"OMFG I CAN SELL ITEMS THAT I DON'T WANT TO OTHER PLAYERS AND EARN REAL MONEY!?!? FU BOBBY KOTICK!!1!"
I just don't understand the complaints?
Their logic was that they didn't want 3rd party websites selling items for real cash, so best to shove it in our face full force from the makers themselves.
At least you only had a few people buying and selling in the background, but now? It's right in front of us, ready and willing to easily destroy the in-game economy and competitive pvp.
How is that remotely logical? Drugs are bad, but it's cool if it's taxed and regulated!
.I'm assuming your character and everything is stored server-side for this reason, and I think it's essential for an effective online market.
If they're going to go with an online, real-dollars auction house, then that is essential. The flipside of being DRM is pretty much just a bonus at that point, from a product development perspective.
That's not the argument, it's that we can't have offline characters that are only available from your PC and would not be ported to online play.
I'm sure this is to regulate pirating and modding, but they straight up told us their reason was, "Because then you couldn't bring that character online".. Well no shit? They're playing that character offline for a reason, and if you give them a disclaimer stating that said character will STAY offline, then who's to complain?
That's not the argument, it's that we can't have offline characters that are only available from your PC and would not be ported to online play.
I'm sure this is to regulate pirating and modding, but they straight up told us their reason was, "Because then you couldn't bring that character online".. Well no shit? They're playing that character offline for a reason, and if you give them a disclaimer stating that said character will STAY offline, then who's to complain?
If you build an offline character, then you're going to have a huge barrier to online entry that most people won't cross. They want people online. They want you to play online because then you get addicted and spend more money and buy expansions and DLC and all that noise.
They've mentioned several times before than this game is more online-centric than the previous titles, and they'd fragment their userbase if they didn't do this.
Plus it functions as DRM and gets you more involved/aware of the whole battle.net system, etc. From their side, there are a lot of advantages towards this whole integration.
If you build an offline character, then you're going to have a huge barrier to online entry that most people won't cross. They want people online. They want you to play online because then you get addicted and spend more money and buy expansions and DLC and all that noise.
They've mentioned several times before than this game is more online-centric than the previous titles, and they'd fragment their userbase if they didn't do this.
Plus it functions as DRM and gets you more involved/aware of the whole battle.net system, etc. From their side, there are a lot of advantages towards this whole integration.
Of course, though the basic idea of offline play for most people, was to not be regulated and to just be able to play the game itself as-is, like they could in D1 and D2..
That's all they wanted, but Blizzard tried to publicize it as though EVERYONE eventually wanted to play with their characters online with other people. Which isn't true at all.
We all know what Blizzard is trying to do, I'm just stating what the people are actually asking for.
Excitement for this game is deminishing rapidly. And it's not even about all the financial stuff going on, the game simply doesn't look very inventive.
Yes it will be a very polished diablo that takes prior aspects of blizzard games and builds on them ever so slightly, but i feel it may be overbalanced, stale, and just a fun little romp through the greatness blizzard once was, similar to starcraft 2.
Lol. If D3 is anywhere near as good as D2, it'll be awesome. I'm fully expecting it wont be as good, but then D2 is in my top5 games of all time and i'm a retro kinda guy. So its going to be hard to beat.
I'm prepared to be disappointed that its not as good as D2, can't wait to find out just how good it is though.
The fact that they're neglecting modders is my biggest disappointment. The Diablo 2 modding community is what kept my interest in the game for so long. Makes me anxious for Torchlight 2 even more. I'll still probably play copious amounts of D3, but I have no intention of farming items to keep me occupied in a game when I know it's constantly a money factor instead of legitimate character progression.
I personally don't care about needing an internet connection, I can't imagine a situation in which I'm gaming without one, but the 'No Mods' thing is asinine. Yeah, sure, cheating sucks and whatnot, but things like PunkBuster, etc, exist to address that.
We know that the real reason for outlawing mods is because Blizzard-Activision is keen on monetizing game content via this auction house, and they don't want players getting for free (via a mod) what they otherwise might have to pay for. I remember using a character 'trainer' with Diablo 1 to give myself an awesome katana called The Grandfather. It was fun to play with something I likely wouldn't have found otherwise. Now I either have to grind for it or pay cash to someone else, of which Blizzard gets a cut.
Even better, with an anonymous bidder-seller system, there is absolutely no way to know if the Legendary Uber Axe +5 that you're buying is coming form another player or if B-A is selling you that item and pocketing all the cash directly. Does anyone think that B-A won't do that if it looks profitable enough? Putting items in an auction house costs nothing, so each sale is pure profit.
I don't really care about the auction thing, as I'll never use it, but I do care that its the real reason for outlawing mods, which I use all the time.
There is absolutely no reason to trade with gold anymore, all of the decent items that players have found will now be on the Cash AH, sure some people might trade for shit items that have no reason to be on the AH.. But it's now completely diminished any possibility of a decent player trade system.
