Mercantile should be buying something and sell it for a higher price. I think it's absent from most TES games, besides the scamp in morrowind whom you can rob all the money in the world from.. It totally destroying that aspect of roleplaying. In Skyrim there should be some kind of economy where you can discover price fluctuation of certain goods, and play a trader to make money. how do you think?

Like Spells of Gold

As much as I HATE to compare the two, it should be similar to Fable's economy system. One city has a shortage of a certain item and, if you are able to obtain that item, you can sell it for a boosted price so long as there is still a shortage of that product.

"There is money to be made buying and selling between shops, they say"

A higher mecantilism skill could possibly allow for easier identification of what items would be worth what and where they would be worth it. (A steel longsword is worth more to a village suffering from bandit raids then the large, wall-protected city due to higher demand)

That makes sense to me. Not sure how they'd work the mercantile skill allowing for easy identification though - maybe it would come up in conversations with shopkeepers or something?

Doesn't Skyrim has a per-city economy system? Maybe we'll se that Fable-ish economic system on it...

And I believe it'll definitely be more complex than Oblivion's one.

gameinformer mentions that you can overhear diologue between NPC's that can update your journal without actually having to interact with said NPC. maybe strolling down the street when you overhear two men conversing, "were running out of supplies. we wont be able to hold of the raids much longer if we dont get provisions soon"

*journal updated"
"demand for weaponry and armor has increased in *insert town name here*
the increased mercantile skill is what allows you to overhear this?
or something along those lines.

Wealth through Mercantilism comes from a high demand for some materials, goods, or foodstuffs that are in low supply. Usually when they do come in to a town eager for them, the rich get first dibs, either through shady dealings, corruption, or just plain having more money to throw down on them ...

To make Mercantilism even possible, there should be some default rules applied to the economy system of Skyrim:

1. Every city should have a few products that they are always low on because so many people enjoy it in their homes or in their businesses, and thus when some of it comes into the city it should fetch a high price. Over time, the trading player can begin to see a pattern emerging of which cities need what products the most, and where to get them for the best prices. There should be some flucuation in the market, but overall the pattern should remain the same unless some outside stimulator should shock the system, changing its nature (a dragon destroys half the town in fire, scaring away some of the merchants who make up that economy's structure) .....
2. Many other cities should have that same item in abundance, meaning its price should drop for those who want to buy in bulk and sell it in another city. Buying it in bulk ensures a lower price but also ensures you can't use it (and that it's only for sale in another city) using a control system I will describe in part 3 below....
3. One way ensure the player delivered the goods (and to limit the amount the player could trade at one time) would be to crate up (seal up) bulk orders in order to protect them. These crates would take up a large amount of inventory spaces in your character sheet, plus the packaging and stuff would all add a lot of extra weight, so that you would be more limited in what you could transport at one time unless you got a donkey or a horse to help you do the heavy lifting. Those pack animals would, of course, be expensive, but they could be a business expense if being a trader was what really appealed to you most about playing Skyrim.
4. When trading, you incur a greater risk of being besieged in the wild by bandits and theives, so while you may try to Fast Travel, you may only get a few miles at a time before you are pulled out and attacked along the way.
5. When trading, if you use a wagon or some animals, there is a risk of injury and/or animals getting spooked, or wheels breaking on your wagon ... might need some kind of a repair dynamic, tools, skills, and such .... or risk leaving your broken wagon full of supplies to go get help....


A SHORT BRIEF HISTORY OF TRADING IN GAMES:
One of the first big games of all time was a game called "Elite" based on the Amiga and Commidore 64 ... it allowed for trading via numerous planets, but you have to defend your cargo which was of course prone to space pirates and thieves, and you had to land your ship manually under pretty intense conditions for a videogame at that time. It was a legendary game for all that if offered, and was one of the first epic 3D games of its time.

Another huge game back then, I think even before Elite, was Wagons West (I think it was called that, or something close), a game about buying merchandise and travelling across the country with it, solving problems along the way as you tried to do some trading. It was also amazing.

Since Skyrim is an open world, and they are already providing an economy to each city, I don't think it would be too much trouble to add something like this into the game. If they were really cool about it, though, they could make being a Trader an actual in-game dynamic, including its own quests such as:

( "Go and find a city that is rich in [such and such materials and goods] and establish diplomatic relations in order to open a continous trade route with them for these things." )

There might even be Trademasters who hire you to become a delivery person, taking on more and more dangerous and exciting commissions bringing special items to more and more dangerous locations. Maybe when you arrive, there is a hero's welcome for you if you are bringing contraband such as tobacco or alcohol, with people in town shouting warm greetings and praises. These Trademasters you work for give you the secret knowledge (it's like its own Guild) ... and eventually teach you everything you need to know about Skyrim's economy and wealth systems, allowing you to become a Trademaster yourself one day, helping to unite cities in commerce, drive down prices, and allow more and more ordinary people be able to benefit from the lowered prices to buy more and live better lives. You would become a world hero in yet another way besides being dragonborn ... etc...

Becoming a traveling merchant and buying goods from one town to sell in another is a nice idea however the fast travel system kind of ruins any real chance of seeing it implemented in a meaningful way..

They mentioned that burning down a villages mill would drive up the value of flour in that area. That seems to suggest firstly that different regions have different economies, and secondly that availability influences prices.

I liked in Fable III that if there was a shortage of, say, crabs (heheh) in a certain region you could buy a box of crabs (heheh) from a region where they're on sale and sell them for almost double what you paid at the region with a shortage of crabs (heheh).

