Cut down on the clutter? Blasphemy! Make it all have some use? More blasphemy! Make it all have value? The blasphemy is getting thick in here. Some of it being both worthless and useless is what make it clutter in the first place, and clutter is a lot of what makes TES what it is.

Sorry, for my money clutter is one of those things solidly in the "It ain't broke, so let's not go fixing it" category.

Yeah, useful clutter is good. Everything should have value or at least some use.

It'd also be nice if every house had something of value in it. Being a thief sounds appealing until you realize that all you can steal is silverware.

The more clutter the better.

I have no problem with most of it being useless, but tools like shovels and sickles should be equippable as a weapon.
...and I'd like to be able to pick up lanterns and candles, and use them instead of a torch, like in Morrowind.

No kidding. The fun I had setting lights around my Factor's Estate in Raven Rock...red-tinted (kinda hard to find) around my alchemy area, blue-tinted around the dining area and fireplace. They've already done too much clutter removal.

Didn't read ALL replies, but I like the idea of mixing useful things IN with clutter. This gives me a reason to search around more and I feel rewarded when sifting through barrels of sandals and paint brushes to find...OH a little soul gem!

Yeah, I like clutter, and don't really care if it's that useful or not. I prob wouldn't use it anyway. Put the effort into more important parts of gameplay! Who is actually going to use a butter knife? Just use an iron dagger instead.

Shovels hurt. A lot. The make fantastic weapons. Torches should basically be clubs with fire damage on them. Gems should be crushable into powder or used to make weapons and armor unique. Bones should be able to be ground down into bonemeal or bone arrow shafts/tips. AND CUPS SHALL BE IMPROVISED MIRV DEVICES! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Maybe not that last part.

Still seems like people are misunderstanding the request, so I'll edit the original post again to clarify.

Here, here. Clutter and lanterns and candles, sigh. Best part of clutter for me was in my understanding of what I was finding. At first, you're new to the world and don't really know what you might need...and you're usually in great need of cash...so pick it all up, become burdened. Drop some things, sell some things. Later, you come to understand "value" in the world. Clutter akes the world real, whether or not it has a use. Lanterns and candles are always useful!

I actually have one reason for not making "apparently useful clutter" have a real function in the game.

Quite often, that "apparently useful clutter" is given a specific use in a mod. If all of it is converted into nearly useless stuff (most of what you list is terrible weapons) then it will interfere with it being put to actual creative use by modders.

Make shovels dig holes and hit people with them, sure. Make a tree branch useful as an emergency club, fine.

But leave the calipers, inkwells, shears and other tools for the modders to implement.

Making them weapons wouldn't actually benefit console users either, unless they want some weird roleplaying opportunities.

Just bring back blue lanterns, pretty please. I collected them in Morrowind, and I want to collect them again, without modding them in myself. :twirl:

I would like to see more items to add to the "clutter" for all kinds off different options, I would love to see several different kinds of the same items like plates and cups and some unique stuff like the dwemer items from Morrowind. I want to be surrounded by loads of stuff for my characters I create to claim for their houses. Also it would be nice if some items had some uses but it would also be nice to just keep them...

This is by far the best argument that I've read so far; however, I'm still not convinced. For one thing, modders can create their own items so they don't have to simply depend upon existing useless items, although I'm sure the latter is much easier. Furthermore, I suspect modders can redefine or assign additional uses to items beyond their pre-programmed uses.

I'm making assumptions about modding capabilities here. The bottom line is that I agree that consideration of mods is very important and I wouldn't want "apparently useful clutter" to have pre-programmed use if that would in fact hurt the modding community tremendously.

Regardless though, even if I'm wrong about the effects on modding, then at least I still stand by some of my suggestions for clutter because I can't imagine a better use. For example, inkwells, quills and parchment should be used for http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1157196-feature-request-custom-journal-notes. I really don't care if modders have different ideas for them, because this would be the most logical and valuable use to me as a player.

The same goes for my ideas about basic weaponry. I understand that a modder might have some creative use for a shovel (such as digging holes ), but frankly I want to hit people with it. No, it wouldn't be my weapon of choice, but the point is that I can if I want to, and probably will at least a few times for a laugh

With the inkwells, quills and parchment, a custom journal is exactly what a modder did with them. So, if Beth implemented that natively it wouldn't be a problem. Same for shovels...FO:NV made them both weapons and used for digging holes, so no worries there.