"We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date."
Someone, please explain this shit to me..
I feel as though someone just stabbed me right in the fucking back.
PvP will be for the rich and the spoiled, what takes someone days or possibly weeks finding a specific item to compete with, is now purchasable for a better price of $5 of your income..
The only people I've seen that don't mind the Cash AH, are those that plan to farm and sell items, or those that already use systems like the 3rd party websites for this.
But then it just opens it completely to the public, so easy to use.. Why even ignore it at that point? It's right there, buy the item for $2.. You have the money, why would you bother to spend those hours playing the video game you should be enjoying and benefiting through your own accomplishments, when you could easily buy those hours off of some other douche.
Why not just break things down even more and give into temptation? Create a virtual PvP arena where all you'd do is see who has the most cash with a gamble? "Is he going to throw down $5?", "well shit.. If that's the case, then I'll throw down $10!"
There are better ways to solve a problem.. If people are suspected of taking drugs for athletic competitions, does it become such a large problem that you decide to just give in and let everyone 'roid up and see who can shove the most drugs into their systems?
I'm fucking sick of liars, hypocrites and anyone else that feels the need to twist the truth for the smallest little gain on their part.
Like most of the time, I think people are overreacting before they get to try out the game. I haven't played a bad Blizzard game yet, and I doubt Diablo 3 will change it, so why not give it the benefit of doubt? Why always assume all of the bad things will happen? Who are we to say that some of the best game designers in the world haven't thought this new AH through and are gonna make sure that effort is rewarded just like it is in World of Warcraft and Starcraft?
I don't really see why people are crying before they're trying it out.
I don't really see why people are crying before they're trying it out.
Because we know what a godamn Cash AH is?
If they created a system to compete with the 3rd party websites that shouldn't even be around, stating that you have the free ability to sell your items for as little or as much CASH as you'd like.. No matter what the system is, if it involves CASH and ALL in-game items as well as the eventual possibility of player characters..
Then it will destroy any decent item trade/gold economy.
The only people I've seen that don't mind the Cash AH, are those that plan to farm and sell items, or those that already use systems like the 3rd party websites for this.
I dont "think" I am going to mind it. Won't know till I play the game.
I'm a player who will be playing with friends in a passworded room playing co-op mostly. Doing our own thing. Hopefully getting a whole polycount group/clan/tribe/guild vibe going on as well. I won't be farming and I have never bought/sold stuff in games for cash and I don't think D3 is going to change that.
As for PvP. Well, I expect there'll be a rank system so you battle players of a similar rank. There'll be players that have toiled for 100's of hours and there'll be players that have bought the rank. I expect the players that have played 100's of hours will kick ass and the players with cash won't have a clue. Players that have put in the hours and bought stuff will be pretty fucking hard to beat but I dont expect to rank very highly anyway.
I wasn't happy about these announcements but I have faith it'll be a friggin good game. As long as the co-op is good, the game is good. Anything else is a bonus.
After thinking about it all day yesterday, I still have faith in that this will be an awesome game. That i will still be able to have fun and that those "enhancements" will not hinder my exp in any way.
Even when i don't agree with Blizzard exploiting the fact that somehow they just realized they can make money of everything and they will be charging you 3 times for selling things. This is something i won't take part of. I want to play with my brothers and friends and go kill hordes of evilness and look at a pretty game. I think with that in mind i don't have any trouble with what Diablo 3 is starting to shape as.
But i do believe there has to be an awareness of the things that are starting to happen. Charging for everything, the position of "Hey, if you are not online then play something else cuz we don't really care" is kinda aggravating. I am really sure that Blizzard is a great company, i just hope that the people that are responsible for decisions like this don't give it a bad name. I do believe that games are great because of the people. Taking out modding imo is a bad move, since it's what made Diablo 2 keep going until today! but you can't tell people to bug off just because you want to make extra profit, or decisions taken that will affect peoples perspective or the community. If they start to get into a position of "hey, we make the games, so you either play them, or go play Team Fortress since it's free". I just think that we need to start realizing that the most important factor after gameplay is the community of gamers that are loyal to a game and will make it a success. Without them, there is no success, no game, no money, bla bla.
Soooo.. just a humble opinion. I am still very much excited by this game. But in how some things were handled. Any comments?
I was looking forward to Dioablo III quite a bit. Reading about these "additions", has dulled my enthusiasm significantly. I'm okay with the DRM, but I'm not okay with item/character selling for actually profit.
It ruined WoW for me (the community didn't help either), and I can only assume it'll ruin Diablo for me too.
Why would an auction house ruin Diablo? Buying items was always possible in D2, and never really mattered one way or another. What's the difference between a legit item hero and a bought item hero playing in a different game with different people? It's not your fun that's being ruined.
Will never buy anything as mostly will be playing with friends/sp anyway. So the auction house makes absolutely zero difference to me. The no mods thing really puzzles me considering their support in Sc2.
