Diablo III's Auction House

[BruceyBaby]

Gah, sorry, something screwed up

What the fuck are you doing?

 

[Nurb]

Gah, sorry, something screwed up

What the fuck are you doing?

There was lag in viewing posts or something, seems to have cleared up now.

 

[Uszi]

Diablo fans has an interview with Jay Wilson up about the AH system:

http://www.diablofans.com/

Q: How do you feel about the obvious separation between the gold and the real-world AH? They?re both the exact same in terms of features and functionality and everything? In terms of use from the player base, clearly as a player, I would prefer to sell, for real money, any item, but as a buyer, I?d prefer to buy with gold. Do you feel it?s going to swing heavily to one side or the other? I feel it?s going to favor heavily the real-world one overall because, obviously again, I would prefer real money for selling an in-game item.

A: I think people are going to lean more towards the real money AH and I think there is an answer for the person who says ?I don?t want to trade in real money, I?d rather trade in gold?I mean, the gold AH is one of them and I think the gold AH will be viable to find a good amount of items, but one of the reasons we?re doing the free listings every week is to allow people to sell items to generate an e-balance so they never have to put real money into the system if they don?t want to. That allows someone to circumnavigate that option if they don?t want to buy with real money. And yeah, the e-balance is technically real money, but I earned it from items I sold and not from putting in a credit card.


Q: I guess the biggest thing would be if everyone prefers to sell with real money on the AH then there won?t be nearly as many items in the gold AH, but I guess you kind of answered that.


A: Yeah, and if the vast majority of people prefer the real money AH ? or if the vast majority of people prefer the gold AH ? that?s what the vast majority of people prefer.


Q: Will there be some kind of mechanisms to balance out the need for gold so maybe there would be a way to counteract that? Like to actually need gold, let?s say I have $100 in my e-account, but I actually need some gold for whatever, maybe I would feel more inclined to sell it for gold if there was actually a need for gold. Like with D2 I never really felt it was important?once I had a million I didn?t really feel like I needed more.

A: So the Artisan system we put in the game is really designed to be a constant gold recycling element, so crafting items has a lot of similarities to gambling; it?s just gambling with a little better understanding of what?s coming out the other side and every time you craft an item, there?s a material cost and the material cost pulls items out of the world, items equal money, also there?s a gold cost, so you have a big gold sink there. Enhancing items, combining gems, pulling gems out of things, socketing things, all of these have gold costs that increase as you get further into the game. So those are our primary elements of gold sinking.


Q: What?s the party size gonna be for multiplayer?

A: 4. That was easy!


Q: Will gold be a sellable item? Because I think that the balances could become the currency exchange rate between gold to the dollar?


A: Gold is a tradable item, and I make the distinction because Blizzard doesn?t sell gold. We will not create any items or commodities. Players are able to sell gold.


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.


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.


Q: So you?re throwing out the idea of character resets like in D2?

A: Umm?I would say that we are not that fond of the ladder reset. I kind of feel like the ladder resetting thing is like??wow, I can?t believe people fell for that!? I kind of feel like that feels really simplistic. We can do better than that. If we really want to reset things, let?s reset them for real. And I?m not saying that?s what we?re going to do; we honestly don?t know at this point. But I think we can do a better job than ladder races, which?the other side of it is, how many people really get to participate in that? You?ve got your crazy guildies who essentially do run shifts to get a character up and once the first 100 or so hit the top, who gives a crap? I don?t want to be 150, who cares? Much less 150,000. So we think we can do better than that.


Q: Are there any restrictions as to what items can be bought or sold on the AH?

A: Right now, there are some, but they?re pretty light and most of the things that we don?t allow are things that don?t really have any business being there in the first place like quest items, elixirs (which are junk drops meant to fill out the database, not provide like super-compelling items), and there?s a bunch of little power-up kind of things like that. I don?t think we?ve actively gone through and restricted them yet, my guess is we probably will and not because we don?t want people to trade them, but because we just don?t think people probably will. So generally, no, we?re going to let people trade as much as possible.


Q: Do you feel that since people are going to be able to buy items, and therefore essentially power, do you think that will polarize the community based on the top elite, especially in PvP, versus the casual player and what repercussions might there be if that is the case?

