Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

With the recent notice here, viewtopic.php?f=4&t=77168, I have a question.

As it was stated that the crate items were not intended to hold anything only a placeable prop. Why not keep it as it is? It can still be used a prop, and can be used as a container. As for what crates are used for! It's honestly very handy and I know a great number of people loved this unintended QoL addition. Earlier today I saw it being used a container and a prop for the Midwinter Festivity, I have seen it used in other instances as well and it was quite useful as I saw! Though I am unaware of any issues that may have caused this decision, as most likely that would of burned through the grapevine really fast when people first started using them.

So would it be terrible to leave it as is?

Agreed. More inventory space hurts nobody and is a positive QoL addition, even if it unintentionally came about.

Thirded, I really enjoyed having such items available, and they were a really good QOL addition.

FallingStar wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:49 pm Agreed. More inventory space hurts nobody and is a positive QoL addition, even if it unintentionally came about.

As I understand, that is false. It's why Bags of Holding are also not in the game. Adding inventory space likely can overload some aspects of the server, which is why its not (and can not) be allowed. Now that even more people know of it, more people will get it if it stays. I can imagine it becoming quite bad

Like it's an issue on other servers with bags of their own?

renshouj wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:10 am

FallingStar wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:49 pm Agreed. More inventory space hurts nobody and is a positive QoL addition, even if it unintentionally came about.

As I understand, that is false. It's why Bags of Holding are also not in the game. Adding inventory space likely can overload some aspects of the server, which is why its not (and can not) be allowed. Now that even more people know of it, more people will get it if it stays. I can imagine it becoming quite bad

It isn't that they "can't" be. It can cause larger bic files, but I dont know of any issues having ever been reported related to bic file size due to containers.

Planehopper wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:27 am

renshouj wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:10 am

FallingStar wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:49 pm Agreed. More inventory space hurts nobody and is a positive QoL addition, even if it unintentionally came about.

As I understand, that is false. It's why Bags of Holding are also not in the game. Adding inventory space likely can overload some aspects of the server, which is why its not (and can not) be allowed. Now that even more people know of it, more people will get it if it stays. I can imagine it becoming quite bad

It isn't that they "can't" be. It can cause larger bic files, but I dont know of any issues having ever been reported related to bic file size due to containers.

It was a more prevalent issue with the area content on one server and our concurrent playerbase counts exceeded the 90s. Nwserver wasn't releasing players from memory when the player logs off, stagnant disconnected walls of text in the description of items then consumed what precious space remained, and the process then ran out of memory rapidly. With more memory available due to the server splits and the community not being anywhere near as active as it was in that year, it might be something that could be revisited.

There were plans to test how bags affected server performance. This accidental test could have far-reaching consequences if its results turn out negative: I assume Ariella's plan was to do a full rollback at the end of the test she'd planned, which could possibly become necessary here, too, if we don't find a way to surgically remove the crates.

Trading server stability for a little more inventory space is a pretty lousy notion of QoL, which is why this needs to be properly tested, with actual safeguards against it going horribly wrong.

Aspect of Sorrow wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 3:56 am

Planehopper wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:27 am

renshouj wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:10 am

As I understand, that is false. It's why Bags of Holding are also not in the game. Adding inventory space likely can overload some aspects of the server, which is why its not (and can not) be allowed. Now that even more people know of it, more people will get it if it stays. I can imagine it becoming quite bad

It isn't that they "can't" be. It can cause larger bic files, but I dont know of any issues having ever been reported related to bic file size due to containers.

It was a more prevalent issue with the area content on one server and our concurrent playerbase counts exceeded the 90s. Nwserver wasn't releasing players from memory when the player logs off, stagnant disconnected walls of text in the description of items then consumed what precious space remained, and the process then ran out of memory rapidly. With more memory available due to the server splits and the community not being anywhere near as active as it was in that year, it might be something that could be revisited.

