GameBanshee Forums

Found an Elder Scrolls thread that discusses all the house mods which use Zippy the Alchemical Ingredient Sorter. (I'm not joking.) It's a mouse that sorts all the ingredients you've got, and puts them away automatically. I'm assuming this is not done in realtime, or you could grow old and die while waiting it for it to finish--at least, with one of my characters. Here's the link.

Originally posted by owlsight
I've been looking for the egg mine for the second Fighters Guild quest for days without any success. And boy, those cliff racers are irritating. Oh well. I gained a level while wandering around completely lost, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.

That place took me forever to find.. if you want to know where it is, highlight to read: If you mean the Shulk eggmine near Balmora, go to the silt strider platform there and keep walking along the river (stay on the same side as the silt strider), eventually you'll see a fire, head to it and speak with the miners outside

@Fable, lol! I may just have to look into getting Zippy!

Originally posted by dragon wench
@Fable, lol! I may just have to look into getting Zippy!

It apparently requires some scripting skills, but someone in that thread has already done it with Abu's Retreat. I only hope they get Phoebe's permission to release the "upgrade."

Originally posted by owlsight
I've been looking for the egg mine for the second Fighters Guild quest for days without any success.

LOL Reminds me of Ranma 1/2. There's a guy who travelled through whole China before he found the backyard of his own house...

But you're right, sometimes it's just a nuisance. Especially when you're short on time...
Nevertheless, I like to travel around from time to time - when much time is what I have

Originally posted by Monolith
LOL Reminds me of Ranma 1/2. There's a guy who travelled through whole China before he found the backyard of his own house...

Oh, you want a Ryoga mod! Travel east, and find yourself in an old Dwarven building to the northwest. "Where in the world am I now?" you howl, letting loose a blast of pure despair that turns every creature within 60 feet to dust.

Back to subject. (cough) There's one guy up on Elder Scrolls's forum who's PM'd Phoebe, the modder who created Abu's Retreat, and is asking her permission to re-release her mod with Zippy the ingredients sorter to the public. Hope she agrees.

I see no need to sort my alchemical ingredients. I just stand in a corner in the Balmora Mage's Guild and drop them all at my feet (no stacking), along with my chemist equipment. Then, every once in a while, I pick everything up, make a whole bunch of potions, drop everything I didn't use again, then go sell the potions I don't want to keep. Simple.

I find some of the most tedious quests to be those little ones you pick up on the way that don't have anything to do with your main or guild quests: finding someone's glove, delivering a letter, etc. I always say "sure, I'll do it", thinking that I'll deliver the item the next time I'm near Mar Gan or whatever, but then I have to go back and tell them that the item was delivered in order for my quest list to be updated....

I also don't like it when I do some task for a quest that I haven't been given yet, like dealing with ash statues for House Redoran, etc. It shows as a quest in my journal, but I don't belong the the right faction for me to ever get the quest, so I will never clear it...

I have the game on XBox and the most tedious thing has to actually mixing potions. You have to side scroll through a huge list of ingredients (I'd originally said 'potions'). You can't "y" click the stuff you've already selected to see what other properties it has. I have the game for PC, but my PC is down. I imagine there's a much easier system in PC for mixing potions.

Another thing I find tedious that's probably an XBox thing is that if your Mercantile is real high (mine was up around 70 when I finally started noticing it; probably went on longer), it starts to work against you and people start grossly underbidding for your stuff. A lot of times you can counterbid way up, but if you're trying to get them to go up a few thousand drakes, you have to sit there holding the black button forEVER while it boosts the bid a drake at a time.

The mercantile problem is on the PC too. And apparently nobody's modded it to make it work, either. I posted a thread a few days ago on the topic.

It's not moddable. It's part of the game economics, in the code.

I'm not even so sure it's such a problem. It seems the only vendors who bid low are those that like you. Last night I offered some 14,000 Daedric shortsword to a vendor whose attitude toward me was under 70 and he offered, like, 13,800 for it.

It more than kinda makes sense that the merchants who like you a lot are the ones who've been helping you amass your fortune and they eventually start wanting in on the action. By this time, you're probably rich beyond the dreams of avarice anyhow and if you're a true friend you'd wanna cut them in on the action too.

Plus a lot of items you grab later in the game are so expensive no one's going to be able to pay full price anyway (210,000 for a staff!)

It looks like this thread over in Elder Scrolls is really heating up. The idea of making houses with some kind of sorting alchemical ingredients mechanism is taking over; and several modders are working on it, now. Phoebe, creator of Abu's Retreat, has also indicated in this thread that she intends to add a sorter--not an animal, but a chest in which you place all your ingredients; close the lid, open it, and everything goes to their relevant jars.

This sorting idea looks very promising! I hope Phoebe also places a sorting chest into Abu's Manor, and then releases upgrades for both of her home mods.
(I have been using the manor because it is in Ald Ruhn and I joined house Redoran, though I use Abu's Retreat as a sort of rustic sanctuary)

Actually, I find there is a certain amusing irony in the concept of automation being sought after within the realm of a computer game's virtual D&D universe

I view the chest's sorting actions as magical in nature, myself.

Originally posted by fable
I view the chest's sorting actions as magical in nature, myself.

*grins* That is a far healthier way of looking at it I've just studied a little too much labour/working class history...