A: I think if you look at a lot of games where power gets sold, you run into a lot of different types of games. Take a game like WoW: if we started selling items there, it would pretty much destroy the game. The core of the game is guild/raid progression; that is your top tier and that?s where everyone is focusing on. If you now give me the ability to circumvent that using money, you?ve kind of destroyed the need for having guilds in the first place. Microtransaction games tend to be very successful, but have very short lives because people tend to buy out everything. Essentially, it?s like ?what if the government started printing money?? It?d be really awesome for a short time, and then we?d all be screwed. That?s kind of what a microtransaction game is; the key difference between them and this system is that it?s player-driven so we?re not generating items, players are. We?re not doing anything different than what D2 already did. Players could trade items in D2 and buy them using real money. All we?re doing is facilitating it so that it?s a good experience for everyone. We don?t expect that it?s going to feel very different from D2 at all, and to kind of separately address the PvP issue, will people buy power to be more successful in PvP? Yes they will, that?s why our PvP system is very casual and not an e-sport. It?s meant to be a ?I wanna go in and see what this build can do against people who are of equivalent power.? The nice thing is with a really good match-making system, you?re going to have a good game regardless because you?re going to get matched with someone who?s roughly equivalent to you and gear?s a part of that.

 

[Azure Sky]

Given that before I had my soul stolen by WoW I was a rather avid DII player.
I find this system quite interesting, albeit Blizzard are walking a very fine line with this one.

On one hand, there is no way Blizzard have been able to stop RMT in their games in the 10 plus years it has been happening, they can barely even make a dent. So by giving the players their own secure system in which they can utilize RMT, they can effectively force the RMT sites to play by their rules.

I am sure that everyone is aware that a popular MMO model these days is the micro transaction system, correct? While it is mainly a F2P model, it is a highly successful one, proving there is a huge market that have no qualms about paying money in this fashion, hell some people may even prefer it. And there is always the standard AH for those that have no interest in the system.

Just remember, there is another game on the market that has a self-integrated RMT system, albeit only one way to my knowledge. The PLEX system in EVE.

If they wanted to combat people selling items and gold outside the game the most reasonable option would have been to simply use the gold based Ah like wow does.

Please tell me you are joking...
...you're not joking are you?

The day I log into WoW and DON'T get flooded with gold-sellers spam/whispers will be a great day indeed, unfortunately it will never happen.

 

[fundayz]

As far as PVP balance goes: D3 PVP is not going to be an e-sport. It's not going to be tracked or rewarded in anyway. It's purely a value added, for-fun activity, like it is in D2.

As such, I fail to see players paying money for the best PvP load-out being an issue.

I find it boggling how you fail to see the issue: Competing against an opponent that has an unfair advantage is NEVER fun, regardless of how competitive an activity is.

"PvP isn't an eSport" is not a valid argument. This will diminish the PvP experience even for casual players who only play for fun.

How fun do you think it's gonna be to enter a PvP area only to be pounded on by players that have clearly bought gear? This problem already exists in Diablo 2. Allowing a safe and easy way to buy items is just going to make it worse.

You do realize this is currently the case in D2, and there are still plenty of legitimate players who manage to trade their way up to those items. I've never purchased an item from an online 3rd party store, but I have, once or twice, managed to trade a lot of good items for 1 epic item. I've never begrudged the people who spent hundreds getting all their toons pvp ready.

So just because RMT does not affect YOUR game experience then it's okay to wreck or minimize other players' experience? That's incredibly narrow-minded.

A point of clarification: I'm assuming you have no objection to the gold based auction house or player-to-player item based trades? These are alternative routes that will allow you to acquire the best PvP gear without paying real money. It will take you longer, but that's what capitalization is about, folks: time is money.

To wit: Because you do not have to pay to win, the system is not pay to win.

If I'm wrong and you think that gold based auction houses or trading in general is unfair, because the hardcore players who spend 12 hours a day trading will have better gear than you, then your objections have become silly. Again, D2 is a trading game. D3 will need to at least kind of be a trading game if they want the D2 players to give them more money.

/facepalm on multiple levels

First of all, Pay2Win doesn't mean that you HAVE to pay to win. Pay2Win means that you CAN pay in order to win. When enough people Paying2Win winning without paying becomes incredibly difficult. Sure, some players will obtain the strongest equipment without paying a cent but the average non-paying player WILL be weaker than the average paying player.