Yes but since FT is not likely to go away soon, and that apart from open world games most rpg's use it to travel from A to B as standard.
I don't see how it would ruin anything.

If I play a trader, I'm going to bump up my skills in speech and trading, then go by foot or mount from place to place.
It won't ruin game "balance" for me, and if someone wants to use it as an exploit for free gold I don't care.

The statement I made will doubtlessly end in the usual if you don't like it don't use it rant.

However the fact remains a good idea should not go unused just because some can't stop button bashing an exploit.
Especially one that is not a bug.

What's so funny about crabs?
Mudcrabs?

Yes.

Itchy itchy... mudcrabs.

:whistling:

Perhaps for you it wont ruin balance however for everyone else it pretty much trivialises making money, why rob houses or explore dungeons for phat loot when you can just easily teleport between towns buying and selling goods? Now being a traveling merchant would be a cool idea in a game that diddnt have fast travel and the player had to take the long walk between towns fighting off bandits who seek to make your goods their own but the fast travel mechanic bypasses all of this and pretty much svcks the fun out of the idea turning it into little more than a cheap exploit. Now you can use the argument "if you dont like it dont use it" however it doesnt work that way, you might as well place 1,000,000 septims or the most powerful armour and weapon in the player's starting cell and say "here you go, please feel free to exploit these septims and powerful items by having them right from the start of the game, however if you earn these items properly then you dont have to take them here".

Now dont get me wrong I like the idea making a bit of coin trading goods between towns however it simply doesnt work in a game with fast travel.

If you disable FT while using a caravan, or enable "chance of attack" while using FT with a caravan, then it could still work. Of course, you could still make some money by doing a small transaction in one town, stepping out the door and activating FT, then walking to a shop in the other town and selling it. That would only work for "petty sums"; for anything more significant in quantity, you'd need a wagon or caravan, which would be restricted.

At low levels, if you can only make 2-3 Septims (or whatever the Skyrim resident use for coinage 200 years later) on a sale, and you can only carry a few items, you'd spend hours of game time to build up any appreciable amount of cash, only to find that you've saturated the local market and can't sell at a profit for a few more days. I don't see it as a "significant" exploit, and if anyone wants to go through the hassle to do so, that's their business. I would suspect that looting a cave would be a much quicker way to gather money.

While one town might be a market for a certain tradable good, another town might produce that particular item, and it would be up to you to find out where you could get the best prices to buy and sell. Selling too much of it in one town would diminish the market until "need" used up the supply. Selling a moderate quantity of the same good to every town besides the one that produces it would cause a supply shortage, meaning that you could no longer buy it cheaply until a surplus accumulated again.

Ok first off, I'm going to play abit here, so don't take anything I say too serious.

Because it's an RPG, if you're a thief in real life, hopping around the world with "magic" to trade goods that you buy is silly.
Any RPG'er that does so is not really a roleplayer and should seek other games to play, like CoD ( man I love gamers tudes to things ).


Not good great.

My fault, I never should've posted in the first place.


I'm a PC, I can and so can most TeS gamers do this at a drop of mouse button.
Does that make the CS an exploit that needs to be closed.
I've added 10000000+ caps via Console commands at the start, you know what it got me, nada, zip, zilch, as most stuff is leveled in lists.
I can't buy a house that I could not get with one cave delve, as most are again leveled to fame.
Most weapons are awful, you can reliably find better with one fight.

I've added uber gear, and am happy to do so, however due to the RPG'er in me it's not very uber.
It's not rare just a unique garb to suit exactly the role I designed and put effort into creating.

That and if you cheat in uber gear, it'll cost you more unless you also hack your stats to allow for maintenance.
So in effect you have to cheat, you have to chose to cheat, you are cheating;
Not using a glitch that is an unavoidable part of making a certain roleplaying ability available to all.


Nope it works fine.
However it does not work in a game with cheating baskets that need their hands slapped and told by their mummies to play nice or it'll get taken away.

*sigh* there is a huge difference between using console codes and the construction set to cheat and using certain features built into the game that trivialise other methods of obtaining the same thing but whatever, adding a mercantile system like you want will either trivialise making money or if they make it so that any profits you actually make as the poster above your post stated so small as to make it not worth the time, the only way to make being a traveling merchant worthwhile and feel rewarding is to get rid of fast travel or place some severe restrictions on it. I highly doubt that Bethesda would include what is virtually a cheap money exploit (when coupled with fast travel that is) just because a few people like yourself are willing to restrict themselves from using fast travel while playing trader.

So does the fact that you could open the console and player.additem 0000000f 1,000,000 or tgm trivialize Oblivion for you before even leaving the prison cell?

If this was a multi-player game I might see your point, but for a single player game all it takes is a little self control. The only one that can trivialize your game is you.

good discussion

That was Oregan Trail son! That game was awesome back in the day.

I thought merchantile as a skill was being scrapped, considering since morrowind the ability to haggle has been reduced bit by bit. if the merchantile skill was redundant it was beths fault and not the concept as a whole.

but don't you think a "sandbox" RPG game without any mercantile aspect is somewhat lacking?

No economy, I just want to fight everything.

Not really, no. But then I'm one of those (apparent) freaks who doesn't get itchy over the lack of typical day-to-day minutiae in the games I play to take a break from day-to-day minutiae. :shrug:

How about instead of comparing it with fable....compare it with..mount and blade..OR EVE ONLINE?