The Auction House III: Evil is Back

[Ashock]

[It's possible] that Diablo III is actually a gigantic gambling mechanism, Activision/Blizzard is the "house," and the game is an overlay for what basically amounts to pulling a slot machine. That Blizzard's sole reason to create Diablo III is to implement (and make money from) this RMT auction house. Your goal as a player is to be talked into using this auction house, and eventually get addicted to it, in a game that's all about the items you wear and a system that prevents you from getting all the best items without purchasing them from the AH.

Time will prove or disprove [this] theory; there's no way to tell this for sure one way or the other until the game's been out for a while and we can see what direction it takes.

--Bolty, September 13 2011

It looks to me like Daeity was right. And I've only been level 60 for 2 days.

Diablo III is a fun game. The variety of skills, the fast-paced frenetic gameplay, the multiplayer, the joy of advancing your character through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulties. And then you hit level 60, and can delve into the incredibly challenging Inferno difficulty you've heard so much about. The gear you've acquired in the previous difficulties is really just a "starter set;" the game resets with Inferno difficulty, and you have to farm this mode a ton just to make slight advancements. You need to take the mindset going in that you're starting over from scratch; the REAL game begins with Inferno difficulty and the gear you gain there. Ask anyone who has been there a while.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to realize something: Diablo III's end-game isn't Inferno difficulty.

It's the Auction House. And that's exactly the way Blizzard wants it. Inferno difficulty is not there to challenge you as a player; it's there to push you into using the Auction House, and by extension, the Real Money Auction House - where Blizzard makes their money.

This really doesn't become apparent to you until you hit Inferno difficulty. The reason is simple: if the game's too hard on previous difficulties, you can simply level up to become stronger, and the difficulty curve is lenient enough so that you can do amazing things with sub-par gear. Step into Inferno mode and watch yourself get 1-shot by white mob abilities, and you realize that skill alone isn't going to help you. You need gear. The obvious thought to that is "well, I can farm the gear!" This is why the Nephalem Valor buff exists, right? You get a sweet stacking (up to 5) magic find buff after each champion or rare pack you defeat once you reach level 60. This gives you lots of rare drops to pick up and fawn over.

Once you start doing the math, though, you start realizing that there are literally hundreds of millions of combinations of stats that can appear on these items. Even then, you can get an awesome item that's totally useless to your character. You can play for six hours and not find a single upgrade - although you may perhaps find a semi-decent item for another class.

To the Auction House! Sell that item, and get the cash to buy something useful to you. So, wait a minute. What just happened? You played the game for six hours so that you could generate some gold. You can then use that gold to find something useful to you. Once you have a decent amount of base gold, you can start trading more intensely to gain upgrades.

Hey look, that sword is undervalued. I bet I can buy that up and re-list it for a lot more. That'll give me the gold to get that set item I've been looking at. Hmm, now I'm low on gold. Let me play a bit to farm up some more gear to sell.

(fast-forward 3 months)

Ah, time to "play" Diablo III. Let me log in and monitor my sales. Hey look, someone finally posted a helm that's an upgrade for me. I'll snag that. Hmm, those 5 items there can probably be re-listed for profit. I'll hang out on the AH for another hour or two; this is primetime, so some new items might be coming in at any moment. Okay! That was a great evening, I snagged 2 upgrades and made another 5 million gold!

Diablo III has now become the Auction House. Don't think this won't happen to addicted players. It won't be about playing the game anymore, it'll be about playing the Auction House. It's the inevitable end-game result of Blizzard's game design.

Diablo III is built on gear (after level 60), but it is not an achievement-based gear system. In World of Warcraft, you get gear as a reward for achievement. In Diablo III, you get gear via gold (or real-life money once that's available). You make gold initially by playing the game to farm up items - most items you find will be for selling on the AH, not for using on your character - and eventually you just stop playing the game altogether because you're far more likely to get upgrades from the Auction House. As your gear in Diablo III improves, the odds of actually getting a drop that's an upgrade from playing the game itself go down and down and down. It'll be far more effective to login each game session and camp the Auction House, playing the buy/sell game to ensure you have the liquidity to purchase things you want.

