Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Talpidae]

 

[Talpidae]

There's no way that's true. Of course, I said that when rumors said Blizzard was revamping the WoW old world...

Yeah.  Two for two.

This is another dick RealID move.  Utterly unbelievable.  Seriously, I don't believe they've made the same mistake again.

[Ingmar]

Neither development thrills me, but I can say that neither will affect the way I play D3 at all (working from the assumption that I will play it the same way I played D2.) Other than, I guess, the opportunity to sell of my characters when I get tired of it. 

[Tebonas]

Except I used to play Diabo (2) without Network access all the time. Having to always be online is a definitive reason not to play the game.

[Velorath]

Some details about the auction house:

Hence, the new currency-based auction; a quick rundown of its features below:

Like you'd expect, it features both an auto-bidding and an instant buyout price. Players are kept anonymous during the process, and there will be one regional auction house per currency type.

Nearly everything can be sold. Items, gold, and later on, even characters, can be sold through this auction house. Only quest-related or very specific items will be soulbound to players; everything else that drops on the ground can be auctioned.

The auction house interface can be pulled up anywhere, and items can be sold from either your current character's inventory or from the shared stash. Transactions happen pretty much instantly (and securely), and if you successfully bid on an item, it then shows up in your shared stash.

There will be a smart-search mode that can automatically loot for suitable items based on your current equipment and what would work best upgrade-wise. You can also specify certain parameters for your build, or search for items by class (since everything works in and out of your shared stash).

Blizzard will charge a listing fee and a sale fee. The former you pay no matter what, while the latter only comes up if you make a sale. No specific figures have been given, but Pardo describes these fees as "nominal. He also believes that since there is a listing fee, this will help the auction house self-correct into only listing noteworthy items, as people would be discouraged to pay a listing fee to sell trash or vendor loot.

On the flipside, to help seed the auction house and to let players get a feel for the auction house without investing too much money, Blizzard plans to let players have a number of free listings per week.

The auction house is designed to facilitate player trading; Blizzard has no plans to officially post items for sale through the auction house themselves. Nor will the company put up gameplay enhancing additions in the auction house.

Players have two choices for proceeds from their sales: The default option puts the funds into their Battle.net e-balance. That e-balance can be used for goods/services offered by Blizzard, ranging from purchasing items from the auction house to World of Warcraft subscription time or other paid services (such as character transfers). The other option is to "cash-out" the sale to a third-party payment provider (Pardo comments that the contract hasn't been finalized, so he couldn't name the service just yet -- we're assuming PayPal or somesuch). Though, the cash-out option could be subject to transaction fees from both Blizzard and the third-party provider.

The currency-based auction house is completely optional. Player-to-player trading still exists, and there will be an auction house that uses in-game gold as well. Also note that the auction house is the only method of using real-world currency (i.e. no using cash for player-to-player trades).

Hardcore characters (a special difficulty mode that features permadeath for characters) cannot used the currency-based auction house, only the in-game gold one. "We're protecting players from themselves -- we don't want a situation where someone spent a lot of money and then that character --along with the items -- gets deleted due to combat or PVP soon afterwards," notes Pardo.

Interestingly, Blizzard's official position is that if an item gets altered in a patch down the line, Blizzard will not provide a refund or any other accommodations if this happens. So buyer beware: your new loot could get nerfed.

So, listing fees (after you use up your weekly free listing), sales fees, and possibly transaction fees when cashing-out your money (wouldn't you rather roll it over into some WoW subscription time?).  If some of your loot gets nerfed sometime after you bought it, that's too bad.  I'm actually surprised they're not implementing this for Hardcore characters.  Perhaps that would have just been too transparent of a money grab.

[Tannhauser]

So now you can have a job where you level up and sell characters.  Hey, Blizz/EA aren't greedy they're JOB CREATORS.

[Fabricated]

This is gonna be so funny when the Chinese, Russian, and Korean hackers break the system over their knees.

[Merusk]

I can't believe that Blizzard has gone ahead and used up all of the goodwill they've generated in decades of game making.  Unless something changes, I don't see myself buying this game.