Why would an auction house ruin Diablo? Buying items was always possible in D2, and never really mattered one way or another. What's the difference between a legit item hero and a bought item hero playing in a different game with different people? It's not your fun that's being ruined.
Because it triggers a greed switch in the community. Buying items was absolutely possible, but not in front of your face and commended by the developers.
What if I'd have liked to enjoy playing in random rooms with random people? Now I need to be skeptical of everyone being a godamn cheater.
Oh, the dude in my game just found something useful for my build? Can I ask for a trade? No, he probably wants real money for it instead.
Why would an auction house ruin Diablo? Buying items was always possible in D2, and never really mattered one way or another. What's the difference between a legit item hero and a bought item hero playing in a different game with different people? It's not your fun that's being ruined.
I'm trying to hold judgement until I can see hands-on how things work. I do not have a problem with players selling players items, even if Blizzard does take a cut. I'm just not confident that the model will remain intact for the duration for the game.
I can absolutely see Blizzard offering incentives to players that both sell and buy items by way of achievements or exclusive items. I can also see Blizzard finding some method of offering exclusive items on the AH (possibly in limited supply), which I am not at all okay with.
Again, I'll have to wait and see, but I can see many potential problems with it.
As a note, I'm not at all a fan of DLC, and if content is not included on the disc, I don't buy it. Items that require actual cash are equal to DLC in my mind. I have never purchased any DLC for any game I've ever owned, nor do I plan to. With the lack of mods, you can be sure that Blizzard will be releasing content at a very deliberate pace, for profit.
I do understand that at the end of the day, everyone wants to make a profit, and I'm fine with that. I just don't appreciate being offered "content" for an extra $15-$20 every month when I could very easily hold off and spend it on another developer.
I honestly don't see it correct for anyone to purchase a game and act as though the game itself is an incentive to find randomly generated content to then sell back to other players using real cash.
It just doesn't sound morally compound.
I also hear that crap saying, "Well what of the people that have a 9-5 job? they can't spend their whole day playing the game, so they get to buy items with their real cash to stay in the loop." I have a 9-5, I'm not at all feeling as though I need to put my real-life earnings into a video game to stay afloat.
What the hell does it matter if there's a kid out there that's willing to play all day and night? Why should I feel obligated to compete with cash?
When it's put out there by the developer, to easily purchase the best gear found in the game for $5, it opens a lot of people up to not think twice about cheating to compete.
The developers are setting the moral grounds, they're saying it's okay to do this.. So it must be okay, right?
Who are we to say that some of the best game designers in the world haven't thought this new AH through and are gonna make sure that effort is rewarded just like it is in World of Warcraft
Depends on what you define as rewards, as far as I know(and I haven't played wow since early cataclysm) the main complaint is the fact that good items are easy to get, but people who are skilled who practice alot like the guys doing high-end PVP and the big PVE guilds around there get rewarded by their effort with the best items as far as I know.. But this might have changed.
i used to play d2 for years (the same fucking game all the weekends, insane!, sad! pathetic!), online only, so all this is GOOD for me and it does not bother me, and more now, that i have less time to play games (just some days and 1-4 hours as much).
If you don't like the game at all, just don't bitch. The measures they applied have its reasons (they gave them), don't like? just don't buy the game, easy . With videogames, they can't please everybody.
And, the world won't disappear If they didn't make the diablo you dreamed of :P, there are too many other games.
Don't forget it's a game! not a religion or oxygen you need... what's up? you pretended to be playing more than 12 hours/day?. I would have implemented a fatigue system aswell, to avoid sick gamblers.
BTW, I really hate to be beaten by a kid that plays 10-16 hours per day like in too many mmorpgs. Against those real life losers i can't compete. Real life losers MUST be double losers in games! XD
I'm sure that paying for some items will make the game shorter, and in that way i won't be playing for years...
What if I'd have liked to enjoy playing in random rooms with random people? Now I need to be skeptical of everyone being a godamn cheater.
-It's not cheating if it's a legitimately found and auctioned item. It's all within game parameters.
-People will have godly gear no matter what, so it doesn't change anything. D2 had/has a thriving trade scene for items or money, and people are running around with crazy gear in almost any given game. They're not cheaters, and it didn't ruin anything. An auction house will just make things easier and eliminate scammers.
Oh, the dude in my game just found something useful for my build? Can I ask for a trade? No, he probably wants real money for it instead.
If you can trade a item of equal value then there's no reason he shouldn't accept it if he's a smart player. If you can't, then there's no point either way. If he's not smart, then the trade would have gone sour anyways.
As a note, I'm not at all a fan of DLC, and if content is not included on the disc, I don't buy it. Items that require actual cash are equal to DLC in my mind. I have never purchased any DLC for any game I've ever owned, nor do I plan to. With the lack of mods, you can be sure that Blizzard will be releasing content at a very deliberate pace, for profit.
