Bottomless omnipresent stash in Eternity?

[Mor]

Inventory management has usually two aspect in it that most often don't have anything to do with each other.

 

First aspect is tactical and strategic aspect where inventory's mission is to restrict how much and what stuff you can use in battles and on traveling between places. This stuff usually consist on weapons, armors, consumables (like potions, grenades, scrolls, wands, arrows, bolts, bullets) .

 

Second aspect is economical, where inventory is used to restrict amount of money that player can have in game. 

 

Unlimited stash has little impact on first aspect of inventory management, as you can't access stuff that are in stash when you are travelling and especially when you are in combat. But as strategic/tactical inventory don't need to take account stuff that player needs to carry for economical reasons it can mean number of weapons, armors, and consumables that character's can have access is much more limited than what it is for example in IE games, which means that player needs to think more carefully what stuff s/he carrying in his or her character's tactical inventory. For example when you don't need to take account economical loot you can make strategic/tactical inventory such that character's can have access only couple weapons, very limited number of consumables and make it so that character's can only change their armor, boots, cloak, rings, amulet, etc. in safe places where you have access on stash.

 

Economic aspect of inventory management will vanish with unlimited stash, but this can be balanced with changing how much loot there is in the game in the first place, and/or changing number of money sinks or making money sinks drain more money. As PoE don't try to be or want to be economic simulator, which means that economics are there only to create atmosphere and as one way to control player's progression in the game, which means that inventory management for economical purposes outside of selling and buying stuff has little purpose for that gameplay that it tries to accomplish, which means that unlimited stash has little impact on over all gameplay, although it means that player don't need to leave loot behind in any case (which was not very common occurrence even in IE games, but something that could happen if you explored too much), which is for some people something that is important for their suspension of disbelief. 

 

One aspect that I think they could add in stash is that it could have two tiers, where one is limited and you can access it in every safe place and second is unlimited and you can access it only in cities, your stronghold and similar places, which would mean that you have access only limited number stuff when you are exploring.

Nice analysis. A thing to consider about the Economic aspect of inventory management, is that you don't need a system to restrict amount of loot only to re-calibrate your drop rates and since there is no combat xp gain, loot is your main reason to explore. Especially since you have limited amount of health during your adventures, people would expect to be reward in some way for clearing out the whole dungeon. Plus I suspect that we will find a lot more misc crafting ingredients like in the witcher that you wouldn't want to spam your packs. So unlimited stash which can only be accessed in strategic points, thus not effecting tactics seems like a good compromise lend it self to all the mechanics.

 

That or we can always get the loot train going. I don't care if I have to employ donkeys, magical imps or start a slave company, someone is going to bring my stuff back.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Mor

[zeee]

i loved the mules in dungeon siege. it was an original idea to carry excess loot.

[Lephys]

The thing about "Hah-hah-hah! Obviously that worth-a-pittance equipment is MEANT to be left behind, and actually gathering it to sell is irrational behavior!" is that:

 

A) If the point is significant inventory management, aka "you have to decide what to take and what to leave," how is that really being enacted by having a 25lb armor worth 1 gold, or a 5lb other item worth 70 gold? It's not exactly a puzzle of merit, there, to figure out which you should drop and which you should take. So, basically, why does that stuff even exist as lootable stuff worth money, if not TO be looted and either used or sold for money? Just to give you stuff to obviously not be a wise decision to fill your limited inventory with? and...

 

B) If everything were decently valuable, and you avoided the no-brainer situation from point A above, then what would you really have to say "Obviously you should just leave that behind and never desire to take the time to come back and get it" about? "Oh, there are TWO things on the ground worth 100gold, and you can only carry one of them? LOLZ, WHO would come back to get the other one, and not just leave it there and not worry about it, even though it's totally not a perishable item?!"

