Elder Scrolls Oblivion Testing Hall Guide

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Having learned the tricks of the trade regarding games journalism at Veryali Gaming, Alex is now a key member of the Scrolls Guided team, and loves nothing more than grabbing a controller and bracing himself for hundreds of hours of content.Alex loves immersive RPGs, has spent more time in Skyrim than he dare admit, and he also loves playing guitar.

Bottom Line-Up Front

Don’t have enough time to read the entire article? No, the problem. I’ve included all the important information about the Testinghall in this section.

Typing coc testinghall into the Command Console is the only way to get to the Testinghall. To leave the Testinghall, enter the town of Hawkhaven from one of the doors in the center of the Testinghall and Fast Travel to a location in Cyrodil.

Remember that the Testinghall features every single item and more in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. If the player picks up any quest items, the game will likely bug out and break your character’s save. You have been warned.

the elder scrolls iv - oblivion testing hall — Image by Alex Maksymiw

Not every door can be opened in the Testing Hall, but that still leaves over twenty doors to open and explore. However, not all lead to stacks of treasure and equipment, some doors open to empty rooms or darkness.

So I’ve compiled a list of rooms that you will actually find useful in the Testinghall. Note that some rooms will not allow you to exit back to the main Testing Hall. If this occurs, type coc testinghall into the Command Console again.

Lockpick Warehouse: A room filled with gates to test lockpicking. This room will allow you to level up your Security skill quickly.
Alchemy Test Warehouse: A two-story room filled with Alchemy apparatus and ingredients. This room includes Alchemy apparatus from Novice to Master, making it a great place to improve your Alchemy skill and create potent potions.
Wooden Door to: this room contains all items and DLC items in the game. You can freely take any item in the game here. However, I recommend saving before entering this room. Pick up a quest item, and you’ll break your game.
Wooden Door to (blue): This room contains an NPC named Vamp Chow and two stones that, when activated, turn the player into a Vampire.
Upper-Class Clutter Warehouse: This room is filled with clutter found in upper-class houses with Silver miscellaneous items that can be sold to merchants.
Middle-Class Clutter Warehouse: A room filled with paintings, barrels, beer kegs, and rug props found in middle-class homes in Cyrodil. There’s lots of wine in here that can be sold.
Armor Warehouse: A room filled with full armor sets displayed on tables and includes the Knight of Order Armor.
Clothing Warehouse: A room filled with all clothing items in the game, including the Emperor’s Robes.
Weapon Warehouse: A room filled with every single weapon set and type in the game. This room includes unique weapons such as Chillrend and Volendrung.
Hawkhaven: This door opens up to the test town of Hawkhaven, which features NPCs such as Dewey Decimal. The Tresspass Test Warehouse can be found southwest and contains Belgarr, who can sometimes be found dead after a guard enters the warehouse. To the North of town, you can find Calywyn roaming. Travel west, and you’ll discover an Alter. Travel northwest out of town, and you will discover a shrine.
Creature Grove: The creature Grove can be accessed by traveling northwest from Hawkhaven. This area is great for harvesting items from enemy creatures.

I find the Oblivion Testinghall both fascinating and creepy. It’s interesting to see how Bethesda utilized this space to test the game. However, it’s creepy to see blindfolded NPCs house these rooms and navigate around tables for eternity!

Roleplaying Oblivion in the Testing Hall may be a bit of a stretch. However, I can see a Mage character using the Testing Hall as their magical base in the sky.

What is the Testinghall

As I mentioned before, Bethesda used areas of Cyrodil to test Oblivion. These areas are called test cells. Test cells can be interior, and exterior rooms found all over Oblivion. However, they cannot be visited through the constraints of the gameplay.

These areas, after all, are the scenes leftovers from Bethesda and aren’t meant to be seen by the player.

The Testinghall is a large exterior room located somewhere high up in the Oblivion sky box. So unless you’re raised by one of the Nine Divines themselves, you’re not getting in there. However, there is one way the player can access the Testinghall in Oblivion:

Open the Command Console by pressing the Tilde key below the Escape key.
Type coc testinghall into the console command and enter to teleport to the Testinghall.

If you want to return to Cyrodil, enter the door marked Hawkhaven or Creature Grove and fast-travel to anywhere within the Cyrodil map. You can unlock all fast travel locations in Oblivion by opening the Command Console and typing TMM 1.

The Testinghall is a large open room with a series of doors across the room’s four corners. The center of the room features two more doors, and each wall is marked with either red, blue, white, or green ambient lighting. This was probably added into the Testinghall to make the room easier to navigate.

