Heres idea for new merchant spell 'Enchant armour'. With this
spell merchant can boost armour by using some other armour as
reagent. Bonus(es) gained by spell would be same for each consumed
eq, but effects would vary for each merchant(player). Duration of
this spell could be few days.

If this sounded confusing I'll give you an example

I give tarnished golden helm to merchant and he casts enchant
armour to my precious boots of speed. Effect which comes happens
to be +2int +2str and then merchant knows that everytime he
uses tarnished golden helm as reagent he can boost eq with those
bonuses.

With spell like this lots of eq would get removed from game and
there would be use for eqs noone otherwise wouldnt use. Result
would be that players would keep midbie eqs (or even highbie)
for boosting their own eqs for limited time.

Of course there could be tiny change that enchanted eq breaks
or lots of other different things that I didnt think of, but
think about this. This could spice game up nicely.

Shina, have you checked sales channel in the last oh, couple years? It's
d.e.a.d. What highbies are selling eq to midbies/lowbies? All I have
personally seen are eq prices dropping by 10x times or more just because
NOBODY buys them anymore. People offer eq and nobody bids because price is too
high for eq that has to be repaired every day. Compare that with sales channel
5 years or more ago? It was the BUSIEST channel of the mud. Nowadays
lowbie/midbie eq is considered too crap by highbies to bother about and
lowbies just don't know which monster has what and can't lead for shit.
Capula's idea might actually bring the game's economy back to life again.

Well, then tune it so it's useless for highbies to sac the lowbie/midbie eq,
but useful for a lowbie/midbie to do it.

For example, I'm some newb using a pair of dirty leggings (spr). I enhance it
with another pair of dirty leggings, or better, and get a bonus for say, 1 day
mudtime (like featherweight). If I'm a highbie using some maxspr legs, I need
to sac maxspr or better to get any benefit out of it.

This might support highbies raping newb eq to sell to newb/lowies, but I doubt
it would support highbies raping to support their own eq. If that's a
problem, make it require name so lowbies/newbies have to rape the eq
themselves. Get them hooked to it while they're young!

Huoh, from this post one can obviously see that writer has no clue about
doings of players, or recent state of sales channel.

"Already, highbies rape midbie/lowbie eq monsters for sac value, while
dragging friends through quests, and, of course, to sell unnamed eq to
newbies."

I do exp with wide variety of players and only very rarely partys
primary point is to do sac-eq. And even in the case we would do so,
those monster repop always.
I have no idea what dragging friends through quests has to do with this.
(and isnt friend helping the thing friends do for each other normally)
Uh, selling unnamed eq to newbies? Who would sell eqs to newbies when those
could be used to boost own sets?
My logic says that newbies/midbies wouldnt get their eqs almost free, as
it goes atm. on sales channel.

"Giving
highbies yet another reason to kill midbie/lowbie eq monsters, which will
only make it _harder_ for midbies/lowbies to get their own eq with their
own names on it, is not in the mud's best interest."

Puuh, I dont like to repeat myself but maybe its best in this case.
With diminishing playerbase I see lots of tired players around me. Its
very hard to inspire people to join parties. Those who keep playing
like nothing has changed, do their regular exp runs and get some
"crappy" eqs, which most often end to sales for very cheap price.

Most eqmobs which have "better" eqs have rapeprot already. Unfortunately
newbie/midbieparties are very rare. Reason for that isnt already killed
eqmonsters, but its so much easier to get eqs from sales channel for
almost free.

End statement: If highbies stop selling newbie/midbie eqs on sales
for utterly cheap price, maybe then newbies/midbies should have to
start doing their own eqs.