ah dear.. I knew that was a terrible example. Ok. Take away that example. The weapon was a daedric war axe, worth 30,000. NO merchant could buy that.

mmm there is a purpose for gold in Oblivion... you can buy all the services that you can perform yourself... The difference is, that it was cheaper and more convenient NOT to and make your own potions/repair your own equipment/charge your own equipment etc. (especially enchantment. That could really empty your pockets if you relied on NPCs for recharges)

I haven't played fall out, but I really wouldn't like the lack of freedom that that system would bring. Also: random hammers. If repair hammers are worth that much, you can make a FORTUNE by obtaining lots of Journeyman hammers and selling them off. It would fully break the economy even more. I like what you are saying, however.

@ Stromfalcon: The saying "worth it's weight in gold" is a SAYING. 100kg of sand is not worth 100kg of gold. It's an idiomatic expression, and is not meant to be taken literally.

The rest of what you said I agree with.

Basically guys, THIS is what the "medium of exchange" has to be

1. constant utility
2. low cost of preservation
3. transportability
4. divisibility
5. high market value in relation to volume and weight
6. recognizability
7. resistance to counterfeiting

I can't remember what numbers 1 and 2 actually mean. I think it means you can't use, for example, potatoes as a currency because they would be worthless when they went off. The rest are rather obvious. It needs to be transportable, dividable, have a high value per kg and have each kg relatively small, people need to accept it that it's worth what its' worth (2000 potatoes could buy a shack in the imperial city because they'd provide for a lot of meals for people that can't afford them, but in Bruma, for example, they can grow a lot of potatoes so they don't want more)

I reckon if gold had weight, that people would buy things that were worth more per kg and then have to resell them later in order to get the gold in order to buy a breadloaf. For example. That would be rather a lot of bother for a video game. The only true way to solve it is to have every player decide his own medium of exchange through a barter system (e.g. I collect lots of gold nuggets to store value of gold, someone else uses daedric daggers, someone else uses potatoes) and implement it into the game so that you can trade an NPC 2000 potatoes for a shack, or 1 daedric dagger for their entire inventory and most of their gold. (I'm using Morrowind AND Oblivion values there, just to be confusing. Sorry about that)

You know what I wanna see? I wanna see fingers and ears for currency again Maybe the head of criminals could earn you 500 gold or something as a dailyquest. id like to see even seeds as currency for the poor

The copper, silver, gold system works... if the game automatically converts coins to higher denominations as you collect them and reduces the denomination as you dispense them. That way you will never have a heck of a lot of weight on until later in the game and you could carry what you need for all practical purposes. If you wanted to make a large investment a character would have to empty its inventory of clutter and I think that sounds reasonable.

In Fallout NV, having merchants repair gear was expensive, but it was quite feasible to find enough material to repair gear yourself if you did not mind stashing it in your house and venturing back home to do so. You would pay a premium for convenience, which for people with not a lot of time on their hands is good, and it rewards those who want to take the effort to stockpile supplies and use them instead of selling to merchants for a loss.

EDIT: In Fallout you repair gear with other similar pieces of gear... so you would need high quality armor stockpiled to use for repairing your awesome threads.