Diablo III Auction Houses Close March 18, 2014

[Bolty]

From Blizzard's official somewhat-shocking announcement:

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls™ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.

We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.

A video about this was posted below:

[Bolty]

Commentary:

The experiment is over. Blizzard has acknowledged that the Auction House ruined Diablo III and will overhaul the game mechanics to compensate...almost 2 years too late for me, personally.

[Aahzmadius]

It's a surprising move, but I think it's kind of silly as well. It's not 1999 any more. People are going to use the Internet to trade; now you've just moved them to third-party sites and made it less convenient. I'm not a fan of the decision. But I don't have strong feelings either way.

[LochnarITB]

[Frag]

Just saw it in my e-mail and immediately bolted here. I'm beyond thrilled.

[LavCat]

I might even give it another go.

[FireIceTalon]

Good riddance.

Should have never been implemented in the first place. I want to play Diablo III, not AH III. While the AH was perhaps convenient, this isn't nearly enough to justify the many cons that come along with it. First of course, the entire loot system is based around it. Drop rates were so skewed to the point that finding an upgrade for your char after a particular point is nearly impossible, and you have to go to the AH to find something. On top of that, in the gold AH, the top items are so expensive that only the chinese gold farmers/bots can buy anything. So then you are forced then to either buy on the RMAH, or buy gold on the RMAH to be able to purchase that elite 1-2 billion gold item on the gold house. In short, the people who want to play the game and build their char normally get the shaft. This leads to another problem - players spend more time watching the AH than actually playing the game, which really takes away from its integrity. It becomes more like a stock market than a video game.

I want Diablo to go back to being a dungeon crawler/hack-n-slash RPG that was fun to play for hours on end, and part of that was the loot hunt. With the AH present, there is no loot hunt, because the drop rates are terrible by design to make the player resort to swiping their credit card. Pay-2-Win sucks.

Again, good riddance. I was saying this since day 1 that the AH was going to kill the game, and looks like Blizz finally woke up and saw the light. I just hope it isn't too little too late.

[Archon_Wing]

I said this 9 months ago. They could either choose the economy (AH) or the players and make an actually engaging game. They chose at least, and most would think the right thing.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/7384308409#2

It is a fundamental flaw with the game, that I do not know how to fix.

As entry level gear gets cheaper and cheaper it will become more profitable to play the AH instead.

The only solution is to buff drop rates and crash the economy to the ground so the AH is no longer a factor... just like in D2. But I don't know if people can get go of AH3

Personally, I support killing the economy so this game can develop in a direction away from everything having a $ value. You know, fun, instead of work. There's been all kinds of scumbag behavior from people because there is money to make. Well, ok, there would be botters anyways, but it doesn't help the issue.

[Occhidiangela]

I want to play Diablo III, not AH III.

Bingo.

If I get some time this fall, I may play D III again. Did a short raid with my son last weekend, and I have of course forgotten a lot of what I was trying to do. But it was fun smashing things up with my barbarian.

[MonTy]

I'm personally very excited over the news of the AH removal. Assuming they have an alternative trade system in mind, so we're not forced to trade as we are in Path of Exile.

I actually just purchased a PS3, my first console since being a wee kid. I bought Diablo 3 and will be giving it a go on there, but I can't say I'm going in with big expectations.

[Chesspiece_face]

I'm personally very excited over the news of the AH removal. Assuming they have an alternative trade system in mind, so we're not forced to trade as we are in Path of Exile.

I have mixed feelings on whether removing the AH will end up having the effect that people think it will. Mostly because having played PoE I can see the absolute cluster@#$% of what trading and the economy is in that game.

The AH in D3 was always the easy target to direct ones flame fueled rage at but all it was, in reality, was a magnifier for issues that were at the core of the game.

An even larger issue for D3 at release (and one we touched on in those old DitD Podcasts) was the absolute focus on Rare items as the loot progression. Because the value of any item was strictly tied to the numeric values instead of any item (even original Legendaries) having inherent value it meant that 90% of the stuff you found (even Legendaries!) were garbage just because you weren't lucky enough to roll viable numbers on it.

