Is DDO/SSG ever going to do anything about storage space?

[Ulvet]

Paying 650 turbine points for a mule toon can be prohibitively expensive. Buying a bank slot or char inventory slot is not much better. I've played other games where storage space and bags were cheap and/or plentiful and you could store as much as you want. What other game is there where you have to purchase multiple (10 or more) mule toons just to be able to store your stuff? Leaving your loot in your TR cache will eventually, due to all the bugs, lead to a loss of your entire TR cache at one point or another, so thats not an effective answer either. Having a TR cache would not even be necessary if there were more effective loot storage options. How many people have quit due to losing their TR cache?

If you're gonna randomize all the loot, then you gotta realize that people are gonna keep more stuff becaus one item rarely contains everything you need and you end up keeping multiple variations of the same item or effect on your person. Then you add in all the potions, scrolls, one shot items that no has any space for. Not to mention all the extra stuff that comes as DDO rewards like daily dice rewards, also hair dye, siberys cakes, tomes, candy canes, crafting items etc etc.

Just saying, because I quit once before due to the fact that the storage issue was such a problem it made the game no fun to play, and I'm on the verge of doing so again. How about some scroll cases, potion cases, clothing storage boxes or wardrobes. I thought about buying the Falconry tree, but all the trash cosmetic items that come with it that take up space, which is a real negative. If you're going to make us pay for cosmetic stuff, how about giving us more storage space to store all that ****? How about giving us purchaseable apartments or housing where you could store as much as you want? I'd pay cash or turbine points for that. A airship is not the answer because the storage space is still limited on the ship.

Either make storage space alot cheaper or give us some other things like the ones I listed above. I think part of the reason we were given limited storage space at the beginning of the game was so people would sell stuff to the weapon/armor/item vendors so they could be passed on to other lower level players who needed them more. Now with pretty much every item being fed into cannith crafting and sentient weapons, you can hardly find any items on those vendors, which defeats the original purpose of limiting space.

[boredGamer]

Paying 650 turbine points for a mule toon can be prohibitively expensive. Buying a bank slot or char inventory slot is not much better. I've played other games where storage space and bags were cheap and/or plentiful and you could store as much as you want. What other game is there where you have to purchase multiple (10 or more) mule toons just to be able to store your stuff? Leaving your loot in your TR cache will eventually, due to all the bugs, lead to a loss of your entire TR cache at one point or another, so thats not an effective answer either. Having a TR cache would not even be necessary if there were more effective loot storage options. How many people have quit due to losing their TR cache?


Just to derail your point slightly - I'd be far more likely to quit if I lost my past lives than my items.

That being said - storage absolutely sucks - and ever TR where I have to re-take out and remap everything where it was for an hour, is pretty **** annoying.

Options like - "do it the same as before" (same for ER rebuild) - would be pretty nice. Ie. don't just save my layout - save that I have search icon in bar 10, slot 5. Save that I have auto-attack in bar 14, slot 8. Etc. "Take out the same items I had out last time and put them in the same inventory spots" - etc.

[janave]

I personally do not have any grudge against selling the storage space, altho I think selling 10 slots in shared storage is a bit well, skinny. My biggest problem is that BtC storage stopped evolving entirely, and is completely insufficient, to be fair it was already getting low back when the level cap was 20!

It became very common now to delete (or feed) old epic and raid gear.

I would pay for more BtC space, but there is none left.

Please develop-extend the BtC bank as well.

BtA space is a problem, and mules are clunky, but at least it is an option.

Let us hoard loot! it is half the fun.

[NemesisAlien]

Actually if you notice, ddo is one patch on top of another on top of another on top of another, etc.

To put it another way, economic and social problems havent been fixed from the onset. Nor is it going to be fixed. Just patched.

Welcome to SimDDO.

[JOTMON]

Is DDO/SSG ever going to do anything about storage space?


/shrug.


we've been asking for space since the beginning of the game.

a real storage medium with an AH style interface and massive storage capacity is what we desired

everything they have done to date has been insufficient or insignificant.

most have just given up on the hopes anything will come to fruition.

