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[Angry Fork]

I don't know much about Diablo/Blizzard so I'm not sure what the controversy is here but I'd like to know. Apparently you can buy/sell items for real money and in order to do this you have to pay Blizzard a fee? So people are mad that Blizzard is doing something like that? What does this mean in terms of gameplay and the community?

 

[Goldmund]

Jay Wilson Interview


And it's been that way since 2008...

Oh, wow. That completely escaped my notice. That's a much bigger bummer for me personally than the auction house and DRM combined.

 

[Interfectum]

I don't know much about Diablo/Blizzard so I'm not sure what the controversy is here but I'd like to know. Apparently you can buy/sell items for real money and in order to do this you have to pay Blizzard a fee? So people are mad that Blizzard is doing something like that? What does this mean in terms of gameplay and the community?

My perspective is it just makes me uneasy. It legitimizes a practice that has plagued online gaming since day 1. Perhaps it's the only solution but I still don't like the idea of turning every gamer into a potential gold/item farmer. We'll have to see what damage it does to the overall community... if any.

 

[Corky]

Oh, wow. That completely escaped my notice. That's a much bigger bummer for me personally than the auction house and DRM combined.

I don't know, as much as I personally find regression from predecessor to successor to be detestable, I think the diablo formula tends to fit better with smaller groups.

Then again, who the fuck knows how much of said formula is even still in the game.

My perspective is it just makes me uneasy. It legitimizes a practice that has plagued online gaming since day 1. Perhaps it's the only solution but I still don't like the idea of turning every gamer into a potential gold/item farmer. We'll have to see what damage it does to the overall community... if any.

This is how I see it, and feel free to argue. What blizzard has basically done is turned the game into a micro transaction style system. Hear me out.

The dream for Blizzard would obviously be to be able to sell every single item in the game for 100% of the profit. Now, we know that that won't be the case for various reasons. However what they've managed to do now, like many point out, is that they open the door to previously illegitimate businesses to flourish in their game.

Imagine x years into the games life : The amount of grinding from people/farmers/"chinese workers" has resultet in the fact that every.... single....item... is there for you to buy. This isn't WoW, the drops from Diablo aren't like those of the 40 man raid bosses that are BoP. The most legendary helmet? It's there. That weapon that has a 0.000001% drop rate? It's there.

So in other words, every item / weapon that is tradeable will be on the RMAH for you to buy, and Blizzard will rake in the money. And if that doesn't scream of micro transaction/F2P system then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Freki]

My perspective is it just makes me uneasy. It legitimizes a practice that has plagued online gaming since day 1. Perhaps it's the only solution but I still don't like the idea of turning every gamer into a potential gold/item farmer. We'll have to see what damage it does to the overall community... if any.

Well the only direct impact it will have is that gold will be less valuable for use in the ah then without a RMAH

The Loss in Buying power of gold is directly proportional to the percentage of value bought over the RMAH:

[(Total Value of Items Sold over AH)-(Value of Items Sold over normal AH)]/(Total Value of Items Sold over AH)=Percentage of RMT

(Gold Value with RMAH)=[1-(Percentage of RMT)]*(Gold Value without RMAH)

For You this means:

A SoJ would cost 2000g normaly without RMAH

But now 30% of the value offered in the AH is purchased wit real money
-> you have to pay ~2857 gold instead

Imagine x years into the games life : The amount of grinding from people/farmers/"chinese workers" has resultet in the fact that every.... single....item... is there for you to buy. This isn't WoW, the drops from Diablo aren't like those of the 40 man raid bosses that are BoP. The most legendary helmet? It's there. That weapon that has a 0.000001% drop rate? It's there.

So in other words, every item / weapon that is tradeable will be on the RMAH for you to buy, and Blizzard will rake in the money. And if that doesn't scream of micro transaction/F2P system then I don't know what to tell you.

The Thing is - it would be there with a normal AH also - without RMAH ppl would still play the game an find everything.
The only point in your argument that I see is that there will be more "farmers" etc. - but even if the playtime of "farmers" would be 50% of total time spent in D3 it would "only" mean that every items availability doubled - not that of a big deal in my book, especially considering 50% is a way to pessimistic number.