Every Testing Hall Room

Here is every single room that can be explored in the Testinghall:

Activator Testing Warehouse: a room with swinging signs and gates.
Container Testing Warehouse: a room filled with containers containing a few misc items.
Basement Test Set: a dark room leading to a drop. A torch is required for this area.
Lockpick Warehouse: A room filled with gates to test lockpicking. You cannot leave this room without a key.
Lockpick Warehouse (Key Required): This room can only be opened with the Lockpick warehouse Key.
Alchemy Test Warehouse: A two-story room filled with Alchemy apparatus and ingredients.
Wooden Door to: this room contains all items and DLC items in the game.
Wooden Door to (blue): This room contains an NPC named Vamp Chow and two stones that, when activated, turn the player into a Vampire.
Object Avoidance Warehouse: A room filled with tables.
Pathgrid Testing Warehouse: This room contains an NPC walking back and forth around tables.
NPC Combat AI Warehouse: Ironically, this testing room is empty.
AI Testing Warehouse: A room containing a Lonely Man NPC and Denyiir, an NPC, to test emotions and conversations.
Hall of Combat: A dark, empty room with doors leading to rooms with NPCs to test combat AI.
Upper-Class Clutter Warehouse: This room is filled with clutter found in upper-class houses with Silver miscellaneous items.
Middle-Class Clutter Warehouse: A room filled with paintings, barrels, beer kegs, and rug props found in middle-class homes in Cyrodil. There’s lots of wine in here that can be sold.
Lower-Class Warehouse: A room filled with tan and stone misc items, wooden props, and furniture found in lower-class housing in Cyrodil.
Armor Warehouse: A room filled with full armor sets displayed on tables and includes the Knight of Order Armor.
Clothing Warehouse: A room filled with all clothing items in the game, including the Emperor’s Robes.
Weapon Warehouse: A room filled with every single weapon set and type in the game. This room includes unique weapons such as Chillrend and Volendrung.
Misc Clutter Warehouse: A room filled with random ingredients, food, and blacksmith props. The player can obtain two Soul Gems from this room and the Alchemy apparatus.
Lighting Warehouse: a dark room lit up by in-game lighting sources such as candles, lanterns, and chandelier lights.
Book Warehouse: A room filled with books and a pile of books to test the Oblivion engine when large quantities of items are rag dolling around.
Creature Testing Hall: A dark empty room.
Hawkhaven: This door opens up to the test town of Hawkhaven, which features NPCs such as Dewey Decimal. The Tresspass Test Warehouse can be found southwest and contains Belgarr, who can sometimes be found dead after a guard enters the warehouse. To the North of town, you can find Calywyn roaming. Travel west, and you’ll discover an Alter. Travel northwest out of town, and you will discover a shrine of
Creature Grove: The creature Grove can be accessed by traveling to Hawkhaven and walking northwest

The Town of Hawkhaven

The town of Hawkhaven is technically an exterior testing cell itself, but since it’s accessible from the Testing Hall, I decided to give it an entry. Bethesda used Hawkhaven to test how NPCs would behave during combat within a settlement in Cyrodil. “Will Flee When Losing” and “Will Always Fight, Never Flee” debug NPCs are evidence of this.

Hawkhaven has a few points of interest, such as the Criminal Warehouse and Tresspass Test Warehouse, a building used to test the tresspass mechanic in Oblivion. This is hilarious as sometimes an Imperial Guard will enter the house by mistake and, because they are set to trespassing, will kill Belgarr in a fight.

Denyiir, a blue-haired NPC, is the major NPC of the area and can be found left of the Hawkhaven entrance. Denyiir is an NPC used by Bethesda to test the dialogue mechanics of Oblivion. As a result, the player can set Denyiir’s emotion but, more importantly, train their skills and barter goods from Denyiir.

There are several other NPCs in this area, such as Dewey Decimal, an Imperial; Brag gro-Bharg the Orc, Rienna A female Redguard and Caldwyn, another Imperial; and more; however, the NPCs have limited Speech options.

Outside of town, the Hero of Kvatch can find a Necromancer Altar to convert Grand Soul Gems to Black Soul Gems once a week. If you travel further outside of town in the northwest direction, you will eventually cross the Creature Grove, an area filled with all kinds of enemy creatures.

The Creature Grove

The Creature Grove is Oblivion’s little piece of hell; as you approach the Creature Grove from Hawkhaven, you will see only what looks like a battlefield before you. In this area, many enemy creatures are locked into fighting one another. There are hordes of Skeletons and Draugrs, rampaging Trolls, elemental Atranochs, and even the terrifying Minotaurs.

I’ve seen many entries of the Creature Grove in Oblivion articles online stating that the Creature Grove features every enemy in the game. However, this is untrue, as while the Creature Grove has a diverse number of enemies it doesn’t include creatures from the Oblivion Realm.

