With so many things being served on a silver plate for us in Skyrim, I'm pretty sure that we'll be able to earn too much gold too fast, like in previous games.

you had to work hard to be rich in OB. I'd go out spelunking for hours at level 32 and only make 60ish gold per chest. Granted, there were high selling weapons, but I had low weight limit, because of my build.

Personally, I see getting "rich" as a sign that you're successful and/or powerful. That you're doing things right. And I don't really feel like I need things to spend it on. (I certainly didn't avail myself of most of the gold sinks in Oblivion... never tried to collect houses, tried to never use NPC repair or recharge services, etc.)


So, feel free to add "gold sinks" for rich players to spend stuff on. Just don't make them required things, like massive unavoidable taxes / house upkeep / etc..... that puts an un-needed burden on the people who don't collect gold, just because you feel you have too much. :shrug:

Good post. You make a lot of good points, but I just wanted to comment on the last sentence. "Too much of a swing in the other direction", sure...

But there should be a happy medium. You didn't seem to acknowledge a happy medium could exist. I think it's just a matter of tinkering with prices, and creating more things to pour money into. It seems they have spent a lot of time with the economy, so I expect it won't be easy to become rich. It might take 100 hours to be able to reasonably label yourself "wealthy". And, at that point, most of your extra wealth can be poured into other things. Always having things you need to buy, and things you want to buy, is important, at each status level (poor, middleclass, wealthy).

One of the reasons I got bored of playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas was that by mid-game I had so many bottlecaps with me that I could buy whatever I desired, even if I already had the best gear and all the implants I could, and I hadn't gone on a stealing or killing/looting spree anytime while playing. I only looted the corpses of raiders I killed, and looted abandoned places, and gained money from side-quests. I love sneaking and stealing in video games but then there was no point to that because I was already so rich. And there were no places I could actually spend my money thus raising the need of obtaining more.

I never had that problem in Oblivion, because we could spend money on training, buying horses, or buying houses and upgrading them in all of the major settlements.

I think this is a serious topic. Getting very rich in the beginning of the game shouldn't be easy. That makes dungeon-diving and the whole thief archetype pointless.

They should reasonably adjust the amount of money we can find in the world or obtain via quests, OR they should invent new ways rich characters can spend their money. I'm sure we'll be able to buy houses and horses, but we should also be able to customize our houses, by paying gold. And there should be expensive clothing and jewelry that are actually expensive, not 15 gold, more like 200 gold or 1000 gold, so our rich characters can dress up like they are actually rich. Maybe there could be charities, or orphanages where we can make donations, or street pickpockets who could rob some of our gold and run away. Maybe we could help improve some of the local buildings (upgrade them) like in AC2 Monteriggioni, helping the town economy or the residents in some way. Anything to prevent our character from getting too rich too soon.

Also, just wanted to comment on your later post in the thread.... I also made multiple runs on every dungeon to sell absolutely everything in Oblivion, somehow feeling like I was "wasting" the opportunity to make money if I let things sit on the floor. In fact, I remember actually becoming upset when heavy armor pieces kept dropping in dungeons, because every couple of them meant another trip to town. That was of course all my own doing, but it was amazing how compelled I felt to do it.

Perhaps in Skyrim if they do limit the amount of gold any one vendor has, and make the charge for fast travel significant, it won't be nearly as alluring to try that approach again. I also think the idea that different vendors will start to pay less for certain things as supply goes up is another great way to curb the practice of selling 15 sets of Daedric Armor to the same guy off one dungeon run.

2) I never buy anything. I just use equipment that I find, it's waaay better than anything you can buy anyways.

Doesn't that, in essense, make gold (or whatever currency) pretty redundant in the big picture?

If you don't buy anything, wouldn't the cash you get from quests just pile up?