Curse

Jetdoc · Mar 28, 2008, 06:25 PM // 18:25

I've always wondered why we have a cap on a stack to 250 items...seems that if it's a 3 digit problem, A-Net could've increased the stack size all the way to 999.

If they don't do it, no skin off my back...but it might help a bit for material hoarders like myself that just can't bring himself to selling excess materials to the trader when I know I'll need them in the near future.

Deadly Panda · Mar 28, 2008, 06:29 PM // 18:29

I agree with this. When done with farming, most of the stuff I have, are matertials. I hate to sell them all to a trader, because when you're about to buy a new armor, you know that you have just wasted money by selling the materials

/signed

jinkas · Mar 28, 2008, 06:34 PM // 18:34

Stack size is probably an unsigned 8-bit integer, which would be limited to a max of 255 and was probably rounded off to 250 out of convenience. The next step up would be an unsigned 16-bit integer, which would cap stack size around 65.5k, but could also theoretically slow down the performance of the game.

caufenkamp · Mar 28, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

ture that...but maybe at least double the size

Khanduras · Mar 28, 2008, 06:39 PM // 18:39

... It's not like common materials are expensive or anything. Sell them to other players for 'x' price, chances are.. when you need the materials, you'll be able to buy them back at the same price. It's not like common materials fluctuate in price drastically.

I don't really see a need to increase stack size at all. If you're going to use it soon and you HAVE to have those extra two or three inventory slots open, why don't you just mule it to another character for the time being? And if you're already completely filled on all characters.. stop hoarding junk.

Ferret Deathsquad · Mar 28, 2008, 06:40 PM // 18:40

I think you will find almost everyone will agree with this who has more than one character and has to buy armor for them all.

/Signed

gremlin · Mar 28, 2008, 06:41 PM // 18:41

I don't know why 250 was chosen and I find it plenty for my needs.
I guess if they increased it I would make use of it but it's not that important.

When I am planning to use materials in the future I just start stacking materials in normal storage or on the character that I plan to use it with.

I assume this is of vital importance to those with storage clogged by multiple sets of armour.

I pwnd U · Mar 28, 2008, 06:41 PM // 18:41

/signed

Would be nice to be able to put the 2 other stacks of cloth into my material storage.

MithranArkanere · Mar 28, 2008, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Hm... decrease storage to half to be able to have bigger stacks...

Hm... I'd rather not. And I don't like not-round numbers. 500 or 1000 would be much better, Yet still not possible right now.

Smurf Minions · Mar 28, 2008, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Well i think jinkas is right, they could use another way but this is the fastest.

TheRaven · Mar 28, 2008, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Jinkas is correct. 255 is a common cap for numbers. They could increase the stack size to 255 very easily, but any larger would cost them a lot (A LOT!!) of money for more server memory, dev salaries, programming time, etc.

It's not worth it.

/not signed

jimmywho · Mar 28, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

a stack of 999 ecto

/notsigned

Jetdoc · Mar 28, 2008, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by jinkas

Stack size is probably an unsigned 8-bit integer, which would be limited to a max of 255 and was probably rounded off to 250 out of convenience. The next step up would be an unsigned 16-bit integer, which would cap stack size around 65.5k, but could also theoretically slow down the performance of the game.

Didn't realize that 255 was the limit for an unsigned 8-bit integer.

As I said, I'm cool with it as it is...was just wondering why there was this odd limit (and that seems to have been answered).

duckboy · Mar 28, 2008, 08:05 PM // 20:05

well here's another question...why can't characters hold more than 100k? shouldn't they be allowed 250k?

MithranArkanere · Mar 28, 2008, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by duckboy

well here's another question...why can't characters hold more than 100k? shouldn't they be allowed 250k?

That's different. The 100k was the 'Maximum trader price' by design.

It was also meant to limit the gold in player to player trades. Yeah, you can bypass it with things like ectos, but first you must get the ectos, and it was much slower than just getting plain gold.

Artorius.Maximus · Mar 28, 2008, 10:33 PM // 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

Didn't realize that 255 was the limit for an unsigned 8-bit integer.

As I said, I'm cool with it as it is...was just wondering why there was this odd limit (and that seems to have been answered).

Limit is really 256 (2^8), but you need to allow for 0, which is why the range is 0..255.

On the max gold piece: While I am unsure of why they chose this limit since it is on an odd number (would require 17 bits) but going to 250k would require 18 bits.

This may be why the system is set up as gold and platinum as well, instead of just however much gold.

Operative 14 · Mar 28, 2008, 11:49 PM // 23:49

100k strikes me as an arbitrary figure they picked that didn't seem like to much, but didn't seem like to little either. Kind of like getting ten serving sets from Tiffany's (considering we're talking about a product from Seattle

).

And trying to limit stack size to a one byte file size makes sense. Though, from a players perspective, it would be nice to have a stack of 500, considering the total material cost of some armors is a quantity of 400 for a certain material.

Phoenix Tears · Mar 28, 2008, 11:49 PM // 23:49

hopefully it will be better in GW2...

this low max cap sux. should be 1000, thats a fine number. and when 1000 makes any probs, then 999 >.>

god any stupid offline game can have higher max caps for item storage, than GW pfff, really

Don't understand, why the game should work slower or so, only because a dumb number raises higher...

The number of 250 means absolutely the same information for the game, as the number of 1000... they are only soem stupid digits -.-.

As if the digits of 1000 would mean so extreme much more information for the server, as 250 >.> really, can't udnerstand this problem. Maybe someone so nice to tell me, what is the thing about this whole prob.... X_X

Operative 14 · Mar 28, 2008, 11:58 PM // 23:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix Tears

hopefully it will be better in GW2...

this low max cap sux. should be 1000, thats a fine number. and when 1000 makes any probs, then 999 >.>

god any stupid offline game can have higher max caps for item storage, than GW pfff, really

Don't understand, why the game should work slower or so, only because a dumb number raises higher...

The number of 250 means absolutely the same information for the game, as the number of 1000... they are only soem stupid digits -.-.

As if the digits of 1000 would mean so extreme much more information for the server, as 250 >.> really, can't udnerstand this problem. Maybe someone so nice to tell me, what is the thing about this whole prob.... X_X

Becuase then the number of items in everyones storage would take two bytes to store instead of one byte. For every single stack of anything in the game.

Considering even a very conservative number of people playing the game, and how many stackable items (one or two dyes, 250 cloth, 147 tanned hide squares, 172 ales...). Each one of those stacks, no matter how many virtual items are in them, take up one byte on the server. If they made it larger than a stack of 255, then each of those stacks, no matter their size, would suddenly take up two bytes.

That's a lot of memory when you consider at least 2 million people playing the game, not to mention another 3 million that are simply inactive or whatever but still have items in storage, and how many stackable stacks they have in their inventory.

freaky naughty · Mar 29, 2008, 02:09 AM // 02:09

/signed. The more storage the better