The Oblivion Mod Archive is a project nine months in the making. It came about when I was searching for mods for my game. I came to find that a) there are dozens of hosting sites, each with its own categorization system; and B) even with all the different categories, a lot of mods aren't placed correctly, which makes it really hard to find things if you're simply randomly searching. I thought about doing a grand arcive of mods, with ONE categorization system, which would make it far easier to find mods people already know about, as well as show them mods they don't.
And so, I present to you, the discerning public, the single largest archive of Oblivion mods on the net. Yes, that's right - the largest. As of this writing, I have 17,615 mods listed. If you exclude foreign language mods (around 950), it's still well over 16,000 unique mods.
The Archive is simple - an Excel/Open Office spreadsheet listing the mod's name, author, version, location(s), and a short description. I have 26 categories, and several subcategories in each for easy sorting. Each subcategory has keywords (for example, Environment and Weather has Sky, Terrain, Water, and Weather). So, if you're looking for a mod to replace the moons, you'd look under Environment and Weather, keyword Sky. Easy, huh?
Each mod has only two links. This is because a) having two columns for links, instead of a varying number, makes things much cleaner; and B) the vast majority of mods (maybe 85%) are on only one site - usually TES Nexus, since it's the largest; another 10% are on two sites. In point of fact, since it IS the largest mod hosting site on the net, I started there, then I moved to PES, the (possibly) second-largest, This is also why the links are organized the way they are - it's not favoritism or bias; I simply started with the largest site and am working my way down the ladder. I also have some mods from a few other sites; in the coming months, I will be going through any other hosting sites I can find and adding their mods as well. If there is a large call for it, I can find a way to add all the links for each mod.
If you know of a mod that has been hosted for at least 30 days and isn't listed (subject to the above), please let me know so I can add it. Likewise, if you find any mistakes (especially missing descriptions), version updates, etc., let me know.
I have made minor changes here and there to some mod names in the interests of saving space and correcting typos. Likewise, mod authors don't always use the same name on multiple sites (much to my annoyance), so the name most often listed is the first one I encounter. If I know the person by a more common name from the TES forums, I used that one instead (since, presumably, others would recognize that name also).
How to Use
The Archive is divided into 26 categories, as noted in the readme. Each has two or more subcategories, noted with keywords. If you're looking for a specific mod (say, a vampirism mod), click on the Keywords column, at the top, then select Data - Filter - Standard Filter and tab over to the Value box, then type in the keyword you want (in this case, Vampirism). The filter will then sort out all the mods with the selected keyword. I'm not exactly sure how Excel works, but it should be somewhat the same.
Warning: If you use SCalc, be sure to hit the Undo button (or Ctrl-Z) before saving! Otherwise, there's a bug in the program that will permanently screw up that page, because it won't restore the filtered entries properly.
Known Issues
Yes, I know some of the descriptions are vague. In some cases, there was little or no description in the entry itself, so I had to resort to "??? description unclear". Some mods (especially levelling mods) are quite hard to summarize with a short, one-sentence description, let me tell you.
Some mod versions made be out of date. I check the lastest files on TESNexus, but I don't over the recent changes - it's too time-consuming, and the vast majority of mods never make it past a 1.0 release. See below for more.
The Archive has only the latest versions of any mods - I did not, for example, list all the older versions of MMM, even though they're still accessible on TESNexus. I also did not list obsolete mods, or any mod whose entry was "blocked from viewing", since there's no actual file to download.
There are lots of blank lines. This is deliberate, not an oversight. When I was adding entries, I often had to insert several blank lines to accommodate new entries, and I simply left any blank lines there so I could slot in later mods without having to add new lines. If it bugs you, just highlight the entire page below the headers and click the A-Z button - that will organize everything. Be careful! The Models & Textures and Weapons & Armor pages have several subheaders, and highlighting the entire page for those will make a large mess.
Contact
I am seeking feedback on this! I want to keep improving and expanding on the Archive, and I can't do it without your help. If you have any suggestions, ideas, or comments, drop me a PM or post, and I'll either explain why I did what I did, or try to accommodate you.
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