The High Inquisitor: How Can Bags Carry All Our Crap?

Posted by pixiestixy on Friday, October 9th, 2009 - 42 Comments

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The High Inquisitor is a new regular column at Project Lore that seeks answers to the greatest mysteries of Azeroth. Each week, the inquisitor will attack a previously unanswered question and attempt to explain the unknown. But she won’t rest until all plausible explanations are explored. The best, most probable comment(s) will be highlighted with the next edition’s inquisition.

First off, a look back to last week’s question on why dwarves are portrayed as drunk Scots.

Azurienatei had this answer that may explain: “In both Irish and Scottish lore there is a type of fae, something between a leprechaun and what we think of as a dwarf, that wears red clothes, is heavily bearded, and often likes to trick humans in taverns and inns by drinking unattended ale. Given the demographics and of course the penchant for drinking these creatures were eventually molded in with dwarves.”

Most of you seemed to agree that WoW hasn’t strayed much from the stereotypical view of a dwarf, which has evolved over time. Thanks for the input!

fullbagNow onward to this week’s inquisition! Last week was somewhat of a philosophical view on a topic that could be at least somewhat explained with real life folklore. So this week, let’s take a look at something that, at least when thought of through a realistic magnifying glass, would be pretty much impossible; Just how do us WoW toons carry all that crap around in our bags while criss-crossing the world and fighting our enemies?

Here’s a look at what I have in this 22-slot Dragon Hide bag:

  1. 49 Drakkari Offerings
  2. 15 Vrykul Bones
  3. 12 pieces of Salted Yeti Cheese (yummy)
  4. 8 Core of Elements
  5. 8 Dark Iron Scraps
  6. Sayge’s Fortune #29
  7. A Horde LANCE (I refuse to believe that this would fit into a conventional bag!)
  8. Green Brewfest Stein
  9. 933 (!!) Frostbite Bullets
  10. 2 Dalaran Fireworks
  11. 9 Sewer Carp
  12. A lone piece of Frostweave Cloth
  13. Tabard of the Explorer
  14. Frost-Rimed Cloth Gloves (Need to sell!)
  15. 20 Heavy Frostweave Bandages
  16. 14 Slabs of Salted Venison
  17. Tabard of the Ebon Blade
  18. 6 Relics of Ulduar
  19. 891 Terrorshaft Arrows
  20. 4 Knothide Armor Kits
  21. Grom’s Tribute
  22. Brewfest Dress

Super-Scientifically Estimated weight: 452 pounds. And that’s just one bag! Now multiply that by 5, and also consider all the armor and weapons we carry on ourselves that’s NOT in bags. That’s easily a TON, literally, of stuff we’re carrying around. All without feeling any effects whatsoever.

packmuleWhen put into a game mechanics perspective, it’s certainly a matter of making it easier for a character to get around as they level or go about their business without having to stop at a bank or vendor every 10 minutes. But let’s think beyond mechanics and decide whether the question could be answered with lore/in-game explanations.

Consider the Bottomless Bag and Pack of Endless Pockets. Sure, they each have a limited number of slots, but not necessarily a specified amount of space. Could it be that, like a magician’s hat (or Time Lord technology for all you Dr. Who fans) the bags are bigger on the inside? And if that’s the case, then perhaps it’s true for all equippable bags. But there’s still the matter of the sheer weight of all our gear. Even if it fits in a bag, it’s still incredibly heavy! Or is it? If the size of an item is compressed, then you could conjecture that the weight could be, too. Perhaps this also helps explain why a giant lance fits in the same slot as a tiny vial of poison.

Or perhaps the answer lies not in the bags, but in the super strength of adventurers. Our toons are all so strong and fearsome that we manage to carry everything on us and it doesn’t effect our fighting whatsoever.

So here’s where you all come in! Do you accept either of my possible answers? Have a better proposition? Let me know, and I’ll feature the best comment(s) next week.

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Comments

    By Healsdocrit on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    I think Marry Poppins helped designed the bags.

    By Healsdocrit on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    Mary*

    By ViperhawkZ on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    It’s probably that the inside of the bags in part of another dimension, so we aren’t physically carrying the items but we can reach in and grab them.

    A lot of bags work that way in other RPGs too.

    By Conchuir on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    one name: Santa Claus. our bags are made of enchanted cloth and magic. just like Santa, that’s all the explanation necessary.

    By Kyle on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    its….a game….who cares about whyy our toons can carry all of this crap, we just do! (although, i have thought about it before, and just lost interest after a few minutes ^^)

    By 4Khazmodan on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    Well, when we log off of our characters, they immediately drop everything a let out a HUGE sigh of relief and rest before we log on again and they have to put on their bags

    By 5thlive on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    I would go for Dimension enchanted bag so you don’t carry your stuff but just the portal to it

    By Pauldy on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    Not to mention the fact you can now pull a multi ton pachyderm complete with two riders each having bags of purchasable merchandise and a seemingly unlimited supply of funds from which to purchase others merchandise out of your ass in less than 1.5 seconds.

