Omni Mode

[Gorbadoc]

There are two logistical annoyances that I want streamlined.

First, if I log on and want to make myself available to anyone who needs any of my characters, I'm out of luck. There are workarounds. I can look through the LFMs and send a tell saying, "Yes, I have a level 15 wizard; let me switch". I can also make sure my guildies know what characters I have. The first work-around requires that I find the party; a party leader cannot find me, even if I want to be find-able. The second workaround makes me available to only a small number of people. I want the option to show up in the social panel as ANY of my characters.

Second, I want to be able to look through the inventories and banks of all my characters at once. I have many items in storage, either because they're useful for leveling or because I like having stuff to trade. In both cases and especially in the second case, it's a nuisance to have to log in and out over and over to find that darned <insert item> that I might or might not own.

The workaround here, of course, is that I organize my characters' inventories and banks. This is stupid. I'm paying to be able to fight monsters in dungeons. I understand that inventory management is a necessary logistical exercise. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be streamlined. Make it easier for me to manage my inventories so that I can spend more time helping my fellow players get through dungeons.

What I suggest is this:
An omni-login. Let me be on as all my characters at once. Let me access all my banks and inventories, and let me show up on the social panel as whichever characters I'd be willing to play.

Also, add an auto-sort feature to inventories and banks. I know the game can sort stuff; my Sell list mysteriously comes up in a particular sorted order no matter the order of the stuff in my inventory.

[Arcticwarrior]

interesting but thats what shared bank is for, if you want to view all your banks, you're out of luck because of the f2p/premium factor

[Calebro]

interesting but thats what shared bank is for, if you want to view all your banks, you're out of luck because of the f2p/premium factor

I think you miss the point. He wants to see what his other characters have in their individual banks. That is not the shared bank.
While I understand his pain, there are much MUCH better things that the Devs should be devoting their time to.

What I suggest is this:
An omni-login. Let me be on as all my characters at once. Let me access all my banks and inventories, and let me show up on the social panel as whichever characters I'd be willing to play.

I cannot support this either. Do you have any idea what the Who Panel would look like if this were implemented? It would take virtual hours to load, which means that no one would use it, thus defeating the purpose you claim as the reasoning behind your proposed change. No thanks.

[Dwane_Diblie]

Ok I agree that most of that is too stressful for the game conection to run. But how about this for an alternat idea. Have the ability to filter classes when searching WHO IS ON but have it show up everyone that has a character of searched class weather that character of that player is loged on or not. EG: I am playing my Wizared. Someone searches for a Cleric and I get listed as online but I have a character that is a L6 Cleric/L2 Fighter. That player could then send me a tell asking if I could come and help with my Cleric.

So instead of listing all that information (especialy with Multiclassing characters) you could just get a list of players that have that class type.

As for the Invantory/Bank idea. They could implement an option on the Log on screen that allows you access to all your characters Invantorys all at once to look at. You can organise them and swap stuff from your bank to your character befor loging on. And you could move items from one inventory to another at the same costs as mailing the item. With a shared bank you would beable to sircomvent this just like you could ingame. This would make things easier without changing the way you would have to do it ingame now. Just alows you to do it more convieniantly.

[Ormindo]

Yes ? Someone called me ?

Oh, OMNI. Tsh.

[Gorbadoc]

I cannot support this either. Do you have any idea what the Who Panel would look like if this were implemented? It would take virtual hours to load, which means that no one would use it, thus defeating the purpose you claim as the reasoning behind your proposed change. No thanks.

Would it? Your statement seems exaggerated for two reasons.

First, if the system is well-designed, it will presumably involve the necessary software and hardware to support the demands of the social panel. Information could be removed, processes streamlined, hardware improved.

Second, assume every player would have ten characters visible at a time. This is a gross exaggeration; players would need only one character visible when they were in a quest, and most players don't have ten characters they actively play anyhow. Still, even with ten characters per player, that at most multiplies the amount of information in the social panel by ten. When I search for characters qualified to join my party, the list takes several seconds to come up. Several seconds times ten is not hours.

There is some merit to your bizarre intuition; the long and short is that, yes, I want the social panel to handle more information. That's the point; I find the current quantity of information to be inadequate. The solution is for Turbine to step up to the challenge and figure out a way to process this additional information without swamping players with lag.

Ok I agree that most of that is too stressful for the game conection to run. But how about this for an alternat idea. Have the ability to filter classes when searching WHO IS ON but have it show up everyone that has a character of searched class weather that character of that player is loged on or not. EG: I am playing my Wizared. Someone searches for a Cleric and I get listed as online but I have a character that is a L6 Cleric/L2 Fighter. That player could then send me a tell asking if I could come and help with my Cleric.

So instead of listing all that information (especialy with Multiclassing characters) you could just get a list of players that have that class type.

I thought about that: one entry per player, and just have that entry include information on additional characters. The developers might reject this implementation outright. DDO is set up so that other players can't tell who my other characters are unless I tell them; having a player entry with a list of characters would be contrary to this.

Of course, even if we were looking at one player entry with multiple characters' information, that's still more information for the social panel to handle; I just don't think it's nearly as much information as some people seem to think.

[Calebro]

Would it? Your statement seems exaggerated for two reasons.

First, if the system is well-designed, it will presumably involve the necessary software and hardware to support the demands of the social panel. Information could be removed, processes streamlined, hardware improved.

Second, assume every player would have ten characters visible at a time. This is a gross exaggeration; players would need only one character visible when they were in a quest, and most players don't have ten characters they actively play anyhow. Still, even with ten characters per player, that at most multiplies the amount of information in the social panel by ten. When I search for characters qualified to join my party, the list takes several seconds to come up. Several seconds times ten is not hours.

There is some merit to your bizarre intuition; the long and short is that, yes, I want the social panel to handle more information. That's the point; I find the current quantity of information to be inadequate. The solution is for Turbine to step up to the challenge and figure out a way to process this additional information without swamping players with lag.

Ummm.... There's a reason that the social panel doesn't automatically search everyone online when you first log in anymore like it used to. It's because it took too long to load and caused other issues. Multiply the information that it needs to process by a factor of TEN and see what happens.
No.

[Angelus_dead]

First, if I log on and want to make myself available to anyone who needs any of my characters, I'm out of luck. There are workarounds. I can look through the LFMs and send a tell saying, "Yes, I have a level 15 wizard; let me switch".

Yes, the LFG system in DDO is a design failure because it's based on helping a character look for groups, when really it is players who go looking for something to do.

It has been suggested many times that Turbine fix the system by allowing a player to mark multiple of his characters LFG at once.