I didn't get the horse armor because i hate my horse. The Orrey i picked up purely because i wanted the cool Dweomer thing. The tower significantly beats the other two downloads in utility.

I did try the altar out last night and with the right ingredients you can permanently summon one of three atrotech (or however you spell them) that you can order to follow, wait, or dismiss. It's nice because i can now have 2 daedra of different elements following me.



I also found out there is a vault that has a ton of treasure chests to store things in. Supposedly (well according to things Canis saw online) there are all kinds of secrets and little easter eggs hidden around the tower as well.

I'm still hoping for a clear day so i can see the view from the top of the spire. It is always foggy or raining when i go up there.

Yes. Every time I go to the top its raining. I want to see the views.

I've read online that there is supposed to be a graveyard or a tombstone that gives you some powers once a day.

Also, there is supposed to be somewhere in there that contains wine/ale made from Oblivion planes.

I haven't found them yet, and the threads where they were discussed no one posted specifics. So, it could be false. As soon as I find out, I'll post back here.

But the tower is awesome. The garden is worth it alone. A nice, easy place to get a ton of ingredients that grow back. The bonus of the one Nirnroot was a nice touch. And, having access to Oblivion plants without having to go there is nice too.

I love the vault with the guardians. Though, there are a ton of chests there and if you don't remember where you put your stuff, I can see it being lost. :lol:

Question about these add-ons - is it going to be like Halo 2 where it's on sale for X number of months, and then after it being exclusive for so long, become free to download?

They haven't indicated one way or another. Part of me thinks that they won't until maybe the game becomes a greatest hits title in a year or something.

I bought this the other day but each time I load it, I get the send windows error report. It plays the opening video, but when I hit spacebar to go to skip it, it craps out. I've uninstalled it a few times and no dice. Maybe it's the video settings I've got it at. Anyway, that's all.

What are your system specs?

Inspiron 8600, Intel Pentium M Processor 715 (1.5A GHz),
15.4-in WSXGA+
512MB,DDR,333MHz,2 Dimms, Inspiron 8600
64MB NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 Go Card, Inspiron 8600
40GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 8600
65 Watt Power Adaptor,Inspiron 8600
Generic Inspiron Dell Support
Dell Application Back-up CD, With Tools,Inspiron,8600
Inspiron Tools CD
Image Restore
Microsoft Windows XP Home Service Pack 2, English, for
Inspiron
Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon
after system set-up to access
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem,
Inspiron 8500
Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0, for Inspiron
24X Combo DVD/CD-RW for Inspiron 8600



Here's the info. from dell's website. Let me know if it's incomplete. Thanks a lot!


By the way, I've got the laptop closed and use the vga out to the tv (panasonic th-50phd8uk) so I figured I could maximize the video settings since the laptop monitor wouldn't be used. I realize that the video card isn't all that, but I didn't have any problems with Age of Empires 3.

The other night i had some of the coolest thieving situations arise. The first was on a mission for the main storyline where you are expected to give up all your belongings to someone. After giving everything up i immediately crouched and stole all my armor, weapons, and several potions of healing and poisons back from the person before i went into a situation where i might have needed it. I kept imagining the guy thinking, "Where did he get that huge magic daedrick longsword from... i just searched him!"

Then i got to sell off some items i didn't need anymore and sold them to the jeweler in the Imperial City shortly before close. I step outside, shop closes, i pick the lock run upstairs where he is sleeping. I of course drink his blood first (a vamp has gotta eat) but then tried to pickpocket him. He had in his inventory every item i had sold to him. This let me steal them all back and then re-sell them to someone else. Weirdly enough they didn't have the big red hand icon marking them as stolen but he wouldn't buy them back (they didn't show up on the list).

Man i love the thieving portion of these games.

In one of the dark brotherhood quests you have to get a key from some sap in a lighthouse, and after pickpocketing the key from him, I talked to him and intimidated him into giving me the same key again. My character is such a jerk. :D

I've played around with that persuade wheel a few times but, I'm not sure I'm using it right. Most of the time I end up worse than when I started. Bribes always work though. I try to mix them but, I think I'm missing something. Explain please.