Then we turn to the push for gold to have real value and for it to support the economy and we have a system that is bound for gigantic inflation. You can see the same thing in PoE now even though they don't have a "cash" economy. Supply and Demand means nothing for these economies because you are trading a usable item for an abstract currency. For sellers in these economies the psychological cost of trading an item for below what they "expect" it to be worth is too strong for them to ever trade "down" to what it really may be worth. This literally leads to a point where it is psychologically less costly to just sell it to a vendor or trash it than to sell/trade it to a player for a lower cost than the originally posted price. Sure this happened to some extent in D2, but more often than not people were willing to trade up/down because "you have something I need for my character to work, I have something you need for your character to work" Deal! I've watched so many storefronts in PoE where they get offers marginally beneath what they are asking and they never take the offer only to have the item sit there unsold for weeks onto months.

I still feel the same about the AH now as I did when the game first came out. If I don't want it to effect my game, I don't use it. I'm not a conspiracy theorist that thinks that Blizzard stunted the item drops to push the AH. I just think they had a broken system to begin with. I'm happy to see the direction they are taking the game, but I will have to see a LOT more before I get a true feeling whether Loot 2.0 will have the effect that they want. I'm still worried that item value will be based more on the random roll than any item having intrinsic value.

[Aahzmadius]

I have mixed feelings on whether removing the AH will end up having the effect that people think it will.

I agree with most everything in your post regarding D3. The drops really are the issue, and playing self-found puts it in stark relief. Due to a guildmate of mine returning to D3 after barely playing the first year, I have moved to mostly playing on the account I purchased solely for self-found. We just got to inferno, and while it's standard mode I've been gearing like it's HC. I've probably died 4-5 times at this point; not bad, but not great. I tackled some of the content when I was too low of a level, just so I could continue to group with my guildmate.

My gear is OK for starting inferno (1.08 inferno; not release inferno) with about 10k DPS and 32K life. But I'm still using 2 blue level 26 rings that I bought from the vendor in Nightmare Act 1. In a game where you're obviously supposed to turn over your gear every 5-10 levels, I found nothing better in 30 character levels. Not even 1 upgrade in the ring slot to switch out. Yeah...that's a problem.

Will Blizzard get things right with "Loot 2.0"? I'm skeptical. For one, they're adding some elemental damage effects which will likely increase the need to trade for specialized gear. It's going to be less convenient to do that without an in-game AH. For another, tuning the drop rates correctly so that you get good gear without getting godly gear all the time seems like a tall order. So far the console players seem happy, but it's still early. Will you still keep hunting for gear as it becomes really difficult to find upgrades and continually vendor good-not-great items instead of receiving useful AH gold for them? Time will tell.

I'll go ahead and give an SFHC update as well. My DH hit level 47 last night and is in NMA3 after surviving the Belial encounter. I've turned down the MP to 1 (it was zero for Belial) and will probably set it to zero going forward. I'm done with the keeps and not looking forward to running into a demonic tremor elite pack out in the fields. And after that, phasebeasts loom...

[shoju]

I will feel awful for them if they end up with the system that PoE has.

Loot, is the major downfall of the game.

Looting it
Rollling it
Trading it

All 3 are problems IMO. The loot is far too random. Getting a pair of level 5 gloves dropping off of a level 68 Rare is not cool.
Rolling it is FAR to random to call crafting
Trading it is just... a lost cause.

[kandrathe]

Loot, is the major downfall of the game.

I go back to my 1970's studies of game theory.

Loot is meant as a means to tempt players to keep playing. It's the cheese the rats get when they press the feeder bar in the correct sequence.

But, for DIII and games like it, I believe it is a narrow perspective on what motivates play. I've said it before; I think players play to become more powerful (e.g. than other players in pvp, than the next big boss in pve), and be able to survive harder challenges. Items are one way to augment power, but it puts the most value into the things that anyone can get. It is easy to "game" the system by buying, trading, selling loot to short cut the power curve, in what would otherwise require work. This leads to farming drops, and an economy that subverts the intention of the game, which I think for most, is to play and have fun.

