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[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But that's not true.  DAO's inventory was auto-sorted, so what was 4th from the top last time might not be 4th from the top now if you happened to use the item that had been third from the top, or picked up two items that were sorted into the top 4 spots.

Finding out where any new item is in the DA:O style inventory is functionally equivalent to having to place the NWN item by hand into one of the particular slots. We can formalize it by calling it something like "time needed to reorganize inventory from new item pick-up".

It's a cost to both systems, because in either one, to get your very narrow criterion met, I have to open and arrange the inventory.

That said, DA:O has a hierarchy for which other items are placed relative to each other. If you internalize the relative hierarchies you can know where a new item is being up.

DAO's inventory required browsing.

So did NWNs and BGs, insofar as you were ever going to add/remove any items.

If DAO had let us sort the list manually and leave gaps in it, then your analogy would hold.

No, that's irrelevant. What makes it functionally equivalent is the broad purpose of the behaviour it requires, not the specific behaviour.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Finding out where any new item is in the DA:O style inventory is functionally equivalent to having to place the NWN item by hand into one of the particular slots. We can formalize it by calling it something like "time needed to reorganize inventory from new item pick-up".

It's a cost to both systems, because in either one, to get your very narrow criterion met, I have to open and arrange the inventory.

That said, DA:O has a hierarchy for which other items are placed relative to each other. If you internalize the relative hierarchies you can know where a new item is being up.

I can only know where everything is in DAO if I have perfect knowledge of the contents of my inventory.

In NWN, everything I've sorted stays where I left it, relegating all of the other gear to an unsorted section.  Any browsing of NWN's is limited to a subset of the inventory, and since that's the stuff you didn't sort that's there the junk loot is.

I could happily sell everything that appeared on pages 4-6 of my NWN inventory without ever looking at it.

So did NWNs and BGs, insofar as you were ever going to add/remove any items.

But not to use those items.  That's what I was saying.  Only an inventory management tast actually required inventory management.  And those could be limited to parts of the game where the player wanted to do them

In DAO, every intventory task requires inventory management.

No, that's irrelevant. What makes it functionally equivalent is the broad purpose of the behaviour it requires, not the specific behaviour.

Why do you fear specificity?  You've done this at least twice in the past few days.

Things are the some only when they are the same.  Being broadly similar isn't good enough.

[tmp7704]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I arrange them in a simple and predictable pattern.

Let's see. Four potions: fire resistance, electricity resistance, nature resistance, poison resistance. What order do you put them in, and why?

Modifié par tmp7704, 19 octobre 2010 - 07:30 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I can only know where everything is in DAO if I have perfect knowledge of the contents of my inventory.

In NWN, everything I've sorted stays where I left it, relegating all of the other gear to an unsorted section.  Any browsing of NWN's is limited to a subset of the inventory, and since that's the stuff you didn't sort that's there the junk loot is.

You have the same criteria in NWN (that of perfect knowledge). You've just compressed "junk lunk" into one broad class of entities where everything is interchangeable for the sake of chunkin it as a single space.

The hierarchy that you have mentally, though, is perfectly known.

I could happily sell everything that appeared on pages 4-6 of my NWN inventory without ever looking at it.

Because you know it is filled with one class of entity - "junk".

The difference between NWN and DA:O is not in what it allows you to do with the inventory; it is that it allows you to generate unique mental classifications for things. Once you have those, they function in practically indentical ways.

But not to use those items.  That's what I was saying.  Only an inventory management tast actually required inventory management.  And those could be limited to parts of the game where the player wanted to do them

No, that's untrue. As I said before - for you to use the items in the BG/NWN menu efficienctly as you defined it, you had to have a memorized mental map of your inventory. You can meet the same criterion in using your items in DA:O, if you have a memorized mental map. The structure of the inventory only changes when new items are added.

In DAO, every inventory task requires inventory management.

No, it doesn't. Let me explain in broad terms:

DA:O has a set item classification and a set auto-sort.

For NWN, you've created an idiosyncratic item classification and auto-sort (pages 4-6 for junk loot, by having 1-3 as "filled" pre-organized grids).

Your idiosyncratic item classification system is easier for you to navigate, and requires less inventory management, for you. There is less inventory management for you in those games specifically because you have a system to reduce that management.

It is not hard to imagine a hypothetical person for who the relationship is opposite (that is, someone who scrolls quickly and rapidly and is poor at pre-planning inventory) that this person, just scrolling to a particular item in a particular tab is more efficient (measured in total time spent on inventory management in the game) in the DA:O system than in the NWN/BG grid.

In a nutshell, the problem with a lot of what you advocate is that you generally an idiosyncracy.

Why do you fear specificity?  You've done this at least twice in the past few days.

I don't fear it - it's just valueless beyond a certain point. To put it in economic terms - the cost of acquiring it is significantly greater than the benefit of having it.

Things are the some only when they are the same.  Being broadly similar isn't good enough.

