Oblivion:Version 1

Version 1 of the Oblivion 100% Speedrun was conceptualized and routed throughout the Summer of 2017 by MeemawHustlin, and performed by PRCLive starting July 21st, 2017. A final time of 79:17:32 was achieved. This run is notable for being the first ever single-segment 100% speedrun of Oblivion, as well as the first run to achieve 100% completion without the use of mods or console commands. Version 1 is infamous for utilizing very few time saving glitches, as well as having poor Route Communication, making the run extremely punishing. Version 1 was performed without fully testing the route beforehand. Borked Toddd was the name given to the player at the recommendation of chat, who noted that his large nose made him resemble the infamous Bork'd Shlong character.

The original guide was completed on July 8th, 2017, with an updated version being made to account for errors in route logic discovered during the run. This article covers the original version of the route, with a few notes about things that PRCLive changed mid-route.

Due to a lack of technical knowledge, the original run took over 9 months to be fully rendered and uploaded to YouTube, with several parts of the end of the run having large audio desync issues.

Requirements

Version 1 was experimental in nature, with the requirements containing many things that were eventually deemed subjective or unverifiable in later route revisions. The overall goal was to have an excess of requirements so that Version 1 could be shown to anyone who felt that future runs were illegitimate if requirements were to be removed. The following requirements vary from the current category definition:

• 199 Quests Completed instead of 208 due to the Blood Price exploit not being discovered yet. Quests needed to be completed in the "correct" way, meaning that killing NPCs to end quests early was not allowed.
• Shadowmere and Prior Maborel's Paint Horse being part of the Horses Owned requirement despite not being counted in the stats page.
• Initially 368 Places Found was listed until it was discovered mid-run that Weynon Priory was erroneously counted as discoverable. The requirement was changed to 367 upon realizing this.
• Grand Champion of the Arena was listed, but Max Faction Ranks was not in the requirements despite being automatically obtained.
• Defeat All Unique Enemies was required, which included seven enemies:
  • Uderfrykte Matron
  • Erandur-Vangaril
  • Ghost of Perennia Draconis
  • Spectral Mud Crab
  • Giant Slaughterfish
  • The Rat in Lazare Milvan's House, which is uniquely high leveled.
  • Giant Mud Crab
• 7 Non-Journal Quests were included, using the names and descriptions from the UESP:
  • Attack on Fort Sutch
  • The Forgotten Chests of Pale Pass
  • The Horror of Dive Rock
  • Black Bow Bandits
  • Lich of Lost Boy Cavern
  • The Unbeaten Path
  • Illegal Cargo
• Unlocking Master Training for every skill was required, meaning that Trainers could not be murdered to complete their Master Training quest.

Splits

All times listed are as they appeared in the Version 1 run, which had a very poorly managed timer and often had sections skipped and revisited, which makes many times inaccurate.

Character Build

Since skill farming largely had to be performed manually, the character build was entirely focused on optimizing the amount of training that could be acquired in addition to minimizing the more tedious skill grinds. Here is a summary of the character build:

• Race — Imperial was selected due to them having +10 to Mercantile and Speechcraft (two high tedium skills), as well as +5 to Blade, Blunt, Hand to Hand, and Heavy Armor, most of which were medium tedium skills. This makes Imperial the race with the most bonuses to the most tedious skills.
• Gender — Male Imperial has 10 more Speed than Female Imperial, so Male was chosen.
• Birthsign — The Steed was chosen for additional movement speed.
• Class — A custom class was created with the following:
  • Specialization — Combat was chosen since it would give a bonus to one high tedium skill, and five medium tedium skills. Since specialization makes the grind for those skills faster, this was determined to be best since it would make all of the weapon/armor grinds much shorter.
  • Favored Attributes — Strength and Speed were chosen to speed up combat and movement throughout the run.
  • Major Skills — Armorer, Athletics, Blade, Blunt, Marksman, Mercantile, and Speechcraft were chosen. These are the four high tedium skills, and several of the worst medium tedium skills. Getting +20 bonuses to each of these made the amount of training required for each much lower, making it possible to never have to grind any of the high tedium skills, with stats left over to put into medium tedium skills.

At the time, it was not known that glitches could be used to increase the player's level higher than normal, resulting in a max player level of 42 with the character build. Each level, the player gets 5 levels of training for a total of 210 training purchases in V1, and the rest manually farmed.

Tutorial

Time: 0:13:39

Due to the lack of knowledge related to Save Clipping and Load Warping, the Tutorial was played entirely normal. Acrobatics and Restoration were farmed throughout. Items acquired included one of each type of weapon and armor and a mortar and pestle for skill farming later. Mort Flesh, a lockpick, and Wrist Irons were acquired as well. Wrist Irons were incorrectly thought to be a unique clothing type that could be added on top of gauntlets. They are used in this run to enchant with Disintegrate Armor later for Armorer farming. The player is instructed to wear a full set of Light Armor and wield a dagger for the majority of the run. In the updated version of the guide, a note was added to inform the player about holding block to attack faster, which was taught to PRCLive during their run by chat.