You may be sitting here thinking "nah, I won't do that, I'll play the game and earn my rewards without using the Auction House." If you are, I'd venture you haven't been playing Inferno difficulty for long. It's just not viable to take this approach for a sustained period without burning out, and you'll realize this at some point - whether it's in Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, or if you're a masochist - Act 4. Even if you play for hundreds of hours to get gear and never use the Auction House to clear Inferno difficulty, you will STILL be able to substantially upgrade your character by using the Auction House. It's why so many players are getting to level 60, playing for a bit, and then quitting or re-rolling. No amount of skill will get you past the gear requirements imposed by Inferno difficulty, and the gear drops are more of a mechanism to generate wealth for purchasing upgrades useful to you. At some point, you will realize that playing the actual game isn't nearly as "useful" to your character as playing the Auction House, so if you're not into that sort of thing, you wind up quitting or re-rolling.

Some common arguments heard are:

1) "Well, this is just because Inferno difficulty is too hard. Blizzard will nerf it." I don't see this changing anything. The end game, the true way to advance your character past any artificial point, is to play the Auction House. You may feel that there's no reason to do so once you've defeated the hardest difficulty in the game, but many people won't. People want to progress their characters; it's part of why we play RPGs. You're not playing Diablo III for the PLOT, are you? You saw it all in Normal difficulty! Diablo II never had a Inferno difficulty, and was thus much easier than Diablo III in end-game, but people still played for ages to try to get better items. If Diablo II had an Auction House, its end-game would have wound up the same as Diablo III's.

2) "You're just saying this because you want to rush through Inferno difficulty. Take it slow and enjoy it!" Even though this is usually only said by those who haven't gotten to Inferno difficulty yet, I think it still misses the overall point. It doesn't matter where the game itself stops. The rarity of actual, good, useful end-game drops is so insanely high (think high-end runewords of Diablo II) that you will not see them after thousands of hours of play. You will see them in the Auction House, though, because millions of players are playing millions of games every day and generating items. It's one big slot machine, and even if you don't pull the winning lever, someone out there did. People play Diablo III for character advancement, and in the end, no matter where that end is, the only realistic way to advance your character will be the Auction House. You may have the patience required to farm for an incredibly long time in Inferno difficulty, but in the end - even if you beat all of Inferno this way - you're still going to need to go to the Auction House if you want to progress further.

If you're the type of player who believes that skill should be rewarded with gear, you're going to get frustrated at some point. Where that point is will depend on the player, but you'll get there. And if you don't get pulled into the Auction House metagame - how long until people are writing programs that overlay onto Diablo III's Auction House, I wonder - you're probably going to go look somewhere else. Torchlight II, anyone?

Now, keep in mind that despite the tone of this post, I'm still playing Diablo III. I'd like to "beat" the game in the sense of clearing Inferno difficulty, and try out the other classes. But I don't want to get sucked into the Auction House end-game, so there's only so-much shelf-life this game has for me. Back to World of Warcrack when MoP's released!

Yeah, and that's why I posted that D3 needs saving. It is a game that hits a brick wall at a certain point and is tailored for the AH to be a necessary part of it. D1 and D2 were made to be great games and that's what made Blizzard money.
D3 was just made to make them money through any means.

And yes, I will most likely be going back to WOW with MOP also.

Dissapointing.

[Frag]

It is a game that hits a brick wall at a certain point and is tailored for the AH to be a necessary part of it. D1 and D2 were made to be great games and that's what made Blizzard money.
D3 was just made to make them money through any means.

Would you explain how the decision to leave the RMAH out of Hardcore supports your assertion that they are out to make money at any means, please?

[Elric of Grans]

The servers are dodgy to ensure no one plays hardcore. It is a conspiracy, I tells you!

