Diablo III links today, DRM, real money AH, etc.

[shoju]

http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3093728
http://pc.ign.com/articles/118/1185029p1.html
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-0...ta-preview

So here is the news for DIII for the day! I don't know enough about DIII to say yay or nay, but I have a feeling that these announcements will create a buzz one way or another.

Auction House:
Diablo III has an Auction House, and if you so choose, you can make real money on it. That also means, you can pay real Money on it as well.

you don't "have" to spend real money on the AH. You can buy and sell things for gold as well.

Internet Connection:
Just like WoW, you must be online at all times to play. You can choose to play solo still, but you will be doing so on the blizz servers, with battle.net and authentication possible.

Banner System
This is a new visual display of your play and achievements (Oh yeah, DIII has achievements too if you didn't know)

There are some pretty interesting tidbits in there! Thanks go out to Vor_Lord for making me aware that this info was out there

[Frag]

Blizzard accepting that the behavior exists, is a major part of why people play and taking steps to have some measure of control over it... Smart business maybe, but I'm not too pleased none-the-less.

Edit: Nvm, Hardcore doesn't have access to the AH, doesn't affect me

Also, the biggest bombshell for me, though completely logical in the face of the rest of the changes, is no mods. Erp.

[DeeBye]

I'm fine with all of that.

[Treesh]

I'm fine with all of that.

Oddly enough, these announcements have taken D3 off my want list. Strange but true.

[Mavfin]

I'm fine with all of that.

Oddly enough, these announcements have taken D3 off my want list. Strange but true.

I'm fine with it. It's appropriate for D3, and not appropriate at all for WoW, so it's all good.

I'm sure I'll mostly ignore said AH, because D3 won't 'need' it.

[shoju]

I have found several of my D III Friends, and spoke to them, and the reaction is truly, REALLY mixed. Most all of them that I have talked to like the achievements, and the banner system, and most are 'ok' with the 'must be online part'. One was unhappy because it meant no more playing DIII on trips, and he is a frequent flyer. But, the most divisive issue has been the real money auction house feature.

Is it just the fact that it is a real money ah for a game? Or is there something I'm missing?

[Treesh]

I have found several of my D III Friends, and spoke to them, and the reaction is truly, REALLY mixed. Most all of them that I have talked to like the achievements, and the banner system, and most are 'ok' with the 'must be online part'. One was unhappy because it meant no more playing DIII on trips, and he is a frequent flyer. But, the most divisive issue has been the real money auction house feature.

Is it just the fact that it is a real money ah for a game? Or is there something I'm missing?

For me, the main biggie is that you MUST be online to play it. The next biggest concern is the real money for items. I find that I just don't get as much enjoyment out of the games that have that business model. Too many times those "optional" things that take real money start to feel required just to get anywhere in the game. So, I'll pass and continue to play other games on my terms - offline if I so choose and without having to shell out extra money every time I want a new shiny.

[LochnarITB]

Is it just the fact that it is a real money ah for a game? Or is there something I'm missing?

My initial thought was "fools and their money.." However, as I think about it a little more I find I object to it for a couple reasons. First, I think it will put unwanted pressure on the economy and the supply of items. I might be wrong, but I want to believe that most people will not want to pay real money for in-game items. For us, the $AH will essentially remove items from the game for the benefit of folks with too much money and small epeens that need stroking. The most needed/wanted items will be quickly nabbed for game gold to be put up on the $AH by the new gold farmers. There will be an artificial inflation on any that do remain for regular players. The second reason is that it will feel like someone else is making real money off my game play. I worry that others that feel the same will feel pressured to put their finds up on the $AH even though don't want to be getting real money for playing. I would like to see the two, AH and $AH, be mutually exclusive so that any items posted to the AH be flagged as unallowed for posting to the $AH.

[RTM]

A real-money AH of sorts was already happening in Diablo II via D2JSP forum gold. Serious players participated on the d2jsp forums and there was a currency that was accepted as valid exchange for items, and you could even buy forum gold with real $ if you wanted to. Of course it was a 3rd party service and as such was open to scamming. I can see the benefits of Blizzard taking this process out of the hands of 3rd parties and integrating it into the game.

From what I've read, you are able to participate on the real$ AH without having to ever spend real$. There is nothing preventing you from posting items, building up $ on your Blizzard account, then spending that money on an item. The problem I personally am going to have is, every time I get an item, I am going to think about it in terms of real world $: "This unique would be a huge upgrade for my Barb but I can get $10 for it on the AH...", etc. It's probably something I'll get over but that initial hump is going to take some time.

