Stashed items shelf-life?

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I got tired of being harassed by merchants for carrying Moon Sugar and
Skooma, so I stashed them in a certain crate in Balmora. That was a long
time ago, and yet every time I go back, the stuff still seems to stick
around. Most games would cause items left around to disappear over time,
but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I wonder how the game manages to
keep track of every item ever seen by your character forever, without making
the save game files astronomically huge? At least I know for a fact that it
doesn't keep track of items you haven't seen yet. I've on occasion opened a
chest or other container and looked inside, and then for whatever reason
reloaded and looked again, and its contents are different. But once I've
looked at the contents of any container, even if I don't actually take
anything, it seems that they remain the same forever after that. Even items
I just dump on the ground seem to stick around. This happened once when an
item given to me for a quest caused me to become over-burdened, so I dropped
some relatively useless stuff next to the person giving the quest, and it's
still there. The only thing that ever disappears so far is corpses, and
even those seem to stay around for a surprisingly long time...

My question is: Are there limits to just how long an item will stick around?
If not, I'd much rather leave most of my stuff stashed somewhere than carry
it around with me all the time. I already figured out to stash my Imperial
armor given to me by the guard in Gnisis in a vase near the captain. He
won't talk to you if you're out of uniform, but my own armor is much better,
so I put on the Imperial armor to get jobs, then switch back to my good
armor, and I don't have to carry around 2 suits of armor. (Armor is really
heavy...) I'm just a little bit hesitant to stash anything of actual value
until I know for certain the game won't delete it over time. Moon Sugar and
Imperial armor are replaceable, but some things I have I'd be very upset if
I lost them...

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

Darrel Hoffman wrote:

> I got tired of being harassed by merchants for carrying Moon Sugar and
> Skooma, so I stashed them in a certain crate in Balmora. That was a long
> time ago, and yet every time I go back, the stuff still seems to stick
> around. Most games would cause items left around to disappear over time,
> but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I wonder how the game manages to
> keep track of every item ever seen by your character forever, without making
> the save game files astronomically huge? At least I know for a fact that it
> doesn't keep track of items you haven't seen yet. I've on occasion opened a
> chest or other container and looked inside, and then for whatever reason
> reloaded and looked again, and its contents are different. But once I've
> looked at the contents of any container, even if I don't actually take
> anything, it seems that they remain the same forever after that. Even items
> I just dump on the ground seem to stick around. This happened once when an
> item given to me for a quest caused me to become over-burdened, so I dropped
> some relatively useless stuff next to the person giving the quest, and it's
> still there. The only thing that ever disappears so far is corpses, and
> even those seem to stay around for a surprisingly long time...
>
> My question is: Are there limits to just how long an item will stick around?
> If not, I'd much rather leave most of my stuff stashed somewhere than carry
> it around with me all the time. I already figured out to stash my Imperial
> armor given to me by the guard in Gnisis in a vase near the captain. He
> won't talk to you if you're out of uniform, but my own armor is much better,
> so I put on the Imperial armor to get jobs, then switch back to my good
> armor, and I don't have to carry around 2 suits of armor. (Armor is really
> heavy...) I'm just a little bit hesitant to stash anything of actual value
> until I know for certain the game won't delete it over time. Moon Sugar and
> Imperial armor are replaceable, but some things I have I'd be very upset if
> I lost them...
>
>
Anything placed on a corpse (other than pre-placed bodies) will
disappear from the game when the corpse is removed. This usually
happens within a week. Everything else stays where you leave it unless
you place it in one of the "regenerating" chests such as those in the
guilds. These chests will reset their inventory at specific intervals.
As far as the Imperials wearing better Imperial armor than what you were
given is allowed. So if you have recovered the Lord's Mail and are
wearing it you will not be out of uniform. No need to keep that other
"trash" they give you.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

> Anything placed on a corpse (other than pre-placed bodies) will
> disappear from the game when the corpse is removed. This usually
> happens within a week. Everything else stays where you leave it unless
> you place it in one of the "regenerating" chests such as those in the
> guilds.

In my experience, you can't place anything in these chests. They're
strictly withdrawal-only, even if the item you're trying to place came from
the chest to begin with. I picked up a book in the Mage's Guild chest in
Balmora, just to read, but then I couldn't put it back.

> As far as the Imperials wearing better Imperial armor than what you were
> given is allowed. So if you have recovered the Lord's Mail and are
> wearing it you will not be out of uniform. No need to keep that other
> "trash" they give you.

