Is there any mods that ifx the problem of when you steal one item of a type all references of that object become 'stolen'.

For example...quoting from UESP:


Anything that fixes that? i did look around......and i dont think the code patch fixed it....so.....

I don't think that it's fixable, unless the MCP somehow manages to address it. The typical "workaround" is to mod the individual items or containers in question to remove ownership, but that makes to too easy to just walk in and take everything without even bothering to sneak.

It's a conceptual problem. If all diamonds look alike, what does it matter if that diamond isn't exactly the same one you stole?

Going by NPCs with an intelligence over 5, if you try to sell any diamond back to the shopkeeper, she would be suspicious and keep it. If you get caught by the guards, wouldn't they keep all of the diamonds, assuming that you stole most of them, for evidence? At least one was reported stolen. There are more consequences in Morrowind.

So just fixing it pretty much kills any world consequences to stealing. You need a more creative idea to work around it.

If this is a help, Morrowind Enhanced has a device to remove the flag. It's called the 'Crime Stealing Bugfix' and it's part of the Crime Enhanced suite which in turn is part of a whack of MWE downloads here http://aerelorn.1.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=553.
It provides 3 NPCs in the Thieves Guilds who, if you're of high enough standing, will remove ownership of stolen items for a percentage of their value.

I'm into alternatives today. There is a third party program called Enchanted Editor. In this program, you can load your savegames and remove the stolen flag from all stolen items at once. Step-by-step:

1. ALWAYS make a backup of your savegame when using third party programs to edit it.
2. Once you have Enchanted Editor installed, on the left hand side, scroll down to the "stolen Items" entry. Check the box next to it (make sure there are *no other boxes checked*).
3. In the pull-down menu at the top, select edit and then delete. This will remove all stolen item flags on all items you have stolen up to this point in the game.
4. Exit the editor and save your savegame when it prompts you to.

Hrnchamd, while I agree that there should be some sort of penalty for stealing, I think it should really only apply to selling unique items to legitimate merchants in the same town you stole it, or if you actually get caught in the act. While it's true that if I brought something to an upstanding merchant, that is known to belong to a particular person, they would undoubtedly report me immediately or at least put me off until they could check with the person it belongs to whether or not they sold it, say I steal a plain wooden cup from the Lucky Lockup. Even if I got caught and escaped, how would General Darius in Gnisis know I'd stolen it? Why would he even care? How would Nalcarya, let alone a merchant in Dagon Fel, know I stole her particular diamond if I wasn't seen anywhere near Nalcarya's shop?

Anyway, that's how I look at it. If I haven't a bounty and I've managed to keep from being caught for a while, I see no problem with removing the stolen items flags now and then.

I will add a caution to using MWE mods in general. They have been known to cause issues in loading savegames. You should be okay as long as you remember the golden rule: Make saves in new slots often. Don't rely on autosave or quicksave for long periods of time. If that one save won't load, you may lose a lot of gameplay.

Actually Elaura you dont understnad the morrowind crime....its not like that.

If you steal a wooden cup from say the balmora pawnbrokers, you can now never again sell a wooden cup to the balmora pawnbroker. It doesnt stoop you selling it to another merchant anywhere else.

But here is where the problem comes. If you for some reason sell it back at the pawnbrokers and get arrested (hence returning the stolen cup).....if you later on bring anonther wooden cup to sell there you are arrested again because the cup is still flagged as stoeln from that place....even though the actual stolen wooden cup has been returned.


Thats the logic bug that Im looking for a fix too......I had thought there might be a MWSE mod that after a certain time stolen flags would be removed from items (maybe after 2 months) or something like that.

That sounds like a pretty decent solution, if it's possible.

I was speaking from a realism POV. Unless the merchant put his stamp on *any* non-unique item, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on as far as who stole it unless there was a witness. I believe a good way around the stolen item issue would be to have people who deal in particular items. For example, it never made any sense to me that even though everyone on Vvardenfell knows it's illegal to buy and sell Dwemer artifacts, all merchants will, even with guards present, but they can somehow sense when you are carrying moonsugar or that you stole some bauble from them once upon a time.

As far as game mechanics go, you're right, that makes no sense, either. A time limit for the flags would solve your issue, but it seems to me like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. IMHO, barring an overhaul of the trading system, there shouldn't be a stolen item flag at all unless you are caught in the act of stealing or attempt to fence something unique and/or known to belong to someone in particular. I think maybe a disposition drop would be a better alternative to stolen item flags. If someone knows you stole something, but can't prove it, then they just won't deal fairly with you.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some limitation in the game engine regarding stolen items, as nearly every mod which addresses it is a work around.

soooo anyone think it is possible to make a mod that will remove stolen flags after a certain time?

