One of the things I like best about Morrowind is that there are different kind of merchants like Alchemists who sell potions and alchemy equipment, Blacksmiths who sell armor and weapons, Clothiers who sell clothes and shoes, Taverns who sell food and drink, and how every merchant would only buy items he specializes in, and would say "I don't buy that item" if you tried to sell shoes in a tavern for example (except the Pawnbrokers who would buy anything). But in Oblivion, it seems to me that every merchant would buy anything from you, no matter the type. You could pick flowers and sell it to a blacksmith and still get his gold for it. This system, I think, was ridiculous. Morrowind's system was miles better, challenging and realistic. I don't remember the barter system in Fallout 3 and NV, but I really hope the one in Skyrim is more like Morrowind's.

I assume so, they had shops for certain things in Oblivion too, and it would be kind of silly for everyone to buy everything.

Yes but every shop would buy every item which made different shops pointless when it comes to selling items.

I wouldn't mind if every shop would buy every item - as long as the ones who did not specialize in what you were selling would give you markedly less. Put it somewhere in the instruction book, have it mentioned once or twice, but otherwise, let it be. The forums will flood with people saying merchants are ripping them off... muhahaha...

If they had a real world economy, they should buy/sell based on supply and demand. Like the woodcutter will buy axes and consume the axe to produce.... eh.... wood.... for the fletcher who will then cosume wood and iron arrow tips to produce iron arrows. Maids can consume brooms and produce sweeping actions. Anyway, prices could reflect the shortage/abundance of raw materials the merchant has.

Actually, merchants would not buy just any item in Oblivion. Only general goods shops and fences bought everything, and usually at bad exchange prices. Try selling armour to an alchemist in the Market District!

They did refuse certain things in Oblivion. In Fallout, it's a different story, not much is being made, it's all scavenged so no one will turn any chance to trade down. What would be nice is, in a stable economy, a smaller range of things is bought by the merchants, for a fair price. Start damaging the economy, as less gets produced, you get a lower return from the local merchants, their prices are higher and they have less gold, but they will trade a wider range of items, looking for any way to make a profit.

One of things I would hope for is that the game doesn't place the "value" of the item on the screen. This should be unknown to the player. If you found an old shield in a cave in the woods, you wouldn't omnipotently know how much someone would pay for it. Most merchants might not want it. Some who don't deal with shields directly but might trade with a blacksmith regularly might offer you a small bit of coin for it. The blacksmith who might be able to repair it might offer you more, but YOU shouldn't know if you are getting a good deal or not. There is not price tag stuck to every item in the real world that tells you its 'value'. The value of anything is what someone is willing to pay for it. This would force us as players to shop around for the best prices to sell our loot.

This would solve a LOT of the problem of having huge amounts of gold by the time we hit level 10 and more than entire kingdoms by the end of the game.

That's what I thought. Did you have to get your mercantile skill up before you could sell to anyone, or am I imagining that?

I don't remember being able to sell anything to anyone in Oblivion. If the merchant wouldn't buy it, it wouldn't show up in your list of items to sell to them.

Yep it was the journyman level perk. I wouldn't mind if a perk did the same thing in skyrim either.