First off, he starts with rationalization of the importance of inventory in the game as a viable concern for gameplay and game depth:
Quote fromUpgrading storage size is a great reward, and can be much better than any incremental weapon/armor upgrade. (Kills/min could easily calculate out to be much greater without having to stop to clear inventory as much with a bag upgrade as compared to a damage increase from a weapon upgrade.)
Building off the last point, it helps add the sense of your character becoming more powerful and gaining more from the time spent playing.
Increasing the storage size over time/play experience is a great way to scale the player's sense of the game's complexity.
Beginning with a small and limited amount of space teaches the player early on that inventory management is an important part of playing the game - and sometimes generating income.
Making and keeping the player aware of their limitations can also help keep a better sense of structure and focus. Being overwhelmed is sometimes as detrimental to a play experience as being bored.
Although many of us might not fully agree with everything he has said here, they are legitimate considerations, partly issues that we did not think about in Diablo II: LoD, where we were given a fixed inventory without any hope of upgrading it besides the Horadric Cube which was, in my opinion, somewhat inadequate for storage.
He followed up with something that might make more than a few Diablo fans happy about the prospect of increased inventory sizes for individual players:
Quote fromAlso keep in mind that while we're obviously dropping bag upgrades off of monsters now, we could choose any number of alternative ways to get them to the player. Or maybe a combination of different ways. Whatever, I just wouldn't focus on the 'how' of them being delivered right now.
It seems from this we can safely assume that at least some, if not all, of the inventory expansions (bags) will be attainable as standard in-game drops, as opposed to a royalty service that many had been speculating. Also worthy of note, however, is that he explicitly said "maybe a combination of different ways", cluing us off that perhaps it might include a mixture of both in-game drops and royalty fees, which Blizzard has stated would be a minimal part of the up-coming game, or perhaps from various quests throughout the game.
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So, what do you think? Do you agree with his stance on the new bag system being implemented in the world of Sanctuary? Does it seem better for the Diablo community now that it's been officially stated that bags will be dropped from in-game monsters?
I think it could be interesting for the bags to be magic, to be just like the charms, you could use a maximum of 10 bags and each bags would give 1 slot for each groups of items(ex:"weapon and armor", misc.). those 10 bags would replace the charms if they are not in diablo 3. You would have 10 space reserved to equip bag. Every bags would give the same amount of space or its could give more space but with less powerful magic effect.
If the bags system were to become like that I would really like it.
They have never even come close to say that they would have such things. They said battle.net might have some features that requires you to pay (god knows what, though), but as far as the game goes, they would just shoot themselves in the foot for including anything like that.
I also disagree completely with random bag drops. In fact, I don't like bags at all. But don't make them random. This is just stupid. They have a HUGE impact on your character and thats all there is to it.
Huge impact = shouldn't be given randomly.
Don't get me wrong, I seriously enjoyed the inventory-tetris mini-game. My friends would ask me to do theirs, some times. And it has been a staple of Diablo games. It also made logical sense to my mind that one could carry more smaller things than larger things, and larger things took up more space. (Of course, it still didn't make sense that a sorceress or a necro could carry around as much as a barbarian, toting around five plate mail armor pieces+, but oh well. Suspension of reality in favor of fun = good times in my book.)
That said, I just plain like the bag system better, as much as I'll miss the old one. I am thinking that maybe they will opt to make a virtually limitless stash (like your house in Oblivion) that you can just chuck anything you want into. Not saying that I think it should look or function like the house (more like just a huge chest or something).
I really liked PlugY's inventory paging system. You could scroll by 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 1,000 pages left or right. That way, I was able to reserve 1,000 pages for set pieces, uniques, yellows, etc., and have the ability to maneuver between sub-sections for the different item classes (weapons, armor, rings, etc.)
I hope that they have some similar organization system set in place for D3. Having limitless inventory space with a lame organizing system is almost too much to bear, at times (I'm looking at YOU, Mass Effect).
Because there's another way to reward players.
I see your point though, but I seriously doubt you're going to be able to progress through the entire game without having ample opportunities to increase your bag space. Like previosuly mentioned, a quest reward or a periodic increase every few levels or acts would work, but that's not to say drops can't be apart of it.
As with anyhting else in D2, if it is dropped it can be traded. Perhaps it would only be specialized bags, like gem bags or similar. Regular bag increases could perhaps be periodic and set, and more special, would be drops.
It depends on what kind of items we're looking for. If there's any form of crafting, then I imagine more parts of that will drop later on. Runes and gems could perhaps become more common on higher levels, or you will get a greater scope of viable items. It's impossible to say right now when we know short of nothing of what we'll be getting.
That would be correct, yes. Or at least how I used the phrase.
When it comes to immersion however, this seems a bit dubious to me. It is of course highly unrealistic to have an inventory the size of an aircraft carrier which it seems you could very well obtain after playing the game for a while. Still, I think the players who play more competively will definitely enjoy the ability to hold as many items as they please.
I'm not really against the small bag you get when you start the game. At least this is a bit immersive. It makes sense that a new warrior wouldn't want to weigh themeselves down with an excessively large bag. On the whole, I think I like this idea.
Actually, its not going to work like that. At least, I doubt it, considering how Bashiok was speaking.
Basically, less inventory just means they want you to have more decisions to make about what items to carry and to bring back to town. I'm guessing the days of town portals are over (which would be an awesome thing, by the way - a broken concept all around) and that means there is no way you can just take everything and keeping selling it to town. You HAVE to choose.
That seems to be their intentions.
Bags as quest reward >>> Bags as drops
They should have learned it from Titan Quest* by now
* Diablo's best and most successful clone so far
I agree. If they want to add bags to the game they should make the player feel like they're improving their character no matter what bag he/she just found. I only played WoW for like a 3 months about a year ago so i dont remember so well but one thing I hated was finding those smaller bags the 4 slot i think it was freakin ridiculous, cause then u got the 8 slots, i felt like getting rid of them.