[Roland]

It is a game that hits a brick wall at a certain point and is tailored for the AH to be a necessary part of it. D1 and D2 were made to be great games and that's what made Blizzard money.
D3 was just made to make them money through any means.

Would you explain how the decision to leave the RMAH out of Hardcore supports your assertion that they are out to make money at any means, please?

Probably a legal technicality more than a moral one? When your HC character dies, you lose all your gear. Now imagine you paid money for that gear. Now imagine you lost it due to server disconnect, or lag, or whatever. Imagine the lawsuits.

No, Blizzard didn't leave off the RMAH for Hardcore because they're good citizens. They did it because the legal risk is far too great compared to the monetary reward. They fought tooth and nail to make the RMAH legal - period. They're not going to leave that open to future legal challenges just to make a couple extra bucks short term.

That's really all there is to it. You want more proof? Consider how skill runes were going to be random drops, like gems - five flavors, 8 (or 16, I forget which) different Tiers, AND it would have to spawn with YOUR classes' skill on it. I.e. your level 10 Demon Hunter might find a grade 1 White Rune for the Barbarian's Bash skill - which does you absolutely no good. Thus, you can sell it on the RMAH! Yes, this was ACTUALLY the way the game was designed before the devs finally got through that it wasn't going to work, and they took it out about 2 months before the Beta ended.

Don't tell me they're not willing to monetize Diablo at virtually any cost, because it's simply untrue. At any and all cost? No, as evidence by the changes for the RMAH to make it legal (and keeping it out of HC). But at almost any cost? Any tolerable cost, for them and the masses? Absolutely.

[Ashock]

The servers are dodgy to ensure no one plays hardcore. It is a conspiracy, I tells you!

You can be as cute as you want to be with your responses, it does not matter.

Play the game for 60-70 hours on one toon, and then see what you think.

I think that if this were not called Diablo 3, this would be just another Diablo wanna be clone.

If you think otherwise after dedicating some serious time to the game, then great for you.

[Elric of Grans]

Play the game for 60-70 hours on one toon, and then see what you think.

I have 60 hours on my Demon Hunter; 30 something on the Wizard. About 10-ish a piece on the others. My ePenis is 4723473 meters long too, in case you were interested. I drive a BMW, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Porsche and a Volvo at the same time, while living my stressful job of making sure the sand on tropical islands is nice to lay on next to swimsuit models. Oh, and I can tell the left sock from the right sock!

My previous post was what we call `sarcasm'. In my country, it is used as a form of humour. I get 500+ latency when I play, constant desyncs, constant time-outs and whatnot. The game is borderline unplayable for me due to the poor quality of the servers. That is why I stated that they are so bad no one would be able to play hardcore on them.

[Ashock]

Play the game for 60-70 hours on one toon, and then see what you think.

I have 60 hours on my Demon Hunter; 30 something on the Wizard. About 10-ish a piece on the others. My ePenis is 4723473 meters long too, in case you were interested. I drive a BMW, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Porsche and a Volvo at the same time, while living my stressful job of making sure the sand on tropical islands is nice to lay on next to swimsuit models. Oh, and I can tell the left sock from the right sock!

My previous post was what we call `sarcasm'. In my country, it is used as a form of humour. I get 500+ latency when I play, constant desyncs, constant time-outs and whatnot. The game is borderline unplayable for me due to the poor quality of the servers. That is why I stated that they are so bad no one would be able to play hardcore on them.

Please.

The sarcasm in your post referred to the fact that I and others who think similarly as me about this huge dissapointment of a game, see a Blizzard conspiracy everywhere.

See in my country, we call out bullshit when we see it. Well, maybe it's just me.

[Mavfin]

Please.

The sarcasm in your post referred to the fact that I and others who think similarly as me about this huge dissapointment of a game, see a Blizzard conspiracy everywhere.

See in my country, we call out bullshit when we see it. Well, maybe it's just me.