Yeah, haven't run across that yet. Though I did discover that the armor I
have has a slight problem. I found it on a dead body outside the stronghold
just east of Falasmaryon (forget the name), and it's more than twice as good
as anything else I've seen. However, when I went to Ghostgate, I found that
everybody was accusing me of betraying the clan, and the Ordinators would
attack me if I tried to talk to them. Apparently it's the same kind of
armor that Ordinators wear, and they assume that I must have killed one of
them to be wearing it. No chance to calmly explain that I found it on a
dead body. I haven't checked to see if the Vivec Ordinators behave the same
way, but so long as I never talk to them (and why would you want to anyhow?)
they seem to leave me alone.

I must admit, some of these things like that are really starting to annoy
me. Between the merchants snubbing you for carrying Moon Sugar (though it's
perfectly okay to just drop it on the ground in front of them first), and
nobody talking to you if you're diseased, (the first time it happened to me
I had no idea how one goes about getting rid of a disease, and since nobody
anywhere would talk to me, I had no way of finding out either. It took me 3
hours before I stumbled on the right part of a temple. It's really bad when
even the priests in the temple won't tell you where the shrine is...) and
now this deal with my armor... I can understand adding an element of
realism, but after a certain level it ceases to be cool and becomes simply
frustrating. Having to take off all my armor and run around Ghostgate naked
is not my idea of fun in a game...

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

Darrel Hoffman wrote:
> I got tired of being harassed by merchants for carrying Moon Sugar and
> Skooma, so I stashed them in a certain crate in Balmora. That was a long
> time ago, and yet every time I go back, the stuff still seems to stick
> around. Most games would cause items left around to disappear over time,
> but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I wonder how the game manages to
> keep track of every item ever seen by your character forever, without making
> the save game files astronomically huge? At least I know for a fact that it
> doesn't keep track of items you haven't seen yet. I've on occasion opened a
> chest or other container and looked inside, and then for whatever reason
> reloaded and looked again, and its contents are different. But once I've
> looked at the contents of any container, even if I don't actually take
> anything, it seems that they remain the same forever after that. Even items
> I just dump on the ground seem to stick around. This happened once when an
> item given to me for a quest caused me to become over-burdened, so I dropped
> some relatively useless stuff next to the person giving the quest, and it's
> still there. The only thing that ever disappears so far is corpses, and
> even those seem to stay around for a surprisingly long time...
>
> My question is: Are there limits to just how long an item will stick around?
> If not, I'd much rather leave most of my stuff stashed somewhere than carry
> it around with me all the time. I already figured out to stash my Imperial
> armor given to me by the guard in Gnisis in a vase near the captain. He
> won't talk to you if you're out of uniform, but my own armor is much better,
> so I put on the Imperial armor to get jobs, then switch back to my good
> armor, and I don't have to carry around 2 suits of armor. (Armor is really
> heavy...) I'm just a little bit hesitant to stash anything of actual value
> until I know for certain the game won't delete it over time. Moon Sugar and
> Imperial armor are replaceable, but some things I have I'd be very upset if
> I lost them...
>
>

Some containers do have random content, providing you just look and
don't take then a new set of items may be placed in it, but as soon as
you alter the contents of the container it will remain the same.

~Cameron

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

Darrel Hoffman wrote:
>>Anything placed on a corpse (other than pre-placed bodies) will
>>disappear from the game when the corpse is removed. This usually
>>happens within a week. Everything else stays where you leave it unless
>>you place it in one of the "regenerating" chests such as those in the
>>guilds.
>
>
> In my experience, you can't place anything in these chests. They're
> strictly withdrawal-only, even if the item you're trying to place came from
> the chest to begin with. I picked up a book in the Mage's Guild chest in
> Balmora, just to read, but then I couldn't put it back.
>
>
>>As far as the Imperials wearing better Imperial armor than what you were
>>given is allowed. So if you have recovered the Lord's Mail and are
>>wearing it you will not be out of uniform. No need to keep that other
>>"trash" they give you.
>
>
> Yeah, haven't run across that yet. Though I did discover that the armor I
> have has a slight problem. I found it on a dead body outside the stronghold
> just east of Falasmaryon (forget the name), and it's more than twice as good
> as anything else I've seen. However, when I went to Ghostgate, I found that
> everybody was accusing me of betraying the clan, and the Ordinators would
> attack me if I tried to talk to them. Apparently it's the same kind of
> armor that Ordinators wear, and they assume that I must have killed one of
> them to be wearing it. No chance to calmly explain that I found it on a
> dead body. I haven't checked to see if the Vivec Ordinators behave the same
> way, but so long as I never talk to them (and why would you want to anyhow?)
> they seem to leave me alone.
>

The Indoril armor is theoretically only wore by Ordinators and anyone
else is assumed to have killed one of them for it. This is why you
won't have any luck dealing with Ordinators while wearing the armor.
You can carry all you want of it without problems. I found that the
glass armor was much better and much lighter so stayed with it. Only
carried the Lord's Mail when I had to deal with the Imperials. One of
your last quests for them is to find the armor, if you haven't stumbled
on it already.