I had/have a great deal of fun playing the AH in WoW, so the very fact that there is an AH of any sort in Diablo III is good news to me. I also like the fact that there will be a currency that is not based on extremely rare items like high runes or SoJ's, or on a shady 3rd party website. I am going to chuckle (or cry, depending on my involvement level) the first time a dupe hack comes along and crashes the entire economy, though. They've done a pretty good job preventing that in WoW, so I do have SOME hope.

As for the Chinese farming thing, there will apparently be eBay-like fees to list items, and additional fees when an item sells. Hopefully that will discourage mass farming and botting, since they will be doing nothing but driving prices down.

[Chesspiece_face]

From what I've read, you are able to participate on the real$ AH without having to ever spend real$. There is nothing preventing you from posting items, building up $ on your Blizzard account, then spending that money on an item. The problem I personally am going to have is, every time I get an item, I am going to think about it in terms of real world $: "This unique would be a huge upgrade for my Barb but I can get $10 for it on the AH...", etc. It's probably something I'll get over but that initial hump is going to take some time.

I don't see how they could let you participate in the $AH without having to invest some level of cash unless they let you put a certain amount of items up a week or month while waiving the posting fee.

As for some other concerns I have to disagree with some previous poster's conclusions. I think it is possible that the real money AH could benefit the economy of DIII greatly. Yes, items having a real money value will in effect begin to remove them from circulation, but for a game like Diablo this can be a good thing. Items don't degrade in this game thus once they are generated they have the possibility of remaining in the system forever. Thus items that once had value will, eventually, have no value because the supply has just continued to rise over time. The real money AH could end up stiffling levels of deflationary values on high ticket items while also maintaining the perception that these items are actually findable (the other main way to stiffle deflation would just be to make drop rates insanely low to the point that most players will never see one drop realistically: Zod runes.)

It is also possible that adding a real money component to the AH will reinforce the main gold economy of the game. In Diablo II gold essentially became worthless, being replaced by items such as the SoJ and later with runes etc. If you have a real money value on an item of $15 and an equivelant gold value on that item in the normal AH then gold itself becomes a valuable currency. This translation would occur even if practically nobody ever used the real money AH and would in turn help to create a stable in game economy for players that just wanted to use in game assets to trade and buy.

[Concillian]

The more I think about it, the more I think I'm okay with it.

There's the obvious:
- real money for items would happen anyway (see Diablo II). If I look at people I knew personally who played Diablo II with more than a passing interest, I knew more people who paid money for D2 items than who didn't.

And the less obvious:
- Loopholes, duping, hacks, etc... will have REAL CASH MONEY CONSEQUENCES for Blizzard. This means they'll have to QA the crap out of anything before release, or completely collapse the economy, and their % based AH profits.

There are downsides, but the first point means most of those downsides will exist with or without the Blizzard RM for items AH.
Let me approach the subject this way... did anyone really think the general community would not completely suck before this announcement?
No Way, I bet 100% of the readers of this forum expect the Diablo III general community to suck. Suck long and hard.
It's hard to say this will make the general Diablo III community suck more when it's already expected to be pretty close to the limit on how much possible suckage there can be.

[RTM]

I don't see how they could let you participate in the $AH without having to invest some level of cash unless they let you put a certain amount of items up a week or month while waiving the posting fee.

That's exactly what they're doing, actually. See the bottom paragraph here and then here as well. Not sure on the details yet, i.e. if the free listings are a one-time introductory affair or if you get a certain number per week/month, but you should be able to get a decent head start on building up some cash if you're smart about it.

[vor_lord]

Items don't degrade in this game thus once they are generated they have the possibility of remaining in the system forever. Thus items that once had value will, eventually, have no value because the supply has just continued to rise over time. The real money AH could end up stiffling levels of deflationary values on high ticket items while also maintaining the perception that these items are actually findable (the other main way to stiffle deflation would just be to make drop rates insanely low to the point that most players will never see one drop realistically: Zod runes.)

There is another way to handle this, and that is the old ladder wipe (still in use in D2 today). Then the value of those items, as supply is again extremely rare, shoots back up at the beginning of a new ladder season. No idea if there are any such plans. It may not jive well with the 10 character limit.

