This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Um, why are all of these "misguided"? This sounds more like "I don't like gameplay X" rather than any real commentary about what's wrong with it.
Korval: I removed the following interjection:
- In case anyone is under the misguided belief that imposing an inventory limit makes things easier for a game's programmers, consider that most languages have resizeable containers in their standard library (C++'s std::vector or Java's util.Vector), and the concept of linked lists (a programming technique whereby a list is composed of discrete items, each of which contains the memory address of the next item in the list, allowing for a list to become as large as available memory allows) has been around essentially as long as programs with random access memory. One possible reason for limiting inventories in early games was to simplify the creation of an on-screen interface for that inventory, but even then, plenty of NES games exist with (essentially) unlimited inventory space. Imposing an inventory limit in a modern game is strictly a game design choice.
I removed it because it contains certain factual inaccuracies. Yes, it is true that resizable containers exist, and even if you don't have access to them, any programmer worth his salt can write one in 30 minutes (at a maximum). However, this ignores the question of whether one thinks a game should be doing dynamic memory allocation at all. This is not a minor design point, particularly for platforms with inherent memory limitations (ie: consoles). Many game engines work off of buffers allocated at start-up time. Frequently, such games have a fixed, though high, limit to the number of entities that are available, as well as fixed buffers for other internal game data. While it is certainly not unreasonable for a game to have some heap-allocation, there are many games that do their absolute best to never do such things. And certainly, you're not going to run on a very memory limited platform like the DS (4MB of RAM) without some kind of allocation controls.
In short, it's true, but it isn't the whole picture. Though I do admit that, unless you're running on a very memory limited platform, your programmers would be jerks/stupid to force you to set limits on inventory that are sufficiently small as to actually affect gameplay.
ccoa: It might be worth noting that this is a convention that originated with early PCs, the NES and similar, extremely limited platforms that literally didn't have the memory for limitless, or even very large, inventories. It may be one of those things developers do just because that's what they've always done without questioning whether or not it's actually a good mechanic. Like random encounters in [=RPGs=].
Muninn: Took out the part at the end about this trope being Fake Difficulty, since it doesn't meet any of the criteria to be considered as such.
The article as a whole could probably use some minor re-writing, since right now it seems to be condemning the concept of limiting inventory space.