Unexpected Voyage

Time: 0:04:23

An Unexpected Voyage levels your character up twice due to two instances of forced sleep to advance the quest, which would cost the player five training levels. Due to this, An Unexpected Voyage is done at the very start of the run before the player can even level up. This section provides no other instructions other than to simply do the quest, setting a precedent for the lack of explanation of quest steps and workarounds to bugs.

Imperial City Market District

Time: 0:09:53

At this point in the run, the player is instructed to spam Acrobatics and Restoration farming everywhere they go. Duping is one of the only glitches utilized in the run and was prioritized in the routing. This meant that scrolls needed to be acquired as early as possible to be able to dupe other items. Scrolls were acquired from Three Brothers Trade Goods, and a Jeweled Amulet was purchased from Red Diamond Jewelry, which was then sold to the store owner until 10,000 Gold was acquired. Additionally, various spell effects were purchased from Mystic Emporium for creating farming spells.

Conceptually, this part of the route is largely unchanged from later route revisions. Although the locations and quantity of items has since been adjusted, prioritizing scrolls for duping and getting preliminary Gold is still the first post-Tutorial goal.

Mages Guild Recommendations

Time: 0:57:53

The goal of this phase of the run is to gain access to the Arcane University by completing all of the Recommendation quests. Additionally, all of the spell effects needed for the rest of the game are acquired from the spell merchants at each Mages Guild during these quests. Several other ingredients and other items are acquired for later quests as well. The Silver Dagger is now the main weapon since it can attack ghosts, making it able to kill anything in the game.

Although Mages Guild Recommendations are no longer necessary to complete in order to gain access to spellmaking due to a glitch, modern revisions of the route still prioritize needing to gain Arcane University Access and relevant spell effects at this point in the run. The player's level is kept as low as possible throughout the majority of the run, making the Silver Dagger decently effective at killing enemies on the easiest difficulty, with the time loss of combat typically being absorbed into Blade farming.

The lack of Route Communication starts to become more apparent at this point in the run. The guide lists each of the Mages Guild Recommendation quests, as well as a list of extra spells to purchase. There are no instructions about how to complete the quests other than additional items to acquire during them, which have almost no description of their locations. The spells list instructs the player to buy Soul Trap from two separate vendors by mistake. PRCLive almost immediately could not figure out where to go or what to do based off of the guide, which would become a recurring theme throughout the run.

Arcane University

Time: 0:10:09

Now that the Arcane University was unlocked, several basic farming spells were made to farm magic skills throughout the run. These spells were all a single spell effect with minimum settings so that they could be infinitely cast. Due to them being On Self instead of On Touch, the spells are very sub-optimal. A spell for investing in Merchants was created too, as well as spells to boost each skill to 100 temporarily to begin Master Training quests early.

MeemawHustlin was unaware of Perma-Enchanting at the time, meaning that the player moves at a normal movement speed for many sections of the run.

Precautionary Marksman Training

Time: 0:01:33

Due to the requirement that Master Training quests be completed without killing the trainers, the player goes out of their way to start Alawen's Marksman Training quest so that they can be aware of her death. She is prone to dying in the wilderness, which will make her quest impossible to start. This became less of an issue in later requirements revisions, since her death would actually count the quest complete anyway as long as it was already started.

Mages Guild Pt. 2

Time: 0:14:27

This split only has the instructions to "complete the Mages Guild up through Ulterior Motives." along with the instruction to farm Destruction, Restoration, and Mysticism until they are level 25. Ulterior Motives is done as early as possible to acquire the Spelldrinker Amulet, which has a gold value that exceeds any merchant's available Gold.

Investing in Merchants/Acquiring Master Training

Time: 4:07:34

This section of the run operated solely off of the fear that Merchants would die randomly before they could be invested in, and Master Trainers would die before finishing their quests. The boosting spells for each skill were used to invest early or start training early. In hindsight, this section of the run is almost completely unnecessary since the vast majority of NPCs don't ever have a chance of dying without player intervention. Later route revisions simply acquired these objectives whenever a quest brought the player to their location. Since investing requires 500 Gold per Merchant, 847,000 Gold is farmed at the start of this section. It was later discovered with the implementation of Fiscal Responsibility that this is over twice as much Gold as you actually need in the run, although it varies slightly from version to version. The Gold Farming strategy was to dupe and sell the Spelldrinker Amulet acquired from Ulterior Motives to Palonirya at Divine Elegance. Each amulet gives 1,700 Gold since she has the highest available Gold of any merchant at this point in the game if you invest in her, meaning that about 500 amulets needed to be sold.

During the actual investing portion of this section, there were no instructions for where each Merchant was other than the general city they were in. This caused many problems, especially for NPCs that were in the Imperial City and could be in one of several districts. MeemawHustlin was unaware of a bug that locked certain NPCs in the wrong houses at the time, which made some Merchants such as Fathis Ules very hard to find. Various skill books and items needed for later quests were acquired at each stop during this part as well.

This part of the run is a very early precursor to the Investing Circuit concept.