I quite like how the dwarves have a city which is only available for their race.
Then it hit me... I think each race & perhaps even some classes should have private towns/cities/regions they can call their own. Not eliminating a whole adventuring zone... but enabling the skeleton race to have a secret underground city ruled by a demanding lich King... or have the higher humans have access to a number of hunting lodges, villages, perhaps a fishing boat to an archipelago of towns.
Why new towns, villages & 'huts'... well.. for the obvious reasons... more shopping potential, more NPCs and more quests... some easy and fluff... some gear rewarding... some random, some rare, and some quests for new lore ++.
In other games the purpose of identifying rare items such as Artifacts was not just to marvel at their power... but to avoid the ones which were cursed... so er... where are the cursed items? Bring 'em on!
Let's have bows of murder that also give -12 your to base magic... or rings of regeneration that randomly pop in over powered ghosts... or robes that promise great things - but once you put it on... it reveals itself to be a silly, simple robe... but can't be taken off - till you spend mad $ to have it professionally removed.
How about 'vampiric' gems which adding damage to your weapon by soaking your own health = low health and you get a crit which soaks a crit of health from you - ouch! how about Runes which heal at the expense of exp?
Make the random drinking of a special potion or the wearing of an item exciting again. Born with a Orb of Scrying... well, okay... but give me something scary & tempting to discover with it... not just another uber powerful artifact.
~R