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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOfficial Void Storage preview
by Adam Holisky 
Aug 18th 2011 at 12:13PM
In the UI example above, it shows three items being deposited into the Void Bank, costing a total of 300g, or 100g/item. Blizzard notes that the final cost of depositing items is not final.
The big points of Void Storage:
- Up to 80 slots
- Access by talking to a Vaultkeeper in Stormwind or Orgrimmar
- Costs gold each time you deposit or withdraw an item from Void Storage
- Deposited items will be stripped of gems, enchants, and reforging
- Item restrictions exist (not specified yet)
- A new bag, bank, and void storage search field will appear in all inventory windows
Void Storage preview
For quite some time now, players have been asking for a location in which to store important keepsakes including treasured armor sets, unique quest rewards, and gifts from friends, as well as other valuable items they've collected on their journeys throughout Azeroth.
This is a feature we've wanted to add to the game for a while, so we're excited to announce that, thanks to the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of the Ethereals, a new long-term storage option will soon be available to completionists and collectors alike.
Void Storage
In patch 4.3, characters of all levels will be able to take advantage of a new technology known as "Void Storage," which will open up 80 slots of long-term storage space. Void Storage vaults will be available in both Stormwind and Orgrimmar and can be accessed simply by speaking with your local Vaultkeeper.
A variety of items can be placed into Void Storage -- including soulbound items and Battle.net Account Bound items -- making it the perfect location to store trophies from past conquests, as well as armor you may want to hold onto for Transmogrification. So, if you've been looking for a good home for those old tier sets or your vanity holiday items, Void Storage is it! And it's as easy to use as dragging and dropping.
In return for this unique service, the Ethereals will require a small fee for each item deposited into or withdrawn from their Void Storage apparatus. Multiple items can be added and removed at once, and the cost of each transaction will be display at the bottom of the screen, updating dynamically as you select additional items to deposit or withdraw. Once an item is placed into Void Storage, it can remain there indefinitely for no additional cost.
It's important to note that the goal of Void Storage isn't to be a second bank, but rather a place where players can safely store items they wish to keep for the life of the game, either for sentimental or aesthetic reasons. Since this particular storage option isn't really intended for belongings that you'd use on a regular basis (like your current set of raiding gear, for example), any item placed in Void Storage will be stripped of all its enhancements, including enchants, gems, sockets, and reforged stats, and some items will simply not be eligible for Void Storage at all. This will help us reduce the impact such storage can have on the game servers, and ultimately allows us to provide a lot of long-term storage space with minimal impact on everyone's play experience.
(Cost shown to unlock Void Storage is not final)
Bag Search: Find What You Need, When You Need It
Now, you might be thinking, "Alright, those Ethereals are pretty nifty, and having more storage is great! But what about actually being able to find what I own? Do you know how long I looked for that one stack of Papa Hummel's Pet Biscuits? Like, a year. Okay, maybe 15 minutes. Either way, not even a tiny, delicious fat baby raptor is worth that kind of effort, and I love fat baby raptors."
Never fear, fellow tiny-limbed-corpulent-dinosaur enthusiast! We've got you covered. In addition to Void Storage, we're also adding a bag search feature in 4.3 that will allow players to search for items within their bags and bank space, all with just a few keystrokes.
Integrated directly into the bag and bank UI, this new search feature will be incredibly quick and easy to use. To find an item in one of your bags, in your character's personal bank, guild bank, or Void Storage vault, you'll simply type the name of the item -- or a word in the item's name -- into a small search box located near the top of your main backpack, and your open inventory will be filtered accordingly. Only the items that match the word or name you've entered will display, making it easier than ever to find exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
Please keep in mind that both Void Storage and the upcoming bag search features are still in development, so their functionality may change before release. We're very excited to be offering both of these inventory management features and will be providing more information as the development of patch 4.3 continues.
This is a feature we've wanted to add to the game for a while, so we're excited to announce that, thanks to the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of the Ethereals, a new long-term storage option will soon be available to completionists and collectors alike.
Void Storage
In patch 4.3, characters of all levels will be able to take advantage of a new technology known as "Void Storage," which will open up 80 slots of long-term storage space. Void Storage vaults will be available in both Stormwind and Orgrimmar and can be accessed simply by speaking with your local Vaultkeeper.
A variety of items can be placed into Void Storage -- including soulbound items and Battle.net Account Bound items -- making it the perfect location to store trophies from past conquests, as well as armor you may want to hold onto for Transmogrification. So, if you've been looking for a good home for those old tier sets or your vanity holiday items, Void Storage is it! And it's as easy to use as dragging and dropping.
In return for this unique service, the Ethereals will require a small fee for each item deposited into or withdrawn from their Void Storage apparatus. Multiple items can be added and removed at once, and the cost of each transaction will be display at the bottom of the screen, updating dynamically as you select additional items to deposit or withdraw. Once an item is placed into Void Storage, it can remain there indefinitely for no additional cost.