Yes, just like the modless D2 was flooded with DLCs.
Or maybe Blizz will just release expansions.
And to all the people saying they don't like the mp only announcement I say: If you only played Diablo singleplayer, then you never played Diablo at all. You won't miss anything; wait for Torchlight 2.
All this new info makes me wonder what direction they're headed with their next MMO. I'll be honest, I hate the idea of micro-transactions and 'real-money' models being implemented in any game, let alone the games of arguably one of the best game developers ever.
Call me old fashioned, but I just want to pay my money to buy the game, pay $10 a month or whatever if it's a perpetual online game, and then enjoy the game.
I just don't understand why they can't just stick with their proven model: Make a damn good game, continue to maintain it and then let people enjoy it. WC1, WC2, WC3, SC, D1, D2 and WoW are all incredibly good games, and incredibly successful games... and other than additions in the last couple of years to WoW, none involved microtransactions. Whatever/whoever is designing/making these games is doing something right, why can't they just stick to that?
I'm really expecting the next MMO to be free to play, heavily subsidised by in game transactions, and if that is the case... that sucks.
-It's not cheating if it's a legitimately found and auctioned item. It's all within game parameters.
-People will have godly gear no matter what, so it doesn't change anything. D2 had/has a thriving trade scene for items or money, and people are running around with crazy gear in almost any given game. They're not cheaters, and it didn't ruin anything. An auction house will just make things easier and eliminate scammers.
Metagaming is considered cheating, believe it or not.
When you use an outside source not originally intended for gameplay or advancement to take advantage of the system, it's considered "Metagaming".
Just because they decided to fight fire with fire, doesn't mean it's not Metagaming.
If you can trade a item of equal value then there's no reason he shouldn't accept it if he's a smart player. If you can't, then there's no point either way. If he's not smart, then the trade would have gone sour anyways.
wah wah, things are changing, we're scared, the old ways are better. We're young(ish) geeks who live on the internet, the fucking crest of the wave of change, and you sound like old people who don't like that phone numbers have more than two digits now.
People have been buying items with cash for years in WoW, D1 and D2. None of those games were designed to allow players to buy in-game items with cash, and the ability to do so through third parties hasn't "ruined" any of them. I STILL play D2 (bnet hardcore), never buy items, and love it, even when I play with people who have bought items.
I'm not a fan of microtransactions, but companies exist to make money, and that's how you do it these days. When it's done right, it won't fuck up your game. Blizzard is the KING of doing things right when it comes to games. The sky is not falling... but we should definitely keep an eye on these companies trying to go that direction. EVE online just had a big hooplah about microtrans implementations, and the community talked to CCP about it (in a screaming mob kind of way) and got them to do it how they wants.
There's nothing wrong with metagaming if it's an institution anyways. D2 is full of it, D3 will be too. Blizzard just decided to help their players instead of flipping them the finger, and for that I applaud them. They just need to make sure to implement a shared stash so you can mule without jumping through hoops or potentially losing items.
And gold was nearly useless in D2, and easy as hell to farm, so no biggie.
I agree with Rai on this without a doubt. I played the first two Diablos religiously, it really hurts to have this purchasable nonsense so accessible and promoted upon, it was one of the things that hurt the last two. If it's how I've seen it is so far, I've got little to no incentive to save loot for my friends playing a different class; I'd just sell it for cash instead. It'll inspire a certain amount of greed where people think they can make a few bucks instead of helping others out.
At the end of the day though, Rai, it's gonna be a matter of who wants to play the game one way vs the other, and each will have arguments why they're right. I personally want to join a large enough group of peers that refuse to use the cash AH, and we respectfully pretend like none of that exists and continue to share everything like it has no real value besides being a video game item.
The difficult part of it comes in when you see a post on Kotaku a month after release that says, 'X number of people are making 20-50k in profits off of selling ingame content in Diablo 3'. Maybe I'm over-exaggerating but seeing the success of TF2 loot, it's entirely possible. If I want any chance of catching that early cash cow that it potentially will be (eg. Tarnhelms and other easy to find items will not have fully saturated the market and people will still pay money good for them), I have to think and play the game completely differently; and I've waited for this game far too long to ignore why I love the original two as much as I do.
So because D2 had metagaming and gold farmers, it's better to accept it and give in? Don't you think there could have been a better way?
I'm dumbfounded as to how people can accept that type of crap.
No, I'm fucking disgusted with anyone willing to accept it and keep playing as though nothing's wrong.
Communities are going to be so godamn separated, it's not even funny.
They let the only one in that could potentially earn them some cash, hacking? Cleaned up. Modding? Cleaned up.
And if they REALLY cared enough about the issues with item purchasing, then they'd have kept taxation out of the purchases to insure that they did it for the soul purpose of ridding 3rd party websites and not for profit.
