Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Talpidae]

Dear God, Accountants should all be shot.

We'll be playing Diablo with our Excel Spreadsheets open.

 

[Paelos]

Dear God, Accountants should all be shot.

We'll be playing Diablo with our Excel Spreadsheets open.

 

Just me. The rest of you would be investing in the mutual fund via gold and items. The money would then be used by our investing specialist to make market trades to increase our pool. That pool would then be converted to cash on a quarterly basis at an agreed upon percentage for payable dividends, less a management fee to support the F13 server costs.

It's one of those things where we get the people that like to play the AH involved from the F13 community and track their performance. We could have several players that like to cover their own market segments. THINK OF IT!

[Teleku]

Its really going to come down to how the market prices balance out.  I'm still afraid that due to the large amount of people playing, plus bot'ers, but with lower real demand amongst most players to actually buy stuff on the AH, the prices will be 25 cents for super amazing ultra  rare drop, and 6 cents for everything else.

[Merusk]

Well.. with the listing fee they won't be that little. That much over listing price, maybe.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Its really going to come down to how the market prices balance out.  I'm still afraid that due to the large amount of people playing, plus bot'ers, but with lower real demand amongst most players to actually buy stuff on the AH, the prices will be 25 cents for super amazing ultra  rare drop, and 6 cents for everything else.

No problem, they can just fix that by lowering drop rates! 

[Threash]

Nobody is going to pay a listing price just to make a quarter.

[caladein]

Just me.

And me, for different reasons... well, if I was vaguely interested in action RPGs.

[Furiously]

Nobody is going to pay a listing price just to make a quarter.

I think you are wrong.

[Amaron]

Nobody is going to pay a listing price just to make a quarter.

They'd put it up for a quarters worth of gold then.   They have said there will be a limited amount of free listing slots though.

[Merusk]

When you sell it, that's a tax-free quarter you didn't have before.  After that it's all about volume & how many bots you can run.

[Malakili]

When you sell it, that's a tax-free quarter you didn't have before.  After that it's all about volume & how many bots you can run.

Speaking of which is there any word about legality, taxation etc? 

[Paelos]

When you sell it, that's a tax-free quarter you didn't have before.  After that it's all about volume & how many bots you can run.

Depends on how many times you do it. If you start to make over $600 revenue on hundreds of items in any given year, the feds won't agree.

[Teleku]

Well.. with the listing fee they won't be that little. That much over listing price, maybe.

I'm assuming the listing fee is going to be something like 5 cents.

[Stabs]

I keep seeing people claiming that items won't sell for more than a quarter. Even in D2 when there was unlimited duping items sold for more than that.

Top D3 loot will be:
- very rare drop
- variable stats, meaning that an item with good stats or perfect stats is worth lots more
- harder to dupe
- obtained from Inferno difficulty monsters that are hard to beat
- obtained at a low rate from all monsters rather than concentrated at farmable bosses
- perfectable by sinking huge amounts of gold and crafting mats into the game's enhancement process
- useful for more different end game elements than d2 loot was (inferno, arena)

A casual player may never find anything worth more than a quarter (although I doubt even that) but the top end items will likely sell for similar amounts to items sold on ebay for popular games.

[Merusk]

When you sell it, that's a tax-free quarter you didn't have before.  After that it's all about volume & how many bots you can run.

Depends on how many times you do it. If you start to make over $600 revenue on hundreds of items in any given year, the feds won't agree.

I'm aware of that but is it revenue or simply a donation from another individual for your time? You're going to see lawsuits come from this because "it's only a virtual item" and there ARE going to be people making over $600.  People have been making bank on virtual items for over a decade now and it's still somehow under the radar until they incorporate and form businesses like the spammers.

[Paelos]

Don't kid yourself. It's gone under the radar because the feds aren't sophisticated enough yet. However, they are getting desperate and starting to headhunt.

[Amaron]

A casual player may never find anything worth more than a quarter (although I doubt even that) but the top end items will likely sell for similar amounts to items sold on ebay for popular games.

I don't think the "top end" items matter.   What matters is the items that are better than the items you find might be a quarter.   If they're that cheap that's going to ruin the fun of actually hunting for your own gear.

[Merusk]

Don't kid yourself. It's gone under the radar because the feds aren't sophisticated enough yet. However, they are getting desperate and starting to headhunt.

At the same time they're having to cut people due to those budget problems and like all government cuts the young and tech savvy are among the first to go.  I don't have any intent to buy the game, much less set up such an enterprise, but I wouldn't worry too much about being caught in the near future if I was.

