One thing which I see will be a downfall of for 2002 is lack of though for the creation of items.
A system that would work well here would be limiting things like "sword crafting" to only people who select crafting (or whatever) as their job.
The items created by the working player are only as good as the players experience.
Do not make the players experience increase every time he/she crafts a new sword, instead attach the experience to how much their swords/items are USED by other players. This will eliminate players simply mass producing products to become good at it. They will need to start out basacily giving away their first swords (which will be a good way for new people to get bad, but useful for a little while, weapons.) Every item should be player dependednt, for example, the sword crafter must purchase coal/minerals etc through a merchant, the merchant must purchase the coal/goods through the miner etc.
Every item made should have a mark of it's creator, so for example, if Stefan were a sword crafter, and you bought a sword from him or one of his swords through a merchant, your sword would say "Hand Crafted by Stefan" in the menu system. When you use the sword, Stefan would gain experience, and craft beter quality swords.
This would allow people to actualy have fun doing work. Unlike 2001 where miners never improved their skills they just hit "D" 50,000 times for 100g.
A good thing about this is also you do not need to be online to level up in your skill. Your experience comes through use of what you've made, so you sign on after a few days an you recive a notice "Your Crafting Skill is now 39" or something.
This system isn't complete, just throwing it on the table, but I think it's definately worth putting into 2002.
Ray
