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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Diablo 3  |  Topic: WHOA THEY'RE DOING IT 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: WHOA THEY'RE DOING IT  (Read 23043 times)
Ingmar
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Reply #35 on: September 17, 2013, 02:29:57 PM

Don't be shocked if that's exactly what they do.  They don't like 3rd parties making money off their games.

I think it could happen. Going back to a trading/3rd party item economy creates massive customer support headaches for them due to scamming, etc.

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Malakili
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Reply #36 on: September 17, 2013, 02:38:03 PM

Don't be shocked if that's exactly what they do.  They don't like 3rd parties making money off their games.

I think it could happen. Going back to a trading/3rd party item economy creates massive customer support headaches for them due to scamming, etc.

I just can't get over the fact that I'm inevitably going to get 4 of one drop and 0 of another and be unable to trade the excess for the one I want.  Smart Loot or not, it's going to happen.  I can't imagine that's the route they want either.
Ironwood
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Reply #37 on: September 17, 2013, 02:42:37 PM

They're still fucking douchebags.

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MrHat
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Reply #38 on: September 17, 2013, 02:46:47 PM

Now they need to make all of the best items account-bind-on-pickup so that all you can do is trade them to your other characters.  With the AH gone there's no reason to even let people do selling via spam or 3rd party websites.

The only thing the should have done, months ago, is make any item bought off the AH bind-on-account.
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Reply #39 on: September 17, 2013, 02:47:29 PM

Sorry if this has already been covered, but are they nixing the "always online" requirement, too?  The RMAH was the main justification I heard for it.

They haven't said. That question is one of the most common followups that I've seen in comment threads on this topic, though. Personally, I think always-online will still be with us.

With the AH in the game, always-online is necessary to provide at least the veneer of a level playing field.
Once the (RM)AH is gone, always-online will revert to its more basic function, i.e. DRM. I don't see Blizzard giving that up.

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Ironwood
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Reply #40 on: September 17, 2013, 02:52:29 PM

No, especially since that shit is in SCII and is used for the delivery system.

The Cunts.

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Margalis
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Reply #41 on: September 17, 2013, 03:05:03 PM

Looking forward to the expansion at this point, they're clearly willing to make some massive changes to improve the game, even if it hurts their wallet.

I suspect someone realized that the long-term damage to the Diablo brand was far more costly than losing the AH revenue.

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Reply #42 on: September 17, 2013, 03:06:20 PM

Honestly, this would definitely get me to have another look at the game.

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Reply #43 on: September 17, 2013, 04:14:07 PM

Boo! The problem was not that there was an AH, the problem was that the loot sucked, so AH was the only sane route. They better have something in mind to replace it, cause I am not going to go back to spamming fucking trade chat. The dumb part is they are already locking all the new tailored drops to your account, just like they did the crafted items, so half of the shit you find won't even be tradable anyway.

preach it

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Reply #44 on: September 17, 2013, 04:30:14 PM

I don't think people are capturing some of the reasons the AH was bad - and those reasons are basic economics not game design. Whether the loot was designed to be shitty or not for the AH doesn't matter. Even if loot was better the AH would still have dominated the game, for two simple reasons.

I) a fundamental fact of economics is barriers to entry. The higher the barrier, the fewer people will enter the market. The old trade sites weren't a problem because only a really small % of the population used them - it took too much effort and risk for people to start buying gear on the AH. By creating an in game AH that was so easy to use Blizzard basically lowered he entry barrier to 0, which pushed almost everyone into the market. What they saw as an advantage, by making a risky unsafe process into something easy everyone could do, ended up as a disadvantage because it basically pushed everyone into it.

II) as a result of that, blizzard introduced a huge amount of liquidity into the market. In a game where loot is rolled randomly across a huge variety of numbers and stats, blizzard basically pushed every item generated onto the AH - and because everyone was using it, it devalued loot that otherwise would have been great. Under the old system of D2 items that were sub-par had value because the market was so much smaller (dupes aside). In D3 that wasn't the case - there were simply too many items being generated and flung onto the AH at no cost to the lister that it completely destroyed a lot of the value of loot. ARPGs always have items that are a bit better than what you have, that's part of the draw. But it changes the game when that item is sat in the in game AH right in front of you one click away.

Even if the loot had been good and not so shitty, the AH would have had a detrimental affect on the game because of the fundamentals it changes. As it happens, it combined with the crap loot and insanely stupid, WoW approach to Inferno difficulty that really poisoned a lot of people's opinions.

What I also don't understand are their protestations that they never saw it as an issue because their in game testing didn't use it. That's got to be a lie, and if it isn't someone's head should roll because these problems are really basic fundamentals that anyone who ever read a basic text book could outline. Their one of gamings largest companies with more money than 5 other studios combined, and yet they didn't have anyone on staff who could tell them what introducing a completely risk free, instantaneous auction house would do to a game like Diablo 3?

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Reply #45 on: September 17, 2013, 04:38:19 PM

Economics effected the game design.

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Malakili
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Reply #46 on: September 17, 2013, 05:07:10 PM

I don't think people are capturing some of the reasons the AH was bad - and those reasons are basic economics not game design. Whether the loot was designed to be shitty or not for the AH doesn't matter. Even if loot was better the AH would still have dominated the game, for two simple reasons.