Secondly, buying items with in-game gold is NOT the same as buying items with real money. To obtain the gold necessary to buy items requires an in-game effort and time, buying them with real money does not.

They aren't encouraging or facilitating it. All they did was stop road blocking it.

I can't believe you just said that. Removing a roadblock is, by definition, facilitating.

Facilitate: Verb - Make (an action or process) easy or easier.

Road Block: Noun - Any hindrance: "the tax has become a roadblock".

Removing a road block = facilitating.

As far as facilitating, I don't see Blizzard making it easier for gold farmers to do their thing. In fact, it seems more difficult to me. The gold farmers are unable to set their own prices or operate independently because they'll be forced to integrate into a wider system. Why would you go to a shady third party site and give strangers access to your account when you can use the much safer system that is run by Blizzard itself?

What on earth makes you think that RMT "companies" will operate their own third party sites when Blizzard provides a simpler, more accessible option at a comparable prices? Blizzard is LITERALLY giving RMT companies the framework from which to perform their business.

Also, do you seriously think that RMT organizations will be unable to set their own prices? Regular players will not be able to compete with Asian RMT organizations because they have built a business model(that is perfectly translatable to Blizz's AH)around it.

Simply put, X amount of gold will be worth MUCH LESS to a business that revolves around making as much gold as possible than a player that acquires it casually playing a game and therefore they will be able to offer it at a much lower price.

Don't kid yourself, this is going to do NOTHING to minimize the effect of RMT's, it's just Blizzard's way of getting their share of the pie.

Here's an analogy, which John Funk made earlier, but I'll expand upon for clarification:

During the period of Alcohol prohibition, America spent a lot of money and resources persecuting people who manufactured illegal alcohol. During this time, there was hardly a dip in alcohol availability, and instead of the profits going to local businesses and tax revenues, they fueled a violent black market. And because the alcohol was made illegally, it wasn't controlled by safety measures like FDA controls.

Similarly, when Blizzard tried to shut gold farming down, it merely pushed the practice beyond the reach of their control, and it became less and less safe for players to purchase gold because they need to trust credit card or account information to people they can't trust.

Now, Blizzard has more say in the gold economy, like the government has more say in the sale and distribution of alcohol.

That analogy is COMPLETELY inadequate:

1. Prohibition was bad because it caused violence; prohibition of RMT has no downside for legitimate players.

2. The drinking of alcohol has no inherent downsides aside from your health, the ABUSE of alcohol does; RMT has the inherent downside of allowing players to gain an advantage over other players without having to put any in-game effort whatsoever.

3. Alcohol has factors such as safety testing, sale to minors, etc that require regulation; RMT has no such factorsit is either legal to buy/sell or it isn't)and therefore there is nothing for Blizzard to regulate.

It is clear that Blizzard has simply given up on preventing RMT and instead opted to profit from it.

My question to you is: What makes you believe that this is going to remove any of the problems associated with RMT?

 

[Icehearted]

So, if you badmouth them on their forum, can they suspend your ability to play the game like BioWare did to that Dragon Age 2 dude? Suppose they have a refund system in place in case the item fails to live up to expectations? No, that would be asking too much, since gaming really is one of the only legitimate businesses where the customer is always wrong and there are NO REFUNDS!

As usual, this is further proof the industry's tanking since it's all about the gouge and barely about the game anymore.

 

[Azure Sky]

If they wanted to combat people selling items and gold outside the game the most reasonable option would have been to simply use the gold based Ah like wow does.

Please tell me you are joking...
...you're not joking are you?

The day I log into WoW and DON'T get flooded with gold-sellers spam/whispers will be a great day indeed, unfortunately it will never happen.

I didnt say it would eliminate it but it goes a very long way towards combating it. I doubt even this system will eliminate it completely. Hell I could still see sites selling items outside the game for less then the auction house.

Having played since early BC, I have seen the RMT rise in leaps and bounds. It doesn't combat it in the slightest. Even Blizzards new automated countermeasures are barely making a dent.
(Said countermeasures include, but are not limited to: Trading large sums of gold, Transferring toons with large sums of gold and my personal favorite, Receiving large sums of gold.)

Seriously, I log in and within 5 minutes I see the gold spam of no less than 3 different sites. =/

 

[Azure Sky]

That analogy is COMPLETELY inadequate:

1. Prohibition was bad because it caused violence; prohibition of RMT has no downside for legitimate players.

2. The drinking of alcohol has no inherent downsides aside from your health, the ABUSE of alcohol does; RMT has the inherent downside of allowing players to gain an advantage over other players without having to put any in-game effort whatsoever.