Please. I haven't seen you say a good thing about a Blizzard anything in a few years. If the game's already a fail in your eyes in the first three weekes, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. You don't need to spend all your time trying to convince the rest of us that you're 'right' and that the game is 'broken'.

It's all very subjective. I've seen a lot of lists of "What's wrong with D3", and to me, many of those 'flaws' are just the things that make D3...Diablo *3*, not Diablo 2 ginned up in a shiny new wrapper. Much of what you call 'broken' I'm fine with.

I'm not saying I'm 'right' but please don't confuse your opinion with fact.

[RiotInferno]

While I don't think the AH is some kind of big conspiracy, the 15% transaction fee does help syphon money out of the system, which is good. In D2, gold became worthless somewhere around level 20 or so on your first toon.

Speaking of conspiracies, I'll just leave this here:
Actual Conspiracy

[Ashock]

Please.

The sarcasm in your post referred to the fact that I and others who think similarly as me about this huge dissapointment of a game, see a Blizzard conspiracy everywhere.

See in my country, we call out bullshit when we see it. Well, maybe it's just me.

Please. I haven't seen you say a good thing about a Blizzard anything in a few years. If the game's already a fail in your eyes in the first three weekes, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. You don't need to spend all your time trying to convince the rest of us that you're 'right' and that the game is 'broken'.

It's all very subjective. I've seen a lot of lists of "What's wrong with D3", and to me, many of those 'flaws' are just the things that make D3...Diablo *3*, not Diablo 2 ginned up in a shiny new wrapper. Much of what you call 'broken' I'm fine with.

I'm not saying I'm 'right' but please don't confuse your opinion with fact.

Maybe you've not seen me say anything good about Blizzard because I usually do not post in the gaming part of the LL and have not really done so since the early days of D2 on the original LL. You know, the time when we were actually excited about a new Diablo game after a month or two.

As far as it being subjective, that is definately true, however I believe that from what I've read and experienced, most people who are playing on at least Hell difficulty (and hopefully Inferno), agree with me, more or less and those who are not there yet as far as how far in the game they are, do not qualify as having relevant opinions.
So basically, once those ppl who are going slower get to Hell+, they will see the game for what it really is. I am also sure that there of course will be ppl that actually like this game even when they get to those levels.

I bet they will not be either Barbs or Monks, though.

As far as the post you were referring to here, I was simply replying to a patronizing response.

[Mavfin]

As far as it being subjective, that is definately true, however I believe that from what I've read and experienced, most people who are playing on at least Hell difficulty (and hopefully Inferno), agree with me, more or less and those who are not there yet as far as how far in the game they are, do not qualify as having relevant opinions.
So basically, once those ppl who are going slower get to Hell+, they will see the game for what it really is. I am also sure that there of course will be ppl that actually like this game even when they get to those levels.

Sources, please, for the bold part. I want numbers for this 'majority'. Otherwise, you're just spouting official forums tripe, which carries little weight here.

By the way, I'm in Hell, and I don't agree. Someone else insisted that a 'majority' agreed with them a few days ago, too.

[Ashock]

As far as it being subjective, that is definately true, however I believe that from what I've read and experienced, most people who are playing on at least Hell difficulty (and hopefully Inferno), agree with me, more or less and those who are not there yet as far as how far in the game they are, do not qualify as having relevant opinions.
So basically, once those ppl who are going slower get to Hell+, they will see the game for what it really is. I am also sure that there of course will be ppl that actually like this game even when they get to those levels.

Sources, please, for the bold part. I want numbers for this 'majority'. Otherwise, you're just spouting official forums tripe, which carries little weight here.

It's ok. In a few weeks you will gain a few pounds yourself. Seriously, trying to argue this point with those who are still in Norm or Nite is like trying to explain the superiority of the color red to orange with someone who was born blind. So, I'm done with this.

I only replied to your post b/c you decided to attack me on my views of Blizzard, where all I was doing in that post was replying to a snide remark.



ps. D3 - most dissapointing game in my 20 years of gaming. Not, the worst, just most dissapointing. Yep, that's my own opinion.