    By Kazzoo on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    u know some ppl make this a joke like during a pre-BC joke “not unless u have some kodo in your pockets” but what i find ridiculous is 2 fit ….. say a Onyxia head in your backpack (i think there was something like that started a quest) without even showing itself.

    By Pegraath on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    “Intact Basilisk Spine”s stack in 10s iirc. And the basilisks were about the size of a cow.

    Assuming 1×24 slot bag and 3×22s

    (24×10)+(22×3x10)+(16×10)=1060 Intact Basilisk Spine.

    That’s a lot! Must be the heaviest sets of items :-)

    By Sleepyman on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    I think it’s like a D&D bag of holding like they go into another realm and they feel weightless Id guess all bags in game would have this property though I still dont know how you carry like 5 backpacks at once without your character looking like a school kid with way too many books

    By cocopuff on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    dude i am sorry but your expecting to much of this game its good for its fun its good to past accouple of hours but its not good for logic it does puzzle the mind but the fact is its just something that doesnt make any sance and is their for making our life easier think of this way you go to buy some weed but weed is illigal the state but the vendor sells it to you anyway you dont ask any questions you injoy the weed this is the same thing their are lots of things that dont make any sance as how (ex: a guy is swinging at you with 5 foot long sword and hitting you yat you still have all your body parts a 30 foot high mob stopming its big feet around how is your not a pankake from teh first time it hit you the fire mage abillity called ignite as in light on fire a normal person would die if was lit on fire but not our toons no matter how you hit something or something hits you, your or the something allways dies the same way the logicly in the words of newton every action has a diffrent reaction so how is it we die the same way every time how is it we are able to walk though what is supostu to be a solid being how is it we could run for hours at a time and not get tired thats some strong cardio our toons must have and did you notice the bags arent shown you would thing we woudl able to see 5 bags i mean how we even carry that many bags hands free for wapons we should wailling on them with 500 pound bags) and tahts jsut the tip of the iceberg

    By Taskun on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    I say our bags each get a limited space in another rhelm, explaining why some bags get more space then others. This other rhelm I shall call, the “item” rhelm. I propose we have a new 5man in this “item” rhelm.

    By Alayea on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 9:28 pm

    @cocopuff

    From what I could translate, you ought to lighten up a bit yourself. :)

    By Phanttas on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 1:34 am

    My answer: The crafters of Azeroth are very skilled.

    @cocopuff Newton’s 3rd law is in fact that ‘Every action has an EQUAL and OPPOSITE reaction’ those two are fairly important to a physics student =P

    By Deathguard on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 6:37 am

    It’s easy to answer this interesting riddle (Or is it ? ).
    The bags are like the “wizards hat” as it we’re. You can store even a full sized kodo in it without being submited to the weight or size. It’s just magic , let’s not forget that World of Warcraft is all about ( 98 %) magic so it’s pretty obvious that the bags are “magical bags.

    By aadjed on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    I havent found the display bags check in the interface yet. my char isnt visibly carrying any bags, so carrying all those items shouldnt be a prob either. /shrugs

    By Trial on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    duuh they are magic like doraemon’s bag!

    By Azurienatei on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    Yeah in Dungeons and Dragons (one of the influences behind WoW mind you) they have things like pocket dimensions and special bags that could carry in essence an army’s worth of stuff. Its no big stretch that special bags such as Frostweave, Mageweave, and Runecloth (to name a few) would be magically imbued when being created to provide enough room and space for a near infinite amount of items. Otherwise Blizzard would be providing us with our own freaking pack mules or Sherpa to carry our things (especially in the frozen North)

    By Azurienatei on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    And btw, ZOMG I got mentioned!!! *squees!*

    By Teal on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

    I do believe that we all remember the Project Lore Episode of The Oculus 3.1 where we learn the answer and where all the gear really goes…

    “What happens is that they give you a little doll, and then you like study it and then go ‘i could pull that out of my…’”

    By cocopuff on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    lol so why do we even need any bags

    By Drenton on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    I like the dimensional bag idea stated previously. It might just be that when the objects enter the said, all properties of weight go away, I’ve thought of this idea a lot, how can we carry 2 mounts and a flying mount plus all our profession tools and armor in bags we don’t even see. But I guess it is just a game, but still fun to wonder!

    By Drenton on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    I meant “when the objects enter the bag”*

    By Highwayman on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 9:33 am

    Actually what happened with the bags is this: a bunch of Titans and Old Ones (collectivelly called Grinches) got together and said, “Look, a bunch of folks are gonna run around killing junk for spits and giggles. If they think things like basilisk spines and dragon heads are gonna be a big mystery when they fit in their itty bitty bags, what are they gonna think when they finally decide to come kill US? We’ll make things even worse by dropping junk that concievely couldn’t fit into the largest bag in the universe and it’ll cause people to puzzle and puzz till their puzzlers are sore. Sadly because they spend a lot of time playing this game, they’ll never think of something they haven’t before!”

