Sorry, I just posted a massive thread last week that got about 5 views before being drowned beneath the sea of PvP complaint threads.
Guild Chests
Once the player has attained a certain rank within a guild they are granted access to the guild chest which can the be purchased from any representative of that guild. The three guild chest are the Trader's chest, the Destiner's Chest and the Spectre's Chest.
The Traders chest.
The Merchants Alliance will sell you the Traders chest. These cost 100 gold each (all crew members are charged) and looks suspiciously similar to small wooden boxes with a small tag on them. In fact, thats exactly what they are.
Traders chests are fragile. More than a single sword strike or a close cannon blast will destroy them and their worth shall be lost to the wily winds! For this reason it is advised that players intending to profit from these chests do so in a curteous and diplomatic manner.
When a player is holding a Traders chest a member of another crew may interact with them. This will, if the funds be available, remove the chests value from the interacting players gold stash and transfer the chest to their hands. The chest increases in value by between 130% - 145% and another travel tag (like a stamp or postcard) appears along the edge of the Traders chest. The more the chest is worth, the bigger and heavier it gets, slowing the player holding it as a result. (it never gets so big that a player can't lift it alone.) The chest can be traded a maximum of 9 times before is no more space for stamps and it cannot be traded again.
Theres no limit to the amount of Traders chests that can be purchased, so a cunning merchantman can move dozens of chests at a time and turn a commendable profit. It's actually advised that no less than 5 are bought at once, since lightning, cannons and drunk crew members are like to damage some of the crates... I mean, chests...
So how do players earn anything from this chest? Well, like all chests it can be sold at an outpost for its gold value. When it is sold, Not only is its value given to the selling crew, but the merchants alliance will hold the amount in an account for each player in a crew that any point purchased the Traders crate. This gold value is paid to the players the next time they interact with a merchants alliance representative.
The chest cannot be sold within 5k of the last place it was sold in, and cannot be sold directly back to the last crew that owned it.
To summarize the Traders Chest;
Much like all chests, it can be stolen and sold by those who have ot earned it's value. However, due to it's fagile nature this is much harder to do than actually stealing chests. A crew could decide if they came under attack to simply destroy their stock of Traders chests and give their assailants nothing. The chest also only earns gold upon being traded in, encouraging crews to work together to get it back to an outpost safely.
The fragility of the chest also encourages stealth based piracy over violent piracy. Cannons and musket shot will churn the chests to tinder, but soft socks and a dark night can be cover enough to smuggle off with a ship's stock of Traders chests, either to sell them on and get yourself in on the profits or to trade in for the cash price. All in all this chest offers the more diplomatic players an alternative way of making profit from player interaction other than raiding and stealing. It can encourage team work and build bonds, and lead to some truly cunning thievery opportunities.
The Destiner's Chest.
Every man of the sea wants to leave some sort of legacy, an adventure for his descendants or a trophy to be admired for all of time. Though no one knows its contents but you, they will all know that the Destiner's chest contains some great and personal treasure with a tale of its own.
The Destiner's chest can be purchased from the Gold Hoarders once enough reputation has been built with them. This old worldly chest costs 1000 gold pieces (god knows what you put in there but I hear kidneys sell for a fair penny). Despite this, it's sale value is only 400 coins, to begin with. A player can only have one Destiner's chest connected to them at any one time.
Turns out the chest is a touch magical. You must bury it, and it will only allow itself to be buried if there are no other players (other than your crew) on the island, or in the surrounding waters where you are trying to bury it. Now, leave it be.
You must then get someone else to dig it up. The means by which you encourage them to do so is entirely up to you, but note that the further you are away from it when it is uncovered, the greater the increase in its value will be. Maybe bury it somewhere obvious. An x will mark the spot. When it is dug up, you will know, somehow. Maybe a mermaid throws an old boot at you or something. Maybe your compass start to burn like the surface of the sun. Eitherway, your compass now adopts an alternate feature that guides you to your unearthed Destiners chest.
The player can sell the chest for 400 gold. Not a bad earning. They could also sell it back to you. The chest also has a device on it that points towards its owner. Whether you decide to pay them for it or take it by force is up to you. As with Traders chests, an interaction allows the chest to be purchased from the holding player for a selected price, if they agree to it. The chests value will also be evident at this point, as well as visually as the chest magically develops to represent its value. Once unearthed the chest cannot be re-buried, only sold. Its value is always around 400 for anyone but the player it is attached to.
The impact this chest will have on the game is more creative than anything. Bury your chest, make a note of where it is, then sail out and find someone to go and dig it up. Describe its location, they are free to use a pen and paper of course, and send them off to find it. If it is a long way away when they dig it up, it could be worth up to 3000 coin, turning a neat profit for both you and the collecter (values can be tweaked, I haven't played the game yet.) Or maybe someone will find it randomly and come and hunt you down for a big payoff. Again, this chest encourages non-violent player interactions.
The Spectre's chest.
The final chest, available for purchase from the Order of Souls, is unsurprisingly the most sinister. Too see an individual holding this chest spells trouble in all weathers.
This magical chest contains spirits known to the Order of Souls and willing to compensate them with otherworldy boons in return for once again tasting life, to a fashion. This chest costs the modest sum of 300 coin.
Set the chest down and all skeletons within a large radius are possessed by spectres, granting them an immense increase in strength, durability and speed, Whether you choose to combat these skeletons yourself, or set up another crew to do so, each possessed skeleton killed will add a sated soul to the chest. Oh, and the chest can't be closed and carried again until there are no possessed skeletons left nearby. This chest isn't to be jovialized, its dangerous! If it lasts too long, the spirits will fully escape and the chest will turn to dust. A spirit tether between possessed skeletons and the chest will always guide you to any remaining skeletons.
Fill the chest with sated souls. To increase its value, but beware, the more sated souls, the stronger the possessed skeletons will become. Placing the chest also grants a fair 10 second warning to allow any players not wishing to participate to flee the area. This could be used as a distraction in some scenarios.
The chest can accumulate a value of up to 2000. Its add a sort of alternate hard mode to skeletons that offers greater rewards but is a gamble as to whether you risk opening it one more time and releasing even stronger spirits, or just selling it. Other crews could help you, but then they could also just steal the chest.
The spectre's chest is the weakest of the 3 in terms of encouraging different trypes of players interaction, and I have played with the idea of it storing players souls instead, but it would be hard to design penalties as the chest filled without giving players buffs or summoning enemies that can threaten players on ships (of which there currently are none). More than anything I really think the Trader's chest would birth an entirely new playstyle within the game, the merchant. Which would be great, and not require any extra mechanics beyond the chest itself (which is actually a crate).
