Blizzard reveals Real Money Auction House Fees

[Elamdri]

The problem is there are no good options.

1) Spend extra money on items to be able to keep pace with other players. In doing so destroy one of the most appealing aspects of the game (looking for loot) and have the feeling of being gouged. Additionally make the game incredibly easy.
2) Refuse to spend the money and play multiplayer. Have absolutely no opportunity to affect the game in any way as other players deal 20x as much damage as you and have 20x as many hit points.
3) Play single player only. Put up with lag, the inability to pause or mod the game for absolutely no benefit. Occasionally need to grind the everliving fuck out of the game to proceed.

1. You could use the in-game currency auction house. No one is forcing you to use the real money AH. Also, why is it that you say that one of the most appealing aspects of the game is looking for loot, but then in number three, you say that you don't want to "grind the everling fuck out of the game to proceed"

2. Again, you can always use the currency auction house. Or craft. That being said, multiplayer in Diablo 3 isn't going to be some meritocracy no matter what you do because of the nature of item drops in Diablo. Everyone is going to be using the AH and Crafting to get items they want because the chances of something you want dropping is abysmal.

3. You can pause single player. (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4662478087). The reason why mods are out is because of the auction house and the multiplayer. Keeps people from abusing both systems. As for the lag...man I dunno, move somewhere with good internet. That's what I did.

 

[Soods]

I will not be buying anything with real money, but if the prices are high enough (>20e) I might sell some stuff.

 

[Sixcess]

I think they're playing with fire here. Mix the potential to make real life money with the size and nature of a Blizzard game community and they could end up with meta-game dodginess that'll make EVE Online look like Club Penguin.

I'm thinking of the viciousness, backstabbing and underhandedness that is sparked in WoW every day over in-game gold and gear. Now imagine that was real money...

 

[Fappy]

This is one of the major reasons I'll be playing Torchlight 2 instead :3

 

[Atmos Duality]

This is pretty much exactly what happened in WoW already - goldfarmer bonanza.

The only difference now is that Blizzard legalises it, and expects a cut. It's comparable to the war on weed really - if you can't beat them, you tax it.

I predict that the drop rates for anything worthwhile are going to be astronomically low.
We've seen this before with High Runes in Diablo 2.
Why not? The incentive is all there, and Blizzard stands to make a killing on it.

The grind keeps players on their system playing their game and away from the games of their competitors, while the auction house gives players a real reason to keep grinding.

But that's mere supposition and not terribly interesting for discussion.

It's the grind that gives all of those items real-world value in the first place.
Your comparison to the War on Drugs is an apt one. Though I have to question: Is it really that much better for Blizzard to try to protect people from the scams of an illegitimate market that shouldn't exist in the first place?

The "MMO Gold Farm/Item" market only exists because the time-requirement to acquire items in those games (legitimately) is incredible. It's a system that takes control away from the player and places it firmly in the hands of random chance.

Can't beat an Act-boss? Reload and grind some more. Maybe you'll get a rare item drop that gives you the resists or the damage to move on.

Can't do raids? Better grind harder for your gear, or nobody is going to take you into their raid party because your low Gearscore labels you as inefficient at best and a liability at worst.

Both of those are very real, common examples I've encountered in Blizzard's games.
For the former, people usually got Rushed by high level characters, but now you're SKIPPING THE GAME ENTIRELY.
It begs the question: What's the fucking point of playing the game at that point? You get rushed so you can grind, so your other characters can play the game? Circular logic!

I've had people argue with me about how "Grind is fun" (which is nonsense in itself) or how the issue is "entirely subjective, therefore it doesn't exist", while failing to acknowledge how grind creates new gameplay problems entirely on its own.

Reduce or Eliminate the grind, and you eliminate that illegitimate market.
Of course, that invalidates all of those market-control schemes Blizzard has implemented. And we can't have that. Why make the best game you can when you can milk clueless sops for cash?

 

[Signa]

To all the apologetics in the thread: Watch Jim Sterling's most recent video. "Optional", or "not as bad as it could be" is NOT GOOD. There is no reason to accept these policies just because it means you get to play a game you've been waiting to play for years. There's no justifiable excuse for Blizzard to do this, and all you are doing is enabling them.

 

[5ilver]

So, let's see. I sell an item for 5$ (let's be honest, nothing is going to sell for more than 50, not even the uber-high-end stuff), blizz takes 20% off that right then and there, then another 15% when I want to transfer the money to paypal.

If things are cheap-blizz's cut gets bigger. If things are expensive-they still have their 1$ per transaction+15% off everything.

As far as WHY things won't cost 50$+ per. Look at the world's current population- you have the vast majority of people making 200-300$ per month via "real" jobs. Imagine sitting in front of a monitor and making 20$ per day. Everybody would be doing it, which would drop prices.

