the invisible inventory

[daedroug]

Ok i'm relatively new to Arm and one thing that irks me is a few thing about the inventory. now before i start i just have to say that i love the inventory how yer able to carry arm loads of things instead of just two at a time but.... it seems very out of reality that you can't see whats in there arms by just looking at them. So unless i'm misinterpretting what the inventory is supposed to represent it just doesn't seem right. In fact the inventory is probably one of the most hidden places on a character some brute can walk up to you and say "aight ya piece o shat strip i'm talk yer stuff" and he can go and take off every thing and yet still hold all his money possibly a weapon food etc without the guy ever being able to know (short of knowing the peek command pretty darn well). thoughts?

[Anael]

Inventory is often roleplayed as:
Things hidden under the cloak/coat/whatever.
Small pockets.
etc...

People will often emote out things that they actually bear in their arms, to solve this little 'problem'.

[Anonymous]

i suppose you can RP it that way (though why not just put the item in the pocket or cloak anyways. I'm just saying that it doesn't seem right. and that i think it will take more then the players efforts of RP, I just think it's too easy to abuse.

[daedroug]

LOL that was me btw just realized i hadn't logged in when i posted that.

[moab]

Additionally there are skills that allow you to see someone's inventory.

My favorite way to check someone's inventory is to kill them.

;-)

[Agent_137]

Yes, inventory is roleplayed as pockets or such. Sometimes in your hands, but anything you're carrying along loosely.

And yes, there is a skill to check inventory, but it's not available to all guilds.

So inventory is really no more hidden than the stuff in some one's pack.

[jhunter]

I'd like to add that if you are carrying something large in your inventory that you should emote it being in your arms or something and perhaps use movement emotes to display to others that you are carrying it.

It really helps paint a much better picture of what's going on to others  and keeps people from appearing to be unrealistically hiding something they shouldn't be able to carry around without others seeing it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I do think that when you look at someone, you should see their inventory. Screw playing it as pockets and stuff, it's not. It's in your hands or being carried, and that'sa fact.

[LauraMars]

This is why my characters rarely have anything in their inventory.  It just seems too weird to me.  Especially if you're holding a weapon in one hand and a burning torch in the other, and the thing in your inventory isn't something that would be condusive to being put in a "pocket."  (i.e. an obsidian broadsword)  I'd have a backpack, (as annoying as that is) tons of wear locations, and pretty much every piece of clothing I own is also a container.

[daedroug]

So inventory is really no more hidden than the stuff in some one's pack.

thats just it though it is MUCH more hidden then the stuff in yer pack because some one can hold you at knife point tell u to hand over yer pack then they go searching through it never knowing that you have a pound of spice and i gigantic nugget of gold in yer inventory.

I'd like to add that if you are carrying something large in your inventory that you should emote it being in your arms or something and perhaps use movement emotes to display to others that you are carrying it.

just because it -should- be role played doesn't mean that every one remembers to or even bothers to in the first place. yeah sure it would beabsolutly GREAT if when ever some one walked into a room they emoted the things they are juggling in there arms but we all know that it will not happen in about 80% of the active players. not to say that all those people don't RP but half of those are going to forget they have it in there (don't u dare tell me u never forgot to put the ole hacker away and didn't realize it till someone pointed it out)

[JollyGreenGiant]

A quick note before the body of my post - daedroug, you'll find that you have an easier time being taken seriously by people who read the GDB if you use reasonably correct punctuation, grammer, and spelling. Otherwise, it looks like you don't care. And if you don't care, we're not likely to either.

Onward and upward: I've played on muds where people's inventory was visible. Honestly, the last thing I want when I look at someone wearing ten rings, two earrings, two necklaces, wraps on their ankles, wrists, pants, shirt, hat, sleeves, belt, waist, two on belt, one slung across back... is MORE spam for the five things in their inventory.

The other thing is, this isn't really the problem you make it out to be. If you want to play someone adept at skulduggery, pick an appropriate class that seems likely to get peek. If you want to engage in brute force thuggery, be a smarter criminal and pick good targets. Mug the guy you see wearing expensive jewelry, or the girl you see putting a giant pile of coins into her backpack. Demand visible jewelry (or the backpack). Accept the fact that most of the time you're not going to get every single scrap off of someone that you could possible sell off for a few sid.