Edit:

Oh and IF (Percentage of RMT) and (Percentage of time spent only to make money) evened out there would be absolutely no impact regarding the economy at all

 

[erragal]

My perspective is it just makes me uneasy. It legitimizes a practice that has plagued online gaming since day 1. Perhaps it's the only solution but I still don't like the idea of turning every gamer into a potential gold/item farmer. We'll have to see what damage it does to the overall community... if any.

Why do you feel 'farming' is bad? How is it any different than why anyone else plays the game? What offends you about legitimate item farming and selling?

Is it the desire to keep your games separate from the real world? Does it offend or upset you that people with more money can have better items faster (Consider that this is not a competitive game at all, other people's power level has no impact on yours).

I'm not being facetious by the way; I genuinely want to understand the mentality behind negative viewpoints on item farming/selling (Legitimately; duping/botting is clearly bad for any game).

 

[Goldmund]

I don't know, as much as I personally find regression from predecessor to successor to be detestable, I think the diablo formula tends to fit better with smaller groups.

Then again, who the fuck knows how much of said formula is even still in the game.

[...]

Maybe it's more of a romantic idea than something I purposefully tried to realize every time I played. There have been groups of eight that cleared the sanctuary naked through pure team work and all of the classes playing off each other.

 

[KKRT00]

The Thing is - it would be there with a normal AH also - without RMAH ppl would still play the game an find everything.
The only point in your argument that I see is that there will be more "farmers" etc. - but even if the playtime of "farmers" would be 50% of total time spent in D3 it would "only" mean that every items availability doubled - not that of a big deal in my book, especially considering 50% is a way to pessimistic number.

Pessimistic? Only if You think that bots are as efficient as player, but they're not, they are much more efficient and play 8-10 times more than normal player.
You have to add that bots will programmed differently and will be much faster in terms of picking up and selling items, remember that You dont have to go to town to sell items anymore.
They will not only generated more high end loot but also much more gold than even 20 players, to factor You also have to count, that all good items that they will find, will automatically be put into AH.

Bots are huge problem for economy, just watch CCP panel from EVE Online about courier mission and mining bots.

I'm not being facetious by the way; I genuinely want to understand the mentality behind negative viewpoints on item farming/selling (Legitimately; duping/botting is clearly bad for any game).

Because its affecting gold based economy and it can totally inflate gold value to the level that trading in gold based AH will be useless.

Blizzard need to announce all items/gold sinks mechanisms, its crucial.

 

[Interfectum]

Why do you feel 'farming' is bad? How is it any different than why anyone else plays the game? What offends you about legitimate item farming and selling?

Is it the desire to keep your games separate from the real world? Does it offend or upset you that people with more money can have better items faster (Consider that this is not a competitive game at all, other people's power level has no impact on yours).

I'm not being facetious by the way; I genuinely want to understand the mentality behind negative viewpoints on item farming/selling (Legitimately; duping/botting is clearly bad for any game).

I'm trying not to make definitive statements one way or another yet as I really don't know how prevalent the RMAH will be throughout the game. My bottom line is, I'm uneasy about it. I don't know if I like this direction for any video game, nor do I know if I like the idea of designing a game around people buying and selling in-game items for real money to each other. To me it would seem too tempting for a company like Blizzard to tip the scales and encourage that practice even more, perhaps even compromising gameplay in shady ways, if it were to get popular. Again though, I have no idea what will happen... I'm not sure even Blizzard does. Like I said, the only word I can come up with for my opinion on this is uneasy.

I'm still getting Diablo 3 CE day one so it obviously hasn't effected my purchase.

 

[erragal]

Because its affecting gold based economy and it can totally inflate gold value to the level that trading in gold based AH will be useless.

Blizzard need to announce all items/gold sinks mechanisms, its crucial.

You mean deflate? Gold is something that can be bought and sold on the RMAH too; this actually creates a longterm equilibrium between the two auction houses that prevents either of them from having drastic differences in price. If there's a huge disparity then someone will just buy gold with their real money, buy the much cheaper item for gold, then resell it on the RMAH for a profit.

Obviously if gold has absolutely no in game value then no one will even use that auction house; but then real money becomes the defacto trading currency at that point. Considering that you get free weekly listings you could easily build up a nice credit level without spending any of your own money into the system.

