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Rest in Peace Bag Mode

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Jan 31, 2018.

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  1. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

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    Greetings Avatars,

    When we began this project four years ago, we originally intended to support the nostalgic, old-school, free-form inventory that we affectionately termed “bag mode”. This interface dates all the way back to the original Ultimas and gets its name from your backpack and associated bags that you store all your items in that is represented visually on screen as a literal bag. Continuing the metaphor, all of the items inside are represented as individual objects that can be arranged in any order and layered on top of each other. No fancy grids, lists, filters, or other modern conveniences that clutter the pure chaos of this original interface.

    We also wanted to support the modern revelation of “list mode” which abstracts your inventory into a list that can be filtered and ordered. This mode is much more friendly and easier to use, especially when you begin to have large numbers of items in your inventory, bank, home containers, etc.

    For a very long time now we have valiantly tried to keep both modes operational. However, this has several times caused us to do at least twice as much work for additional features we add to the interface. Additionally, we have a backlog of bugs in our database that only exist in bag mode, or bugs that manifest themselves differently in the two modes.

    So we did some data mining and discovered that less than 3% of our users actually use bag mode. With that data in hand, coupled with the workload associated with continuing to maintain two opposing interfaces, we have made the decision to remove bag mode starting with Release 51.

    We understand that some of you have a strong affinity for this mode. We also understand some of you have fond memories of it from its glory days in Ultima Online (bag art, using it to hide items from pickpockets, etc.). However, we believe that maintaining it is not a responsible use of our backer’s funds, and that removing it is the right thing to do.

    As always, thank you for your support and your understanding. Rest in peace bag mode.
     
    DarkStarr, Jan 31, 2018
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    Cock of the North, Elgarion, dynastichero and 70 others like this.
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