next »

[TerryTate]

Updates for 10/22/10:

Diablo 3
    * Demon Hunter new class for Diablo 3! This feature will be playable at Blizzcon.
    * PvP Arena Battles for Diablo 3! This feature will be playable at Blizzcon.

I might've jizzed my pants.

[Drwaddy]

I simply can't wait for D3, I played the shit out of the last 2 and I expect no less from blizzard on this one!

[Xallan]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2397-Diablo-3-Auction-House-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money

Real life money is an optional currency for buying and selling items on the auction house.

 

[Xallan]

Q: Will that be regulated then? X gold sells for…

A: Nope, it’s a player-driven market, so one of the things that we’re really focused on is making sure that we have as few inputs and incentives into the market as possible. We want it to be really a player-driven market and a player-driven service. So it’s one of the reasons we talk about having flat fees instead of a percentage. If we have a percentage, there would be an incentive for us to drive up the value of items to get bigger percentages. It’s one of the things we considered: let’s do a flat fee because we don’t need more of a perception that there’s an incentive there for us. We want it to be a very player-driven trading economy and that’s what the core of Diablo is, is a trading game.

Needs more 

[Nothing]

Super.  Consider the game and economy already ruined with foreign goldfarmers running rampant.  What a huge disappointment.

[Born]

I made a killing off of D2 in game items on ebay. Looks like D3 will be the same. It'll basically be a job I guess.

[Seyas]

To be honest this is very sad IMO -- it takes the game out of it being a "game". Yes there will always be Ebay/Playerauctions/etc. Mark my words this goes live with D3 and you will see it come to WOW eventually.

[Pliers]

It's going to be very interesting how it plays out.

Bots are going to be a huge problem.  When you can get a bot for ~$25 (which I'm sure is against the ToS, but isn't illegal), and can turn around and sell the items it farms for you for real currency legally, why wouldn't people do it?

I also wonder how they will split the AH up - are there going to be server clusters?  Having 14988 titans revenges posted at the same time would be kind of silly.  Edit: It says "regional".

I think it could work out incredibly well for blizzard.  We're already used to auction houses taking a 5% cut, and I'm sure they'll make a fortune out of the "nominal" fee.

It'll be interesting to see.  I'd much rather it not be done this way, but D3 also isn't an MMO, so if someone else is buying an advantage, it doesn't have to change my experience.  Unless there's a raiding-esque end game, it won't matter unless you opt in.

Another part that worries me is, if you're posting your stuff, and it's not selling, you're paying that fee over and over to repost.  But with a regional AH, there's not an easy way to make sure yours is the lowest one up.  And every time someone undercuts, Blizzard is getting another small check in the mail.

[Xallan]

I think if you don't choose to use this feature, the only way you are affected by it is in PvP against someone who bought the best gear...and they have said that they don't care if PvP is imbalanced at all in the first place.

But with a regional AH, there's not an easy way to make sure yours is the lowest one up.

It's reasonable to assume that there will be some website dedicated to tracking item value across servers.

I wonder what effect this will have on the gold currency...would you rather put your epics on the AH for just gold, or something that doubles as cash/gold?

[Faisrole]

they are just replacing the word dollar with SOJ and cents with nagelrings.
So $5.50 would be 5 Stone of Jordans and 50 Nagelrings, makes sense honestly.

[Wazuka]

Better to just sanction and legitimize the whole buying gear thing rather then having the third party guys doing it via shady websites.

While we are at it, legalize marijuana and tax it.

[Collider]

It's an interesting business model.  'If you can't beat them, join them' taken way beyond practical gaming applications.  It's brilliant, really.  This may even generate enough revenue that the market share lost to TOR and GW2 won't be as huge a profit loss on bottom line.  My main issue is how many 'cuts' blizzard takes.  I now quote from the tomes of our frozen overlord, book of RMT, chapter 2 verse 13:

As with other online auction sites and real-world auction houses, our fee structure will vary by region. However, we plan to collect a nominal fixed transaction fee for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. The listing portion of the fee, which helps encourage sensible listing prices and discourage the mass posting of items that are very low quality or would be of little interest to other players, will be waived for a limited number of transactions per account. For players who opt to have the proceeds of their auction house sales go to their third-party payment service account instead of to their Battle.net account, Blizzard will collect a separate “cash-out” fee. Specific details regarding these fees will be announced at a later date.


'Nominal' fee for listing an item, though they say this is waived each month for an unspecified number of transactions.  Then, Blizzard takes a cut if the item actually sells.  And then, should you want to get the money out of your Bnet account to, you know, actually use it in the real world, Blizzard will take a third cut for cashing out.  Let's imagine for a moment the fee is .25 to list and .25 at sale.  Then $1.00 to cash out.  You sell a $3 item on the RMAH and by the time you can spend it, you only have $1.50.  Obviously, it becomes more cost effective to sell more items then cash out in one big chunk which will only further encourage exploits of the system.

And yeah.  Even if an item doesn't sell - Blizz is still taking you by the balls for a nice ride on the back of a horse being thrown out of an airplane at mach 6.

It's going to kill the gold currency system AH though.  Xallan is right - all high quality or high demand items are going straight to the RMAH, which will equate to pay to win.  And while you're tapdancing, trying to figure out how to get $20 for that badass sword - if you should buy it directly or sell your own gold to get enough Bnet cash to buy it, Blizz is laughing their fat asses off on the way to the bank as they take a cut every time money changes hands.

Think I'll hold off on buying D3 till I see how this system plays out.

[Audere]

Better to just sanction and legitimize the whole buying gear thing rather then having the third party guys doing it via shady websites.

While we are at it, legalize marijuana and tax it.

In a nutshell, this.  There isn't anything functionally different between D3 and D2 with this change.  The only difference is philosophical: the developer is sanctioning and providing a method to do what people were already doing anyway.  The number of gear buyers may increase, but at least people won't have to go through shady, third-party websites.  I don't have any real problem with it.  I still might not buy D3, but that has nothing to do with this announcement.

[Nothing]

I think some of you are missing the point.  This doesn't add anything to the game. They aren't making the game better.  It WILL hurt the game in the end because there will be no such thing as endgame unless the better equipment is non-tradeable.   Activision-blizzard is just doing everything they can to make more money for themselves.  Just like most every decision they've made for the last three years.

Blizzard practically has a cult following at this point.  People will buy and support their products no matter how bad their business practices.  Warcraft is life for a lot of people, just look at Blizzcon.  Their services won't be getting any better. I won't supporting very often with my money in the future which is about all I can do about it.

The good news is there are dozens of other good games coming out and Star Wars looks pretty cool too.

[Audere]

Well, the thing is... there really isn't anything that qualifies as "endgame" in Diablo.  It's a farm game, not a game that requires anything resembling "skill."  Developer-sponsored selling won't result in anything different from what happened in D3 long before patch 1.08 even rolled around.  If this system migrates to WoW, then you'll have a point.