Sorry In advance if this has been posted, I couldn't find the search bar (though truth be told I looked for like 5 seconds)
But anyway
One of the main things that really annoyed me in oblivion was the fact that I could go into a weapon store and he would have an amazing weapon for sale, me being a evil character (and either rich and greedy or poor from hokers )
would want to steal it. Now in morrowind I could steal that weapon, it was in a chest in the store or on the shopkeepers person.
Oblivion on the other hand, it wasn't on either but rather kept in a chest in another dimension. (or if you liked to no clip on pc, you would know its actually kept in chest wayyyyy under the store)
It svcked, it was unrealistic
Another thing that oblivion had worse than Morrowind and hope to see it fixed in Skyrim

I'm not a fan of being able to steal highly valuable items that are several feet across from of a NPC's person. I'm all for players being able to do as they like in RPGs but I'm also for it being realistic, and I don't for a second believe even a talented theif could walk into a store and take large elite items from a shopkeeper without being caught.

Maybe putting the merchant to sleep with a spell or knock to the head 1st. But after being robbed once they should be on the defensive keeping new customers at a distance and maybe buying a guard dog to help keep thieves at bay and watch the store at night when the shop keeped is in bed.

True, but we could come back at night and take it.

I'd like to have the ability to steal things at night, but merchants should be smart and thus we only get away with this once or twice. Then they start storing their goods in closet at night that has only one door which they sleep leaning against. Because really, no merchant would get robbed multiple times at night and not drastically change their habits at night to protect they livelyhood.

Hope I did this quote right XD
I totally agree, Im not saying let me steal right in front of your face, or even to make it easy
Im all for the merchant sleeping against the cuboard which has a heaps good booby trap/ enchantment on it
Im all for working for the 20k sword (time is money as they say)
Just as long as its there and I can take it

Hell, even have bank they put it in every night

So basically there should be no way for thieves to steal good items? Then what's he point in even being a thief? And for that matter, in what kind of alternate reality is having shop keepers' inventory magically sealed in a place not physically accessable at all? Because when I think "realism" in this regard, that is NOT what I think of at all, in fact, hearing "realism" makes me think of having the items in a place where they ARE accessable, it wouldn't necessarily be easy for someone to get them without consent, actually, it would be quite realistic for merchants to take certain precautions to prevent their items from being stealing, but that should be obvious even if you don't bring realism into the matter, because there's no challenge in just walking in and taking items without any effort, and therefore, it would be boring to do so.

And no one said it should be easy to steal, just that it should exist in a place where it IS potentially possible to get it. And I agree, what's the point in being a thief if all the good items are magically sealed in places I can't possibly get to without using the console? Absolutely none, in Oblivion, I felt that the mechanics of thieving was considerably improved over Morrowind, but at the same time, being a thief was completely unrewarding, except for stealing things as part of a quest, because Bethesda apparently decided that you shouldn't be able to steal anything even remotely worthwhile, thus, our thieves get to steal such amazing items as calipers and yarn.

The stock merchants carry should be well guarded, but it should be possible to steal, not easy to do so at all, but possible, to do otherwise would be like not letting warriors find good loot in dungeons, either way, it serves to remove the reward from role-playing your particular character archetype, therefore making playing doing so entirely pointless.

I certainly agree that all items available in a shop should be stealable. Hell, even if you get caught, if you're evil enough, you could kill the shopkeeper before he squeals.

As long as it's kept locked in a chest in the storage room that is guarded by an orc and a vicious dog, it's fine with me..

Expensive items should be kept at the nearest cities underground vault.

Exactly, it just needs to BE THERE, magically appearing things in shops was another bad feature in OB I actually had forgotten about

If a unique item like that goes missing, it should be reported, and guards should randomly search you or your house for a while afterwords. That will balance it out.

I agree that there should be more loot to steal.

I also think what TES lack in stealing is the actual feeling of risk and danger, breaking in is just "Quicksave", oops I got caught "Quickload", it's the same issue with combat, maybe there could be some save restrictions.

I think shop owners should just have a vault of some sort to keep their valuable items. Ones that require a master security skill to open >: D

This.
Also, it should be kept on a highly secure area where it's not that easy to steal it and go away unnoticed.

That would be a wonderful idea to have (if they don't have it already)

Like a thief level, The more you rob the same store or stores in a general area or city/town, the higher the difficulty would be for that area. Like first time rob would make the entire town talk about it, if you robbed with a set of clothes/armor then that exact look or even parts of that look would raise suspension of you being the robber/thief.
(I hated that in Oblivion, I mean when you had the mask from the Thief Guild missions then you could do that but it was only when you had it on vs off, should be if you use a elf armor, or ranger setup, heck even a spell caster look and changed to a entire suit of armor and no one saw you change, you would be suspected less then if you had the exact look as you were at the seen of the crime)

Become a master thief and then gain better skills and actions to rob even more value from the people. Sorta like stealing the crown of England or robbing the US treasury. The higher your level the better the odds of pulling off the heist.

This is not reality, this is a game. While that was fun in Morrowind, it made even more unbalanced a very unbalanced game. The best of both worlds would be to be able to steal high quality weapons, BUT, make it enormously difficult to do so (maybe more guards patrol the store at night,and during the day the items are very close to the vendor)

This is a balancing issue - a complexity issue. It remains to be seen how Beth addresses it.

Sure - with the possible exception of a mage who possesses such an ability, all the items stocked in a shop should at least be in the same dimension as the shop. To that extent at least, they should be "available" to steal.

However, there have to be limitations, and fairly solid ones. Even for normal items, I don't want to see another setup like the one in Morrowind, where I could hide just around the corner, out of Mebastien Ence's direct line of sight, open up a chest that was only a few feet away from him, and take as much armor and weapons as I could carry. That's just ludicrous. It should be exceedingly difficult to steal anything more than the cheapest and smallest trinkets from any shop, and it should be virtually impossible to steal their most valuable items - roughly the same as the possibility of stealing a suit of armor or an antique sword from a real world shop.

But yes - it should at least be possible.

But didn't the chests in merchant chests in Morrowind have hard locks? Maybe the ones in Skyrim could require keys that the owners could carry.

You could have the merchants carry the expensive items on their person at all times, but pickpocketing is altered so that it's nearly impossible to pickpocket a large item. You can kill the merchant for the items, but then the downside is that the merchant is dead.

in morrowind, certain high profiles shops had guards in there making sure you wouldn't steal things, Im sure Skyrim would implement a similar system if they chose to have them stored in chests. I'm all for things like that though, and the huge vaults in Vivec you could rob to get some dank items

I agree, it should not be easy, but the items should be there, if its a high level item then it requires locks and traps that only a high level thief can crack, that's all.

More loot, but more secrity, guards, alarms on locks, sniffer dogs...

In Morrowind shopkeepers would always keep their best equipment equipped. I never looked into this is Oblivion, but perhaps you just can't pick-pocket equipped weapons? As many immersion breaking, game killing features they had in Oblivion, I can't believe they would go so far as to make weapons that don't exist until bought.

Yeah, All items should exist in some form or another and should be able to be taken.

Not only is this good for thieves, it can even tempt "good" characters into being naughty when they find that awesome weapon they've been looking for that they can't afford.

As for AI reacting to being stolen from, maybe after losing a certain values worth of goods they start hiring fighters guild agents to watch their shops at night or something of that sort.

I like the idea of AI being able to protect their wares but they should go about doing so within the realistic structure of the game-worlds itself.