You all remember fences from Oblivion. In order to sell anything you've stolen, you had to do it through fences.

It was done that way because the easiest way to get rich quick in Morrowind was to steal every fork and spoon and then just sell it to all the traders in the world. When a trader would run out of money, move to the next one.

Fences "balanced" theivery so it wasn't so easy to get-rich-quick but made it a big pain in the ass to do, PLUS broke the 4th wall (how would anyone know I stole this fork?). Plus once you realized you could just FT to the fences, suddenly it was easier to get rich in Oblivion than it ever was in Morrowind.

So how could skyrim get rid of that 4th wall breaking, but still not be as unbalanced as Morrowind?.....




In Skyrim they need to make it so vendors will flat out not buy certain goods more often, or only buy if in certain conditions.

Such as, if they have lots of money or any money and you have a rare item, they'll almost always want to buy.

If they are poor and you try and sell them a common item, even if they are a vendor that sells what you are selling them, they should decline. If you try and sell them a common item at all there should be a much less likely chance they'll offer to buy it even if they are wealthy. ESPECIALLY if they already have that in stock.

So theives would have to play smart. Steal things of value, and steal diversely. Don't steal too much in one town because then people will be too poor to want to comfortably buy your goods. If you steal too many common items no one will want your stuff unless they have money and are low on said commodity (like food, plates, etc). If you rob a town blind then no one will want to buy as they'll be too poor.

They could also make it so some vendors only buy in certain days. Like a pottery shop owner will only buy in mundas or something.

They could still have fences, for those REALLY valuable items that you want to get a good buck out of. Or for illegal items. And they'll buy anything, but they shouldn't be common... i.e. have a fence only appear at a certain meeting spot at a certain time of day to do business.

And how about they tie it into the Radiant Story? Make it so one doesn't show up in town unless they feel like they can get good business there. So unless you have a history of skillful theiving or have direct connects to the theives guild, a fence might not even appear in the town you are in.

OR you can sell it to any vendor that isnt tied to the guy you stole it from

Emcumbrances really would make or break the thieving role in TES - most theives are not able to carry anything more than a robe to get around quietly - limit the weight limit; once it is gone over you make lots of noise and are easier to see

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1172874-wha-hey-thats-my-hat/

I discussed the ability to disguise objects so that they become unrecognizable, such as dying robes or enchanting items. I also discussed putting the original owner's name in the name of the object or in a tooltip when you hover the mouse over the item.

This could even be something else that the stealth skill effects. Maybe disguising certain rarities of items would require the player have a high enough Stealth skill?

Probably Merchantile (or Speechcraft. Whatever)

Stealth to steal, and mercantile/speechcraft to fence hot goods to vendors without getting caught. Otherwise, head to the fence, abet at a lower profit, but an almost guaranteed sell. Items that are extremely hot would require a speech/merc check with fences, and almost, if not, impossible for vendors. Also, if you try to sell what you stole from a merchant to that same merchant will instantly have the merchant call you out as a thief, and the guards come in. Same with normal vendors, unless the speech/merc check is passed. Difference between the two is it's impossible to sell what you stole from the same merchant, while other merchants you can lie.

So, if you stole the sacred jewel of Shor, it'd be really hard, if not impossible, to sell to a normal vendor, while a fence will take it, but it'll be at a smaller price and a medium merc/speech check. But, if you stole some silverware, the fence will take it without question, while the vendors may require a very low speech/merc check for the most honest merchant.

I actually thought the Fencing system was a good one. Sure, it broke the fourth wall and it's not very realistic. But, without a proper way to prevent those things, the devs need to forego realism in favor of "gameplay experience".

It'll be interesting to see what they've done with regards to the "Alerted" state, for instance. I think, if they make that a prominent part of shops and homes, and make the houses seamless with the outside world (which it look slike they've done in some cases), then at least we got a major improvement from Oblivion - which is all that we can expect, really.

I think if you steal something particularly valuable, the owner could contact the guards and have them keep a look out for it or hang up fliers stating that it was stolen, it would make it a bit harder to fence then, especially if you stole the equivalent of the hope diamond or a different important item that everyone in Skyrim is going to be looking out for.

Also, TG missions where you steal items SPECIFICALLY for high end buyers would be nice, just get paid directly from your quest source. I'd like to see a lot more difficulty in thieving quests in general.

Fences are boring and force players to enter the thieves guild, which removes choice. Down with goods being magically marked stolen!

I'd say have some freelancers, but the TG had access for more guaranteed/higher buyers

maybe not make or break but certainly encumbrance would help a lot. and not just thieving in particular but also the too-easy-to-get-rich issue in general.

I do not mind the system that Oblivion had except that I would prefer to see fences available outside the thieves guild.
These fences would only buy items worth over 50 gold (they do not want junk they cant move) and would only pay a max of 40% of the items Max value since they have to work to get rid of it and they want to make money themselves. this way I can be a thief yet not a thieves guild member but getting rich off stealing is a bit harder.
The advantage of being in the thieves guild is the quests and thier fences will buy items to a max of 45% of thier value and they have no minimum value they will pay since they are better connected to move their stock then non guild fences.
This would ballance the system while giving the player more choice which we all want.

^This. Now that they have these "automatically generated quests" I would like to see TG quests that require you to steal some object that the computer planted to some NPC just for you to steal. For example the game could see that you haven't ever looked into some chest at some NPC's home, plant there a glass dagger even tough it wasn't there at the beginning of the game (but you won't know it wasn't there cause you haven't looked there before), and then TG could give you a quest to steal that item. This way you could always get a quest that requires you to steal. Of course it would be good if these quests could be deleted somehow, for example if you don't do them quickly enough, because it is possible the system jams somehow.