 

I get that spending an hour making a bunch of trips to fill up your inventory with cups and silverware in, say, Skyrim, then selling it all to achieve a grand total of like 50 bucks (on top of the thousands you've made in significantly less time) is irrational behavior. But, then, why is that stuff even worth anything to begin with? If there's some use for it other than just to be sold for some magically standard sell value throughout the land, then can you not STILL have that actual significant possible use for the item, and the whole "do you grab some of these, in case someone's actually looking for cups and silverware in a story-related fashion, and deal with the inventory space they take up, or don't you?" notion?

 

I mean, realistically, if you START the game with a stereotypical Rusty Iron Short Sword, then why should enemies 4 hours in be dropping all their Rusty Iron Short Swords? What good are those to you, if not just to be sold? I mean, maybe your group would be all "Okay, bag all this stuff up and have it sent to the stronghold, so it can be melted down. It's perfectly good metal, and we're not exactly drowning in resources there." But, even then, you wouldn't want to carry it around with you to use and/or to sell to a merchant. For realism, it's great that the stuff that physically existed upon their person during combat dropped to the ground, and can now be interacted with. But, if it's of absolutely no value to you in any way, by default, then why is it even there?

 

There's plenty of other stuff that's there that you can't take. You can't just go around pulling all the grass and shrubs out of the ground, and selling them for 1gp. You can't just go around cutting small trees down and selling the lumber. You can't just take all the furniture in someone's home and sell it on the furniture black market. Yet, surely someone would pay much more dearly for a nice piece of furniture than they would a Rusty Iron Short Sword, which you can freely pick up, even though it has absolutely no possbility of being better than the one you started the game with, and sells for the minimum amount possible.

 

*shrug*. I just think these are things that have to be considered when designing the loot system no matter what, and that worry over irrational human behavior can come later. If items are lootable in the game AND have a sell value, is it really any more irrational that you actually make use of that sell value than it is that they are supposed to be useless and you're not supposed to want to pick them up for any reason whatsoever, but you're making use of the one purpose they actually have?

[Mor]

Sorry previous post was a late nighter. The point I wanted to emphasize is that any discussion of inventory mechanic should take note of several big changed from IE games:

1. Slot system and stash.

2. No combat XP and health being a limited resource(no healing between rest points)

3. New Crafting mechanics, and new craft able materials.

 

Lets be honest inventory systems are usually not based in reality, its give and take. In our case I believe that the inventory system wasn't designed to address some irrational behavior, but to make the game more tactical. Like @Elerond pointed out that with much more limited slots(packs) space and the player no need to account for stuff he gather for economical reasons, the system becomes more tactical and you'll need to plan how to use that limited resource every time you venture forth.

 

The later two should change how we approach loot, if there is no xp gain from mobs and every encounter drains your limit health pool then loot is the only incentive to explore, so it should be worth more than a pittance. In addition the crafting mechanics might mean that we will get a similar gameplay like in the witcher i.e. a lot of free crafting ingredients, that we would give us incentive to explore and will be able to cook over the campfire(? they said hearth).

 

 

Also personally, I don't care about the bottomless nature of the stash, if its a problem to some I am sure that a mod some arbitrary limit to it will pop up, but I am intrigued by the idea that stash can't be accessed in the wilderness, that is if we got a witcher like system it will cause people to "live of the land".( I am sure that fellow RP guys would appreciate the gesture that a campsite would be more than just a resting "checkpoints" ) loot-gnomes? I don't know how much loot we will have, but it might be a nice solution to help pick large drops(can work with animal companions as well)

[Lephys]

Josh just announced in this thread that resting will no longer be limited to campsites/spots (although these will still exist and will allow for resource-free resting; resting anywhere now requires limited resources called Camping Supplies). Anywho, I'm curious how this affects the Deep Stash access.

 

Is it still tied to resting? Or is it simply tied to those still-existent campsites, along with towns?

[Mor]

looks like it is: "To rest, all you need to do is press the rest button. The game checks to make sure it's okay to camp in that location at that time and will give you the option to access your Stash or go directly into rest."

 

Btw it will be a nice touch if after resting, some kind of visual cue would be left behind from the abandoned camp.

