Hello,
I play World of Warcraft, and I’m an in-game hoarder.
I hoard everything from obsolete profession materials to quest items
that I have no use for. My bags should be declared a disaster area,
someone should really find some tape and quarantine off the area. This
may sound like an exaggeration, but I assure you it‘s not.
See the pictures below of my bags and bank to experience first hand the
chaos that reigns within.
As you can see the current state of my bags and bank is deplorable. It
makes me think of one of those classic TV moments where some
unfortunate soul is trying desperately to shove various unknowns into a
closet, only to have it spring forth moments later spewing items all
over the room. Thankfully the spewing of items is not
possible in game, but without a doubt something needs to change.
With spring upon us, and real life spring cleaning
happening everywhere, it seems an ideal time to take charge of my bank
and bags once more.
Before I start with the cleaning, you might be asking yourself how in
the world did I ever get myself into this mess? Well it really did
sneak up on me, my bags didn’t always look like the local
landfill, they were clean once….I think. I have a hard time
parting with things. I keep things if I think I maybe might need them
someday, and I keep them if they have some sort of
sentimental value. This is why I still have a Mature Dragon Sinew (I am
not now, or have ever been a Hunter) collecting virtual dust in my
bank, it has a memory attached to it.
When I even consider giving something up, or throwing it out I would
think “well keeping it a little longer won’t
hurt”. After awhile I began to realize that perhaps keeping
things “just a little longer” does actually hurt,
and I probably should have been cleaning out the old and useless from
the very beginning. I should have been nipping the problem in
the bud before it became this overwhelming. So without further adieu
let the cleaning commence.
For this grand cleaning I decided to turn off my normal bag mod
(ArkInventory), mostly because I wanted to make it easy for others
reading this to understand what was happening, and if they wanted to
also clean out their clutter they wouldn’t have to download a
fancy mod to do so. The only bag mod I didn’t remove was the
one that allows me to move my bags anywhere on the screen, if I
can’t move my bags I go into some sort of panicked state.
So working with the standard Blizzard bag interface I dug in. I decided
to do my cleaning in stages. I opened all my bags, and dedicated half
of one to hold the items that I would eventually sell to the
vendor, while the other half of the bag was reserved for items that
could not be sold. The rest of the bags would hold the items I
decided to keep. Anyone who decides to also clean out the clutter from
their character’s inventory can of course follow any method
that works for them, as long as it gets the job done. I just think
it’s important to be sure to separate the junk from the items
you wish to keep. This prevents mistakes from being made, and you will
not have to search through items you intend to keep for the things you
wish to throw out.
I quickly filled up the trash bag. It seems I had been carting
around several useless items such as some Frosted Claws, Thick Fur
Clothing Scraps, and several gear pieces that I had long since replaced
but neglected to throw out. Once the bag was full I headed to the
nearest vender
and purged the sellable items then deleted the
unsellable ones. You may need to repeat this process depending on how
much junk you actually have in your bags, but once was enough for me. I
did a quick glance over to be sure I had gotten everything, and once
satisfied that all the unusable were gone from my bag it was time to
organize the remaining items.
I decided to use my first bag (the Backpack) as storage for my raid
consumables. So I browsed through my bags and pulled out Heavy
Frostweave Bandages, Runic Mana Potions, Flasks, the various foods I
keep on myself, and also my Hearthstone (this totally counts as a raid
consumable, you never know when you need to ninja hearth out!). My
second bag was turned into the holding tank for my set of off spec
gear, various interchangeable trinkets, and my resistance gear. The
third bag would be for other items that didn’t fit into any
other category but were useable enough to remain.
After organizing I had quite a few items that were not junk,
however really shouldn’t be in my bags. Items such as stacks
of Frostweave, and enchanting materials I sent off to my bank alt to be
sold. I also had a ton of quest items that were just kind of hanging
out waiting for the moment when I felt up to attempting the Loremaster
achievement again. I decided these items would be much better off in my
bank not taking up valuable bag space until I decided to use them.
Before I could place them there though, I had to actually clean my
bank. /gulp
I used the same basic strategy with my bank as I did my bags, except it
took a lot longer and was mentally harder for me to do. As I rummaged
through the supposed junk tons of memories assaulted me with each piece
and more than once I considered stopping and calling it good enough.
But I pressed on, and after several trips to the vendor, and typing
delete more times than I could count (I even threw out my Dragon Sinew
and my Tier gear that I had been saving for nostalgia’s sake
since who knows when /cry) the junk was gone, and I was left with only
the items that were truly useful to my character.
Once again I began the task of organizing, putting my profession
materials in the main bank area, while things like extra gear (I just
couldn’t give up my set of Tier 2), and quest items went into
other separate bags. After a bit of shuffling items, and making things
look how I wanted I realized that I had finally reached the end of my
cleaning journey.
Looking back on it I feel relieved, and maybe a little sad. Letting go
of some
of my junk was hard, I know it’s silly to care about
virtual gear, especially outdated virtual gear, but for some reason I
really did. I think after awhile I’ll stop missing the junk
and be able to reveal in the fact that I have actual room in my bags
and bank. I had even managed to make a little money while doing it.
Will my bags stay this way into the furture? I really can’t
say; I would like them to, but only time will tell. For now
I’ll step back and in the voice of that creepy lady from
Poltergeist say “This toon is clean’.
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