Vault of Deeds: a Suggestion For 'Mog Overcrowding

[Worba]

Since they added transmogrification, I've been loathe to vendor any quest rewards, since you never know what you're going to need down the road, so as a result leveling tends to mean steadily declining bank space, to the point where my bank vault is full and my bags are down to the last half dozen to a dozen spaces.

I don't like to shoulder the expense of void vaults; I understand the necessity of it, and I have done it on one character - but really, spending 800-1000g on a bunch of green gear (that I'll have to pay to re-deposit, should I ever actually need access to it), just feels... eh.

OTOH I do get the reason why things are this way - because just like stable slots, this stuff also consumes space on Blizzard's servers, so they can't go about giving everyone limitless bank slots.

So what to do? My problem is not so much with boss drops / world drops - after all most of it can be reacquired if you really really want to do so, much llike retaming an abandoned pet from the wild, so if you're careful to hold onto just the super rare/emotionally connected stuff, these usually don't take up that much space (in my experience). Whereas a quest once completed, is gone forever - if you want its rewards, you stick them in your bank.

But Kalliope reminded me a little while back that they already store every characters' list of completed quests, so I was thinking more recently - what if they referenced that, just for transmog purposes?

Now granted, anything you do like that, is going to require some suspension of disbelief (but then, isn't that kind of true of transmogrification to begin with? ), but that being said, here is what I propose: add a menu to the transmog NPC that cross references your list of completed quests, and builds a list of quest rewards - not just the rewards you selected (that would require additional disk space, so that's out), but all that you were eligible for - again just for mogging from, not for actual equipping (you want to still equip it, you store it in your actual bank).

There could be a nominal (gold) fee for this, but nothing so prohibitive as they charge for the void vaults.

This list would be filter-able by ilvl, slot, weapon/armor type etc similar to how they do it at wowhead.

There would be 3 huge benefits of doing this:

1) Frees up massive amounts of bag/bank slots on tons of characters, making them feel less paralyzed and more free to go do any random quest without worrying where to store the resulting "baggage"

2) Gives players access to long-since deleted quest rewards, that may be far beyond the limit of what is available in the self-service item restoration service

3) Doesn't consume ANY additional disk space, since again, it is simply finding additional uses for data that's already being stored (and has been since day 1).

Note: this was originally discussed in a rough form here, but I wanted to flesh it out in its own thread here in the 'mog forum.

[GormanGhaste]

I like this idea. I've felt a bit penalized as a Lore-master.

[peanutbuttercup]

Sounds cool, but I'd find it too limiting if I couldn't get the actual item back. I'm one of those folks who makes outfits for my toons to wear around. That means I'm wearing grays, whites, cloth, leather... all sorts of things that a hunter cannot use to transmog. So while this idea would help out some players, it wouldn't help those who want the gear, but not for transmog.

I just have to face it, WoW hoarders are beyond help.

[Worba]

Not really - even if you just want a "walking around stormwind" set for RP'ing that is all cloth or leather, you could still mog from it. Hunters can mog from cloth, leather OR mail, as long as the thing they're mogging TO matches the thing they're mogging FROM.

Just keep a set of cloth and a set of leather in your bank (like 20 slots worth or so), and then mog onto them as desired.

EDIT: you're right about grays and whites though - but regardless it wouldn't make sense to be able to retrieve the actual equip-able items else people would just endlessly withdraw copies for disenchanting or vendoring!

[Niabi]

I'm one of those folks who makes outfits for my toons to wear around. That means I'm wearing grays, whites, cloth, leather...

Guilty as well!

Auroryn is my fashionista in the game. A lot goes into creating each of her outfits and I like to keep a couple of alternative pieces to each set in case I ever feel the need to change things up a bit. With each outfit set containing an average of 5 pieces, any empty storage space I still have is consumed rather quickly.

I don't necessarily enjoy/utilize the current void storage feature because of the financial limitations it poses. I want to be able to access my gear/items free of charge and all day long if my heart so desires.

[Vephriel]

Thirded on the outfits. I still keep a lot of pieces that aren't even mail, I just like having neat looking gear. My poor bags are so full...I don't have a single slot left in Void Storage, nor my bank. x_x

[Worba]

Again, for the non-mail stuff the key distinction is just item quality - if it's green or above then what I proposed would work just fine. Simply keep a set of cloth and leather in your bank to mog onto from items of the same type (the difference being that you'd have ONE set of cloth in the bank instead of a DOZEN, and ditto for leather).

As far as grays and whites... if you could withdraw from the vault of deeds for more than mogging purposes, then you could endlessly vendor them, or disenchant them, or etc. So because you can't mog from whites or grays, then yeah, there's really nothing that could be done with items of that quality.

[Niabi]

Again, for the non-mail stuff the key distinction is just item quality - if it's green or above then what I proposed would work just fine. Simply keep a set of cloth and leather in your bank to mog onto from items of the same type (the difference being that you'd have ONE set of cloth in the bank instead of a DOZEN, and ditto for leather).

This point was understood however, I personally don't feel the need to go so far as to transmog every non-mail item I have if I simply want to swap my gear for RP purposes or events. I always quest in my mail gear. The other stuff is just for fun.

You'd still need the space for both items regardless, the one you're equipping and the one you are transmogging for its appearance. Doing so for any non-mail items (in the case of hunters) just limits the amount of bag/bank space you have even more.

[Worba]

Ok, cool. I wasn't sure.

But yeah this is just an effort to reduce transmog-driven overcrowding of bank vaults, without increasing the load on Blizzard's servers.

