Inventoryless MMORPG?

wondersmith

I've played many MMORPGs over the last 14 years, and I have finally had enough of endless cleanup and rearrangement of inventory. Is there any inventoryless MMORPG? I'd love to just earn points that can be applied to improving my characters' stats and abilities, like the Alternative Advancement points in EverQuest, or the Omega System points in Marvel Heroes. (Though my gaming friend and I prefer MMORPGs, we'd also be willing to consider inventoryless multiplayer non-MMO games with long-term character development.)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

H0urg1ass

I can't honestly think of a single MMORPG that doesn't have some form of inventory management, unless you want to really push the boundary of what you'd consider an MMORPG in the first place.

The RPG element of the genre almost demands some form of inventory.

wondersmith

H0urg1ass said:

The RPG element of the genre almost demands some form of inventory.

It's not impossible to imagine inventoryless explanations for character advancement. In the TV series Arrow, Damien Darhk became more powerful with each kill he made. In Heroes, Sylar gained the abilities of other super-powered characters he killed. In the movie The One, Gabriel Yulaw grew stronger by killing duplicates of himself in alternate universes. In the Star Wars movies, characters increase their ability to use the Force through practice over the course of years. Real-world martial artists can improve through years of training, practice, and sparring, without weapons or armor.

Vrika

wondersmith said:

H0urg1ass said:

The RPG element of the genre almost demands some form of inventory.

It's not impossible to imagine inventoryless explanations for character advancement. In the TV series Arrow, Damien Darhk became more powerful with each kill he made. In Heroes, Sylar gained the abilities of other super-powered characters he killed. In the movie The One, Gabriel Yulaw grew stronger by killing duplicates of himself in alternate universes. In the Star Wars movies, characters increase their ability to use the Force through practice over the course of years. Real-world martial artists can improve through years of training, practice, and sparring, without weapons or armor.

Character advancement doesn't require an inventory, but cosmetic items need one.

wondersmith

Vrika said:

Character advancement doesn't require an inventory, but cosmetic items need one.

Good point; I hadn't thought about cosmetic items. They could be implemented through a cascading menu system, with options unlocked by whatever actions obtain them (e.g., boss kills, cash shop purchases, quest rewards).

Kyleran

While it cetainly is possible inventory mgmt is an expected tenant of RPG games, without it you are playing some other sort of game.

Gdemami

Elite Dangerous, if you consider it an MMO, has no inventory.

Vrika

Gdemami said:

Elite Dangerous, if you consider it an MMO, has no inventory.

I think cargo system should be counted as an inventory.

Octagon7711

GW2 has the best inventory system I've seen in a long time.  A huge separate inventory space for crafting supplies.  Anytime access to sell drops on auction house.  Easy ports to other locations to pickup items bought at auction house, portable stores and auction merchants.  Separate space for cosmetic items. Once acquired skins and dyes can be accessed by all characters. This has ruined me for games that give tight inventory spaces.  I just won't put up with it anymore. 

That's the one thing I really didn't like about ESO, they wanted to encourage crafting and gathering but provided a small amount of space for it, now you can get separate inventory space if you subscribe, no thank you.  Great game with a good crafting system but I really didn't want to spent hours logging into several alts acting as mules to manage the stuff.

Every MMO should do this (give extra space for crafting and quest items) with inventory space as well as have bank space accessible for every character to share.  But there are still some that don't.

Inventory management has stopped me from playing Aion.  Most of my characters have full inventory so whenever I come back to the game I don't feel like looking up prices to see what I should sell important drops for and I end up logging back out.  If that game had more inventory space I would still be playing it.

wondersmith

Gdemami said:

Elite Dangerous, if you consider it an MMO, has no inventory.

Interesting that the inventoryless MMORPG is a space game. The least annoying inventory system I've encountered belonged to EVE Online. I was a high sec mission runner flying a golem marauder. I had about enough storage for everything I could loot in a single mission, and limitless storage back at my "home base" space station. Occasionally I'd load up everything that would fit into a freighter, haul it to Jita and sell to the players who had buy orders on just about everything in the game. Pretty easy.

Axehilt

wondersmith said:

Interesting that the inventoryless MMORPG is a space game. The least annoying inventory system I've encountered belonged to EVE Online. I was a high sec mission runner flying a golem marauder. I had about enough storage for everything I could loot in a single mission, and limitless storage back at my "home base" space station. Occasionally I'd load up everything that would fit into a freighter, haul it to Jita and sell to the players who had buy orders on just about everything in the game. Pretty easy.

Elite Dangerous definitely still has an inventory.

Gdemami

Axehilt said:
Elite Dangerous definitely still has an inventory.

Not really...it is "optional" at best and even then it has nothing to do with inventory we can find in other MMOs.

BeansnBread

Elite definitely has an inventory.

Axehilt

Gdemami said:

Not really...it is "optional" at best and even then it has nothing to do with inventory we can find in other MMOs.

Are you suggesting you played through Elite Dangerous without ever putting something in your cargo hold?  Or would you prefer to drop this nonsensical claim?

Gdemami

Axehilt said:
Are you suggesting you played through Elite Dangerous without ever putting something in your cargo hold?  Or would you prefer to drop this nonsensical claim?

Vast majority of time I was doing fine with no cargo hold at all. It is completely viable, cargo space has only specific use - trading, some missions, consumables. Very limited use.