[Greantun]

Paying 650 turbine points for a mule toon can be prohibitively expensive. Buying a bank slot or char inventory slot is not much better. I've played other games where storage space and bags were cheap and/or plentiful and you could store as much as you want. What other game is there where you have to purchase multiple (10 or more) mule toons just to be able to store your stuff? Leaving your loot in your TR cache will eventually, due to all the bugs, lead to a loss of your entire TR cache at one point or another, so thats not an effective answer either. Having a TR cache would not even be necessary if there were more effective loot storage options. How many people have quit due to losing their TR cache?

If you're gonna randomize all the loot, then you gotta realize that people are gonna keep more stuff becaus one item rarely contains everything you need and you end up keeping multiple variations of the same item or effect on your person. Then you add in all the potions, scrolls, one shot items that no has any space for. Not to mention all the extra stuff that comes as DDO rewards like daily dice rewards, also hair dye, siberys cakes, tomes, candy canes, crafting items etc etc.

Just saying, because I quit once before due to the fact that the storage issue was such a problem it made the game no fun to play, and I'm on the verge of doing so again. How about some scroll cases, potion cases, clothing storage boxes or wardrobes. I thought about buying the Falconry tree, but all the trash cosmetic items that come with it that take up space, which is a real negative. If you're going to make us pay for cosmetic stuff, how about giving us more storage space to store all that ****? How about giving us purchaseable apartments or housing where you could store as much as you want? I'd pay cash or turbine points for that. A airship is not the answer because the storage space is still limited on the ship.

Either make storage space alot cheaper or give us some other things like the ones I listed above. I think part of the reason we were given limited storage space at the beginning of the game was so people would sell stuff to the weapon/armor/item vendors so they could be passed on to other lower level players who needed them more. Now with pretty much every item being fed into cannith crafting and sentient weapons, you can hardly find any items on those vendors, which defeats the original purpose of limiting space.

SSG has already stated that they can't add on to the existing storage. This is because the inventory and bank are stored in the same location as the character data, and adding anymore would cause the client to crash.

They have also stated that they will not do anything to the TR Cache, as it is supposed to be "temporary".

The time that SSG tried to fix the inventory and bank, the player base raged.

I am not sure what they can do without an overhaul that no one will be happy with.

[Elfishski]

SSG has already stated that they can't add on to the existing storage. This is because the inventory and bank are stored in the same location as the character data, and adding anymore would cause the client to crash.

They have also stated that they will not do anything to the TR Cache, as it is supposed to be "temporary".

The time that SSG tried to fix the inventory and bank, the player base raged.

I am not sure what they can do without an overhaul that no one will be happy with.

Just because their last proposal for the bank was flawed doesn't mean they should give up - I'm pretty sure people would be ecstatic if given an overhaul meeting these very basic criteria:

Searchable (by name)
Filterable (by slot of item, by level range, by binding, ideally also by text within the full description e.g. "True Seeing")
Sortable (by age of being in the bank, by name, by binding)
In one place
Responsive (you click and it doesn't take a minute to load whatever's next)

The auction house interface isn't perfect, but it fulfills all of the above, very much unlike say... the TR cache. Addition of these features within the shared bank would be okay too.

[askrj1]

As someone else has already mentioned there is no easy change/fix they can apply for inventory and bank space now because how it's part of the character file. A complete overhaul of storage will be needed but I'm doubtful of how much dev resources they have available for such a task. To complicate things status quo can easily be better than a bad transition if they cannot guarantee the move to a new inventory system will be smooth. We do need a better inventory system, but realistic expectations dictate we probably won't be seeing it soon.

On the other hand and this has also been brought up before, is the issue of hoarding. I can feel for having 160 spaces (all the free + favor tabs) and saying you don't have enough space to keep cosmetics and the increasing lot of expansion items, but 260 spaces + max shared bank having issues holding "one of everything" shouldn't even be a relevant discussion. You generally don't need at least 40% of that stuff you're holding at that point. Go do some inventory management, DDO already doesn't require you to play inventory tetris. Gear tetris though, on the other hand... but I digress. It really boils down to sorting what you don't need to keep.

