The thing is, would a Greybeard really just "sell" such an item to the highest bidder? I imagine that's the kind of thing that get passed on to you for being "worthy" of bearing such an object.

And even if it was buried in a tomb and found by a thief, either he would not realize the value and let it go for maybe a couple thousand gold, or he would recognize the power and use it himself to become rich. Anyone who could afford it, wouldn't need it.

What's really needed is less gold. If you only got 25 gold for finishing a quest rather than 50, you'd have to spend a lot more wisely.

That doesn't solve the problem. All you've done is replaced one problem with another. Now no one can afford anything.

But don't you agree about the end game sale items? There's nothing worse for your motivation than to buy the most expensive item in a game.

That woulld really muck up the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. Moreso the former, as it would eliminate the beggers, who you bribed information from.

Some recent threads about gold seem to focus on the lower end where people feel gold is too greedily horded by the Oblivion engine and players felt poor until they got very high level, when they were too rich. I agreed. I hated low-level treasure and money because there essentially wasn't any, more the most part. I didn't feel enough sense of reward... some people don't feel good just helping others, I guess I'm greedy, but I want to stumble into a treasure trove from time to time and feel wealthy in game. I hate being poor. That's my real life. I want to spend money in a video game. We spend enough to BUY the game, but then are poor inside of it? How is that cool?

The reason money is so jealousy gaurded in Oblivion is because you can become rich at higher levels and then the game is broken. They sought to avoid that by making it harder to get throughout their system.

I think some new ideas about how to make the player be required to spend more money contributing to the world (you are the hero after all) need to be thought of and brought forward. Here are few of mine.

1. Guild Dues at higher levels should become pretty serious. But you should be able to learn or do something special for that responsibility too.
2. If you get a girlfriend and start a family in the game, you need to provde a house and the supplies to feed and maintain them. You should leave extra money in their account for when you won't be coming home for a while. They will draw out a percentage each week to spend, plus 20-50% more each week for random unpredicted problems occuring that require money (little Dovakhiin broke his arm, and had to go to the doctor...etc)
3. You can help to build a small town into a bigger town and help create a new economy, trade routes, and help establish /locate a unique product/mineral that gives that town a unique economical boon. You need to contribute some money each month toward establishing that.
4. You can go around to each village and pay them a little money to help build their infrastructure and keep their poor off the streets to reduce crime. If your money is successfully used to reduce crime (theiving or murdering for food etc...) then you earn some kind of a cool reward in game that makes you more powerful somehow.
5. Maybe you need to pay people to upgrade your home into a mansion, with greater and greater appearance, stonework, chandaliers, and all the good stuff ... statues, paintings, etc ... all at great cost.
6. Maybe you need to support your guild by buying whatever new rising star has joined the Guild a new set of armour. It's like a tradition. Someone also bought you one in the early levels of the game. Now it's your turn to give back. How much you donate to the armour, how cool it is, helps establish if you area greedy lord or a generous lord, and how much other people around Skyrim will help you in return (for free) because of that.

Those are only a few of my ideas, I'll write more later after work. Let me know some of yours in the meantime. How can we allow Bethesda to give us more money in the early levels and not worry about making us too rich to break the game?

What are your suggestions?

Personally, I've never had any problem with ending up with lots of gold and nothing to spend it on, in the "late game" of an open-ended game.

Yeah, I've seen threads like this - "I need more things to spend my gold/caps/credits on!" - before in other game forums (OB, FO3, etc), but I've never really followed the arguments. Sorry. :shrug:

But that's just me.


(Scarcity always seems like an "early game" challenge - getting set up and self-sufficient. Once you've become powerful and successful..... ok, you've got a bunch of gold / gear / property. That's fine, whatever.... I've got more important things to deal with at that point.)

That doesn't solve the problem. All you've done is replaced one problem with another. Now no one can afford anything.




Tax in a video game? That would be promptly modded out.

Not really, because if you have to pay rent in a video game, its probably because the game is built around those rules; therefore, its part of the game logic and structure to look for means to keep your house. I actually made that explicit in my post. Guess reading and interpretation are not skills people develop here.

No I read it, it's just stupid, regardless of what you call it.

Some recent threads about gold seem to focus on the lower end where people feel gold is too greedily horded by the Oblivion engine and players felt poor until they got very high level, when they were too rich. I agreed. I hated low-level treasure and money because there essentially wasn't any, more the most part. I didn't feel enough sense of reward... some people don't feel good just helping others, I guess I'm greedy, but I want to stumble into a treasure trove from time to time and feel wealthy in game. I hate being poor. That's my real life. I want to spend money in a video game. We spend enough to BUY the game, but then are poor inside of it? How is that cool?

The reason money is so jealousy gaurded in Oblivion is because you can become rich at higher levels and then the game is broken. They sought to avoid that by making it harder to get throughout their system.