As has been mentioned many times in WoW threads; they don't have a choice.  Vivendi put their faith in Bobby Kotick, not Mike Moihane.  The writing's been on the wall for years.

[Talpidae]

Yeah, I'm always kinda surprised when people think that this Blizzard are the same chaps that gave us Orcs Vs Humans.  At this stage, all that's left is the logo.

[Amaron]

Silver lining:  I no longer need fear D3 coming out at the same time as SWTOR.

[Velorath]

So now you can have a job where you level up and sell characters.  Hey, Blizz/EA aren't greedy they're JOB CREATORS.

Actually that kind of brought up an interesting line of thinking for me.  If I do end up playing, is the feeling of excitement I get whenever I get some really cool drop going to be immediately followed by some internal debate as to whether or not I should keep it or try to make some money off it?  In other words, at the point where it becomes trivially easy to put a real world dollar amount on a virtual item, does the game lose what actually made the series fun as it ends up becoming more and more about the money.  Even if I tell myself I'm just not going to deal with any of that AH stuff, I feel like the more loot one accumulates over time, the more tempting it's going to be to get some real world cash out of it.

[Ingmar]

So now you can have a job where you level up and sell characters.  Hey, Blizz/EA aren't greedy they're JOB CREATORS.

This already existed with D2 - I have some friends of friends who made their living for a while running sites like http://d2items.com. Blizzard is just trying to take the secondary market for themselves.

The 'no offline play' is far more likely to matter to people here I think. Personally I never played offline (that I can recall, in any case.)

[Amaron]

I suspect the bigger problem will be that good gear will become trivialized by RMT farmers.   Very good gear will cost practically nothing once they get the bots going.

[Velorath]

So now you can have a job where you level up and sell characters.  Hey, Blizz/EA aren't greedy they're JOB CREATORS.

This already existed with D2 - I have some friends of friends who made their living for a while running sites like http://d2items.com. Blizzard is just trying to take the secondary market for themselves.

The 'no offline play' is far more likely to matter to people here I think. Personally I never played offline (that I can recall, in any case.)

No offline play is possibly the bigger issue to people here, but there's not much to say there except, "yeah, that kinda sucks".  I think the AH stuff has a lot more implications for the game design, the community, the in-game economy, etc..., and leaves a lot more to talk about.  Yeah, D2 had a lot of this stuff going on behind the scenes but in a way that was too much trouble or too unreliable for a good chunk of the players to want to deal with with it.  Now, not only will it be incredibly easy, but the people designing the game will be getting a cut from the sales, which is something I imagine they're going to be keeping in mind when they're deciding drop rates for various items and various other aspects of the game's design.

I don't know, maybe I'm just over-thinking it, but the more I dwell on it, the more I feel like the game itself could end up just being a Diablo skin covering up Ebay: The Game underneath.

[Kirth]

If this is in any way successful WoW's next expansion will have this a feature if it doesn't already. And I can see this being successful, despite all the teeth gnashing. compare something like this to TF2's Mann co store, your not buying directly off blizzard so there is a "chance" the items you want may not be available  . The only thing that is missing now is a crafting system where all items can be broken down into some base material that can eventually be used to craft the best items/runes/whatever  .

[Sparky]

Nice caring about you Diablo 

I hope Torchlight 2 can fill the hole you left in my grumpy single player mod loving heart.

[Malakili]

I'm conflicted.  I don't hate it the idea to the point where I won't buy the game, but I know that every single time something useful drops I am going to think "keep or sell" and that is going to possibly drastically lower my entertainment value.

[Hawkbit]

I didn't see this in all the info above, but mods are expressly prohibited.

http://kotaku.com/5826453/diablo-iii-mods-are-forbidden-banned-not-allowed

I hate the idea of the AH, but what will likely keep me from buying it is whether or not I can control interacting with other people.  If I can effectively close myself off from the rest of the playerbase in the game world, then I can forget the AH and just play what I like.  

It wouldn't surprise me to see DLC packs for this coming out, too.  Blizzard Activision will want all of the AH profits staying inhouse, so expect many ways to spend your "Blizzbucks".  

