The many deaths of Nolus Cedus

matterandstuff

I can't share the screenshot, but Nolus Cedus is dead again, immediately after his body from the last time despawned.

There was a thread about Tamriel's most annoying NPC a while ago in which someone from ZOS promised to move him away from the Leyawiin writ drop boxes, so every Leyawiin crafter doesn't have to hear the whiniest man in Tamriel whinging about how boring his life when they're just trying to hand in their writs.

Although I appreciate the impromptu Leyawiin crafter tradition of Blade of Woe-ing him almost immediately soon as he respawns after the last time, it would be really nice if he actually did get moved so the crafters of Leyawiin could just, like, hand in our writs in peace.

_Zathras_

That's mean.

If only Stuga could be BoW'd.

"Do you know how long I've been l.." (stabbing sounds) THUMP

Destai

I just don’t get how anyone thought it was acceptable in the first place. Hopefully it’s not like this with the next expansion.

opaj

ZOS has stated that they're aware of him and that he will be moved in a future update--probably the Q1 DLC. That said, I think it's nice that we've come together as a community when it comes to putting a knife in this man's back.

SeaGtGruff

[snip]

If it isn't getting blocked by some NPC walking around, it's getting caught on the shafts of a cart, or getting stuck on a small object on the ground while fighting a boss, etc.

Things like that can be maddening, but they add a need to become familiar with our surroundings and pay attention to things we must navigate around as we're coming and going.

Sure, it would be nice to be able to just walk through everything and make a beeline to wherever we're going, but where's the fun (or realism) in that?

[edited for bashing]

matterandstuff

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

[snip]

If it isn't getting blocked by some NPC walking around, it's getting caught on the shafts of a cart, or getting stuck on a small object on the ground while fighting a boss, etc.

Things like that can be maddening, but they add a need to become familiar with our surroundings and pay attention to things we must navigate around as we're coming and going.

Sure, it would be nice to be able to just walk through everything and make a beeline to wherever we're going, but where's the fun (or realism) in that?

I'm not sure I associate "realism" with Nolus walking over a pile of his own undespawned corpses from being repeatedly stabbed to death.

[edited to remove quote]

matterandstuff

opaj wrote: »

ZOS has stated that they're aware of him and that he will be moved in a future update--probably the Q1 DLC. That said, I think it's nice that we've come together as a community when it comes to putting a knife in this man's back.

They didn't give a timeframe for that, though, and I'm just hoping it winds up being sooner rather than later/not forgotten amidst the more game-shattering problems.

Juomuuri

Personally, what I find annoying about this NPC is that he walks right infront of me and prevents me from returning the writs, forcing me to move around to be able to interact. I don't care what he says, just would prefer if he wasn't getting in my way every. Single. Time. (In case no one has killed him.)

SeaGtGruff

PullaStormy wrote: »

Personally, what I find annoying about this NPC is that he walks right infront of me and prevents me from returning the writs, forcing me to move around to be able to interact. I don't care what he says, just would prefer if he wasn't getting in my way every. Single. Time. (In case no one has killed him.)

He isn't that difficult to avoid, if you're watching out for him. Annoying? Yes*. Impossible to deal with? No.

[*And, I would argue, intentionally so. But not maliciously so.]

SeaGtGruff

matterandstuff wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

[snip]

If it isn't getting blocked by some NPC walking around, it's getting caught on the shafts of a cart, or getting stuck on a small object on the ground while fighting a boss, etc.

Things like that can be maddening, but they add a need to become familiar with our surroundings and pay attention to things we must navigate around as we're coming and going.

Sure, it would be nice to be able to just walk through everything and make a beeline to wherever we're going, but where's the fun (or realism) in that?

I'm not sure I associate "realism" with Nolus walking over a pile of his own undespawned corpses from being repeatedly stabbed to death.

My reference to realism wasn't related to players repeatedly killing NPCs and leaving their corpses unlooted so they take longer to despawn and pile up. Which, by the way, is something players have been doing for years, longer than Nolus has been around. On my first visit to Vivec City back in 2017, I was dumbfounded at the sight of poor Gilustulm sawing wood at the base of Saint Delyn Penthouse, by the bridge to the Temple Canton, standing amidst half a dozen of his own corpses. And it didn't get any better after that, because every so often a player decides to go on a killing spree in Daggerfall, or Skywatch, or some other populous city, and repeatedly kill the same NPCs until the city streets are littered with corpses. If that interferes with your immersion, go complain to the players who are doing that.

No, my reference was to game design overall. How would you like a game where the map is just a huge plane, with no hills or valleys, just flat land stretching in all directions, and with no obstacles of any kind-- no trees, no buildings, no rocks, nothing you need to navigate around as you go from point A to point B, and no NPCs or mobs to block your path and annoy you. That would be grand, wouldn't it? Pick up a quest at point A, then go run straight to point B to turn it in. Easy as pie. And really, really boring. Such a game would fail big time. So game designers give us mazes to run through, and streets and buildings to navigate through, and hills and valleys and mountains and rivers and lakes and oceans. Our destination might be right over there, not even 30 feet away, yet to reach it we might need to find our way around a whole series of obstacles which prevent us from simply walking over there.

