Will be small intakes unless the guild is together with a few caravans. Cargo boxes would be required.
This could potentially work towards the node loyalty design, but we don't know the mob distribution, so it's hard to say if those who go out to farm will have to go back to their og node and deposit their daily glint just so that they always have it for fees and taxes.
Just yet another potential fault in the system.
I don't see how to avoid it. Can't defend a caravan alone. Can't farm en mass alone. Can't trust randoms either. The problem is the caravan will broadcast its presence and the pvp will be corruption free. Its like a sick joke by the devs because caravan pvp still has gear degradation and a stationary caravan means people can amass a big force out of sight and sweep the caravan away.
Yeah glint will take up bag space, but only up to 6 slots, since there are only 6 types of glint (from dull to radiant). Compared to vendor loot from other games, like deer antlers and pig hooves and boar tusks and broken orc shields and swords and so forth, I am honestly ok with this. Most of the time we'll only be running around with 3 or 4 types of glint at most at any given time.
Considering they are supposed to drop on death, like mats, and might possibly be crafting materials as it is, I actually see glint as a system that reduces inventory clutter, because it seems like the only drops we get from mobs are either glint, other materials and the occasional finished item from certain mobs. I have zero issues with that.
Considering they are supposed to drop on death, like mats, and might possibly be crafting materials as it is, I actually see glint as a system that reduces inventory clutter, because it seems like the only drops we get from mobs are either glint, other materials and the occasional finished item from certain mobs. I have zero issues with that.
It's only less if you're farming a ton of different mobs each farming session. But if you're grinding a single spot (for a mat or an item) you'll get filled up with glints more than you would've been with certs. And if mats have the same "tetris" design and somewhat limited stacking, then glints might mess up your inventory.
We also can't carry a ton of glint, which implies limited stacking, so glint will fill up your inventory even more!
@NiKr I'm fine with it being a physical item. I'm used to inventory management from various games over the years. It's just part of the gameplay friction in my opinion. Either way, players and mobs still have a chance to have it drop regardless upon death etc.
OK, so at this point we know about a few types of currencies, and some of their uses.
1) Glints. Drop from mobs, bound to the character. Can be used to pay for some node/citizen services or to buy commodities.
2) Gold. The traditional currency. Obtained through the sell of commodities (possibly part of quest rewards too). The universal currency for player to player transactions and to pay NPCs.
3) Node currency. Obtained through service to the node. Used to buy from some merchants.
4) Other type of bound currencies (<-- Wiki link), depending of node type, social organizations, etc.
1) Glints. Drop from mobs, bound to the character. Can be used to pay for some node/citizen services or to buy commodities.
2) Gold. The traditional currency. Obtained through the sell of commodities (possibly part of quest rewards too). The universal currency for player to player transactions and to pay NPCs.
Am I missing any?
Glint can be sold directly for gold, so there's that.
I'll be honest I dont get what some of you expected. We knew monster certificates would also drop from mobs. We knew these would drop on death just like materials so they would need to also take up inventory space.
Glint can be seen as the alternative resource for people to farm if they dont want to engage with the gathering/crafting systems. Instead of going out and picking up whatever you find, you stack up large amounts of glint for raw gold value.
I'll be honest I dont get what some of you expected. We knew monster certificates would also drop from mobs. We knew these would drop on death just like materials so they would need to also take up inventory space.
Glint can be seen as the alternative resource for people to farm if they dont want to engage with the gathering/crafting systems. Instead of going out and picking up whatever you find, you stack up large amounts of glint for raw gold value.
I expected mats/items, not a yet another currency that doesn't even act like currency
1) Glints. Drop from mobs, bound to the character. Can be used to pay for some node/citizen services or to buy commodities.
2) Gold. The traditional currency. Obtained through the sell of commodities (possibly part of quest rewards too). The universal currency for player to player transactions and to pay NPCs.
Am I missing any?