D2 was fun as hell, and I never once felt other people's metagaming affected me negatively (PvP aside), so this is all fanboy rage, coming from people that apparently never grasped the D2 scene anyways.
"Wa wa wa, Blizzard understands what its fans want, this is soooo terrible." Please.
You're mad that Blizzard is incentivizing something which was already incentivized! There was no auction system in D2, there was no muling system, there weren't even ways to log into two accounts at once. But people bought multiple copies, ran two games at once, botted, hacked, farmed til their eyes fell out, sold things on ebay, etc etc. People made money with a system which was actively trying to stop them from doing so for close to a decade. Blizzard couldn't stop the fans, so they're at least going to make trading/selling beneficial and scam free within reason. It smells like the F2P model, which is why people are balking, but it's not, so deal with it.
There are plenty of stupid things Blizzard has done recently, like totally screw up SC2, but so far they seem to be right on the money with D3.
"Wa wa wa, Blizzard understands what its fans want, this is soooo terrible." Please.
Really, dude?
You're so godamn out of perspective.. You're willingly accepting metagaming and gold farming.
Do you buy your way through games? I bet given the chance, had a company developing an FPS game, offered the ability to aim-bot for a price, you'd be all over it.. "AS LONG AS IT'S COMING FROM THE DEVELOPERS!"
To assume the majority of a player-base would cheat given the chance, is ridiculous.
The problem is that, when someone does start cheating, people feel the need to create a middle-ground by 1uping them with the same shit.
It's not that they wanted to, to begin with.. But to stay competitive or in the "loop" it's needed. That is, of course.. Everyone creates their little niche groups and plays with 5 close friends.
But then if that's the case, why not have a LAN mode, eh?
You're mad that Blizzard is incentivizing something which was already incentivized! There was no auction system in D2, there was no muling system, there weren't even ways to log into two accounts at once. But people bought multiple copies, ran two games at once, botted, hacked, farmed til their eyes fell out, sold things on ebay, etc etc. People made money with a system which was actively trying to stop them from doing so for close to a decade. Blizzard couldn't stop the fans, so they're at least going to make trading/selling beneficial and scam free within reason. It smells like the F2P model, which is why people are balking, but it's not, so deal with it.
What are they making an incentive? The Auction System which only those with $$ can use, because if you used the Gold system, you'd only get lower tier shit?
How about the players' request for LAN? No? Eehhmm.. Offline play altogether? No? And no Modding?
That's totally incentive towards player request.
Looks as though their only incentive is for maximum profit.
Rai, you keep throwing out all these assumptions about how it'll ruin everything... even though there are already tons of examples in games where these policies have been implemented and none of those things have happened, and the games are still fun and balanced for 99% of the players.
there are already tons of examples in games where these policies have been implemented and none of those things have happened, and the games are still fun and balanced for 99% of the players.
if you consider farmville to be a game... you should probably go back to playing it and stop wasting your time in here.
the asian online gaming community is more than a little different from the western, you can't really use it as a point in a discussion about game balance in the western market
They just need to make sure to implement a shared stash so you can mule without jumping through hoops or potentially losing items.
its mentioned in the FAQ there is an account stash that you share between all characters on the account.
feel like everyone needs to relax, this is a really cool addition. It doesn't hurt the game, you don't have to participate if you don't want to. the AH in wow was a very successful addition, adding $ option is a great way to circumvent the shady dealings players go through to get high level characters/gear/etc. They mention in the FAQ that people will be able to sell characters at a later date on the AH too... which if you actually appreciate the game and love playing it, you can make money selling characters you level. Who cares if someone else would profit, we all can profit if we want to!
I knew a ton of people who bought gold and characters in WoW, and nearly all of them had their accounts hacked, and everything stolen 6 months later. Some of those same people would also sell their characters to buy others, or to pay the bills at their house.
Seems like we're missing some other really cool feature they have discussed; like the fact that all loot drops are unique to the individual, so you don't have to worry about your party ganking your rare drop & selling it on the AH for real money. If it drops, it only drops for you, everyone gets their own drops... which is aweeeesome!
Rai, you are getting so upset with all this, and then you dare to say dfacto "You're so godamn out of perspective.." are you serious? you have the "perspective"? really?
For god's sake, all this rant for an auction-house and the possibility of buying/selling items? or there are other reasons? I think there is no metagaming in that, because that's not something out-of-game for me. You can find AHs in every mmo, and with this, they may erase the people making profit with their game.
Lan mode? We all know LAN was removed to fuck pirates. This D3 won't be pirated as much as D2, give or take. The game looks cool and it will be Fantastic!.
Seriously? People are getting worked up over this? You realize there will be a group that doesn't want to pay real world money for in game items right? Or pay real money to have to list items on the auction house. If I list something and it doesn't sell, I'm still out the fee for listing it.