> I must admit, some of these things like that are really starting to annoy
> me. Between the merchants snubbing you for carrying Moon Sugar (though it's
> perfectly okay to just drop it on the ground in front of them first), and
> nobody talking to you if you're diseased, (the first time it happened to me
> I had no idea how one goes about getting rid of a disease, and since nobody
> anywhere would talk to me, I had no way of finding out either. It took me 3
> hours before I stumbled on the right part of a temple. It's really bad when
> even the priests in the temple won't tell you where the shrine is...) and
> now this deal with my armor... I can understand adding an element of
> realism, but after a certain level it ceases to be cool and becomes simply
> frustrating. Having to take off all my armor and run around Ghostgate naked
> is not my idea of fun in a game...
>
>
There were a number of frustrating elements added to the game that were
not in the earlier ones. Plus the fact that it is only playable once
kills the appeal. I much preferred the earlier games where all quests
and quest items were generated randomly so you didn't automatically go
to Cave X to get Item Y.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:52:57 -0400, "Darrel Hoffman" <i.dont@think.so>
wrote:

>My question is: Are there limits to just how long an item will stick around?
>If not, I'd much rather leave most of my stuff stashed somewhere than carry
>it around with me all the time.

Get yourself a nice house mod, and store it safely there - no danger
of resets and PLENTY of storage space. See the "Help Morrowind"
thread for details.



Palindrome

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

Darrel Hoffman wrote:

> But it's such great armor. I've yet to see anything even half as good as
> it. I think I'll continue to use it for now, and just strip down if there's
> ever a need to deal with the Ordinators...

High Ordinator Armour ...

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

Darrel Hoffman wrote:

> Does the game also keep track of items you just leave lying on the ground as well?

Yes. If you drop something in Seyda Neen with your level 1 character and
come back 300 days and 40 levels later, it will still be there. As far
as I know there is absolutely no item-reset. One of the nifty things in
Morrowind in my opinion...
I usually restrict myself dropping stuff in my home only. Not because
the game cannot track what was dropped where but because I cannot. :*)


> I generally prefer to play a game as nature (or the designers) intended
> first, before I start fooling around with mods. Once my first character
> finishes the game, I may go back and look at some of those, but for now I'll
> pretty much stick to au naturel.

Healthy attitude. I played my first character with very few mods as
well, at least until I completed the Morrowind and Tribunal main quests.
Then I started trying mods.
Meanwhile I have a stock of always-running mods which are enabled for
each new character and I wouldn't want to miss.


> That is, unless you know of a mod that gets rid of the pointlessly annoying
> stuff, like having to drop your Moon Sugar and Skooma on the ground to talk
> to merchants and stuff like that.

Nope, don't know such a mod. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, though.

Basically *the* reference for quality mods is Telesphoros List of Mods,
found on various locations on the web. A recent version is here:
http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

I agree letting those game balancing mods wait for the second character
is a good idea. But do yourself a favour and install Better Heads,
Better Bodies and VGreetings. They just change graphics/sound, no game
content.


Peter

 

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Peter Strempel <peterstrempel@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Darrel Hoffman wrote:
>
>> That is, unless you know of a mod that gets rid of the pointlessly
>> annoying stuff, like having to drop your Moon Sugar and Skooma on the
>> ground to talk to merchants and stuff like that.
>
> Nope, don't know such a mod. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, though.

....Doesn't mean you can't make it yourself, either -- you'd just need to
open the "Persuasion" tab of the dialog window, go into the service
refusal entries, and delete the entries that match this particular
situation, which are all located four screens down.

--

Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real
information available.

- Benford's Law of Controversy

 

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Peter Strempel wrote:

> But do yourself a favour and install Better Heads,
> Better Bodies and VGreetings. They just change graphics/sound, no game
> content.

Forgot to mention "Herbalism Final 1.3". If you are an alchemist and
gather herbs from plants, you might alreay be annoyed by the fact you
have to "open" plants first. This mod fixes this issue.

The list of recommanded mods is much too long to pick a few essential
ones. But I personally would say installing those four mods is a good
idea. At least I wished I had discovered the Herbalism fix earlier
because this stupid "open plant, get all" drove me crazy.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

> Yes. If you drop something in Seyda Neen with your level 1 character and
> come back 300 days and 40 levels later, it will still be there. As far
> as I know there is absolutely no item-reset. One of the nifty things in
> Morrowind in my opinion...
> I usually restrict myself dropping stuff in my home only. Not because
> the game cannot track what was dropped where but because I cannot. :*)

Yeah, I picked one specific location where there are 4 crates stacked on
eachother just south of the Balmora temple. Categorized the crates by item
types, though apparently there is a weight limit on these crates, so I've
had to divide up the heavier items. BTW, what is this "home" you speak of?
Do you just take over some house where you killed the occupant? I was
thinking of taking up residence in Dura-Gra-Bol's place in Balmora, after
the Fighter's Guild mission where I had to kill him. There's also the house
of that guy that murdered the tax collector in Seyda Neen, but I almost
never go there. Balmora has pretty much become my home-town.

