If I recall correctly, I heard a term (probably coined by Wrye... or was it Toaster referring to Megaton in FO3?)... "Balmora Syndrome", a habit of just tossing in some new weapon/armor/apparel/whatever into a crate in Balmora, since that was the first big city you encounter in Morrowind.

In Skyrim now, we have Whiterun as the first major hold seat city, and I am foreseeing that Whiterun may succumb to Balmora Syndrome.

So, as a future admonishment... Consider a more crafty, better-integrated way of providing whatever new item you have instead of just tossing it into Balmora Whiterun.

And as an aside.... Riverwood = Seyda Neen anolog, using the Whiterun = Balmora comparison?

Wise words, though for those who came onboard with Oblivion, it'd be "Imperial City" instead - practically every armor / weapon / clothing / etc. mod either threw down a crate somewhere in the city or added their wares to one of the sellers in the Merch district ("The Best Defense," in particular).

Note: there's really no Seyda Neen anolog in Oblivion, as it already drops you on the IC's doorstep.

Yeah always best to find somewhere that maybe no one else will have thought of for a mod, not only is it a bit dull if all companions, items, weapons etc are in one or two places but of course it is the most sure way of creating conflicts and crashes if people place stuff in the same locations

I was pretty blown away when I saw Dragon Age 2 doing this with their official item pack DLCs - just throwing it all in a bunch of chests in the player's starting home.

ugh, i hate that! i'd have like 250 mods (back in the old days, with 5 fps) and half of them would clutter seyda/balmora with chest full of mod loot.
ever since then i made my own little interiors with all the loot i wanted in my game, and just teleported there every time.

Hehe, indeed. I want to say "shows no creativity," but if someone takes the time to create said items, obviously that's not true - the creativity is there.
So folks, don't be lazy - if you're gonna take the time to craft something wonderful and amazing, show it some love and put some thought into where you stash it.

If the crafting system is anything like the FO3 and FNV system (As it appears), then it will be easy to simply make the mod item(s) a recipe with a cost of a few thousand gold coins at the nearest workbench/forge/tanning rack/etc.

Sometimes I prefer the items I get mods in to just be packed away nicely, though. Although I don't disagree that integrating them in a more subtle fashion would be nice.

Well, it's a different sort. They have the creativity in the creation of the texture/model/etc. Usually not so much a quest to go along with it, and well most folks just want something they can download and wear 'out of box'. I do feel it was worse with Oblivion than in Morrowind though. Morrowind had the benefit of it's console letting you create items easily from their item name, so you had a few mods that simply existing of an item with an itemcode.

yeah I'm looking forward to placing it in one of the treasure chests that can be found with the help of maps dropped off of Bandits. Its like a miniquest for the item has already been premade for me lol. But yeah this is a solid point, my least favorite mods are the ones that drop a unique item in a random container near the start of the game. One of the best ideas I've seen was for a suit of armor, it was a unique model and texture and looked really great. They had certain pieces that were less powerful than others and put those in the beginning portions of a dungeon, then once you felt you were strong enough to attempt the upper levels you had a shot at picking up the rest of the armor. That evoked the feeling of hunting down the last pauldron for an armor set in MW and hope that some modders can emulate that again.

I suspect that's why BioWare designed the player homes in DA2 the way they did, because they planned to place DLC items in the homes.

There are plenty of modders who place their nice new shiny items in original locations, only to end up getting multiple requests to move them to Seyda/Balmora/Imperial City/Megaton/Goodsprings instead! So it's no surprise that many modders simply give up on being creative when it comes to placement in the game world.

That's the point where you tell them to sod off and stop being lazy.

I think it's less laziness and more Endorsemant-fishing. The sooner someone gets their mitts on the modded work, the more likely the person will give the all-mighty endorsemant.

