I labeled pricing as the least important aspect, compared to making women have a greater impact in general and being somewhat more presentable in general.
The pricing in the beta 0.7 is extreme for very common starting items, and fairly cheap for high end items. Pretty much everything is skewed to a high-middle cost; whether its 28 defence armor in starting week or 40 point armor 6 weeks later, or any horse with armor, expect to pay considerably more for it than .611
It's not neccessarily "unrealistic"; chain armor was amazingly tedious to make. But considering how few enemies wear anything weaker than medium armor, its a pity the mid-low tier armor is so high.
Some things changed in unexpected ways also: more horses were rideable at skill 3. maybe thats a good thing. But they cost 2x more than before.
In terms of itemization, I'd expect after the first few weeks maybe the curve isn't so bitter. You need plenty of low gear fodder at first, and its a pity if those dry up before you've geared up to fight whatever survives the first weeks in the beta. I haven't played enough Mels 11 to earn an opinion, but Mels10 the pricing had some gear for starter at not too high price, so there was some layer between naked-with-a-nomad-shield and tier-2ish for your just hired companions. I really don't mind paying a king's ransom for kingly armor, which I wouldn't mind seeing drop someday
but I'm interested in whether the game can be (role)played as a Merchant rather than a spoiled knight.
For that matter I'd be amazed and delighted if a game gave XP for something other than killing; I'd love to earn a small bonus for freeing slaves rather than selling them, or rescueing villagers and such (well, with Mels thats sort of taken care of...). There should be
faction hits for douche behavior, perhaps the women that care begin to loathe the boor that loots villages (or maybe they do - to be honest, I've never done it. I wouldn't want to play something unethical in game if I would consider it repugnant in "real" life, whatever MMO THAT is...)
So, at least half my interest in Mels' tweaks.
----- nothing worth reading follows:
quote of my Life: My home PC is now 64000 times the bandwidth (by every measurement) as the IBM PC2 I had exactly 30 years
ago. Imagine how deep in the Matroyshka we'd be if God had ... say ... 50 years additional head start before we were first "born".
500 years? 5000? Are spirits just hackers? But, since you, or you, or anyone else, knows better, we can get back to Serious things.
Just don't forget to watch the flowers next time you play Perisno... because you can really tell them from say your nightly dreams, which are instanced versus persistent MMO events. See you on the other side then -- if the first settlers don't burn me as a heretic
)