The idea is that we can buy boxes from the vendors in varying sizes (and perhaps, theme/wrappings). They fit in a single inventory slot (within a bag, not a primary slot) and can hold a set amount of items. A small gift box may only hold one stack of something, a medium one might hold 8, and a large one may hold 16 stacks.
The box would have the following verbs: Open & Peek Inside
* Open would only work if the box had stuff in it and the player had enough inventory slots to hold the contents of the box.
* Peek Inside would open a popup akin to the trade popup where you can add and delete stacks.
Possibilities:
Toy vendors could sell fun looking gift boxes in various sizes and themes
Hardware & Tool vendors could sell big brown moving boxes (which would drastically ease the moving process... letting us, essentially, put 16 boxes filled with 16 inventory slots in a bag)
Grocery & Garden vendors could sell "tupperware"-esque boxes, gift boxes that are more food oriented, and/or storage boxes that look like apple boxes & milk crates
Benefits:
It would let us drastically increase our carrying capacity but would not allow those items to be fully functional or require an overhaul to the inventory system. It would also allow us to mail more than one item without doing another major overhaul of the mail system. And it could ease some of the moving struggles (but at a bit of a cost --- using friends would still be more fun & cheaper). Boxes would also be of immense help to my little ingame flower & gift delivery business and, others, with a similar idea (handing over a box is quicker & easier than handing over a half a dozen items).
Issues:
It lets us drastically increase our carrying capacity which may have some market/game play implications I'm not thinking of. To offset this, perhaps a player gains something akin to the "pooped" or "full of pie" buff if they carry around too much stuff for too long -- they could slow down and lose energy & mood at a quicker than normal rate.