I don't know, for me personally, I will never pay for in game equip-able items. There's usually always something better and there are actual physical things I would rather spend my money on. I imagine I'm not alone in the idea, so I figure there will be plenty of people that use the gold auction house. And if someone buys out my item and then sells it for real money, who cares. Someone bought it from me, so I get what I want, I could care less if they sell it for real world money. That said, this doesn't change my desire to buy this game when it comes out at all. I will still pre-order it, especially if there's a collectors edition.
Rai, calm down and take off the tin foil hat. No one is impressed by you getting up in arms and making wild insulting accusations of other members on this board. Any item that can be sold can be earned. Will people buy them and have these equipped? Yes. Of course they will. But for someone to sell it, they have to find it. That means you have just as well of a chance to find it for yourself out there in the game. Chill the fuck out, quit QQ, and just look forward to the game.
Seems like we're missing some other really cool feature they have discussed; like the fact that all loot drops are unique to the individual, so you don't have to worry about your party ganking your rare drop & selling it on the AH for real money. If it drops, it only drops for you, everyone gets their own drops... which is aweeeesome!
Besides having to share the game with 10 year olds that like curse cause they think it makes them cool, and call me names for no reason, this was one of the biggest reasons I don't play online. Dealing with people who stop fighting the bad guys, so they can grab the loot of the baddies I've killed. Leaving me to fight alone. I was VERY happy to hear they made this change. This won't bring me online, but it's a start.
if you consider farmville to be a game... you should probably go back to playing it and stop wasting your time in here.
Meow
I've never played Farmville so I'm not sure whether I would class it as a game or not, but it's quite plainly clear that Mafia Wars, Farmville and Zynga were the driving force behind the western popularisation of microtransaction based gaming. And from a business perspective, rightly so. If I was in an industry that could turn that much money, that quickly, just by implementing a different business model, I'd be all over it too.
Anyone believing the bulshit that 'it's what players want' is just sticking up for the company responsible for the bs. It's like Ubisoft continue to tell us that players love their DRM.
Replies
Their logic was that they didn't want 3rd party websites selling items for real cash, so best to shove it in our face full force from the makers themselves.
At least you only had a few people buying and selling in the background, but now? It's right in front of us, ready and willing to easily destroy the in-game economy and competitive pvp.
How is that remotely logical? Drugs are bad, but it's cool if it's taxed and regulated!
That's not the argument, it's that we can't have offline characters that are only available from your PC and would not be ported to online play.
I'm sure this is to regulate pirating and modding, but they straight up told us their reason was, "Because then you couldn't bring that character online".. Well no shit? They're playing that character offline for a reason, and if you give them a disclaimer stating that said character will STAY offline, then who's to complain?
If you build an offline character, then you're going to have a huge barrier to online entry that most people won't cross. They want people online. They want you to play online because then you get addicted and spend more money and buy expansions and DLC and all that noise.
They've mentioned several times before than this game is more online-centric than the previous titles, and they'd fragment their userbase if they didn't do this.
Plus it functions as DRM and gets you more involved/aware of the whole battle.net system, etc. From their side, there are a lot of advantages towards this whole integration.
Of course, though the basic idea of offline play for most people, was to not be regulated and to just be able to play the game itself as-is, like they could in D1 and D2..
That's all they wanted, but Blizzard tried to publicize it as though EVERYONE eventually wanted to play with their characters online with other people. Which isn't true at all.
We all know what Blizzard is trying to do, I'm just stating what the people are actually asking for.
Excitement for this game is deminishing rapidly. And it's not even about all the financial stuff going on, the game simply doesn't look very inventive.
Yes it will be a very polished diablo that takes prior aspects of blizzard games and builds on them ever so slightly, but i feel it may be overbalanced, stale, and just a fun little romp through the greatness blizzard once was, similar to starcraft 2.
As good as the prior sequel but nothing more.
Lol. If D3 is anywhere near as good as D2, it'll be awesome. I'm fully expecting it wont be as good, but then D2 is in my top5 games of all time and i'm a retro kinda guy. So its going to be hard to beat.
I'm prepared to be disappointed that its not as good as D2, can't wait to find out just how good it is though.
We know that the real reason for outlawing mods is because Blizzard-Activision is keen on monetizing game content via this auction house, and they don't want players getting for free (via a mod) what they otherwise might have to pay for. I remember using a character 'trainer' with Diablo 1 to give myself an awesome katana called The Grandfather. It was fun to play with something I likely wouldn't have found otherwise. Now I either have to grind for it or pay cash to someone else, of which Blizzard gets a cut.
Even better, with an anonymous bidder-seller system, there is absolutely no way to know if the Legendary Uber Axe +5 that you're buying is coming form another player or if B-A is selling you that item and pocketing all the cash directly. Does anyone think that B-A won't do that if it looks profitable enough? Putting items in an auction house costs nothing, so each sale is pure profit.
I don't really care about the auction thing, as I'll never use it, but I do care that its the real reason for outlawing mods, which I use all the time.
"We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date."
Someone, please explain this shit to me..