It would be far more exciting to me to find an RPG type play system that invests play time (experience) into the characters skill. This investment in the character is then non-transferable (at least unless you sell the whole account). Taem the barbarian is powerful, because Taem the barbarian has gained experience fighting thousands of foes. The newbie Deebye in epic gear will be creamed by a naked Taem. I will leave the visuals to you. I felt DII had a good balance between skills choices, and the nice bonus of cool loot drops. Where DII was wrong, was in the occasional OP loot. But, it was a distraction, more than the rule.

But, then again, merely a race to level 99 isn't the simple solution. The game makers seemingly avoid (or dumb down) more complicated skills based systems where the player could possibly make bad choices. What results is that everyone is the same, except for the PRNG's influence on gear, or your leet AH skills. I feel the fundamental game needs to hook you into the characters life, and struggle. They need to create repeatability and story immersion, and ultimately, there needs to be a win point where you retire, or rest on your laurels testing your leetness in the PVP arena. In some respects, it would be a virtual Maslow's pyramid of needs. In the beginning of the game you are motivated by survival, then later by the accolades of peers, and finally, the self actualization of making the game world a better place for the newbs. D1 to me was all about the story, and seeing the adventure through the character's eyes. Somewhere along the way, this is a big part of the fun that is lost.

The hard part is to create infinite variations on character build, but still give them a balanced shot at "winning the game" -- without creating an artificial gray pablum of diversity in play. But, I'd be ok with unequal outcomes. If you choose to roll a Bard, with awesome bongo skills you shouldn't be surprised when the half-orc barbarian beats you to death with your own bloody stump of a leg.

[Frag]

Ah yes, balance by rarity. Makes about as much sense as magnetism.

Edit: To actually contribute, Torchlight 2 may have slightly errored too far on the side of generosity, but I never once felt the need to trade, or otherwise go outside of the game to progress. Loot more or less just worked there, for me. (And I'll put my luck up against any of yours, any day. TheDragoon, I am not. )

[Chesspiece_face]

Ah yes, balance by rarity. Makes about as much sense as magnetism.

Edit: To actually contribute, Torchlight 2 may have slightly errored too far on the side of generosity, but I never once felt the need to trade, or otherwise go outside of the game to progress. Loot more or less just worked there, for me. (And I'll put my luck up against any of yours, any day. TheDragoon, I am not. )

I had horrendous luck in Torchlight 2. Which wouldn't have been an issue if it were easier to just replay sections to grind a bit. Doing so was a horrible mess however, and just plain annoying.

[Frag]

Ah yes, balance by rarity. Makes about as much sense as magnetism.

Edit: To actually contribute, Torchlight 2 may have slightly errored too far on the side of generosity, but I never once felt the need to trade, or otherwise go outside of the game to progress. Loot more or less just worked there, for me. (And I'll put my luck up against any of yours, any day. TheDragoon, I am not. )

I had horrendous luck in Torchlight 2. Which wouldn't have been an issue if it were easier to just replay sections to grind a bit. Doing so was a horrible mess however, and just plain annoying.

I had utterly zero issues re-running areas and made a habit out of it in Hardcore. What issue(s) affected you?

[Chesspiece_face]

I had utterly zero issues re-running areas and made a habit out of it in Hardcore. What issue(s) affected you?

The fact that to get a populated area I had to navigate through completely non-intuitive multiplayer menus when I was playing single player.

[Hammerskjold]

I had utterly zero issues re-running areas and made a habit out of it in Hardcore. What issue(s) affected you?

The fact that to get a populated area I had to navigate through completely non-intuitive multiplayer menus when I was playing single player.

Just so I understand you correctly, are you talking about the re-roll world checkbox in LAN\Net mode? There is a way to re-fill \ reset areas\dungeons without doing the re-roll checkbox.

http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=40118

Occasionally I have encountered some hiccups with the dungeon area re-set, but overall the info on the link seems to be correct.

Though it does require you to finish some areas, find at least one other dungeons for the method to work.