bag-space
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Patch 6.0.2 preview highlights upcoming UI changes
Those bags in that header image may look like a disorganized wreck now, but they're about to get cleared out a little sooner than expected. Blizzard released a preview of upcoming UI changes for patch 6.0.2 yesterday -- that's patch 6.0.2, the pre-patch for Warlords of Draenor, not the expansion itself. Along with all the pre-expansion content quests, the new character models, and the preview of Upper Blackrock Spire, we also get all those lovely space-saving improvements ahead of time. That's on top of a host of other really cool UI improvements, including a new and improved Group Finder that includes the Premade Groups function. In addition, the new map and quest log will make an appearance, the new Void Storage tab will be unlocked, you'll be able to check out your handy new reagent tab in your bank, and you'll be able to sort your bags more easily than ever before. I have to admit, while I'm excited about being able to sort my mounts and pick a few favorites, I'm far more excited to see rows and rows and rows of empty bag slots. For more of what to expect in patch 6.0.2 and how this will change the way you play, check out Blizzard's full preview on the official site.
Warlords of Draenor: Bag space solutions, illustrated
I will be the first to admit that I am probably a little overzealous when it comes to collecting items and carrying stuff around in WoW. Most of what I collect is one of two things -- armor and weapons for transmogrification, or toys and little trinkets that were pretty cool while I was leveling. Because of this, I was ridiculously excited to hear about getting a new Void Storage tab, as well as the new Toy Box tab. Anything that opens up more bag space for the stuff I like to collect is automatically a good thing. That image above is my main character's bags and my bank when I first logged on to the beta servers. It's a chaotic mess, I know. At the time of that screenshot, I had 20 bag spaces free, and one spot in my bank. As for Void Storage, it's completely full on live. So how much bag space can you expect to get with just the Toy Box and Void Storage tabs available to play with? If there was anyone to test that out on, it was me and my admittedly insane collection.
"A more elegant collection game" - Watcher on transmog
Today we posted a rundown on PAX East information. and one of the pieces of information was that Diablo III's transmog system is not coming to World of Warcraft. This made me sad, of course. Today, Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas tweeted the following update on that. @perculia Not in 6.0. We do have major plans to make transmog more elegant as a collection game in the future, though. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) April 14, 2014 Now, this doesn't tell us how they plan to make transmog more elegant. It doesn't even tell us for sure that there won't be a Diablo III style approach to it - it just tells us that it won't be in Patch 6.0, whatever it ends up being. Still, it's nice to know that it's still being worked on. The extra void storage tab is a nice feature. Until we know what it is going to be I'll just be over here staring wistfully at my complete lack of bag space.
Wowhead interviews Warlords developers at PAX East
Our friends over at Wowhead are attending PAX East this weekend, and Perculia had a chance to sit down and interview Lead Class Designer Kris Zierhut and Game Designer Steve Burke about Warlords of Draenor. A variety of topics were discussed -- Garrisons were discussed in detail, as well as raid cooldowns, the strengths and weaknesses of the Timeless Isle, professions and the removal of damage bonuses, and much more. One of the more exciting discussions addressed the issue of storage space. Mentioned in the interview was the new toy box tab that will rid your bags of all the interesting gadgets and toys you find while questing. But that's not all -- most profession materials will stack to 100 in the new expansion, and gathered quest items from kill and carry quests will be tracked, but not actually take up space in your bags. And perhaps the most exciting news from the interview (for me, anyway) is that at long last, transmogrification fanatics will be getting a second tab of Void Storage in which to squirrel away their favorite fashions. You can listen to the full audio from the interview above -- it's well worth checking out.
Ready Check interviews Brian Holinka and Ion Hazzikostas
This past week the hosts of EU-based podcast Ready Check were lucky enough to go visit Blizzard's offices in Versailles, where they met up with Brian Holinka and Ion Hazzikostas for a lively round of Q&A. The podcast--with attendant full transcript, don't you worry, folks who can't play the podcast--covers a very broad range of topics, and PvPers should be particularly interested in the broad discussion about arenas. Gothiques and Athene bring up some wonderful points about arena queuing, and matching, and the little ways in which the system often results in unexpectedly wasted time, as well as the ways in which not-entirely-honest players can manipulate that system in their favor. Both Holinka and Hazzikostas have insights to offer on these problems, and there's some good back-and-forth about potential solutions and improvements to the existing arena systems. In addition to the excellent PvP discussions, the interview features some talk of Warlords of Draenor and the future--some of which we've already heard about, but I am so excited for garrisons and a toys tab that I could listen to this stuff all day long. Do you know how many bag spaces I'm going to get back once that toys tab goes live? In the words of the Diablo Templar companion, it will be glorious! There's also some really fun discussion on the philosophy and practice of encounter and mechanics design, and how the WoW team goes about building raids and bosses. This was perhaps my favorite part of the interview, because I am a hopeless PvPer and am much more at home among WoW's raid bosses. In any case, no matter what part of the game you enjoy, there's something in this interview for you. You can check out the full transcript and podcast episode at Ready Check's own website, so make sure to click on over to the whole thing!