Glint can be sold directly for gold, so there's that.
Oh cool, I was under the impression that we would absolutely need to use commodities to convert glint to gold. Selling at the same node we would buy or, for an better rate, taking the risk of moving them elsewhere first. Nice to have the option to cut the middle step.
I'll be honest I dont get what some of you expected. We knew monster certificates would also drop from mobs. We knew these would drop on death just like materials so they would need to also take up inventory space.
Glint can be seen as the alternative resource for people to farm if they dont want to engage with the gathering/crafting systems. Instead of going out and picking up whatever you find, you stack up large amounts of glint for raw gold value.
I expected mats/items, not a yet another currency that doesn't even act like currency
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
Hell, im now half expecting non-glint materials to not have a vendor value, or the value will be so low the only real profit will be selling to other players.
I'll be honest I dont get what some of you expected. We knew monster certificates would also drop from mobs. We knew these would drop on death just like materials so they would need to also take up inventory space.
Glint can be seen as the alternative resource for people to farm if they dont want to engage with the gathering/crafting systems. Instead of going out and picking up whatever you find, you stack up large amounts of glint for raw gold value.
I expected mats/items, not a yet another currency that doesn't even act like currency
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
Hell, im now half expecting non-glint materials to not have a vendor value, or the value will be so low the only real profit will be selling to other players.
its not part of crafting system. Just trade system.
I'll be honest I dont get what some of you expected. We knew monster certificates would also drop from mobs. We knew these would drop on death just like materials so they would need to also take up inventory space.
Glint can be seen as the alternative resource for people to farm if they dont want to engage with the gathering/crafting systems. Instead of going out and picking up whatever you find, you stack up large amounts of glint for raw gold value.
I expected mats/items, not a yet another currency that doesn't even act like currency
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
Hell, im now half expecting non-glint materials to not have a vendor value, or the value will be so low the only real profit will be selling to other players.
its not part of crafting system. Just trade system.
no no you misunderstand my meaning there. I wasnt saying it *was* apart of the system already, I was asking why it seems NiKr wanted/assumed it to be materials apart of the crafted/gathering system.
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
My problem is more with the currency side of things. Why do we need a completely separate currency for some mechanics? Like, I know "why", but why
Right now glint looks like a super messy system. Obviously we don't know much about it, but still.
Would you be happier if they also allowed the right out purchase of these commodities with gold instead of glint as an alternative way to run caravans?
Would you be happier if they also allowed the right out purchase of these commodities with gold instead of glint as an alternative way to run caravans?
I barely care for commodities or caravans. Glint is used to pay for taxes, citizenship fees and other buildings-related stuff.
Glint has separate versions of itself and doesn't function like a currency, so those versions can't morph from one to another (as would 100 bronze into 1 silver).
Glint will supposedly be transferred in crates, if you want to transfer big amounts. This tells me that it either weighs a shitton of has smth like "10 items per stack" limit, so if you're grinding mobs your inventory will be absolutely shat on by glint.
Commodities (and I assume other glint expenditures) have precise glint cost values, as in you have to have precise version of glint to buy stuff. So if you're unlucky with their drops - ya shit outta luck on paying with glint.
Glint rarities (types) are related to mob lvls. But considering that we need different types of glint, I assume that higher lvl mobs drop several rarities of glint (so that high lvl players can purchase stuff with lower rarities of glint). And with glint having "rarities", I assume that a high lvl mobs would have a higher chance of dropping a low rarity glint. Which means that after killing a few high lvl mobs your inventory could be potentially spammed with low tier glints.
If people will have to farm locations outside of their home node, they'll have to spend additional time transferring their glint back home, if they want to use it for non-gold means. This means that any non-home farming session now becomes way more tedious and takes more time.
That also means that any grinding session now has a limit on how long you can grind (I guess this is partly what Steven meant by "we won't have grind"? ), because you can't simply throw away valuable currency. You could easily throw away certs, because that's just general gold and you can get gold from several sources. But so far it seems that glint has only one source (maaaybe quests, but we'd have to see about that).