I) a fundamental fact of economics is barriers to entry. The higher the barrier, the fewer people will enter the market. The old trade sites weren't a problem because only a really small % of the population used them - it took too much effort and risk for people to start buying gear on the AH. By creating an in game AH that was so easy to use Blizzard basically lowered he entry barrier to 0, which pushed almost everyone into the market. What they saw as an advantage, by making a risky unsafe process into something easy everyone could do, ended up as a disadvantage because it basically pushed everyone into it.

Are we talking about the RMAH or the gold AH here?  I don't get the impression at all that "almost everyone" used the RMAH. 

Quote
insanely stupid, WoW approach to Inferno difficulty that really poisoned a lot of people's opinions.

Although they eventually backed off it in terms of the act based progression in Inferno, the idea that Inferno alone is the "end game" still grinds my gears.  The idea that I could find an item in Nightmare that was an "end game" item is one of the things I really liked about Diablo 2.  But this won't change with loot 2.0, I'm afraid.

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Reply #47 on: September 17, 2013, 06:11:03 PM

Yeah I think the people who used the RMAH were a tiny minority. What may have been more true is that people bought gold on the RMAH and then used gold on the gold AH, though.

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Shatter
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Reply #48 on: September 17, 2013, 06:40:22 PM

I liked D3 but the loot was complete ass and its still all f*cked up.  Removing the RMAH and actually fixing the loot are definitely steps in the right direction if you want to make some sort of recovery in this game. 
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Reply #49 on: September 17, 2013, 09:01:25 PM

They should make it so that the AH only get's turned of for expansion-users. So you'd have to pay get rid of it!

And a premium-upgrade that allows you to never see Metzen's writing again. "Skip all of Leah's dialog for only $19.99!"  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

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Reply #50 on: September 17, 2013, 10:29:43 PM

They should make it so that the AH only get's turned of for expansion-users. So you'd have to pay get rid of it!

And a premium-upgrade that allows you to never see Metzen's writing again. "Skip all of Leah's dialog for only $19.99!"  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

For god's sake shush!!! Don't give them ideas!

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Musashi
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Reply #51 on: September 17, 2013, 11:24:33 PM

I've been sure that the reality of the deleterious effects of the rmah would eventually become so obvious that they would realize they would have to remove it. I dared not hope that they would remove the equally heinous gold ah at the same time. Now we can go back to hawking soj's as god intended.

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Reply #52 on: September 18, 2013, 12:13:09 AM

I honestly don't think the RMAH is the cause of the problems. I did before the game launched, but changed my mind once I saw it in action. The gold AH more than anything was the problem because it was literally zero cost for anyone to use it. There will always be a subset of players not willing to spend RL money on the AH, but there was no disincentive at all to use the gold AH.
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Reply #53 on: September 18, 2013, 01:34:24 AM

I agree.

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K9
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Reply #54 on: September 18, 2013, 07:00:02 AM

I don't think people are capturing some of the reasons the AH was bad - and those reasons are basic economics not game design. Whether the loot was designed to be shitty or not for the AH doesn't matter. Even if loot was better the AH would still have dominated the game, for two simple reasons.

I) a fundamental fact of economics is barriers to entry. The higher the barrier, the fewer people will enter the market. The old trade sites weren't a problem because only a really small % of the population used them - it took too much effort and risk for people to start buying gear on the AH. By creating an in game AH that was so easy to use Blizzard basically lowered he entry barrier to 0, which pushed almost everyone into the market. What they saw as an advantage, by making a risky unsafe process into something easy everyone could do, ended up as a disadvantage because it basically pushed everyone into it.

II) as a result of that, blizzard introduced a huge amount of liquidity into the market. In a game where loot is rolled randomly across a huge variety of numbers and stats, blizzard basically pushed every item generated onto the AH - and because everyone was using it, it devalued loot that otherwise would have been great. Under the old system of D2 items that were sub-par had value because the market was so much smaller (dupes aside). In D3 that wasn't the case - there were simply too many items being generated and flung onto the AH at no cost to the lister that it completely destroyed a lot of the value of loot. ARPGs always have items that are a bit better than what you have, that's part of the draw. But it changes the game when that item is sat in the in game AH right in front of you one click away.

Even if the loot had been good and not so shitty, the AH would have had a detrimental affect on the game because of the fundamentals it changes. As it happens, it combined with the crap loot and insanely stupid, WoW approach to Inferno difficulty that really poisoned a lot of people's opinions.

What I also don't understand are their protestations that they never saw it as an issue because their in game testing didn't use it. That's got to be a lie, and if it isn't someone's head should roll because these problems are really basic fundamentals that anyone who ever read a basic text book could outline. Their one of gamings largest companies with more money than 5 other studios combined, and yet they didn't have anyone on staff who could tell them what introducing a completely risk free, instantaneous auction house would do to a game like Diablo 3?