3. Alcohol has factors such as safety testing, sale to minors, etc that require regulation; RMT has no such factorsit is either legal to buy/sell or it isn't)and therefore there is nothing for Blizzard to regulate.

My question to you is:What makes you believe that this is going to remove any of the problems associated with RMT?

1: Prohibition will not stop RMT, It has taken Blizzard long enough to realize this.

2: Any player of games, particularly MMOs knows that gear =/= skill, where is the advantage?

3: If you waste your own money, it's Blizzards fault now?

Seriously though, RMT will hit DIII within it's first shelf week, AH or not.
DII is crawling with them, WoW is almost as bad, it is an unsightly plague on MMOs.
At least in this manner Blizzard is forcing the RMT to be played on their terms as well as hopefully keeping a stable market in the process.

 

[acosn]

Blizzard's just cashing in on a market they already know is going to exist whether they like it or not.

Unless you're painfully casual or the hardest core player this wont effect you in any way.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I really take offense when people say "ALL PARENTS WHO LET THEIR KIDS PLAY THESE GAMES ARE HORRIBLE". It simply isn't true.

And I didn't say it.

Its not illegal or even wrong as long as the parent knows what their doing and know their child well enough to make an informed decision.

It may not be wrong. AFAICT & IANAL, the Video Recordings act of 1984 says it is. And it's a £20,000 fine / 2 years in prison.

Not saying I agree (as I don't), but that's the legal position.

I've been at the computer a long time, so a quick reply. Headaches are a pain (literally)

Do you think that not using a RMT Auction House and allowing a 3rd party black market to creep up around the game is a better solution? Or do you think that the RMT Auction House could work if implemented better?

I think that the use of real money is a step up from Microsoft points (which are wholly underhand) but in a game like Diablo, it's a money sink.

DDO/LotRo level lock the game by providing certain areas for a price. This doesn't hinder your effort to play the game as you wish, mainly because a +5 Holy Avenger and a Heavy Ash Long Bow does exactly what it says on the tin. It Avenges or Punctures.

But say you're buying a Longtooth Helmet that gives +5 DEX, +1 to Bone Tooth and increase range by 5".

First of all, how useful is that? It's obviously a Necromancer item, but is it better than a ShortTooth which gives +5 STR, +1 to Bone Tooth and +5 ice damage.

Secondly, Diablo weapons wear out. That means you're getting poorer everytime you hit something.

Thirdly, if you buy it and it's only usable by Amazons...can you swap it to your other Amazon?

So while other RMT games give you what you pay for, this can give you more/less than you pay for. And as others have said, PvP will suffer (where CheatToWin is always the name of the game), and how about account stealing?

In WoW: the worst you can do is stick an armourless character in the middle of a war zone if you hack their account. In D3, you can hack in, sell that character and pass the money to you. And if that's a bought account, you've just provided a means for other people to steal your real-life money.

That's REALLY dangerous.

RMT houses can work, but if you've seen what happens with Eve's monocles and TF2/Portal's hats, you have to be insanely secure with even aesthetic items.

RMT works for things that are normal RMT items. If you're muddying the waters of what is real and what isn't, then you've got a shitstorm waiting to happen.

Do you want your daughter to spend $1400 on her D3 account? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107662-Eight-Year-Old-Girl-Blows-1400-on-Smurfberries]

Even if you think she's old enough to play an M game.

 

[bakan]

snip

Seriously though, RMT will hit DIII within it's first shelf week, AH or not.
DII is crawling with them, WoW is almost as bad, it is an unsightly plague on MMOs.
At least in this manner Blizzard is forcing the RMT to be played on their terms as well as hopefully keeping a stable market in the process.

It doesn't eliminate the black market, it just gives Blizzard another opportunity to get cash because of all the fees you have at the 'official' auction house.
The only thing it does is to eliminate most of the item for item trades, as everyone will want to get a piece of the pie.

 

[fundayz]

Blizzard's just cashing in on a market they already know is going to exist whether they like it or not.

Unless you're painfully casual or the hardest core player this wont effect you in any way.

The first sentence is right on the money(pun very much intended).

