Pay for your inventory.

[raelgun]

^This

Never had much of an inventory management issue in any of the many MMOs I played prior to this. That should tell you something. If it was as simple as Myth said, you wouldn't see so many complaints about storage.



Is this a serious question O.o?

All the other MMOs I've played have either had sufficient storage for the items in the game, a "glamour log", or a one-time payment to unlock more storage rather than a subscription that SE is planning for retainers.

It is a serious question, actually name one that actually caters to that, it is the fault of the players for wanting so many items, theres tons of items in a game like WOW and Rift, they have way more items then this game by a long shot but the desire to have so many items do not exist in those games but it does here?, but I have not played a game where the devs will cater to people hoarding items like no tomorrow.
The current glamour system in this game actually has a nice market to it, the glamour system is a money maker for those that sell it.

You need to answer this question, why should SE pay for more storage space on their servers to cater to the minority, a minority that mostly does not manage their inventory space, this is a very realistic scenario, most people do not hoard many types of items all the time, they think they will use it when they really don't.

[Adire]

snip

Okay.

The Secret World: In game money to unlock storage in both the bank and the inventory, can also pay with the cash shop. Lots of expansion potential. Also has a "glamour log" (called the dressing room)

9dragons: Storage is simply large enough to accommodate the items, or was when I played.

Pirates of the Burning Sea: Storage is large enough to hold the items, many items are useful and can be sold if not used immediately, unlike a lot of the junk and character bound things in this game. Has a glamour log.

Jade Dynasty: Cosmetic outfits have a glamour log (iirc), storage is sufficient for other items. I played this for years either way and never had storage issues. (Edit: Also, cosmetic items were different from armors with stats. You could choose to either have the cosmetic items equipped visible with the armor's stats, or the armor itself visible. This allowed you to have a full outfit worn without taking up storage)

Those are a few examples. Can name more if they aren't enough.

[raelgun]

Okay.

Those are a few examples. Can name more if they aren't enough.

So basically, you want to break the glamour market right?

Those games also don't have a lot of meat into the game, this one actually does, you have mentioned a lot of niche games if I'm honest with a small active playerbase that will make active use of the inventory space, free to play games do not have a large amount of active players that invest into it in the long term.

This game has a lot of active players concurrently using its storage servers.
Blizzard is a powerhouse amongst the industry and is literally made of money.

You can be damn sure if all those games you mentioned had a large active concurrent playerbase using all that inventory at the same time they will not handle it.

[Adire]

snip

To be honest, the "glamour market", AKA glamour system, is pretty clunky as is in my opinion. If that was the only way SE could figure out how to make crafting stay relevant in the game...well, that's just sad, and crafting prisms to me is quite frankly unsatisfying too. I am more satisfied by making gear people will actually use than making prisms to flood the market for people who are just wanting to change appearance of their gear. So it would be nice if they did an overhaul and removed the current glamour system in my opinion. Why let that hold back innovation and improvement? Glamour prisms aren't necessary to make crafting stay relevant or satisfying to people, other games have made crafting systems without needing such things.

Also, what you consider "trash" is irrelevant. The fact is, those games have storage systems that are better made than this game's system. Storage was never an issue for me in them, and I played all of those games for a long time.

And while those games may have been small, here's another example for you if you want a "trash" game with a pretty big playerbase: SWTOR.

I could foresee myself having storage issues in SWTOR though it took me a much longer time to reach that point than it did in FFXIV. However, SWTOR had unlockable storage with one time purchases in cargo holds at least, possibly other places. Can't remember for sure. Either way, once you bought it you kept it. Unlike here, where you have to rent a retainer to add on to the sub fee you're already paying.

You asked for MMOs that "cater" to people who want good storage, I gave them to you. Please don't try to cop out now by providing excuses for SE, a much larger and more successful company than any of the companies running the MMOs I mentioned. If a f2p game with a tiny budget can operate with decent storage, SE really should be able to add an extra retainer.


Edit: Also, your point about them having a smaller playerbase is pretty moot. They also have a lower income, i.e. have less money for server and storage management. We all pay SE a sub fee + they make money off the other things we buy now + they are a much more profitable company overall. If we can't get an extra retainer, if for nothing else than for a one time fee (or even better, multiple retainers for a fee, especially given that we continue to pay them a sub every month), I...really just don't know what to say.