I did notice today when playing (with tfh on) that when I stole a the 'vampires of vvandenfal I' book that all 'vampires of vvandenfal I' books from then on were owned by the guy i stole the first from (a named necromancer that i was sent to kill).......seems this is a pretty annoying bug if you ever want to steal something...or even stops looting from certian bad guys :shrug:

Stolen flags aren't something that can be modded via a plugin apart from removing ownership from every item in the game (which completely defeats the stealing mechanism), and even then any stolen items flagged in the save will remain which is why an external app like Enchanted Editor is required to remove those entries from the save.

The behavior is by design, not a bug. <_<

Well that svcks....unless the code patch does something about it in the future ill stay to playing non theif characters and have full help on to aviod stealing ranodm items.

Well... its by design on a time crunch becuz the game has to be finalized and released. The big game production houses work thier coders with a deadline for release and sometimes features are squished from "working correctly" into "working" due to time considerations. I believe this is what happened with the 11 month bug that MCP fixes. The commercial companies have a major advantage over someone doing a re-write or a brand new game cuz they get paid to do it (and thus don't have to juggle a job with their creation) BUT they have a job to do and that means delivering a finalized product by such-and-such a date. If you are here on this forum, then you love MW or at least like it (me, I love this game and it beats out all others), but I don't think that it was meant to be that if you take a cup then all other cups gain the ownership flag of the person you stole the original from... until then next time you steal a cup.

But, again this is my opinion and I have been wrong before (gasp!)

More importantly than my opinion is this: the ONLY way to fix this is to remove ownership of ALL items in-game? Don't NPCs react if you steal some other NPCs items? What about having an NPC whose references persist and is like an owner of everything (bill gates?) as in all the ownership is assigned to that guy and he never appears in game. Wouldn't you still be able to tell (by script) if an item is stolen but not have the merchants freak out? Still would be a huge and ridiculous work-around...

ST

There's a tendency to say something is a bug because a game mechanism doesn't work the way one wants it to - game designers are often forced to put such behavior into their games due to restrictions in the engine. One needs to remember that Morrowind is an old game, one initially developed for a console platform (no modding) and later ported to a pc platform [correction] one that was developed with console platforming in mind after initial pc development was started. The developers did not have the luxury of hindsight back then as we have with all the subsequent advances in game design and hardware capabilities.

One of the restrictions is that there is only one object id that's referenced for all instances of that object - when an item is flagged as stolen, it's recorded in the save with that shared object id and the NPC id of whoever had ownership of the particular object reference. There's no way to discern between items as stolen / not stolen unless each object is unique.

Removing ownership from all items is not a fix for the problem - I was pointing out that, as far as modding within the context of a plugin, there wouldn't be another way to affect stolen flags except to avoid them completely, which defeats the purpose. And we're talking about modifying the items flagged as stolen once they're recorded in the save game - I don't know of any way to directly modify those individually via script, the game engine is handling them behind the scenes. I guess it would be possible to periodically run 'PayFineThief' (keeps items in inventory and "cleans AI"), but I'm not sure if that also clears the save game's stolen items list, and in any case it's all the items (by object id found in inventory) or nothing.

Wait, what? I mean, I know this is off-topic, but I doubt the TESCS was developed after the game -- it was used to build the game, after all! Modding and the PC were in from the beginning -- Morrowind is essentially just a very professionally produced TC.

I didn't say that the TESCS was developed after the game. I do stand corrected tho, I had the development timeframe backwards - Bethesda announced the development of the XBox version of Morrowind after the PC version (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_III:_Morrowind#Development). I've changed what I stated to read "developed with console platforming in mind".

What's curious is there are console-centric GMSTs found in the PC version. Near the time of Morrowind's initial release there was a shift in the industry towards inclusion of consoles, whereas previously titles would be exclusive to the pc platform. There were likely compromises made to the game design and interface when development shifted to a hybrid title with the console platform in mind.

This is all getting off topic tho. The point is that there are limitations in behavior by design (e.g. stolen item flags) due to the development choices made, and consequently severe limitations in the ability to modify that behavior thru the plugin method. -_-

with the important distinction of having hard coded functions. man my life would be a lot easier if i could add things to "hard coded" features.