I possible "Iron Man" mod workable? good idea?

[Crystalion]

It occurred to me that a standard data file mod can restrict or eliminate any items being offered in shops. If one were to do this, it would be nice to (code mod) eliminate the shop inventory reset calls, so that anything one sold to shops would persist (presumably for the entire game). I suspect as little as a one byte patch might accomplish that (a return at the beginning of a presumed common shop inventory clear/generate routine).

Iron Man isn't nearly as restrictive, imo, in D2 as it was in D1. Actually, due to on-ground expiration of items, such a mod could be argued to be a temp-bigger-stash-via-gold advantage to the player, in some sense.

That points out an amusing idea. Imagine your "stash" is a lockbox rented from "the bank". They are of "unlimited" size, potentially. Play/pay balance is achieved because they lose "durability" (rental credit concept) every time you open them based on how full they are. When they go to zero durability you can not open them. Durability can be "repaired" by paying rent.

This rent concept can be extended to accounts and characters, of course. The "rent" I currently pay to Blizzard is the tedium of keeping a boatload of characters alive by game refresh once they show as "59 days left to expiration"). I personally would prefer actual rent and the free market ability to liquidate (some of) my holdings (without huge tedium such as the current situation offers).

I've been playing SpellForce lately, which I like very much. It's a cross between a Baldur's Gate style CRPG and a Warcraft style game (and contrary to the lack of good advice in the manual and elsewhere, you personally have a lot of latitude, given their scenario design, where to make the division).

As in most games of this ilk, when a packrat like me plays, your inventory of loot gets very large (my early policy was to "keep at least one of everything"). In version 1.10 (yes, the game has only been out a couple of months, and they're up to version 10, public release) they added a "sort" button to your inventory (which is already segregated by category). This clumps things by item class and sorts within that by value. Very simple and very nice. It trivially turns my packrat tendencies into one of the nicer "shops" in the game (when I'm outfitting a new party member).