carring loot in games

[ghosta]

What's bothering me is in videogames how can you carry all the junk you find. How could someone possibly carry a dozen sets of armor a gross of potions, a dozen enciclapidias. and a pantries worth of rations, with roam left over for pilalaging a caravan of traders?

[Laozi]

bag of holding?

 

 

wrong forums, Gummo

[Kelverin]

What's bothering me is in videogames how can you carry all the junk you find. How could someone possibly carry a dozen sets of armor a gross of potions, a dozen enciclapidias. and a pantries worth of rations, with roam left over for pilalaging a caravan of traders?

Please keep your reality out of my fantasy games.

 

Thanks

[Gromnir]

What's bothering me is in videogames how can you carry all the junk you find. How could someone possibly carry a dozen sets of armor a gross of potions, a dozen enciclapidias. and a pantries worth of rations, with roam left over for pilalaging a caravan of traders?

 

choose any crpg, no matter how realistic you think it is, and Gromnir will point out literal dozens o' implausibilities & impossibilities.

 

if reality gets in way of fun, then reality must give way.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Shryke]

pockets

 

very large pockets

 

also, invisible backpacks

[Xard]

Hammerspace of course

 

D'oh

[Slowtrain]

Well, in many games there's a lot of stuff to be collected, ergo you have to give the player the ability to carry a fair sampling of said stuff around or the game becomes tedious. SO enormous carry weght and item limits are more a result of overall game design than anything else.

 

I personally would greatly support a shift in game design that would reduce the amount of toting around of items and loot that needs to be done in game and correspondingly reduce the carry weight and size limits to more realistic levels. However, I am probably alone in that as I am in many other of my desires for change in game design.

[babydol]

Please keep your reality out of my fantasy games.

 

Thanks

 

Agreed

[Deadly_Nightshade]

What's bothering me is in videogames how can you carry all the junk you find. How could someone possibly carry a dozen sets of armor a gross of potions, a dozen enciclapidias. and a pantries worth of rations, with roam left over for pilalaging a caravan of traders?

 

Well, the solution to your problem depends on the game you examine - as different gaming mythologies handle encumbrance in drastically diverging manners. For example, it is often accepted that Dr. Gordan Freeman's mechanized exoskeleton helps carry the various weapons and items he finds in-game, while a more magical environment, Neverwinter Nights or The Elder Scrolls IV for example, items like bags of holding are used*. In other games, mostly First-Person-Shooters, your character cannot carry a large amount of items - and thus it is more realistic - at least in that sense. Another way is to make your character unnaturally strong, as in Bloodlines, and so comparing his or her to a normal human is superfluous.

 

 

 

 

 

*It is worthwhile to note that the vanilla version of Oblivion did not include such items, but it was also hard to carry large amounts of items.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Switching to Computer and Console...

 

Discworld had one of the largest - and weirdest - inventories of any adventure game, but it also had a sentient box walking around with you to help you carry it.

[walkerguy]

Magic of course.

[Qwerty the Sir]

I like to pretend I have a pack of slaves.

[taks]

there's no reason not to assume, particularly in fantasy games, that there isn't a pack-mule or some cart being pulled by a few horses isn't actually brought along for adventuring trips. there literal existence in the game would simply be meta-gaming to a point nobody would want, so we simply suspend our disbelief and put up with it. sure, you don't bring the suckers back down into the dungeon with you, so having access to all the saved goodies is a bit of a violation of such a principle, as well as getting the loot back to the surface, but there's just some things you gotta put up with to prevent running back and forth every time you find a new piece of armor. i think the flip-side to the way things are in most games (i.e., incorporating hard limits on carry capacity and forcing the meta aspect) would be much worse than simply ignoring the inconsistencies.

 

taks

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Magic of course.

 

Not always.

[walkerguy]

Sarcasm D_N.

[mkreku]

The Gothic games actually let you carry exactly EVERYTHING in the game that's not nailed down without any restrictions what-so-ever. I always thought I'd be annoyed by that obvious flaw in perceived reality, but strangely enough it was the opposite way around. I got used to it before I even knew it and now I hate the inventory Tetris that's prevalent in every other RPG out there. Even the great Deus Ex has one of the most limited inventory systems ever, although it certainly suits that game much better than most games since each weapon you manage to cram into Denton's inventory makes you so much stronger.

