Gift Boxes - these could be so much more!

So it's getting close to the wintery season, and all the present stacks around guild halls got me thinking about gift boxes again.

I love the concept of the gift box. Wrap something up, give it to a friend - contents are a mystery to the receiver, so unwrapping is fun!

It's also great for lotteries, raffles, etc. in guilds/social groups and so on.

But the cost. EWwwwwwwWWwwwWWWwww. I could just send my friend a mail. Or even just trade. No box opening animation, but the intent is the same.

Let's see if we can't suggest a few things to encourage the usage of gift boxes in general. Since the concept is just so nice.

First off...Variety!

I'd like to see more varieties of gift box. So far we have checkered and lovely. For xmas, I'd love to see...well...you know...winterfesty gift boxes.

cheaperest: Green Holiday Gift Box
moderatest: Red Holiday Gift Box
expensivest: White Holiday Gift Box

Oh hey, neat, these look pretty much exactly like the furniture "holiday presents." How adorable.
You could have your knight stand behind the furniture, open a Holiday Gift Box, and seem to draw one out of the pile. Super cute.
I'm sure many of us do this already with existing boxes. I know I do.
These winterfesty boxes would be for energy, with the same variable costs to show the person how much you love them. I love you...with this much wasted energy. Yes.

But I also want the option to MAKE gift boxes out of relevant materials. Like driftwood, ironwood, metal - we can make bloody swords and guns and whatnot, who's to say we can't carve our own gift boxes? Use finer and more appropriate tools than scissor blades, please.

This spectrum of effort and/or cost - how much do you LOVE your friend? Enough to give them their present in a box you bought - or a box you made? Or just a trade? (that's a poem!)

Or do you just want a fun, but affordable way to have large mystery raffles with fellow knights? Or even...Secret Santa! OoooOOooo.

Some possibilities:

Crafted gift boxes - a special station in Emberlight and the Bazaar (As well as potentially a new NPC room/furniture - prefer furniture - for guild halls)
lets you wrap an item or stack of an item up into a nice (or shoddy!) container. There are more kinds than just boxes!
Quality is similar to star level, how convenient.

Show your friend how much you care by giving them a gift in an expensive wrapper. Or just know that you're both frugal and trade. Boxes are fun, not necessary! Anyway...

Gift Bag
-this type of gift box is a bag that you open.
animation: same as box in general, just pulling open a big pudgey bag instead. Winterfesty form = stocking or shoe?
material theme: fabrics.
-types:
--scrap
--frayed
--fine
--mira
--silver

Gift Basket
-this type of gift box is a basket! hidden in all the pretty frilly stuff is an item of value. Probably.
Animation: is familiar, just shredding through a basket instead.
material theme: weaves of organics - reeds, leaves, feathers etc. Organic containers.
-types:
--scale
--critter
--drake
--peppery
--philoso

Gift Chest
-this type of gift box is like a treasure chest. Coooool. I carved it out of a hunk of lumber all by myself! Though I defeated said lumber with your help <3
-Material Theme: wood and metal decals. The most boxy of the craftable gift boxes. The most hauntable by the box ghost in Danny Phantom.
-types:
--bronze
--driftwood
--redwood
--ironwood
--plasma

Gift Orb
-this type of gift box is a bit strange! It's a round...orb...thing! (inspired by the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy dolphin gifts, also, I like ballz)
-animation: sort of like cracking apart a hard-boiled egg. Same general gestures as a normal box.
-material theme: slime cores. Think of it like an edible outer coat of chocolate. But out of slime and only good for virulisks.
-types:
--Gel
--Brute
--Unstable
--Rocky
--Royal
--so long, and thanks for all the fish!
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Gift Idol
-this type of gift box is just creepy. Ritualistic in nature, it is best to only give this box to those who are also in your Blech Bunny Worship cult or whatever. For serious things I suppose...like rewarding promotions and whatnot. It's sorta like a pinata in a way.
I know many knights out there would enjoy this sort of...container...that could possibly steal your soul into it.
-animation: a small statue (like the ones you carry to put on buttons but smaller) is split in half by your knight.
-material theme: fiendish ceremonies.
-types:
--Vile
--Sinful
--Wicked
--Trojan
--Shadowsteel

Behavior:
each (crafted) gift box has a chance to poop out one of the things that it is composed of when opened. There is a very rare chance the entire box is preserved, open, and ready to be labelled with another tag from another giver-knight and used to wrap up something else.
Logic: If your knight carefully unwraps a gift, then the container still falls apart, just not as much... Or perhaps not at all!
Chances are your knight is far too eager though.
How many of you keep nice boxes? I have a few around my home from over the years.
Some would argue that getting the material back is better than the box. Well, RNG is a picky god.

Higher "star" levels will allow the giver-knight to wrap up more items - one, or up to five. Gives more of a reason to make the "better" boxes IMO.
Besides impressing your friends with how wasteful you can be.
This is why 0* gift boxes don't exist. Also I didn't want to come up with the names.
-you'll have to fill up every slot of a higher-star gift box before you can wrap it. It's implied that there's more in there, so this way, you can't disappoint!
*fills every slot with stink bombs* mwahahaha.

Same rules as current gift boxes - no bound items etc. can be wrapped up. Can't post on auction house and so on.

Box animations alter a bit depending on what confetti item you put into them when you craft them! Callers would be especially comical, as would Trick or Treat. Simply put, the confetti animation plays when the box is opened.

There are no player rank limits to making/opening/giving various Gift Box types.
Gift Boxes don't actually have a star level, I'm just using that to facilitate understanding.
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Crafting:

1*: 10 of the relevant material, 10 shards of any type, and one confetti of your choice.
2*: 8 of the relevant material, 20 shards of any type, and one confetti of your choice.
3*: 6 of the relevant material, 30 shards of any type, and one confetti of your choice.
4*: 4 of the relevant material, 40 shards of any type, and one confetti of your choice.
5*: 2 of the relevant material, 50 shards of any type, and one confetti of your choice.

A small crown fee for using the giftwrapping station. Recipes for every type of box are in the station, so no expense there either.
The goal here is cheap yet thoughtful.

yes, you must include a confetti, this isn't optional - it's really the only "real" expense (not even, heh), and shows a bit of personality on top of the gifts within the containers. It also gives a little more purpose to confetti, besides being pretty. Which I suppose is a fine purpose! But yeah.

shards are for decoration. Bling, sparkle, twinkle, and...no, not swag. Never swag. Depending on what you choose, the box will be preceded by:
blue, green, purple, red, or yellow, and have some minor impact on overworld aesthetics. :)

Thoughts? suggestions? Would you enjoy this sort of thing? It's generally useless, but I feel it would enrich the community somewhat, since the gift boxes we have now are just kinda..."meh" due to the silly pricings. Like I said, if I can make combat gear with the aid of machines, I can carve a container out of wood. Right?

*hacks at it with a sword and destroys it completely.* This is probably why we don't get material drops from every monster...

Could easily call this general genre of usable "Gift Container" do be a little better than "Box."