Containers

[Wrentia]

I am just curious on how containers will work...

Will a container be able to be placed inside another container? (can I stick my sewing kit in my backpack?)

How about a container can hold as many items as you can stuff in it.....up to a particular weight? (A Adventurers backpack can hold 100 pounds so I can have 45 items that in total weight 75 pounds....and have room left over)

Also container size should matter as well. I shouldn't be able to fit that elephant tusk in my sewing kit for instance, but I could toss that ring I picked up into the sewing kir....

Also, how about some items serving dual purpose? A Magical robe that has pockets for spell components? A belt with 2 pouches attached to it (gives AC like a leather belt and works as a container).

Just wondering...

-Wrentia

[Slitherrr]

Yeah, wearable containers. It always pissed me off that you could buy a "wrist pouch" in EQ that didn't frickin go on your wrist. If we were being completely realistic, we'd have to figure both bulk and weight (while fifty inflated balloons doesn't weigh much, try stuffing them all in a backpack).

[Rolfe]

I hated the wrist pouch thing too. Wasn't that lame. I was all excited when I got my first wrist pouch because I thought they would go on my wrists, and then it sticks them in my inventory. So funny that you mentioned that.

We're really not positive on containers. We haven't given much thought to it because it's a far off detail. We're currently working on so many other things. We've just finished making the animated characters single mesh, like Quake, as opposed to seperate objects, like Asheron's Call. Everquest is seperate objects too, but it doesn't show as badly because they skin over the joints. It's a quick fix like most everything else in EQ. We originally were going to skin the joints over like EQ and we recently decided that the single mesh characters would just look a lot better and would be worth the extra effort. It took forever to figure out how to shrink the memory usage down on a single mesh animation so that we could use them in an MMORPG.

But it's done and I'm way off the subject now. I'm really not sure what you'll be seeing in the way of containers yet. Common sense will be our guide, so wrist pouches will go on your WRIST. What an ingenious idea, isn't it? And we will likely have bags of holding like in D&D. I believe we're going to attempt to integrate encumberance into the inventory system as opposed to JUST weight.

[Wrentia]

I just feel I need to say again that small containers should be able to go into big containers. I know these kind of details are far off, but its probably something that needs to go into the core code of inventory objects...

Encumberance is important as well as weight. Bag's of Holding would be nice as long as we can have a cool implosion whenever someone puts a pointed weapon in one...:') Heck perhaps it would have a small chance of opening a rift to some other plane of existance....I like the idea of some idiot puncturing his bag of holding, to suddenly be confronted by some demonic creature right after taking all the damage from the loss of his bag....<cackle>

Anyway, the point I'm really trying to make is its never to early to get some ideas down on paper....

-Wrentia

[Cynycal]

big containers would be nice too...like a cart to drag around or something...

[Wrentia]

I have no problem with carts....but if you park em' outside a dungeon cause its too big to get inside, I want to be able to search through and steal stuff from it if you aren't around....:) In fact, I might just steal the whole
cart and sell it.....:)


-Wrentia

[Slitherrr]

So you'd have to hire guards to guard the cart... Pretty soon you've formed your own cart-guarding guild, the only one of its type, and force a monopoly on the cart-guard trade... Then you hike up the prices, become immensely rich, then are forced to split by whatever government is nearby. Mwahaha

[Cynycal]

or i'd just cast some sort of guarding spell on it..

[KirosBlade]

what spell would that be? Mordenkainen's Magical Cart Watcher?

[BelDragos]

how about an Animate Cart spell and it would guard itself, provided you took the train cart skill and tought it tricks:)

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

Aye, wouldn't want it to decide to follow someone else home.
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Only Fools and Trolls rush in where the Gods fear to tread

[BelDragos]

Have to remember to paper train the cart. Don't want any unsightly messes!

[fredrick]

I think realistic containers (as with everything else) would be great, and much more of a convinience for adventurers. As Brick House Trading Co hasn't had time to think up a system, I'll propose a scheme to be used or not as they choose :)

Each container should have it's own weight and volume. Both of these numbers will be fairly low for most containers (unless it's a box or something)
(Volume being a more accurate description than size. I vote we ignore the fact that certain objects won't fit well with other objects due to the geometrics.. too much to think about.)

Items placed in a container increase that containers volume (assuming it's collapsable), as well as it's weight. (Or your overall weight more accuratly)

For organization purposes, small containers (or even large containers collapsed) can be placed in larger containers. This will result in your getting a lesser overall available volume... but you can sort your stuff.

Containers can be placed about anywhere (money belt, wrist pouch, leg sheath etc).. but particularly your arms should have a maximum limit for encoumberance. Maybe you can exceed that limit, but at that point your dexterity drops notably. (What's that? I strapped a backpack to my arms, and all the sudden I can't lift them? :)

For weight/encoumberance reduction there are several choices:

1) a container with a spell on it to reduce weight of items to nothing.
2) a container with a spell to reduce the volume of items in it to nothing. (Said backpack should have a limited number of items it can contain, and they shouldn't be containers. If you reach into you're black whole backpack, you're not going to be able to sort through another pack in it)
3) A container can have both 1 & 2, but a limited number of items it can contain.
4) A spell can be cast on your backpack which creates either scenario 1 or 2.
a) There should probably be a temporary and permanent version of this spell.
b) If you're not good at casting this spell, your backpack, anything in it, possible other items in your inventory, and yourself may be damaged by a failed casting.
c) If you cast the temporary version of the spell and it elapses before you renew it, the contents will resume prior status. If this is the volume reduction spell, chances are your bag will burst open, and stuff will fall to the ground. Hopefuly you're good at finding stuff, because it's just possible those rubies/other small objects could be lost in the grass/sand! Also, as you just lost a bag, if you don't have other bags to replace it, you can't carry everything anymore.... and watch out for your traveling companions who now see a bunch of free loot on the ground. (From a programming perspective, this should be fairly easily implimented by making a treasure looking corpse pixie appear. Lost items would probably be a roll on your perception stat.)


Anyway, hopefuly something above is useful ;) I'd really love to see a game where carrying stuff around can get more managable.