Posts with tag bag-space

I am a total WoW packrat. It's a little embarrassing. My void storage has been full for ages; stuffed with transmog gear, rare and epic archaeology items, and, in particular, old quest rewards or dungeon keys. Those last two, I realize, are kind of ridiculous to keep, but I worked so hard getting that Seal of Ascention! And completing the Scepter of the Shifting Sands is one of my most prized achievements in the game, don't you dare tell me to throw it, or any of the items I got along the way, in the trash!

"But you can't even use rings or necklaces in transmog!" my friends remind me. I know, I know, but guys, that's not the point! The point is... the point is... I just can't let go, okay?!

Are you a WoW packrat? What items do you hoard, beyond all logic or good reason? With bag and bank slots becoming ever more precious commodities, how do you decide what to keep and what to get rid of?

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Transmogrification and void storage was too little, way too late for those of us who ran out of space back in classic WoW. While it's easier than ever to retrace your steps via mogging, solo dungeon diving, and account-wide pets and mounts, quite a few items remain that simply cannot be regained. My original priest's Benediction is the centerpiece of a battle raging among my characters vying for main character status, for no other reason that I could mog that staff and enjoy it every single day. I do still have it, thank goodness, but if I didn't, it's no longer obtainable in game. I thank my stars (my stars, see?) every day that my Bene is still mine.

But what about all the lovelies that I sold to make room in my bank? Remember, pets and mounts used to take up a bag or bank slot. My Black Nightsaber? Gone. All my original ZG items -- gone. And sometimes it's not even that the items are completely unobtainable anymore; it's that the effort would be herculean. Also, I admit to pining for an actual, original item I once owned rather than its replacement. Crafted goods especially fall into this category, because I miss the "made by" tag of the friend who slaved over making it for me or the pride that came from crafting it myself. The group effort behind all those early enchanting rods ... The memories entangled in some of those crazy trinkets and odd items ... They're irreplaceable -- but bank space is bank space, right?

Are there any currently unobtainable items you deleted or lost along the way that you wish you could have back again? Is there something you've tried to replace, but luck's been against you?

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So I've been leveling an alt lately (yes, despite the fact that it makes my skin crawl a little bit, I've been leveling a Paladin so I can tank and heal with dual specs when they show up), and my biggest problem isn't the XP, since Blizzard has nerfed the leveling time so much. It's not the quests, either -- between Questhelper and having done the 1-60 jig five or six times before, I'm all set for quests now. Nope, it's managing my inventory -- I'm questing so quickly that the biggest problem I have is just keeping bag space open.

So here's a few tips I've picked up along the way. Even if you're not leveling, maybe some of these will help. And I'm sure there are plenty of great ways to make sure your bags are clear that I haven't discovered yet (I know for a fact that there are plenty of addons out there that I haven't had an interest in yet) -- feel free to share your own tips in the comments below.

Starman over at Casual Raid Leader (is that the same Starman that does World of Warcast?) has a great idea. Right around college graduation every year, there's a study that gets nostalgic about what this year's students will never experience -- i.e. since this year's graduates were born in 1986, they've never known a time without Super Mario Bros., and so on. Starman suggests we do the same thing with incoming newbies and the new expansion -- the "children of Wrath" will never know a time when Onyxia was in the Stormwind throne room.

Larisa has a few more: Children of Wrath will never have to go back and do old instances just for the achievement, or have to decide between keeping that noncombat pet or getting the extra bag space back. She was actually a "BC baby," and as she says, she's never tried to run 40 people through Molten Core, or known a time when there weren't any quest chains in Silithus.

What else will the children of Wrath have missed out on? And are there really that many? I imagine that there are still quite a few vanilla players around, and it doesn't surprise me at all that there are plenty of BC babies (I recruited a few people during BC), but how many new players are really coming in to Wrath for the first time? Are there going to be that many people who don't remember when you had to run once instance over and over for rep, rather than just champion it?

There has been much debate over whether mages should always use their Ritual of Refreshment spell in battlegrounds. Shadowavatar of Boulderfist believes that this practice will become even less common because the cost of the spell is slated to increase from two arcane powder to five in Wrath of the Lich King. This brings the total cost of the spell to fifty silver per cast plus requires the use of additional bag space for mages who are not keen on restocking. Withunter of Arathor commented, "At least you know Blizzard is paying close attention to what players complain about. They identify problems with the game, and spare no effort to make them worse."

While some posters see this change as a major disservice, some point out that the is really quite justifiable. Darkintent of Bleeding hollow noted that the inflated reagent cost is reflective of the greater benefit of the spell. Many responders indicated that this difference will be negligible due to gold inflation in the next expansion. The amount of space it will take to carry reagents is of a greater concern to many posters.

There are two things that every WoW character has: a hearthstone, and a backpack. Well, some bank alts might have destroyed their hearthstone, actually, but absolutely everybody has that 16-slot backpack occupying their first bag slot. 16 slots made some sense back when that was also the biggest size bag that wasn't crazy expensive, back in classic WoW (Traveler's Backpack/Mooncloth Bg). But now that 16-slot bags are dirt-cheap, 18-slotters are reasonable, and 20- and even 22-slotters are obtainable, and especially moving forward into Wrath with the basic tailored bag being 20 slots, the backpack's 16 is starting to look a bit puny by comparison.

