was dead ... I was screaming and shrieking when she started falling, he tossed her across the room once! GAAAAH !!! ARGH !!! He was hard to kill !!!

I was amazed to see them using 100% chameleon too, lucky thing she started fighting from that balcony! Then the dog was attacking her, I think he is the one that knocked her down into the pit with all the enemies. Huge vid, KC !!!! I shrieked and screamed enough that my husb got ticked off, ROFL !!!!

Thanks for the lovely screenshots! Nice tail! I’m with mALX, can’t decide between the poses and the sky.

Leather cuirass, leather boots, and burgundy linens?! That first Dunmer in Bloodcrust Cavern was a fashion don’t.

Those wolves in Fort Vlastarus looked so happy right before Aravi killed them! Oh well, cats and dogs.

Ha ha, the wolves are eating the daedr-- Holy crap, she fell in the vampire mosh pit!! How the heck did that happen?! Good move, strategically withdrawing into the corridor. What the hell, zombie?! The little bath reminder during the zombie battle made me chuckle. Um, I don’t think Aravi is making that smell.

The fatigue mod really adds a third element to fighting. There were times where her health was good, but she was falling down exhausted. Like you would expect after such a fight!

@ Everyone: That battle was going so well until she tripped and fell into the pit. That was another addition by the fatigue mod. It really scared the crap out of me when that happened.

@ Acadian: That was one of the few times I actually remembered those scrolls. I knew there was a reason I wa having Aravi carry them. I really enjoyed the screen of Buffy taking out the wraith. Thanks for sharing it!

@ mALX: That pose was awesome, I’m so glad I DLed that mod. That vamp with the chameleon was difficult to spot. I’m glad Aravi was at least able to kill her before falling in. Oh and nobody knocked her down, she fell because of the fatigue mod. Thanks mALX!

@Grits: Those happy wolves would have happily started ripping into Aravi. We can’t have that. That mod really does make a huge difference. Before, the little green bar could have just been gone for all the attention I paid to it. Now it’s almost as important as the health bar! Thanks Grits!
-------------------------------------------
Aravi leaves after the disastrous battle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pk3cjUChf0
TIME: 7:06

GAAAAH !!! She is still having nightmares !!! ARGH !!! Whew! Those diseases take a hunk out of your health/fatigue/magicka !!! Great vid, I was freaking out wondering if she would make it to safety !!

Argh! Aravi needs to take better care of herself via field medicine instead of charging ahead! She needs to figure out how to keep her fatigue up more diligently. Even the wolves were besting her by the time she got home. Neat how she used the Legion rider to lend a hand! Oh, and the poor thing is riddled with disease! She might consider a trip to the chapel. Then to top it off, those horrible nightmares continue. I'm very worried about her, and surprised Vilja would let her go out by herself.

@mALX: Yeah those nightmares are not going away. Those diseases really cannot be ignored like they could be unmodded right? Thanks mALX!

@Acadian: True on all accounts. She was so lucky to run into a soldier, he handled that wolf quite easily while Aravi could barely swing her sword! Thanks Acadian!
----------------------
Aravi relaxes and rests before heading back to the Fort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-h1mXvO_g8
TIME: 3:43

This vid was oddly chopped up, very unlike your usual editing. To me, Aravi's daily interactions and chores, (etc) are just as interesting as her battles, I hope you're not cutting them out thinking they are boring, because they are not at all - not to me. I enjoy seeing all her moments, from the frightening battle scenes to the internal reflections moments when she is troubled.

I got a kick out of Vilja saying there were no beds she'd care to use, but then you catch her climbing into Aravi's bed as she is waking up, lol. Another thing I thought was strange - that vampire thief in the IC didn't attack Aravi. Kind of makes you worry that he see's kinship with Aravi, but if that was the case then the merchant in Skingrad wouldn't have dealt with her - and she did.

The nightmares continue to be a mystery and plague Aravi's sleep - I have been very tempted to go back to that read-me and try to figure out why, lol. Great Vid !! Thanks so much for sharing it, KC. I know you've had a rough week with the PC issues and all !!

This vid was oddly chopped up, very unlike your usual editing. To me, Aravi's daily interactions and chores, (etc) are just as interesting as her battles, I hope you're not cutting them out thinking they are boring, because they are not at all - not to me. I enjoy seeing all her moments, from the frightening battle scenes to the internal reflections moments when she is troubled.

