Escort missions - Game feature or not?

One of the things I liked most in Ultima Online was helping newbies reach moongates in one piece, or protecting the crafters of Minoc from Orc invasions.

Furthermore, it was mentioned on the recent Ustream session that there will be missions that involve you getting a price on your head (for example, you may be transporting contraband), and this will allow other players to accept quests that involve hunting you down.

This made me think: Would there be a point to putting PC escort quests in the game? Give merchants with more money than fighting prowess to hire another player character to see him/her from point A to point B in one piece?

Or would it be better to not actually create a system for that, and just see if it happens spontaneously?

If one decides to go by the latter route, are there other ways in which one can facilitate such interaction? This could include systems for connecting potential employees with potential employees, systems for handling the transaction fairly, a reputation system that'd allow you to reward or penalize players depending on how well they meet their part of the bargain...

 

If this was strictly an MMO I would be wary of a reputation system. That's just asking for abuse. What do you do for example if a player disputes how they were rated?

In terms of a PC escort I think it's probably best to simply allow players to handle that on their own. There will no doubt be a messaging system in the game. They can request an escort, offer to pay or not. Then when all is said and done they can opt out of paying or give a generous tip. Up to them.

The trouble with systems to encourage player interaction is they only work when players want to interact. Those who want to interact will do so regardless of whatever system may be put into place and those who don't will go solo.

 

That's a fair point; let people interact because they enjoy doing so, not because the system tells them to.

With regard to a reputation system: I think that's part of the nature of reputation, that it needn't actually be true. Unfortunately, though, it's quite true that the risk is it'd be incredibly abused; if people can just rate each other willy-nilly, troll reviews may come to outweigh sincere ones.