Weapons and Gold

Seen a lot of posts with people complaining about 2 things:  Lack of useful items, and a lack of gold.

If most of the items are useless, why would you need gold?  Gold may not be the issue.

Most gaming RPGs have you start with a basic weapon, and you work your way up to stronger things, but you never really go back to a previous weapon.  The next generation of games has fixed that 'problem' by having previous weapons do special effects, such as freeze water, poison enemies randomly, etc.

If faldon changed its weapon system, just a small amount, I think it would deal with many of the weapons that arent used.  Have weaker weapons cause poison (if poison is effective, that is), and have some of the stronger weapons with low durability.  If the stronger weapons have a tendancy to break, they will be saved for key battles, causing the player to use previous weapons.  It doesnt create a balanced game, by any means, the high levels are still able to bust out a nice weapon and do some damage.

Since this would make mid-level weapons more common, the gold situation would be slightly fixed as well.  People would not need to seek very expensive weapons, perhaps only one or two.  Or, they could hold their own with what is affordable (because many other people are in the same situation).  Then it comes down to skill.  Plus, the rich are allowed to have their strong weapons, after all they earned it.

Now, this should cover some of the weapon issues.  There are still other subtle item issues, and as an example fishing.  Fish do not earn you much of anything, and it is exactly like the weapon issue, its all high level items that are useful.  Low level fish dont do much for you at all.  They cant even get you to scrape by so that you can get better weapons, etc.

There should always be a progression, from weak to strong.  But you should have to be able to get there, and have a successful time doing it.  Not always working and working and scraping to get the top level stuff before you can do anything useful.  If you are a fisher, the low level fish should give you enough leverage to boost your income or weapon (or spells) so that you can leave fishing for a little bit and explore and level up.  Its at the point where only one skill is valuable, since you need to boost right to the top before there are rewards.

More money is not the issue.  Money has its place and has its value.  Better things should be more expensive so that there is less of them.  A player should have to decide to carry many small, cheap potions, or only a few, decent potions.  The stronger weapons cost more money, but the best weapons dont last.  So, do you go for broke or keep a steady balance of control?

Just some insight.  There is no need for more items, just a simple change on what the current items do.  I know I rambled, but it took me this long to try to explain the idea.  Its late too, so I really hope most of it made sense.  I think that, worse case, you will understand the concepts....