[Lephys]

looks like it is: "To rest, all you need to do is press the rest button. The game checks to make sure it's okay to camp in that location at that time and will give you the option to access your Stash or go directly into rest."

 

Btw it will be a nice touch if after resting, some kind of visual cue would be left behind from the abandoned camp.

Doh! I somehow overlooked that line! Thanks,

 

With that being said, now we can feasibly access our Stash after every single combat (so long as Camp Supply quantities allow), so doesn't that sort of diminish the "you can always pick it up, but it'll be a bit inconvenient to access" aspect of the stash? I'm just curious. I mean, I guess before, you could, most of the time, simply take the time to run to the nearest campsite and access it "whenever you want" (it would take more time, but you wouldn't have to progress through a certain amount of content before you could access it again). So, *shrug*

[Hassat Hunter]

To answer Lephys;

 

The reason this was so in Baldur's Gate was because enemies who where killed dropped EVERYTHING. It doesn't have anything to do with spoons or plates or stealing everything in sight, that was just the design decision of the BG team. If you kill an enemy everything he owned on him drops.

Did that mean they actually intended for the player to carry that all off? No.

 

So the solutions would be;

1) Keep it as is, it's fine (IMO my suggestion)

2) Change the system so if you kill a NPC he no longer drops everything (most modern games design)

3) Adapt the game to keep this in, but still allow people who seem incapable of leaving the 1GP swords each generic villain drops to get their fill. Also known as the current sollution.

Change a system because just a few people exploited it to some degree. Which seems PoE's general design attitude in the first place. And... it's very worrysome.

[PrimeJunta]

@Lephys Josh also said you can only carry camping materials for 2-6 camps, depending. I.e., rest-spamming is still out.

[Mor]

Not exactly, existing campsites are still in where you can rest freely, but strictly speaking yeah rest-spamming is out, so is abusing maimed status.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Mor

[Lephys]

@Lephys Josh also said you can only carry camping materials for 2-6 camps, depending. I.e., rest-spamming is still out.

Ehhh, to clarify, rest-spamming beyond 2-6 times (depending) is out. The sheer act of rest spamming isn't really out. It's pretty infeasible (if you've gotta make it through 15 fights, and you blow all your camping supplies after the first 4, then you've gotta go through 11 fights without resting.).

 

Anywho, the point is, before this, one of the main "drawbacks"/costs of the stash was "this stuff won't be very accessible. You can obtain it, sure, but it's not going anywhere you can immediately use it." But, now, you almost always have the potential to just access the stash, if you so choose, just by resting.

 

*shrug*. I'm just not entirely sure what the "cost" of the stash is supposed to be. Off the top of my head, I still say it feels like it would work best if you couldn't access the stuff you put into it until you went to a town or your stronghold. It just seems like "only when resting" isn't really enough of a drawback to warrant having a stash as separate from the rest of your inventory. Might as well just carry around infinite stuff, and still have the Equipment (accessible in-combat) and non-equipment portions. I don't know what the role of a third, nigh-infinite section is if you can pretty freely access it.

 

It just seems like a really round-a-bout way to make sure it's not technically readily available. *shrug*

 

To answer Lephys;

 

The reason this was so in Baldur's Gate was because enemies who where killed dropped EVERYTHING. It doesn't have anything to do with spoons or plates or stealing everything in sight, that was just the design decision of the BG team. If you kill an enemy everything he owned on him drops.

Did that mean they actually intended for the player to carry that all off? No.

It's not like they just found a world full of fully-coded virtual items, and they just said "You know what? These pre-existing virtual people were already carrying all this stuff around. We'd better just leave it be, and have all that stuff fall of of them, AND have specific sale values and such, whenever they die."

 

I didn't say they INTEND for the player to carry it all off. What I said was, the only mechanical purpose those items serve, once they litter the ground, is that they have sale value. There's no other reason TO pick them up, and there's no reason to not-pick-them-up except "I don't have space for them because my inventory's full" or "I just don't need money at all." Basically, unless your inventory's always full, or you're near the end of the game and just don't have much use for money anymore, there's pretty much no reason not to pick up the fallen stuff.

