Requirements:

Realistic Values requires Oblivion.esm and the official patch, version 1.2.0416.
It does not include or address any of the official expansions or additional
downloadable content.


Overview

Have you ever noticed that many of the prices for supposedly valuable, rare, or
precious items in the imperial province of Cyrodiil do not match the actual
supply & demand economic environment of the game world? For example, does it
really make sense that a normal Pearl gemstone costs the same as the cap of an
Elf Cup mushroom, or that the elements of upper class, aristocratic dining sets
have the same price range as various plants that simply grow out in the
wilderness? Of course, low prices make sense if items are either common or not
in demand, but this is not the case for many of these items in Cyrodiil. There
are several mods available that address pricing and economic issues in the game,
but I do not feel that any of them that I have tested succeed in creating the
balanced environment that I am seeking. Most of them, or maybe even all of them,
cater to thief-type characters. I feel that it is better to address the issue as
a general tweak without any specific type of character or playing style in mind.

Realistic Values adjusts the attributes, particularly the value, of various
valuable, rare, and/or precious items so that they make sense within the
economic realities of Cyrodiil. The intent is to make the items much more
realistic within the boundaries of the apparent supply & demand economy of
Cyrodiil as well as the upper class, aristocratic households where many of the
items are found, and to achieve this goal as a general design element of the
game world without focusing on or catering to any specific character class or
individual style of gameplay. Since the items tend to be rare/uncommon, there
does not seem to be a large problem with unbalancing gameplay, at least not
within the default economics of Cyrodiil. There are many ways to generate income
in Cyrodiil. If there is a concern about the specific values chosen and the
adjustments do not seem reasonable for certain items, it's quite easy to avoid
collecting and selling those items. This approach allows the player to have
freedom of choice about how to play while maintaining a much more realistic
environment with respect to valuable, rare, and/or precious items.

Please note that Realistic Values only alters the attributes of certain specific
items that are considered to be valuable, rare, and/or precious within Cyrodiil.
In general, the adjustment is restricted to the Price of the item, but in
certain cases some other adjustment might be made in order to maintain a better
balance of gameplay. For example, Weight might also be adjusted for certain
items in order to maintain a better balance between value and encumbrance cost,
or the Name of an item might be changed in order to better convey its upper
class, aristocratic usage. The specific categories of altered items and the
general nature of the alterations are mentioned in the version history at the
end of this ReadMe. I did not make a detailed, comprehensive list due to the
large number of changes. Specific details can be reviewed by opening the mod in
the Construction Set and reviewing the items in the altered categories.

Finally, please observe that alterations are not made for each and every item in
the game because I do not feel that there is any need to do so. Why is this
true? Well, we know that the economy of the Tamriel Empire uses the septim gold
coin as its base currency. However, we also know that the Empire uses various
other precious or semi-precious metals such as silver, copper, and bronze for
many things such as jewelry or weapon coatings as well as various precious or
semi-precious gems as a form of currency. When we see a value of "0" for various
items that are common or low- to mid-quality, we should understand that this
does not necessarily mean that the item literally has no value. On the contrary,
this only means that the item has a value that is less than 1 gold septim coin.
It is very logical that smaller coin values exist, but the game does not take
them into account in order to maintain simplicity. It's also feasible that there
may be other factors at work in the imperial economy and that some or all of
these factors apply to middle and lower class citizenry. For example, it's quite
possible that middle and lower class citizens use bartering of their respective
goods and/or services in order to acquire various goods and/or services that
they need from each other. In any event, it is very realistic and reasonable to
believe that only people of a fair degree of wealth that is acquired through
some effort on their part would possess actual septim gold coin currency.
Citizens who barter or who use lower value coins (silver, bronze, copper, etc)
as well as items that have that level of monetary value simply appear as having
zero value due to the use of 1 septim gold coin as the base currency in the
game.

Installation

The Realistic Values.zip archive file that you downloaded and unpacked should
contain the following files:
* Realistic Values.esp
* this Realistic Values_ReadMe.html document

Please install the Realistic Values.esp into your Oblivion/Data folder and
select it as a plugin from the main Oblivion launcher data files window or,
alternatively, select it in whatever user-created tool you are using to manage
your mods (for example, Wrye Bash). Since this is a relatively small, simple,
esp-only mod, it's recommended that you place it early in your load order, but
it shouldn't really matter.

For additional detailed information about general installation and usage of
mods, please refer to the Official Bethesda Forum Oblivion Mods FAQ.

Conflicts & Known Issues

Realistic Values should be compatible with most other mods. However, it is not
compatible with other mods that alter the same item data that it alters (i.e.
prices or other specific attributes of gems and various other specific items
that are considered to be valuable, rare, and/or precious). For example, if you
have another mod that alters the price of Pearls, there will be a conflict
between that mod and Realistic Values.

Version History

1.0 [08/01/2007]
* Initial release
* Adjusted all Normal/Mid-Quality gem prices in the MiscItem/Clutter/Gems
category to be 10X their default values. Flawed and Flawless variants of each
gem retain their default values of 0.5X Normal value and 2X Normal value,
respectively.
* Adjusted Gold and Silver Nugget prices to be 10X their default values. These
items are also listed in the MiscItem/Clutter/Gems category. In addition, Weight
for these two items was increased by a factor of 10X. This should help retain a
better balance between value and encumbrance cost within the game.
* Adjusted the prices of most items in the MiscItem/Clutter/Mages Guild
category.
* Adjusted almost all item prices in the MiscItem/Clutter/Upper Class category.
This includes items such as Silver and Ceramic dining sets. In addition, changed
the Name of "Ceramic" tableware to "China" in order to better reflect the fact
that these dining utensils are upper class quality and thus have a genuine
value; the default value is "0" which is very unrealistic for upper class
tableware.
* Adjusted the prices of empty and filled soul gems to be an average/midvalue
of their original default amounts. In my opinion, this was necessary because of
the changes that were made by Bethesda between Morrowind and Oblivion with
respect to how soul gem values are handled. Unlike Morrowind where the player
can enchant their empty soul gems and receive an increase in value for the
filled gem, Oblivion uses the same values for both an empty and player-filled
soul gem. However, the soul gems the player might find or buy that are already
filled have a much higher value. This is extremely unrealistic,
immersion-breaking, and fails to reward the player for work they have
accomplished. Unfortunately, it seems to be hard-coded into the game's engine.
Altering the values to a midpoint/average between the empty/player-filled value
and the in-game filled value seems to be the best solution available.