I've never seen 150k in Morrowind. Not that I've played a ton, mind you, but I have had several characters reach at least lvl 15.

Partly that's down to RP. I don't drag *everything* of value out of a dungeon. It depends on the character. (For instance, my current barbarian leaves soul gems and books where they lie.)

Partly, though, it's also down to game-mechanics considerations. Why don't I haul out glass and ebony ore, or every single enchanted weapon I can carry? Because I often find speed important. Also, I don't like the hassle of always dealing with a full inventory. Agonizing over what to drop and what to pick up isn't part of the fun for me usually, so I just end up leaving stuff so I can ensure I can move reasonably quickly and I'll have room for something that I'll *really* want.

All that said, I do often wish the economy were harsher. While I don't get insanely rich in MW, I do get to a point where I'm just not spending much money, and gold collection/selling is itself a hassle. I don't use any economy mods. And in the vanilla game, there's not much to spend your gold on. Potions, the odd scroll, bribes... that's about it. Travel and lodging is so cheap as to be essentially free even from lvl 1 or 2 with my characters. It's difficult therefore (for me) to maintain interest in "treasure hunting" as an occupation when you get to the point where the wealth itself doesn't matter much anymore.

So to the OP, I don't know that I'd use the term 'broken', but I'd say that the economic aspect of the game is rather gentle -- it's easy to make money even if you're restricting yourself, and there's not a lot you need to spend it on. However, I'd suggest that a "balanced economy" (whatever that means) is difficult to establish in a game where the player is expected to plunder tombs and caves for loot. And of course, this "problem" exists for all TES games I've played.

Personally, I've never found the game's economy to be "broken". I think the only economy altering mods I'm using are Fliggerty's Merchant Investments (which I'd like to make my own version of without the skill based limitations) and a simple GMST edit to make enchantments cost only 1/4 as much as they used to.

I think the best solution to the issue of "being able to get too much money" is just adding more things that the player can buy. It's not out of the question that certain characters in the world would have tens, hundreds, or even millions of septims. How do you think the Empire funds building forts everywhere? As others have said, the player is able to take extreme risks which most characters in Tamriel would not be able to take, so being able to accumulate tons of wealth in a short amount of time isn't out of the question.

With mods like dave humphrey's furniture mod, Homes to Let or other house mods which require the player to pay up front, and other such mods, getting lots of gold doesn't ruin gameplay, as you end up spending it all pretty fast anyway. Even with Vanilla enchanting, you can easily spend tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousand of septims on a single enchantment.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Possible, but that wasn't really the point (neither am I guaranteed to be an example of what is right, anyway), it was just that you were/are quite bluntly inadvertently calling a subset of fellow players (some of which you're replying to) something potentially derogatory, which is probably avoidable. Just threw a thought out there.

Possibly, but not quite as you describe. In fact, I've never actually done what you describe, yet (going straight to a location for a powerful item), possibly even artificially avoided it. I did increase level up multipliers, take the loot from any dungeons I visited and sell anything I didn't need (and hoard the unique and cool items that I came across in my house, or what you've referred to as decorating, which is indeed pretty fun), but that's simply playing the game. Which is, as said, enough to quickly net you a whole lot of gold in vanilla.

From what you were saying, it appears you may play in an exceptionally unusual manner (somehow progressing very slowly - 6 months/200 hours to reach level 20? Maybe this includes the non-straightforward tactic of choosing skills you don't use in your class, but even with that it's very odd), and/or either don't have a high level of familiarity with the actual vanilla game content (or maybe your characters don't tend to adventure??), or more likely, don't recall it very well (as you've definitely forgotten MQ-related ridiculously-valued items), so please allow me to elaborate with some concrete data:
A few MQ items value at 300k-400k (I actually haven't encountered them, but you definitely have if you completed it). There are 18 other unique items which value in the range of 95k-210k. Moving on to items you can find randomly and/or multiples of... a non-unique Daedric Claymore is worth 80k. There are 125 items in the value range of 10k-80k, and 56 items in the range of 4k-9.6k. Needless to say, these aren't reasonable prices for single item instances to have. This is not even counting the two expansions, which add many expensive and unique items.

However, it became clear that although you were replying to a discussion about the state of the vanilla game and problems within it, you were talking about a modded game and your personal experience with it. That makes your statements make more sense, indeed, but, needless to say, that's completely missing the point. To begin with, I've already explicitly mentioned that mods can alleviate these issues, but... obviously they are present in vanilla, regardless of the ability to load up mods that fix such them. It was highly misleading to speak of a modded state and personal experiences with it as if they apply to the vanilla game, in this discussion.

