I'm opening this thread to propose a feature for Grand Companies, related to the in-game purpose of organizing a wide variety of materials and distributing them efficiently. I am not proposing that this be the ONLY feature of Grand Companies, but that it could be one of them.

This idea is organized around the idea of making Grand Companies somewhat similar to player-run guilds, with gatherers collecting materials that go into a "Grand Company vault", crafters taking those materials and creating items, and the subsequent results being distributed to those in need.

Step 1) Company items
The development team (the Company leaders, essentially), determine which items each Grand Company will be creating and distributing. I personally would like to see each Grand Company focus on items relevant to the city-state that it is within. For example, The Order of the Twin Adder in Gridania could focus upon gear and armor for the classes represented within Gridania -- Lancers, Archers, Conjurers, Leatherworkers, Carpenters, and Botanists.

It would also be nice to have gear that is only possible to acquire through the Companies ... gear that perhaps that represents 'secrets' of the guilds from within that city. Possibilities include Wood Wailer armor and the hat/masks that the Pugilists in Ul'dah are often seen wearing.

Each item has a 'point value' associated it, that represents the relative value of the item. Arrows, food and other consumables may be relatively cheap, while higher end gear could be fairly expensive. Gear with plusses is included within this system! More on HQ gear later.

2) Collecting materials / items
Given the set of items from (1), a list of all of the items needed to make all of these items can be determined. YG already has this feature, where each recipe show a complete "bill of materials" needed.

This aggregated "bill of materials" determines what material quests are made available to players. These differ from the existing gatherer / combat leves and quests in that, rather than using special non-trade-able quest/leve items, ordinary items collected outside of the quest are turned in. This would be rather like the system in place for the "Hatching Tide" event, where items that sit in inventory are turned in for the quest reward.

Alternatively, manufactured items can be turned in directly to the Company. These items could have been created by the player (crafter), or bought by the player to be turned in (merchant).

Materials/items turned in would be kept track of within the Grand Company vault. Thus these materials would not be "destroyed" in the usual sense.

Upon turning in items to complete a material quest, Company Marks are obtained. The number of marks for completing a particular quest depends upon both (a) the rarity / value of the item (b) the number of items of that type stored in the Company vault. So, as too many of a particular material are collected, the number of Company Marks obtained for turning in that material would be reduced, thus providing motivation for players to diversify what is gathered.

3) Gathering rare materials
To promote more mixing between combat classes and gatherers, I propose special quests to gather materials that cannot otherwise be obtained. These quests can only be taken by a party. I suggest that Company Marks be turned in to obtain these quests, but even more would be obtained upon successful completion, thus generating a 'risk/reward' system. The in-game reason for this could be that the Company has to expend resources to send the party to the area.

Upon taking and activating the quest, the party talks to an NPC and is sent to an instance unique to that party. The area is crawling with difficult enemies that continually respawn. Additionally, there is no crystal for players to respawn at, so upon death, either a player must be raised or leave the instance.

However, the purpose of the quest is not always collect materials from monsters, but could also be to collect materials from the gather points within the area. There would be the typical 30 minute time limit, but no success/fail outright. Instead, the number of Company Marks earned depends upon the number of rare materials gathered during the course of the quest. These "special items" would be untradeable and automatically turned in to the NPC upon completion of the quest.

Note that the special materials could eventually become common within the Company vault, thus motivating players to diversify which quests they complete. If too many of a material are collected, it may become unprofitable to obtain materials, as the reward is too small compared to the cost of taking the quest.

4) Creating the items
With materials sitting in the Company vault, now the crafters can come into play.

Crafters can take quests from Company to create items. These crafting quests only become available when the materials are actually available within the Company vault however. So, rather than a limited number per time (as in leves), the number of Company quests is limited by the materials gathered by other players.

As in local leves, the materials are handed out in such a fashion that they cannot be absconded with. However, unlike local leves, upon accepting the quest, crafters are shown a list of items within the Company vault. This may include HQ items that people have turned in during previous Company quests.

The crafter then selects which items will be used. HQ or rare items will cost the crafter Company marks to retrieve, promoting the same type of 'risk/reward' motivation as in the rare materials quests. If the crafter fails the synthesis, there would be a net loss of Company marks.

In this case, the recipe is not given out as a side effect of the quest. Instead, the crafter must select the correct items. Any items not retrieved from the Company vault can instead be supplied from the crafter's inventory. This includes shards and crystals. This design is similar to many of the crafter class quests, where player-supplied materials are required to complete the mission (e.g. rank 20, rank 36 weaver quests).

Upon completion of the quest, any results of the synthesis are deposited into the Company vault, and Company marks are rewarded to the crafter. As with materials, the number of marks depends on both the rarity of the item and the number within the vault. HQ results are possible with this system, and more marks are given out for HQ results than for NQ results.

5) Retrieving the items
Items have a fixed cost in Company marks, based upon the rarity of the item. This can include HQ items, Company-unique items, or even HQ Company-unique items.

To make a purchase, a player simply talks to an NPC Company bursar, who displays the items currently within the Company vault (perhaps using an interface similar to the Market Area search function), with the cost of each item in marks next to it.

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If you managed to read through all of that, THANK YOU! I welcome any feedback or critiques about this suggestion.