 

The funny thing is, you can carry around 73,000 gold, and everyone's fine with that. Everyone's always talking about how ridiculous it is to pick up some physical object worth only 2gp, but, if there were 2gp lying on the ground, you'd pick that up in a heartbeat, right? Well, I'd be interested to know what people's feelings would be if coins you found lying around had weight.

 

"Oh look, a chest of coins and gemstones! Hmmm, even between all of us, we can only carry like half of it. Let's just leave the other half here, forever, because obviously we're not expected to actually desire the value of this stuff."

 

I'm not saying there aren't extremes, but no one really seems to be providing a basis for what is ridiculous and what isn't. Especially when it comes to making an additional trip to get the stuff. If making a trip back to a cave to retrieve 207 gp worth of rusty swords and armor is silly, why isn't making a trip back to a cave to retrieve 207 gp (if it had weight and you had to make 2 trips)?

 

Again, I'll say that, from a gameplay/game design standpoint, I'd much rather see things either pretty much not have value (there's a lot of used stuff in the modern world that most people don't want to buy from you, even if it's "perfectly good."), or should have some specific value other than monetary/sell value, OR should simply not be lootable (like grass, or teeth.)

 

The game doesn't just let you loot grass, for realism's sake, but then laugh about how there's not really a reason to loot grass. "You never use it, and it's worth nothing, but you can have it take up space in your inventory! 8D" And, you know what? You could actually have SOMEone in the world need some grass. Especially in an arid location where it was extremely sparse. However, if you just gave grass a sell value of 1 copper piece, you've just pointlessly introduced a tedious manner by which to make money. And money is something your encouraging the player to obtain.

[Hassat Hunter]

It's purely for realism reasons. And you know, many people here did ask for all items from NPC's to drop after dead since modern games stepped away from it.

That you wrap your mind around that means you need to carry each 1gp sword or 5gp armor is not exactly a ramification of that...

 

It's a little silly that in order to achieve THIS realism, another realism was sacrificed.

[neo6874]

"Oh look, a chest of coins and gemstones! Hmmm, even between all of us, we can only carry like half of it. Let's just leave the other half here, forever, because obviously we're not expected to actually desire the value of this stuff."

D&D game I'm part of the previous adventuring party (they all died ) found a stash of 30,000 GP ...

 

 

 

 

 

... worth of Copper Pieces.

 

 

They spent like a full in-game month carting it back to their "base" (old warehouse in some small town).

 

 

So I can see the use of a "bigger stash" that isn't always with the party. However, I'd say it should really be two stashes.

 

Stash 1 -- Limited, but accessible at the pre-defined campsites. This represents your pack animals/cart/whatever that you use to carry the majority of your things that you don't need all the time, but still don't want to trudge 2 weeks back to town to replenish. Extra potions, scrolls, camping/cooking gear, vendor trash, etc. Limited to the carrying capacity of a pack-horse per party member (up to 450 pounds for a horse, or 600 pounds for a heavy horse -- using D&D numbers). This assumes that at the very minimum, the main character owns a horse from the get-go ... depending on the actual story reason for you being thrown into the adventure, I think this could make sense.

 

Stash 2 -- Infinite, but only accessible once you've obtained your stronghold. Idea is that you're storing nearly everything in your keep, and it's just being transported to you when you're in town (rp reason -- you sent a missive to the keep to say "we'll be in [some town], send [stuff] there" and send the transporter back with the stuff you've collected.

 

 

Granted this is just an off-the-cuff idea, and is probably bad for various reasons.

Edited April 29, 2014 by neo6874

[Hormalakh]

TChange a system because just a few people ...

 

Hwo do you know it was a few? Do you have any evidence for this? It seems like you're downplaying the significance of the mechanic because you think only a "few" people broke it.

[Hassat Hunter]

It's just like save-scumming or restspamming... I seriously doubt everyone did that so rigirously to the extent that some of PoE's modifications are required.