Aaaaall of that ^ makes me think that it's a huge pain in the ass system.
I guess some of my theoretical problems could be resolved by having an exchange system for glint (just as currency would), but then this would completely remove the need to use crates to transfer glint, because you could simply exchange your tons of tier1 glint into just a few piece of t5 and then turn it back.
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
My problem is more with the currency side of things. Why do we need a completely separate currency for some mechanics? Like, I know "why", but why
Right now glint looks like a super messy system. Obviously we don't know much about it, but still.
Hm… looks like a super simple version of the cash to gold reserve system in the US. Where you can tune the trade economy via glint, and the broader macro economy via gold exchange rates.
I may actually rethink my plan of vendoring everything I gather as I explore. 🤔
Hm… looks like a super simple version of the cash to gold reserve system in the US. Where you can tune the trade economy via glint, and the broader macro economy via gold exchange rates.
I may actually rethink my plan of vendoring everything I gather as I explore. 🤔
We already had that with certs, because Intrepid could simply control their sell rates. But now we have a full additional currency.
Does anyone in real world pay for stuff with gold chunks (well, outside of some illegal shit)?
OH MY FUCKING GOD, glint is the crypto of Ashes you "mine" it by grinding and then change it for drugs commodities that you can then resell or you sell it directly for some real money.
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
My problem is more with the currency side of things. Why do we need a completely separate currency for some mechanics? Like, I know "why", but why
Right now glint looks like a super messy system. Obviously we don't know much about it, but still.
The way I understand it is that the game offers different systems to make money. Each will be easier to balance if the currencies players own reflect the activities players participated in. Also conversion rates offer a way to encourage players to involve themselves in some aspects of the game more often than in others. So it's about information and control.
The way I understand it is that the game offers different systems to make money. Each will be easier to balance if the currencies players own reflect the activities players participated in. Also conversion rates offer a way to encourage players to involve themselves in some aspects of the game more often than in others. So it's about information and control.
Except you farm mobs (and mb quests?) to get glint, which gives you coms. And you, potentially, do the same to get node currency.
This is in no way different from what we had before with gold that had several ways of acquisition. It's simply broken into different sub-currencies instead.
I like the glint system better than mobs dropping gold directly. A wolf or bear doesn't carry gold. Glint represents the value of the hide, meat, teeth etc. of the mob, which can be turned into gold upon sale.
It is much more efficient to deal with glint than with hundreds of different mob related items like wolf pelts, boar tusks, boar ears, deer meat, etc.
Considering they are supposed to drop on death, like mats, and might possibly be crafting materials as it is, I actually see glint as a system that reduces inventory clutter, because it seems like the only drops we get from mobs are either glint, other materials and the occasional finished item from certain mobs. I have zero issues with that.
It's only less if you're farming a ton of different mobs each farming session. But if you're grinding a single spot (for a mat or an item) you'll get filled up with glints more than you would've been with certs. And if mats have the same "tetris" design and somewhat limited stacking, then glints might mess up your inventory.
We also can't carry a ton of glint, which implies limited stacking, so glint will fill up your inventory even more!
Did Steven specify some special limits for glint in discord later on or something? Where are you getting this about not being able to carry a ton of glint?
From the caravan video we got to see glint in Steven's bag, and it only takes up one slot per type, as opposed to 4 slots for rocks and 2 slots for corn. All the mats seem to stack to 99 at least. So, it really comes down to how much glint is dropped per mob I suppose, in terms of how quickly the space is filled. If every mob drops 10+ dull glint, yeah, bags will fill up fast. If it's 1-2 per mob, with the type depending on level, you can probably grind for several hours or more before having to dump inventory, baring any other materials filling it up.
Did Steven specify some special limits for glint in discord later on or something? Where are you getting this about not being able to carry a ton of glint?