TL;DR: No item is going to cost more than 50$, the second-best tier stuff is all going to be 5$ or less. As such, the only one making any decent pay out of this deal will be Blizz.

 

[Paragon Fury]

And thus, Blizzard has single-handily propped up and propelled the entire Chinese economy for the next 10 years.

 

[BENZOOKA]

It's a game. Not a charity.

Most probably never going to use that real money auction house anyways.

 

[endnuen]

It's brilliant.
People do it anyway, Blizzard now just found a way to cash in on it.

Why will anyone complain about this? I really don't get that...

 

[JezebelinHell]

All I see with this option is the added incentive for hackers to get account information. Follow that train of thought for a while... Hacker steals your account, doesn't just take money from it but steals your items and sells them on the AH. The person that buys it has no idea that it was a stolen item. They of course have to give the original account holder their items and money back. Is it fair for Bliz to take that item away from the person that bought it without realizing it was stolen? If they let them keep it how is that any different than having a bunch of duped items in the game?

The potential for this game to be a hacked up mess is just way too great. I quit bothering with DII because of the rampant cheating, why would I want to pay for a game that is going to encourage that with the involvement of real money?

This is one of the major reasons I'll be playing Torchlight 2 instead :3

I will be joining you there.

 

[Kargathia]

Spoiler: snip, snap, snip snip snap

This is pretty much exactly what happened in WoW already - goldfarmer bonanza.

The only difference now is that Blizzard legalises it, and expects a cut. It's comparable to the war on weed really - if you can't beat them, you tax it.

I predict that the drop rates for anything worthwhile are going to be astronomically low.
We've seen this before with High Runes in Diablo 2.
Why not? The incentive is all there, and Blizzard stands to make a killing on it.

The grind keeps players on their system playing their game and away from the games of their competitors, while the auction house gives players a real reason to keep grinding.

But that's mere supposition and not terribly interesting for discussion.

It's the grind that gives all of those items real-world value in the first place.
Your comparison to the War on Drugs is an apt one. Though I have to question: Is it really that much better for Blizzard to try to protect people from the scams of an illegitimate market that shouldn't exist in the first place?

The "MMO Gold Farm/Item" market only exists because the time-requirement to acquire items in those games (legitimately) is incredible. It's a system that takes control away from the player and places it firmly in the hands of random chance.

Can't beat an Act-boss? Reload and grind some more. Maybe you'll get a rare item drop that gives you the resists or the damage to move on.

Can't do raids? Better grind harder for your gear, or nobody is going to take you into their raid party because your low Gearscore labels you as inefficient at best and a liability at worst.

Both of those are very real, common examples I've encountered in Blizzard's games.
For the former, people usually got Rushed by high level characters, but now you're SKIPPING THE GAME ENTIRELY.
It begs the question: What's the fucking point of playing the game at that point? You get rushed so you can grind, so your other characters can play the game? Circular logic!

I've had people argue with me about how "Grind is fun" (which is nonsense in itself) or how the issue is "entirely subjective, therefore it doesn't exist", while failing to acknowledge how grind creates new gameplay problems entirely on its own.

Reduce or Eliminate the grind, and you eliminate that illegitimate market.
Of course, that invalidates all of those market-control schemes Blizzard has implemented. And we can't have that. Why make the best game you can when you can milk clueless sops for cash?

I fully agree with you that the drop rates on items are going to be the defining difference between this being a viable alternative for those of us light on time/effort, and heavy on cash, or it being nothing more than the latest version of pay-to-win gaming.

However, "eliminating the grind" leaves us with a minor problem: you eliminate the game. The entire concept of item upgrades in RPG's is a variation on the basic theme of "put in effort, get rewarded". The worth of those items never is what the vendor gives you for it, but how much effort you had to spend acquiring them. (Of course that does not always run directly parallel to the usefulness of those items - merely mostly)

The challenge for developers is therefore not to eliminate that grind, but to make it enjoyable, and let it be appropriately rewarded.

In the end the general idea of a real money AH isn't bad - goldfarmers have proven time and again there is substantial demand for it by players who'd apparently rather spend money than effort. Balance, however, is everything. If never spending real money on AH items ceases being anything less than perfectly viable, then they'll have screwed the pooch.

 

[Elamdri]

However, "eliminating the grind" leaves us with a minor problem: you eliminate the game. The entire concept of item upgrades in RPG's is a variation on the basic theme of "put in effort, get rewarded". The worth of those items never is what the vendor gives you for it, but how much effort you had to spend acquiring them. (Of course that does not always run directly parallel to the usefulness of those items - merely mostly)

The only problem with that is that grinding is relatively unreliable for getting gear in Diablo.

Compare Diablo with WoW

In WoW, every boss has a set gear list. You beat Deathwing and he will always drop gear from a list of specific items. You can beat him tons of times and he will always drop the same loot.