[Hormalakh]

But do you have proof? Josh at least has seen enough let's play videos to have evidence. seriously doubting and having a "gut-feeling" don't really mean much.

[Lephys]

It's purely for realism reasons. And you know, many people here did ask for all items from NPC's to drop after dead since modern games stepped away from it.

That you wrap your mind around that means you need to carry each 1gp sword or 5gp armor is not exactly a ramification of that...

 

It's a little silly that in order to achieve THIS realism, another realism was sacrificed.

It's a bit self-defeating, don't you think, that stuff is always available to pick up for realism's sake, but then is always valuable and sellable at the same time.

 

The real world doesn't give anyone a reason to trudge back to a cave to collect 17gp worth of knick-knacks. The game does. I'm not saying it makes you do it. It provides a reason TO do it, and doesn't even provide any reasons not to do it. The real world gives you reasons not to do something. That's what I'm saying.

 

Off the top of my head, if no merchant would ever buy more than like 2 random weapons or armors from you, ever, then it would suddenly become a lot more realistic. Okay, that sword has value, but it doesn't have always-definite-useful-monetary value. OR, like I've mentioned in many a thread, you could simply have certain blacksmiths and such who will take used/crappy weapons and armor to melt down for their metals. Maybe they'll not even pay you in money for such things, but will improve your relationship with that particular craftsman towards your being able to access his "select" wares, and or maybe earning a discount or free weapon upgrade on down the line, etc. You don't ALWAYS need some free weapon work, and you're not ALWAYS needing to buy whatever that guy might sell to you after an improved rapport. That, and you know that, after you've taken the time to deliver to him some certain amount of scrap metal, you'll have accomplished what you could. You won't be like "wait... I know he has nothing else to give to me for more scrap metal being brought to him, but lemme go back and grab those other 17 armors from where I fought all those kobolds!"

 

If you want realism, then you don't want free money-at-the-cost-of-inventory-space lying around in every single thing that can touch the ground.

[neo6874]

I think one thing a lot of you are overlooking is the era this is set in.

 

Making arms and armor is tedious. There's no automation/mass production/etc. that we've come to rely on for all our things -- sure the lower quality stuff (e.g. spear point, conscript's sword) might be semi-mass produced by casting the main body then simply sharpening it ... but the "high quality" stuff (i.e. "mundane" stuff we buy/sell) and the top quality (masterwork) stuff takes hours, or even days to make.

 

 

So yeah, an adventurer coming back with 15 "trash" longswords that cost the shopkeeper 15 GP to pick up just saved him several days of work.

 

And that's not even considering armor ... which takes weeks, if not months to produce.

Edited April 30, 2014 by neo6874

[Lephys]

I realize there's no mass production, and stuff takes time, but... that's all the more reason for some smith not to be eager to pay you for 17-swords worth of metal, right here and now, when it's going to take him weeks just to make a handful of them, IF he even gets orders for those.

 

Of course, metal doesn't JUST make swords and armor. It also makes barrel straps, horseshoes, lanterns, etc.

 

Regardless, someone isn't just going to eagerly await infinite scrap metal. Maybe they'll take all they can get, but they're surely not going to pay you for it all.

[constantine]

 

 

A considerable part of my play time in the Baldur's Gate series was managing inventory space, categorizing and storing items. I stored my items in places I didn't own or Inns. Reality jumps out the window when you force the player to act so, so screw your 18 or 20 inventory slots and weight limit.

Then you're seriously doing something wrong, since I don't recall any of these behaviors from me in any IE games, and I am a hoarder. Of course, logically (although I suppose reading this thread, not so) I left 1 gold armors and swords from downed enemies where they belong, the floor.

And this was even in BG1 where I had a full inventory of missiles and bullets on my least strength hero.

 

As you might have read, I definitely agree with the stance that OE should not appease the "I want all lootz" crowd, and that will definitely weaken the game, just like all the other games it has done so in the past. Learn from past mistakes, not repeat them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You could have 1 small fight with skeletons in about the mid-game (5-8 skelies) and each one of them had a Comp Longbow, which sold good gold at traders. I was so frustrated by that time that I didn't care and didn't collect the bows-- or most magic arrows/bolts, or chain/splint and later plate mails, or magic daggers/short swords- and the list goes on. Thankfully 99% of the merchants sold crap things and my excess gold need not grow any more than it was.

