Ingredent Scarsity

[Strype.McClaine]

That's right, I am talking about Ingredients. The shroud, its a fact of life when you play this game. How many runs have you done? How many this week? Didn't you roll up a NEW character just to have another person to do shroud runs with while you are in truth farming things for your "pet" build. Dual wielding dual affinity heavy picks/rapiers/Dwarven Axes/Kopeishes/Light hammers.....

Trust me, we all are there. But lets consider the items we are talking about. Not the weapons but the ingredients themselves. They are the store of value in the new economy. Once gold ruled the roost, then plat, then tomes, tome pages, dragon scales. No, the new copper of the day, is large devil scales. Why are the valuable? The answer is simply scarcity. They are rare, hard to get, hard to pull, harder to buy off of someone. The game then stagnates a bit. Slows and screeches to a halt. Teir 1 and 2 Items, almost now thought of as free after the huge number of medium ingredients you get by the time you pull your first devil scale. Now then, with that said, what value do they have? None. They are practically give always that we subconsciously hoard for the next character, might as well get him a teir 2 item before you put him on the shelf again.

Now then, with all that out in the open, how would you like to hear a simple solution that will open up a lot of interesting ideas once again.
When the stone of change was introduced into the game, we all were well aware of the simple recipes that we could do..
100 Siberys Dragonshard Fragments > Flawed Siberys Dragonshard

This simple recipe introduces a concept I have come to call compression (hey, its what I call it, I'm writing this and all). You take bits and peices of things, put them in a device, and through raw arcane power and the power of plot, you get a more potent item.

Now then, why not add some measure of compressing or crafting the ingredients to turn them into the next size category up.
5 Small Stones > 1 Medium Stone
5 Medium Stones > 1 Large stone

Not that it has to be 5, but (there are 5 slots, its the first thing I thought of).

==Alternative==

Remember giant hold? In terms of time, and content, it was the best mod, well ever. Great quests, fun challenges, a raid you feel comfortable taking your whole guild on, even the players that are not quite uber...at all. Its the kinda place with something for everyone.

Remember relics? You had to get endless (60 is alot of anything in an mmo) number of them to get...ANOTHER character keyed. Their was a guy that traded relics of one kind, for another, at a rate of 3 to 1....
Wow what a great idea! Why not implement that for the shroud, trade another set of large bones (I know I have in fact pulled 9 bones in a row) for....scales...at a prohibitive trade rate...

==========================

Just some ideas from your friendly neighborhood rogue.

[Sydril]

*ingredient scarcity*

Spell check FTW!

[Strype.McClaine]

*ingredient scarcity*

Spell check FTW!

Cant fix the title dangit

[alchilito]

Its not a bad idea, has been suggested before and i hope it becomes a reality in some shape or form.