It's important to note that the goal of Void Storage isn't to be a second bank, but rather a place where players can safely store items they wish to keep for the life of the game, either for sentimental or aesthetic reasons. Since this particular storage option isn't really intended for belongings that you'd use on a regular basis (like your current set of raiding gear, for example), any item placed in Void Storage will be stripped of all its enhancements, including enchants, gems, sockets, and reforged stats, and some items will simply not be eligible for Void Storage at all. This will help us reduce the impact such storage can have on the game servers, and ultimately allows us to provide a lot of long-term storage space with minimal impact on everyone's play experience.
(Cost shown to unlock Void Storage is not final)
Bag Search: Find What You Need, When You Need It
Now, you might be thinking, "Alright, those Ethereals are pretty nifty, and having more storage is great! But what about actually being able to find what I own? Do you know how long I looked for that one stack of Papa Hummel's Pet Biscuits? Like, a year. Okay, maybe 15 minutes. Either way, not even a tiny, delicious fat baby raptor is worth that kind of effort, and I love fat baby raptors."
Never fear, fellow tiny-limbed-corpulent-dinosaur enthusiast! We've got you covered. In addition to Void Storage, we're also adding a bag search feature in 4.3 that will allow players to search for items within their bags and bank space, all with just a few keystrokes.
Integrated directly into the bag and bank UI, this new search feature will be incredibly quick and easy to use. To find an item in one of your bags, in your character's personal bank, guild bank, or Void Storage vault, you'll simply type the name of the item -- or a word in the item's name -- into a small search box located near the top of your main backpack, and your open inventory will be filtered accordingly. Only the items that match the word or name you've entered will display, making it easier than ever to find exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
Please keep in mind that both Void Storage and the upcoming bag search features are still in development, so their functionality may change before release. We're very excited to be offering both of these inventory management features and will be providing more information as the development of patch 4.3 continues.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back! Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 7)
Blackdemon Aug 18th 2011 12:20PM
Glad of a new gold sink. Players were getting a little too rich...
Dexterworgen Aug 18th 2011 12:29PM
100g Transfer per item? Over my 3 or 4 toons this is going to get very expensive...
Daedalus Aug 18th 2011 12:57PM
@DexterWorgen:
I think the idea, beyond simply being a gold sink, is to discourage players from just using it for extra storage of every day items. I mean, if they wanted to just give us 80 more bank slots, they could do that. They didn't, so presumably, they want some mechanism to keep players from using it that way.
My guess is, we will be able to transmogrify directly from void storage, so ultimately it should be a matter of putting something in there and leaving it there, forever.
Kar On E Aug 18th 2011 1:42PM
We'll see...Blizz may keep it this high, but I would be surprised if they do, especially given the prices on Transmogrification they've shown. I'm expecting to see that number go down a good chunk before it makes it to live.
Noyou Aug 18th 2011 7:46PM
1. Do you really care how much gold someone else has? I sure as hell don't. The more gold people have the less likely they are to buy it. I farm pretty much everything I need. When most people stop playing WoW good chance is that they delete or give away their gold.
2. Do you/will you care how much people put into their banks? Again, no. Rather then charge gold why not just put a transaction limit on it? Deposits should have no limit. Withdrawals could be enough for say 2 full sets per day. Something along those lines.
puffcake Aug 18th 2011 12:20PM
Nice, I can free up at least 2 bank slots getting rid of my holiday stuff, toys, etc. without having to delete them. I'm pleased about this.
Philster043 Aug 18th 2011 12:27PM
Ditto. I probably won't store the stuff I like to frequently pull out for showing off though, like the items with transformation effects.
But even with that I will probably be able to free up two bags in the bank too.
trefpoid Aug 18th 2011 3:56PM
yeah, I'm going to recover at least 3 bags in my bank thanks to this. Best move ever by Blizzard. I just hope it's not so expensive, 'cause I've got a lot of things that need to be stored :(
Mr. Crow Aug 18th 2011 12:20PM
The bag search feature is latest in the list of "third party addons making their way into the default UI." I think people will still turn to 3rd party addons so that they can continue tracking the inventories for multiple characters, because there's no reason for the new UI bag search to work cross-character. All in all, this is a good addition as bagspaces continue to rise.
80 slots is still a lot of space, and while I know people will feel cheesed that we heard "100-150" at first, it's still effectively doubling the size of your bank, allowing you to get rid of items you can't mail to alts for long-term storage. It does beg the question of what you do with all your reclaimed bag space...
Inb4 "1000g is too expensive!": Folks, goldsinks exist for a reason. When a full brace of dailies gets you ~500g to start with, and you get ~100g for a random dungeon run, and farming for 20 minutes can make you 1000g on the AH... really, gold is a weak, weak excuse. If it's not worth it for you to put in some time to get this additional storage, you clearly have something better to do with your time than collect the stuff that would go INTO the Void anyway.
