In response to the "maps for aethermanses" bit: I would picture it'd be entirely player-driven, so the owner of the manse would have to designate the xyz-coords manually. And since it'd be buyable with gold, those with manses that are more "dynamic" would probably not buy into it in the first place.

Oh, and one thought for the aetherbashing bit. While I agree that non-player crews might be a bit much, perhaps specialised crew for less-than-desirable jobs? Right now, I'm thinking slivvening and energy-collecting (the first because it means being unlocked and thus you don't actually get any aether-xp from it, the second because it's a very big drain on your aetherwill)? Then again, slivvens were added to stop people autoing, so that one might be a no-go...

Gold for flashpoints, maybe? A gnome pilots your ship to the place and sets the flashpoint in return for gold. This would obviously only work for set places like bubbles.

I'd totally buy a co-pilot that helps me get places. :D

Why not demi-essence-for-gold (though I don't really think its a good idea.)? You offer gold to gods for their essence, and it's all the same resource, seeing as players are essentially gods with less power. You could have a place that has a generic shrine type thingie that connects to whoever writes their name on it, and have an npc charge gold to offer stuff to you.

Probably because it would open another can of worms: Offering corpses/esteem to yourself. "Well we can already offer gold to ourselves, why can't we offer corpses/esteem?"

I've been the GA for Nekotai for several years... during that time I've amassed the guild's gold wealth and have re-invested that back into the guild:

• upgraded the commune shop in nearly every way,
  
• acquired multiple cartels for nearly every design trade,
  
• incentivized designs for each cartel with a sizable gold sum (including both commission and submission fees),
  
• purchased an aethership with occasional upgrades,
  
• and have added onto the guild hall as much as creativity and admin participation will allow.
  

The problem is that most of these investments are one-and-done; by that I mean they have a one-time fee as opposed to an ongoing subscription type service. I believe a player-side solution should resemble more of an ongoing gold-drain rather than a one-time gold sink.

A weak example might be bank-based achievements for deposit. You know, reward lessons for hitting gold milestones. That would be fun to see, but not a real fix to the overall problem... not to mention a short term solution.

A better solution should approximate a gold equivalent of offering essence to shrines. For example, donate gold on a yearly basis for org-based "Patron/Matron of the Arts" title/status. Those who have higher donations are addressed with a "greater" title, while those with a lower donation have a lesser title.

Maybe this distinguishing factor could have several small cosmetic differences or buffs (outside of combat). For example, org guards address you with a unique greeting, the title appears somewhere on CWHO, totems can be carved in your likeness (hehehe), a minor discount on all commune shops (i.e. 3% - 5%), bonuses to family status...

Something along the line of continued donations is an example of "gold drain" that I think is needed to fix the situation. Dunno, I'm sure someone more creative could think of a dozen more ideas along this line of thinking.

The ability to make neat looking pictures with my manse map is a reason I want to be able to pay gold to map it out.

As for raided ships having messed up maps, that's easily overcome by creating your own maps with your client mapper when you attack a ship.

Ssaliss:

Probably because it would open another can of worms: Offering corpses/esteem to yourself. "Well we can already offer gold to ourselves, why can't we offer corpses/esteem?"

You allready do offer corpses and esteem to yourself. In the form of XP. You also get the benefit of being to offer it to a divine.

You can't really map out ships anyways, unless it was changed, it's possible to make one way exits and crazy maze loops that don't really follow the same rules at the rest of the game. Not to mention that the manse owner can shift stuff around on a whim, though I don't know if that works while launched.

Anyways, I'm already asking myself the question "why can't I offer things to myself or another player?".

A few more ideas I had:

• One-shot refill of WP/Endurance for gold. I don't think this will actually affect anything, balance-wise, since you can get it from origami already, and it probably won't be very well-used (for the same reason). Every bit helps though.
  