Heck even ye olde Runescape has their inventory system under control. Stacks can be unlimited (as in not 99 items in each stack for multiple stacks of the same item but rather thousands of items in a single slot), they have a dressing room which functions as a glamour log and they have buyable bank space but they also give subscribers free bank boosters every now and again as well (including in the last week or two). They also have storage items like tackleboxes (that also hold fishing clothes, bait, exp boosting items and fish themselves) and tool belts you can attach regularly used tools (like pick axes and salt shakers) to so they never take up space again.

It's an old game, it's not pretty and it gets a lot of flack for a lot of things, but some things it does right: quest rewards (not just money and gear but long term reusable items that never stop being useful) and inventory management.

See, even a f2p Java game got it right xD. Come on SE. I know from my time in Runescape that that game has a LOT of items that could clutter inventory if they didn't manage the storage system right. But they did, so that's not a problem!

[raelgun]

Edit: Also, your point about them having a smaller playerbase is pretty moot. They also have a lower income, i.e. have less money for server and storage management.

And they pay for extra space from the pitiful amount they are given in the first place, the extra income that goes into pays for it, our sub is currently paying for the inventory we use as default and is already fulfilling its purpose for most its playerbase, the current inventory is actually enough for most people.
Most people do not kit out constantly all the jobs and have glamour sets for them, you are the one that has an issue with the games design approach which has given glamours a market and is a good thing really. Those that want to overuse the inventory space (which the default amount is actually a lot for most people even in the long term) should pay extra for it really, not every developer is a money maker like blizzard.

[Adire]

snip

Wrong. All of those games have decent storage space to start out with. Sufficient storage space is not gated behind payment, and even if it was (as may be the case in SWTOR later on), BUYING storage space is far more acceptable to me than renting it. Renting it is especially unacceptable to me when you are already paying every month. Also, our sub pays for many things. Inventory is one thing...but: When you're approaching an expansion, sure to fill the game with even more glamour, even more junk items that end up in your inventory after every other kill, even more job locked gear for each of the many combat, crafting, and gathering classes, you don't think that maybe it would be a good idea to divert some money to increasing inventory? That's pretty important you know...

But no, they are only devoting the needed inventory (and market domination capabilities) to those willing to shell out extra cash on their monthly sub fee. I highly doubt SE is doing that just to cover extra costs because they can't afford to give a free retainer. Remember, they are a business.

Also, where are you getting those numbers? I know a lot of people who do indeed kit out and gear every job they have at 50. The fact that you CAN do so, and are even encouraged to be versatile, means that the game should be designed to allow for it without causing massive inconvenience. SE even made lots of gear sets job exclusive instead of one size fits all or even role exclusive. I enjoy playing every role to some degree and have kitted them all out. My armory chest (and now inventory) are screaming in pain, why? Because I chose to do something that SE intended for us to do if we want to. And they have not provided something to deal with it sufficiently even though they have provided the system to cause the problem.

I really don't know how the glamour market is anything other than a crutch to help crafters produce end products that people will actually buy in bulk consistently at all levels. It's a bandaid for the crafting system's failure in that regard, and it's quite inconvenient to people who like to change their outfit occasionally.

Also, not sure why you keep bringing up Blizzard. Though last I checked, FFXIV was indeed one of the more successful MMOs on the market right now.

[mbncd]

[Snip]

Heck even ye olde Runescape has their inventory system under control. Stacks can be unlimited (as in not 99 items in each stack for multiple stacks of the same item but rather thousands of items in a single slot), they have a dressing room which functions as a glamour log and they have buyable bank space but they also give subscribers free bank boosters every now and again as well (including in the last week or two). They also have storage items like tackleboxes (that also hold fishing clothes, bait, exp boosting items and fish themselves) and tool belts you can attach regularly used tools (like pick axes and salt shakers) to so they never take up space again.

It's an old game, it's not pretty and it gets a lot of flack for a lot of things, but some things it does right: quest rewards (not just money and gear but long term reusable items that never stop being useful) and inventory management.

[KisaiTenshi]

Heck even ye olde Runescape has their inventory system under control. Stacks can be unlimited (as in not 99 items in each stack for multiple stacks of the same item but rather thousands of items in a single slot), they have a dressing room which functions as a glamour log and they have buyable bank space but they also give subscribers free bank boosters every now and again as well (including in the last week or two). They also have storage items like tackleboxes (that also hold fishing clothes, bait, exp boosting items and fish themselves) and tool belts you can attach regularly used tools (like pick axes and salt shakers) to so they never take up space again.