[Rindan]

A potential solution would be to make things over say 1 stone viewable, and everything smaller still 'invisible' unless peek is used.  This way, you could still play a game of cards, but couldn't get away with holding a knot of spice or a steel bastard sword.

[daedroug]

First, I must apologize if I don't use proper grammar and whatnot but at times I'm typing as quickly as the thoughts are coming to me and don't give heed to the way they come out. Not to mention the old habits of IM's and chat rooms where brevity is the key.

Second, I like Rindan's idea that sounds exactly like it would be in real life. It might be possible to hold a dagger or jewel in your hand with out being noticed but carrying a log would be seen. Sounds good to me.

Third and final, JollyGreenGiant i don't see how that can possibly be a problem when, most likely, about 80% of the people would be wearing no where near that much and, no offense, but I think that you'd be able to suck it up for those few that do.

[Intrepid]

Hey, Daed.

First off, I'm glad to see a new player and I hope you don't actually give
up.  A lot of the rules for this game can be frustrating--in fact, if you read
through the posts thoroughly enough, you'll see that even the veteran
players get ticked off from time to time.  You're in good company.

I realize that a lot of what you're asking seems to be waved off by the
other posters, but that's actually an illusion.  You see, much of what you
have been asking is echoed in the minds of most of the other players on
this mud--this includes the imms.  With a game as old as this, it often
seems like there are no new ideas, no new questions, no new complaints.
Most of what you've asked has come up before and we are, in fact,
reading.

That said, I have no problem with the way you're writing.  Grammar,
punctuation and spelling are secondary to getting your point across.  If
they weren't, all writers would be editors.  I can assure you of this,
however: The more you linger with us in the text environ, the better your
writing will be.

Despite the obvious frustrations you're having, I do hope you're enjoying
yourself, Daedroug.  What you're seeing is only the tip of the iceberg in
this game.   :twisted:

[Anonymous]

I like the way SoI handled this, for the most part.  2 inventory slots, one for each hand.  It's weird seeing a noble sitting having a drink at a bar when there is a gaj shell in his inventory, something I've encountered before.

[Anonymous]

First, how the hell is CRW a Legend? Heh. Secondly, I don't like the two hand crap. I just happen to think it's better to be able to see what's in the inventory.

[Delirium]

It's called "being an ex-Admin at Armageddon."  Big logic leap there.

I personally found Shadows of Isildur's two-slot inventory to be incredibly cumbersome, and for a few reasons it wouldn't work here.  The first and most important being the way the crafting system is set up.  The second being that you can't pick up "piles" of things, only one at a time.  It would be maddening to try and handle a substantial amount of things.

A matter of tastes, basically.

The inventory system is up to the player to properly roleplay, but allows some flexibility in what you're carrying and where. Obviously, if you're sitting in the bar sipping at wine and completely ignoring that you have a Gaj shell with you, that's called "not roleplaying properly".

plink plink

[jcarter]

I like the way SoI handled this, for the most part.  2 inventory slots, one for each hand.  It's weird seeing a noble sitting having a drink at a bar when there is a gaj shell in his inventory, something I've encountered before.

Wouldn't this sort of thing cripple pickpockets?

As it is now, most people keep things inside their closed packs. When someone can only have two things in their inventory and they're holding them in their hands, it's going to make stealing a lot tougher than before.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't this sort of thing cripple pickpockets?

As it is now, most people keep things inside their closed packs. When someone can only have two things in their inventory and they're holding them in their hands, it's going to make stealing a lot tougher than before.

I guess I don't look at it as having 2 items tightly clutched in their hands with only the onset of death allowing them to be pried out.  They could be sitting on their lap, on the bartop in front of the person, etc, etc.  The limit of 2 just makes it more realistic.  The real crippling to pickpockets is backpacks as you noted.  I've never liked the magical floating inventory since it allows for people to unwittingly do really silly things, like have mudsex while holding a chair and 3 obsidian longswords somewhere.  It's not so much that I love how SoI did it just that it seemed more inline with reality.

When you get right down to it, maybe instead of reducing the number of items that can be held it should be considered to reduce the weight of items that can be in your inventory beyond the first.  I'm not at all sure how it works right now, but weight (and in a perfect world size) should be a determining factor, not the number of items.  This would also fix the whole 'Half-giant can only carry 3 pebbles' scenario.

So, in other words, you can pick up one 100lb rock, or 20 .3lb arrows.  But you'd need to put that rock into some container on the ground before you could pick up anything else.