 

[Freki]

Pessimistic? Only if You think that bots are as efficient as player, but they're not, they are much more efficient and play 8-10 times more than normal player.
You have to add that bots will programmed differently and will be much faster in terms of picking up and selling items, remember that You dont have to go to town to sell items anymore.
They will not only generated more high end loot but also much more gold than even 20 players, to factor You also have to count, that all good items that they will find, will automatically be put into AH.

Bots are huge problem for economy, just watch CCP panel from EVE Online about courier mission and mining bots.

Well - I don't deny the problem of botting - I didn't think of it in my argument.
But the real questions anyways is the difference between botting and farming in a "normal AH only D3" and a "RMAH D3" - and I have my doubts i will be beyond 50% of total playtime - but thats of course up to debate (banwaves, technical difficulties, etc...)

 

[V_Arnold]

You mean deflate? Gold is something that can be bought and sold on the RMAH too; this actually creates a longterm equilibrium between the two auction houses that prevents either of them from having drastic differences in price. If there's a huge disparity then someone will just buy gold with their real money, buy the much cheaper item for gold, then resell it on the RMAH for a profit.

Obviously if gold has absolutely no in game value then no one will even use that auction house; but then real money becomes the defacto trading currency at that point. Considering that you get free weekly listings you could easily build up a nice credit level without spending any of your own money into the system.

Exactly.

 

[erragal]

I'm trying not to make definitive statements one way or another yet as I really don't know how prevalent the RMAH will be throughout the game. My bottom line is, I'm uneasy about it. I don't know if I like this direction for any video game, nor do I know if I like the idea of designing a game around people buying and selling in-game items for real money to each other. To me it would seem too tempting for a company like Blizzard to tip the scales and encourage that practice even more, perhaps even compromising gameplay in shady ways, if it were to get popular. Again though, I have no idea what will happen... I'm not sure even Blizzard does. Like I said, the only word I can come up with for my opinion on this is uneasy.

I'm still getting Diablo 3 CE, day one so it obviously hasn't effected my purchase.

Well before you said it 'legitimizes a practice that's plagued online gaming since day 1'. That statement implies that farming items (IE: playing the game within the rules for the sole purpose of making a profit/selling those items) is a negative concept. That's the part I was asking you about: why do you have a negative viewpoint on that?

I certainly understand concerns about Blizzard 'gaming' the system; the thing that assauges my concerns here is that even one verifiable instance of that happening is a complete disaster for them as a company. Personally I think they should have a third party auditor of their auction system just for that reason; would really help to create a sense of trust being that this is pretty groundbreaking for an online game.

 

[KKRT00]

You mean deflate? Gold is something that can be bought and sold on the RMAH too; this actually creates a longterm equilibrium between the two auction houses that prevents either of them from having drastic differences in price. If there's a huge disparity then someone will just buy gold with their real money, buy the much cheaper item for gold, then resell it on the RMAH for a profit.

No, i meant inflate. Gold prices will increase and currency based prices will be at the same level all the time.
At the beginning yes, system will be working to prevent price changes, but later it wont. Just think about it, without great items/gold sinks, spawned gold and items will be increasing to infinity to the point You described beneath.

Obviously if gold has absolutely no in game value then no one will even use that auction house; but then real money becomes the defacto trading currency at that point. Considering that you get free weekly listings you could easily build up a nice credit level without spending any of your own money into the system.

And thats the biggest issue we have with currency based AH, it will kill gold based AH if Blizzard do not introduce great systems to decrease amount of items/gold in a pool.

And bots will accelerate this process greatly.

 

[Interfectum]

Well before you said it 'legitimizes a practice that's plagued online gaming since day 1'. That statement implies that farming items (IE: playing the game within the rules for the sole purpose of making a profit/selling those items) is a negative concept. That's the part I was asking you about: why do you have a negative viewpoint on that?

I certainly understand concerns about Blizzard 'gaming' the system; the thing that assauges my concerns here is that even one verifiable instance of that happening is a complete disaster for them as a company. Personally I think they should have a third party auditor of their auction system just for that reason; would really help to create a sense of trust being that this is pretty groundbreaking for an online game.