From the caravan video we got to see glint in Steven's bag, and it only takes up one slot per type, as opposed to 4 slots for rocks and 2 slots for corn. All the mats seem to stack to 99 at least. So, it really comes down to how much glint is dropped per mob I suppose, in terms of how quickly the space is filled. If every mob drops 10+ dull glint, yeah, bags will fill up fast. If it's 1-2 per mob, with the type depending on level, you can probably grind for several hours or more before having to dump inventory, baring any other materials filling it up.
He said in discord that big amounts have to be transferred with crates. And he only had x10 of each type. And his GM cheat was refilling those stacks after every purchase, it seemed.
Dunno if they already put the limited stack design in the client, but requiring a crate means you can't have hundreds of them.
As for Steven's inventory - pay no attention to it, for it is also GM cheated. He had a shitton of stones and mats in his seemingly bottomless inventory, and I doubt we'll be able to do that in the game.
Did Steven specify some special limits for glint in discord later on or something? Where are you getting this about not being able to carry a ton of glint?
From the caravan video we got to see glint in Steven's bag, and it only takes up one slot per type, as opposed to 4 slots for rocks and 2 slots for corn. All the mats seem to stack to 99 at least. So, it really comes down to how much glint is dropped per mob I suppose, in terms of how quickly the space is filled. If every mob drops 10+ dull glint, yeah, bags will fill up fast. If it's 1-2 per mob, with the type depending on level, you can probably grind for several hours or more before having to dump inventory, baring any other materials filling it up.
He said in discord that big amounts have to be transferred with crates. And he only had x10 of each type. And his GM cheat was refilling those stacks after every purchase, it seemed.
The way I understand it is that the game offers different systems to make money. Each will be easier to balance if the currencies players own reflect the activities players participated in. Also conversion rates offer a way to encourage players to involve themselves in some aspects of the game more often than in others. So it's about information and control.
Except you farm mobs (and mb quests?) to get glint, which gives you coms. And you, potentially, do the same to get node currency.
This is in no way different from what we had before with gold that had several ways of acquisition. It's simply broken into different sub-currencies instead.
True, you might get both currencies killing NPCs.
We had monster certificates before as a place holder, which were described as pelts. But I did not assumed a great variation of them - to me was one single type, like a paper certifying that I killed the monster.
Steven wanted these to have an increased value the further away you transport them from the node. The game mechanic was important. But how would you make the certificates enter into the caravan system depending of the ZoI you harvested them and prevent players transporting them with mules? ZoI can also overlap so which node would you chose as reference to increase certificate value?
So
- certificates got a name
- a clear way to enter into the caravan transportation, through that NPC which sell the commodities
- players got the freedom to chose the node where they buy commodities from
- got the property of being stolen and some black markets were mentioned. This was maybe also a suggestion from players on forum.
This last change opens the game to market speculations: if you know that a certain node will fall but is further away, you will want to go and buy commodities from there as they will increase in value. The game tempts you to travel with this glint, formerly known as certificates, in your inventory, making you a more valuable target for PvP, to buy the commodities from such nodes which you know will fall.
While you cannot drop gold, the other currency which you can drop was described in more detail now and some players become more aware that the game is more PvP than they might have assumed.
The fact that we got new currencies we did not known before happened in the previous stream where they described the node and mayor roles.
My statement that systems are easier to balance can be applied to those too.
Players who prefer to play more as artisans and gatherers (murdering flowers, trees, fish...) and fulfilling mayor quests to help growing their own node will get their own node currencies. Intrepid Studio will be able to reward those players and balance the value of those currencies easier without influencing or being influenced by caravan/glint system.
Because how else will you convince players to fulfill mayor's wishes and playing together united by citizenship if others would make more money through the caravan system?
But how would you make the certificates enter into the caravan system depending of the ZoI you harvested them and prevent players transporting them with mules? ZoI can also overlap so which node would you chose as reference to increase certificate value?