[jhunter]

I like the way SoI handled this, for the most part.  2 inventory slots, one for each hand.  It's weird seeing a noble sitting having a drink at a bar when there is a gaj shell in his inventory, something I've encountered before.

Actually I -hated- it. I found it extremely irritating and unrealistic for other reasons. It's one of several reasons why I didn't keep playing SOI. The current way is much more flexible.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Inventory could represent something slung over your back, something sitting on your lap, something sitting on the table in front of you, something resting at your feet, something cradled in your arms, or something you're holding on to with your hands. Personally, I'd find being limited to two items in my inventory a tad unrealistic. Besides, that'd totally screw up the crafting code.
I guess inventory could represent pockets and stuff... but we already have a lot of hard-coded pockets, which I have no qualms about using.
"Inventory" is weird, like a queer sort of item-limbo. Personally, I try to always keep my inventory empty, unless I'm specifically doing something with the items in my inventory... playing a game of cards, fixing an item, or just standing there holding it awkwardly. The system works well enough as is. If it's something big and bulky, like a bag full of gortok guts, or some sort of weapon, you should probably equip it somehow, or allude to it constantly in EMOTEs. Other than that, though, it's no big deal, in my opinion.

[ShaiHulud]

To add briefly, Armageddon's incredible crafting code requires multiple slots in inventory.
Other than that, if you have numerous things "psuedo-loose" in your inventory, consider that icly with your emotes and such.

[amoeba]

I've never liked the magical floating inventory since it allows for people to unwittingly do really silly things, like have mudsex while holding a chair and 3 obsidian longswords somewhere

It can be awkward at times. One time during a barracks cleaning session, my guy had a recruit pick up one of those bone and tile grills.  I never noticed in the spam of text that sometimes come spews out, that the recruit gave my guy the grill.   So we all go happily along to sparring, and lo and behold, my guy was seriously sucking at fighting.  I get to wondering what is going on when I do an 'inv' and see a grill in my inventory.  Things like that are a little hard to Rp out... "So are you happy to see me, or is that just a bone and tile grill in your pocket?"

[daedroug]

Ok first of all i'd just like to say that having played SOI for a year and a half or so and then switching to Arm, I think the inventory is an improvment. I don't think the weight that can be held in it or any other change to it except should be visible to others with out needing a specific skill. whether it be made so that smaller items can't be seen or a seperate standard code made to see into it doesn't matter to me it just seems stupid to have like a little black hole at yer shoulder that u can throw stuff into and get stuff out of at will but no one else can see short of killing them.

l wimpy
the wimpy looking guy is wearing.
<on his body> tattered shirt of newspaper
<on his legs> a tattered loincloth
<primary hand> a dim puny little candle

you think Ah he's not worth it at all

(switch to wimpy looking guys view)

inv
Your inventory contains:
a super expensive shiny thing
a vicious looking monster sword
1000000 allanaki coins

Obviously the guy isn't gonna kill him cause he doesn't have anything at all from his POV cause he has no pack or anything else to put anything concealed and yet he's got all this stuffed in his own personal little black hole. Now i might understand rping it but the first guy might be just walking along on his way somewhere or prowling around for a target and isn't going to stay for the wimpy guy to rp everything in his inverntory.

[Hexxaex]

I like the way SoI handled this, for the most part.  2 inventory slots, one for each hand.  It's weird seeing a noble sitting having a drink at a bar when there is a gaj shell in his inventory, something I've encountered before.

Actually I -hated- it. I found it extremely irritating and unrealistic for other reasons. It's one of several reasons why I didn't keep playing SOI. The current way is much more flexible.

When I played SoI, I could only hold 2 tiny coins.  I was wondering what was so hard about putting them in the same hand, considering their size.

[daedroug]

I like the way SoI handled this, for the most part.  2 inventory slots, one for each hand.  It's weird seeing a noble sitting having a drink at a bar when there is a gaj shell in his inventory, something I've encountered before.

Actually I -hated- it. I found it extremely irritating and unrealistic for other reasons. It's one of several reasons why I didn't keep playing SOI. The current way is much more flexible.