[jakonovski]

If this is in any way successful WoW's next expansion will have this a feature if it doesn't already. And I can see this being successful, despite all the teeth gnashing. compare something like this to TF2's Mann co store, your not buying directly off blizzard so there is a "chance" the items you want may not be available  . The only thing that is missing now is a crafting system where all items can be broken down into some base material that can eventually be used to craft the best items/runes/whatever  .

The one big difference between TF2 and this is that for Diablo 3, the loot grind is 99% of the game.

[Malakili]

 If I can effectively close myself off from the rest of the playerbase in the game world, then I can forget the AH and just play what I like.  

I have to imagine it won't be hard to play solo, they know thats a huge part of their playerbase.

[Mosesandstick]

Starcraft LAN players were a huge part of their playerbase. I don't think it's safe to assume anything anymore.

[Kirth]

The one big difference between Diablo 3 and this is that for TF2, the hat grind is 99% of the game.

FTFY

[jakonovski]

Is it weird if I feel a lot more comfortable paying a company for in game items, compared to some random d-bag player being on the other end?

[Mrbloodworth]

They will make millions.

Now that that is out of the way. FFS I thought I was going to be buying a single-player/mult-iplayer game. Not a fucking FTP MMG. Allow me:



I want to play Diablo III on a LAN with my friends, fuck the rest of the Diablo III player-base, why connect me in any shape or form to them? FU! Real money "auction house", who the fuck cares about auction houses in DIABLO? Sell, use, destroy. You do not bid on the "Flaming sword of Evisceration"

This is bullshit!

[Malakili]

Starcraft LAN players were a huge part of their playerbase. I don't think it's safe to assume anything anymore.

Is there actually any evidence of this though?  Yea, lots of people played SC2 on LAN, but how many people really played LAN for the specific reasons that Bnet 2.0 screws over (bad connections?).  Ironically, I think its the ultra competitive scene that would benefit most from LAN support in SC2.

[Mrbloodworth]

Diablo III better have a 15$ price tag on the box.

[jakonovski]

I wonder what the people under a self-inflicted information blackout will do once this latest news finally gets to them.

[Malakili]

Diablo III better have a 15$ price tag on the box.

Why?  Its not an item store.   At least not in the normal sense.  Its obvious that they know one way or another there is going to be a real money market for items in their game, they'd prefer to keep it in house than have it go out to third party sites or something like eBay.  

[Comstar]

So what's going to stop anyone botting?

For that matter, isn't this gambling? You play, hope you get a nice random roll of the dice, and can then take your chips and cash out? Like pure, total casino type gambling?

[FieryBalrog]

The RMT AH brokering is brilliant. Its exactly like legalizing marijuana. Or ending Prohibition. Prohibition failed miserably as WoW can attest to. And that was with BoP items and raiding which would ruin Diablo.

The always online thing, not so much, that's just bullshit. Can't say it will affect me since I have no interest in playing single player ARPGs, though.

This is gonna be so funny when the Chinese, Russian, and Korean hackers break the system over their knees.

Why would they break this more than any other MMO with microtransactions?

At this point with everything server side and online only, its practically a Guild Wars style semi-MMO.

[Malakili]

So what's going to stop anyone botting?

Same thing that catches and bans people from cheating in Sc2 I imagine.  With moderate amounts of success.  Seems to work in a way similar to VAC.

[FieryBalrog]

So what's going to stop anyone botting?

The same thing that limits botting (and outright hacking) in WoW- enforcement. And now there's an actual incentive to do it, because if they don't keep the game vibrant their cash cow dies off.

This was exactly the problem with D2. Without an ongoing revenue stream to protect there was no way Blizzard was going to fight a useless battle policing RMT in D2 and pouring money into keeping everything spiffy. They had other projects to do. At least this gives them a strong incentive to fight all that shit.

[Nija]

The only thing this changes is how much money I'm going to end up spending on the game.

[K9]

*shrug*

I just see this as a way to make back the box price by offloading all my characters after I'm done with single-player player perhaps. I was never really into realm play, I guess I'll see how this pans out.

[Mrbloodworth]

Why is hacking/botting or using character editors a problem in a Diablo game? Its a personal choise to use them. Did a whole slew of people play PUG diablo?