Mobs and their specific certs would be tied to their location, be it one node's zoi or several's. And moving further away from that location would determine the multiplier on costs.
We currently don't know if mules are even still in the game or what their purpose now is. If mules are supposed to carry mats/gatherables - no one will use caravans for that. And if commodity multipliers are not as crazy as they currently seem to be - no one will use personal caravans at all.
Because how else will you convince players to fulfill mayor's wishes and playing together united by citizenship if others would make more money through the caravan system?
That's the reality of the market and preferred gameplay.
Mayoral tasks could just be paid for in gold with taxes.
But how would you make the certificates enter into the caravan system depending of the ZoI you harvested them and prevent players transporting them with mules? ZoI can also overlap so which node would you chose as reference to increase certificate value?
Mobs and their specific certs would be tied to their location, be it one node's zoi or several's. And moving further away from that location would determine the multiplier on costs.
We currently don't know if mules are even still in the game or what their purpose now is. If mules are supposed to carry mats/gatherables - no one will use caravans for that. And if commodity multipliers are not as crazy as they currently seem to be - no one will use personal caravans at all.
Because how else will you convince players to fulfill mayor's wishes and playing together united by citizenship if others would make more money through the caravan system?
That's the reality of the market and preferred gameplay.
Mayoral tasks could just be paid for in gold with taxes.
I don't know much about personal caravans.
I've seen mules being mentioned as the equivalent of a personal caravan which was unclear to me because they are also protected by the corruption system. Now I consider the personal caravans as the light and fast versions which can move faster than a player can run. I don't know if fighting while riding a pet is possible so those fast caravans might have good chance to survive, depending how are balanced. Maybe are also more fragile and can be ambushed.
Mules make sense. They are used by gatherers. In the stream Steven was pulling a lot of resources into his storage: granite, corn, barley... He had different sizes and shapes of them. While you gather those, you get glint too if the gathering places are protected by NPCs.
You return with your resources and also with the glint to store them.
Gatherers and artisans will transport the resources between nodes with mules, somewhat safer than the PvPers transport the commodities. Both PvPers and artisans make money but are exposed to different levels of PvP, specific to their activity. And the time spent enjoying your favorite play-style can be balanced easier.
We could say we have
glint - the pvp currency
gold - the pve currency
and the citizen currencies
It will be less efficient to have alts and help them out sending gold if they are specialized on activities which need different kind of currencies. Your artisan will not be able to give glint to your PvP alt and it will not be able to receive citizen currencies to buy some ingredients from NPCs.
So each player will be known for how he plays. Having an alt will be valuable only if you also play the role that alt is supposed to have.
If the game will allow to just log in with the artisan alt, repair the damaged armor, send it back to the main, then you take away the job another artisan wants to do actively in the game.
Comments
I don't see how to avoid it. Can't defend a caravan alone. Can't farm en mass alone. Can't trust randoms either. The problem is the caravan will broadcast its presence and the pvp will be corruption free. Its like a sick joke by the devs because caravan pvp still has gear degradation and a stationary caravan means people can amass a big force out of sight and sweep the caravan away.
Considering they are supposed to drop on death, like mats, and might possibly be crafting materials as it is, I actually see glint as a system that reduces inventory clutter, because it seems like the only drops we get from mobs are either glint, other materials and the occasional finished item from certain mobs. I have zero issues with that.
We also can't carry a ton of glint, which implies limited stacking, so glint will fill up your inventory even more!
1) Glints. Drop from mobs, bound to the character. Can be used to pay for some node/citizen services or to buy commodities.
2) Gold. The traditional currency. Obtained through the sell of commodities (possibly part of quest rewards too). The universal currency for player to player transactions and to pay NPCs.
3) Node currency. Obtained through service to the node. Used to buy from some merchants.
4) Other type of bound currencies (<-- Wiki link), depending of node type, social organizations, etc.
Am I missing any?
