Banning items from the gold AH but allowing them on the RMAH is not a real solution. You can sell/buy gold for real currency anyway, so gold farmers will just convert to blizzard balance and then spend that on whatever super uniques. The conversion process will raise their price a little, but not really have the kind of effect you wanted.
If Blizzard wants this kind of thing they would just do some bind-on-equip/pickup type items. This was something that was planned for a while for D3 but eventually dropped in favor of hoping the blacksmith salvage would keep the economy in check. (Meaning I think they only ever saw BoP/E as an inflation check, not something to ensure item finding fun.)
I still haven't used the AH yet and the idea of it does feel a little cheap, I will probably look into it upon hitting the Inferno "wall", but I still don't feel great about it.
I don't see how that really contradicts anything said before.
Everything I've read suggests you will hit "join PvP!" and the game will automatically pair you with other players for team deathmatch. The pairing is based on an internal ELO-style ranking (it is never made publically viewable.) The only public swag is grind-based "you won X times" type of account stats. There are no tournaments, there are no premade teams, there's nothing "professional" or competitive about this about this setup. However, it still takes effort to make sure the programming and matchmaking is working OK, making sure everyone spawns and respawns correctly, making sure there isn't anything weird when you apply player skills to other players instead of mobs, etc. And this casual arena is vastly more pvp support than any previous Diablo game had. It is a separate game mode with its own matchmaking and ranking system completely different from public co-op games, and thus it requires its own infrastructure.
It's also their top priority right now because it's a major feature they wanted in for ship and had to push off for patch, so that is what they have been working on since the release content was locked down. Although, I can see it getting delayed further now between all the auction house instability and whine about items/economy.
If Blizzard wants this kind of thing they would just do some bind-on-equip/pickup type items. This was something that was planned for a while for D3 but eventually dropped in favor of hoping the blacksmith salvage would keep the economy in check. (Meaning I think they only ever saw BoP/E as an inflation check, not something to ensure item finding fun.)
I still haven't used the AH yet and the idea of it does feel a little cheap, I will probably look into it upon hitting the Inferno "wall", but I still don't feel great about it.
(05-26-2012, 04:45 AM)Chesspiece_face Wrote: Many of the newer interviews and comments about PvP show a much greater focus on infrastructure for it (which is what I mentioned above) including the final Dev Diary they published in the run-up to D3s release:
I don't see how that really contradicts anything said before.
Everything I've read suggests you will hit "join PvP!" and the game will automatically pair you with other players for team deathmatch. The pairing is based on an internal ELO-style ranking (it is never made publically viewable.) The only public swag is grind-based "you won X times" type of account stats. There are no tournaments, there are no premade teams, there's nothing "professional" or competitive about this about this setup. However, it still takes effort to make sure the programming and matchmaking is working OK, making sure everyone spawns and respawns correctly, making sure there isn't anything weird when you apply player skills to other players instead of mobs, etc. And this casual arena is vastly more pvp support than any previous Diablo game had. It is a separate game mode with its own matchmaking and ranking system completely different from public co-op games, and thus it requires its own infrastructure.
It's also their top priority right now because it's a major feature they wanted in for ship and had to push off for patch, so that is what they have been working on since the release content was locked down. Although, I can see it getting delayed further now between all the auction house instability and whine about items/economy.