Daily Archives: June 19, 2007

The post office has been stolen and the mailbox is locked

Melmoth’s Standing Procedure, and Elf’s comment on adding more realism to NPCs, got me thinking. Mailboxes are a bit small, aren’t they? The ones dotted around Ironforge and Bree? Sure, you could fit a small package in there, with a ring or amulet in it, but a giant two-handed sword? No way. Unless perhaps the blade has some sort of ingenious telescoping mechanism. Or it’s in kit form. Maybe with a magazine, you know, “NEW! Build Your Own Two Handed Sword Magazine! Free pommel and hilt with Issue 1! Each week you get fascinating two handed sword articles, like ‘bits of your enemy you should try and poke with your two handed sword’, ‘celebrity two handed sword wielders’ and ‘other fun things to do with a two handed sword (part 1: roasting a lot of really big marshmallows)’, and the included blade segments slot together to form a handsome Zweihänder with the complete collection. Order now!”

Anyway, clearly tiny mailboxes are an unrealistic way of sending and receiving large, bulky objects. What you need is a courier service. If only there was some sort of precedent… So I’ve come up with a new and revolutionary idea: when you sell a large item at auction, you receive a quest to deliver that item to the buyer. Imagine the larks! You could have a little cap and tabard, and the address you’d have would be the buyer’s hearthstone inn, so you’d toddle along there, and they’d probably be out questing, so you’d have to write out one of those little “Sorry! We tried to deliver this parcel, but you weren’t in” cards, and then the buyer would contact you and quote the reference number, and you’d arrange another delivery, only you wouldn’t be able to specify morning or afternoon, and then you’d get lost on the way, or stuck in heavy raid-traffic…

If this idea took off, I reckon you could even expand it. After all, it would be a shame to only be able to perform such exciting tasks after selling certain items at auction, so certain NPCs could have objects too bulky, or perhaps too valuable, to send by mail, that they could ask you to deliver instead. It’s a sure fire winner, the players are going to love it!