More inventory improvements coming after Warlords launch, larger bags in the meantime
For the avid collector, inventory problems have reached critical mass in Mists of Pandaria. The previously announced toy box and heirloom storage will arrive with the launch of Warlords, but many are still wondering what to do with their ever increasing transmog collections. A solution is on the horizon, but it won't arrive until sometime after the expansion's launch. If the already announced inventory improvements aren't enough, there will also be slightly larger bags added in Warlords. These will probably be 30-slot bags, and I would be surprised if there is ever a larger bag than that once the inventory changes are fully implemented. When it comes to what items will qualify as a "toy box" item to be removed from your regular inventory, Blizzard will be adding these on a case-by-case basis and looking for player feedback on the future beta and PTR to help identify items they may have missed. For example, should a trinket such as the Super Simian Sphere be turned into a permanent toy instead of a trinket? What about a popular quest item like Dartol's Rod of Transformation?
BlizzCon 2013: Inventory improvements in Warlords of Draenor
In the World of Warcraft: What's Next panel, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street announced several new inventory updates on the way for Warlords of Draenor. Your bags are about to get a lot less cluttered. New account-wide collections similar to mounts and pets: heirlooms, toys, and possibly tabards. The toy box puts all of your fun vanity items in a spellbook type interface. They will no longer take up bag slots! You can set favorites in your toy box (as well as your mounts) to help sort them, and there will be a new button to "summon a random favorite" mount. Bags will be sortable without any external addons. Other new bag features include the highlighting of recently looted items, a gold piece icon on items which are safe to vendor, and colored borders around icons based on rarity (blue, purple, etc.) Quest items will no longer take up bag space. They will just be activated from the quest tracker. Crafting can be done using materials in your bank and the stack size of many materials is being increased to 100.
Inventory fixes being worked on
WoW Insider's Adam Koebel posted just a few days ago about his inventory woes, and the trials and tribulations of having to keep up with his huge toy collection from the Timeless Isle. And as if by magic, Blizzard Community Rep Bashiok has responded in kind with a blue post on the official forums: Bashiok We've talked a bit more about our plans in recent interviews. We're working on some ideas to get things like tabards and heirlooms out of inventory slots, as well as "toy-like" items, in a way that's similar to pets and mounts. Soooooo, yup! source This is great news for collectors everywhere, getting tabards, heirlooms and toy items moved to something like a pet or mount interface would be amazing, and free up a ton of bag space. Bashiok's response was actually in a thread discussing cross-realm heirlooms, so perhaps this is a system which would move heirlooms to a battle.net account level, like mounts and pets, where they would be universally accessible from any character, regardless of server. If the same were true for toys, I think a few collectors would be a little sad, but nonetheless it would make it a lot easier to remember where your puntable marmot had gone. As Adam said in our work chat, "I'll immediately have 100+ free bag slots if they do that"! Just having an heirloom interface that was genuinely account-wide rather than server based would be amazing.
The bag space problem
World of Warcraft is approaching its 9th anniversary. For those of us who have played it for many years (and even newer players who enjoy collecting), bag space has become quite the inconvenience in our daily WoW playing lives. Transmogrification introduced the problem in Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria took it to a whole new level with toy and vanity items. Just look at my bank, void storage, and bags in the above picture. Keeping that many free slots took a concerted effort on my part. Bigger bags will only delay the issue, and seriously how much bigger can they get before we can't fit them on our screen with addons such as Bagnon? We need new solutions to the problem beyond bigger bags. If my current 432 slots cannot hold everything I want, I doubt adding an extra 100 slots is going to fix anything after another expansion of collecting.
Timeless Isle toy box
We're Going To Need A Bigger Bag. Yes, Blizzard, we do need a bigger bag. Thank you for pointing out the startlingly obvious. Instead of giving us bigger bags, you decided to compound the problem by giving us new and awesome toys. What am I supposed to delete to make room for my Falling Flame? It certainly won't be my Golden Banana or Rainbow Generator. I guess I'll just make do with only having 3 free bag slots. Before this turns into a rant on bag space, let me get right down to it: Falling Flame is just awesome. It's one of the many new vanity items available on the Timeless Isle.
