I know loot and inventory management is an important part of most CRPGs, but I've noticed that the point at which I'm starting to lose passion for playing a certain CRPG is often suspiciously close to the point when my inventory reaches its limit and repeatedly forces me to compare, drop or sell all the stuff I've picked up.

I admit I'm an OCD pack rat who has a hard time trusting the games that "you don't need the money / the best and most varied equipment to provide for all kinds of contingencies" and "it's cool to use your resources as you go instead of saving them until you really need them" etc. (once burnt, twice shy - thank you old-school gaming! :P). And that makes inventory management seem like a stressful chore to me, and carrying limits a huge annoyance, since they disrupt the flow by dictating me at which point I have to stop playing the fun part of the game and dedicate time to my crammed inventory. I do enjoy some inventory management at times, too, when I'm in the mood for it, but sadly the carrying limits don't make allowances for my moods ...

Not really sure where I'm aiming at with this thread, I guess I'm just bored and I wonder whether others feel the same or not.

...And here I was thinking you were selling grey market copies of Judas. O_____o

Hah, you surely never played TES: Oblivion. The weight limit is so dumb. You often can`t really loot, because the stuff weighs too much, so you have to leave most loot where you find it. You reach the weight limit very fast in that game and when you reach it you can`t move anymore. Sometimes you even have troubles to put things on the floor, cause the game doesn`t allow it. So you`ll sometimes end up with reloading because you can not move or throw away the stuff, which makes it impossible to go on in the game.

Would you like to buy an O? Your second one seems a bit used up. ;) I've played it but I never finished it. ;)

Something that adds to the annoyance is when you can't examine the items and check whether they're worth picking up before you've picked them up.

"There's an insidious thought that frequently goes through the minds of gamers[...] that goes, "But I might need it later," the niggling little doubt that prevents you from using all your most powerful insurance policies in case there's some kind of no-claims bonus at the end of it all. So we have scenarios where you're sitting on a nuclear stockpile to shame North Korea and are throwing peas at a giant robot crab on the off-chance that there might be a bigger giant robot crab just around the corner."
—Yahtzee Croshaw, Mercenaries 2 review

Ah, the good old days when I was playing Daggerfall, repeatedly looting the same dungeon, then haggling over every single bit of it to raise the skill score. Those were the days. By the time I started Morrowind I no longer had the patience for that (or the Elder Scrolls; never did get back to either Morrowind or Oblivion). So I'm with you. Anyway, I stick to adventure games mostly, where there's no problem carrying a ladder in your pants.

I can totally understand where you are coming from. One of the reasons I love Gothic is that the inventory is unlimited :D
And first thing in TES games to do was install a mod that everything weights zero making the inventory limitless :P

But for me is is not really about the chore of managing it or something. It is more of a "I need to collect everything" mentality. I hate it if I have to leave stuff behind.

Unless you're playing Legend of Kyrandia 1, which has the baffling combination of extremely limited inventory space, lots of junk items and randomized puzzles where you don't know in advance which items you'll be needing.

And some older adventure games only allowed you to carry one item at a time (e.g. Snoopy & Peanuts). Backtracking galore! :P

I find the whole loot thing daft anyways. I look at those games where you wander around the wilderness with 20 full plate mails, remember of course that only really strong men could carry 1 suit, not to mention the half a dozen pikes, stack of swords etc. Its just daft.

In Daggerfall, even money had weight. You couldn't simply carry an infinite amount of it, and there would always be the point at which you'd have to put at least some of it into a bank account, with the option of getting a letter of credit in exchange.

The obscure FPS/RPG hybrid Amulets and Armor actually had an interesting way of handling its inventory, as it also had an encumbrance mechanic determined by your characters strength, but its effect was gradual, not absolute. This simply meant that your movements would become slower the more you were carrying "over your limit".
Oh, yes. Like the Dizzy games, but at least some of those let you upgrade your inventory to a whole two slots.

This is pretty much a perfect description of my experience with Fallout 3. I reached the final battle with a ridiculous ammount of mini nukes and whatever else end-of-the-line best weapons I found throught the game, all saved up for the big showdown... and as it turned out none of that was needed, in fact my bare hands would probably be enough. Unlike a lot of people I don't hate F3, but that ending really pissed me off.

Come to think of it, Bethesda seems to really like big final battles in which the player does not really do anything. Oblivion was pretty much the same.

Hah, that reminds me of storing money on the ground in Diablo because otherwise it would take up all my inventory. Crappy times. I'm glad that most games don't do that anymore or they can be modded to remove the limits. In The Witcher 3 I've installed the weight reduction mod for example and never looked back. When the storage came around it was just a good to have, but not necessary anymore :D.