It is not required to play the game.

SpottyGekko

wondersmith said:

Gdemami said:

Elite Dangerous, if you consider it an MMO, has no inventory.

Interesting that the inventoryless MMORPG is a space game. ...

I'd imagine that E:D's severely limited "inventory" was less a conscious design preference than forced by necessity due to the game's unique architecture.

Gdemami

SpottyGekko said:
I'd imagine that E:D's severely limited "inventory" was less a conscious design preference than forced by necessity due to the game's unique architecture.

...previous Elite games had similar inventory design.

In fact I would even say most space sims have "no inventory".

waynejr2

Gdemami said:

Axehilt said:
Are you suggesting you played through Elite Dangerous without ever putting something in your cargo hold?  Or would you prefer to drop this nonsensical claim?

Vast majority of time I was doing fine with no cargo hold at all. It is completely viable, cargo space has only specific use - trading, some missions, consumables. Very limited use.

It is not required to play the game.

vast majority sounds like you used inventory for some of the time.  Therefore not inventory-less.

Gdemami

waynejr2 said:
vast majority sounds like you used inventory for some of the time.  Therefore not inventory-less.

There is no point in hair splitting. Times I used some cargo was very, very rare. Like I said before:

Gdemami said:

Not really...it is "optional" at best and even then it has nothing to do with inventory we can find in other MMOs.

SpottyGekko

Gdemami said:

SpottyGekko said:
I'd imagine that E:D's severely limited "inventory" was less a conscious design preference than forced by necessity due to the game's unique architecture.

...previous Elite games had similar inventory design.

In fact I would even say most space sims have "no inventory".

I seem to recall that EVE has quite an extensive inventory system.

E:D is also slowly expanding the usage of the inventory, the latest addition being the crafting materials for Engineers. You can carry 100's of trade goods in your hold, it's just a less accessible form of inventory. No doubt it will be expanded further, specially when player avatars are introduced.

Dvora

Having no inventory would be a huge step backwards and imo the OP can go suck it.  Asking developers not to fill up inventory with too much useless crap is a worthy cause, but getting rid of inventory altogether is shooting the genre in the ass.  Overflowing inventory lately is mostly a symptom of F2P games trying to sell you inventory expansions, something that needs to go away or at least not be exploited so brutally.  

MMOs however are supposed to be virtual worlds, getting rid of inventory would kill game economies, alienate people that like to collect things, and in general dumb down interactions of all kinds, creating even shallower games than we are already faced with.  And they are SOO damn shallow already.  Games like BDO going with artificially limited economies and no useful trading to speak of... those developers need to be shot.

The similar trend of removing real rewards and replacing them with useless "achievements" that mean nothing to anyone but the most hardcore nerds, well thats gone far enough already.  

If the OP's idea takes hold in any mmo that would otherwise be interesting, I will hunt him down and poop on his front porch.  I dare say though that any game that went this way is going to have something else seriously wrong with it because the developers would be retards.

We need more interactivity, not less.  We have gone so far downhill already from truly interactive games like UO that came out 18 or more years ago.

Gdemami

SpottyGekko said:
I seem to recall that EVE has quite an extensive inventory system.

E:D is also slowly expanding the usage of the inventory, the latest addition being the crafting materials for Engineers. You can carry 100's of trade goods in your hold, it's just a less accessible form of inventory. No doubt it will be expanded further, specially when player avatars are introduced.

I didn't say all, I said most.

Crafting mats in Elite do not use cargo hold, they have separate..."thing".

The point is, space games tend to not share same loot focused design of fantasy games, thus "no inventory".

Loke666

We had a few discussions here about the point of having vendortrash in MMOs but I always loose when I say it add nothing to the game and should be removed. Seems like a lot of people enjoy trash (also explains why Bieber sells so many songs on Itunes).

Personally do I think that inventory should be kept at minimum, I don't mind many slots for gear but picking up junk just to sell is not particularly fun or add any dept to the game. Mobs should drop coins, gems and sometimes a rare and useful item. Crafting mats work as well, but use a system like GW2 for that so I don't have to fill item and bank slots with stuff I might use later..

Dvora

Vendor trash will always be there in some form, because unless all gear is the same some of it is going to be unwanted.  Putting stuff in for no reason though indeed make no sense, especially when you put a "delete trash" button in like some games do.  Just save a step and dont add the rusted nails and other bullshit in the first place unless it can be melted down and made into something usefull.

And quit whoring inventory expansion cash shop items, to people that pay for membership subscriptions at least FFS.

Akulas

Crashlands has unlimited inventory. But it's a single player game.

filmoret

wondersmith said:

H0urg1ass said:

The RPG element of the genre almost demands some form of inventory.

It's not impossible to imagine inventoryless explanations for character advancement. In the TV series Arrow, Damien Darhk became more powerful with each kill he made. In Heroes, Sylar gained the abilities of other super-powered characters he killed. In the movie The One, Gabriel Yulaw grew stronger by killing duplicates of himself in alternate universes. In the Star Wars movies, characters increase their ability to use the Force through practice over the course of years. Real-world martial artists can improve through years of training, practice, and sparring, without weapons or armor.

They already have this feature.  Its called gaining levels.  Inventory is when you are going to use equipment.  Which all of those examples you listed had equipment.  Even MOBA's have inventory.  I guess if you don't want inventory then play Overwatch.