Inventory

Annotated inventory menu, April 2009.

A character's Inventory is the menu page that shows the Paper Doll with currently-equipped Items, and the inventory where spare items are stored. The inventory system has changed a great deal from how it functioned in Diablo II, and it will continue to evolve as the game development process continues.

One thing is clear... Diablo III will offer much more storage space on each character, as well as a larger, shared Stash.

Inventory Layout

The picture to the right shows how the inventory window is laid out in Diablo III. While the details of this display have evolved during the game's development, the basic form seems set.

The paper doll is on top, with shoulders and pants added to the item slots we saw in Diablo II. The Talisman is seen below the paper doll on the right, while an empty space on the lower left must be reserved for some future feature.

Below the paper doll is the inventory grid, which has repeatedly changed in form and function. One feature returning from Diablo II is the gold counter, with the amount of coin a character is carrying shown numerically, and no inventory space required to hold the money.

One thing the designers have stressed is their desire to fit in a lot of inventory storage, while keeping the items large enough for players to appreciate the graphics. The inventory tab system added in April 2009 was inspired by this goal, and the tab for large items allows them to fill boxes big enough for their details to remain visible. Small items look okay in smaller boxes.

This changed again for the GamesCom 2009 demo, and the system is now more similar to the old "tetris" grid, where some items take up two slots, and others take up one. More info below.

There are no charms in Diablo III, and as far as is known, no other items that force a trade-off between storage space and bonus stats.

Bag Slots

Inventory from August 2009.

The Bag slots in Diablo 3 have recently been changed in the GamesCom 2009 demo. The bag slots have been changed numerous times, so there is a chance that the slots will change yet again.

As seen in the GamesCom 2009 videos, the inventory bag slots have changed to the style of Diablo 2 but with a few differences. It has 40 slots with the number of slots presumably improvable, with big items taking up 2 slots and small items taking up 1 slot. It has 2 tabs, "Item Tab" for general items and "Quest Item Tab" for quest items.

Also, a new slot seems to appear in the bottom left corner of the paper doll. The item in that slot seems like a bag, therefore it can be assumed that's the current bag the character is holding, and depending on bag, he or she gets bigger inventory, much like World of WarCraft, but only the one bag.

Stash

The D3 Team has promised that we'll see a much larger town Stash in Diablo III. They've also said the stash will allow easy item transfers between characters on the same account.

Since no specifics or screenshots of the stash have yet been revealed, we can only take them at their word.

Development

Old interface.

During WWI 2008 and BlizzCon 2008, the inventory was similar to that of World of WarCraft, with one slot for each item, and a possibility to expand the inventory space by adding up to four bags to your character. Smaller items also stacked up to five in a stack in order to save space. It started with 12 slots, but could progressively be upgraded to 30 slots.

You can see a detailed shot by Vikkz of the previous inventory layout to the right. Please note that the area Vikkz labelled "left hand" is actually right hand slot on the screen and vice-versa.

The evolution of the Inventory was discussed during Blizzcast #8, in March 2009. [1]

Bashiok: Since people saw the game at BlizzCon, the interface and the UI has actually changed dramatically.. ...What are the changes that have come about since then?

Mike: Well one of the biggest things involved in Diablo are items, right? We’ve experimented with a few things and one of the big things that everyone liked from Diablo, as an entity, were the large objects right. While it was more efficient to go with a WoW style one size fits all icon, which is what most people have seen, we really wanted to see what we could do and so we went back and reevaluated the system and we’ve decided split it into large and small objects. That brings up the question of Tetris inventory all over again, and a lot of people are opposed to that, some people like it, some people don’t. So what we did we ended up tabbing the inventory, so now you have your large items, and then you have a tab for small items, and there’s a third tab for quest items. That way all the items can coexist nicely with each other without the frustration, which w as one of the complaints about the old system is the frustration in trying to fit everything into your pack.

Bashiok: And are we still going to see the bag system coming back, the expandable [inventory] with the bags, or is it a set inventory size for each tab?

Mike: Current design right now is to have bags. You’ll get bags and they will expand, you know kind of like in WoW, except you’re not going to open up separate windows. You’ll start off your inventory with say… you know, eight slots, right, and then you’ll get a new bag and that has ten, so two more slots will open up within that tab, but you’ll never have multiple tabs. Like you won’t have two or three “large” tabs.

Bashiok: Right, and is that working out pretty well so far? It’s been in testing for a while.

Mike: Yeah, most people seem to really like it. I mean the feedback has been pretty good, personally I love it, because it lets you do both, it lets you have the large icons but it eliminates the frustration that people voiced about having different sized items within your inventory.

Bashiok: And you can really see the artwork as it is now with the larger icons...

Mike: Oh yeah, very much so.

The system changed yet again in the GamesCom 2009 demo, where the bag has reverted slightly to the Diablo II style, having one slot items for small things and two for larger, but also a separate tab for quest items, to keep them separated from the regular inventory.

Fan Requests

When the 1-item-slot bags were revealed, there were some fans who would rather have an inventory with the multiple square items in the actual bag, and the newer version from April 30 is a little step in that direction. Some still want the original D1 and D2 bags though, but it's highly unlikely to change. Here is a quote from a discussion between a Battle.net member and Bashiok: [2]

Phat_smoke: All items shuld = 1 inv square space

thats my thot

Bashiok:

i totilly agre

Simple view
Alternate view.
Pouch view and more.

References