Thoughts on NPC shops in Kagome

@Leon
I don't like the idea of trading from villagers for enchants at all. Enchants should be obtained by yourself. Having a theoretically infinite supply of, say..., Efficiency I, Sharpness I, or Fortune I would be kind of game-breaking. It just means that, with a sufficient supply of emeralds or diamonds or even our Mon system, you can easily get max enchants on everything. I may be a stickler for progression and will always refuse opportunities to be boosted in games but it does not seem right at all. Books should always be obtained from enchanting it yourself, trading with other players, or from world gen. It adds value to books and gives enchantments their lustre. To make these enchants easily obtainable and near infinite devalues enchantments big time.
It's why I always tell people that, if I were in charge of making an economy with villager or chest shops and trading, I won't never sell rare goods or valuables unless said goods are now theoretically unobtainable (like pre-1.7 nametags or the pre-1.8 bricks) and/or are very strictly priced.

Iron and gold farms already exist. Yukibara owns one and there may be others in existence. Yuki's generated a CRAP TON of iron for the long time that it was "broken" (Yuki messed up the hoppers and didn't know how LWC worked). A pigman farm also exists but due to the droprate of nuggets, it's not the most effective gold farm in the world.
Gold has little worth on the server imo. Asides from making potions, golden apples, and decorative stuff; there isn't that much value to it. It is either considered a vanity resource, one that is only gathered for the sake of showing off, or an ore that is about as worthless as pre-1.8 lapis.

If that's the case, we could try making gold our primary trading currency, although the amount required would be rather high, but not too high (Pigman farms are not easy to make without associated risks).

As for items for sale, I'm thinking more along the lines of items that are slightly better for their class (One level enchant higher than what you can obtain normally, but on a lower level item), and more along the vanity side.

Say, for example, instead of a max enchant diamond sword, the designated blacksmith would sell an iron sword at Sharpness 6 (or whatever it is that one higher than what is obtainable), Unbreaking 3 (Higher quality forges :3), called the "Kagome Slash" with a lore saying "Sword of the guards of Kagome" for 40 gold ingots.

Thoughts?

Designating gold as the Kagome/National currency doesn't seem like a bad idea. Emeralds would also be a very viable currency as that ore was strictly made with trading in mind. While pigman farms are a possible source of infinite money, few people actually build in the Nether and nugget droprates are low so that it is not a big issue. And besides, if people are found actively exploiting pigmen for the sake of trading in Kagome and then turning a profit, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

I like that idea of over-levelled goods for sale in Kagome. Stuff that is impossible to obtain in the actual game but still provides a benefit to players. It means that players have a further objective to obtain after obtaining their max level goods. But, like I said in my last post, I do think that these over-levelled goods will have to be very bare-bones so that players don't get immediately OP gear (a sword with Sharpness VI, Fire Aspect II, Knockback II, Looting III, Unbreaking III up for sale would be dreadfully unbalanced), that way it would still encourage players to enchant the gear and perfect their equipment outside of villager shops. It would also help if these goods too were placed a good price too. One that is not so low that it breaks the server but not one that impossibly high.
For example, Kritter, I don't like the idea of a Sharpness VI, Unbreaking III sword at 40 ingots. The Unbreaking III shouldn't be present on the sword. It should be applied to the sword after purchase. But if the enchantment does stay, the price should be raised significantly to give the incentive of working for these rare goods. As the price stands, with or without the second enchant, the price should still be higher. The price may be fine to some people but gold isn't as rare as one may think. And I know people who have high quantities of gold, diamond, and the sort.

Why gold ingots, why not just use blocks instead?

I say we just use emeralds since they can't be farmed as they spawn rarely and no mobs drop them.
So the only way to get them is to put up with the NPCs' ridiculous exchange rates.

Well, you could keep it at emeralds and have participating in a Flak tower smackdown/defence of kagome your only option of getting emeralds and having a villager to trade strong weapons for them

We could also create "lore" items to act as specific currency, and make it so that you can only earn these items in events.

@Krittercon
That idea is one of the best ones I've seen here. No risk of exploitation or farming and a currency that can be very easily controlled by staff and the sort. The only way to obtain these items is to have proved your worth in events and whatnot. I like it. And if we find ourselves distributing too many of these items, we can bump up the price in the shops or we can limit the distribution of this currency.

Wacky idea: What if smaller-value variants of these items were distributed in the future Minigame World? It'd give more of an incentive to play minigames and would allow people to buy Kagome items if they could not participate in events (For example, eastern Europeans or Asians who are asleep while events happen).

Sounds like a plan :)

what about have it so the player towns are able to implement this too