I feel as though someone just stabbed me right in the fucking back.
PvP will be for the rich and the spoiled, what takes someone days or possibly weeks finding a specific item to compete with, is now purchasable for a better price of $5 of your income..
The only people I've seen that don't mind the Cash AH, are those that plan to farm and sell items, or those that already use systems like the 3rd party websites for this.
But then it just opens it completely to the public, so easy to use.. Why even ignore it at that point? It's right there, buy the item for $2.. You have the money, why would you bother to spend those hours playing the video game you should be enjoying and benefiting through your own accomplishments, when you could easily buy those hours off of some other douche.
Why not just break things down even more and give into temptation? Create a virtual PvP arena where all you'd do is see who has the most cash with a gamble? "Is he going to throw down $5?", "well shit.. If that's the case, then I'll throw down $10!"
There are better ways to solve a problem.. If people are suspected of taking drugs for athletic competitions, does it become such a large problem that you decide to just give in and let everyone 'roid up and see who can shove the most drugs into their systems?
I'm fucking sick of liars, hypocrites and anyone else that feels the need to twist the truth for the smallest little gain on their part.
I don't really see why people are crying before they're trying it out.
Because we know what a godamn Cash AH is?
If they created a system to compete with the 3rd party websites that shouldn't even be around, stating that you have the free ability to sell your items for as little or as much CASH as you'd like.. No matter what the system is, if it involves CASH and ALL in-game items as well as the eventual possibility of player characters..
Then it will destroy any decent item trade/gold economy.
I dont "think" I am going to mind it. Won't know till I play the game.
I'm a player who will be playing with friends in a passworded room playing co-op mostly. Doing our own thing. Hopefully getting a whole polycount group/clan/tribe/guild vibe going on as well. I won't be farming and I have never bought/sold stuff in games for cash and I don't think D3 is going to change that.
As for PvP. Well, I expect there'll be a rank system so you battle players of a similar rank. There'll be players that have toiled for 100's of hours and there'll be players that have bought the rank. I expect the players that have played 100's of hours will kick ass and the players with cash won't have a clue. Players that have put in the hours and bought stuff will be pretty fucking hard to beat but I dont expect to rank very highly anyway.
I wasn't happy about these announcements but I have faith it'll be a friggin good game. As long as the co-op is good, the game is good. Anything else is a bonus.
Even when i don't agree with Blizzard exploiting the fact that somehow they just realized they can make money of everything and they will be charging you 3 times for selling things. This is something i won't take part of. I want to play with my brothers and friends and go kill hordes of evilness and look at a pretty game. I think with that in mind i don't have any trouble with what Diablo 3 is starting to shape as.
But i do believe there has to be an awareness of the things that are starting to happen. Charging for everything, the position of "Hey, if you are not online then play something else cuz we don't really care" is kinda aggravating. I am really sure that Blizzard is a great company, i just hope that the people that are responsible for decisions like this don't give it a bad name. I do believe that games are great because of the people. Taking out modding imo is a bad move, since it's what made Diablo 2 keep going until today! but you can't tell people to bug off just because you want to make extra profit, or decisions taken that will affect peoples perspective or the community. If they start to get into a position of "hey, we make the games, so you either play them, or go play Team Fortress since it's free". I just think that we need to start realizing that the most important factor after gameplay is the community of gamers that are loyal to a game and will make it a success. Without them, there is no success, no game, no money, bla bla.
Soooo.. just a humble opinion. I am still very much excited by this game. But
It ruined WoW for me (the community didn't help either), and I can only assume it'll ruin Diablo for me too.
Bring on Torchlight 2.
I have family in Korea I would have liked to have played with, but whatever. Not the end of the world.
Because it triggers a greed switch in the community. Buying items was absolutely possible, but not in front of your face and commended by the developers.
What if I'd have liked to enjoy playing in random rooms with random people? Now I need to be skeptical of everyone being a godamn cheater.
Oh, the dude in my game just found something useful for my build? Can I ask for a trade? No, he probably wants real money for it instead.
I'm trying to hold judgement until I can see hands-on how things work. I do not have a problem with players selling players items, even if Blizzard does take a cut. I'm just not confident that the model will remain intact for the duration for the game.
I can absolutely see Blizzard offering incentives to players that both sell and buy items by way of achievements or exclusive items. I can also see Blizzard finding some method of offering exclusive items on the AH (possibly in limited supply), which I am not at all okay with.
Again, I'll have to wait and see, but I can see many potential problems with it.
As a note, I'm not at all a fan of DLC, and if content is not included on the disc, I don't buy it. Items that require actual cash are equal to DLC in my mind. I have never purchased any DLC for any game I've ever owned, nor do I plan to. With the lack of mods, you can be sure that Blizzard will be releasing content at a very deliberate pace, for profit.
I do understand that at the end of the day, everyone wants to make a profit, and I'm fine with that. I just don't appreciate being offered "content" for an extra $15-$20 every month when I could very easily hold off and spend it on another developer.
