[Lleauaric~EW]

In my ideal game I would combine housing and trade skills.

Here is what I envision...

To participate in trade skills, you would have to join on as an apprentice in a guild (the traditional sense of the word, i.e. Blacksmithing guild) house. Each shop would have two parts. The first part would be a "shop" where goods created are sold. The second part would be an instance where only players of that guild could enter. Additionally players could give the shopkeeper materials to make certain items for them. This would cost a small fee and theses shops wouldnt have any of the more rare or higher powered craftable items.
Inside would be trainers, tools, stations, mini quests and materials. Players would make goods and be rewarded with small amount of cash and/or experience. The NPCs goods would then go into the stock of the NPCs. There would be a baseline that these NPCs would always have, but the greater supply the more the prices would drop, and rare or special items made by players would be available as well.

Eventually players would move beyond apprenticeship and gain access to being a master of their own shop. At this point a player could purchase some space, hire some NPCs, and set up a shop of his own. There would be overhead costs that each master would be responsible for, or would lose their shop space. Part of that cost would be such mundane things as rent or NPC wages, but also would have things like a resupply merchant to keep your shelves stocked with certain goods.

As master of the shop this becomes a competitive field. For example:
I purchase a tailoring shop. I hire NPCs to work in my shop, as well as allow players who want to learn this craft access to my machinery and materials. I keep everything made in my shop using my tools. I can move and price goods as I see fit in my store.
I can also upgrade my store in several ways. The first way would be by having rare and hard to find recipes. This would be a great draw as would people not only want to buy these, but they would be able to learn them as they progress or meet requirements in my shop.
Another way would be the upgrading of equipment. Better tools and resources can be brought in that give higher success rates or the ability to craft certain items. An example would be a blacksmiths shop. Items would be very different depending a lot of factors. Quality of metal, heat of furnace, skill level of NPC assistants, ect. Maybe in my shop Ive brought in a anvil made of certain material which gives crafting bonus to anyone who uses it, or I have contracted to get a rare type of coal from a local trader which heats my furnace to proper temperature to forge Adamantite. Perhaps ive learned discovered a method for folding metals (which adds bonus to weapon damage or strength) that I learned from a rare book that dropped from a Dragon my raiding guild killed. The number of variables would make an incredibly exciting crafting system where players could build reputations and have name brands. Even if you had a rare blueprint, or recipe or whatever, the quality would still be variable and based on such things as quality of material, tools, workers, equipment, ect....

And all this could happen on auto pilot. Players could just allow the NPCs to manage the day to day stuff, add things when they want, adjust as they see fit. Or they could throw themselves into it. Micromanaging their own crafting shop and mini auction house. Upgrading, training, searching for rare recipes or equipment, finding and hiring special NPCs from the population, trading rare skills in competitors shops in some sort of exchange.

Who needs housing? Lets create a vibrant, alive marketplace. Lets create a real economy that rewards the best and allows real market forces to play themselves out.