In Diablo however, the loot is a lot more like a old school RPG. You beat an enemy and the game rolls to determine how good the loot is. Then it rolls to determine what type of loot you get. Then it rolls to determine what abilities the loot has.

Therefore, if your rolls are good enough, you might get an awesome bow that has tons of cool abilities...but you're a wizard and can't use bows. That's the thing about Diablo loot. Your loot is totally random. You can't go GRIND Diablo and know that you will get something awesome for your character.

 

[Kargathia]

However, "eliminating the grind" leaves us with a minor problem: you eliminate the game. The entire concept of item upgrades in RPG's is a variation on the basic theme of "put in effort, get rewarded". The worth of those items never is what the vendor gives you for it, but how much effort you had to spend acquiring them. (Of course that does not always run directly parallel to the usefulness of those items - merely mostly)

The only problem with that is that grinding is relatively unreliable for getting gear in Diablo.

Compare Diablo with WoW

In WoW, every boss has a set gear list. You beat Deathwing and he will always drop gear from a list of specific items. You can beat him tons of times and he will always drop the same loot.

In Diablo however, the loot is a lot more like a old school RPG. You beat an enemy and the game rolls to determine how good the loot is. Then it rolls to determine what type of loot you get. Then it rolls to determine what abilities the loot has.

Therefore, if your rolls are good enough, you might get an awesome bow that has tons of cool abilities...but you're a wizard and can't use bows. That's the thing about Diablo loot. Your loot is totally random. You can't go GRIND Diablo and know that you will get something awesome for your character.

In said example you would merely have to sell the bow for in-game gold, and use said gold to acquire a weapon of comparable quality suited to your own class.
Instead of your grind rewarding you with a specific drop that you could use straight away, it rewarded you with an item that (indirectly) could be traded in for one you could use.

I fail to see the problem.

 

[Baldr]

They also gave away this game semi-free to 1.4 million of their most loyal fans. They got to make up that loss too.

 

[Darkmantle]

I am totally okay with this. I think the rates are a BIT too high, but besides that, I see no issues.

 

[Elamdri]

However, "eliminating the grind" leaves us with a minor problem: you eliminate the game. The entire concept of item upgrades in RPG's is a variation on the basic theme of "put in effort, get rewarded". The worth of those items never is what the vendor gives you for it, but how much effort you had to spend acquiring them. (Of course that does not always run directly parallel to the usefulness of those items - merely mostly)

The only problem with that is that grinding is relatively unreliable for getting gear in Diablo.

Compare Diablo with WoW

In WoW, every boss has a set gear list. You beat Deathwing and he will always drop gear from a list of specific items. You can beat him tons of times and he will always drop the same loot.

In Diablo however, the loot is a lot more like a old school RPG. You beat an enemy and the game rolls to determine how good the loot is. Then it rolls to determine what type of loot you get. Then it rolls to determine what abilities the loot has.

Therefore, if your rolls are good enough, you might get an awesome bow that has tons of cool abilities...but you're a wizard and can't use bows. That's the thing about Diablo loot. Your loot is totally random. You can't go GRIND Diablo and know that you will get something awesome for your character.

In said example you would merely have to sell the bow for in-game gold, and use said gold to acquire a weapon of comparable quality suited to your own class.
Instead of your grind rewarding you with a specific drop that you could use straight away, it rewarded you with an item that (indirectly) could be traded in for one you could use.

I fail to see the problem.

Well, I think when most people talking about a "grind" in RPG, they mean grinding a boss for a loot drop or grinding mobs/quests for exp.

My point is that you can't really have a reliable loot aquisition system in a diablo type game without some sort of trade/auction interface.

 

[Elamdri]

Well, I think when most people talking about a "grind" in RPG, they mean grinding a boss for a loot drop or grinding mobs/quests for exp.

My point is that you can't really have a reliable loot aquisition system in a diablo type game without some sort of trade/auction interface.

You're not really doing a good job of connecting this with the real money aspect of the auction house. The system would be completely, perfectly functional without that.

Sure, but there's no real good reason to NOT have a real money auction house. My point is that Diablo is not a meritocracy, like World of Warcraft, where good things come from hard work and skill. In Diablo, rewards come from luck and wealth, like the real world.

The big difference is that there is a big gate standing between you and loot in Warcraft, and only the most skilled to jump the gate or strongest to break that gate down can get the loot.

That gate isn't there in Diablo. Instead, it's like you're in a building with a million doors, and behind one of those doors is the loot. So anyone can get it, it just takes a matter of time.

Therefore, I don't see an issue with saying to some players "If you value your time, you can pay money to buy the items you want" and saying to other players "If you value your money, you can use gold to buy the items you want."

Cause really that's the big difference. Skill is important to the acquisition of gear in WoW. It is not important in Diablo.