For myself, I'm more than fine with having to be online to play as long if they can keep things as secure as they have in WoW. Duping sucks. I'm happy there's an auction house. If I don't like it, there's hardcore.

---

It's hard to say this will make it suck more when it's already expected to be pretty close to the limit on how much possible suckage there can be.

Sales marketing from Concillian!

[NuurAbSaal]

Auction House:
Diablo III has an Auction House, and if you so choose, you can make real money on it. That also means, you can pay real Money on it as well.

you don't "have" to spend real money on the AH. You can buy and sell things for gold as well.

TotalBiscuit has something to say about the matter. He is displeased ever so slightly.

I honestly don't know how this is going to work out. I suspect it won't affect my play style all that much, if at all. I plan to mostly play solo or with a few friends who aren't the buying kind. I also don't need to have the best gear available in games (and not playing any PvP), so making do with whatever me and my buddies are picking up ourselves shouldn't be a problem.

No mods, now that's a real bummer.

take care
Tarabulus

[Concillian]

Sales marketing from Concillian!

Edited so it can't be taken quite as far out of context.

[Frag]

Suck long and hard.

Edited so it can't be taken quite as far out of context.

May want to keep working on it


Anyone heard if Hardcore toons can join the PvP queue and come out the other side still playable for PvM? If so, I'll never leave the red team again.

Shoju: Tell our frequent flyer friend to stop flying Southwest and actually pay the $2.50/$6.00 to have a wi-fi connection at 15,000ft if he's that into it, yeesh.

[RTM]

There is another way to handle this, and that is the old ladder wipe (still in use in D2 today). Then the value of those items, as supply is again extremely rare, shoots back up at the beginning of a new ladder season. No idea if there are any such plans. It may not jive well with the 10 character limit.

They addressed this to some extent in an interview at the latest press event (click the spoilers partway down to expand the actual interview):

Q: As far as keeping the economy not stagnant and still exciting, one thing I notice about D2 is once I had my items, they never degraded, I was pretty much good to go; I never really needed to upgrade. I see that in a player-driven economy as kind of a big problem, because eventually prices will taper off and at some point, it’s not worth even putting my item on the AH because everyone has one. That leads to a lot of pressure, I think, on you guys having to create a lot of items and expansion sort of content so there’s new stuff. What is the plan for that?

A: So the plan at release really comes back to the crafting system again. A lot of the crafting system is focused on pulling items out of the economy, so certainly the most highly-valued items people aren’t going to salvage, but everything slightly below that they are, which is going to drive a lot of items out of the economy. The enhancing system is actually one of the…basically our enhancing system kind of works like enchanting from WoW, but it has a random value to what you’re getting. So you input the enchantment, and let’s say it’s somewhere between 80-100 attack that it’s gonna give you. So if you roll 83, you could roll that again and you have a chance of getting a better number. You won’t get a lower one, and it might say “aww, you didn’t get any better.” But you can try over and over again and you need to essentially recycle items to do that. Eventually you’ll get to perfect, but you’ll really have to pull out a lot of items. And at that level, you’re really talking about rares and legendaries that you’re actually going to have to be melting to be able to do this. So we do have some systems in. Even so, there is going to hit a saturation point and what will we do about that? We have a bunch of ideas on how to deal with that, most of them do revolve around extending the item database at some point. Whatever we do, we’ll try to make sure that the player base has a lot of forecasting, like they will know long before we do anything what we’re going to do so that they can prepare. We don’t want people to go on the AH and spend basically $100 and then us change the item database the next day. We want them to know, in 3 months we’re changing the database “OK, well that gives me time to plan and think about what I want to do.” So we may not…it’s still up in the air. But it’s one of those things where we really want to see what happens to the economy and to a certain degree, we don’t know because we’ve never done something like this before.

[nobbie]

The complete August 2011 press kit, incl. very nice close-up/zoomed D3 beta ingame-screenshots:

http://diablo3.gamona.de/wiki/Diablo_3_B...st_2011%29

[nobbie]

More pictures from the beta from china:

http://diablo3.gamona.de/wiki/Diablo_3_B...hots_Items
http://diablo3.gamona.de/wiki/Diablo_3_B..._Interface

[Bolty]

FYI, with the Diablo III beta starting soon, a shiny new Diablo III forum has emerged!

Fun fact: this forum software considers "Diablo" to be a misspelled word. Hoo boy.