Ring of Toxic Cloud is a random "trinket" that can be found as random loot, that any character in level ~8-10 can find anywhere (meaning multiple copies of it can be found, too). It just so happens to oneshot 90% or more of the characters in the game (dealing 20-600 poison damage per hit), as well as have multiple charges and AoE. The Amulet of Shadows is essentially a miscellaneous quest reward for beating two level 8 enemies that are found in the wild somewhere between Gnisis and Ald Velothi, and bestows the ability to gain a gamebreaking 80% Chameleon at will to any character, enabling it to, well, pretty much do whatever it wants (paving the way to steal or kill anything without repercussions). Quite disgusting indeed. Those are the most memorable offenders in the vanilla game for me, but certainly not the only ones (actually some more already come to mind, now). Obviously, multiple mods, especially huge balance-oriented mods such as BTBGI (and possibly to a lesser extent, WGI) nix such ludicrous douchebaggery (to use BTB's eloquent words).

Hmm, note that 20k is itself probably enough to negate caring for money, which the above seems to suggest you reach in levels 15-20. In fact, it's worth mentioning that you will both continue to profit as you play, and the rate of money gain itself only increases as you play on.
At any case, it's probably safe to say that your experiences shared above are atypical for a vanilla playthrough, and also, a good cause for becoming bored at those levels is obviously because the challenge is gone...

You don't remember correctly, as I elaborated. Of course, no one item should ever value as much as 60,000, and not many should reach/pass 10k...
Again, a mod like BTBGI or at least a weapons and armor rebalancer will annihilate this sort of douchebaggery (the latter probably won't fix everything, such as expensive unique clothing and as such). (Not sure about WGI specifically.)
It's true that a saving grace is the limited merchant's gold, otherwise when selling you'd be able to gain a couple 10k in literally a few seconds (meaning that by level 20 you'd have more like at least 1 million gold, I guess). However, each single overly expensive item can still be used to gain all of a merchant's available gold, as well as be used to barter for any items or supplies the merchant has that you may need. Also, Tribunal adds merchants with high amounts of gold, as well as the Museum of Artifacts that will pay you flat out for any artifacts you want to sell to it.
Since the artifacts' gold values are, simply put, insane, they had to make it give you half the amount as well as place a hard cap on top of that - but even after all that, this still allows you to gain 30k per item for as many as 15 items, and 9k to 27.5k each for others.
I never actually personally used those Tribunal features (or visited Solstheim, for that matter) and still got filthy rich, though, so that's just icing on the cake. Then there's also the fact that even the Creeper merchant is present in a major town and is shipped as a legitimate (if thoughtless) part of the game, so long as you don't load a mod that fixes him. Again, this is a description of the unmodified game. Obviously, this wouldn't even be present in a properly balanced modded game.

Turija:
> Again, it depends on playstyle and self control.
Of course, but not quite so as you describe. The vanilla game content is as it is, and you're literally bound to encounter it if you dare to actually... play the vanilla game. A modded game is another story, thankfully, thanks to awesome efforts of the great community.

By the way, about your dislike of balance mods making it harder to smooth-talk merchants: it's worth mentioning that the boosts given to the merchants' Mercantile and Speechcraft in them are done by central tiny scripts, and so are trivial to tweak in a second.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you, but . ..

You are kinda doing the same thing by insisting repeatedly the game is "broke" and "disgusting" etc.
I've played both vanilla and modded. I prefer modded. I've never said the vanilla game was perfect. I agree it could be improved, but disagree it is "broken."

Not odd at all and not typically playing against the class. My characters play the game by living in the world and doing what makes sense from the character perspective and based on character knowledge, and taking things slow walking most places, rather than teleporting around (unless they are a wizard) or always taking silt striders (unless I am using abot's real time mod) and such. When I play, I try to bring my character to life and tell my character's story through the medium of the game. A lot of people here play that way.

What difference does it make how much the face value of an item is if the most you can get for it is a couple thousand gold (or $5,000 if you visit Mournhold)?

None of my characters have ever visited Solstheim. That's a cold and dangerous place I hear. Mournhold has some merchants with 5,000 gold. Never found that museum of antiquities. Heard about it online. There are lots of places in Morrowind I have not explored. It's a big place with a lot in it. It depends on how you play the game as to whether you will think its broken or not. My characters don't typically scour every square inch of everywhere they go. Some of them went to Mournhold, visited a few shops, realized there were things to do back in Vardenfall and left. Many of them have never had any reason to go to Mournhold (once you report to Apelles, the DB attacks stop). There is no reason to rush the game or claim its "broken" just because it is easy to manipulate the economy once you know all the secrets.