I think some new ideas about how to make the player be required to spend more money contributing to the world (you are the hero after all) need to be thought of and brought forward. Here are few of mine.

1. Guild Dues at higher levels should become pretty serious. But you should be able to learn or do something special for that responsibility too.
2. If you get a girlfriend and start a family in the game, you need to provde a house and the supplies to feed and maintain them. You should leave extra money in their account for when you won't be coming home for a while. They will draw out a percentage each week to spend, plus 20-50% more each week for random unpredicted problems occuring that require money (little Dovakhiin broke his arm, and had to go to the doctor...etc)
3. You can help to build a small town into a bigger town and help create a new economy, trade routes, and help establish /locate a unique product/mineral that gives that town a unique economical boon. You need to contribute some money each month toward establishing that.
4. You can go around to each village and pay them a little money to help build their infrastructure and keep their poor off the streets to reduce crime. If your money is successfully used to reduce crime (theiving or murdering for food etc...) then you earn some kind of a cool reward in game that makes you more powerful somehow.
5. Maybe you need to pay people to upgrade your home into a mansion, with greater and greater appearance, stonework, chandaliers, and all the good stuff ... statues, paintings, etc ... all at great cost.
6. Maybe you need to support your guild by buying whatever new rising star has joined the Guild a new set of armour. It's like a tradition. Someone also bought you one in the early levels of the game. Now it's your turn to give back. How much you donate to the armour, how cool it is, helps establish if you area greedy lord or a generous lord, and how much other people around Skyrim will help you in return (for free) because of that.

Those are only a few of my ideas, I'll write more later after work. Let me know some of yours in the meantime. How can we allow Bethesda to give us more money in the early levels and not worry about making us too rich to break the game?

What are your suggestions?

Im not "calling" it anything. And its not stupid, you simply didnt understand it cause you dont know how to read, or interpret the semantic differences between comas and periods (as I was giving examples and not categorically saying this ONE thing was what was needed). Now, whose fault is that? Yours. The first step in solving your problems is admmitting you have them. Dont worry...we are here to give you support.

Forcing the player to pay gold for nothing in return (except for the continued use of something they already own) is stupid, not fun, and stupid.

Money sinks are fairly easy to design. Aye, ahve you seen the price of granite countertops lately?

Houses.. you can have everything from a hovel for 2k to a grand castle for millions. An obvious one for those who like houses and decorating. Me? I just like cabins, so that won't work. Adding repairs to it might help...hmm maybe a water heater and a sauna

Special knowledge.. like how to wear more enchanted rings or amulets.. or how to use more armor at the same time... taught by VERY demanding people...as in truely huge amounts of gold. yep. Why not make harder baddies who need better things to kill them with? Items, skills, etc. at higher cost for higher level.

The ability to buy weapons and armor for the civil war... Ah, support the military industrial complex! Complete with costly research, schmoozing and bribery!

The ability to buy perks outside the skill perks... basicaly special training or abilties you buy from certain very very greedy people.

Yiour own pet dragon.. that would HAVE to be spendy;/ Meh, just conjur something once in a while to feed it and build a hanger to keep it in. Well, then the establishment will start asking questions...and you have to buy them off...oh, and then the shots and vet bills as well! Remember folks, have your dragon spayed or neutered!

The ability to bribe goblin tribes or some such to go attack your enemies towns or cities. Eh, a few dozen lockpicks should do the trick

The ability to hire assasins to kill those you dont want anyone thinking you killed;/ But...but...I AM an assissin! Hmmm...but this could go back to adding political intrigue and decisions with consequences regarding the civil war...careful...now that's building a deep storyline!

Random thought... aren't "money sinks" a multiplayer thing? Something to keep the player-driven economy in persistant-world games from getting even more out of control than they already are? (i.e, how much of an actual need for them is there in a single-player game with a game-run economy?)

Random thought... aren't "money sinks" a multiplayer thing? Something to keep the player-driven economy in persistant-world games from getting even more out of control than they already are? (i.e, how much of an actual need for them is there in a single-player game with a game-run economy?)

(edit: and, especially in an open world game with many options, it varies incredibly by player. Most of my OB characters.... well, they repair their own armor, recharge their own magic items, and don't buy horses or houses. Unless the character is trying to NPC-train up a higher level skill - which I don't often do - by the time I have 5k-10k gold, I'll never need gold again. Once you hit mid-game, all you do in shops anymore is sell, unless a quest needs a store-sold item. Everything you use, you salvage off enemies or out of dungeons. ...check that, I do need to buy Repair Hammers. But that's it.)


another thought... the "realism" of the ES games' loot system (the fact that enemies have all their gear available to take, unlike your average "kill a dude, he drops one item" game, means that there's so much loot out there that you'll quickly be overwhelmed with it. Makes "balancing" the economy another step more difficult.