Right, my opnion on the gold sinks (right or wrong
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Colour Chat: I am not sure this is a good idea, I would look on this mroe as a feature (as in it should be avaiable for all... but meh thats me). I would not bother with this if it cost me gold! (I am a Scottish man from a place in Scotland considered to be stingier than other places... just for reference in everything I am now typing, personally I dont think im stingy... just eh... VERY practical?).
Monster/Custom pics: Never bothered with them (to be fair I never had the power/gear to worry about them), but they seemed popular, how many people changed their pics more than once? If their likely to do that then itll be a good sink, if not itll be a one off type of thing. I personally prefer to keep a pic once chosen (sorta get used to em and identify the character on them).
Name Changes: Situational. As i mentioned above, not really something I bothered with, and also I would usually keep my name.
Sex Changes: Situational. Personally If i was to make a fem crit itd be for roleplay purposes, but I find that kinda icky, so probably wouldnt bother.
Character Resets: Might be handy, but... itd probably be better just to make a new one or use the Name Change above. In that other game I played you can do a character reset and keep the experience you had gained. It costs a lot and there were conditions. You left a book behind, you had to delete the character, the book was bound to your name... Eh... here there is the vault (not used it yet, but I am guessing its to let you swap gear between crits). Not sure the keeping exp would be a good thing.... maybe lose 50%? This is also something id not really use so it wont bother me what happens with this.
World Shout: Not entirely sure what this is, I am guessing random comments that everyone can hear, like staff broadcasts. Situational, I am absolutley sure people will use this, but I dont think this would cost too much right?
Div changes: Situational again. I remember using certain div's for certain oads, but usually people would have a wide base of alts to draw on, only way around that would be limit the number of crits on an account, but then how do you limit account numbers? Another one I would not use.
Lotto type items: Thatd be interesting, definelty something people would try out once in a while. Could make it teirs... the higher the tier the higher the cost, but (usually) the better the item. Trick is to make the good items good, but not too good. I may use this one once in a while.
Gambling (ack! still ghosted... ok thats been 30 minutes at least... HELP!!!) Mixed bag, I never used the gambling rooms in old Rok. With gambling, there are losers... but people can win... so it will be mixed. Boiviously this will be set up to benefit the "house" more, but itd be another balancing act between loss vs gain, too much loses will put people off. Combining this with the lottery items above would make it itneresting as well.
Guild Houses: I like the idea of guild houses giving benefits based on donations. I also think that they should pay rent (as Satsujin suggests)... The guild need to pay monthly, with options for advanced paying. For guild membership the guild could as for rent based on character level? This would be annoying to keep track off (the game would do this - extra programming, but itd be nice to see who is contributing to clan, just an idea
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Guild Renames: Sorta the same as character renames really.
Buying Houses without rent: As Satsujin says, I dont think this is a good idea (although I personally would prefer to pay and forget about it, it would not work so well as a gold sink, itd be one off, so eventually the problem reccurs). Also, they will take up map space... Every house will take up map space, I suppose there ways around this (upstairs/downstairs etc) but eventually youd end up with a sprawling mess... or is that just my thinking?
Statues: Another thing id not bother with, but some people will, egotistacal bastages!
My durability idea: I actually sorta dont like the idea. For sort of the same reason as I mentioned in the house buying one; I prefer to pay and forget. It would however be a major gold sink if you need to buy/renew your equipment. I am aware this would be annoying... However think old rok... remember how items started to accumulate and eventually lost a lot of their value? Even my alts were walking around in fairly decent gear (and I had MANY alts). You were tripping over blood fiend skins in the streets! (slight exxageration... or was it...). If something like this was introduced it would probably mean a reduced cost for moonstones?