This will be interesting to test in Alpha 2.
I’m sure it will be a pain for character inventory … so there’s incentive to run the caravans.
or incentive to trade it for gold from npc
Glint can be seen as the alternative resource for people to farm if they dont want to engage with the gathering/crafting systems. Instead of going out and picking up whatever you find, you stack up large amounts of glint for raw gold value.
Oh cool, I was under the impression that we would absolutely need to use commodities to convert glint to gold. Selling at the same node we would buy or, for an better rate, taking the risk of moving them elsewhere first. Nice to have the option to cut the middle step.
I mean you said it yourself. Just sell it to a vendor. Did it really need to be a part of the crafting system too?
Hell, im now half expecting non-glint materials to not have a vendor value, or the value will be so low the only real profit will be selling to other players.
its not part of crafting system. Just trade system.
no no you misunderstand my meaning there. I wasnt saying it *was* apart of the system already, I was asking why it seems NiKr wanted/assumed it to be materials apart of the crafted/gathering system.
Right now glint looks like a super messy system. Obviously we don't know much about it, but still.
Would you be happier if they also allowed the right out purchase of these commodities with gold instead of glint as an alternative way to run caravans?
Glint has separate versions of itself and doesn't function like a currency, so those versions can't morph from one to another (as would 100 bronze into 1 silver).
Glint will supposedly be transferred in crates, if you want to transfer big amounts. This tells me that it either weighs a shitton of has smth like "10 items per stack" limit, so if you're grinding mobs your inventory will be absolutely shat on by glint.
Commodities (and I assume other glint expenditures) have precise glint cost values, as in you have to have precise version of glint to buy stuff. So if you're unlucky with their drops - ya shit outta luck on paying with glint.
Glint rarities (types) are related to mob lvls. But considering that we need different types of glint, I assume that higher lvl mobs drop several rarities of glint (so that high lvl players can purchase stuff with lower rarities of glint). And with glint having "rarities", I assume that a high lvl mobs would have a higher chance of dropping a low rarity glint. Which means that after killing a few high lvl mobs your inventory could be potentially spammed with low tier glints.
If people will have to farm locations outside of their home node, they'll have to spend additional time transferring their glint back home, if they want to use it for non-gold means. This means that any non-home farming session now becomes way more tedious and takes more time.
That also means that any grinding session now has a limit on how long you can grind (I guess this is partly what Steven meant by "we won't have grind"?
Aaaaall of that ^ makes me think that it's a huge pain in the ass system.
I guess some of my theoretical problems could be resolved by having an exchange system for glint (just as currency would), but then this would completely remove the need to use crates to transfer glint, because you could simply exchange your tons of tier1 glint into just a few piece of t5 and then turn it back.
Hm… looks like a super simple version of the cash to gold reserve system in the US. Where you can tune the trade economy via glint, and the broader macro economy via gold exchange rates.
I may actually rethink my plan of vendoring everything I gather as I explore. 🤔
Does anyone in real world pay for stuff with gold chunks (well, outside of some illegal shit)?
OH MY FUCKING GOD, glint is the crypto of Ashes
Ashes is a crypto scam confirmed
The way I understand it is that the game offers different systems to make money. Each will be easier to balance if the currencies players own reflect the activities players participated in. Also conversion rates offer a way to encourage players to involve themselves in some aspects of the game more often than in others. So it's about information and control.
This is in no way different from what we had before with gold that had several ways of acquisition. It's simply broken into different sub-currencies instead.
Agreed. I hope they still drop mats though.
Did Steven specify some special limits for glint in discord later on or something? Where are you getting this about not being able to carry a ton of glint?
From the caravan video we got to see glint in Steven's bag, and it only takes up one slot per type, as opposed to 4 slots for rocks and 2 slots for corn. All the mats seem to stack to 99 at least. So, it really comes down to how much glint is dropped per mob I suppose, in terms of how quickly the space is filled. If every mob drops 10+ dull glint, yeah, bags will fill up fast. If it's 1-2 per mob, with the type depending on level, you can probably grind for several hours or more before having to dump inventory, baring any other materials filling it up.
