Sunday So Far Away

Ten years ago, when I was thinking of starting a blog in which I'd write about playing MMORPGs, I wanted a catchy name for it that would sum up the compelling, satisfying, immersive nature of the hobby. When I thought of "Inventory Full" I knew I'd struck gold.

In those days a full inventory meant one thing: you'd been playing so long and so hard and so intently your bags had filled up to the point where you couldn't cram any more inside. Every game had it's own idiosyncratic way of handling storage space but none, at least that I played, used lack of space punitively or as a source of revenue.

Getting bigger bags and more bank space did come with an element of character progression. It was tied to how much gold or platinum or credits your characters could earn in game or how advanced their skill in tailoring or leatherworking or some other box-making craft might be. Some games even linked the size of your inventory to your level.

The bigger the bags you had and the more of them, the larger your bank vault, the more capacious your storage options, the more time you had to spend keeping them tidy. This was the infamous inventory management, loathed by some, loved by few, accepted by most as necessary and inevitable.

You might, if you were an organized sort of player, sort your bags as you went  along. More likely you'd clear them out at the end of a session. If you were like me, you'd keep piling things into bags and boxes until you realized you had no idea where anything was any more.

When that happened you'd put aside a big block of time, a Sunday afternoon, say, to go through the whole lot, sorting, stacking, selling and reminiscing. At its best it felt like going through a heap of dusty boxes in the attic of the house you lived in as a child, turning up forgotten treasures and embarrassing reminders of your past.

It was also one of the very, very few occasions (outside of crafting) where you'd find yourself spending hours clicking and shifting, selecting and choosing, sorting and discarding, all as a form of gameplay.

A decade ago and back in time from there, MMORPG gameplay involved making your own entertainment, even in so-called theme parks. There might be a storyline. There would certainly be progression. There were always quests and missions. You still had to come up with your own plan on how to approach the content laid out for you. It was a buffet, not a banquet.

When I soloed I'd start with choices; which character, which zone, what quest? When I grouped the session would begin with a discussion, suggestions, ideas. Yes, gameplay was repetitive but it wasn't predictable. I might log in thinking I was going to work on my weaponsmithing and end up tanking in a dungeon. Or vice versa.

In that context, managing my inventory came as something of a treat. A somewhat self-indulgent slice of me-time. I could relax, listen to the Test Match on the radio, let my mind wander as I sifted and sorted and stacked.

Things have changed. It happened so slowly, so gradually, I scarcely noticed. In part it's just time. Another ten years in the same games and stuff doesn't just pile up, it towers, looms, darkens the horizon. It takes me as long to sort the inventory of a single character now as it took me then to put an entire account in order. And I have more characters and more accounts. In more games.

That, though, is the least of it. Today's MMORPGs crawl with mechanics and systems that all come down to opening windows and clicking on lists. Selecting from menus is a major part of gameplay, be it talents or alternative advancement or wardrobe or dyes.

The games are far more directive than they used to be, too. There are login rewards and dailies and weeklies. There are time-limited events. There are features and mini-games and horizontal progression mechanics, all of which need managing and tending and sequencing.

Over the past few weeks, months even, I've found myself playing less and less. Not logging in less. Not spending less time on the hobby. Just not playing as much.

I guess it depends how you define "playing". There are certain things I do just about every day. I collect my log-in rewards and do my dailies on two accounts in Guild Wars 2. I let my inventories there fill up on every character until I can't fit anything else in, then I sell and sort until I have enough space to carry on. The sorting takes longer than the dailies, most days. Then I log out, sometimes not having played at all.


In EverQuest I log in early in the morning, then again late in the evening, to set, complete, collect and reset my Overseer quests. I sort my Agents and trade the lower quality ones for the higher, if I have enough.

In EverQuest II I set another batch of Overseer missions. I collect the rewards from the completed ones and sort them into the shared bank. I log in various characters to do more missions and while I'm doing that I check the progress on all their passive progression systems for Mercenaries and Mounts and more. I restart those where needed, swapping mercs and mounts in and out. Click, click, click.

Every other MMORPG I hop in and out of has similar recurring tasks, all of which can be carried out through the UI as my characters stand in safety at the bank or in their homes. The dailies and weeklies that do involve combat or travel always seem to make sure it's simple, straightforward, unchellenging and accessible. That's the point.

Sometimes it feels as if most of my gameplay, whatever skin it wears, is functionally indistinguishable from sorting my inventory. Much of it literally is sorting my inventory. It's hardly surprising that the prospect of spending most of a Sunday going through my bags and putting them into apple pie order no longer fills me with joy.

Sunday's just another work day, now.