The economy in Oblivion

[William Bobo]

I hope the economy in Oblivion is more advanced than that in MW.

I don't know if there are mods to modify the economic system but MW could certainly use one. I DO like the fact they finally figured out that every vendor might not have unlimited cash ... it always seems silly to me, like in Everquest for example, that any old tinker-trader hanging about out in the wilderness can immediately cough up 10,000 platinum for an item you happen to have for sale.

Again the game would be a lot more fun if you really had to think to make money, just like in real life, rather than getting relatively rich in a few hours by collecting herbs or waspwings or whatever.
Also, as someone else pointed out, items should not just be limitless so that when you buy one another immediately appears for sale. What should happen is that the more you buy the higher the price goes, and equally the more of an item you sell the lower the price goes - supply and demand.

Also, you should not be able to sell anything to anyone. Again MW had a go at dealing with this, but it wasn't as refined as it could have been.

It also seems to me that items should have a geographic/class/guild value. For example, if I have a particularly nice poisoned dagger, which should be illegal, it might be worth a lot more to a thief than a regular vendor, although there might be some risks involved in trying to find the thief to buy it in the first place. Indeed there should be a risk involved in trying to sell an illegal item to a regular vendor in the first place.

Again MW had a go with this by allowing higher or lower prices depending upon how favorably the vendor viewed you. I really hope they expand this in O.

I realize I am in the minority on all this because most people probably prefer to get as much money as fast as possible to buy better equipment. I just think that RPG's that have a more interesting economy are so much more fun to play than just nuking monsters.

[fable]

Actually, I think you're going to find a fair amount of people who agree with you about MW. There have even been mods recently that try to recreate a genuine economy in the game, including a regular turnover of supplies, far less money, and no cash for filled soulgems.

Oblivion probably will solve some of the problems. But then, it's also geared, as MW was, at the broadest possible market, which means including kiddies who just want the biggest weapon possible for next to no effort. We'll just have to see.

[REal953]

I have found in MW that items are either worth thousands or like five gold. I hope they have more things that are worth about the same.

[Vicsun]

[QUOTE=REal953]I have found in MW that ideams are either worth thousands or like five.[/QUOTE]
What has this got to do with anything and what the Christ is an ideam?

[quote="William Bobo]<stuff about money>[/quote"]
I can see where you're coming from but I don't agree wholeheartedly The first thing that struck me was your idea that selling a lot of an item should lower its price. This has been implemented in several games (including Morrowind if I remember correctly), but neither has a strong basis in reality nor does it contribute to gameplay. It's quite unlikely that a single person will be able to flood the market, or make any impact on any price for that matter unless the person was selling (or buying) in bulk to every seller in a very broad vicinity. Even if I go to a supermarket and buy out all their beef, it's quite unlikely they'll raise their price the next day; that's not how supply and demand works.

Now that I'm done with my specific criticism, I'm going to go ahead and criticize the very basis of your idea.
While I'm all for using your head to earn money and kickass equipment being genuinely hard to get ahold of, limiting the supplies of gold that merchants carry, while realistic, will quickly become an annoyance forcing the player to waste precious time that could be spent on smiting mythical creatures, making him run from merchant to merchant instead. The allure of realism will eventually evaporate and be replaced with a nagging feeling of annoyance. This goes double for the idea of 'you can't sell just anything to anyone'.

I do however like the idea of different merchants buying different items at different prices, as long as it's crystal clear who would want what. I'm sure someone selling potions will accept that magical sword if you offer him a sweet enough deal. If you decided your time was worth it, though, you can go to the local blacksmith who'll take it out of your hands while actually offering a fair(er) price.

[William Bobo]

Actually supply and demand does in fact work quite as simply as that, although it is not noticeable in price fluctuations on relatively inexpensive items like the beef in your example. What happens, in a free economy anyway, is that more and more people get into the business as there is more demand for the item, which helps stabilize the price as well as create more grades of quality of the item.

I don't think it would be necessary to cause trading to be a chore for the player in order to get a more realistic economy. I think there could be more realistic markets, or even wandering traders who would "like to make you an offer" for a particular item you would like to sell. I think there should be shops that you would only be allowed into if properly dressed, just as in real life, so that as a low-level character would only have access to stuff he can buy on the street. My point is that it should not be easy to sell a jewelled sword to just any old fish vendor, and it might be worth the journey to find the buyer who would pay the highest price.
Again I think the relative illegality of items for sale with definite and substantial punishments attached would be highly exciting.

While a lot of people just want to kill monsters, and that’s just fine with me, I think it would not be hard to have an Options for say "Simple Economy" or "Realistic Economy". The fact that there is a class for Trader suggests the developers had already considered this an important factor in the player's immersion into the game, so why not build on that?

[RebelousDarkElf]

I think that the economy realisticness should go up as the difficulty is raised. The optional simple, realistic economy is less than likely, because even with all of the options of the Elder Scrolls, there haven't been past options like this case.