Well, since it can be too long, until the next title drops (1 year, fingers crossed), I thoght about what they could change for the next instalment. What I would wish for is a deeper financial system, which allows players to trade and interact in a market economy. And I don´t mean an auction house.
This is what I came up with so far:
New Area: "The Market Place":
You´ll warp here from a bonfire or archstone. You will apear here as an Phantom, but you won´t be able to use weapons. Via a some kind of comunication (maybe carvings or soulsigns or gestures) you can let other players know your intentions, e.g. "seeking ore", "seeking weapon", "offering souls". If you find a player, who is willing to trade with you, the game could bring both of you to a trading menu, maybe similar to "Fallout"-games, where each player puts stuff on his side of a table and when both click on an "agree"-buton, the trade will be completed.
New Covenant "The Soul Bank":
In this market place there could be a covenant to join: the Soul Bank. Members of the bank can offer loans to other players.
Imagine you are a new charakter and you are in an area you can´t complete, because you are to week. Normally you would start farming/grinding to get more powerful. With this new covanant, you could travel to the market place and visit the soul bank. There several members of the bank would offer you loans with fixed interests and payback deadlines (which are fixed by the member of the bank). So you borrow, i don´t know, like 50.000 souls with an interest of 1.5% per day (Oh yeah, Night/Day-cycles for the next souls game would be necessary) which you have to pay back in 14 days.
If you fail to pay your debt in time, the member of the bank will receive an orb, which allows him to invade you at any time you and him are online, doesn´t matter if you´re hollow or human. If the member kills you, he will receive all the souls you are carrying and your bloodstain won´tt give you your souls back. This will go on, until all the debt plus interest is paid back. At that point the orb will disapear from the members inventory.
New Covenant "Arms for hire":
Like the Sunbros, only you will have to pay souls for summoning these guys. The soul signs of this covenant should include a trail/victory-ratio. Let´s say an Arms for Hire was summond 20 times for a boss and defeated the boss 18 times. You would have to pay him more to summon him, than you´d have to pay someone, who was summond 20 times, but only defeated the boss 15 times.
New Covenant "The Headhunters":
So, you get invaded and your invader turns out to be an ******. Backstabbing, spell-spamming, rude, whatever. Instead of putting his name into the "Book of Guilty", you can put a bounty on his head. For a small administrative charge you can put out an contract for the headhunters. This guy made you mad and you are willing to pay like 50.000 souls for his head. Now the headhunter finds your contract at HQ, takes the contract (for another small administrative charge) and gets an orb which lets him invade the world of said offender. If he kills him, he gets the reward, the guy who put out the contract gets some kind of souvenier of reprisal. If the headhunter gets killed by the offender, he loses the contract and will have to buy it again.
So, these are my thougts so far. Also thinking about some kind of "Warlords"-Covenant, which are covenants made by players, but I´m not to sure right now, where I wanne go with this.
This is what I came up with so far:
New Area: "The Market Place":
You´ll warp here from a bonfire or archstone. You will apear here as an Phantom, but you won´t be able to use weapons. Via a some kind of comunication (maybe carvings or soulsigns or gestures) you can let other players know your intentions, e.g. "seeking ore", "seeking weapon", "offering souls". If you find a player, who is willing to trade with you, the game could bring both of you to a trading menu, maybe similar to "Fallout"-games, where each player puts stuff on his side of a table and when both click on an "agree"-buton, the trade will be completed.
New Covenant "The Soul Bank":
In this market place there could be a covenant to join: the Soul Bank. Members of the bank can offer loans to other players.
Imagine you are a new charakter and you are in an area you can´t complete, because you are to week. Normally you would start farming/grinding to get more powerful. With this new covanant, you could travel to the market place and visit the soul bank. There several members of the bank would offer you loans with fixed interests and payback deadlines (which are fixed by the member of the bank). So you borrow, i don´t know, like 50.000 souls with an interest of 1.5% per day (Oh yeah, Night/Day-cycles for the next souls game would be necessary) which you have to pay back in 14 days.
If you fail to pay your debt in time, the member of the bank will receive an orb, which allows him to invade you at any time you and him are online, doesn´t matter if you´re hollow or human. If the member kills you, he will receive all the souls you are carrying and your bloodstain won´tt give you your souls back. This will go on, until all the debt plus interest is paid back. At that point the orb will disapear from the members inventory.
New Covenant "Arms for hire":
Like the Sunbros, only you will have to pay souls for summoning these guys. The soul signs of this covenant should include a trail/victory-ratio. Let´s say an Arms for Hire was summond 20 times for a boss and defeated the boss 18 times. You would have to pay him more to summon him, than you´d have to pay someone, who was summond 20 times, but only defeated the boss 15 times.
New Covenant "The Headhunters":
So, you get invaded and your invader turns out to be an ******. Backstabbing, spell-spamming, rude, whatever. Instead of putting his name into the "Book of Guilty", you can put a bounty on his head. For a small administrative charge you can put out an contract for the headhunters. This guy made you mad and you are willing to pay like 50.000 souls for his head. Now the headhunter finds your contract at HQ, takes the contract (for another small administrative charge) and gets an orb which lets him invade the world of said offender. If he kills him, he gets the reward, the guy who put out the contract gets some kind of souvenier of reprisal. If the headhunter gets killed by the offender, he loses the contract and will have to buy it again.
So, these are my thougts so far. Also thinking about some kind of "Warlords"-Covenant, which are covenants made by players, but I´m not to sure right now, where I wanne go with this.