Talk:Courier/@comment-5095015-20140310222600

@Daen Gaming:

Contract cancellations: I agree, and feel that the buyer should be able to cancel the contract at any time. There will, of course, be a fee for doing so if the contract is in work by the courier.

We suggested that if package is ACCEPTED, and buyer wants to cancel, they will receive a 50% refund of courier contract. If the package is ON-ROUTE, and the buyer wants to cancel, they will receive NO refund for the courier contract.

As for the Marketplace, I feel the two are separate, but interwoven. The player Market board (not to be confused with the SOE Marketplace) allows players to search and buy items remotely from other regional markets while the seller is offline. The Mailbox allows trade and transfer of items to other players without both players needing to be online.

Market place & Mailboxes: I feel the vast majority of players will simply purchase from the Market board, and would rather not concern themselves with the delivery of the items if it can be handled by a third party. This is why I feel that courier contracts should be easily created through purchases from the Market board. Any player can perform the same action (buy the item, post the receipt up on the Contract Broker with a delivery price, get the item delivered), but making a one-button solution removes much of the work for players who would rather not bother, and results in more deliveries being available for couriers to deliver.

There is also the need to deliver items from Point A to Point B without that item being sold, as well as the need to facilitate trade between two players who are not online at the same time. The mailbox facilitates these types of player interactions.

Post Offices: A post office is more of an idea than a specific location. Any location where players perform trade could be identified as a trading post. Any location where a guild has created a structure could be identified as a guild hall. Any location with several crafting devices could be called a crafting hall. In the same way, any location which has a mailbox could be identified as a post office.

PvP: You're right. At this point we don't have a clear idea on how PvP will function in the game beyond that it will exist, and it will be claim based. Also, the devs have mentioned that they are considering different server rulesets, among them PvP. Through various forum discussion threads, the Founder community has agreed that they can't agree, and that two distinct styles of PvP need to exist - one for Hardcore players, and another for more Casual players. The Hardcore server we had defined allows theft of items from players after murdering them. In order to keep with the meta-game on that server, Courier packages would need to be obtainable through looting as well. Otherwise, couriers would present a way to make items immune to theft, and imbalance the Hardcore PvP ruleset overall.

Identity: The identity of the system is most certainly in flux, and is being refined on a regular basis as we get more player input and opinions. The goal is to have a robust system which is easy to understand, and can allow a great deal of flexibility in a sandbox game, while also preventing griefing and exploitation. We're also operating on the premise that not all players will have access to all recipes, and that this will allow players to have distinct crafting specializations. In the same vein, the Courier profession should allow players to specialize as a delivery person, and gain enjoyment from this kind of specialization without negatively impacting the game play of all players.