...Aksel is a woman? I thought it was a male name.

Anyway, I wish I could fire her/him. These one line mails are starting to annoy me. "Hello, I talked to mother, here are your ingredients." *** great, if this is all you have to say, why do you bother to write at all?

No offense to people of few words among us. It was just such a jarring change after Valinka, one of my favorite hirelings.

I, too, thought Aksel was male, not that it makes any difference as the emails are simply horrible. The complaining about Mother never stops and no stories of note have been communicated via the emails. I would have preferred a one line email stating "Here are your components."

There was a thread in this forum right after the new hirelings were introduced, where we all complained bitterly about the new ones. Ultimately, the response was:

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Hey, all. Eventually all worthy adventurers need to move on to the next great chapter. When you reach the end of the first set of hireling mails, your hirelings will pass their dutiful work on to their successors. Woodworkers can look forward to getting to know Margog the Hammer, while smiths will learn about the travels of Aksel Rockbiter.

That said, we really do love these characters and you may see them again one day.

Just remember: Pacrooti still loves you.

What I said back then and I still say is: while I'm thrilled that they thought to add more hireling flavor text, I'm completely dismayed at the way they did it. While I hadn't completed the enchanter hireling line, I had completed cloth/wood/blacksmith. While wood was stuck in a loop (just one of Pacrooti's regular emails, repeated), both blacksmith and clothier had interesting little stories that were at critical junctions. The final (repeated) emails implied continuation in the future. Instead, we got (completely out of the blue, as far as I could ever tell) a quick switch to a random new hireling.

It's not that I'm complaining about having new hireling text - I'm glad they added more. I just wish they'd done the logical thing and continued the pre-existing (and interesting) stories. Pacrooti's messages were always little vignettes - there was no reason to not just write more of them. Both Valinka and Firilanya had interesting stories that were "paused." From the dev comments, maybe we'll get back to them, if we're lucky.

That said, I imagined Aksel to be a male Nord with a slightly below-average IQ, who lives with his mother.

I lean towards male goblin, given the storyline,the high intellect, and the last name, of course.

I'm vaguely concerned that the character's character was modeled after some miscellaneous crazy I had come across earlier in zone chat...

Apparently he's married now,

Maotti_Nor wrote: »

Apparently he's married now,

Please don't be to his mother, please don't be to his mother...

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

I lean towards male goblin, given the storyline,the high intellect, and the last name, of course.

I'm going to rescind my "maybe a nord comment" and agree that I think he's a Goblin. He even makes a reference at one point to "building a new hut."

Raighan wrote: »

I remember the original Aksel Rockbiter from back on PTS around February time. He was an Argonian (I think) and his stories were wonderful and often funny. One time his mother had gone away for the weekend and he had friends over for a party. His mother was really angry when she came home and they had all been trying her clothes on hahah. There was a sad one where he wanted to come and live with me because his mother kept beating him and taking his money to buy clothes. One day he just disappeared around the end of Feb start of March.

I was sad when Aksel got replaced, and I am glad to hear he is back, although I have been away from the game for several months so I haven't seen what is going into the letters now and it doesn't sound like he is writing as much from what I have seen in this thread.

I thought he was a goblin, Rockbiter is the name of a goblin tribe from oblivion.

Pyatra wrote: »

Too early. I say give them time I'm sure several of the hirelings have some interesting things coming up. I say give it another week or two and we should start seeing several of them begin to shine.

Already liked the new vampire enchanter hireling for a while now. Veesk (clothing) is at least as good as her predecessor, and "The Hammer", while no Pacrooti, has been an interesting read. Aksel is still pretty light on substance, but the new girlfriend is at least a topic.

You still get the old ones if you start crafting on a new/different character. I have my main character running the original set of hirelings and my crafters running the new set. Something to keep in mind if you miss the old ones...

I also think Aksel is a goblin.

I agree with you all. The new hirelings are just lame period. I don't even waste time reading the mail anymore, just grab the materials and delete it.

Ha! Well, I want save Pacrooti from the crown crate syndicate first...

Almost four years. That's one hell of a necro.

Well, apart from Pacrooti providing the crates, the only other supplier I've seen reference to is the orc who communicated in all caps. I enjoyed all their stories but especially the Khajiit and the vampire girl. Wish these could start up again.