> Basically *the* reference for quality mods is Telesphoros List of Mods,
> found on various locations on the web. A recent version is here:
> http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

Might pore through that at some point. Before I waste my time though, does
anybody know of a mod which changes the appearance of the potions? They
should have different appearance based on their function, not their quality.
(well, maybe both) Every time I need a potion for something, it takes about
5 minutes of searching through a whole bunch of identical bottles to find
the one I'm looking for. Same thing with scrolls. There's just way too
many different types to keep track of. I know they're alphabetical, but it
still seems to take rather a long time to find what I'm looking for when I'm
carrying so many of them... I'm thinking, make all potions of the same type
use the same graphic, and then add a little mark in the corner of the icon
indicating quality. Would be much more informative. Also would be nice if
they changed the names such that potions of the same type but different
quality end up next to eachother alphabetically. So instead of:

Bargain Potion of Restore Agility
Bargain Potion of Restore Endurance
.....
Standard Potion of Restore Agility
Standard Potion of Restore Endurance
.....
Quality Potion of Restore Agility
Quality Potion of Restore Endurance
.....

You'd have:

Potion of Restore Agility (1.Bargain)
Potion of Restore Agility (2.Standard)
Potion of Restore Agility (3.Quality)
Potion of Restore Endurance (1.Bargain)
Potion of Restore Endurance (2.Standard)
Potion of Restore Endurance (3.Quality)
.....

Would make much more sense that way.

Also, a way that you could carry a weapon or armor piece such that it will
not automatically equip itself when scrolling through your weapons/spells.
Just because I found a Daedric Dagger on the ground doesn't mean I want to
use it. I just want to get my 10000 gold from the Mudcrab Merchant. (I
should just cast Mark near it, but then I couldn't use Mark in other
places...)

 

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Darrel Hoffman wrote:

> BTW, what is this "home" you speak of?

Either your stronghold which you can obtain when you are member of a
Great House, or a house mod or simply an existing house which occupant
had an accident or doesn't mind someone else in his home. I once played
a Khajit who moved into Tsyias (or whatever the name was) house who
obviously didn't mind having another kitten around as long as I brought
her Skooma and sugar. I couldn't kill another kitten just for a house...
Only your imagination limits your options. :*)

The nicest homes come with mods, though. My current favourite for a new
char I just started is "Rangers Tent", a tent you can carry with you and
drop whereever you want. Especially cool in combination with Pega Horse
Ranch so you can pack the tent on your horse. Quite fancy.
There are tons of house mods available. But I do have a problem with
some house mods: Many of them are available to the low-level player
without any task, quest or price etc. So you stumble out of a prison
ship and move into a fancy manor. I try to avoid these, but it's a
matter of taste. There are some cool mods with homes you need to earn,
"Firemoth Expanded" comes to my mind (builds on the official Firemoth
plugin). Suran Underworld offers two very nice houses, one of them is my
all-time home mod favourite, but it's extremely difficult to earn and
requires much time.


> thinking of taking up residence in Dura-Gra-Bol's place in Balmora

That's a popular place to establish a home base in Balmora. If you want
to earn yourself a better home later, the Great House strongholds are a
good choice and don't need a mod as they are available in standard
Morrowind.


> anybody know of a mod which changes the appearance of the potions?

There is a potion sorter mod, it's listed on the mod list I mentioned in
my last post. Though I havn't tried that, as I use "Taddeus balanced
objects" mod which already includes the potion sorter. But if you don't
want the balanced thing (not such a good idea to install in the middle
of an ongoing game), then the potion sorter should be the way to go.

From "Taddeus Balanded Objects" readme:

"This mod includes the following plugins:
- Erasmus' Potion Icons
- Erasmus' Scroll Icons
- Srikandi's Potion Sorter"

So you might want to look for those three.



> Also, a way that you could carry a weapon or armor piece such that it will
> not automatically equip itself when scrolling through your weapons/spells.

Don't know a mod which does this. Not sure, but I think it's not
possible to do this with a mod, though I'm no modding expert.


Peter

 

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On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:45:09 +0000 (UTC), Stuart Hacking
<smhacking@btopenworld.com> wrote:

>> But it's such great armor. I've yet to see anything even half as good as
>> it. I think I'll continue to use it for now, and just strip down if there's
>> ever a need to deal with the Ordinators...
>
>High Ordinator Armour ...

After you kill Almalexia take our her "Hands" (e.g. Super Duper High
Ordinators) just for fun...