Speed doesn't affect farming, baking, shopping, and rping. Speed doesn't helm much against monsters either, I have no alchemy items and my speed is sufficient to go against anything avaliable - if served in small portions, I couldn't stand 20 demons
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As for RP-Wars - I don't say that they should be based on rping, because they will never be - they should, though, at least contain a part of rping. My point here would be that there hasn't been a proper rp-war in ages - and a proper one lasts for at least days, with enough battles, spying and such for everyone in every timezone. I agree that defeated players shouldn't be able to return - suggested a war-system with battles and effects of dieing in one a few times, but that's beside the point.
The point is that alchemy items only affect a small part of what you can do on GK, taking into account that rping is what the server is focused on. And I say that you can make a living without them, as it is now - and without pking and duelling. Some actually do.