Starting another thread to avoid a total derail:
You'd be hard-pressed to search history for an instance where medium-end shirts cost more than beasts of burden in the same time and location. The shirts are just one example. Beasts of burden, I think, are vastly underpriced. Their variation in price is also negligible.
Here are some ideas for improving the general Mount Economy. Many of these don't require any new coding.
[expensive]: Substantial price increase for all mounts.
[diverse]: More difference between basic and premium mounts.
[startable]: Add reduced-price mount tickets in the starter shops.
[sellable]: Add more NPCs who will buy mounts. (The script exists, but I only know of one place it's used.)
[markable]: Mark mounts with branding tattoos.
[stealable]: Let elves with the "steal" skill steal hitched mounts.

In more detail...
[expensive]: Let's take the maximum common mount price up to "couple pieces of silt-horror armor" level, so like, 4000-5000 sid. This makes a great mount a real object of desire, something people can actually
plot around.
[diverse]: More price difference and quality difference between mounts. A simple approach would be: keep the current mounts but at $expensive prices; introduce degraded versions at about 2x current price.
an old, swaybacked plains ox
Going further, we could gatekeep some of the combat utility by mount type. E.g.: you can't charge/trample with a basic mount...or you can, but you can't train or execute above journeyman level. Your basic mount is good for mobility but not the best for getting into a fight.
[startable]: Add mounts to the set of things that you can get discounts on in starter stops. This lets us jack up prices for basic mounts without ruining char gen economics.
[sellable]: If mounts are a premium commodity, there should be an actual market for them. My experience trying to make money as a mount seller is that you have to deal with bulk buyers: a Byn sarge, say. There's a reason we have NPC shopkeepers; even though dealing with PCs is preferable it's not always practical.
My real brain wave on this one is: have one NPC in Allanak and one in Luirs that do scheduled mount buys. Like, twice a RL week, you can go to one of two wagonyards in the known and sell a mount to an NPC there at 80% new price. What's great about this is that it creates a new interaction point for
finding a lost/stolen mount, and actually improves the PC-to-PC market for mount buying (because you know folks will be there selling mounts).
[markable]: If you didn't know, the very first thing your mount thief does is retitle the critter...sorry. Add code to allow mount branding by players so you can identify your own mount MUCH more surely. Several options:
- Tweak tattoo code so that any tattooist in game can apply a tattoo to a mount. E.g.: "buy #5 mount" applies the tattoo to your hitched animal.
- Add mount branding NPCs like the tattooists.
- Create branding objects with a Javascript. Make sure these are custom-craftable. For simplicity, just make rebranding impossible.
[stealable]: damn those elves.