My completely
uninformed guess...?
Bethesda Middle Management: "Hey. What's with the reports of horrible performance degradation with any type of mod that edits NPCs?"
Speaker of the Devs: "Oh, yeah, if you read our notes from next-gen update pre-alpha testing, [pulls up notes on phone] and I quote, it be that way sometimes."
Bethesda Middle Management: "This is completely unacceptable! Who approved this?!"
Speaker of the Devs: [shows phone to BMM who visibly winces]
BMM: "Can it be fixed?"
SotD: [leaning back in his chair, doing his best to hold back a wry smile] "Engine performance / optimization was Steve's baby."
BMM: Steve?! But he was let go 3 years ago!!
SotD: "Well, he did leave this." [SotD blows the dust off the top of a can and hands it to BMM]
BMM: "What's this? Lumbricus terrestr... something"
As the can is opened (via its convenient pull-tab top) a collective gasp is released from every current and former Bethesda dev, no matter their location.
BMM: [scrunching up his nose as he looks in the can with utter disgust] “I have no idea what this is. Just...just fix it!”
BMM tosses the can on SotD’s desk and stomps off. SotD gives a faint sigh of indignation as he falls back in his chair, defeated. Suddenly, his code begins to rapidly disappear off the top of his screen as one of the little guys reaches the edge of his keyboard.
To be continued...