I got a kick out of Vilja saying there were no beds she'd care to use, but then you catch her climbing into Aravi's bed as she is waking up, lol. Another thing I thought was strange - that vampire thief in the IC didn't attack Aravi. Kind of makes you worry that he see's kinship with Aravi, but if that was the case then the merchant in Skingrad wouldn't have dealt with her - and she did.

The nightmares continue to be a mystery and plague Aravi's sleep - I have been very tempted to go back to that read-me and try to figure out why, lol. Great Vid !! Thanks so much for sharing it, KC. I know you've had a rough week with the PC issues and all !!

Moving from scene to scene is good, but in this vid, there were almost too many very small 'scenelets'. I agree with mALX, that for the future, you might be better served lingering a bit longer over a smaller number of scenes. I think it is testimony to your skill with this medium that you can make us feel so endeared to your wonderful Aravi!

It was nice to see her picking ingredients, bathing and just having a relaxing day.

Argh! Those darn dreams continue!

This post has been edited by Acadian: Jul 16 2011, 01:08 AM

@mALX and Acadian: I thought that the original video had too little happening in it so I showed a little bit of everything that she did. Sorry, I shall not edit a video like that again.

---------------------------------
Aravi returns to Fort Vlastarus and then continues to the next vampire lair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk3j8CPspWg

TIME: 08:39

Whew, she killed them all the first time she was in there !! She was lucky they hadn't respawned, that place was awful !! GAAAAH!! She's already sick, and just started the new ruin !!! ARGH !!!

First off, I am loving this extension to the "Order of the Virtuous Blood" mod a lot - and this new illness one too !!!!! Great Vids !!!! WHEW !!!!

So Aravi went back to Fort Vlastarus and got that note from the vampire baroness. Then to Nornalhurst. Her use of that decayed veteran to fight the vampire assassin archer was brilliant. And my goodness, she sure did some fine shooting there. Wow! And she seems to be doing much better managing her fatique.

This was a great vid!

Buffy's on her way to Nornalhurst to help Aravi (or perhaps get in the way, lol).

Woo hoo, Shadowbanish wine! Hel-lo, Nerussa.

Wow, I was so tense watching Aravi in Nornalhurst, when she said, “Ready and willing” I nearly jumped out of my seat! I found that Decayed Veteran quite scary.

Just finished off The Lost Spires here, so it's time for my review. I'll do my best to keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

It was fairly typical of questlines I have come to expect in Vanilla Oblivion, with the entire story being "faceless hero grows through the ranks and becomes tho only hope for Tamriel's survival." Looking at the big picture, the story itself was fairly weak, as it only actually kicked in at the endgame in the final couple of quests. the rest of it was simply "go there, dungeon-crawl, come back with interesting item."

On that topic, the dungeons were a bit on the lengthy side. If you are only going to have one or two new dungeons in your mod, I can understand them being a bit lengthy, but The Lost Spires adds in almost ten, and they can really drag on at times, especially when the paths diverge. And don't get me started on the Ayleid dungeon added by the mod... that one was ridiculous. What you found at the end was always fun and interesting, but I often found myself getting bored as I crawled for hours on end through the new dungeons. You could probably cut them in half without hurting the experience any.

Then again, good loot requires a long, difficult dungeon, so at least three of the Spire ruins could be left as they are. But when a dungeon's sole purpose is for you to get to the end to advance a quest, which The Lost Spires had several, you gotta rein things in there so you don't bore the player and make him feel all his hard work was done for mere pennies. The longer the dungeon length stretches, the larger the rewards at the end need to become; standard Risk vs. Reward mindset here. Again, I cite the Ayleid dungeon, three levels, each taking about half an hour to explore, all done for a quest item and some generic valuables? How do those ends justify the means? For THAT length of dungeon, I would expect a unique weapon or armor piece for my troubles. See the Mehrune's Razor DLC, one huge dungeon that took a massive amount of time to explore... but you got a wickedly powerful unique weapon for doing it. What if the DLC had simply replaced the dagger with a scroll saying 'now you gotta go here'? How is that worth my time?

