Shattered Kingdoms

New concept:

A shop/NPC that sells insurance for your equipment at the place you buy your equipment. You purchase different plans (ie: 25% of the total cost of your armor, 35% of the total cost of your armor, 50% total cost of your armor, 75% total cost of your armor, 100% of the total cost of your armor) that are based on the silver value of the armor of what you are wearing at the time of the contract.

You pay a yearly stipend out of your bank account at an appropriate rate, and if your armor is destroyed or you die in a place you can not get to your armor, you can go to the insurer and declare the items lost, and the money is given to you at the rate you purchased and the armor decays.

Note this only works on things bought from designated shopkeeper mobiles that sell armor (think of NPCs in newbie zones that sell things, or zemar, or the rose hilted stuff in exile, etc etc etc). Money is automatically given to your bank account when an item bought from those particular shopkeepers is taken by a thief.

I think this will help newbies/lowbies who die and lose lots of coin, or have their things taken by thieves and have to rebuy them, losing tons of money more.

Hard to exploit due to the fact its only for certain items at certain shopkeepers, and something that I think would help real, true newbies out a great deal.

And your rates adjust accordingly.. would increase if you lost it... or would decrease if you hadn't reported it stolen. the rate, being what you pay for the insurance, ofcourse.

How would this differ from storing money in a bank, and re-purchasing the item when it is lost/stolen?

One would assume the cost of insurance is lower than the cost of equipment.

Yes, much less. The concept is not to make a newbie lose 1 obsidian for a set of brass armor in Nerina or whatnot because they died to 3 fytrysks in Morea or they got lost and can't find their bodies again.

A newbie can just buy cheap leather armor from the noob zone and doesn't have to sport the best noob gear there is.

A newbie can also interact with others for help, be it money, training, or getting someone to beat whatever killed them to smithereens. One BIG mistake I made starting out thinking 'oh I'm going to be spending money all the time training and buying gear,' was in not knowing earlier there was a bank to put coin into, and losing my 'life savings.'

Newbie tip: Get that first obsidian or so into the bank. That's your insurance that when you die, you'll have some coin to replace your stuff if you need to.

I've refer'd three people to this mud. And they quit since it was difficult for them to find their things.. they were intimidated. When you are inimidated, quiting is the easy way out. I would think something like this would help atleast the new people. Least till Initiate..

I would like an investment with interest idea in the bank more then insurance.

I don't like modern-time ideas on a medieval-set rpg game.