I installed this, took a quick look around, liked what I saw, but immediately noticed its many npcs were dying way too easily. I went to the CS to take a look and that's when I deleted this mod permanently. The npcs are unbelievably lame, as though no attention was paid to them at all. Most are below level 5; all are unleveled with no auto-stats; none are essential or respawn; no aggression or confidence levels were touched; most are unarmored & weaponless. One fight with a stray rabbit and they're gone forever. I cast a frenzy spell in a room with 4 npcs to make them fight each other; they were all corpses within a few seconds even fighting barehanded as they had to. If there were only 15 or 20 npcs I'd just edit them myself, like I'm forced to do with so many mods in which lazy authors ignore the npcs, but this one has dozens & dozens. It would take an enormous amount of time to fix them all up properly.
I'll never understand why someone would take all the time to make a rather large mod like this, but make the npcs so lame that a slight breeze could kill them, and they do NOT respawn! Definitely skip this crippled, outdated mod, which with patches takes up 2 load order slots & possibly more, depending on what conflicting mods you use.
If you want something much better, go with Thieves Guild HQ Unhealthy Competition. Those weak npcs needed work too, but there are far fewer and it only took a couple hours to fix them all up to defend themselves with enchanted weaponry, armor, jewelry, etc from leveled lists. It was worth my time since it's an otherwise great mod. The MTC Thieves Grotto, though, is not worth the time to fix what the author completely failed to do.
Certainly endorsing this because it IS beautiful still even after all these years. 11 years later and it works really nice and adds some nice atmosphere.
With that said though, for other people looking to use this mod there are some things to be aware of.
For starters, there are no custom-voiced NPCs. Which, back in 2009 might be a blessing since the modding scene for Elder Scrolls games was still in its infancy and the idea that modders can be professionals back then was almost unthinkable. Secondly, this DOES have conflicts with other mods. Namely Better Cities. With BC you can't get to the Chorral Chapel thieves area, and the Bravil one is hidden behind a wall you have to TLC your way through to get access to. Not only that but this mod doesn't add any new weapons, armor, tools, or anything else other than a few quests. So its really more of an atmospheric mod outside of the few quests. Third, this mod does need to be cleaned. Which once you learn to do it is rather easy.
With that said though, for what you get its great. Honestly, if there was ever any sort of revival of older Oblivion mods where people want to re-work some of them to be updated and optimized, this one would be the first mod I'd choose for such a project. Imagining this with custom-voiced NPC's - some of them from the Modding Voice Acting Community - and some custom questlines to create a side storyline that runs congruent with the vanilla Thieves Guild storyline with modern modding techniques would be an awesome thing to see.
BUT for what it is, and what you get, this mod still finds itself in my load order for what it already gives.
It is possible to still access the Chorrol Chapel thieves area with Better Cities!
Spoiler:
Show
Check the basement/chapel hall for a curtain that should not be there. I believe it is in the hallway immediately to the right once you enter the "dining room" area of the basement/chapel hall.
Other than that, I agree 100% with what is said here. It is a disappointment that Bravil's grotto gets "trapped" by Better Cities, but for what it is worth this is a wonderful mod to have for thieving characters/atmospheric purposes.
Can anyone else confirm or elaborate on the nature of the conflict with Heart of the Dead.
I am also assuming this wouldn't conflict with ICEXPANDED - Imperial City Expanded [ https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13692 ] ..... because even though in theory they occupy the same space, they still use two different worldspaces (or different cells)......
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I'll never understand why someone would take all the time to make a rather large mod like this, but make the npcs so lame that a slight breeze could kill them, and they do NOT respawn! Definitely skip this crippled, outdated mod, which with patches takes up 2 load order slots & possibly more, depending on what conflicting mods you use.
If you want something much better, go with Thieves Guild HQ Unhealthy Competition. Those weak npcs needed work too, but there are far fewer and it only took a couple hours to fix them all up to defend themselves with enchanted weaponry, armor, jewelry, etc from leveled lists. It was worth my time since it's an otherwise great mod. The MTC Thieves Grotto, though, is not worth the time to fix what the author completely failed to do.
With that said though, for other people looking to use this mod there are some things to be aware of.
For starters, there are no custom-voiced NPCs. Which, back in 2009 might be a blessing since the modding scene for Elder Scrolls games was still in its infancy and the idea that modders can be professionals back then was almost unthinkable. Secondly, this DOES have conflicts with other mods. Namely Better Cities. With BC you can't get to the Chorral Chapel thieves area, and the Bravil one is hidden behind a wall you have to TLC your way through to get access to. Not only that but this mod doesn't add any new weapons, armor, tools, or anything else other than a few quests. So its really more of an atmospheric mod outside of the few quests. Third, this mod does need to be cleaned. Which once you learn to do it is rather easy.
With that said though, for what you get its great. Honestly, if there was ever any sort of revival of older Oblivion mods where people want to re-work some of them to be updated and optimized, this one would be the first mod I'd choose for such a project. Imagining this with custom-voiced NPC's - some of them from the Modding Voice Acting Community - and some custom questlines to create a side storyline that runs congruent with the vanilla Thieves Guild storyline with modern modding techniques would be an awesome thing to see.
BUT for what it is, and what you get, this mod still finds itself in my load order for what it already gives.
Other than that, I agree 100% with what is said here. It is a disappointment that Bravil's grotto gets "trapped" by Better Cities, but for what it is worth this is a wonderful mod to have for thieving characters/atmospheric purposes.
I am also assuming this wouldn't conflict with ICEXPANDED - Imperial City Expanded
[ https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/13692 ] .....
because even though in theory they occupy the same space, they still use two different worldspaces (or different cells)......