It's an old game, it's not pretty and it gets a lot of flack for a lot of things, but some things it does right: quest rewards (not just money and gear but long term reusable items that never stop being useful) and inventory management.

The developers said the inventory limit was a speed/safety issue. If they increase the inventory then they can only sync it to disk half as much, which means if a server crashes, you "roll back" and get a lot more customer service complaints.

In older games, "stacks" were simply represented as a quantity variable. Hence "dupe'ing" bugs, especially gold dupe bugs were prevalent in pretty much every MMO at some point. Newer games actually account for all the gold and items on the servers, at the cost of intended inventory space being reduced, and the glamour systems require the game to keep track of two items, not just one.

More to the point though, almost nobody has ever played a game where the inventory space was nearly unlimited and lived to tell about it. Everyone finds a way to work around the space limitations, even if it involves making it an extreme pain in the ass.

Because:
1) Every item requires being sent across the wire. FFXIV is so responsive because there are so few items being sent. Even not-so-old (freemium) games that let you buy expansion slots, were never this fast.
2) Searching inventory and market boards are fast (market boards occasionally time out), and searches check your Retainers.

This one time, in this one other MMORPG game, I lost my dress that I had worked so hard to get and dye the right colors... and lost it to a server crash because I had just changed gear. I will never forget that.

[FriendlyUncle]

The developers said the inventory limit was a speed/safety issue. If they increase the inventory then they can only sync it to disk half as much, which means if a server crashes, you "roll back" and get a lot more customer service complaints.

In older games, "stacks" were simply represented as a quantity variable. Hence "dupe'ing" bugs, especially gold dupe bugs were prevalent in pretty much every MMO at some point. Newer games actually account for all the gold and items on the servers, at the cost of intended inventory space being reduced, and the glamour systems require the game to keep track of two items, not just one.

More to the point though, almost nobody has ever played a game where the inventory space was nearly unlimited and lived to tell about it. Everyone finds a way to work around the space limitations, even if it involves making it an extreme pain in the ass.

Because:
1) Every item requires being sent across the wire. FFXIV is so responsive because there are so few items being sent. Even not-so-old (freemium) games that let you buy expansion slots, were never this fast.
2) Searching inventory and market boards are fast (market boards occasionally time out), and searches check your Retainers.

This one time, in this one other MMORPG game, I lost my dress that I had worked so hard to get and dye the right colors... and lost it to a server crash because I had just changed gear. I will never forget that.

This might have been a valid excuse 15 years ago, but with the increase of HDD space and read/write speeds, no this is not a valid point. Servers will not be taxed by adding 1-2 more inventory tabs as compared to adding 4 additional retainers that can store 1300 additional items, has its own character model, equips its own set of gear which also has to be loaded into the game, also has to keep track of the items each of them have listed on the MB. Even just 1 additional retainer fully decked would cause more of a strain on the server than adding normal inventory slots to the player character. The fact that they added the option to buy two more retainers and then just increased it to six is just proof that SE doesn't even believe that piss-poor excuse.

Inventory storage is just a database. Adding a few more lines referencing items will not cause a noticeable degradation of performance unless they are re-using old FFXI servers from back in '98. In which case they need to upgrade their hardware. The amount of data that makes up a single slot of inventory is minuscule and the responsiveness or lack there of has nothing to do with inventory data. I'd be willing to bet just your character model and position is more data sent across to the servers than having your entire player inventory completely full, max inventory stacks.

SE is willing to add additional retainers whose inventory as far as I'm away is essentially exactly like the players data usage wise and inherently uses additional data than standard inventory because Character model, equipment, venture status, items on market, gil counts vs player inventory which just holds items. This very fact proves that SE does not think additional inventory checks will tax their back-end, rather they used an issue for some and came up with a way to try and nickle and dime sub paying players for additional inventory and monthly at that. Reduce extra retainers to 6, 3 hired in game and 3 by additional costs, increase armory slots by 3 each to accommodate the new classes, add 1 additional inventory tab to the players inventory and FFS let armor 'sets' be stored in the armoire. AF, AF2, Sets like Allagan, HA, DW. Armoire data is not called during inventory checks. Clean up the clunky glamour system to obtain item, get glamour. Crafters still get people buying their items for glamour, players don't have to cling onto the same piece in case they want to use it again or sell it and risk having to purchase it again later.