[KallDrexx]

I'm aware of that but is it revenue or simply a donation from another individual for your time? You're going to see lawsuits come from this because "it's only a virtual item" and there ARE going to be people making over $600.  People have been making bank on virtual items for over a decade now and it's still somehow under the radar until they incorporate and form businesses like the spammers.

First of all it's revenue/income.  Otherwise I should claim that my pay at work is a donation for my time so I don't have to pay taxes on it. 

Second of all, selling virtual items right now is hard to keep track of because it is done behind the scenes.  You go to 3rd party websites that aren't as easy to track.  This system seems that it is All done by Blizzard, and all the records of money being paid going out to each individual.  Blizzard will have to keep track of this and will have to alert the feds to it, and it will be extremely easy for the feds to verify this income.

[Furiously]

Well, it also goes into the hobby income area doesn't it?

Don't you need to just keep receipts that show you have spent more on your computer in that year than you made from D3 loot and it's not taxable?

[Merusk]

How are 3rd party websites any harder to track than Blizzard's 3rd party handler will be or E-bay is?  Because they're also illegal and don't file any taxes?

No, their EULAs are set-up just like E-Bay, where they're just a service not the actual reseller.  They'll pay their own taxes on the bid listing revenues but whatever income you make, the onus is on you to report it and it's not their problem until revenues reach the $20k AND 200 sales mark.  (Not either/ or)

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y11/m01/i18/s03

And that's the "new" requirements, apparently.  Plenty of ways to make a few grand without reporting it and I Expect we'll see lots of HS and College kids doing just that.

[Paelos]

Well, it also goes into the hobby income area doesn't it?

Don't you need to just keep receipts that show you have spent more on your computer in that year than you made from D3 loot and it's not taxable?

No, yes, and maybe depending on the amounts. It's a variable area that the IRS will not look at unless it gets big and/or under reported. They would probably go after Blizzard at their level and not yours. The way they would get their money would be to demand Blizzard release them a list of their top traders and their accounts.

[trias_e]

http://www.own3d.tv/video/183126/Blizzard_Press_Conference_GamesCom_2011

In this video they go into the progression of armor graphics.
  

...

Yes, this one is a monk.  

[Rasix]

 

[Amaron]

Wait.   Why is the progression going from right to left?

Edit:   I looked through that vid a bit and max level is 60?  Looking around I found this too:  http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-iiis-maximum-level-announced-60/

Listening to the video further it sounds like they're making your level matter a lot more and thus had to make it easier to hit max.   

[Malakili]

Yowza.  Is it too early to start asking for an appearance tab?

Also re: Leveling.  I am a bit sad also that max level seems easily attainable.  Not because I think its neat to lord level 99 over people, but because I think its neat that a relatively wide variety of character levels could actually participate in the "end game" of Diablo II.  Maybe you couldn't farm Hell Meph super easy, but you could certainly farm NM Meph, get some decent stuff, a bit of exp, and maybe get lucky with something great like a Shaftstop.   Seems like here the "real" game will simply start at level 60.  I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter THAT much, but it was something I did like about the old one that I guess has been "updated" for the new one.

[Paelos]

Oh Blizzard art people. 

Don't they ever realize that their baseline is the best?

That progression goes from  to  to 

WTF is that supposed to be a robo-rogue?

[Furiously]

That looks horrid. At max level...

[Amaron]

That looks horrid. At max level...

The funny part is that's not max level armor.   If you watch the vid he said it was like late hell stuff.   I have a morbid curiosity to see what they will top that with.

Not because I think its neat to lord level 99 over people, but because I think its neat that a relatively wide variety of character levels could actually participate in the "end game" of Diablo II. 

Yea that was my first worry.  Hardcore loses massive epeen appeal if there is no visible metric as well.

[Threash]

The first armor looks better in both cases.  Specially the first one.

[Merusk]

So they're just hiring incredibly bad artists all 'round these days then.  I guess that explains WoW's armor decline.

I never thought I'd see something that made Paladin armors look less ridiculous.  How wrong I was!

[Mrbloodworth]

It's kinda hard to play Diablo 2 anymore on a modern monitor. You can always use hardware scaling or monitor scaling and play at fullscreen, but then well, you're stuck playing fullscreen.

Or you play it windowed and kinda squint at it.

I've had this problem with a number of titles I decided to revisit, its annoying for sure.

[Velorath]

That horrible looking armor actually hurts my desire to play more than the RMT AH and always online stuff does.  Aside from the graphics, have they announced anything about this game that sounds like an actual improvement over Diablo 2?

[UnSub]

Apparently at the end of Diablo 3, you join GWAR.

[MuffinMan]

The third Monk armor reminds me of Skeletor at the end of Masters of the Universe after he goes super saiyan.