Could this possibly be something Dae could help fix...?

renshouj wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:10 am

FallingStar wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:49 pm Agreed. More inventory space hurts nobody and is a positive QoL addition, even if it unintentionally came about.

As I understand, that is false. It's why Bags of Holding are also not in the game. Adding inventory space likely can overload some aspects of the server, which is why its not (and can not) be allowed. Now that even more people know of it, more people will get it if it stays. I can imagine it becoming quite bad

Sigil: City of Doors has had inventory expanding bags for years, and there's never been a single issue with it. One of my characters there has well over 300 items stuffed in 7 bags. Never had any issues, nor do I know of anyone having issues.

If inventory extending bags cause problems on BGTSCC then I'd consider that an implementation failure, rather than an issue with the feature in general. If they can get it to work, then surely we can as well.

NW Tradeway containers were not intended and aren't the way we would have wanted to implement containers, and need to be removed on that merit.

However, given how clearly the community wants these, we are considering working towards adding container items in a more thought-out capacity.

Rhifox wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:32 am
However, given how clearly the community wants these, we are considering working towards adding container items in a more thought-out capacity.

I was wondering...are there any custom GUIs out there that add more Inventory pages? And if so, would it be possible to make that permanent to the Server? And if not existing, has anyone ever thought about trying to increase the Inventory page numbers?

zhazz wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:21 am Sigil: City of Doors has had inventory expanding bags for years, and there's never been a single issue with it. One of my characters there has well over 300 items stuffed in 7 bags. Never had any issues, nor do I know of anyone having issues.

If inventory extending bags cause problems on BGTSCC then I'd consider that an implementation failure, rather than an issue with the feature in general. If they can get it to work, then surely we can as well.

Sigil never had the asset count nor concurrent playerbase that rivaled BG. My prior post points out where this was an issue with near maximum memory consumed on the single server. BG would see somewhere north of 600 MB of memory consumed just by the rotating playerbase and their varied characters, muling, etc, just sitting in memory unreleased until reset. Forcing a release forces the character to the Nexus and exposed a few exploits. This issue was uniquely BGTSCC as other PWs didn't push the same envelopes in consolidated assets and playercounts combined.

Could this possibly be something Dae could help fix...?

Would need to release the character from nwserver fully, or implement a version of the storage system mobile to the player along the lines of the horse bag but on the character itself. The latter would be my recommendation.

Steve wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:37 am

Rhifox wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:32 am
However, given how clearly the community wants these, we are considering working towards adding container items in a more thought-out capacity.

I was wondering...are there any custom GUIs out there that add more Inventory pages? And if so, would it be possible to make that permanent to the Server? And if not existing, has anyone ever thought about trying to increase the Inventory page numbers?

Technically it's very feasible though I don't know that it's a good idea given the lower resolution player clients are likely to have a hard time with the adjustment if it's enforced, and if it's not then another method of accessing that (another GUI button, panel, flow) would need made. I do play from my phone sometimes.

Edit:

I've also seen a bloated BIC file repeatedly crash a server on attempted login.

ok, my question is..can be made conteiners with lets say 30-50 slots max? maybe this dont harm too much memory (and one for player, not like to have 3-4 conteiners at once)

We didn't intend for players to get increased inventory storage. Especially not from something extremely cheap that some players have a hundred or more of these in their inventory and are handing them out for free. This, in my mind, is no different than if we had accidentally put in an infinite gold bug or similar.

There are some technical aspects, as others mentioned in this thread. Most of them come down to abuse or extreme hoarding scenarios with many items with large amounts of text. Keep in mind "other servers" don't have nearly as much memory usage as bgtscc, and even after splitting the server into two we are rapidly consuming that space with all the new areas.

While the technical side may not be the largest concern, this was just simply not how bags were ever intended to be rolled out and was rapidly getting out of hand. Without rolling these back it would just be simply unfair to new players once bags are introduced properly.