Something odd... - by Meisterdieb
Meisterdieb on 22/7/2008 at 13:13
...I just noticed while playing around with the TES Construction Set.
(Probably an old hat but I couldn't find anything helpful about it).
In the Census ans Excise in Seyda Neen, lots of stuff is tagged as owned by "a shady smuggler". And that's not all, in Vanilla Morrowind, this guy doesn't even exist (well, technically he does, since he is listed - but he doesn't actually appear) in-game.
In the Tribunal Expansion he makes an appearance - apparently in Mournhold, the Palace, no less.
So... is there any reason why all that stuff is tagged as owned? And by a smuggler?!? (This almost seems like there's more to it - or was supposed to)
Couldn't they just have given the stuff to one of the Census guys.
Or leave it un-owned altogether - since whoever steals that stuff will do so only to sell it right away (since it mostly is clutter) anyway.
(And getting caught is almost impossible in this case, too)
Same thing with Haening (a Rogue in the Figther's Guild) who owns half the stuff in Seyda Neen's Census warehouse; Haening himself is hanging around in Ebonheart. I thought that Haening was a smuggler and was caught - but that doesn't work because THEN all that loot wouldn't be his and thus not tagged as his. Maybe they're just storing it for him...
And there is Areas (a vampire) who owns the activators in Tel Uvirith (player stronghold) ... and lots more (like an ordinator owning the "waterfalls" in the canalworks of Vivec)...
Any reason for these very strange ownerships?
And also:
In the editor, a Hunger (daedra) is shown in the shop of the Telvanni Enchanter in Vivec (Audenian Valius). But I can't remember ever seeing it in-game... is there a quest or some trigger (don't see any scripts). ...it's vanilla Morrowind, btw.
37637598 on 23/7/2008 at 17:01
hmmm, I've never heard of this! Did you check the NPC's AI packages? Perhaps the guys in the Census and Excise office are packed to 'follow' 'a shadys smuggler', that way if you steal anything, they both attack.:confused:
Meisterdieb on 24/7/2008 at 10:07
No, that's not it. Their AI packages are more or less empty - nothing to link them to the "mysterious owners".
Closest thing to a solution that I came up with, is that the designers just wanted to assign owners to those items - so they'd show up as stolen goods when the player gets arrested. But that begs the question: why not use NPCs form the same cell...
Btw, is there a way to fix the "diamond bug" and similar instances?
The "diamond bug" occurs when you steal a gem from e.g. Nalcarya in Balmora; from then on she believes that every single gem you try to sell is one you stole from her.
Is there a way that prevents this? So not every copy of a certain item gets flagged as stolen just because you nicked one of its copies.
37637598 on 24/7/2008 at 16:21
Hmmm... I'm not sure... Perhaps you're right, and they just wanted to give the items an owner so it would be a crime to steal them...
As far as the diamond glitch, this is also true with Galbedir (however you spell it) in the upstairs of the Mages Guild in Balmora. If you steal her soul gems, and then make a soul gem and try to sell it to her, she'll say you stole it! Not quite sure what causes this, nor have I heard of a fix, but I DO still remember the day I laughed my ass off because a pawn broker said "Hey, this is MY Saltrice!" lol he must have some pretty good photographic memory to remember what each one of his saltrice' look like :P
Matthew on 24/7/2008 at 16:39
It still had his family's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices sprinkled on it.
37637598 on 28/7/2008 at 21:53
hahaha
That sounds like an excuse they would quickly come up with to try and cover up the glitch :D
baeuchlein on 3/8/2008 at 21:25
Quote Posted by Meisterdieb
The "diamond bug" occurs when you steal a gem from e.g. Nalcarya in Balmora; from then on she believes that every single gem you try to sell is one you stole from her.
Is there a way that prevents this? So not every copy of a certain item gets flagged as stolen just because you nicked one of its copies.
I don't think there's a solution. I have read about this bug several years ago, but no official patch for "Morrowind" appeared on Bethesda's download pages since. There's a couple of unofficial patches out there, but I do not remember where these are located and whether they deal with this problem or not.
As far as I know, at least one stack of the gems (or whatever you steal) gets affected by this bug, maybe even all gems in your possession. I think it's because the stack can have only
one owner, and that will usually be set to the owner of the last item which gets added to the stack.
If that's right, then you might perhaps be able to "cleanse" your stack again by buying one gem. This gem will be yours, then, and if this ownership gets added to the whole stack again, all these gems will be yours.
Try it. Use that saltrice, perhaps, it's easy to come by, and cheap.
