This week’s mod interview is Christian Dean, known also as VagabondAngel within the BGS forums. A resident of Rural Derbyshire (in England), Christian is a father of three, enjoys snowboarding and mountain biking, and his inner geek loves studying ancient history.

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Community, Modding, Morrowind, Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls | 5 Comments »

Here’s the latest featured mods for Oblivion over at FileFront’s site, The Oblivion Files.

The Featured Home is Floating Platforms by CobraUnit42. Like it sounds, this mod creates a home that gives you a home floating thousands of feet above the ground. Sounds like a cool place to go bungie jumping from, but I wonder, “How the heck do you get up there??”

The most recent Featured Weapon mod is Angeleron by DireStorms. Shown above, there are one-handed and two-handed versions available of this fine looking blade. According to DireStorms, the sword is by no means overpowering, but rather “medium” in strength. Check out the Conan-like dude sporting this awesome blade above.

Sheogorath has the site’s featured scripting mod, Sheogorath’s Master Craft 2. This mod enhances Martigen’s Monster Mod by adding a large array of crafting options. Runes and runic metals can be found within Cyrodiil that can be used to make runes, socketed weapons, and armor, and these runes can be used with the socketed items to create very powerful enchanted items.

Finally, this week’s File of the Week is Cellars of Cyrodiil by FlyingPieofDeath. The project is still in early stages, though the author believes it’s bug free. Here’s a description of the mod:

“Cellars of Cyrodiil gives a small but handy upgrade to various houses. It adds cellar doors like the one in a certain quest. This mod is meant for players who’s characters prefer darker paths such as thievery or murdering, allowing you to enter a home through the basement rather than the front door. This may be version 0.5, but there should be no bugs, and is considered version 0.5 due to the fact there are so few cellar entrances, a grand total of eight. FlyingPieOfDeath is prepared to listen to any suggestions for homes to give cellar entrances, but know before suggesting that he is not creating basements for the houses, simply adding the entrances.”

Congrats to these modders for having their mods recognized. Keep up the good work!

Community, Modding, Oblivion | 2 Comments »

Visiting Planet Elder Scrolls today, I noticed a number of celebrity mods from Chimera. On the main page alone, I spotted 8 different famous faces making their way to Cyrodiil.

In addition to Snoop Dogg (shown above), here’s a few other celebrities making their way into Oblivion:

• Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean fame
• Die Hard’s very own, Bruce Willis
• The King of Pop, Michael Jackson
• Action star Chuck Norris
• Johnny Depp as Captain Jack

Hopefully, we’ll see some more celebrities make their way into Oblivion in the near future. Here’s hoping the Governator is next!

Community, Modding, Oblivion | 8 Comments »

This week’s mod interview is with Keter_Sephiroth, an Oblivion modder that specializes in animation mods. Sephiroth (obviously a fan of Final Fantasy) lives in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and spends a fair amount of his free time studing martial arts, philosophy, esotericism, psychology, and life ethics.

Keter_Sephiroth also has a keen interest in machinima and making game trailers. At the end of the interview, you can see a sample of his work, as he also responded to the interview via game video. Check it out!

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Community, Fan Videos, Modding, Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls | 7 Comments »

Way back in September, we shared a link to some LEGO sets that were reminiscent of Fallout. This week, Senior Designer Kurt Kuhlmann pointed me to a thread in our forums where folks are discussing an Oblivion-inspired project using LEGOs. The project was created more than a year ago, but for those who haven’t seen it, it’s worth checking out. If you ask me, the creator did a fantastic job re-creating Oblivion.

To check out more information on the project, head to the creator’s website here.

Community, Fan Art, Oblivion | 4 Comments »

This week we’re chatting with Sherri-Lyn (aka Shezrie) from Oblivion’s Real Estate . Shezrie lives in beautiful Bermuda, where she works in legal administration and management. When she’s not working or modding she spends her time working out, belly dancing, poi or staff fire dancing, fencing and riding her motorbike all over the island.

Sounds like quite the adventurous life!

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Community, Construction Set, Modding, Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls | 10 Comments »

It’s been about six months since the Orange Box was released, but our Team Fortress 2 experts still can’t get enough. Over the last few months, they’ve put their skills on the line against some pretty heavy hitters — including Bioware (win), EA Mythic (win), Ubisoft (loss), and the Shacknews community (loss). But tonight, they’ll take one of their greatest opponents yet: a dozen members from our very own BGS forums.

It should be interesting to see how it goes. Will it be a cordial matchup with an attitude similar to our Meet the Devs thread? Will things get ugly? We’ll find out when they meet at 7PM. If you’re not participating in the event, it sounds like there will likely be YouTube footage in the near future, and there’s sure to be some post game chat here in the forums.

Good luck to both sides!

At the Office, Community, Developers | 3 Comments »

This week’s interview comes from Lon Hammonds (aka Conan_Lon). Deep in the heart of Texas, Lon and his family live in a custom home, and one day they plan to use their land as a pecan farm. In the meantime, Lon works as a certified database administrator and is a computer science wiz. He is also an admin at TES Nexus in his spare time.

On to the the questions…

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Community, Construction Set, Modding, Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls | 15 Comments »

As we move into April, here’s a look back at some mods that were honored at Planet Elder Scrolls and TES Nexus for the month of March.

Let’s start with the March Hall of Fame at Planet Elder Scrolls:

Morrowind mods

• Mori Mountain Estate by Marc: This mod adds a large house inside the Northern mountain of Balmora, and is compatible with the Balmora Expansion Mod.
• Clean Dragon Blade by Phijama: Shown above, the Dragon Blade is a wicked sword, inspired by the Requiem blade.
• Svenn’s Pack Guar by Svenn: With this mod, you’ll have a new NPC within the game that sells pack guars.

Oblivion Mods:

• Adonnay’s Classical Weaponry by Adonnay: Adds to new weapons inspired by Adonnay’s mods for Neverwinter Nights 2.
• Slof’s Dremora Textures by AlienSlof: A retexture project to bring a new look to the Dremora.
• Midas Magic - Spells of Aurum by Xilver: As previously mentioned on Bethesda Blog, this mod adds over 100 new and unique spell types.

Moving along, here are the Files of the Month at TES Nexus. Congrats to these modders for getting the most votes:

• Kvatch Rebuilt by The Kvatch Rebuilt Team: The name says it all, Kvatch has returned in all its glory. This mod also adds new armor, a battle arena, and the opportunity to become Count(ess) of Kvatch.
• Verona House Bloodlines by DTOM: This mod adds a new quest where your character is pitted against a sinister cult and their leader. Those who succeed will gain access to an updated version of the Verona House and Verona Bay.
• The Lost Spires by Leo Gura: As you may recall, this mega mod was entered in last year’s IGF Student Competition.
• HG EyeCandy Body by }{ellKnight: A body mod that helps you customize body types in the game.
• Akatosh Mount by Saiden Storm: Saiden Storm’s ever-popular mod that allows you to ride a dragon within the game. If you haven’t seen it already, check out our interview with the creator.

That’s it for this month. Congrats to all the modders that were honored!

Awards, Community, Modding, Morrowind, Oblivion, PC, The Elder Scrolls | 2 Comments »