An end to mailing heirlooms?
by Chase Hasbrouck 
Oct 6th 2011 at 1:00PM
A recent blue post by Zarhym hints at a potential design change to the heirloom system.
Zarhym
So, after making a trip to the doctor and having some blood stolen, I stopped by Ghostcrawler's office to discuss this and other topics with him. We talked about some of the feedback in this thread, as well as the developers' latest thoughts on BoA and heirloom items.
Rather than potentially having my statements in this thread come back to bite me at some point in the future, I'm going to risk being confusing or sounding dumb. :p
In short, they agree that the process of mailing heirlooms around constantly is a little annoying. We'd prefer to try and work ourselves away from the method of mailing out BoA items in the future, like pets, mounts, etc. To that end, we have some design goals in mind that would improve this sort of item distribution system. And with those design goals have come some ideas for changing heirloom mechanics. This is sort of contrary to the idea I stated in this thread about just designing the system to allow players to mail their heirlooms all around their accounts without realm restrictions.
That's all of the information I can share at the moment, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that the design philosophy I stated earlier isn't so set in stone -- we're reevaluating these types of systems as we look toward the future. I apologize if I've caused any confusion.
Rather than potentially having my statements in this thread come back to bite me at some point in the future, I'm going to risk being confusing or sounding dumb. :p
In short, they agree that the process of mailing heirlooms around constantly is a little annoying. We'd prefer to try and work ourselves away from the method of mailing out BoA items in the future, like pets, mounts, etc. To that end, we have some design goals in mind that would improve this sort of item distribution system. And with those design goals have come some ideas for changing heirloom mechanics. This is sort of contrary to the idea I stated in this thread about just designing the system to allow players to mail their heirlooms all around their accounts without realm restrictions.
That's all of the information I can share at the moment, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that the design philosophy I stated earlier isn't so set in stone -- we're reevaluating these types of systems as we look toward the future. I apologize if I've caused any confusion.
This sounds great. Perhaps a BOA/heirloom vendor in each city who will sell you anything you've unlocked for a nominal fee? Time will tell!
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Marathal Oct 6th 2011 1:05PM
Don't know why they couldn't develope some form of account based void storage. Something that would only allow you to deposit BoA items.
Pyromelter Oct 6th 2011 1:48PM
if a simple game like torchlight can figure out how to have a "group" bank, it would seem as though the #1 MMO in the history of gaming could also figure this out.
Ian Oct 6th 2011 1:52PM
The mail system in wow was never designed with heirlooms in mind, let alone cross-faction and cross realm mailing.
So not surprising some of those can't be implented so easily.
loop_not_defined Oct 6th 2011 2:06PM
Pyromelter, Torchlight is a completely different game in this regard. It's not even multi-player, much less server-hosted.
Pyromelter Oct 6th 2011 2:23PM
loop, i hear what you're saying, maybe you misunderstand my point. A game like torchlight has a very small development staff. There is also a way to have group storage in this game (guild banks). While being a server-hosted game creates space issues for adding a group bank, the overall thing that I'm saying is that if such a small game with a small staff can figure out how to do it, surely WoW can figure it out.
Joe Oct 6th 2011 2:28PM
Well, there was some speculation (before we knew) that "void storage" would be the account wide item sharing system.
And void storage points out how you might do it.
People are correct that changing the in-game mailing system to accommodate cross-realm mail because the system wasn't designed for it.
But void storage shows that Blizzard is perfectly capable and willing to simply introduce entirely new game systems to work around the limits of older systems. Void storage is really just a workaround to the problem of it being difficult to add new player bank slots (because the bank system has certain legacy problems).
So, Blizzard could just leave mail as faction/realm only, and just put in a whole new system (say, "Sub-Netheric Redistribution-o-matic Engine" (which is, of course, a combination of Ethereal and Goblin technology)) that is solely for BoA transfer.
So, "they can't just change the mail system" is a red herring argument.
Randomize Oct 6th 2011 2:37PM
@Pyro
Making a video game is a lot like baking a cake. It's a lot easier to put the chocolate in the batter before you bake the cake.
Discolando Oct 6th 2011 2:57PM
Don't forget The Mythical Man-Month principle, either. Just because Company A has twice as many people to throw at a project doesn't mean they can get it done twice as fast.
Matt Oct 6th 2011 3:21PM
You would only have to take the Guild Bank system and modifiy it for an account instead of a guild. Doesn't seem too hard from where I'm standing.
Peebers Oct 6th 2011 3:23PM
exactly what im thinking. kinda surprised void storage isnt acct bound anyway. who cares if i farm every T2 set on my main so all my alts can where em. it's not game breaking.
im excited. hope this is what they come up with.
Xayíde Oct 6th 2011 3:30PM
@Pyro
That's flawed logic, you're making the wrong assumption, probably because you are not familiar with software development.
Why would a smaller game with a smaller staff make things harder, or a bigger game with a bigger staff make things easier? It depends a lot on what kind of feature you are talking about.
Adding something to a software after it's finished that wasn't originally planned is usually much harder than doing it while it's being first developed, be it server based, local, big or small. Actually, less complex software usually makes changes easier than more complex ones. Something as complex and big as WoW makes it much harder, I can assure you.
charlesbox Oct 6th 2011 3:39PM
EQ also had account wide storage, 2 bank slots (each able to hold a bag), it was a godsend. Mostly because EQ didn't have mail, so in order to get items from one character to another you had to trust someone else to hold the bag.
loop_not_defined Oct 6th 2011 6:09PM
Pyromelter, the thing you are missing is that Torchlight exists entirely on your PC. "Account Wide Storage" for WoW would need to securely share data across multiple data centers half-way around the world.
STORAGE
World of Warcraft: Share data from different files in different server clusters in different data centers in different countries/states.
Torchlight: Share the same data in the same file in the same directory on the same hard drive.
NETWORK
World of Warcraft: Securely transmit the data without loss, corruption, or creating weak points in the network.
Torchlight: There is no network.
The difference here could be measured in magnitudes.
brain314 Oct 7th 2011 12:46PM
"Making a video game is a lot like baking a cake. It's a lot easier to put the chocolate in the batter before you bake the cake."
Unless it's chocolate frosting.
o.b Oct 10th 2011 3:35AM
"Making a video game is a lot like baking a cake. It's a lot easier to put the chocolate in the batter before you bake the cake."
"Unless it's chocolate frosting."
But then you're not putting chocolate into the batter, you're adding frosting on top.
Andrew Oct 6th 2011 1:06PM
They already have your new characters start out with your BOA pets, adding heirlooms you've purchased onto that sounds like the next logical step.
gymboy91 Oct 6th 2011 1:23PM
I always wondered why they didn't do this...it seemed they had the functionality for it. You could just delete the heirlooms you didn't need on each character or store them for later...I really want to start playing on another server so it would be nice to have my heirlooms to make leveling faster haha
blazenor Oct 6th 2011 1:47PM
This would be a huge thing for us altoholics, I have a ton of alts on many realms.
loop_not_defined Oct 6th 2011 1:58PM
The problem is that they don't like how the pet mailing works, either. It's a mess and only works the first time you create the character. If you unlocked a brand-new Heirloom with your guild, how would your level 52 Paladin access it? Delete and recreate?
PeeWee Oct 6th 2011 2:11PM
loop_not_defined:
The same way it works now with pets, of course, by having said item appear in your lvl 52 paladin's mailbox. How did that completely logical conclusion elude you?
-.-