[Mavfin]

It's ok. In a few weeks you will gain a few pounds yourself. Seriously, trying to argue this point with those who are still in Norm or Nite is like trying to explain the superiority of the color red to orange with someone who was born blind. So, I'm done with this.

I'm in Hell, and I'm not agreeing with you. I do like how you just assumed that my opinion was invalid, though. Thanks so much.

In fact, I'm enjoying Hell immensely. I have to actually think, and not just rush into everything half-cocked, knowing I can spam my way through.

Again, as I said, you can have your opinion, and I can have mine, but let's not confuse opinions with facts, or insist that you or I know what everyone else, or some ephemeral 'majority' will do.

[Ashock]

It's ok. In a few weeks you will gain a few pounds yourself. Seriously, trying to argue this point with those who are still in Norm or Nite is like trying to explain the superiority of the color red to orange with someone who was born blind. So, I'm done with this.

I'm in Hell, and I'm not agreeing with you. I do like how you just assumed that my opinion was invalid, though. Thanks so much.

In fact, I'm enjoying Hell immensely. I have to actually think, and not just rush into everything half-cocked, knowing I can spam my way through.

Again, as I said, you can have your opinion, and I can have mine, but let's not confuse opinions with facts, or insist that you or I know what everyone else, or some ephemeral 'majority' will do.

Ok.

[FoxBat]

Inferno is the "wall", I don't really hear so much about hell. Some of the champ packs in a3-a4 are ridiculous, but it was doable on a monk with bad gear and zero AH support.

But yeah, inferno... the slow zombie trash can 3-4 shot me, I can prevent this without too much trouble with them being slow, but I can't even touch elite packs. So now I'm starting to farm hell and look for AH upgrades. I've never been much into farming before, and it doesn't help that the Cursed Tower and all of A4 have fairly non-random layouts. On the plus side, at least I'm getting destroyed by ridiculous elite packs rather than beelining to a scripted end boss over and over. So we'll see how long I last till burn out.

[Athenau]

The problems with D3 are not game-breaking by any means. Let's take a few of the most prominent complaints:

1. Bad drops leading to over-reliance on the AH, especially making the transition from hell to inferno.
2. Bland affixes
3. Inferno poorly balanced, for melee in particular.

An easy fix for 1 is to let Nephalem Valor kick in earlier, say around level 50 so that you can actually go back and farm elites if you're undergeared rather than making a beeline for the AH. Also tweak the drops in Act IV hell so you have a chance of getting inferno viable gear. Making level 9 blacksmith recipes available in hell might help too.

2 is easy too. Just throw in some of the crazier stuff from D2 (chance to cast x, oskills, charges, etc). Don't do it all at once, maybe introduce one or two new affixes into the general item pool every couple of weeks or so. Also increase the proc chance on the CC affixes (blind, slow, stun, etc) and make lifesteal comparable with life on hit. Bam, items are interesting again!

For 3 just tone down the spike damage in inferno a little, and give melee some more passive mitigation (40%) together with buffing some of their control skills (I'd like longer snare durations myself).

Meanwhile the actual combat is still super-fun. Blizzard absolutely nailed on of the most important things. Now they just need to fix the itemization/endgame and we should be good to go. In the meanwhile I still have four more character to level through hell, I'm not terribly concerned about the state of inferno at the moment.

[Frag]

Probably a legal technicality more than a moral one?

No, try reading the disclaimer and EULA section on hardcore, they're not liable for jack.

No, Blizzard didn't leave off the RMAH for Hardcore because they're good citizens. They did it because the legal risk is far too great compared to the monetary reward.

So 'probably' three sentences before becomes fact now? How convenient.