The second could not be further away from the truth.

Ever heard of Lineage 2? RMT was(is?) rampant in the game and caused extreme inflation as players would buy gold, supporting gold farming which in turn causes a devaluation of the currency. Compounding this problem was the fact that these players would then used their plentiful gold to pay for items that were deliberately overpriced causing an overall increase in prices.

So what ended up happening? Almost everyone who DIDN'T buy gold was completely locked out from the economy as the normal means of gold acquisition were nowhere near the inflated prices. This affected everyone from the most casual to the hardest of the hardcore(although the hardcore were better off as they could obtain these items legitimately and then sell them for their overpriced amounts).

 

[Azure Sky]

snip

Seriously though, RMT will hit DIII within it's first shelf week, AH or not.
DII is crawling with them, WoW is almost as bad, it is an unsightly plague on MMOs.
At least in this manner Blizzard is forcing the RMT to be played on their terms as well as hopefully keeping a stable market in the process.

It doesn't eliminate the black market, it just gives Blizzard another opportunity to get cash because of all the fees you have at the 'official' auction house.
The only thing it does is to eliminate most of the item for item trades, as everyone will want to get a piece of the pie.

Nothing will kill the black market, this is what many people fail to realize.
Last I checked, the fees are fixed and minor. Probably designed to weed out worthless items and to discourage listing things at unreasonable prices.
Item for item trades in DII were mostly brought about by the lack of stable currency in the game. Duping unfortunately played a large hand in this.

 

[bakan]

snip

Seriously though, RMT will hit DIII within it's first shelf week, AH or not.
DII is crawling with them, WoW is almost as bad, it is an unsightly plague on MMOs.
At least in this manner Blizzard is forcing the RMT to be played on their terms as well as hopefully keeping a stable market in the process.

It doesn't eliminate the black market, it just gives Blizzard another opportunity to get cash because of all the fees you have at the 'official' auction house.
The only thing it does is to eliminate most of the item for item trades, as everyone will want to get a piece of the pie.

Nothing will kill the black market, this is what many people fail to realize.
Last I checked, the fees are fixed and minor. Probably designed to weed out worthless items and to discourage listing things at unreasonable prices.
Item for item trades in DII were mostly brought about by the lack of stable currency in the game. Duping unfortunately played a large hand in this.

The duping aside, do we actually need a stable currency in a game like Diablo?
In my opinion we don't need it and real life money is the last thing this game needs, it should be item driven and not backed by real currency.
We don't need an economic simulation like EVE (yeah, a bit exaggerated) in an action RPG.

And the black market wasn't that big for most players, now you have an ah for everyone and everyone will try to sell their Enigma or whatever for real money.

 

[babinro]

Fantastic!

I don't understand why they haven't implemented stuff like this in WOW. I've no plans to take advantage of this...but its something all MMO's and games of this nature should include for those who want to spend money in order to save time.

I'm sure sellers will still crop up to undercut the market prices, but at least this gives players an option without shadiness.

 

[fundayz]

1: Prohibition will not stop RMT, It has taken Blizzard long enough to realize this.

2: Any player of games, particularly MMOs knows that gear =/= skill, where is the advantage?

3: If you waste your own money, it's Blizzards fault now?

Seriously though, RMT will hit DIII within it's first shelf week, AH or not.
DII is crawling with them, WoW is almost as bad, it is an unsightly plague on MMOs.

1. Of course it won't stop it, but it DEFINITELY reduces it.

2. You are joking right? Go try to WoW PvP in a set of blues against a person in full epics and see how far you get. Gear might not equal skill but these games put A LOT of emphasis on gear, so much that it is the primary means of character progression. There is no reason to think D3 is going to be any better.

3. Did you even read what I was replying to? The person I was talking to said that Blizzard would be able to regulate RMT, and I pointed out that there is nothing to regulate.

Nobody is arguing the fact that RMT will hit D3 with auction house not, but making it illegal would definitely diminish it. Making it illegal poses a number of obstacles for a would-be gold buyer(banning risk, monetary risk, identity risk, hassle of dealing with shady sites, etc) that DOES prevent many cases of gold/item buying.

At least in this manner Blizzard is forcing the RMT to be played on their terms as well as hopefully keeping a stable market in the process.