    By Zreena on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    “Not to mention the fact you can now pull a multi ton pachyderm complete with two riders each having bags of purchasable merchandise and a seemingly unlimited supply of funds from which to purchase others merchandise out of your ass in less than 1.5 seconds.”

    This made me laugh.

    By Zreena on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    To the article:

    IMO, it’s the same way that our characters can support giant plate shoulder pads, and never get a backache debuff. The suppliers for us heroes enchant everything to make it less heavy, and in the case of bags, crazy deep. You yourself could probably fit in one. Of course, each supplier makes their bags a different level of deepness, so the higher the quality, the more you can fit.

    What I want to know is, how do you keep all your mounts and pets fed? What about cleaning up after a mammoth!?

    By Dulica on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    i like to think my bags are bigger on the inside, just like the TARDIS. I also wonder how in the world things that don’t wear clothes have things like money or weapons for me to loot. sure, I could get some light leather or worg leg, but money? really?

    By Egma on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 12:52 am

    Hey its still better then it used to be, used to be we could carry 96 full size elephants(or kodo depending on side), and all 96 could be waring their own plate armor if they where epic elephants… Now a days we just learn how to shit out a functioning elephant (maybe from those 40 pies we eat during questing yet never using a restroom)… Calculate the weight of 96 elephants all waring armor’s weight.

    By darikking on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 2:09 am

    “By way of Booty Bay” said it well:
    “You want realism? I’m a walking corpse and you’re a talking cow, just enjoy the game!”

    By Talcoya on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 7:30 am

    I’ve always wondered about that too. But then i realize that whats weirder is that when you loot something they dont always have things that they should. Like a boar with out a liver or other organs, does that make much sense? No. Or maybe Blizzard would like to explain how a possibly 3 to 4 foot sword just got inside the belly of a buzzard I just killed. Or possibly even raid bosses. I just saw the boss weilding a 2h mace but somehow he doesn’t have it at the end of the fight anymore but instead he has a crappy little healing dagger. I’m not exactly sure how we explain it but everything thing just goes alittle smoother if we continue with the Don’t Ask Just Accept It policy.

    By Zreena on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    Oh c’mon, it’s fun trying to answer silly questions that have no real answer at all!

    By Diego Camargo on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 1:30 am

    hahahahaha

    Me and my friends ask ouserselfs this question a lot of times xD

    By Davrin on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Building on Taskun’s concept of an Item Realm, it is obvious that all bags whether owned by Vendors, Players, or ‘Mobs’ share a similar dimensional location. Its like one giant Guild Bank that we just don’t have access to except through the bag slots. Repair costs and AH cuts go in to pay for vendors giving us money back for trash items.

    @Talcoya - You’ve fallen prey to a common misconception of what a ‘Mob’ actually is. A ‘Mob’ is nothing more than a cleveryly disguised bag. After you beat on it like a pinata long enough it bursts at the seams and spills out randomly grabbed items from the item realm. Don’t feel bad we all fell for this Blizzard trick at one time.

    By AB on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    Hmm… I’ll go with another geek-inspired answer - this time from the Star Trek universe…

    Gene Roddenberry was once asked “How does artificial gravity work on board the Enterprise?”

    He answered: “It works very well, thank you”.

    By Ellifain on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Its all very easy to explain, and has been covered by other fantasy genre’s before.
    In good old AD&D you could get magically created bags - Small in physical size, but the inside of the bag occupied a different dimension/plane of existance, so size and weight of items wasnt an issue.
    This makes sense with WoW bags too.
    To make high level bags, do you not have to use MAGICAL reagents to craft them? Thus making the bag magical too?

    By Selmara on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    I love WoW, but seriously… Get over the bag space thing… It’s a game, not real for gods sake!

    By Wolfwind on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 10:00 pm

    So with the Doctor Who idea your basically saying all of our toons are Time Lords and by extension we are in fact Time Lords ourselves?

    By Antikris on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 1:51 am

    Some items do not even fit through the opening of your average bag, so the only logical conclusion can be that the items shrink when they go into the bag.

    I have seen Rick Moranis shrink stuff, so it must be possible.

    By tufy on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    Well, the aswer is incredibly simple. Each bag has a dedicated amount of pocket universes that are referred to as slots. Each pocket universe can only hold one type of goods (such as a stack of bullets or an ogre head) and is accessed though a tiny portal (slot). Since you do not carry a pocket universe, but a mere portal, such a bag is incredibly light and flexible.

    In other words: a wizard did it!

    By WHTJunior on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    @Wolfwind:
    What? Did your characters not help Thrall escape from Durnholde, or witness the Culling of Strathholme, or any other event via the Caverns of Time? ;)

    By chris hollander on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 11:20 am

    in related news, we’re all homeless, our weapons levitate on our sides, and we never sleep (even though the inn’s in our cities have beds in them).

    I think we really have to chalk this one up to suspension of disbelief…

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