The clutter problem

[Rias]

There's a growing issue with cluttered rooms. The more items left on the ground, the more strain gets puts on the server as the itemfinder has to search through so many things, not to mention database bloat.

While I'm looking at ways to address this (I've already done several efficiency updates), I've also implemented a - possibly temporary - restriction to several commands, where they won't work if there's too much clutter on the ground. This is regardless of how much storage space a room has. So regardless of whether you're in your little inn room, your spacious storage vault, or your sprawling farmland, the clutter cap is the same. This is not for some kind of RP or lore reason, but for technical reasons. The restriction mostly applies to crafting commands, but a few other things as well. More may be added as I think of them. Hopefully this will encourage people to get organized and at the very least, make use of various storage containers like trunks, chests, crates, barrels, and so on. Items within containers don't count toward the clutter cap.

And once again, farms are the bane of my existence. I'm seriously considering implementing some additional restrictions on them so they stop getting treated as excessively large storage facilities. I feel like just the fact that they -can- be used to store an extreme amount of items means that people are building up rather excessive stockpiles. So as much as I hate to say it: Farmland owners, expect some kind of additional storage restrictions in the future (or some kind of punishment/item loss when having excess clutter).

[ironcross]

I definitely feel where you're coming from with this, and it is something that I try to remain cognizant of - with varying degrees of success on my end. I think that part of the problem is that while certain things don't need to be kept around as much as they are, certain other things do. Wood is a big one. If you're planning a farm expansion, you're gathering wood most likely, and while that's happening, you may realize that your wood shed is rapidly running out of space, so you decide to build another one, but that's another time sink and so while you may now have two wood sheds, you're going to have to start the process over again to build up to working on your expansion.

So while you're cutting trees, you can decide what to do with the branches. Yet another wood shed? A barrel or two, or something else. There's a certain threshold where it becomes absurd to have so many branches, but a certain amount to feed crafting efforts should be kept.

I find it's only a few steps ahead from getting enough storage to needing more material, and it just cycles back on itself. OK, I need more of this so I can do this thing, but that means I must build another storage container, meaning I need to use a lot of the resources I just tried to gather to sink into building the container.

I can definitely point to some things I have personally let get out of hand and say mea culpa. So, while I acknowledge that some of the onus is on us, as the players, I don't think we're 100% responsible either.

I've been toying with an idea that I probably would have put here once it became more fleshed out, but now seems as good a time as any, as it is directly related to this problem. Basically, I'm talking rentable storage in brackets, so you pay for a tier that lets you store a set amount of items. When you store them, unlike the bank vault, you wouldn't ever see them in storage, but you'd instead see a catalog of what you had sorted by category.

You could then retrieve things one by one, all of the things in a particular category, or a certain number of them. This would allow us to keep enough on our farms to meet daily work needs, without things spilling all over the place on the ground.

I also envision arranging pickups. You go to the warehouse and speak to an attendant, and they tell you a time of availability. At that time, a wagon will be delivered to the farm - one the player can't move or use in any other way except to place things inside. They can then go down to the storage facility and inform the attendant that the wagon is ready to be picked up, or it can just automatically be done in a certain amount of time.

The same for delivering to a farm, you select what you want, and they'll tell you what time to expect the wagon. you have a limited window to unload it and then it gets taken away. Each time you use the pick up / delivery service, it could be a fee charged from your bank account.

I think this would definitely help keep things under control a lot more, as we wouldn't have to worry about what to do with the surplus, and staying ahead of the storage container cycle.

That said, I will ramp up my efforts in managing the clutter on my farm and talk to certain other partners about how we might do the same on theirs.

[Rias]

I want to steer away from additional storage (that's just more clutter/bloat) and more toward discouraging excess hoarding. That may come with a few things like animal feed items being deleted when put into shelters and just going toward a general food stock counter, as well as potentially updating some items to be assumed groups, like how individual nails and rivets were changed to "some nails" and "some rivets". Then there can be fewer actual items filling up the database and stressing out the itemfinder, occasional backups, and all the other technical stuff that gets bogged down. Probably for branches especially. Branches are by far the most numerous item in the game. Other items like ash and feathers, I may just have some disappear as if they've blown away on the wind or something, when in excessively-sized stacks.

But overall, I don't want crafters to act like warehouse owners with piles of resources at the ready, where they build up a stock that can get them through a whole bunch of large projects in a row. I dislike large stockpiling for a lot of reasons, both technical and interactivity-wise. It's kind of a bummer if you put in one huge order with Gatherer Bob for a thousand Commodity X and then never interact with him again because you're sitting pretty on your massive lifetime stockpile. I'd rather people consistently contact Bob whenever they need some supply for their next big project or two, so Bob can regularly feel useful. If you're a do-it-yourself-er ... yeah, I want you going back out fairly regularly to gather more supplies as additional projects come up, rather than going on one binge gathering session to build up a massive stockpile and then not hitting the mine or the woods or whatever for a long time. If you find the gathering part tedious or a chore and don't want to be doing it regularly, then make arrangements with someone who doesn't mind it so much (and give them an opportunity for that to be their "thing"). Seems like a pretty believable thing to do anyway, as I imagine most specialized crafters are too busy working at their specialized craft to go out and do the tough and time-consuming gathering part themselves most of the time. If you're the type who insists on doing everything yourself, then feeling burdened by all the extra work and time balancing naturally goes along with that.

And lastly, when it comes to resources you can't find a place for in what storage is available to you: Remember that you don't need to hang onto items just because they're there. I know it hurts some people to leave an item behind, but really: don't hoard just to hoard. Throw off the shackles of the "I don't need it now, but maybe it could come in useful someday" mindset. If you find yourself having trouble finding a place to put all your excess, that's a sign that you've got too much excess. You don't need to hang onto every piece of charcoal or handful of ash from every campfire you make, or every crooked branch from every tree you chop, or every piece of barren stone that you mine up while looking for ore. They all have uses in specific situations, sure, but there's no reason to hold onto every single one you find - especially if you have no personal or short-term use for it. If it can't be stored (no space), and it can't be sold (no market value, or flooded market), just let the janitor pick up that useless excess junk. Or if you've got a conscience for that kind of thing or it's in town where leaving clutter in public places is discouraged, haul it to the nearest trash barrel and transfer it into there.

[ironcross]

That makes sense. For branches, could we perhaps bundle them? Say you buy some thread or rope and you can bundle the same type up to a cap. Then, you would automatically pull from that bundle when you craft. You could also just grab one bundle out of storage then work for a while.

I know one thing I am doing less of now is transferring the entire lot of branches and doing 30 at a time or doing my best to work out how many branches I'll need for making X amount of a thing, then pulling that much out. It's not always a perfect system, because I don't always know how many of a particular item I can make out of one branch, but it's better than pulling all of them out of the shed.

[Rias]

Turns out there was a bug with woodsheds that both allowed them to bypass item type restrictions AND allowed them to store an infinite number of items. There are a few out there that are stocked over capacity (a couple absurdly so), and going to the farmland with these overstocked woodsheds will inform the farmer of this fact upon arrival. Please clean them out to at or below capacity soon, or the excess items will be automatically deleted.

[Lexx416]

I'm not sure how much of a resource is "too much". I tend to collect and stock up on thornleaf, just because it takes hundreds of stalks for a single item sometimes. I am, admittedly, not as good at utilizing crates and barrels as I could be though. But that's partially me, and partially because I messed up some of my labels early on and am being lazy.

[Rias]

Furniture (chairs, tables, benches, trunks, crates, etc.) now take up some farmland plot space. So think carefully about whether you need a separate crate/trunk/barrel for every item type.