[ValariusK]

I would really like an augment destroyer sold by the regular vendors. Like the sentience destroyer, it destroys an augment slotted and is sold for platinum.
That'd allow more old stuff to be consumed for sentient fuel, which would indirectly help the inventory issue.

[NemesisAlien]

In It nothing is impossible, its do or do not...

And then there is effort and budget.

Oh and the number of koblods you enslave...

[Dark_Helmet]

You mean more than creating systems where you can sell items (AH), guild chests, shared bank, crunch random items, and feed named items to gems????

I tend to agree that spell components should have a pouch and BTC should be BTA, but come on now - pack rats will always fill up every bit of free space with junk!

[janave]

I would really like an augment destroyer sold by the regular vendors. Like the sentience destroyer, it destroys an augment slotted and is sold for platinum.
That'd allow more old stuff to be consumed for sentient fuel, which would indirectly help the inventory issue.

A cheap way to solve this could be adding "augments of nothing" to vendors, since augs can be replaced by other augments. Then update the verification code to ignore these types of augments.

[Pyed-Pyper]

SSG has already stated that they can't add on to the existing storage. This is because the inventory and bank are stored in the same location as the character data, and adding anymore would cause the client to crash.

They have also stated that they will not do anything to the TR Cache, as it is supposed to be "temporary".

The time that SSG tried to fix the inventory and bank, the player base raged.

I am not sure what they can do without an overhaul that no one will be happy with.

One of the dev's stated that personal storage, backpack and bank, are related and limited. My questions regarding shared bank storage went unanswered but I inferred from the related comments that shared bank storage is a separate system.

Auction house and mail appear to be related. Are they tied to personal storage? Shared bank and guild storage appear to be separate systems.

It seems the last 'fix' proposed by SSG was to replace personal-bank type storage with shared-bank type storage. That might have been acceptable to the players if SSG had
a) done a better job explaining the situation
and
b) implemented a functioning, useful interface
The current shared bank really has only one good point from the standpoint of utility, it is a way to share BtA items that isn't character personal storage.

The fact that they thought one long unsorted, unfiltered list would be a good idea for a character really shows, once again, the level of detachment from how their game is actually played.

Yes, players want more storage. Yes, players shot down the last 'fix'. A 'fix' needs to be useful or it isn't really a solution, and players are not wrong in insisting on that.

If guild storage and shared bank storage are truly different than personal storage, then the solution seems to be to offer either or both of those things in greater amounts and to each character.

[cpw_acc]

One of the dev's stated that personal storage, backpack and bank, are related and limited. My questions regarding shared bank storage went unanswered but I inferred from the related comments that shared bank storage is a separate system.

Auction house and mail appear to be related. Are they tied to personal storage? Shared bank and guild storage appear to be separate systems.

It seems the last 'fix' proposed by SSG was to replace personal-bank type storage with shared-bank type storage. That might have been acceptable to the players if SSG had
a) done a better job explaining the situation
and
b) implemented a functioning, useful interface
The current shared bank really has only one good point from the standpoint of utility, it is a way to share BtA items that isn't character personal storage.

The fact that they thought one long unsorted, unfiltered list would be a good idea for a character really shows, once again, the level of detachment from how their game is actually played.

Yes, players want more storage. Yes, players shot down the last 'fix'. A 'fix' needs to be useful or it isn't really a solution, and players are not wrong in insisting on that.

If guild storage and shared bank storage are truly different than personal storage, then the solution seems to be to offer either or both of those things in greater amounts and to each character.

Agree that any fix would also need to incorporate some decent searching, filtering and sorting before doing anything. I do remember the last proposed fix and was also concerned that it would just mean even more wasting time scrolling up and down trying to find stuff. (The TR cache is bad enough).

I think a dev post recently stated that there isn't actually any difference between bank storage and inventory - they are both "carried" with the character.