Sorry but what terms are you talking about? The only term that Blizzard has put on this Auction House is that the seller must pay a fee. There is NOTHING stopping RMT'ers from simply moving their transcations from their own site to Blizzard's Auction house.

What makes you believe that this is going to remove any of the problems associated with RMT?

 

[Azure Sky]

Snip

The duping aside, do we actually need a stable currency in a game like Diablo?
In my opinion we don't need it and real life money is the last thing this game needs, it should be item driven and not backed by real currency.
We don't need an economic simulation like EVE (yeah, a bit exaggerated) in an action RPG.

And the black market wasn't that big for most players, now you have an ah for everyone and everyone will try to sell their Enigma or whatever for real money.

Tbh, even if Blizz doesn't set an ingame currency like gold the playerbase will naturally form one themselves. (See: Gems/Runes/SoJs) While not the most exiting idea it is still the most reliable/predictable at least. As far as RMT goes, the only reason they infest MMOs to the degree they do is because people use them. The black market affected everyone, particularly in WoW and such, devaluation of currency is horrible.

I am personally unsold on the AH concept, I see both the good and bad sides of the fine line blizz are walking with this one. It may turn out to be a perfect redesign of the Micro-trans system that cripples RMTers down to the same level of the players. Or it may crash and burn in a spectacular fashion.

It all boils down to how well the system protects the currency value.

 

[Azure Sky]

1: Prohibition will not stop RMT, It has taken Blizzard long enough to realize this.

2: Any player of games, particularly MMOs knows that gear =/= skill, where is the advantage?

3: If you waste your own money, it's Blizzards fault now?

Seriously though, RMT will hit DIII within it's first shelf week, AH or not.
DII is crawling with them, WoW is almost as bad, it is an unsightly plague on MMOs.

1. Of course it won't stop it, but it DEFINITELY reduces it.

2. You are joking right? Go try to WoW PvP in a set of blues against a person in full epics and see how far you get. Gear might not equal skill but these games put A LOT of emphasis on gear, so much that it is the primary means of character progression. There is no reason to think D3 is going to be any better.

3. Did you even read what I was replying to? The person I was talking to said that Blizzard would be able to regulate RMT, and I pointed out that there is nothing to regulate.

Nobody is arguing the fact that RMT will hit D3 with auction house not, but making it illegal would definitely diminish it. Making it illegal poses a number of obstacles for a would-be gold buyer(banning risk, monetary risk, identity risk, hassle of dealing with shady sites, etc) that DOES prevent many cases of gold/item buying.

At least in this manner Blizzard is forcing the RMT to be played on their terms as well as hopefully keeping a stable market in the process.

Sorry but what terms are you talking about? The only term that Blizzard has put on this Auction House is that the seller must pay a fee. There is NOTHING stopping RMT'ers from simply moving their transcations from their own site to Blizzard's Auction house.

What makes you believe that this is going to remove any of the problems associated with RMT?

1: Not in the slightest, you do realize that RMT is, and always has been against the WoW ToS/EULA? I unfortunately bare witness to how successful their RMT sites are every time I log in.

2: Been there, done that. Was actually quite boring. However this is coming from someone who enjoys 'ganking' people that are 5-10 levels Higher then myself.

3: Sure there is, value of currency.

It will hit, and if WoW or DII is repeated and all the RMT is external, they will once again be powerless to stop it. As for risk? If they are outside of legal jurisdiction (US for Blizzard in this case) They cannot touch them, the best they can do is ban the account, assets and all. Which is usually a minor setback at best, as they usually only catch the carrier accounts, not the storage ones. Sand on a beach.

As for how the system will deal with the RMT problems? There is only one problem with RMT (Aside from hacking, but that is another topic) Is devaluation of currency. If farming sites are forced to buy, sell and trade on the same level as every other player in the game there is a greater likelihood that the currency will retain its value. Not to mention it allows Blizz to track suspect accounts as everything is serverside.

 

[Artemis923]

Gold was never of any real worth in Diablo anyway. This isn't WoW, folks...in D2 the only real economy was in trading the items themselves. So little Timmy wants to blow his mum's cash on br00tal gear? Not my problem. It's not going to hurt me in any way because Diablo isn't about being the in the best guild, or having the best GS. It's about smashing the shit out of Hell's minions and getting rewarded for doing so.

My advice: WoW people. Stop complaining, don't by Diablo, and let the real fans enjoy the game they've waited for.