I don't like the idea of developers directly putting gamers to work so they can sell shit to each other and make a cut off of it... it just seems way, way too ripe for abuse.

I have nothing against goldfarming morally and I don't care how people spend their money. I just fear that the more importance something like that is given, the more it can directly effect how a game is designed.

 

[Tacitus_]

"Something I did think that I should mention was the in-depth character details page, which included: Damage Increase, Attack per second, Casting speed, Crit hit chance, Crit hit damage, Block amount, block chance, dodge chance, damage reduction, max life, life per second, life steal, life per kill, life per hit, max resource, move speed, gold find, and magic find..."

Oh yes.

 

[Yoshichan]

Move speed?! But I thought they said they wouldn't have that? Or was that FCR?

 

[Measley]

I think this is a good idea in theory. It'll be nice to make a little money while playing D3.

 

[Tacitus_]

Move speed?! But I thought they said they wouldn't have that? Or was that FCR?

Well those were in the beta build that was demoed in the press event. The interviews are basically soothing all my fears. D3 will make the doubters eat crow.

 

[erragal]

Move speed?! But I thought they said they wouldn't have that? Or was that FCR?

I've never seen anything about move or cast speed. At some points in time they did say they were getting rid of both life leech and magic find. They may just show up in very limited/controlled form or have some sort of cap. There are design reasons to avoid both of those stats; they play really powerfully but can quickly destroy fun/balance.

 

[Yoshichan]

Oh, halleluja. This game will become the best thing ever created by mankind.

 

[forrest]

I've never seen anything about move or cast speed. At some points in time they did say they were getting rid of both life leech and magic find. They may just show up in very limited/controlled form or have some sort of cap. There are design reasons to avoid both of those stats; they play really powerfully but can quickly destroy fun/balance.

I've seen a few instances of move speed modifier's for different classes. One in particular is the demon hunter. Having 100% hate resource increases movement speed. I'll have to dig up where I read that, but for now here is a link to some character info from battle.net forums. The demon hunter ability I mentioned isn't listed there yet, but there are movement speed modifiers for other classes listed.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27805270392&sid=3000

*Edit* Here you go - a list of passive/active skills per class. The List

This list comes from a French site http://www.judgehype.com/index.php and supposedly the Diablo Wiki will be updated soon with the new passive/active skill list.

 

[Door2Dawn]

Do we know what kind of stats that will be in the game? Like strength, spell power agility etc

 

[erragal]

I've seen a few instances of move speed modifier's for different classes. One in particular is the demon hunter. Having 100% hate resource increases movement speed. I'll have to dig up where I read that, but for now here is a link to some character info from battle.net forums. The demon hunter ability I mentioned isn't listed there yet, but there are movement speed modifiers for other classes listed.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27805270392&sid=3000

I should have clarified that: I've never seen anything about them removing move or cast speed on items; was responding to Yoshichan asking about them removing move/cast speed potentially.

 

[forrest]

I should have clarified that: I've never seen anything about them removing move or cast speed on items; was responding to Yoshichan asking about them removing move/cast speed potentially.

\

Doh! Sorry. Well maybe my links will give ppl something else to read during this time of waiting!

 

[Tacitus_]

"will people buy power to be more successful in PvP? Yes they will, that’s why our PvP system is very casual and not an e-sport. It’s meant to be a “I wanna go in and see what this build can do against people who are of equivalent power."

"Whenever we run into a case where “this would be really awesome for PvE” and the PvP guys says “ that kind of screw PvP” the answer is always “shut up PvP guy, it’s awesome in PvE”."

Game of the forever.

 

[forrest]

I used to have a copy of Diablo 2 way back when for my mac. I lent it to someone and never got it back. Sooo...thinking about grabbing some Diablo 2 and LoD keys online. Are any of the cd key sales sites to be trusted? I'd rather not pay the full 40 if I can get the keys legitimately for less.

Sure the full 40 gets me peace of mind and security, but if anyone has any hand on experience with a cdkeysale site that would be awesome! Thanks

 

[Johnny2Bags]

I am interested in this as well?