Meaning that any change to make this unlimited would just be untenable (and, let's face it, making it bigger by any fixed amount would never be good enough because people would just fill it with more junk!). Because it would just slow everything down the more stuff you had.

Not sure how the shared storage space is managed. I mean...the UI could still be improved, but I wouldn't be averse to this just being "growable" indefinitely and getting rid of BtC.

Or...something similar with a personal "archived" storage area per character that isn't carried around like the bank/inventory? (While being careful not to allow duping or item-loss). Of course, if you do this you could just change the bank to work like this, but it might still be useful to keep them separate for speed issues (the bank would be quicker and immediately accessible; the archive might work slower but allow you to stash stuff you don't need straight away).

[Greantun]

Agree that any fix would also need to incorporate some decent searching, filtering and sorting before doing anything. I do remember the last proposed fix and was also concerned that it would just mean even more wasting time scrolling up and down trying to find stuff. (The TR cache is bad enough).

I think a dev post recently stated that there isn't actually any difference between bank storage and inventory - they are both "carried" with the character.

Meaning that any change to make this unlimited would just be untenable (and, let's face it, making it bigger by any fixed amount would never be good enough because people would just fill it with more junk!). Because it would just slow everything down the more stuff you had.

Not sure how the shared storage space is managed. I mean...the UI could still be improved, but I wouldn't be averse to this just being "growable" indefinitely and getting rid of BtC.

Or...something similar with a personal "archived" storage area per character that isn't carried around like the bank/inventory? (While being careful not to allow duping or item-loss). Of course, if you do this you could just change the bank to work like this, but it might still be useful to keep them separate for speed issues (the bank would be quicker and immediately accessible; the archive might work slower but allow you to stash stuff you don't need straight away).

Since bank and inventory are also connected to the character data - SSG would have to update:
1) TR functionality - as it would be stored somewhere else
2) Character transfer functionality - as you couldn't just copy the character data
3) Every piece of code that moves in an out of inventory and bank
4) All spell casting - as components would be elsewhere
5) All damage checks - as damaging items would now have to look elsewhere

Not saying they shouldn't do this, but it is really a daunting task, as moving the data from being part of the character to storing it elsewhere will effect almost everything.

[janave]

Since bank and inventory are also connected to the character data - SSG would have to update:
1) TR functionality - as it would be stored somewhere else
2) Character transfer functionality - as you couldn't just copy the character data
3) Every piece of code that moves in an out of inventory and bank
4) All spell casting - as components would be elsewhere
5) All damage checks - as damaging items would now have to look elsewhere

Not saying they shouldn't do this, but it is really a daunting task, as moving the data from being part of the character to storing it elsewhere will effect almost everything.

4-5 Shouldnt apply to Bank.

Still a big task with a lot of slippery surface, but not without rewards as it affects most long term players, the ones most likely to immediately buy into more bank space.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Agree that any fix would also need to incorporate some decent searching, filtering and sorting before doing anything. I do remember the last proposed fix and was also concerned that it would just mean even more wasting time scrolling up and down trying to find stuff. (The TR cache is bad enough).

I think a dev post recently stated that there isn't actually any difference between bank storage and inventory - they are both "carried" with the character.

Meaning that any change to make this unlimited would just be untenable (and, let's face it, making it bigger by any fixed amount would never be good enough because people would just fill it with more junk!). Because it would just slow everything down the more stuff you had.

Not sure how the shared storage space is managed. I mean...the UI could still be improved, but I wouldn't be averse to this just being "growable" indefinitely and getting rid of BtC.

Or...something similar with a personal "archived" storage area per character that isn't carried around like the bank/inventory? (While being careful not to allow duping or item-loss). Of course, if you do this you could just change the bank to work like this, but it might still be useful to keep them separate for speed issues (the bank would be quicker and immediately accessible; the archive might work slower but allow you to stash stuff you don't need straight away).

At least until some clarity is brought to the matter by a dev, I think it is important to not conflate the various types of storage.