Consider how skill runes were going to be random drops, like gems - five flavors, 8 (or 16, I forget which) different Tiers, AND it would have to spawn with YOUR classes' skill on it. I.e. your level 10 Demon Hunter might find a grade 1 White Rune for the Barbarian's Bash skill - which does you absolutely no good. Thus, you can sell it on the RMAH! Yes, this was ACTUALLY the way the game was designed before the devs finally got through that it wasn't going to work, and they took it out about 2 months before the Beta ended.

If they left the skill runes in, it would be a pretty valid argument for monetization. Also, the stated timeframe of the change is incorrect and seems somewhat telling. Changes like that take hundreds of man hours at my development level, and in Blizzard's case, thousand+.

Cheers.

P.S. Ashock, D3 is more disappointing than... AoC, BM3, DA2 or APB? You jest, surely. The bar was set so low from D2, this only had to be a mediocre game to be it's equal.

[FoxBat]

No, try reading the disclaimer and EULA section on hardcore, they're not liable for jack.

Even thought the EULA is written in leagalese, that doesn't make it 100% legal. They can't handwaive any and all rights through a post-purchase contract with no signature, American courts have been inconsistent in upholding which ones can and cannot be done away with, and this isn't even to speak of other countries that actually have consumer rights. (See: the FTC in South Korea)

[Roland]

No, try reading the disclaimer and EULA section on hardcore, they're not liable for jack.

What Foxbat said. EULAs don't mean jack until they're proven in a court of law, and even then that varies from state to state (California, for example, has much more inalienable consumer protection rights than most other states). I'm no lawyer, but I guarantee you having a RMAH for HC characters would get them into trouble. It doesn't always matter if a lawsuit has merit or not; they still have to challenge it, and it's bad publicity.

If they left the skill runes in, it would be a pretty valid argument for monetization. Also, the stated timeframe of the change is incorrect and seems somewhat telling.

I'm sorry, were you in the beta when they made the changes? No? They took runes out as items around mid- to late-February. The Beta ended beginning of May. That's just over 2 months time. So, explain to me again how the "stated timeframe of the change is incorrect?" And "seems somewhat telling?" Of what? Do some research before you start to question someone, and when you do at least make your arguments understandable.

Changes like that take hundreds of man hours at my development level, and in Blizzard's case, thousand+.

Your point is what, exactly? That it didn't happen? Or that it didn't happen when I said it did? Both are wrong, regardless. The only possible point you could be making is that the timeline of when the changes were made, in comparison to the build we were currently beta testing, was off. I personally have no way of verifying that, but I guarantee that's the case. I'd be surprised if the beta wasn't 2-3 builds behind what was going on internally. Even so, what difference does it make how many man hours it takes to make such drastic changes? They made them, at the last minute (however relative). Simple facts. Diablo was built with monetization in mind, period. That doesn't make the AH, nor the RMAH, evil. At least, not so long as it doesn't get in the way of the actual gameplay - which skill runes as items certainly would have. I have no problems with Blizzard's current goals of monetization for Diablo, but don't kid yourself that it's not a HUGE goal for them. WoW is declining (not failing, declining - big difference). Titan is still quite a ways off. They needed something to bridge the gap. Diablo III RMAH is it. Love it or hate it, it's a legitimate business strategy for Blizzard, and so long as it doesn't get in the way of the actual gameplay I have no qualms with it.

[Hocus_]

I'm in Hell, and I'm not agreeing with you. I do like how you just assumed that my opinion was invalid, though. Thanks so much.

In fact, I'm enjoying Hell immensely. I have to actually think, and not just rush into everything half-cocked, knowing I can spam my way through.

Again, as I said, you can have your opinion, and I can have mine, but let's not confuse opinions with facts, or insist that you or I know what everyone else, or some ephemeral 'majority' will do.

The difficulty levels prior to Inferno are basically a tutorial for the game. As somebody who has been playing in Inferno mode for over a week now, I completely agree with all the points that Ashock has made. In your mind, how many people have to agree with his assessment before you deem it to be valid? Ten people? A hundred? Just trying to work out where to draw the line here so that when we reach that number we can come back and talk to you about it.