In the end, I refused the highest rank because I never really felt any connection to the questline. It was as if The Lost Spires existed in a world of its own, it never really integrated itself into the world that well, and the ending was a bit cliche (but a helluva lot of flash!). You should definitely avoid this one if you like to play dead-is-dead, because you WILL die during the climax. The questline also offers very little roleplay opportunity. My character is not supposed to be able to use two-handed weapons, but at the end, she was forced to because the only weapon that can defeat the boss is a two-handed monstrosity. I just never could get immersed into the questline, and it played out something like I would expect in an action-adventure game, rather than a roleplaying game, although since Oblivion is essentially a hybrid of the two, I can see why that route was chosen.

Final verdict: Entertaining? Yes. Immersive? No. Will I come back for seconds? Probably not.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Jul 18 2011, 11:42 AM

Hey KC - your in box is full and I can't respond to your last PM !!! URG !!!

@ mALX: She went in ready for war and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had all been killed the first time she went through.

I’m really liking this one too. I am enjoying it much more than the Lost Spires. This one isn’t as polished as The Lost Spires, but I am enjoying the quests much more.

Thanks mALX!

@ Acadian: The use of that zombie against the archer was straight from Buffy. Maybe Aravi should have been helping the archer kill the zombie instead of helping the zombie kill the archer, because it had a lot of fight left in it after the archer went down.

A compliment on her archery from Buffy’s guide carries lots of weight!

Thanks Acadian!

@ Grits: Still need 2 more bottles of the stuff before Nerussa will be happy. They are pretty difficult to find.

The sound set can do silly things like have you speak when you are 3 feet away from something hostile. They never seem to notice though which is good!

Those ‘decayed veterans’ are quite tough. I’m glad Aravi was able to toss it at the archer before having to deal with it on her own.

Thanks Grits!

@ TK: It was a pretty enjoyable mod and I thought those were pretty cool. It was well polished and incorporated sound effects pretty well into the new dungeons.

The dungeons did tend to go on longer than they should. Some of them really had some neat thinks hidden in them if you explored enough. Others just got waay too long and should have been cut down. The maze in that one dungeon, while not particularly difficult to get through, really was nothing more than a time waster.

Some of the quest items you recovered were very awesome and well worth the dungeon for in my opinion.

I probably wouldn’t play it again either, but I am very pleased with the experience I had with it.
--------------------------------
Aravi recently lost her sword in a fight with a marauder (The one in this screen). We searched and searched, but it was lost at the top of a steep hill and it went who knows where from there. So she needs a replacement. These are two swords that I am considering for her. Do you like one over the other? Do you think she should use neither and find something else?
Sword 1
Sword 2
--------------------------------
The Note to the Baroness from the last video if you are interested:
Note
---------------------------------
Aravi continues Nornalhorst.
TIME: 5:36

My vote is for sword # 2

Whoa, that note was a bad sign !!!

Nornalhurst:

I noticed Aravi is doing the smart thing and trying to avoid fights now, sneaking a lot more now that a disease could kill her.

I was amazed at her fight with that lich - the way she was able to use the pillars for cover and keep nailing him with arrows !!! What a fight !!! And she had to keep turning that zombie back on the lich, for some reason he kept losing the spell !!!

Those diseases are really taking their toll, I always wonder why Aravi doesn't chew on the Welkynd Stones, they will restore her magicka in a pinch like those diseases have her in. They won't help her fatigue though.

Holy Cow, what a vid !! And knowing she just went back in for more while still sick ... URG !!! Awesome Vid !!!

You're lucky you are using Fran's mod and not OOO.

If you had OOO, you would've had a VERY nasty surprise waiting for you at the end.



This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Jul 19 2011, 11:15 PM

Gosh, both blades are neat. I prefer the red handled one though. As Mrs Acadian is fond of saying about cars, "It's a red one, so it must be faster!"

Thanks for sharing that note. I wondered about it from the last vid. Interesting stuff between the orc and baroness vampires.

More Nornalhurst. That was a magnificent job Aravi did vs that lich. Her speed and footwork to support her bow is stunningly good! Good job also turning that summoned zombie to help.

Gulp. Aravi has the whole level two to clear still.

As promised, Buffy went to Nornalhurst looking for Aravi. She often has trouble spotting traps in the dark, but saw this one while setting up an attack on a vampire (you can see her arrow in flight)- Screenshot 1. Just as Aravi did upon reaching level two, Buffy managed to make it through those swinging blade traps and keep all her bits attached- Screenshot2.

I went looking and found two more swords already in my game. So the vote has been reset. There are the first two:

and:
Sword 3
Sword 4