Yes bag storage and bank storage are the same, according to a dev, but that is personal bank storage. The implication is that the shared bank storage is a separate thing. It would follow that guild storage is also different from personal storage. There are some mailbox limits, how do those enter into the equation?

From history and the dev comments, I got the impression that the restrictions on personal storage do not apply to the shared bank storage, i.e. perhaps with a personal 'shared bank storage' system, a character could have unlimited storage. But I didn't get a response to my question so this is all speculation.

As an aside, regardless of the solution, I think we can all agree there there should be some sort of safety net so that things don't get 'lost', during TR, or any other time.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Since bank and inventory are also connected to the character data - SSG would have to update:
1) TR functionality - as it would be stored somewhere else
2) Character transfer functionality - as you couldn't just copy the character data
3) Every piece of code that moves in an out of inventory and bank
4) All spell casting - as components would be elsewhere
5) All damage checks - as damaging items would now have to look elsewhere

Not saying they shouldn't do this, but it is really a daunting task, as moving the data from being part of the character to storing it elsewhere will effect almost everything.

Moving data happens now all the time - Auction house, Shard Exchange, item transfer between characters, etc.

[SSG_RedPanda]

We've discussed this in an older thread on the same topic here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/503586-Devs-When-are-you-going-to-address-inventory-issues).

[DYWYPI]

SSG_RedPanda, do I agree some people within DDO Team, discussed storage and the entity-relationship with regard to the "Character associated" slots several weeks ago. Your responses suggested that the 'Character Inventory' and 'Character Bank' couldn't be increased in capacity without "really bad" things happening using the current implementation.

Albeit the DDO team, didn't explicitly say; increasing the 'default' storage capacity of the 'Shared Bank' system, would cause the game to develop a huge set of teeth and bite us.

Therefore can we safely assume that you could theoretically easily increase the initial 'Shared Bank' size without major game performance issues or fatal outcomes? For example: the Character exploding in a radioactive meltdown, when it loaded, etc.

From my understanding; the Shared Bank is separated from the Character and thus not directly "Character associated", so an entirely separate entity-relationship tied to the Account.

[Ulvet]

We've discussed this in an older thread on the same topic here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/503586-Devs-When-are-you-going-to-address-inventory-issues).

It was discussed but apparently nothing was said by the developers other than that its "on the radar". That's not an acceptable answer. I understand that personal inventory tabs and bank space is not likely to be increased due to graphical limitations on the max number of those slots. However to have colossal ingredient bags which can carry up to 1000 slots and then in the same breath say we can't increase the amount of storage space is disingenuous.

Lots of good suggestions on this board, including increasing the shared bank storage to significantly more than it can carry now, with an organizer modeled on the auction house model. From what I gather, the shared bank does not have the limitations that the personal bank and invent. have.

There is lots of evidence that the TR caches that each player carries contributes significantly to personal and well as team/instance lag. How about do away with TR caches, by significantly increasing the shared bank storage, making BTC into BTA, therefore eliminating the need for it. The vast majority of the old BTC items are outdated and outclassed by the newer items anyway. The players would also have significantly less stress and worry every time their TR cache disappears, as well as reducing the workload on DDO staff trying to work on the issue every time it happens.

Maybe some in DDO/SSG might worry that a shared bank with a huge inventory capacity would decrease sales of mule toons, and other inventory sales, but I don't think this will be the case. Most including myself prefer to have a large personal inventory space to carry stuff we need instead of running back to the bank to change something out, and will buy as many personal inventory slots as we need.

Ditto goes with crafting storage. There will always be a demand for a common place to quickly dump these items from every toon I have. Buying more regular bank slots will always have a purpose, as it will be a place that we can very quickly access commonly used items.

The current method of logging in and out of multiple toons just to locate the item you need is not only time consuming, but annoying and just not tolerable. Also some communication from the staff regarding any development on this issue would be greatly appreciated. If there is little chance of some of these changes ever being implemented, then we deserve to know. I have been playing this game since the beginning (2006) as you can see by my history, so I think I have earned that right.