Many of the enemies in the Creature Grove are separated by a wall, but that does not stop them from fighting each other. As a result, the Creature Grove is a great place to visit to obtain Alchemy ingredients from fallen creatures. Entering the house will lead you back to the Testing Hall.

Immediately west across the wall is another area filled with animals. You can find wild horses and lots of aggressive rats and bears. Interestingly the building in this area will take you to the dark Creature Testing Hall. The door back to the Creature Grove has been renamed the Rat Grove.

This is a great place to learn about the enemies you’ll encounter in Oblivion or level your combat skills.

Vampire Warehouse

The creepiest room in the Testinghall so far, entering the Vampire Warehouse will open you to a small two-story house. The house has one purpose, to test the Vampirism mechanics in Oblivion.

The player won’t find much on the first floor, but on the second, they will find a sleeping blindfolded NPC called Vamp Chow. The player can activate two buttons in the shape of gravestones that turn the player into a vampire. The second button’s effect is described as “Click to add Full Vampirism.”

The player can talk to the Vamp Chow NPC. However, all he will do is cower in fear until returning back to his bed. The Vampire Warehouse is a great room for players that want to role-play as a Vampire from the start of the game or need to feed on an NPC but don’t want to attack any of the NPCs in Cyrodil.

If you’re like me and clicking the “Click to add Full Vampirism” button out of curiosity but don’t actually want to be a vampire, then you’re in luck. The Testinghall has every single item in the game and more, including a Cure Disease Potion.

It’s just finding it. Double lucky for you, I’ve scoured through every cupboard and chest and opened every door to understand how this weird and interesting Testinghall works!

Testing Hall Weapons and Armor

The Testing Hall was a primary location used by Bethesda to test out the items and physics of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. As a result, they left a fortune of weapons and armor behind. There are Daedric Armor sets, Ebony Armor sets, and Mithril Armor sets waiting to be plucked by an opportunist.

The Testing Hall was a primary location used by Bethesda to test out the items and physics of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. As a result, they left a fortune of weapons and armor behind. There are Daedric Armor sets, Ebony Armor sets, and Mithril Armor sets waiting to be plucked by an opportunist.

Players can enter these rooms and leave with their pockets full of valuable items. The Armor Warehouse is as you’d expect, containing full sets of armor laid out on wooden tables. Note that while this loot is valuable, equipping these armor sets at a low level where your Heavy Armor or Light Armor skills are low will determine the strength and value of the armor set.

Moreover, items picked up by the player will not respawn, so carefully consider what armor sets you’re willing to take. Remember that the Armor Warehouse isn’t the only room in the Testinghall where the player can obtain Armor Sets, as the player can find DLC armor sets within the Misc Clutter Warehouse.

the elder scrolls iv - testing hall weapons — Image by Alex Maksymiw

The Weapons Warehouse is one of the coolest-looking rooms. Every vanilla weapon set and type is laid out on a table. There are also unique weapons in the middle of the room. You can obtain the following unique weapons from here:

Ceremonial Dagger
Rose of Sithis
Skull of Corruption
Sanguine Rose
Mace of Molag Bal
Goldbrand
Umbra
Volendrung
Hrormir’s Icestaff
Blackwater Blade
Chillrend
Witsplinter
Thornblade

And many more!

The Weapons and Armor Warehouses were used to test how the weapons looked in the world of Oblivion. You can find even more weapons and armor in the upcoming room.

The Legendary “Wooden Door to” Every Item in the Game

the elder scrolls iv - legendary wooden door — Image by Alex Maksymiw

Yes, it’s actually called Wooden Door to… Because Bethesda forgot to name this one. This is strange, considering that this room features every single item in the game neatly stored and categorized in boxes. (How nice of Bethesda).

This room has everything, every type of weapon and armor item, a near-endless number of Soul Gems and ingredients, and every single Spell Tome in the game! This room is not to be confused with another unnamed door lit by a blue light on the opposite wall. Yes, Bethesda forgot to name another room. This is actually the Vampire room.

The player can obtain Ascendant Sigils from the Soul Gem and Sigil Stones chest. Sigil Stones are crafting items obtained from the Oblivion realm that can be used to enchant equipment. When obtained from the Oblivion realm, Sigil Stones provide the player with a point of Fame, but taking them from the Testing Hall doesn’t grant you this.

The room contains boxes full of DLC items. However, I wouldn’t recommend picking them up, as most of them will activate quests. The “Knights” box located in the middle of the room contains all items featuring The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: Knights of the Nine DLC.

On the right-hand side of the room, you will find a series of categorized boxes containing all items from The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: Shivering Isle expansion.

High-Level Weapons

If you accidentally turned yourself into a vampire in the Testing Hall, all were infected while roaming Cyrodil. Weep and fear no more! Pluck a Cure For Vampirism Potion from the “All Potions” chest in the room’s left-hand corner.