This leads one to ask: when are we going to be able to upgrade the darned thing? I'd love to be able to grab a few extra slots by trading it in for an 18- or 20-slot bag. And it really doesn't make sense for our backpack to be the smallest holding container on our body. I mean, I like that everybody starts out with a free decent-sized bag, but it really should just act like any other bag slot after that. Someone asked the same question in the WoW forums recently, and Zarhym responded in a non-committal fashion, saying they were thinking about it but didn't have anything to report just yet. Personally, I don't see the downside of transforming the backpack slot into a regular bag slot, but there may be something going on behind the scenes that I'm not aware of. It is also worth noting that we will be freeing up a few bag slots already in Wrath with our non-combat pets, mounts, and tokens leaving the inventory, not to mention bigger bags being available. Still, it seems like one can never get enough space.

Blizzard really does seem to have finally realized that can give us a few more decent ways to save space without breaking anything or trivializing the game. The new vanity pet and mount skill system has done wonders to clear up bag space on my characters on Beta, and I just can't wait to be able to do it on live.

Of course, there's tons more stuff that a good, solid pack rat can keep in their bank to take up space, from cool looking quest rewards to old gear sets to tabards. Tabards are an especially massive space investment. Even with just the basic battleground and unique event tabards, we're talking at least half a good bag taken up in the bank, and that's with deleting all the easily re-obtainable tabards to save space.

Many players love to collect vanity pets and mounts, and in Wrath there will even be Achievements for collecting certain numbers of them. Which raises the problem of bank space – after all, we only have so many slots, and we're already using a lot of them for extra reagents, crafting items, consumables, resist sets, and so forth. So how are we supposed to find the space to store 75 vanity pets? Fortunately, Blizzard has come up with a solution.

Come Wrath, mounts and vanity pets will be learned as spells, CM Wryxian has just announced. The items that currently summon pets/mounts, like Sprite Darter Egg or Ashes of Al'ar, will serve to teach us the spells, at which point the item will disappear from your inventory and the spells will be found in your spellbook for all time (bindable to hotkeys like any other spell if you want).

This should make collectors very happy: collect all you can now, and they won't take any space whatsoever once you learn them. Be sure to check out WarcraftPets for help on how to find them (that site's creator was recently honored with an in-game NPC). And everyone will gain at least two more inventory slots that are currently devoted to their ground and flying mounts (except people whose mounts are already summonable, i.e. paladins, warlocks, and druids). Excellent move, Blizz; this is even better than the vanity pet bags people have been asking for.

Ok, I'll be honest. I'm pretty fine with how we handle money now. Sure, back in Everquest, I needed to go deposit my money in my bank, because due to the encumbrance system, if I had kept all my platinum coins on me, I would have been glued to the spot, unable to walk. But in WoW, there's no encumbrance, and our coins take up no inventory space.

Still, I've seen a lot of people ask to be able to deposit money in the bank, so, being an equal time type of guy, I thought I'd sit back and try to figure out what the advantages would be.

So Zach posted one of my favorite recent articles about making sure your bank toon looks stylish while it's taking care of your business, and I was amazed when I read the comments to see that a few people were wondering what the whole point of a bank alt was at all.

I have to admit that I was once like them. Why should I give up one of my precious character spaces for some dude who will just sit around Thunder Bluff or Ironforge and do nothing but store stuff that I should just be using or auctioning anyway? Of course, now that I have a bank alt, I'm pretty happy with the concept. If you're someone who hasn't made one yet, I'll tell you why I think you'd be happy with one too after the break.

So with patch 2.4 coming on us soon, I was thinking about it, and I have to say that I can't remember the last time I was filled with this much anticipation over a patch. Aside from 1.8, which made Feral Druids viable, this might be my favorite patch. But why do I love it? Why can't I wait until the servers come up on patch day and we're allowed in?

Let me count the ways! Here's 7 relatively simple reasons that I am watching my computer like a hawk, waiting for 2.4 to make it live.

Nearly every hybrid has felt the sorrows of lacking itemization at one time or another. Every hybrid has seen its ups and its down, has watched class balance fall into and out of order, and embraced their spec through the good and the bad. Throughout all of this, though, there has always been one ever-present issue. Completely unchanging. Viability and acceptance? Oh, no no no.

Bag space. The Blue Crew of Blizzard has made it very clear over the last few years that limited bag space is fully intended. It's viewed as an important aspect of game play. A mini-game, if you will. I must say, being forced into choosing whether you want to keep an item you enjoy or vendor it in favor of that new piece of resist gear that is mandatory for your raid's upcoming boss fight is the worst game ever. Sometimes little vanity items mean quite a bit, like your first epic. A lot of them are just plain neat, like the furbolg outfit maker.

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous.

If you want to hear a sad song about a lack of bag space, just talk to a hybrid or tank-capable class. Those guys are lugging around three or more sets of gear, plus variations – it's enough to bust a Foror's Crate of Endless Resist Gear Storage wide open. (Yeah, we know you wish you had one of those; we do, too.) We talked with a player who definitely has storage issues, but from a little different perspective: Rattleshirt of Uldaman, who displays her finery not in raid instances or battlegrounds but on the catwalk.

Some players think vanity gear is a ridiculous waste of bank and bag space. Not Rattleshirt. When Rattleshirt decided to transfer realms not too long ago, she had to pare down to five full packs – yes, that's five full packs – from her existing 90-something ensembles. She had so many outfits that she began giving impromptu fashion shows in Orgrimmar every night before logging out, complete with audience requests for particular rare robes. We snagged a backstage visit with Rattleshirt to find out, well, what all the rattle is behind her many shirts.