I get the best magic weapons and items by robbing my fellow guildmates in the fighters guilds and mages guilds (university teachers have awesome daggers) while they're sleeping.

How the persuade works:
You have to be able to tell by looking at their face what their expression is. There are 4 categories. When you select one, you have to see by their expression if they will respond well or badly to it (to varying degrees)

Each turn you have to select only one category. Your goal is to match the happiest response with the biggest wedge of cheese and the worst response with the smallest wedge of cheese. There are two subtle expressions that should be matched with the other two cheeses.

That makes sense. I will try that next time. Do you mix in bribes as well?

I suck at the rest of the game, but I've got the persuasion deal down pat man :) . My advice is that it's more important to not get big negative chunks than it is to get big positive chunks. There's the four expressions: Really happy (obvious), moderately happy (sometimes hard to notice, it's basically just not looking mad), moderately upset (a little easier to notice than the moderate happy, they're starting to frown), and really upset (obvious). It's best to think about two moves ahead, especially where the large chunk will land. When you paint yourself in a corner where your last move is the big chunk on a negative reaction, you're screwed. I try to get the negative reactions over with first and with as little damage as possible. ANYTIME I get the smallest chunk on the most negative reaction, I take it, no matter where the other chunks are on the wheel. This isn't as clear as I hoped, apologies. But once you get the hang of it, I can max out any disposition in under a minute. I don't think I've had to bribe anybody since level 1 or so. (It gets really easy the better you get at it, once you increase a level they give you a manual rotation of the wheel and it's cake).

you can do bribes too but the other way is cheaper. Usually i can get near enough to 100 without having to do a bribe.

And the facial expressions stay in the same position for the character, so after the first round, it is easy to recall the positions and run the score up.

Great info guys. :up:

Also if you're a good thief you can always pickpocket back the money you've bribed with.

Umm..did you read the PC requirements on the box, you don't meet the CPU or Video card requirements(the 5200 series isn't even listed as supported on the website)...

* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card
* and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

More on the persuade: It's time sensitive too. You'll notice then number starts counting down if you activate the persuade mode and don't do anything, so don't take too long to figure out which wedge is which.

Happiest and maddest are easy to figure out. After you find those, compare the two in between moods and the one where the eyebrows are higher is "good" and the other is "bad." You can confirm this by seeing if the number goes up or down when you select that wedge.

Once i've ID'd the two good and two bad wedges, I just always try to make sure that the bad wedges get the smallest hit. You need to play around with this until you get the pattern down. Just do it everytime you talk to someone and you'll pick it up in no time.

Or, alternatively, learn a charm spell (or make one) and just use it before every conversation. They aren't considered attack spells, so just make sure you have the right spell activated and no problems.

The video out is still using your laptop's video card. Your TV isn't doing anything other than showing the video your laptop is creating.

As Smack Daddy pointed out, your specs are low for the PC game. You can try to lower the video settings, but I'm not sure it will help.

The intro paragraphs on this page http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_2.html
have links to guides on how to configure your PC to play at it's best, but they seem pretty involved. I've only briefly scanned parts of them myself, but it might help you to get it running on your laptop.

Oblivion is a pretty resource heavy game though, especially as you ramp up the video features. Good luck.

I only used bribes when their disposition maxed at under 70. Most characters will tell you what you want if you can get them up to around 70-75.

Sometimes it's the easiest thing to do. This is supposed to be fun, right. :)

FYI, I checked out the ruin. You were on the second level. There are three different ways to get back up to the first level, but that also meant 3 different ways to get back to the second level. I can see where you'd get turned around in there.

You do know that when you used the map tab that's farthest to the left that you can run the cursor over the door markers and they'll tell you where they go right? That's the easiest way to figure out where to go. Also, if you make your active quest any quest that's located outside the area you are in, a red marker will show up in the map on the exit you need to take to get to the quest location.

Jon: Try www.oldblivion.com :)

For what? :confused: