Can we please have a way to remove runes from jewelry and/or summoned items WITHOUT trading them in automatically? I'm considering buying a jewellery rune, but I'm a nutter for having things that match a wardrobe, and I'm reluctant to buy a jewellery rune in case someday I decide I want to discard the piece of jewellery, since that would mean losing credits on the trade-in value. So could we please have something like:

ARTIFACT REMOVE FROM ITEM, which would remove the rune and put it in your inventory, from where you can then do

ARTIFACT TRADEIN to trade it in? It would make things rather less hassle (and yes, I am obsessive-compulsive about what I wear in a text game).

Let's do this for weapon runes too! It's bad enough switching specs with the lesson lost and weapon cost. No need to add to that.

Yes, I know this will never happen, but I can dream?

and here I hoped this was an idea about the runes skill for mages and whatnot.

That would allow you to move it from one item to another... which I realize is your intention, but preventing that is why you can't remove things without trading them in in the first place.

I don't understand why not, though.

The solution to this, if you really can't stand how the piece looks anymore, is to just customize it to look like something else. While this might not be the solution you're looking for, the cost required for this would be a lot cheaper than the removal and transfer of certain runes (especially if said piece has multiple runes).

It is set up as it is now for a reason. Choose very carefully.

Most things related to limitations on artifacts are designed to make you spend more credits. This is a perfect example.

But moving runes from item to item freely also has some hairy implications when you think of how runes have the side effects of "adds charges" (move a rune from item to item to get the extra 10 charges on every item), "stops decay" (move it from item to item to spread out the decay reduction or protect the things most needing protection at that moment), and "resets to you" (move it to an item before you loan it to someone, so you can loan everything you own). People would abuse the hell out of that. And those are just off the top of my head; I bet a really creative but amoral jerk like could come up with some really imaginative abuses.

Ah, that makes sense then. Annoying, but I guess that just means I'll need to find some nice jewellery.