Hi,
I didn't attach my own opinions on these five ideas, so please allow me to fix that:
Taxation: I don't like this one. People can bypass it by buying items, so you will also have to tax items. But what happens if someone can't pay the taxes? (Plus, who here really likes taxation?
Raffles,
Auctions: These make sense to me. Very expensive items as status symbols seem to be popular, so why not exploit this (as long as the items don't topple the game balance)? The artists might even create special unique items for these events. However, some of the more utilitarian wealthy players may not want to participate in raffles/auctions if they can't get a game mechanical benefit out of them.
Locked Quests: The idea here is that it doesn't matter who donates, but everyone will benefit. This is inherently attractive to some kinds of players. Furthermore, since everyone wants to participate in the quest, there is some social pressure on those who have money to donate. Sounds like a worthwhile experiment to me.
Expensive special items/services: This isn't much different from raffles/auctions wrt whom it attracts, except that the items/services aren't unique or even meant to be rare. Thus, less wealth players may wish to take advantage of this eventually. Thus, this could be combined with the `locked quests' approach: Prices will go down after the first couple of uses or the first couple of weeks (or some combination thereof). People will thereby pay extra to be the first to use that feature. (Not sure how popular that would be).
Here is one idea that I (oddly enough) haven't seen mentioned, even though it seems to have been implemented in other MMORPGs:
Houses/apartments/castles for rent: Players will have to pay weekly upkeep or be kicked out, but can take advantage (a) of a `free bed' and (b) of a chest they can store items in. Thus there is practical benefit and status improvement involved. Programming-wise, the hardest part is storing items in the chest and how to give items back to the player if the player is kicked out (maybe they're auctioned off instead...?)
The nice part about this is that it is quite extensible: players might be able to invite others (unlock their doors for everyone to enter), build cellars for extra money (with PvP areas, conference rooms, safe display cabinets for their rare items), all of which can cost money and/or increase upkeep.
To make things more interesting, housing prices could automatically adapt to the market (price increase if 2/3 of the houses are taken, price drop if 1/2 are not taken or somesuch), requiring little GM intervention.