I've never seen a ring of toxic cloud in random loot. The only one I got was from the Telvanni questline and I looked that one up to refresh my recollection, and you have to be willing to murder a bunch of slaves to get that ring as a reward. Most of my characters are not murders.

I also looked up the Amulet of Shadows. Turns out that one is hard to get because you have to find a ring at the bottom of a pond that is hard to see. I remember doing that once and after spending five or ten minutes looking for the ring unsuccessfully, my character gave up looking for it and went on his way.

Anyway, the issue you raise about these items being overpowered has nothing to do with the economy and is off topic.

It's barely related (and I didn't even say the latter), but that doesn't even matter. I'll go into a bit more detail about what I had said. Suppose that I am a horrible, awful man. Does that somehow make it justified for someone else (e.g. you) to be horrible, or make that the right thing to do? Nope. The first thing is not relevant to the other thing (and there is no cause and effect).

If objectively looking at how things are in vanilla and playthroughs of it, it's pretty safe to say that it's broken from a game design perspective - at least as far balance and difficulty/challenge is concerned. That's a main reason for getting bored at a relatively early level of 20, with still many quests and unused/unvisited content and opportunities available.

Ehh, I guess I'll just say that to believe that, I'll have to see supportive poll/statistics results that say many people (ideally, a significant percentage) take half a year or 200 hours of playing to reach level 20, or at the bare minimum some reports of such. At the moment, my own experience, and others' experiences I've read about and watched online highly contradict you.
For what it's worth, by a quick guesstimate based on some Let's Play, it takes more around the likes of 40 hours or less to reach level 20. Hmm, that may be slow, too.
Also, remember, your experience may be less relevant to this discussion if it's in a heavily modded game, especially a re-tweaked, re-balanced one (i.e. with big/balance mods).

Yes, indeed, that's referred to as roleplaying. What you said has nothing to do with not levelling up (or not getting loot), though... On the contrary, walking to places and avoiding teleporting, apart from often being funner, naturally causes a character to gain more power (level) and wealth (loot). Your roleplaying will only cause you to gain those things more slowly if it causes you to not adventure or adventure less (i.e. stick in towns).

To repeat myself: each single such item allows you to take the full available gold sum of any merchant as well as eseentially take as many supplies or items that he has for sale as you wish (potions, scrolls, weapons, ingredients, whatever). Obviously and undeniably, it's wildly unbalanced.
And the pool of such items is very not-limited, as it includes many non-unique ones. Or, in some cases, you can create your own (for example, just trapping a soul in a grand soulgem to turn it into a crazy-value item, unless you have the respective MCP fix).
(There are 2,000-3,000 gold traders around Vvardenfell, the top one in Mounrhold has 10,000 IIRC.)

Just to go along with some of what you said. So, most of your characters probably wouldn't ever, say, kill an Ordinator that called them scum, even in a legal manner, and thus wouldn't get the 33k+ worth of loot off of just one guy. Ok. I wonder if they would also not kill a DB assassin that came after them, and if, had they killed him, they would take the free 3200+ gold of loot/top tier Light Armor (at level 1 no less) off him, or ignore it. Hey, maybe them ignoring valuable loot is a trend? That would certainly explain things. Maybe there's even a non-contrived, good roleplaying reason for it.

Of course, the potential matters more, and hmm, I guess it's time to mention that the mainstream way of playing MW isn't necessarily roleplaying, and players that do roleplay don't do so for 100% of the time, either. Of course, I doubt more examples were required to make my point well-understood, anyway.

It seems hard for you to accept, but it's all about playing the game "normally" (yes, this means you do go into dungeons and take any good loot you can carry, doing otherwise is artificially limiting yourself and isn't playing normally nor usually roleplaying...), as much as that can be defined, and not at all about knowing secrets...

This may be as accurate as you never seeing a ridiculously overpriced item (other than one 60k item), despite playing vanilla and admittedly finishing the MQ. At any case, you'll just have to believe me here, or, if you care about being certain of the facts, run a quick web search or go to one of the two (or more) TES wikis with MW info, or pop open the CS for a bit.

It's likely one of the most (if not the most) trivial "quests" in the game, and you can probably get the amulet by just killing the guy caryying it as well, if that works out for you or your character. At any case, it doesn't really change anything, even if you did happen to have difficulty with it, and again, there are many more overpowered items in vanilla anyway, I'd even be surprised if that isn't considered common knowledge by most (non-new) players.

Those are all balance related concepts, and factor in the overall game balance. Can't commend you for a good dodge attempt here.
If you truly think those two things aren't related, directly related even, you need to stop and think about this for five minutes.
Yes, having the ability to freely steal or kill anything you want without repercussions and limits indeed ultimately breaks the 'economy', quite instantly.