I'm currently developing MMORPG and I'm wondering what people like/dislike about RPG inventory screens. My game allows the player to control a party of 4 characters so I’m strongly considering using an interface layout similar to a game like BG2 or even SSI’s Menzoberranzan. In menzo you could display the inventory of all your characters at once and move items between them rather quickly. I’m in the process of reviewing every game I can get my hands on looking for ideas. Even some of the old SSI gold box era games had some clean interface concepts. They were simple and quick to use.

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Original post by 00Kevin simple and quick to use

That's what most people want. I remember Dungeon Siege got a lot of good comments on the GUI, if not for the rest of the game. I know that was a single character game, but you might get some ideas from it.

Seperate the "paper doll" from "objects you own".

This allows having multiple gear sets stored in "paper dolls" that can be switched. So if you are entering a fire dungeon, you can switch to fire resist gear and ice-damage weapons.

The "paper doll" of what your character has equipped is just a "gear plan", not a place where gear is stored.

Possibly have a "group paper doll" that is a set of gear for the entire group, and takes into account that two people cannot swing the same sword, and allows quick switching of complete gear sets.

The "objects you own" inventory should be groupable (or pre-grouped) according to the item's purpose. Catagories like:
"Items currently equipped" Important -- you don't want people accidentally selling thier sword
"Items in a paper doll gear-plan" So they don't sell their backup sword.
"Items the player likes"
"Vendor trash"
"Other"

or whatever else is practical for your game ("Potions", "Unused armor", etc).

"paper doll" sets, wow that's an awesome and creative idea! kudos

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Original post by Boruki Quote: Original post by 00Kevin simple and quick to use That's what most people want. I remember Dungeon Siege got a lot of good comments on the GUI, if not for the rest of the game. I know that was a single character game, but you might get some ideas from it.

If by single character you mean controlling up to 8.

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Original post by NotAYakk Seperate the "paper doll" from "objects you own". This allows having multiple gear sets stored in "paper dolls" that can be switched. So if you are entering a fire dungeon, you can switch to fire resist gear and ice-damage weapons. The "paper doll" of what your character has equipped is just a "gear plan", not a place where gear is stored. Possibly have a "group paper doll" that is a set of gear for the entire group, and takes into account that two people cannot swing the same sword, and allows quick switching of complete gear sets. The "objects you own" inventory should be groupable (or pre-grouped) according to the item's purpose. Catagories like: "Items currently equipped" Important -- you don't want people accidentally selling thier sword "Items in a paper doll gear-plan" So they don't sell their backup sword. "Items the player likes" "Vendor trash" "Other" or whatever else is practical for your game ("Potions", "Unused armor", etc).

These are some good ideas. The only comment I have is that you may not want to allow a character to swap all of his gear (using a paper doll) during combat. A shield or a sword might be possible but not his armor.

I've implimented the merchant stuff you suggested already.

My bigest challenge is trying to pick a system that doesn't demand a lot of art work or 3d modeling but is still pleasing to my players.

I just think it is funny that we are still using a gear system that originated from games like dungeon master and eye of the beholder. WoW, DDO, BG2, are all based on this concept.

I'm considering considered using a tree system that had nodes for each character location and containers. Each container was going to have a weight limit and volume dimentions associated to it.
That way I could make pc races with many arms and legs. :)

PC
--Head (limit 10/20)
----Helm of Death
--Neck
---- Necklace of Skulls
-- Left Shoulder (limit 50/70)
---- Plate Shoulder (weight: 20)
-- Back (Limit: 100)
---- Backpack (capacity: 20/50 volume: 30cu)
------- Small Sack (capacity: 10/10)
------------ Rations
------------ Scroll
------- Lantern
...
---Left Hand (limit 30/50)
----- Sword of wounding (weight 30)
---Left Finger
----- Ring of Wisdom
...

The only problem is that players don't seem to like weight in MMORPGs.

I'd like to put in my vote for having all inventory items be graphically represented with icons. The items in a game only feel real to me if I get to see them. Consider the game Darkstone - this was a CRAPPY PS1 RPG but it had a good item system - you could see items laying on the ground if a monster you killed dropped them, you could see them once you picked them up and put them in your inventory, it auto-sorted them into categories for you. All the spells you knew were also represented by icons of rune-stones, and you could tell exactly how many spells you would be able to learn because each spell slot was a hole you could plug a rune-stone into. The recent Harvest Moon Games (I'm playing Save the Homeland currently [smile] ) also have a nice graphical inventory - there's a possessions tab, a tools tab, a key items tab, and boxes at the top of the main frame to show what tool you currently have equipped and what possession you are currently holding in your hands. Each icon has a number in the corner showing how many of them you have. My only objection was that the item's name isn't also displayed, there's no identify or info button. The graphical inventory is great for immersiveness and quickness/ease of use, but it's important to be able to find out what each object is and does, especially if the game in question has stats for particular items which are randomly generated or can be improved or worsened during the game.