That's just sloppy reasoning. If I define the same as "broadly similar" then I meet tautological definition.

You're going to object that "same" and "broadly similar" aren't the same thing, but that's where the entire debate is. You can't win it by saying "they're not the same, don't you see?" because I quite obviously disagree with that.

It's the same as how I think your definition of knowledge and certainty are just vacuous.

Modifié par In Exile, 19 octobre 2010 - 07:47 .

[soteria]

There isn't really one "obviously better" way for everyone. If someone is OCD enough to indeed memorize where they put each type of consumable, on every character they play, even after they come back to the game after a few day break... not to mention to actually have specific spots for specific items in the first place, then certainly the grid system can be faster for them.

On the other hand if someone doesn't memorize such things, then --especially if game suffers from large number of consumables with similar icons-- it can be faster to find items in the list, simply because the list offers all item names upfront, conveniently ready for the brain to turn on the fast reading/text recognition skills and find what the player is after through a quick glance, vs. having to mouse over each item separately to see the individual names shown in tooltip or wherever.

I think this sums it up pretty well.

Sylvius wrote...

Really? Where's your Fire Salve? Right now, tell me where it is.

Consumables tab, down just a little bit. The whole operation of opening my inventory and finding it would probably take around 5-6 seconds--about what it would take in NWN. If I wanted faster access I'd put it on my quickbar in either case.

But that's not true. DAO's inventory was auto-sorted, so what was 4th from the top last time might not be 4th from the top now if you happened to use the item that had been third from the top, or picked up two items that were sorted into the top 4 spots.

When the sorting system changes, you have to adjust your search methods. You're trying to apply a location-based search method to the inventory. That works great in a static system with a sufficiently small number of items to memorize most of them. In a dynamic system with a large number of items, you have to adjust your search method, like it or not. Once you know the rules, searching the database--the inventory--is extremely efficient. I could find the name "Soteria" in a list of names very quickly even with no prior knowledge of its approximate location on the page, because I know the rules.

Likewise, I can find the Greater Warmth Balm in my inventory on any playthrough in a matter of a few seconds, because I know the rules. I seriously doubt it takes more than a few extra seconds to find an item than it did in NWN--with the added benefit of not needing to sort everything myself. YMMV.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

You have the same criteria in NWN (that of perfect knowledge). You've just compressed "junk lunk" into one broad class of entities where everything is interchangeable for the sake of chunkin it as a single space.

The relevant difference, though, is new items.

If I pick up a new item in DAO, I need to determine where it goes within the list because it moves everything else around.

In NWN nothing else moves, so even if I don't notice I've picked up a new item the pre-existing items stay as they were.  The new items require no modification of the index information.

Learning the pattern once and applying the knowledge a whole bunch of times is much easier than learning the pattern every single time you pick something up.

The difference between NWN and DA:O is not in what it allows you to do with the inventory; it is that it allows you to generate unique mental classifications for things.

It does that by allowing me to do different things.

If DAO would allow me to classify objects myself to determine in which tabs they were filed, that would be halfway toward mimicking the usefulness of NWN's system.

The other half requires that I be able to find any item I have filed with my eyes closed, even allowing incokplete knowledge of what has happened within the inventory since the filing system was established.

No, that's untrue. As I said before - for you to use the items in the BG/NWN menu efficienctly as you defined it, you had to have a memorized mental map of your inventory. You can meet the same criterion in using your items in DA:O, if you have a memorized mental map. The structure of the inventory only changes when new items are added.

But in NWN and BG, the map doesn't change even when new items are added.

That's the difference.

No, it doesn't. Let me explain in broad terms:

DA:O has a set item classification and a set auto-sort.

Yes.  The first is a small problem.  The second is a huge problem.

For NWN, you've created an idiosyncratic item classification and auto-sort (pages 4-6 for junk loot, by having 1-3 as "filled" pre-organized grids).

No.  There's no auto-sort in NWN.  The sort is entirely manual.

That's the difference.  If you're saying the new items get automatically sorted according to the filing system I've designed, then yes, but then the relevant difference is that every player can have the sort he would prefer, whereas DAO's auto-sort offers a small number of possible sorting criteria.

It is not hard to imagine a hypothetical person for who the relationship is opposite (that is, someone who scrolls quickly and rapidly and is poor at pre-planning inventory) that this person, just scrolling to a particular item in a particular tab is more efficient (measured in total time spent on inventory management in the game) in the DA:O system than in the NWN/BG grid.

He would still need to learn at least one of the sorting options in order to find anything without browsing.

Browsing is necessarily a waste of time.  Knowing where something is makes it faster to access than finding it every time.

Look at your keyboard.  What if the arrangement of the keys changed from time to time?  What that significantly slow your typing?

Of course it would.  But that's exactly what DAO's inventory system does.

And by the way, I'd much rather discuss dialogue with you, but you appear to have abandoned that discussion.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 19 octobre 2010 - 08:29 .