[Tigranes]

Inventory tetris in NWN1 was horrible. Well, it's in NWN2 too, right? Yeah. I will always prefer the IE engine solution, actually, or just Gothic's superdimension.

 

As for immershun, I just imagine that my characters each have a bag of holding on their belt.

[LadyCrimson]

Less gravity to deal with on fantasy planets, y'know.

 

How else to explain giant 2 ton+ dragons flying through the air on those puny little wings.

[Moatilliatta]

I personally would greatly support a shift in game design that would reduce the amount of toting around of items and loot that needs to be done in game and correspondingly reduce the carry weight and size limits to more realistic levels. However, I am probably alone in that as I am in many other of my desires for change in game design.

You are not alone in being interested in such a move, and I don't think that it would be an unsuccessful move. The problem is that it would require a rethinking to the now standard forumula of dungeon (or an abstraction of that theme) -> loot -> money. I think most people would like a rethinking of the formula, as most people, I believe so at least, aren't interested in looting the small stuff, but rather getting that sword+1 or similar magical items, and then using or selling them.

The players inventory would probably consist of slots for armour (boots, gloves, body etc.), two-three weapon slots, one or more potion slots, an alchemy bag (where the inventory of olden times will forever lie in disgrace), quiver and possibly more as the setting require. There should also be a safehouse with a chest for storing items that could possibly of use later but which aren't carried around.

 

As mkreku mentioned Desu Ex, I will point out that it was a marvelous step in this direction, as it involved less items than most RPGs. It did have problems with the large guns being unreasonably large but it did move succesfully towards an inventory tetris that wasn't about carrying uselsss junk but which worked in forcing you to carry a reasonable combination of arms and utilities.

Another strong point of Desu Ex was that you got most of the money from doing quests (IIRC) and not from selling vendor-junk as many RPGs want you to do.

 

Another benefit of such a direction would be the elimination of fetch quests.

 

Unless I'm missing something then such a direction should work and should be more fun. At least for people who think like me.

[ghosta]

Less gravity to deal with on fantasy planets, y'know.

 

How else to explain giant 2 ton+ dragons flying through the air on those puny little wings.

 

The hydrogen in their bellies, used for fire breath, gives then some extra lift

 

I hate those fetch quest. half the time I've all ready sold what I was supposed to fetch when i receive the quest.

 

the only action game i know of that has no inventory is Bard's Tale. the bard turns all items and inferior equipment into silver. But he can carry one set of armor, one shield, 1 2handed sword, 1 longsword, 1 flail, a bow, two legendary weapons. a dirk, infant silver & rune stones, one instrument and a small collection of trinkets. it's about one or two weapons too much for me. I personally think the flail and one of the legendary weapons should go but you can complete the game without buying a dirk or a flail. The other weapons are forced on you to acquire.

Edited April 18, 2008 by ghosta

[Moatilliatta]

I should add that I too think that even mentioning realism as an end-goal in a games discussion should be legal cause for lynching, as realism isn't inherently fun and as such have nothing to do in my games, unless it is a vehicle for increased fun.

[Moatilliatta]

Double posts makes me a sad panda.

Edited April 18, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[ghosta]

I should add that I too think that even mentioning realism as an end-goal in a games discussion should be legal cause for lynching, as realism isn't inherently fun and as such have nothing to do in my games, unless it is a vehicle for increased fun.

 

What about in sports games don't you think that it should be impossible to kick a 70 yard field goal. Or take a hairpin turn at 300km/hr.

[Moatilliatta]

I don't play sports games. If I did though I would have to argue that their goal should be to entertain and not be realistic. Don't forget though that realism can and often is a vehicle of fun.

I'm not arguing that all games should strive for being unrealistic or anything like that, I'm simply saying that talking about realism as if it were a goal in itself is misguided.

[Slowtrain]

Even the great Deus Ex has one of the most limited inventory systems ever, although it certainly suits that game much better than most games since each weapon you manage to cram into Denton's inventory makes you so much stronger.

 

 

The limited inventory was part of the balancing aspect of the game. Just like in System Shock 2. A well-designed game uses the inventory system to advance and balance gameplay, not just as a bottomless hole to chuck all your junk into.