The paper dolls don't have to be hot-swappable.

In fact, your paper doll might have a set of weapons you can choose from that are "easy to get at" and can be swapped (for a cost of time, and maybe other resources).

Personally, I'd vote for seperating "containers of gear" from "categories of gear". Your containers might determine how much you can carry, but your containers should not determine how your gear is accessed.

If you want a "realistic" system, players will be carrying a small fraction of their gear, and the rest will be stored somewhere else (be it on a horse, in camp, in a bank, or elsewhere). Ownership need not be tied to having the item on you. If fact, in a multiplayer game, I would advise against equating ownership and physical possession.

You could even provide players with one-way holes that can teleport looted treasure to their storehouse/bank. ;) This would allow you to have harsh and tight encumberance limits on the gear the player has on (and on the gear the character carries) but not on their total possessions or the loot they gather.

This would make your backpack, bandoleer and scabbard(s) an important set of items. Items in your bandoleer would be usable in combat, scabbarded items could be drawn in combat, and items in your backpack would be accessable during an adventure.

I suspect players will be less annoyed having to budget the weight of the gear their character has on than having to budget their stockpile of gear. The annoying parts of inventory management in RPGs is when you have to keep running off to the bank three times every adventure to sell the loot.

As a last, wonkey, suggestion: if you have a paper doll, provide a reason not to use every slot on the paper doll. Weight, chi cost, balance, mana cost, encumberance -- every paper doll system out there encourages players to put a piece of gear in every slot they have.

Ie: each item can cost multiple different types of resources.
Shield of Light:
Costs:
20 left arm weight (which implies 20 shoulder weight, 20 torso weight and 20 leg weight)
40 bulk
0.5 left hand (inactive)
1 left hand (active)
10 item-chi

...

then again, that is probably getting too complex. =)

This all amounts to realism vs fun.

I could create a totally accurate tree model system that took ever detail regarding volume, weight, awkwardness into account, but would that make the game fun?

Your idea of creating a plot device or magical item that allows for inventory management remotely is a good idea. But it would still be simple just to give the character a magical bag of holding or something that allows him to carry 1000 items.

It is true that there are many things about current inventory systems that I just can’t stand because they lack realism. For example, explain how a character can fight with 20 swords and 20 suits of full plate armor in his backpack?

The one thing I like is being able to place containers inside of other containers. It is also nice when you can trade sacks of items with people. In order to manage containers within containers you would need a tree view of icons that you can expand and simply drag and drop from one nested container to another. This would be the most realistic form of inventory management.

Some ideas for dealing with loot

1. Bag of Selling
When you put items into the Bag of Selling it will itentify, appraise, sort, and sell the items within it starting with the cheapest and least useful items first. When selling, it teleports it to the closest merchant who carries a Bag of Buying while receiveing half the items base cost in return. (just like selling at your typical RPG store).
It takes at least 10 seconds to sell a single item and 10 seconds more for every 100gp the item will bring. So a rock worth 1 gp disapears in 10 seconds while a broadsword worth 500 gp is sold in about one minute. When it is sold, the item is simply replaced with its value in coins. If you put coins into the bag, nothing happens.

2. Bag of Buying (aka, a magical grab-bag)
The polar opposite of the Bag of Selling. Whenever a Bag of Selling sells an object, the nearest Bag of Buying will purchase it with whatever money is inside it at the time. If it doesn't have enough, the Bag of Selling will look for another "Buyer" further away.
Essentially, put money in the bag and you are almost guaranteed to get a steady stream of interesting items (which thanks to the laws of RPG commerce can be sold to nearby adventurers for twice what you paid for!).

3. Bag of Trading
A rather unstable bag, any item placed into it enters a pocket of nondimensional space. Once you place an item into it, the BOT secretly keeps track of the combined base price of its contents. Anybody within 100 meters who owns another Bag of Trading also has access to the items in your "bag". The limitation is that they must replace the item with any item or items that have at least the base price of the item they remove from yours.
These Magical bags were designed by an ancient race of mystics who had sought to simultaniously end the chains of capitalism and the burden of storage space. However, that particular race went extinct when a bidding war broke out over a jar off cookies and caused all of their Bags of Trading to turn inside out and explode... killing everyone.