Terminally Online
This is Terminally Online: PC Gamer’s very own MMO column. Every other week, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the genre, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we’ve all taken for granted, and, occasionally, bringing in guest writers to talk about their MMO of choice.
Ah, the MMO inventory. The delightful abstraction that means we don’t need to actually think all that hard about where to store the hundreds of thousands of pelts, steaks, teeth, claws, trinkets, coins, crystals, and so-on that we accrue. Our bags are full of crap, it is tradition.
On the one hand, I’m grateful for it. I’m out here to grind and run dungeons, not try to Jenga-stack a briefcase Resident Evil-style. On the other hand, good lord does my head spin every time I open up my inventory and gaze upon the horrors of my own chronic lack of organisation. I despair. Please don’t tell people how I live.
I could argue that it’s the game’s fault. Giving me an auto-sorting feature means I can endure a descent into of disorganisation without much trouble. At the very least, if I click a button, all of my junk will be organised by type. Often, these systems aren’t how I’d do it. For instance, I’d love it if all the gear I’m de-synthing in FF14 could stop being in the initial inventory slots. But they’re still useful.
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And yet I don’t represent the majority of all MMORPG players (despite my best efforts, I’m still working on the hive mind thing). And neither do you, statistically speaking—these are games frequented by millions of players, and I’m not that smug to assume this column is that popular.
However, I would like to get an idea of how tidy Terminally Online readers are. After all, we know you’re fashionable, like your keybinds, and mostly healers. So please, satisfy my curiosity: Are your bags full of junk, or have you sorted your demicrystalised megalized torment orbs or whatever by both colour and patch release date?
Or, are you utterly lost in heaps of garbage like I am. And hey, maybe that’s part of the charm—after all, there was a time where an MMO’s inconvenience was part of the experience.
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