The mail statics - keep or replace?

[Brokenbone]

I think a lot of the desire I'm hearing from Ronan is about encouraging folks to congregate, and mail causes folks to spread. Alone.

I suppose the bane of many otherwise fun games, the ESCORT QUEST, could always replace mail, and need a minimum party size of say, two. Make sure some horse and wagon get to destination city. Perhaps the horse gets "talked" to in order to make it stop or go, and ALWAYS stops at ATs until you tell it to go to next screen. So that you can't just abandon the wagon and hope it makes it to Beregost alive without you. Some klunky "two different guys with the static need to talk to the horse before it agrees to go" could be what starts the mission, and those same two guys need to see it to its destination. Or maybe only one does, but if the other isn't there at conclusion, no reward, no ability to repeat since blacklisted, whatever.

[gonz.0]

how about replacing mail deliveries with say supply deliveries to some dangerous area? here, this is a letter to the crazy chap who lives in wood of sharp teeth... now go gather up five folks and go deliver...

This, too. Only that such should be available in addition to single-player statics (which mail, in all honesty, is). The "needs a group" should not be implemented by IC danger, though some danger should be along the way, but the quest-giver simply refuses to give the quest to a party of 1. And the same party must complete the quest in a fixed time (like, 24 RL hours). You can't do the "needs a group" by danger alone, because a lvl8 can easily do alone what 4 level 1s couldn't hope to. These group jobs (deliveries, patrols, whatever IC hook is invented) should give clearly more rewards than the loner mail jobs, too.

Yes what she said.