I'm really looking forward to this, as well as mogging all my gear. What I'm looking for now is for the 4.3 PTR, so addon authors can figure out how to macro the mogging UI so you can mog your gear to match a pre-defined kit on the fly.
Exciting times to still be a player, and we haven't even started talking about playable content yet. ^_^
Minstrel Aug 18th 2011 1:03PM
It's not the 1000 gold unlock that seems expensive to me, it's the 100 gold per item it shows in the preview. Putting 50 things into void storage (for the first time, not pulling stuff in and out) will be 5,000 gold. That seems pretty high.
It also seems to discourage transmogrifying from stuff in void storage much, since the effective cost of transmog skyrockets if you have to spend 1000 gold or so each time to pull stuff out of void storage and put stuff back in.
Of course, if transmogrification will allow you to use stuff in void storage, without needing to withdraw it, that would alleviate my concerns for the most part.
Mr. Crow Aug 18th 2011 1:06PM
We also have to consider that nothing about the costs we see in the screenshots is set in stone. It might just be numbers they made up so that we knew there was a cost associated with it.
Overall, the idea is for players to be able to store stuff they never want to lose, but not have to sacrifice bank/bag space for it. The deposit/withdrawal costs are there to prevent people from thinking "oh snap, I just got another 80 slots in my bank." That's not the case.
Ausara Sep 20th 2011 8:44AM
The big issue here is to transmog properly you will need to start a new character. So unless you already have a high level character who is a master at farming gold, and sends all his gold to your new character to store the items the low level character receives which are SB to him, then you won't actually be able to store them because you will run out of space.
Which means transmog will become a pain, because so many of the SB items are one-shot items you can only get from a quest or a dungeon which binds as soon as you pick it up.
It's a Catch-22.
The easy way to deal with this would be to simply scale the transmog cost to the iLvL. As a character gets higher iLvLs, so the cost for storing those higher items would of course increase. It also makes sense lore-wise, as higher level items would take more energy to store than simply a low level sword.
Gendou Aug 18th 2011 12:20PM
So it's not a second, long-term bank, which is interesting.
I wonder if you have to remove items in order to use them for transmogrification, or if you can transmogrify directly from Void Storage...
The bag search feature has been a long time coming. It's one of my favorite features of Bagnon.
Philster043 Aug 18th 2011 12:29PM
Well, if you're worried about the costs involved with pulling out the gear set you use the most, just keep that one in your regular bank. And just store all the other gear that you find that you feel like you COULD potentially use one day but you need to complete the set first.
niko Aug 18th 2011 12:21PM
search integration is neat! I've long used Bagnon and/or Altoholic to keep up with where stuff is, but seeing Blizz incorporate it into the UI is nice to see, finally! :)
USTommyMC Aug 18th 2011 12:24PM
Too bad I can't bring back all the items I was forced to get rid of due to lack of space:-(
Sir Broose Aug 18th 2011 1:19PM
This is the first thing that I thought when the news broke, as well. I had to make some tough decisions several months ago about what to keep and what to "destroy" when all the new Cata stuff started rolling in. I don't want to complain - they are adding a new feature that I need and that's good. But I do wish it had happened just a few months earlier.
Drakkenfyre Aug 18th 2011 12:27PM
"Integrated directly into the bag and bank UI"
Oh God, I hope I can turn that off. It's a great option to have, but I really, really don't want to see yet another thing cluttering up the UI. I hope they give us the option to turn it off, because I simply don't need a search option, and it will be yet another UI element which is useless to me (and I imagine many others.) Removing the ability to remove the clock from the minimap was bad enuf. And I don't want to have to track down a mod simply to give me the option to have a clean UI that should be an option to begin with.
Astoreth Aug 18th 2011 1:06PM
I understand the 'any clutter is too much clutter' philosophy, but all things considered that's a pretty unobtrusive little search window in that screenshot. And it's not going to be on your screen all the time, only when you open bags or bank.
Drakkenfyre Aug 18th 2011 1:15PM
"Only when you open bags", i.e. it's going to be there every time I open a bag, which is all the time.
I don't mind options being put in as long as an option is included to disable them. Like the "instant chat" option being put in. A big, honking bar across my window just so people don't have to hit Enter once to open up chat? At least it was given an option to be turned off.
Tooltips have been creeping up in size, too. With the addition of vendor price and item level. Both of those can be removed.
I just hope we can disable this so each time I open my bags, I won't see a bar across the top making them larger just for a feature I will personally not use. Because take into consideration that that screenshot shows a larger window. Imagine how it's going to look in a tiny window for your bag. It will probably enlarge the bag window quite a bit. If someone finds a use for it, that's great for them. All I ask is the ability to disable it.
I would also like the option put in to disable the automatic opening of ALL bags when you open a vendor or a mailbox. It was mentioned awhile back that that might get a disable option.