The New Jokonomy

[DSTheHermit]

And this is why the Ladder Only benefits will also extend to single player/TCP-IP/open once 1.1 is officially released; then you receive all the benefits of ladder play and escape the random dumping. Unless I missed something, you're not a particular fan of public games, and pretty much the only reason I can think of to play 1.1 ladder realms is to play in public games, since if you want private games, there's open or TCP/IP.

And of course, hence the use of Lurker/AB games, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Take it on, take it on higher. Four degrees, four degrees warmer." Tool - 4 Degrees

[TheDragoon]

Two years of straining and Buzzard is giving birth to this monstrosity? My respect for their thought process is already below sea level and sinking fast.

I guess we'll just wait and find out how dense they are at Blizzard by how far they sink. ;)

[pakman]

that there will not be many HC characters around anymore. I always kept my HC characters around because I was proud of those ones. When the ladder resets, all the HC players will be angry (at least it's my guess). It's my prediction that the ladders will mostly be populated by the SC characters.

[Griselda]

I've personally always found the "aargh factor" to be higher for non-realm multiplayer. The client/server model, or at least its implementation in D2, works well for the Realms, but gets annoying otherwise.

This probably has a lot to do with my playing perferences. I play with a small group of people who enjoy dropping in for games but rarely plan ahead in greater detail than "lets try to play sometime on Tuesday." Players come and go, and the type of game that is played at any given time varies depending upon who's on and what they're interested in. On the realms, with a standard game name/password convention, we have that flexibility. Without it, there's the issue that some people have computers, connections, or firewalls that make it impossible for them to host. Even if someone can host, if they have to go or lose their connection while others are still playing, the game goes poof. I realize that happens on the Realms as well, but in my experience not as often.

Realms play also makes it easy for players to find each other when they're online. We use bots and standard naming coventions, and it's easy to pop on and know who's on, what characters they're playing, and what game they're in. This is possible outside of the realms as well, but it generally requires a chatroom or out-of-game communication. That's not difficult, but for me it adds just enough to the "aargh" factor, especially when combined with the hosting issues above, to make it less desirable.

For what it's worth, I've had similar issues with other multiplayer games. I think that the lack of a central server to host games was a major reason that our group abandoned NWN, for example. Setting up games and getting everyone into a game was just too difficult. Of course, NWN had some other issues as well, but that was a big one for me.

I'm not trying to convert you to Realms play, and I realize that my perspective is based on my playing style, but I did want to point out that there are reasons to play on the realms even if one has no interest in public games.

-Griselda

[Occhidiangela]

For Pakman: (Edit, sorry about forgetting to do that.)

The HC ladder will become, unless I totally miss my guess, a more interesting ladder competition because folks will be fighting both against death by lag, death by error, and the inevitable "game clock expiration" of ladder season's end. The challenge? "How far did I get before the end of the season?"

With that thought, I'd guess that the top ladder spots may not be occupied by any 99th level, or by very few, and the top 100 HC ladder spots will delve into the high 80's for character level, per the pre LoD ladder as I last remember ever looking at it. That prediction more for the seven Class Ladders, as I suppose a couple of the classes, when all is said and done, will become the best ladder runners, just as the WW Barbarian was in early Diablo II, and as the initial Firewall Soreceress was in early Lord of Destruction days.

I would also predict that the game will get a tweak here and there with the commencement of each ladder season. Not sure why Blizz would spend the man hours to do that, but I suspect it would be in the interest of keeping such good will as remains with their fans.

[Brista]

I just don't see it as a great solution from the perspective of the honest players who are told that, just because some sewage has gotten into their pool they are going to be flushed away to the sewage treatment plant (normal realms) with the crap.

OK, here are the problems:

1) large reserves of dupe items that (presumably) can't all be deleted
2) high level characters that got where they are by cheating resulting in the highest difficulties being populated by people who can't play. This is undesirable and demoralises more earnest players
3) high level builds that only operate in Cows, resulting in a lessened play experience

Here are the objectives:
1) An improved play experience for the earnest players who enjoy playing through the game as opposed to working an exploit
2) Provide legit players with continuity
3) That the service provider should have a method of restoring cheat free status at the touch of a button

Propose an alternative solution

So, I think you are underestimating the effect of ladder items flooding the normal economy.

I think they will drop more often and I think there will be a small amount of duping. But it's a question of scale. There are some 13 million BNet accounts worldwide (Based on the April 1 deletion of 131 000 being 1%). For at least 9 months finding out how to dupe has been easy for anyone who wanted to know and who had basic internet skills or simply asked in Channel
If 20 to 100 professional dupers figure out how to dupe the Ladder items and profit from it on EBay the numbers are tiny by comparison. After all, if they want to make money they can't let many others in on the secret
Is it an unreasonable assumption that duping will only become widespread after the people who figure it out have exploited it in secret for some time?
Depends, I guess, on how easy it is to work out

We shall see, it is of course possible that dupes will be everywhere and Blizzard will not re-set the Ladder, but that is a truly dreary prospect

To be honest I think that the ladder re-sets will settle down to a pattern and that this support will be available for a long time. As the game gets older Ladder re-sets make more sense because it's easier to flush the whole thing once in a while than to maintain an eagle-eyed vigilance 24/7 indefinitely

[DSTheHermit]

I have been well and truly owned by Griselda.

I bow to your superiour pwnage, so sayeth The Hermit.

"It's not enough, I need more, nothing seems to satisfy." Tool - Stinkfist