 

[Takuan]

What if Blizzard bans the cd key of confirmed bots? I imagine it'd be a lot less cost effective for a farming company if they had to keep buying new copies of the game, and it'd just add to Blizzard's sales numbers. I'm not sure how practical the idea is, since it might take too many resources to track and confirm bots, but in theory, it would keep the use of the AH "legit" and prevent a scenario years down the road where every single item in the game is readily available for purchase, or at least delay the process significantly.

 

[KrawlMan]

I used to have a copy of Diablo 2 way back when for my mac. I lent it to someone and never got it back. Sooo...thinking about grabbing some Diablo 2 and LoD keys online. Are any of the cd key sales sites to be trusted? I'd rather not pay the full 40 if I can get the keys legitimately for less.

Sure the full 40 gets me peace of mind and security, but if anyone has any hand on experience with a cdkeysale site that would be awesome! Thanks

This is always an option for D2 and LoD.
Amazon.com Diablo Battle Chest

You save $10 over buying the two separately from Blizz.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

It's an interesting concept and I'm sure they're salivating at the thought of making money well after the game stops selling bucketloads but I'd be lying if I said I was at all interested in being a part of it.

I just want to find cool shit the old fashioned way, either by stumbling across it in single player or bartering with others using other items and non-real money.

 

[Freki]

I used to have a copy of Diablo 2 way back when for my mac. I lent it to someone and never got it back. Sooo...thinking about grabbing some Diablo 2 and LoD keys online. Are any of the cd key sales sites to be trusted? I'd rather not pay the full 40 if I can get the keys legitimately for less.

Sure the full 40 gets me peace of mind and security, but if anyone has any hand on experience with a cdkeysale site that would be awesome! Thanks

g2play/ - it's legit - i bought several keys from them

 

[forrest]

This is always an option for D2 and LoD.
Amazon.com Diablo Battle Chest

You save $10 over buying the two separately from Blizz.

Yeah I've been eyeballing that! Most of the cd key sale sites I've found seem to good to be true and have very poorly worded english. I'll probably just go the amazon route and stay safe I guess

I've been trying to contact my old friend to see if he still has my game lying around somewhere, but I still haven't heard back from him. :/

g2play/ - it's legit - i bought several keys from them

Orly? Hmmm....

 

[Buzzati]

Do you think Blizzard will include new items in their patch updates for Diablo 3 now that their business model incorporates them as a financial incentive? I always wished Diablo 2's item bank didn't end with the LOD Expansion.

 

[KrawlMan]

Do you think Blizzard will include new items in their patch updates for Diablo 3 now that their business model incorporates them as a financial incentive? I always wished Diablo 2's item bank didn't end with the LOD Expansion.

They added plenty of new rune words in later patches though.

Edit: Also they added torches, annihilus and a several new unique items.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Blizzard need to announce all items/gold sinks mechanisms, its crucial.

Well, they've announced some. Both gold and high-end items will be used in crafting and re-rolling stats on even higher-level items.

As for the botting issue, they need to keep it under control as they've done with some success in WoW. Of course botting will always exist, it's a matter of reducing its effects. If the sort of botting that goes on in D2 is allowed here it'll destroy the economy, and with it, their profit.

 

[Buzzati]

They added plenty of new rune words in later patches though.

Edit: Also they added torches, annihilus and a several new unique items.

Well, I stand corrected. Here's hoping we'll get more of that.

 

[KScorp]

Blizzard need to announce all items/gold sinks mechanisms, its crucial.

That massive FAQ that was posted above does include item/gold sinks. Enchanting items requires ingredients (and possibly gold) which you obtain by salvaging items. And a large part of enchanting is it can take many MANY tries to get a perfect enchantment, since every time you try to improve an enchantment it will either fail, or improve it a random amount. So it seems the crafting system they have in place will be a pretty large item sink.

 

[mcrae]

I am not sure how succesfully a "Bot" can play Diablo 3. In WoW, you had the nice "press tab" option which targeted the nearest enemy mob. Diablo 3 does not have a targeting feature. I am not sure how "good" bots could play in solo, let alone in groups of 4 in hell difficulty, where most of the best loot will come from anyway.

If I remember correctly, in D2 the spambots did not solo hell, they advertised the items only. I just do not think that bots will play anywhere near good as even an average player, if only.