Well put

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Xanthippe
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Reply #55 on: September 18, 2013, 08:14:22 AM

Why does it always take Blizzard 2 years to fix glaringly stupid decisions?
Ironwood
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Reply #56 on: September 18, 2013, 08:23:13 AM


Their one of gamings largest companies with more money than 5 other studios combined, and yet they didn't have anyone on staff who could tell them what introducing a completely risk free, instantaneous auction house would do to a game like Diablo 3?


One guy did, but fuck that loser.

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Reply #57 on: September 18, 2013, 08:39:09 AM


Their one of gamings largest companies with more money than 5 other studios combined, and yet they didn't have anyone on staff who could tell them what introducing a completely risk free, instantaneous auction house would do to a game like Diablo 3?
One guy did, but fuck that loser.
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Reply #58 on: September 18, 2013, 08:58:11 AM

I don't think it's been said yet: Economics affected game design.

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Reply #59 on: September 18, 2013, 10:06:45 AM

Economics has been affecting game design since Product Managers burst fully armored from the head of the MBA overlord, Doucheophecles.
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Reply #60 on: September 18, 2013, 10:25:37 AM

There's a difference between economics which is about how much cash we can screw out of people (which is really more business design than anything) and economics which is about the unintended consequences of creating an almost perfect free market environment.

And hey, just like in real life the people who actually produce stuff get paid a lot less than those who can play the market! ;-)
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Reply #61 on: September 18, 2013, 10:32:03 AM

Sorry if this has already been covered, but are they nixing the "always online" requirement, too?  The RMAH was the main justification I heard for it.

Nope.

Quote
“We do not have plans to implement an offline mode. While the always-online requirement made the auction house possible, the auction house was never the driving factor in our decision to make the PC version of Diablo III require an Internet connection. The game was built from the ground up to take full advantage of Battle.net, which provides a number of important benefits, including persistent server-side character saves, a seamless PC multiplayer experience, cheat prevention, and Real ID and BattleTag social features.”

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Ironwood
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Reply #62 on: September 18, 2013, 11:53:42 AM

A seamless performance unless your broadband is shit and prone to outages.

Also, they never said it was about the AH ?  They totally fucking did, the bastards.

Seriously, this is just more shit from Blizzard.  Changes not a fucking thing in my mind.

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Reply #63 on: September 18, 2013, 01:00:59 PM

What a bunch of lies.

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Reply #64 on: September 18, 2013, 01:04:52 PM

After putting some time into D3 again, then just this last week starting a new character in Torchlight 2 with some quality-of-life mods it really stuns me how much better of a game TL2 is despite its faults.

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Reply #65 on: September 18, 2013, 01:09:16 PM

Shame the quality of life in base TL2 is basically NOLA after Katrina.
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Reply #66 on: September 18, 2013, 03:12:39 PM

After putting some time into D3 again, then just this last week starting a new character in Torchlight 2 with some quality-of-life mods it really stuns me how much better of a game TL2 is despite its faults.

Which mods? I really want to give TL2 another shot

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Reply #67 on: September 18, 2013, 03:22:29 PM

After putting some time into D3 again, then just this last week starting a new character in Torchlight 2 with some quality-of-life mods it really stuns me how much better of a game TL2 is despite its faults.

Which mods? I really want to give TL2 another shot
Ember Gem Upgrade, Extra Chunky, free entrance revive, respec potion, 5-minute buff durations, affix upgrade so far.

I liked that TL2 encouraged just using gems instead of hoarding them but they drop so frequently and don't really sell for THAT much. Just continue to use them as you find them, then every now and then go and transmute your trash gems to better ones.

Extra Chunky adds a lot more map "chunks" and messes a bit with how they're all arranged, so all of the maps and dungeons in the game have a LOT more variation. It's great.

Free entrance revive is just because like half the time when you die you have a stupid TP or a waypoint right there anyway so cut to the chase.

Respec potion is obvious.

5-minute buffs makes playing any build with a lot of passive buffs a lot less annoying. I got fucking tired of renewing stormstrike over and over.

Affix upgrade is the iffiest; it just adds a ton more item affixes with different stuff. The author tried to make them not broken and it seems okay so far. More varied loot is nice. Particularly since it lets me avoid the trap of having the whole "house of cards" setup where all my equipment is so layered with base-stat buffs I need half my equipment to equip the other half.

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Reply #68 on: September 18, 2013, 07:56:10 PM

A seamless performance unless your broadband is shit and prone to outages.

I visited my parents for a month and a half (yay layoffs!) to help out while pop was recovering from knee surgery.
So I had lots of time to game when I wasn't helping out.
They live out in the sticks, and have sattelite internet, which was utter shite for playing any game online. Diablo 3 was a complete fail, and X-Com was ok, except Steam kept sucking up all their useage allotment unti I threw it into offline mode.

So yeah. Always online is uber stupid when a game doesn't absolutley require it. I mean, a simple offline tag system for characters, like in D2...



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Reply #69 on: September 19, 2013, 02:01:34 AM

Now try Scotland, a fucking third world wasteland for Broadband.

Yeah, I wasn't happy with this decision from the outset.  To hear them continue to talk shit about it just reinforces my already iron clad decision not to give Blizzard another fucking penny of my money ever.

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