Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Draegan]

I wonder what the listing fees are going to be.  That seems like bullshit.  I understand taking a cut of the sale, but listing fees?  Yeesh. 

Outside the free ones you get every week, if listing fees aren't a penny or two, then who's gonna really start pumping items into the economy?

[Malakili]

I wonder what the listing fees are going to be.  That seems like bullshit.  I understand taking a cut of the sale, but listing fees?  Yeesh. 

Outside the free ones you get every week, if listing fees aren't a penny or two, then who's gonna really start pumping items into the economy?

Botters!

Seriously though, I agree with you.  I'm going to try and avoid using this to begin with I think.  I guess its ironic considering my spiel last page about the D2 economy, but honestly the when it goes from game business to real business it makes me not want to do it anymore.  In that respect I'm sort of glad there is a listing fee, as it'll be a constant reminder for me not to give into to the temptation of the RM AH.

[Ratman_tf]

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.

It's pretty amazing to watch the beginning of Blizz turning into EA. Like in The Thing when the dog sprouts tentacles.

[Malakili]

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.

It's pretty amazing to watch the beginning of Blizz turning into EA. Like in The Thing when the dog sprouts tentacles.

When D3 outsells D2 I guess they get the last laugh?

[Ratman_tf]

When D3 outsells D2 I guess they get the last laugh?

Stomping on people is good business sense. I'd like to think that this will break Blizzard's back, but I doubt it.

[Merusk]

Has anyone called Schild to make sure he himself hasn't flatlined over this?

[jakonovski]

Christ, I can't keep up with this thread at work. Slow down people!

[FieryBalrog]

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.

It's pretty amazing to watch the beginning of Blizz turning into EA. Like in The Thing when the dog sprouts tentacles.

If EA made games as good as these less people would care, though.

There's less of a stink when they release things like Dragon Age (1, not 2).

[Malakili]

When D3 outsells D2 I guess they get the last laugh?

Stomping on people is good business sense. I'd like to think that this will break Blizzard's back, but I doubt it.

It seems that the only people this ACTUALLY matters to should be people who can not consistently connect to the internet, or people who like to play mods (I'd include bloodworth here, who liked editing his characters).  This doesn't strike me as a huge % of the playerbase nor is it particularly stomping on people.

I've been logging into to battle.net to play Blizzard's games for over a decade, I can't get real up in arms over this.

[Minvaren]

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.)

Personally, I almost never played online, except for a few open games hosted by friends.  Rest of my play was solo.  

Bowazon doing Duriel online solo?  You were dead before the screen refreshed after clicking on the portal.  Sometimes only mostly-dead and slowed if your lackey took the first charge.

Likely going to add this title to the "pass" list at this point.  Best of luck to Blactivision and their money hats with it, though.

[Mrbloodworth]

When D3 outsells D2 I guess they get the last laugh?

Stomping on people is good business sense. I'd like to think that this will break Blizzard's back, but I doubt it.

It seems that the only people this ACTUALLY matters to should be people who can not consistently connect to the internet, or people who like to play mods (I'd include bloodworth here, who liked editing his characters).  This doesn't strike me as a huge % of the playerbase nor is it particularly stomping on people.

I've been logging into to battle.net to play Blizzard's games for over a decade, I can't get real up in arms over this.

I do want to make clear, my objection is that the mod allowed me to just play the game. This new system, will force me to spend more time leveling then I may have, or spend money I should not need to, just to "play" with friends even over a LAN.

Online mode, no mods, no tools ETC, all there to simply justify having a a RMT AH, Post 60$ entry fee.

[Xanthippe]

My interest in this game has just disappeared.

[Ratman_tf]

It seems that the only people this ACTUALLY matters to should be people who can not consistently connect to the internet, or people who like to play mods (I'd include bloodworth here, who liked editing his characters).  This doesn't strike me as a huge % of the playerbase nor is it particularly stomping on people.

I've been logging into to battle.net to play Blizzard's games for over a decade, I can't get real up in arms over this.

I usually play DAlikes in offline mode. (Rogue didn't have no multiplayer!) Multiplayer, and thus having to be online is pretty low on my list of concerns. So it's reduced functionality for me.
The AH... good god. I play these games for fun. I don't want monetizing concerns to affect my gameplay to this degree.
These two things are making me pretty sour on the idea of D3. And I wonder what bomb Blizz is going to drop next. Maybe requiring us to be logged into Facebook while we play?

[Mrbloodworth]

Diablo 3 - Auction House: Play D3, Make Money - Announcement

[Murgos]

I kind of see this as Blizzard/EA saying that North America isn't really the intended market for this game.  They make a LOT of money off WoW & Starcraft in Asia and this seems to me to be catering to that crowd.