 

Re-playing I collected stuff for the early part of the games, then I didn't care about collecting anymore. But it worked well b/c trading was of little use anyway.

 

 

But don't tell me that you could be a hoarder and have no inventory management problems, 'cause that is a flat-out lie.

 

 

 

 

And all of you guys you should stop worrying so much about the inventory-economy issue b/c most likely adventuring will equip you with the best gear for your characters. That is enough discussion on something that is of secondary importance for the game.

 

 

 

Of course there are ways to make trading & world economy more interesting, that is up to Obsidian to decide whether it will be something they will focus on. I'm ok either way.

 

*edit*:However be optimistic as they are gonna take after trading routines similar to the Fallout games. So, you can still collect 10-20 long-swords from your vanquished foes, but still selling them will only be a fraction of that cool named weapon/armor you want to buy. No random encounters in PoE also, so you will not have a way to collect infinite amounts of stuff.

Edited May 1, 2014 by constantine

[neo6874]

I realize there's no mass production, and stuff takes time, but... that's all the more reason for some smith not to be eager to pay you for 17-swords worth of metal, right here and now, when it's going to take him weeks just to make a handful of them, IF he even gets orders for those.

 

Of course, metal doesn't JUST make swords and armor. It also makes barrel straps, horseshoes, lanterns, etc.

 

Regardless, someone isn't just going to eagerly await infinite scrap metal. Maybe they'll take all they can get, but they're surely not going to pay you for it all.

Thing is, if you're coming back with 15 longswords from the bandit camp, the smith won't be melting them down but rather giving them a once-over ("yep, it's still usable") and then selling them back out -- possibly to the king or a local lord so they've got their armory well-stocked (or they're having to re-stock their armory, because of whatever happened that made them rely on adventurers to rescue their daughter).

 

Obviously some of them will end up as scrap, but this is why he's only giving you 1-2 GP for a sword that he's gonna turn around and sell for 5-10.

 

Just for numbers, let's say 2/3 of your swords are good -- which means he's lessened his workload by 10 swords already ... or say a full week's worth of work. While this doesn't mean he can get on vacation or something, it puts him a week ahead on other orders.

[Lephys]

Thing is, if you're coming back with 15 longswords from the bandit camp, the smith won't be melting them down but rather giving them a once-over ("yep, it's still usable") and then selling them back out -- possibly to the king or a local lord so they've got their armory well-stocked (or they're having to re-stock their armory, because of whatever happened that made them rely on adventurers to rescue their daughter).

 

Obviously some of them will end up as scrap, but this is why he's only giving you 1-2 GP for a sword that he's gonna turn around and sell for 5-10.

 

Just for numbers, let's say 2/3 of your swords are good -- which means he's lessened his workload by 10 swords already ... or say a full week's worth of work. While this doesn't mean he can get on vacation or something, it puts him a week ahead on other orders.

True, true. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that, either the swords are useful, and the gathering of them is a feasible activity, or it isn't. Honestly, even taking a couple of trips to grab them all is no less feasible than, say, hiring yourselves out as caravan guards for a 3-day trip, for like 150gp plus food. Oh, you gathered 30 pieces of equipment that all only sold for 5gp a piece? Well, you spent the same amount of time, and got the same amount of money. Yet, people scoff at collecting perfectly useful items that are freely strewn about the ground, and would consider taking a caravan guarding job somehow completely not-irrational at all.

 

It's just a bit weird.

 

Also, though, I'd very much like to see "junk" items (from a gameplay standpoint... the things that provide only a mere pittance in coin for the player when collected and sold) have more diverse purposes. Maybe there's a town noted for its smiths, and its ample mine nearby, so they really don't have enough demand for cheap arms and armor (or scrap metal from either) to actually take the time to accept such things, much less pay for them. It's not that they wouldn't be useful, but that they'd be the least efficient use of those smiths'/merchants' time.