• Have manses provide an actual effect outside of just living in them. For instance, your influencing ability might increase based on the total size of the manses you own. No maximum manse-size, but diminishing returns a'la DMP. A huge manse would probably add the same effect as the influence runes, but would also strengthen amnesty.
  
• Have a family-deeded manse produce honour to the family, again with diminishing returns a'la DMP.
  

Eventru:

Any thoughts on non-direct buffs (bashing, PvP DMP, damage boosts, etc etc being direct buffs)? Maybe something for manses/ships that doesn't currently exist?

Are elemental buffs indirect? Even if not, temporarily imbue your attacks to do x% of damage as a type of your choice would be neat to have in non-artifact form, or for those who don't use a weapon they can switch the damage type of. What about eq / balance recovery? If all that is direct, not sure what indirect would be :(

For a manse: Artifact to attach to a bed or some bedroom item buyable with gold, that gives an XP bonus (well rested). Either builds up over time (with or without logged out time taken into account) or something that works like a throne.

Also, since thrones give cha, maybe other furniture that gives other stat buffs? Would give non-influencers a reason to get things, and a manse to place it in, both which cost gold.

Ambient messages for manse rooms? We don't have that yet, right? It's fluff but some may like to have it.

Enyalida:

You can't really map out ships anyways, unless it was changed, it's possible to make one way exits and crazy maze loops that don't really follow the same rules at the rest of the game. Not to mention that the manse owner can shift stuff around on a whim, though I don't know if that works while launched.

... Of course you can map a manse. It just takes a little bit of restraint on your part as manse builder. If you want to create crazy maze loops and one-way exits, then you probably don't want to buy the ability to create a map for that manse. However, for manses like Deepnight (which I have admittedly never visited), buying the ability to make a map for it would be wonderful.

Calixa:


Are elemental buffs indirect? Even if not, temporarily imbue your attacks to do x% of damage as a type of your choice would be neat to have in non-artifact form, or for those who don't use a weapon they can switch the damage type of. What about eq / balance recovery? If all that is direct, not sure what indirect would be :(

For a manse: Artifact to attach to a bed or some bedroom item buyable with gold, that gives an XP bonus (well rested). Either builds up over time (with or without logged out time taken into account) or something that works like a throne.

Also, since thrones give cha, maybe other furniture that gives other stat buffs? Would give non-influencers a reason to get things, and a manse to place it in, both which cost gold.

Ambient messages for manse rooms? We don't have that yet, right? It's fluff but some may like to have it.

Re: thrones, that wouldn't create much of a gold sink. Either the comms are "created" (corpses, herbs, etc) or they're most likely bought from the org shop (which just shuffles the gold around). The gold you pay to the artisan is also just shuffled around. Not saying I disagree with the idea, but it wouldn't create a gold sink.

And we do have ambient messages already in the form of a manse artifact. Sorry.

Ssaliss:

... Of course you can map a manse. It just takes a little bit of restraint on your part as manse builder. If you want to create crazy maze loops and one-way exits, then you probably don't want to buy the ability to create a map for that manse. However, for manses like Deepnight (which I have admittedly never visited), buying the ability to make a map for it would be wonderful.

I was referring to the comment that intruders can just use their client mapper to map the manse out successfully.

While expanding manses would be nice, remember the original point that not many people really put all that much into manses, and all of these are one-shot costs anyways.

Reintroduce curio crates for gold again, also.

It's been nerfed enough to ensure it won't unbalance things too much, right?

Ah, sorry. Hard to keep track sometimes with responses to unquoted posts. And yeah, most of these things would be one-shot things; it'd help a little, but wouldn't be a final solution. Still, every little bit count, and the map thing have been requested relatively often.

Oh, and something else minor: The ability to hire stable hands. Give them feeds, and they will keep refilling the feedbag of your mount while it's in the stables. Would be nice for when you want to raise a beast towards stats but don't feel like refeeding it every four hours.

Should just introduce poker or some other game with gold buy-ins and such.