You'd still need the space for both items regardless, the one you're equipping and the one you are transmogging for its appearance. Doing so for any non-mail items (in the case of hunters) just limits the amount of bag/bank space you have even more.

Not exactly. I know currently if you want to mog from something it has to be in your bag, but the VoD would act as a mog source (which is also how they should have done it with the void vault, but I digress...). So let's say for example that you want an RP set that you can change anytime you feel like going to the transmog NPC, using any combination of cloth, leather and mail rewards from quests that you've completed at some point in the past.

In your bags or bank you'd have one set each of mail, leather and cloth - doesn't matter what ilvl or what they look like, as long as they can be 'mogged onto. You decide what mog set you want, ensure the right type of armor is equipped in each slot, and then go to the VoD and select whatever looks you want from previous quest rewards and mog them onto your equipped gear.

So you could have mail shoulders, a cloth robe, leather gloves, etc. All mogged.

Obviously cloth has to go to cloth, leather to leather and mail to mail, but still you could have any number of models available to mog from even though you'd only need the above items in your bags, so you're still saving a ton of bag space.

[Morven]

Void storage needs to be expanded and made cheaper. Since all Blizzard needs to store is item ID, they should have no trouble with that being a lot bigger than it is.

[Ana]

The quest thingie would be really good idea! I have soo many quest rewards that i wish ive had gotten while time was

And i really wish you could learn outfits the way you learn mounts/recipies etc and that the outfits were shared amounst your battlenet. I really love soo many of Tårnfalks outfits and would love to share them with my other hunters.. and same with Norrathias sets.. and so on .. Hate that i have to choose which charecter gets which sets.... i know im prolly lazy for not wanting to go farm for a second set either in dungeons or in the ah

[Worba]

Void storage needs to be expanded and made cheaper. Since all Blizzard needs to store is item ID, they should have no trouble with that being a lot bigger than it is.

It's probably more like 6 fields (intItemID, intCharacterID, intBag, intSlot, intStackSize, intDurability), and you may think they have more space to spare, but we don't actually know how much disk space it takes them, or how much they can afford - we have to therefore take them at their word that disk space was an issue, to the point that the savings from dropping the key ring made a difference.

The quest thingie would be really good idea! I have soo many quest rewards that i wish ive had gotten while time was

And i really wish you could learn outfits the way you learn mounts/recipies etc and that the outfits were shared amounst your battlenet. I really love soo many of Tårnfalks outfits and would love to share them with my other hunters.. and same with Norrathias sets.. and so on .. Hate that i have to choose which charecter gets which sets.... i know im prolly lazy for not wanting to go farm for a second set either in dungeons or in the ah

Well I could see something like equipment sets but for 'mogging - that would be helpful for people who switch between many different sets. It would be a rather expensive habit ofc, since you'd still have to pay the usual mog charge for re-mogging your gear each time, but if people can afford void storage that probably wouldn't be an issue...

Now sharing otherwise soulbound stuff across your toons is a much more radical idea... it could work, although you might run into issues of new content becoming less popular as players stop running it on multiple toons. Interesting suggestion though (maybe assign an ilvl cap that goes up with each new xpac, so that you can do it with stuff from previous xpacs just not the current one?).

[Morven]

It's probably more like 6 fields (intItemID, intCharacterID, intBag, intSlot, intStackSize, intDurability), and you may think they have more space to spare, but we don't actually know how much disk space it takes them, or how much they can afford - we have to therefore take them at their word that disk space was an issue, to the point that the savings from dropping the key ring made a difference.

Well, void storage I don't think saves durability -- at least, I see no reason for it to -- nor does it stack, as far as I can remember, and it doesn't store a bag ID. It does remember position in Void Storage, though. So it's item, character, position -- three fields.

It certainly benefits them to have stuff in void storage rather than bank vaults, and I bet you since transmog was introduced the number of things kept in bank vaults has increased by quite a lot.

[Worba]

Yes ofc bank usage has increased due to mogging, that's the point of this thread.

In re: void storage - for the sake of efficiency, it's likely that items are stored in a generic table like tblCharacterGear, where void storage would have its own "bag ID", but the other fields would still be needed to accommodate things outside of there (like bank vault, bank bags, bags on your toon, or just your inventory slots - I'm leveraging intBag heavily here as you can see, so it's possible even more fields are needed). So 6+. But again, deck chairs on the Titanic here - Blizzard says space is tight, and there's really no point trying to second guess them on that.

[Royi]

i think what you're thinking of, is that perhaps if they could have some sort of menu of past gear won through quests that would be somewhat like a "dressing room"

Like how you can view Mounts and Pets in those tabs already etc

is that what you're thinking somewhat worb?

[Worba]

There would be a new tab added to the transmog NPC's existing menu called Vault of Deeds; if you click on it, you get a box containing a ton of icons, with a scrollbar. Kind of like one of your bags... 'cept really frikkin big (hence the scrollbar).

These icons in the Vault off Deeds would be all quest rewards that A) you've ever been eligible for and B) can be mogged from*.

Meanwhile up above you've got the usual transmog window that we see now, that looks sort of like a dressing room, has slots on the left and right you can drag items to, etc.

So let's say you'd like to mog from a reward offered by a quest you completed. You find its icon in the vault of deeds, and drag it onto the desired mog slot just like if you were dragging something from your bag; mog slot lights up letting you know it's a legit mog, you click "OK", and now you've got the new look.

All without ever having the actual item in your bag taking up space, and without consuming any additional disk space. End result: a lot of players get to free up a crapton of bag space now and going forward, e.g. everyone wins.

*To keep it manageable there would have to be some filters so you could search by item name, quest name, ilvl range or etc, obviously.