But who's being lazy? The modder who refuses to place the item in Seyda/Balmora/Imperial City/Megaton/Goodsprings, the modder who places the item in Seyda/Balmora/Imperial City/Megaton/Goodsprings in response to user requests/demands, the user who complains about the item placement not being in Seyda/Balmora/Imperial City/Megaton/Goodsprings and requests/demands the modder move the item or the user who can't be bothered to open the mod in the Editor and move the item themselves? However you look at it, there's probably an element of laziness in each!

maybe they should just make a forum sticky on how to properly implement new stuff...

adding to levelled lists via an ending quest script proofed to be totally great for me in fallout, you dont conflict with other mods that mod the same levelled list (unless theyre loaded after yours and dont use that method but just ignorantly replace that levelled list with theirs), the items becomes a natural part of the world and you can play with the trolls who ask like every second comment where the chest with your new item is

but there are soooo many ways...

make a shrine that requires offerings
give it to some hardass boss type enemy
have the player solve riddles
add it to npcs
let the player craft it
creating a new merchant who sells all your stuff has become quite easy too since NV id say...
and so on...
putting it in a chest btw is somin we can even do without a CS/GECK... just needs a hex editor (see the very first fallout 3 mods)

This.

If someone doesn't like where I might place an item, they're free to not use the mod it's in. Simple.

Which loops right back to the OP, if you don't like where a modder has placed an item (where ever that may be), you're free to simply not use the mod!

Stop being obtuse. Why is the original modder being lazy by telling people they're not going to put things somewhere else just for their convenience? As you yourself said, they can just stop using the mod.

Let's face it--if the pictures of whatever is in the mod looks cool enough, a player will go through the necessary hoops to find it. I get putting things in a chest someplace easy to find to test whatever you created, take screenshots, whatever, but from a play standpoint it's far more fun if you feel like you earned whatever unique/powerful/pretty new items that have been created.

Then again, I also made myself jump through the hoops in Oblivion to get through Kvatch to Cloud Ruler Temple before accessing my goodie-crate with medium-leveled bows and armor--if you dont have to work at least a little, you dont really value the effort put into the mod itself.

Since crafting has been introduced in a fairly well-thought-out form, I could also see having to buy a recipe to be able to make it (if no one else beats me to it, I plan to do this for arrows)....there are so many new options for introducing gear, power or otherwise now that I think we should take advantage of.

I've been using the College room I get for joining the guild to store stuff. Before that, it was Riverwood in the house the stormcloak guy and his sister lets you use. No real place to sell stuff at the college (except for magic items and such), but that's not that big of a deal. The only problem is how far I have to travel (usually white run) to sell everything I have. All the other towns seem to be lacking in stores... but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. At any rate; at first glance, all the other towns I've been to just didn't have all the options white run had, which is really weird.

Way to go to take my comment totally out of context, completely misunderstand what I was saying and try to put words in my mouth! I never actually said anyone was being lazy, that comment was "there's probably an element of laziness", key word there being PROBABLY. I guess in hindsight instead of "However you look at it, there's probably an element of laziness in each!" I should have been clearer and more concise by saying something along the lines of "Depending on an individual's point of view there's probably an element of laziness in each!".

The topic of this thread just boils down to being a complaint about how some modders keep placing items in Seyda/Balmora/Imperial City/Megaton/Goodsprings and my "if you don't like where a modder has placed an item (where ever that may be), you're free to simply not use the mod!" is valid for anyone. If you really must use the mod and the item placement bothers you that much then just open it in the editor and move things yourself, that way you can put things anywhere you want!

Is that clear enough for you to understand?

the problem is not a chest or the uncreativeness of some, the problem is that some modders dont know how or dont care to place stuff conflict free... and thats annoying and to be tributed to the modder, the user wont realize that until he tries the mod and screws up his save games

My question is.. With the new AI and such.. I've seen the NPC's loot the corpses they kill, take loot from the ground etc. So if they put it in an unlocked chest. Wouldn't any NPC just waltz up and take the goods from the chest?

Personally I like the quest driven item adders like the Pre-order DLC packs for Fallout NV used if all one is doing is adding is a few items.
Just drops the stuff into the player's pack, or other container without conflicting.

If a modder makes a new item and places it in a conflicting area I usually pop open TESEDIT and delete the cell entry and add it where I want it to be, or delete the cell entry completely and console add the item to myself.