Blizzard vs. Real Money Trading (RMT)

[MongoJerry]

do they say why they removed the listing fee?

My understanding is that they did it to avoid anti-gambling rules in some countries.

Personally, I think the RMAH is fine. Such a market existed from the very beginning of Diablo II. The only difference here is that it'll be a much more secure process. I admit that I actually bought a couple of Diablo II items for real money on EBay (*shock!* *horror!*) for about $10 that I needed for a specific build I was trying to play. I then sold a couple of items for real money on EBay to recoup that $10. If you're not the type that has to have every uber-l33t item in the game, then this shouldn't affect you at all. Personally, as you know, I tend to go the opposite direction: I beat a game with better gear and then try to see if I can keep beating it using worse gear but better tactics.

The only issue I have with it is not with the RMAH itself but the way that items drop in the game. I was disappointed to see in the great "Devil in the Details" podcast video that items drop on the ground the way they did in Diablo II. This makes me fear the old Baal runs where when Baal got to a sliver of health, suddenly everyone huddled over his body and snatched every item up that popped as fast as they could -- and the winner was the one who was the fastest clicker or perhaps had a mod or bot that helped with the looting process. This won't be such a big deal if you're only playing solo or with friends, but I actually do like to venture into the unknown world of meeting people via pug'ing, and if rare or epic loot (whatever the terms will be for Diablo III) just plops on the ground, then the possibility of being able to sell things on the RMAH will make this looting process even more cut-throat. I hope that they change it so that certain types of items get rolled on the way they do on WoW.