madphilb on 18/11/2003 at 04:12
I've been poking around and reading, just kinda want to make sure I got a handle on things, and I've got a question or two to follow up.
If an item is stolen from someone they will think that any item of that type is theirs and accuse you of being the theif. (i.e - steal a diamond from someone, all diamonds will trigger that person's "that diamond is mine" routine)
Now for the questions (pointers to threads covering this and/or answers appreciated)
1) All over the place there are crates, barrels, and sacks sitting in the streets of the cities. Do the contents of these belong to anyone, or are they just free for the taking (i.e. if I clear out all the crates in Balmora, will this trigger the "that _____ is mine" for any seller anywhere?)
2) Ruins, Mines, and Tombs. Who owns those items... similar to the above.
3a) Dead people, they're all over Morrowind. Enter a building and the owner is, well, dead. Who owns the stuff in the house/apartment?
3b) Dead people who where alive when you entered. Once the person has kicked the bucket, are any of the things considered "stolen" by the game if you take them?
4) There are some quests that usually require an item to be stolen (esp. for the Theives Guild, duh!) Will the sellers of them think the item is stolen, even if you've never done the quest?
The main reason I ask that one is because I've had problems with some of the sellers accusing me of stealing things that I got in Ruins and such. The problem is that in a few of these cases I've never done business with that person before, and never touched any of their things (unless ownership is getting cross-tagged, which I think I've seen someone mention, i.e. - copy and paste with the editor and they forgot to change the ownership tags before shipping the game).
I think I'm safe posting this in this forum, I've tried to keep it as spoiler free as possible, and I don't think any of the answers to my questions (short of specific examples) would cause spoilers either.
I'm hoping that the answers won't only help me, but others as well.
Thanks
PHIL
Kilana on 18/11/2003 at 06:02
1) For most cities: barrels, crates, urns... will all be considered "owned"... usually by an imperial, redoran, hlaalu guard... The exception I found for this is Balmora though, it's the only city(I think) where the street barrels, crates are all not marked as owned.
2) Most ruins, mines, tombs all have their items untagged and will not mark any items as stolen.
3a-b) When the owner of an object dies, its no longer owned by that person... (example, in balmora if you kill the Nerano guy all his stuff might still be tagged as owned by him, but once you pick it up, it won't be tagged as stolen. This only works if all the npcs that are marked as owner of the object are dead... if an imperial guard is the owner of an object, you won't be able to take it without it being marked as stolen because there are several copies of that npc all over.)
4) Thieves guild quests usually make you steal owned items, so yes they will be marked as stolen... if you don't want to steal, don't be a thief.
Owner tags are not really that complicated, but its very badly designed... Like if you steal a diamond from one alchemist, you can never sell any diamonds to that specific alchemist. If you steal another diamond from another alchemist, now there are 2 alchemists you can never sell diamonds to. This is permanent. And if you get caught by a guard whenever you have diamonds, they will be taken.
The best way to check for ownership tags are to go in the console and type tfh. That command will show any scripts attached to an object and ownership tags.
madphilb on 19/11/2003 at 00:43
Thanks for the info....
sadly I'm XBox (my PC is way to old to run Morrowind), so I can't do anything with the console. Someday, maybe.
Thanks again.
PHIL
waterdragon on 25/1/2007 at 04:47
Gosh this is from years ago! Just noticed. You've probably finished the Game now ages ago.
As long as the guards don't see you Phil I managed to Nick everything everywhere except in people's houses - but then if you kill them you can nick everything afterwards and take the house over.
This is in the PC Game however;)
Ailtar on 27/1/2007 at 01:12
If guards are chasing you, you can drop all the items you have on you (Excluding your gold) And then pick them up after you pay the fine.