 

I'd honestly like to see a lot of stuff like that just be situationally beneficial. Especially with something like the stronghold in the game. It's obviously going to start out pretty run-down, so it's going to need all the stuff it can get. Arming your militia with rough, improvised "orc" weaponry you scavenge out in the field will be an improvement over their farming implements and a few swords. Maybe when your stronghold staves off attacks and such, you suffer resource casualties (damaged arms and armor, some of which are beyond repair and/or lost, and new ones need to be made, etc.). So, maybe bringing such "junk" items (again, money-wise), instead of netting you a handful of coins per item, contributes to your stronghold's stores of milita-esque armaments, and/or metal to be re-processed back into ingots and such to be used to craft more legitimate arms and armor.

 

Not to mention all kind of other metal implements and items for daily/economical use (town lamps, gates/portcullises, horseshoes, etc.).

 

It would all be very abstract, and your stronghold people would only be able to process so much at a time (you're not supposed to start out with a ton of people, from what we've heard about that), so you wouldn't really be encouraged to just bring 270 swords and armors to your stronghold every hour or anything.

 

The key is that there shouldn't always (at any given moment, ever) be some definite value or use for some common thing that happens to have dropped from a foe.

 

That's the problem with most games in relation to inventory management. It's this not-quite-realistic game of "get the best weight/space-to-value ratio possible, every time!" It's more like a minigame than just a natural part of the game world. It's pretty much 100% about how taking or not-taking those items affects the player, and nothing else.

[neo6874]

I can see where you're at -- but some of those types of caveats (i.e. "we're not buying this stuff") are annoying as hell in a cRPG ... it's bad enough when the designers make you walk halfway across the map to go from "general adventuring loot buyer" to "arms and armor buyer"...

[Hassat Hunter]

But do you have proof? Josh at least has seen enough let's play videos to have evidence. seriously doubting and having a "gut-feeling" don't really mean much.

 

Quite a feat, let's play videos in 2000 with the webs and internet speeds of those times.

More likely any let's plays are from modern gamers, usually less known to 2000 games and more familiar with modern dumbed down games, and thus play as they've learned from there.

And as that result our new 2000 game gets dumbed down? That's beyond stupid...

 

Hoarder doesn't mean "pick up all 1gp swords" btw.

[Lephys]

I can see where you're at -- but some of those types of caveats (i.e. "we're not buying this stuff") are annoying as hell in a cRPG ... it's bad enough when the designers make you walk halfway across the map to go from "general adventuring loot buyer" to "arms and armor buyer"...

Oh, I fully agree. I'm just trying to think of the possibilities.

 

Here's my thinking: You're playing an entirely new game, and you don't really know how everything works yet. You're going to pick up what you can (with a limited inventory space, in this example), but you're not yet worried about making a bunch of trips or anything. You can't do that 'til you sell what you've got anyway. So, you go to town, and find out that the local blacksmith only wants so much scrap metal, or only wants items for such-and-such purposes, etc. So, now, you just never make the decision "Okay, it would probably be prudent to gather up every scrap of loot I can find," because the game's made it clear it's no infinite money supply.

 

That's what I'm thinking. Not so much the whole market fluctuation thing, with merchants buying stuff now, but then not buying it later, but then going back to buying it again, and/or with varying prices, etc. That's definitely a hassle. Especially because there aren't really set times when you'll be at a merchant or not, and scheduling all your adventures according to some merchant economy kind of clashes with the regular pace of gameplay.

 

But, I would just find it refreshing if the game didn't simply offer up all the super-common loot as always able to be converted into money.

 

Of course, with this limitless stash, that all becomes a bit moot for this particular game. I was mainly commenting on the sentiments expressed about mega-looting behavior in general. I just find it hard to say "I know that stuff's guaranteed money, but it's just supposed to be there, as commonly as it is, for verisimilitude. You're not supposed to want to use it to obtain money, you crazy person."