Bear in mind that there is only one potion for each item in the box, which goes for all the other boxes in the room. That said, stroll over to the “Ammo and Weapons” chest and open up that bad boy, and you will see hundreds of weapons and ammo items. No surprise there, but this chest contains leveled versions of unique weapons.

For example, there are six Witsplinters in the chest; if you’re a low-level character, it can be difficult to determine which weapon is strongest due to having low stats. However, you’ll notice a significant difference in the value of the item and the potency of enchantments of the item.

The Testing Hall doesn’t include every item in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion but also those that don’t. Some items, such as Erik’s Test Gauntlets, cannot be found anywhere else in Cyrodil. If anyone is curious, the gauntlets are valued at ten million gold! However, wearing the gauntlets will drain your health by ten points a second.

The Richest Imperial in All of Cyrodil

You can make a fortune selling items from the Testing Hall. So much gold, in fact, that you will struggle to find merchants that will have enough gold to pay for all the items you take from the Testing Hall.

If you’re a low-level character, I recommend that you visit the Upper-Class Misc Clutter and Middle-Class Clutter rooms, as you can loot small fortunes worth of valuable wine and silver props that are much more affordable for merchants to purchase off of you.

Generally, the bigger the Merchant’s pocket, the higher their Mercantile skill is, meaning the harder they are to barter for a better deal. Therefore you’re much better off slowly building up your own Mercantile skill by bartering will lower value items.

Sell individual items rather than a batch of items to gain more experience in the Mercantile skill. You can find hundreds of arrows in the Testing Hall, Weapons and Ammo crate, and Weapons Warehouse.

Save the higher-value items in the Testing Hall to see later on in the game; remember, the items in the Testing Hall do not respawn.

FAQs

Question: How Can I Access the Dev Room in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?

Answer: Like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Skyrim features its own development room. It can be accessed by opening the command console and typing QaSmoke. You cannot Fast Travel from the Dev Room, so to leave, reopen the Command Console and type “coc” followed by whatever location you want to travel to.
For example: “coc whiterun.”

Question: Can You be Attacked in the Testing Hall in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?

Answer: Yes, while the Testing Hall is located high in the Oblivion sky box, enemies from the Creature Grove can still attack you even if you leave the Creature Grove and return to the Testing Hall.
The enemies will navigate through the doors to get to you. Therefore, if you are inside another room in the Testinghall and hear the Oblivion battle music playing, get ready for a fight, as this is a good indicator that an enemy is chasing you.
Moreover, NPCs found within the rooms in Testing Hall will defend themselves if attacked and chase you even if you leave the room and go back into the main hall. The NPCs in Hawkhaven will also follow you into the Testing Hall if you anger them or commit a crime.

Question: How Can I Access the Testing Hall in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3?

Answer: You can only open the command console on a PC. However, there is a way to access the Testing Hall on the console, but you will need the Wizard’s Tower DLC installed (which is included in the Knights of the Nine DLC bundle).
Travel to Frostcrag Spire, visit the Alchemy Garden, stand on top of the Oblivion plants facing the entrance you walked through, and save the game.
Now exit Oblivion, remove the Wizard’s Tower DLC from your console hard drive, and load Oblivion back up. Reopen your save and ignore the warning prompt. The game will load you into an exterior testing cell. Open the door named “Door to Wilderness” and enter one of the houses in the area to enter the Testing Hall.
In the snowy town, you can find the Mace of Doom, a unique weapon only found in this area. Moreover, you can enter a tower from Oblivion, complete with its own source of infinite Sigil Stones. However, be careful picking up the stone, as it will spawn infinite Sigil Stones into your inventory!
To return to Cyrodil, install the Wizard’s Tower back onto your console’s hard drive and reload the save.

Elder Scrolls Oblivion Testing Hall: Conclusion

In conclusion, the Testing Hall is a must-visit location when booting up an old save of Oblivion. Even if you’re not looking to make a profit from the items within the Testing Hall gives an insight into Bethesda’s testing process of Oblivion.

You can befall some funny scenes like finding Belgarr dead in the Tresspass Test Warehouse and an Imperial Guard in their inspecting his corpse.

If you’re not interested in any of that and are just looking to make a quick buck, you’ve come to the right place. The Testing Hall houses every single item in the game and more. Surely you would have thought Bethesda would learn from their mistakes and delete the development room in future Elder Scrolls titles.

In The Elder Scrolls V, this would not be the case: Skyrim features a development room accessed by typing “QA Smoke” into the command console.

Quest items taken from the Testing Hall can break your character’s game, and items do not respawn in the Testing Hall, so be very careful with what items you take. It’s very easy to pick up an armor piece or weapon and discover that it is a quest item.