Breakfast Topic: All that you can't leave behind
I am a total WoW packrat. It's a little embarrassing. My void storage has been full for ages; stuffed with transmog gear, rare and epic archaeology items, and, in particular, old quest rewards or dungeon keys. Those last two, I realize, are kind of ridiculous to keep, but I worked so hard getting that Seal of Ascention! And completing the Scepter of the Shifting Sands is one of my most prized achievements in the game, don't you dare tell me to throw it, or any of the items I got along the way, in the trash! "But you can't even use rings or necklaces in transmog!" my friends remind me. I know, I know, but guys, that's not the point! The point is... the point is... I just can't let go, okay?! Are you a WoW packrat? What items do you hoard, beyond all logic or good reason? With bag and bank slots becoming ever more precious commodities, how do you decide what to keep and what to get rid of?
The Daily Grind: Do you hang on to boosters?
The other day I had a terrible realization: I'm a complete and utter packrat in MMOs. Easily half of my bag space in Lord of the Rings Online is constantly filled with stuff that I deem absolutely essential. But that's not really true. I have an unhealthy supply of boosters, buffs, pills, and sports energy drinks in there for when I really, really need them. I never know when I might need their artificial aid in overcoming a tough moment, after all. Unfortunately, even when I do face tough situations, I keep thinking that there will probably be tougher in the future and that I still should not use my boosters. So they continue to accumulate and my bags pay the price for my folly. Are you the same? Do you hang on to boosters too long instead of just, y'know, using them? Do they make you feel more secure, just knowing that they are there? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Breakfast Topic: What long-deleted item do you most yearn to get back?
Transmogrification and void storage was too little, way too late for those of us who ran out of space back in classic WoW. While it's easier than ever to retrace your steps via mogging, solo dungeon diving, and account-wide pets and mounts, quite a few items remain that simply cannot be regained. My original priest's Benediction is the centerpiece of a battle raging among my characters vying for main character status, for no other reason that I could mog that staff and enjoy it every single day. I do still have it, thank goodness, but if I didn't, it's no longer obtainable in game. I thank my stars (my stars, see?) every day that my Bene is still mine. But what about all the lovelies that I sold to make room in my bank? Remember, pets and mounts used to take up a bag or bank slot. My Black Nightsaber? Gone. All my original ZG items -- gone. And sometimes it's not even that the items are completely unobtainable anymore; it's that the effort would be herculean. Also, I admit to pining for an actual, original item I once owned rather than its replacement. Crafted goods especially fall into this category, because I miss the "made by" tag of the friend who slaved over making it for me or the pride that came from crafting it myself. The group effort behind all those early enchanting rods ... The memories entangled in some of those crazy trinkets and odd items ... They're irreplaceable -- but bank space is bank space, right? Are there any currently unobtainable items you deleted or lost along the way that you wish you could have back again? Is there something you've tried to replace, but luck's been against you?
Bucket list preparation for Mists of Pandaria
We may not have a release date just yet, but Mists of Pandaria is progressing quite nicely on the beta servers. I have one level 90 character already, and I'm leveling another one through just to see the changes, note any bugs I happen to still see hanging around (of which there are very few so far!) and get another look at the story behind the expansion as it plays out. It's fun, it's keeping me very busy, and sometimes I tend to forget that there's another Azeroth that I really ought to be addressing: the live one, where all my junk is at. I hate organizing things in game, which is really kind of odd because my life out here in the real world is pretty organized. I keep the house very clean and tidy. My library is organized in tidy sections by author, and my kitchen is immaculate. In fact, I get kind of annoyed when things aren't terribly organized or tidy at home. But in-game, I just can't seem to bring myself to addressing what is becoming an ever-increasing issue, and I'm really dragging my feet on getting ready for Mists. Getting ready? Yes, you heard me right -- I've found that if I want a seamless experience when I pick up an expansion and start to play, preparing beforehand is key. Plus, it gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the expansion to come out.
The Daily Grind: Should inventory space be infinitely expandable?