Dunno if they already put the limited stack design in the client, but requiring a crate means you can't have hundreds of them.
As for Steven's inventory - pay no attention to it, for it is also GM cheated. He had a shitton of stones and mats in his seemingly bottomless inventory, and I doubt we'll be able to do that in the game.
I see. Ok I guess we'll have to wait and see.
True, you might get both currencies killing NPCs.
We had monster certificates before as a place holder, which were described as pelts. But I did not assumed a great variation of them - to me was one single type, like a paper certifying that I killed the monster.
Steven wanted these to have an increased value the further away you transport them from the node. The game mechanic was important. But how would you make the certificates enter into the caravan system depending of the ZoI you harvested them and prevent players transporting them with mules? ZoI can also overlap so which node would you chose as reference to increase certificate value?
So
- certificates got a name
- a clear way to enter into the caravan transportation, through that NPC which sell the commodities
- players got the freedom to chose the node where they buy commodities from
- got the property of being stolen and some black markets were mentioned. This was maybe also a suggestion from players on forum.
This last change opens the game to market speculations: if you know that a certain node will fall but is further away, you will want to go and buy commodities from there as they will increase in value. The game tempts you to travel with this glint, formerly known as certificates, in your inventory, making you a more valuable target for PvP, to buy the commodities from such nodes which you know will fall.
While you cannot drop gold, the other currency which you can drop was described in more detail now and some players become more aware that the game is more PvP than they might have assumed.
The fact that we got new currencies we did not known before happened in the previous stream where they described the node and mayor roles.
My statement that systems are easier to balance can be applied to those too.
Players who prefer to play more as artisans and gatherers (murdering flowers, trees, fish...) and fulfilling mayor quests to help growing their own node will get their own node currencies. Intrepid Studio will be able to reward those players and balance the value of those currencies easier without influencing or being influenced by caravan/glint system.
Because how else will you convince players to fulfill mayor's wishes and playing together united by citizenship if others would make more money through the caravan system?
We currently don't know if mules are even still in the game or what their purpose now is. If mules are supposed to carry mats/gatherables - no one will use caravans for that. And if commodity multipliers are not as crazy as they currently seem to be - no one will use personal caravans at all.
That's the reality of the market and preferred gameplay.
Mayoral tasks could just be paid for in gold with taxes.
I've seen mules being mentioned as the equivalent of a personal caravan which was unclear to me because they are also protected by the corruption system. Now I consider the personal caravans as the light and fast versions which can move faster than a player can run. I don't know if fighting while riding a pet is possible so those fast caravans might have good chance to survive, depending how are balanced. Maybe are also more fragile and can be ambushed.
Mules make sense. They are used by gatherers. In the stream Steven was pulling a lot of resources into his storage: granite, corn, barley... He had different sizes and shapes of them. While you gather those, you get glint too if the gathering places are protected by NPCs.
You return with your resources and also with the glint to store them.
Gatherers and artisans will transport the resources between nodes with mules, somewhat safer than the PvPers transport the commodities. Both PvPers and artisans make money but are exposed to different levels of PvP, specific to their activity. And the time spent enjoying your favorite play-style can be balanced easier.
We could say we have
glint - the pvp currency
gold - the pve currency
and the citizen currencies
It will be less efficient to have alts and help them out sending gold if they are specialized on activities which need different kind of currencies. Your artisan will not be able to give glint to your PvP alt and it will not be able to receive citizen currencies to buy some ingredients from NPCs.
So each player will be known for how he plays. Having an alt will be valuable only if you also play the role that alt is supposed to have.
If the game will allow to just log in with the artisan alt, repair the damaged armor, send it back to the main, then you take away the job another artisan wants to do actively in the game.