Also, LOL Bloodworth's, "How dare they not let me hack their game." argument.

[Mrbloodworth]

I did not use the network, who gives a shit?

[Murgos]

I did not use the network, who gives a shit?

Yeah, past tense.  Why should I care about your future ability to hack some game?

[Mrbloodworth]

I did not use the network, who gives a shit?

Yeah, past tense.  Why should I care about your future ability to hack some game?

Why should I care about a bunch of E-peen enabled AH?

[Mosesandstick]

D2 was a flawed game, many of the mods and editors made it a better experience.

[LK]

Blizzard isn't shipping a game. They're shipping an economy and they want a cut.

[Mrbloodworth]

Blizzard isn't shipping a game. They're shipping an economy and they want a cut.

Basically.


"You all now farm for us, what game?"


EDIT: No LAN support? What the hell. No wonder they need a cash shop. They just keep piling on the justification.

[Rendakor]

The existence of a sanctioned RMT AH is what prevents single player or LAN; people will be less inclined to use the AH if the items on there are Closed B.net only. By making everyone participate in Closed B.net (and also disallowing mods/hacks/trainers), they increase the percentage of people likely to participate in the RMT AH.

[Mrbloodworth]

New defense/justification:

"Think of the poor blizzard, they have to pay for the servers somehow, its not like they could let people host games themselves! Don't be so mean."

[Lantyssa]

The funny thing is this is the first news that made me consider playing after thinking I might give it a pass.  I can sell crap for a couple of extra cents a week.

Has anyone called Schild to make sure he himself hasn't flatlined over this?

Self-imposed black-out.  Though someone might have leaked this to him.  When we hear the scream we'll know.

[Malakili]

The existence of a sanctioned RMT AH is what prevents single player or LAN; people will be less inclined to use the AH if the items on there are Closed B.net only. By making everyone participate in Closed B.net (and also disallowing mods/hacks/trainers), they increase the percentage of people likely to participate in the RMT AH.

No way.  Did anyone seriously doubt this was going to require you sign into B.net to play?  If you did before today you were deluding yourself, or haven't been paying attention to Blizzard for the past 2 years.  I would say no offline/line is related to this AH, but hardly cut explicitly because of it. 

[Murgos]

Why should I care about a bunch of E-peen enabled AH?

I don't care if you do.  But you just spent 5 posts telling me that I should care about your ability to hack the game.

It's a stupid justification for anything but particularly a business decision like a AAA game design feature and yet, here I am listening to it over and over again.

[Merusk]

Has anyone called Schild to make sure he himself hasn't flatlined over this?

Self-imposed black-out.  Though someone might have leaked this to him.  When we hear the scream we'll know.

He commented on Facebook. Not as much vitriol in the boy as there once was, all we got was a snarky W-2 comment.

[Mrbloodworth]

Why should I care about a bunch of E-peen enabled AH?

I don't care if you do.  But you just spent 5 posts telling me that I should care about your ability to hack the game.

It's a stupid justification for anything but particularly a business decision like a AAA game design feature and yet, here I am listening to it over and over again.

Then you missed my point.

[Paelos]

Ok, this doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would for a couple of reasons. One, I was concerned that Blizzard was going to be selling items directly from the shop. That's game-breaking and would cause me to not buy the game. This is just a facilitation of the players getting items from other players, which has already been going on, and Blizzard is going to standardize it. This is something I've actually been in favor of as a way to take it out of the seedy world of hacker sites and into the open.

Two, the "always online" thing doesn't bother me that much because I played online pretty much 90% of the time in D2. The point of the game was to get online and do stuff, even though you could play offline.

[Simond]

I'll put the ETA of Activision selling items directly to the playerbase at 6 months from launch. Anyone want to go lower/higher?

[Malakili]

I'll put the ETA of Activision selling items directly to the playerbase at 6 months from launch. Anyone want to go lower/higher?

I wouldn't be surprised to see them sell stuff in a D3 store, but I suspect they will keep it off their AH for PR reasons.  Expect sparkle ponies. 

[Talpidae]

I'll put the ETA of Activision selling items directly to the playerbase at 6 months from launch. Anyone want to go lower/higher?

From Launch.

[Paelos]

I'll put the ETA of Activision selling items directly to the playerbase at 6 months from launch. Anyone want to go lower/higher?

From Launch.

That would kill the game. You can't have items being sold directly to the players and have players selling items.

[schild]

Still gonna play.  Don't really care about the SoJ to $ transformation. Definitely don't care that I have to be logged in to play a Blizzard game.

[Malakili]

Summarized nicely.

Oh also: https://twitter.com/#!/RunicGames/status/98047140441505792

I'll be buying both, as originally planned.