MMO inventories may not be the single biggest source of frustration in MMOs -- or even in the top 10, depending on the player -- but every online gamer has butted his or her head up against their limitations at some point. As virtual vacuums, our characters are Hoovering up all the junk, tokens, armor, weapons, livers, scrolls, twigs, fishing pole, fish, plankton, and lit torches that lie in their paths. Because of this, our bags are often full to bursting and our backs sore to aching. Some MMOs give players a fixed amount of inventory spots (such as LotRO) and that's that. Some games like RIFT allow for the collection of bigger bags, while others like Fallen Earth challenge players to keep tabs on weight management as well. However MMOs handle it, inventory space is constantly one of those things of which players can't get enough. So should inventory space be infinitely expandable? Are we to a point that the limitations of backpacks are no longer welcome in MMORPGs? Or do these limitations still have a good purpose (beyond the coding headaches that an infinite inventory would give to the dev team)? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Lost Pages of Taborea: Improvements on MMO standards
After having a couple of conversations on the topic over the last month, I decided to make a list of more reasons I am so attracted to Runes of Magic. Runewaker may not have created the next evolutionary step in MMOs, but it did do some new and innovative things. It created what I consider to be the first hybrid traditional free-to-play MMO. RoM predominantly uses western game mechanics and a quest-driven leveling system with a cash shop. As far as actual gameplay is concerned, RoM features many standards -- very nice improvements on those standards. In this article, I list six refinements that I think add to the increasing uniqueness of an MMO that constantly shows it's more than a generic clone. Jump past the break to see if you agree with me or share your favorite MMO standards that you think RoM improves upon.
The Daily Grind: Do you have enough bag space?
I used to laugh at the fact that I could carry 50 or 60 items in the hip pocket of my Star Wars Galaxies avatar. These weren't comlinks or stolen Death Star plans either, but rather big, bulky armor sets and crates of crafted consumables. It seemed rather immersion-breaking at the time, and despite the enormous convenience afforded by SOE's inventory system, well, it simply bugged me. Fast forward a few years to the juggling act that I go through every time I want to quest or craft in Age of Conan, and I'm left to wonder what has changed more, the games or my tastes. Bag space is at a premium in Funcom's Hyboria; I'm forever throwing away stuff, making trips to my bank (which is also stupidly small), or otherwise finding work-arounds for the fact that I'm equal parts pack rat and collector. Most other MMORPGs are similarly stingy with their item space and in fact, it's only been in my recent excursions into Darkfall that I've found an inventory system that I absolutely adore. What about you, Massively readers? Is bag space at a premium in your game(s) of choice? How would you do MMO inventory mechanics differently if you could? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Breakfast Topic: Breaking the bank
I have a confession to make. I am... the world's biggest collector of useless junk in game. At this point, bank space is something that doesn't exist unless I delete something first. From trinkets to weapons to armor sets to items that are utterly and completely useless, it's all sitting in my bank, begging to be thrown away, but I simply cannot bring myself to do it. While some call me utterly mad for hanging on to outdated items and armor, others share my passion for collecting. We commiserate over limited bank space and remember the days way back when. The days of yore when pets, mounts and keys also had to be carried in bags -- and not the fancy 24 slotters people carry around today, no sir. We had Mooncloth Bags and we liked it. Well... we didn't like it, but there wasn't really another alternative. We are obsessed. And we need bigger bags. There is one particular thing that all of my characters banks have in common, however. A full, unused stack of Really Sticky Glue. I mean come on. It'll come in handy someday. So how about it -- are you a packrat? Is there something you absolutely must keep on every character? And more importantly, what's the weirdest thing in your bank?
Five tips for inventory management
So I've been leveling an alt lately (yes, despite the fact that it makes my skin crawl a little bit, I've been leveling a Paladin so I can tank and heal with dual specs when they show up), and my biggest problem isn't the XP, since Blizzard has nerfed the leveling time so much. It's not the quests, either -- between Questhelper and having done the 1-60 jig five or six times before, I'm all set for quests now. Nope, it's managing my inventory -- I'm questing so quickly that the biggest problem I have is just keeping bag space open.So here's a few tips I've picked up along the way. Even if you're not leveling, maybe some of these will help. And I'm sure there are plenty of great ways to make sure your bags are clear that I haven't discovered yet (I know for a fact that there are plenty of addons out there that I haven't had an interest in yet) -- feel free to share your own tips in the comments below.
The children of Wrath
Starman over at Casual Raid Leader (is that the same Starman that does World of Warcast?) has a great idea. Right around college graduation every year, there's a study that gets nostalgic about what this year's students will never experience -- i.e. since this year's graduates were born in 1986, they've never known a time without Super Mario Bros., and so on. Starman suggests we do the same thing with incoming newbies and the new expansion -- the "children of Wrath" will never know a time when Onyxia was in the Stormwind throne room.Larisa has a few more: Children of Wrath will never have to go back and do old instances just for the achievement, or have to decide between keeping that noncombat pet or getting the extra bag space back. She was actually a "BC baby," and as she says, she's never tried to run 40 people through Molten Core, or known a time when there weren't any quest chains in Silithus.What else will the children of Wrath have missed out on? And are there really that many? I imagine that there are still quite a few vanilla players around, and it doesn't surprise me at all that there are plenty of BC babies (I recruited a few people during BC), but how many new players are really coming in to Wrath for the first time? Are there going to be that many people who don't remember when you had to run once instance over and over for rep, rather than just champion it?
