Letters of Marque

[Taranis]

How about getting players to buy letters of marque to be able to attack/capture enemy ships without becoming a pirate? 

[Galileus]

What would be thier role in the game? What would they be for? What more would they represent than being a busywork?

[William the Drake]

What would be thier role in the game? What would they be for? What more would they represent than being a busywork?

 

For starters it could be a route for our many new "accidental" pirates to return to their respective nations. After that it could be fleshed out even more:

• My Letter's of Marque topic

[Sir Texas Sir]

You can all ready attack enemy ships without becoming a pirate.  Maybe you mean for Pirates that want to return to a nation.  So they get a Letter of Marque and become a privater for that nation.

[Taranis]

It could be used in a number of ways, some of these have already been presented by William the Drake and others, I see. 

 

Types of use:

• Means of taxing/limiting the rampant pillaging of foreign ships
• Means of getting players to learn some game basics (eg: trading) before earning some funds and affording one such letter and going on pillaging campaigns
• Additional item to collect and trade
• Means of getting pardons for accidental pirates / pirates to become corsairs for a certain nation
• Means of collecting/funneling taxes up to a group of national leaders that can then undertake certain endeavors using the funds (fortifications, establishment of ports, access to more advanced hull or canon designs, reinforcements from the old continent, etc...)

[Galileus]

- I see no reason for taxing people for PvP on a PvP server.

- Trade is not "some basics", it is a style of play that should NOT be required as a basis before engaging in combat.

- Trade goods are a-plenty, including a gameplay effect cannot be argumented with "it's a collectible".

- This is an approachable concept

- This - again - is not a proper argument. There is plenty of possibilities for taxes and gold sinks, you cannot implement a gameplay change "because it will ALSO do soemthing else".