Gear changes, Inventory, and Housing!
A while ago, on the widget thread there was mentioned an idea that effectively consigned all the gear for a given class to a single inventory slot, and allowed for the quick changing of gear through a widget that allowed all the gear in that subslot to be equipped at the press of a button. Personally I think this is a fantastic idea, and over the past few days I've been thinking of possible implementation methods and ways to expand the idea for multiple purposes.
Let me preface this by saying that when I encouraged the originator of the idea to make a new thread about it, his idea was largely shot down under the argument that "Inventory Management is Part of Playing an MMO."
Which, I think, as arguments go, is a pretty weak one. Especially when you consider that just having catchall inventory slots is pretty... well... awkward when put into practice...
One character could, in their 100 slot inventory have nothing but bone rings. 100 Bone Rings, each with their own slot... Another character could have 100 full stacks of Iron Ingots, or to put some perspective on that, 9,900 bricks of iron. So don't tell me that managing my inventory should be something I am stuck doing, when one guy can be carrying maybe 5 lbs of bone at max and another can be carrying literally tons of metal.
So down to the actual idea. My interpretation of the idea is that crafters (most likely weavers) will be able to construct satchels, the satchels can have a given capacty (6-12 slots?) and basically you would load everything that was going to be equipped on a given character class. (whatever item slots didn't have a represented item in the satchel would be ignored, I.E.: You have a belt that doesn't change from class to class, you don't place a belt in the satchel and it just leaves whatever belt you were wearing before on your character.)
The satchels could be loaded with full sets, partial sets, maybe just jewelry, whatever, but each satchel would be one inventory slot.
When housing becomes available, the sets in each satchel could be used as decoration, basically a mannequin or an armor stand could display everything in a given satchel for easy storage and for a nice home aesthetic if you don't actually want or need to be carrying specific sets around.
For those people familiar with FFXI, this is sort of a combination of mannequins and armor storage NPCs, and could effectively replace macros for class changing, allow for an aesthetic effect for those who want to display gear in their homes, and could help alleviate some of the inventory woes that are besetting the game.