(And Blizzard was quite good in mass-banning botters anyway in WoW.)

you dont remember correctly, i know people who would bot with 8 characters on baal. botting was rampant, scripts existed where 1 bot would rush another bot through norm/nm/hell. yeah, that complicated. lighting amazons and nova sorcs could solo-bot the cow level in 8 person games, and could easily bot pindleskin/meph/diablo/baal in 1 game. d2jsp is the bot im referring to, before the site became a trading site it was a botting site.

 

[KKRT00]

That massive FAQ that was posted above does include item/gold sinks. Enchanting items requires ingredients (and possibly gold) which you obtain by salvaging items. And a large part of enchanting is it can take many MANY tries to get a perfect enchantment, since every time you try to improve an enchantment it will either fail, or improve it a random amount. So it seems the crafting system they have in place will be a pretty large item sink.

Which one and where? I've read 3 different ones earlier and havent seen anything about it. About crafting i heard last time on blizzcon 2009. I also dont think that crafting solely solve this problem, its like gambling, not that many from D2 population used it on higher lvls, it has to be mechanisms that everyone uses on regular basis, like teleports or repair etc.

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/714985/diablo-3-auction-house-faq-and-information/
http://www.diablowiki.net/Auction_House
http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=193...auction-house-news-blizzcon-contests-and-more
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-04-the-how-and-why-of-the-diablo-auction-house-preview

 

[sykoex]

My perspective is it just makes me uneasy. It legitimizes a practice that has plagued online gaming since day 1. Perhaps it's the only solution but I still don't like the idea of turning every gamer into a potential gold/item farmer. We'll have to see what damage it does to the overall community... if any.

But is Diablo like WoW where all the best stuff binds to the player on pick up anyway?

 

[Kalnos]

But is Diablo like WoW where all the best stuff binds to the player on pick up anyway?

Nope.

 

[Yoshichan]

But is Diablo like WoW where all the best stuff binds to the player on pick up anyway?

Nah

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Has this video been posted yet? This has to be one of the posters in this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYjljdje-g

Is that supposed to be serious or a joke? I can't tell >_>

Either way it's hilarious how the guy fits the stereotype of "nerdy" gamer.

 

[Yoshichan]

It's a joke.

 

[Zzoram]

I don't know much about Diablo/Blizzard so I'm not sure what the controversy is here but I'd like to know. Apparently you can buy/sell items for real money and in order to do this you have to pay Blizzard a fee? So people are mad that Blizzard is doing something like that? What does this mean in terms of gameplay and the community?

People have been doing this already, except they use Ebay or sketchy brokerage sites as middle-men to buy/sell loot to each other.

Blizzard's Auction House will just cut out those middle-men and replace them with Blizzard, which is way safer because you won't get scammed since they have to have the item they're selling, and your credit card information is safer with Blizzard than some sketchy brokerage site based in who knows what country.

Blizzard is not selling anything. People who find rare loot in games can choose to sell it to other players for real money. If you decide to sell for real money, Blizzard will take a small commission on the sale only if the item sells. Apparently if you only sell an item a week, and keep your profits as Blizzard store credit, Blizzard won't take any commission at all. They'll only take a commission if you want to turn the store credit into cash, or if you are a power seller.

Under this system, a casual player may find a super rare item. This player doesn't have to give their credit card to a shady Russian or Chinese website to sell this item for $5. Instead they can use the Auction House and earn $5, which they can use as store credit towards buying another Blizzard game.

 

[Mulligan]

So having never played Diablo, is it possible to do your first run through on nightmare difficultly or do i need to run through normal first to get good enough gear and level my skills for nightmare?

 

[Yoshichan]

So having never played Diablo, is it possible to do your first run through on nightmare difficultly or do i need to run through normal first to get good enough gear and level my skills for nightmare?

You can't play nightmare if you haven't beaten normal.

 

[Mulligan]

You can't play nightmare if you haven't beaten normal.

Ah okay, thanks. Has it been said how many difficulty levels will be in D3? I heard there may be a level beyond hell mode known as 'inferno'.

 

[KKRT00]

So having never played Diablo, is it possible to do your first run through on nightmare difficultly or do i need to run through normal first to get good enough gear and level my skills for nightmare?

You cant start nightmare without finishing normal.