When I played SoI, I could only hold 2 tiny coins.  I was wondering what was so hard about putting them in the same hand, considering their size.

actually i'm -almost- certain that as long as they were the same denomination of coin that they did stack but if u had say a coin worth 10 copper and then a coin with 1 copper in your hands then they wouldn't stack (just in case some people have never played SOI they have much more complicated coinage system that more resembles real life it was also aided by an automatic payment system that searched through your belongings to pay for somthing)

[ale six]

Daedroug,

Inventory isn't nearly as secure as you seem to think. Anybody who thinks they're going to avoid raiders and such by keeping all their items in their inventory is in for a sorry surprise when they meet a good pickpocket. Peek is a very nice skill, try it out sometime. Most people will either be wearing their nice stuff, or hiding it in a backpack/pouch/cloak if not. Either way, people will and should be able to hide things from the sight of everyday people glancing at them. I don't think changing inventory to make things good for random thugs like in the example you gave is a good idea.

[Salt Merchant]

Hmm, well, like Rindan said, why not display items above a certain size for all to see. Like the example where the guy was carrying a grill. It would be hard to miss; difficult to picture him successfully concealing it under a cloak. Same for the guy who had a chair in his inventory during mudsex.  :lol: I don't want to know what that was used for.

Anyhow, smaller items could be consigned to the virtual pockets etc.

l porter
This bent old man's skin is wrinkled and creased. Age spots show through its dark mahogany color.

<worn about waist>          a dusty tattered loincloth

The bent old man is carrying:
a bale of cloth
a huge basket

But you don't get to see the leather ticket and pair of sandals floating in his inventory without the 'peek' command.

I'd start going on about how items really could have two values, namely bulk (representing dimensions) and weight (mass), both of which would be used to determine whether they could be carried, fit into packs and whatever, but it would be huge undertaking now to put it in (having to decide on a bulk value for thousands of objects).

[jhunter]

I think that it really displays more attention to detail and more realistic roleplaying ability for folks to just rp out having those things via emote.

I mean, it leaves a bit of gray area for people to decide what should be noticable or not depending on the item and the pc. A half-giant can probably palm a human sized chair so that noone would notice it for what it was. It would then be unrealistic for the code to display that to everyone who looks at the half-giant.

Plain and simple it's just more flexible this way. If you want to make it more realistic, use the rp tools we have to "paint the picture for everyone else" it's not really that huge of a deal the way it is.

[Anonymous]

Peek is a very nice skill, try it out sometime.

true but you shouldn'e need a special skill to show you that some guy is carrying a chair or claymore

Most people will either be wearing their nice stuff, or hiding it in a backpack/pouch/cloak if not. Either way, people will and should be able to hide things from the sight of everyday people glancing at them.

i completely agree with the first sentence any one that wants to keep somthing hidden would and should put it into there cloak or belt or whatever and anything that they either don't want to hide or can't fit into one of those containers -should- be visible

[daedroug]

Ok sorry about that. That last one was me. Forgot to log in.

[Salt Merchant]

I think that it really displays more attention to detail and more realistic roleplaying ability for folks to just rp out having those things via emote.

Go ahead and emote all you want about it, nothing wrong with that. People should still be able to notice the massive chest that elf is carrying just by looking at him, nevertheless.

It is somewhat arbitrary, so it could be made conservative by setting the cutoff fairly high. Use double the usual cutoff for half-giants.

[Cyrian20]

Sort of on the same subject, Even if you can't see a person's inventory when they are walking around.  When ko'd or sleeping peek should work like steal: 100% regardless of if you have the skill or not.  That way if you raid some person in the desert you won't always have to kill em to see what they have.  peek, it works you take what you want and maybe let em live.  Be less need to pk with raiders then.

[Synthesis]

Yeah, I've idea'ed that in-game several times, Cyrian20.

[Xygax]

On a side note, "idea"ing something once is always sufficient.  We keep ideas around forever.  They don't get purged once a week or anything like that.

So please don't submit the same idea(s)/bug(s)/typo(s) over and over (because then the duplicates hang around forever, too).

Thanks,
 Xygax

[Synthesis]

Heh, well...several times over a period of several years, Xygax.  It's not exactly a new idea.

I just figured maybe bumping it up to the top of the idea stack every once in awhile couldn't hurt.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

First, how the hell is CRW a Legend? Heh. Secondly, I don't like the two hand crap. I just happen to think it's better to be able to see what's in the inventory.

That was me, so sorry. Secondly, I had no idea CRW had ever been a staffer, so congrats on that, I guess. And so on...