Personally, I feel that a realistic economy is important. Attention to details like that add greatly to the immersion imo.

If you go to a poor region, it the price of a beer should be cheap, but a bottle of wine is expensive.
A city next to an iron and/or coal mine on the other hand should have cheaper weapons.
If you drag lots of ebony gear to a merchant, the value should drop.
NPC's should be active participants in the economy, instead of stores having fixed items waiting only for you to buy.

Let's see how previous games handled the economy.

Oblivion

Items for sale: Fixed with periodical refills of consumer goods only
Trading: Septims only
Shopkeepers budget: Endless but capped by mercantile skill
Supply/Demand: No

Morrowind

Items for sale: Fixed with periodical refills of consumer goods only
Trading: Trading allowed
Shopkeepers budget: Limited by mercantile skill with periodic refills
Supply/Demand: No

Daggerfall

Items for sale: Random and Level scaled
Trading: Trading allowed
Shopkeepers budget: Endless
Supply/Demand: Virtual (value of goods varies seemingly at random, no inflation)

So, what do you think?

i hope trading comes back and the economy isnt important

I never played the others, so what's trading?

You can "trade" by selling an item and using the cash to buy another, can't you?

you could add a list of what you were buying and what you were selling before actually selling/buying it so the price of what you were selling would be taken from what you were buying
its easier than the way you mentioned but basically the same

I would love to see a dynamic flowing economy in a sandbox game. I loved in Morrowind that selling loot was as much of a chore as finding it. It made a lot of sense that the poor dust trader in a two-bit rural village, couldn't afford to purchase your Ultimate Daedric Sword of Mass Carnage. Merchants should also think about who they might get to buy your stuff. That village trader doesn't even want to buy your 10 junk swords, because quite frankly you are the only adventurer the village has seen in the last 2 years and no one in the village is going to buy them off him. What would that merchant buy your swords?

Large cities would be the place to go to offload loot, but you also aren't as likely to get good deals there either, since those merchants should KNOW how to haggle. If you have something that no one else can buy from you, a good merchant should know they can offer you rock bottom prices for it.

I think what I would actually like to see implemented is hidden values. The item description should NOT tell you what the item might be worth. You find a shiny sword and think it might be worth something, you lug it back and haggle with the merchant over what they will give you for it. You shouldn't know whether you are getting a good deal or not, unless you shop around and see what other merchants somewhere else offer you for it. Leave it up to the player to start judging whether or not they want to bother with hauling that shiny piece of armor that weighs 80 lbs, or the 2 bronze rings that weigh next to nothing back to town to sell.

Inflation is important i think. In a large wealthy part of Skyrim prices should be higher, but also better items should be on sale. Example

Slums:
Steel Arrow---2gp
Best Weapon for Sale---Steel Sword

Wealthy District:
Steel Arrow--4gp
Best Weapon for sale---Enchanted Elven Sword

if a store in the slums starts getting a lot money the owner should sell the store and buy new one in the wealthy district. and vice versa if the wealthy merchant starts making less money

I would love a dynamic, realistic economy but I feel like it is to time-consuming to actually implement in-game.

Morrowinds system was more realistic and i liked it more...also Morrowind had cool vendors...like a scamp or even a mudcrab !
Hope they improved economy system in Skyrim.

I hope the new city-economies in Skyrim will spice up things a little. Travelling merchants, like in FO3 wouldn't harm either - as long as they survive a little longer than the caravans in Fallout did. Some kind of taxation would be great too. Living the safe life behind city walls should cost something (a lot, actually).

Just so ya know I checked Nothing and then 3 other boxes just because. :thumbsup:

I said Morrowind did it best with trading and buying/selling, said it was important but not overly important, and then chose options 1,4,6, and 8. Anything dynamic and random is good, things should cost more in big cities, but having NPCs have to deal with it is an unneeded technical hurdle.

I never have played Daggerfall so I dont know how the trading and economy system works in that game.

On the first topic I voted For Morrowind. I liked it more than Oblivions, but Oblivions system was still done well
2nd topic: For me, its a mix between the first option and the second. It would be nice to see a realistic monetary system being put into the game, I dont know if the devs would go through all the ins and outs of how to make it work properly
3rd poll topic: I voted for almost all of them. The first idea I liked was the static supply and demand. If a town is best at making x item, then y item SHOULD be cheaper, perhaps less efficient( if weapon), but less effiecient none the less. The next was the dynamic supply and demand. To me thats one of the most realistic principles that could be put into the game. If you continue taking such n such here, its sell price would drop to almost nothing and become dead weight. The next was inflation. But instead of it being more expensive in a major city, it should be cheaper than an outpost because of the competition between merchants in large citites. Especially if they would put in-game something that has franchised shops and independants. Independants more often than not, will sell lower because if they dont maek enough, the big guys will put them out of business. Level scaling to me would be dumb. Its not like I go to buy something at the gas station where I live and they say, " You need to be a level 50 with a moneyspending skill of 67 to get that, sorry. " So, please dont even consider that. The last, randomized stock would be good. It would very much be real, because you can go to a store somewhere and see something you want and not have enough cash to get it at that moment or even put a payment plan on it so you leave and the next time you show up, someone has already bought it.

Some of those ideas would work perfectly for RPGs like TES. Will the Devs do it? Perhaps. I hope so

Yes...to an extent. Id be afraid that anytime I want to unload my cache after a dungeon run it would be like tryin to shop at wal mart on a saturday (it would take forever). I do want a better haggling system that is more than a sliding bar...that was kinda lame. But I see what you are saying about poorer merchants not wanting certain items. It would also help in this game if there were other items besides armor and weapons that were worth anything. Why is it that a solid silver vaaase is only worth 5 septims...but a tiny bronze ring with jade in it is worth 12 or whatever. Obviously the giant vase should be worth something. Same thing goes for paintings, and other house hold items that you might pilfer or run across. Obviously dungeons arent gonna be teeming with hand crafted silver or gold stuff, but you might come across it, is my point.

Merchants should, as some have suggested, be able to use the barter system instead of giving your only money for your items. The barter system works well if a merchant only has 800 sept. at his disposal but you are trading something of high value for a bunch of lesser valuable items that the merchant has. Obviously skyrim isnt some sort of merchant consortium building rpg, but if you are gonna have merchants make the interactions you have with them more believeable! That is all.