Nolus is there, in my opinion, as just one of the potential obstacles that we need to deal with. Same with the shafts of that cart between the blacksmithing and woodworking stations, which are just waiting to catch you and drive you bonkers because you weren't careful enough to avoid them.

It amazes me that players can demand more difficult overland content, and can boast about completing some vet content on hard mode in a deathless speed run, etc.-- yet give them an easy-to-avoid NPC walking around the crafting writ crates and they lose their ever-loving minds.

[edited to remove quote]

whitecrow

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

[snip]

If it isn't getting blocked by some NPC walking around, it's getting caught on the shafts of a cart, or getting stuck on a small object on the ground while fighting a boss, etc.

There's a small shrubbery at Hailstone Valley ritual site that always gets me.

[edited to remove quote]

matterandstuff

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

No, my reference was to game design overall. How would you like a game where the map is just a huge plane, with no hills or valleys, just flat land stretching in all directions, and with no obstacles of any kind-- no trees, no buildings, no rocks, nothing you need to navigate around as you go from point A to point B, and no NPCs or mobs to block your path and annoy you. That would be grand, wouldn't it? Pick up a quest at point A, then go run straight to point B to turn it in. Easy as pie. And really, really boring. Such a game would fail big time. So game designers give us mazes to run through, and streets and buildings to navigate through, and hills and valleys and mountains and rivers and lakes and oceans. Our destination might be right over there, not even 30 feet away, yet to reach it we might need to find our way around a whole series of obstacles which prevent us from simply walking over there.

That just sounds like the bad kind of tedious to me. There's a big difference between "streets and buildings...and hills and valleys and mountains and rivers and lakes and oceans" and just putting things in there to be annoying for the hell of it.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Nolus is there, in my opinion, as just one of the potential obstacles that we need to deal with. Same with the shafts of that cart between the blacksmithing and woodworking stations, which are just waiting to catch you and drive you bonkers because you weren't careful enough to avoid them.

It amazes me that players can demand more difficult overland content, and can boast about completing some vet content on hard mode in a deathless speed run, etc.-- yet give them an easy-to-avoid NPC walking around the crafting writ crates and they lose their ever-loving minds.

The shafts of that cart don't interrupt me and pop up on my screen whinging about their life, which is distinctly preferable.

Hotdog_23

Stopped using Blackwood for crafting, Fixed my problem with ZOS trolling us with Nolus Cedus.

Stay safe and Happy Holidays

SeaGtGruff

matterandstuff wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

No, my reference was to game design overall. How would you like a game where the map is just a huge plane, with no hills or valleys, just flat land stretching in all directions, and with no obstacles of any kind-- no trees, no buildings, no rocks, nothing you need to navigate around as you go from point A to point B, and no NPCs or mobs to block your path and annoy you. That would be grand, wouldn't it? Pick up a quest at point A, then go run straight to point B to turn it in. Easy as pie. And really, really boring. Such a game would fail big time. So game designers give us mazes to run through, and streets and buildings to navigate through, and hills and valleys and mountains and rivers and lakes and oceans. Our destination might be right over there, not even 30 feet away, yet to reach it we might need to find our way around a whole series of obstacles which prevent us from simply walking over there.

That just sounds like the bad kind of tedious to me. There's a big difference between "streets and buildings...and hills and valleys and mountains and rivers and lakes and oceans" and just putting things in there to be annoying for the hell of it.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Nolus is there, in my opinion, as just one of the potential obstacles that we need to deal with. Same with the shafts of that cart between the blacksmithing and woodworking stations, which are just waiting to catch you and drive you bonkers because you weren't careful enough to avoid them.

It amazes me that players can demand more difficult overland content, and can boast about completing some vet content on hard mode in a deathless speed run, etc.-- yet give them an easy-to-avoid NPC walking around the crafting writ crates and they lose their ever-loving minds.

The shafts of that cart don't interrupt me and pop up on my screen whinging about their life, which is distinctly preferable.

My point is that we humans are quirky in how we react to things. We will tackle big, difficult problems and keep at them until we overcome them, but then we will go ballistic over little things that annoy us. I'm human; I do it, too. I'm not putting anyone down for how they react to Nolus, or to getting caught by the shafts of a cart. There's a certain type of twiggy bush in Western Skyrim that's as impervious as a rock; you can't walk through it the way you can with a lot of other foliage, and whenever I run into one by accident and get stopped by it I want to scream.

But sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. I mean, it really isn't that difficult to keep an eye out for Nolus and avoid him. Yet when I was crafting in Leyawiin, sooner or later I would end up interacting with him when I hadn't wanted to. That-- and the cart-- was part of why I moved all of my characters back to Vivec City for their daily crafting writs, although the main reason was because the banking kiosk is more immediately accessible than the bank in Leyawiin.