well, I suppose my issue is that while I enjoy the game, it's mostly for the RP and community aspect, and I'm in the habit of playing for a while every few months and then dissipating again, mostly because the grind just gets on my nerves (especially when one considers it's now at 200 for skills...) I personally HATE grinding, particularly on a game that is supposed to be RP focused, it takes away time I could be using to RP because I need to get my various skill levels up high enough to fight properly, or my angry dwarf is somewhat limited in what he can do, it can get a wee bit frustrating.

texas Hold 'em all the way

Where are people getting this whole "you can't use daggers against shields" business? I've done it before, I tended to use short swords and daggers, and if your smart/quick its quite easy to get a dagger around a shield with enough force to make your opponent drop something O.o (well what would be enough force if we were stupid enough to be using sharpened weapons). Although if you were outnumbered, you would be screwed, and it is generally a rather risky thing to attempt.

anyway, to be honest i think daggers should be one of the only offhand weapons to be honest, i've always found the idea of someone running around wielding duel long swords  rather...stupid, it'd be pretty unwieldy and the guy with one sword would most likely be able to get through your guard, I'm sure its perfectly possible, but with long weapons like swords (short sword being an exception I suppose) it seems somewhat pointless to me, a sword and a dagger, thats a good combination, use one for parry and when your opponent gets close shove the dagger into their neck ect. but 'eh... thats just what I reckon.

I don't think this idea has been mentioned in this way, if I am wrong I apologise, and yes I used the search function. Anyway onto the idea.

I had a thought, there seems to be no way someone playing a 'merchant' can make money using IG mechanics with any amount of ease, sure you can buy things and sell them to players who are far away from these items, but that requires other peoples laziness to work, so you basically need to either hunt, or smith or something other than simple trading. So here's my thought.

Firstly, make the NPCs stocks and prices based upon players to an extent, so if someone was to take a tonne of Cider from oja for example, and ship it off to Hydlaa, they could make a nice profit, depending upon how many others have done this, which would be a nice little RP feature if nothing else, and it would give people something else to do to make money. And you could even include quests for supplies, like courier quests of some kind. 

But then you come into the issue of "easiest way to make money like this is bulk. Weight is a limit" so, you add in pack animals and caravans, these would be expensive (and most probably require winch access) but once you have one, you would have the ability to carry ALOT of items from town to town, and the roads would become allot more interesting as you got convoys appearing, and it opens up room for bandits to attack the caravans, and sell swords to protect them. This could also be kinda cool in guild warfare as people try to disrupt each others supply lines ect. anyway getting slightly off topic from the orgional idea.

The price you'd gain from each item would be controlled by some kind of barter skill, which would allow you to buy low, sell high (but isn't necessary to get good prices for things from NPCs, just gives you enough of give from merchants that it increases your profit from bulk buys) I just reckon it'd give another more interesting career path for people who don't want to be a crafter or fighter, and it might encourage more people to play merchants.

anyway thats the idea in basic... any comments, criticism, additions?