Maybe not exactly like GTA, but if you have a huge bounty and somebody sees you on the street, they should run to tell the guards, and the guards should actively look for you.

Perhaps if you have a bounty of over 10,000 gold they'd send rangers to actually track you down.

Are they dead? I know they're old, but I figure they could survive just as easily as the other dunmer groups might. It'd be a shame if they did, they are the Psijic Order to the Dark Brotherhood's Guild of Mages. A strict group that follows their teachings to the word, and then the dissenting organization.

I like the sending guards out of towns to hunt you down idea, but like many posts before me, i think you should not be recognized in every town once u commit some crime.
I think the order should be longer and more lenient, so the more bad things you do, the harder it is to reconcile and become a "good" character, but also gives you benefits too.
25g bounty : Guards try to fine you and if you have a speech craft skill high enough, or if they are your friend, you can avoid the bounty.
this should be from pickpocketing, stealing, or trespassing.
50g bounty: Guards fine you and report you, and if you don't comply they will put you in jail. If the guards like you enough, you are able to bribe/talk them out of reporting you.
250g bounty: Guards immediately come up to you and force you to go to prison. No more bribing/convincing. Also, if you have a house/settlement in the town, they will barge in and apprehend you if you are inside.
500g bounty: Guards will be on full alert for you in not only one settlement, but in neighboring settlements as well. Guards will attack you on sight until you yield. Guards will also search your house and take some items, which then only way to retrieve is to steal it back from prison or pay fines.
750g bounty: Guards will be dispatched in groups of 4-6 and travel in main roads, and will attack you on sight unless you yield.
1000g bounty: Guards will be dispatched in groups of 6-10 and are more likely to find you, they will attack on sight unless you yield. They will also have a possibility of finding you in some deserted camp in the mountains/caves if you sleep/rest in it.
5000g bounty: Fighter's guild or Mage's guild or other guilds will send members to personally hunt you down in groups of 4.
7500g bounty: Fighter's guild AND Mage's guild and all other guilds will send members who are highly equipped to attack you. You can join some secret outlaw organization to help protect yourself.
10000g bounty: You are declared a criminal to the world of Skyrim and everyone will attack you on sight. Your houses are completely ransacked, and all your possessions in towns are all apprehended. You have a choice of starting a mercenary/pirate band and take over settlements.

I like the idea for the most part, but there's one problem. Let's say you rack up a high bounty in one city, then go to a different city. Why should any of the guards in that city be able to recognize you immediately? Did they get a fax with your face and crime level?

Some people will disagree, but I think there should be a different bounty level for each city or region.

I like the idea for the most part, but there's one problem. Let's say you rack up a high bounty in one city, then go to a different city. Why should any of the guards in that city be able to recognize you immediately? Did they get a fax with your face and crime level?

Some people will disagree, but I think there should be a different bounty level for each city or region.

I like the idea for the most part, but there's one problem. Let's say you rack up a high bounty in one city, then go to a different city. Why should any of the guards in that city be able to recognize you immediately? Did they get a fax with your face and crime level?

Some people will disagree, but I think there should be a different bounty level for each city or region.

Not to be argumentative, but I disagree. The crime system in OB and MW were dull and meaningless. The bounty system was horrible, and no matter what you did or how much you stole, you never felt like it had any affect on the game whatsoever.....Short from guards chasing you.

As a theif/evil/assasin character, Id like to see more consequences for these actions.

... yeah, and maybe they can implement a court system with lawyers and stuff where you go to trial and are sentenced to life in prison, then you just stay jailed... or better yet, sentence you to death, stage your own execution, then you have to start all over again...

A combination Fable and Morrowind style crime system could be good. Fable has it that you can have different bounties in different regions. Morrowind has the death sentence. Here's how it could work.

Every town and the surrounding extent of the Hold has a managed bounty. If holds share certain allegiances with whatever plot elements the story says, they could possibly share bounties (so it'd be a bounty with a faction as opposed to every town). Crimes committed in this region are determined in the same way as which jail you go to. Stolen items are only confiscated if they are from the region you are being arrested in.

Crime levels:
0-500: Petty theft, guards will not notice, nor will they instantly recognize you if you talk to them. You can confess your crimes to a guard to pay off the fine.
500-1000: Moderate crime, guards won't take notice to the crime but will arrest you if spoken to. NPCs may take notice of your crimes through dialog.
1000-2000: Wanted, guards will track you down when they see you and attempt to arrest you. You can pay your fines, go to jail, etc.
2000-5000: Very Wanted, guards will track you down, and your ability to pay your fines is now gone (This is Skyrim we're talking about, they don't care about your silly money)
5000+: Death Warrant: Guards will kill you on sight.

Bounty Deprecation:
Over time, your bounty can decrease as people stop caring. For every 20 seconds you are wanted, your bounty will go down by 1 gold. That means if you have a bounty of 500, it will take 10000 seconds, or nearly 2.8 hours to go away. (This formula isn't a suggestion, just a speculation. You could probably create a more complex formula to have varrying levels of deprecation.)
Essentially, it shouldn't take that long to forget about a stolen loaf of bread. If you steal a ton of money, then people might remember you longer. If you have a death warrant, your bounty will never go away without paying the right people.

Stolen Item Deprecation:
Stolen items shouldn't remain stolen forever. Depending on how valuable the item is, people may forget about it. For instance, the time it takes for an item to stop being hot is 20 times the item value, in seconds. Items worth more than 1000 gold will never be forgotten unless taken to a fence, and the heat can be removed for a fee. Items worth less than 50g can be sold to traders if they are not the original owner of the item. They will not buy items if guards are actively searching for you.

Reputation:
If a guard is friends with you, they may be willing to look the other way when it comes to crimes. In Oblivion, this was judged with disposition, where having a disposition of 90 made you just fine, and the guard would even take care of your bounty for you. I think it should be a system of Disposition weighed against responsibility, where a guard can be conflicted between helping the player and doing their duty. Sometimes authorities must even arrest their friends. But this system can be made a bit more dynamic as well. I'm not willing to crunch the numbers, so I'll just scale them in terms of success. If you are famous enough, such as being leader of a guild or a protagonist who has finished the main quest, the disposition of all NPC's, including guards, would be raised a bit in your favor (unless it's a bad guild). Guards should feel wrong if they arrest the champion of Cyrodiil, for instance. A select few guards can spawn with high enough responsibilities that they put their duty before all else.
Disposition Low, Responsibility Low: Guard is not your friend, but they are irresponsible. They will confront you, but accept bribes on the spot to let you go free. They will not remove your bounty.
Disposition Low, Responsibility Moderate/High: Guard is not friends with you and you are wanted. Regardless of responsibility, they will confront you.
Disposition High, Responsibility Low: Guard is your friend, but not very responsible. They will confront you as all guards do, but let you go and remove your bounty for you.
Disposition High, Responsibility Moderate: Guard is your friend, and moderately responsible. However, because you are their friend, they cannot bring themselves to arrest you. They will not go out of their way to remove your bounty.
Disposition High, Responsibility High: Guard is your friend/you are famous. However, they are very responsible and their duty is important to them, so they arrest you.

That's the basics of how it could work. I do think that the bounty system could use a bit of work, to add a deeper level of gameplay to lawless characters. This affects lawful characters very little though. When I play, I usually play as a thief. If there isn't any sort of increased dynamic system, I don't think I'd mind very much, but it'd be nice to have regardless. I suppose if there's this sort of bounty system, there should be a counter-system for other characters, the ones that piss off the evil organizations as opposed to the lawful ones.