It's mainly the concept of turning any random tool into a blunt object that I see no need for. Some of them, sure....who wouldn't want to knock someone around with a smithing hammer? But I see no purpose in turning a pair of tongs into a weapon, or a set of bellows, since likely the hammer is right there already and better at the job.

Now, if they could implement a system where you could designate an item as weapon, even if it already has another function, that would be cool.

This is where my lack of experience as a modder shows I guess. I've always assumed that modders can assign multiple functions to an item, or assign additional functions to an item that already has a pre-programmed function. Perhaps that's not the case with weapons though, as your comment implies. If that's not the case, then I'd be perfectly happy if none of the clutter items that I've assigned as weaponry were actually pre-programmed as weapons.

But still, we're only talking about weapons here, and my main concern was general clutter. Weaponry aside, there's still plenty of room for giving clutter some use as long as it's not a weapon (aforementioned assumptions withstanding) and as long as modders are able to reassign or assign additional uses.

Can anyone say definitively as an experienced modder in Oblivion or Fallout 3 whether modders can reassign or assign multiple functions to a single item? What about if it's already a weapon?

I love clutter.

I just wish that the game would let those characters with high Sneak/Dexterity be able to see where the valuable stuff might be hiding.

A Perk? "Thieves Intuition"? Players who play as thieves should, as they progress in skill, discern where the good stuff is...

You can, and there are several ways of doing it. You can create a non-weapon duplicate of the item, but you risk running into issues with people have a set of calipers, but not the right set of calipers (this already happens in some cases). You can use a script that isn't attached to the weapon and detects if you have the weapon in order to use the item in a more passive sense (ie, you click on an animal skin and it checks your inventory to see if you have a dagger and if so it allows you to use the animal skin in crafting). You can still have a script on the weapon itself and make it so that when someone equips the weapon you get a different function (though this often eliminates its use as an actual weapon).

The only issues you get really, is that an item made into a weapon gets moved from the miscellaneous section of your inventory to your weapons section, and that the game is hardcoded to specific behaviour when activating weapons/armor that has to be worked around.

It could still be done, but it would introduce more disconnect than having a non-functional pair of calipers in my opinion. And I think it adds an un-needed level of complexity for very little return benefit.

All that said, I certainly think that a lot of "clutter" could be turned into useful items by the developers by adding more abilities to the player in the first place, or more requirements for existing abilities.

I want this game to be as cluttered as my garage.

Also droppable lit torches.

Bones / Skull -- Sell to a necromancer or use for your own magical purposes
Whetstone -- Repair Bladed Wapons
Hammer -- Repair Blunt weapons
Shovel -- Grave Robbing (similar to New Vegas)
Cloth / Folded Cloth / Yarn -- Repair clothing or create clothing, could be used in conjunction to Dyes
Parchment / Paper Inkwell / Quill -- Create Magical Scrolls, to sell or give to allies, or just simply useful for when your low on Magika
Crystal Ball -- Gain Charge over time, transfer that charge to magical items
Hand Scythe -- Most likely going to be used for farming. Sell to farmer. Much Faster than normal Scythe but less efficient at Clearing
Hoe -- Again, use or sell to farmer
Oar and String -- Basic Trap, Lay string across a hallway, the oar is sucure on the ceiling, once triggered, the oar swings down hitting the person in the face
Paint Brush / Paint Palette -- I wouldn't say a painting minigame as such, you just create the artpiece that can be used or sold off
Pickaxe -- Mining, I imagine you wouldn't want to use your sword to collect resources
Pitchfork -- Farming
String, Tar, Wooden Posts and Torch -- Create a fire trap. When you are prompted to make a trap a blueprint of indicates the length
Scythe -- Farming, drain fatigue with use but much more effiecient at clearing wheat and grain, etc
Shears -- Shearing sheep for wool

Hmmm. Would that result in a lot of wool, due to sheer size, or very little wool due to woodenness?

Actually the intention was to stab the sheep with the shears, then cut the wool off with my wooden spork