What in the Elder's name is "weight"?

In game design, various strategies are employed to endure realism. With respect to ARPs, there exists a thin line between the character and the environment. Objects that are impassable, that reduce or increase a hero’s movement, even doors that require input to open make a player connect with their digital surroundings. Lighting and shadows, music too promote immersion.

With respect to items, a lot of ARPGs are loosening up the purse strings when it comes to inventory. Grim Dawn allows auto arranging. Diablo 3 allows for a certain level of automation when it comes to picking up the loot you stumble across. It looks like GGG feels these water down the game. More specifically the connect items have with the players. Even more specifically, the realism they bring to the table. You nap sack in real life is not an bottomless black hole. GGG wants to keep this kind of realism because they feel it accomplishes what most objects in the game accomplish: a sense of immersion and connection to transcend digital into physical.

There is no right or wrong. Most developers these days focus on other elements or have realized that very few players value the trade off (always having to port back to town to shed your inventory). Moreover, the incessant click after click of picking things up and rearrange your immediate stash which really breaks apart the action.

But the term weight is a relative synonym. GGG wants you to “feel” the weight of your items and inventory. They believe if they allowed for more automation, it would make items feel empty and digital.

Again there is no right or wrong, but rather it’s up to each game designer on where to draw the line.

My own opinion is that other elements of the game should take precedent. And that while Brevik has done a great deal for the genre and definitely knows his stuff, he’s old and with that age comes a crystallization of beliefs and a more rigid stance when it comes to change. I’d rather decisions like this be based on testing and science than what some guy “thinks”, no matter how crucial that person is to the scene.