It just doesn't sound morally compound.
I also hear that crap saying, "Well what of the people that have a 9-5 job? they can't spend their whole day playing the game, so they get to buy items with their real cash to stay in the loop." I have a 9-5, I'm not at all feeling as though I need to put my real-life earnings into a video game to stay afloat.
What the hell does it matter if there's a kid out there that's willing to play all day and night? Why should I feel obligated to compete with cash?
When it's put out there by the developer, to easily purchase the best gear found in the game for $5, it opens a lot of people up to not think twice about cheating to compete.
The developers are setting the moral grounds, they're saying it's okay to do this.. So it must be okay, right?
WoW does not reward effort, not anymore.
Depends on what you define as rewards, as far as I know(and I haven't played wow since early cataclysm) the main complaint is the fact that good items are easy to get, but people who are skilled who practice alot like the guys doing high-end PVP and the big PVE guilds around there get rewarded by their effort with the best items as far as I know.. But this might have changed.
If you don't like the game at all, just don't bitch. The measures they applied have its reasons (they gave them), don't like? just don't buy the game, easy
And, the world won't disappear If they didn't make the diablo you dreamed of :P, there are too many other games.
Don't forget it's a game! not a religion or oxygen you need... what's up? you pretended to be playing more than 12 hours/day?. I would have implemented a fatigue system aswell, to avoid sick gamblers.
BTW, I really hate to be beaten by a kid that plays 10-16 hours per day like in too many mmorpgs. Against those real life losers i can't compete. Real life losers MUST be double losers in games! XD
I'm sure that paying for some items will make the game shorter, and in that way i won't be playing for years...
-It's not cheating if it's a legitimately found and auctioned item. It's all within game parameters.
-People will have godly gear no matter what, so it doesn't change anything. D2 had/has a thriving trade scene for items or money, and people are running around with crazy gear in almost any given game. They're not cheaters, and it didn't ruin anything. An auction house will just make things easier and eliminate scammers.
If you can trade a item of equal value then there's no reason he shouldn't accept it if he's a smart player. If you can't, then there's no point either way. If he's not smart, then the trade would have gone sour anyways.
Yes, just like the modless D2 was flooded with DLCs.
Or maybe Blizz will just release expansions.
And to all the people saying they don't like the mp only announcement I say: If you only played Diablo singleplayer, then you never played Diablo at all. You won't miss anything; wait for Torchlight 2.
Call me old fashioned, but I just want to pay my money to buy the game, pay $10 a month or whatever if it's a perpetual online game, and then enjoy the game.
I just don't understand why they can't just stick with their proven model: Make a damn good game, continue to maintain it and then let people enjoy it. WC1, WC2, WC3, SC, D1, D2 and WoW are all incredibly good games, and incredibly successful games... and other than additions in the last couple of years to WoW, none involved microtransactions. Whatever/whoever is designing/making these games is doing something right, why can't they just stick to that?
I'm really expecting the next MMO to be free to play, heavily subsidised by in game transactions, and if that is the case... that sucks.
Man I hate Zynga so much right now.
Metagaming is considered cheating, believe it or not.
When you use an outside source not originally intended for gameplay or advancement to take advantage of the system, it's considered "Metagaming".
Just because they decided to fight fire with fire, doesn't mean it's not Metagaming.
And what of a gold value? It's now made null.
But this is not an outside source, it's not different then people buying gold in WoW and buying the best crafted items in the game.
Buying gold, or using an outside source that cannot originally be obtained in equal time or value for gain is metagaming.
It's no different than people buying gold in WoW, that's true.. And people buying gold in WoW are metagamers.
Now they've also freely accepted gold farmers, "If you can't beat 'em.. Tax 'em."
People have been buying items with cash for years in WoW, D1 and D2. None of those games were designed to allow players to buy in-game items with cash, and the ability to do so through third parties hasn't "ruined" any of them. I STILL play D2 (bnet hardcore), never buy items, and love it, even when I play with people who have bought items.
I'm not a fan of microtransactions, but companies exist to make money, and that's how you do it these days. When it's done right, it won't fuck up your game. Blizzard is the KING of doing things right when it comes to games. The sky is not falling... but we should definitely keep an eye on these companies trying to go that direction. EVE online just had a big hooplah about microtrans implementations, and the community talked to CCP about it (in a screaming mob kind of way) and got them to do it how they wants.
And gold was nearly useless in D2, and easy as hell to farm, so no biggie.
At the end of the day though, Rai, it's gonna be a matter of who wants to play the game one way vs the other, and each will have arguments why they're right. I personally want to join a large enough group of peers that refuse to use the cash AH, and we respectfully pretend like none of that exists and continue to share everything like it has no real value besides being a video game item.
The difficult part of it comes in when you see a post on Kotaku a month after release that says, 'X number of people are making 20-50k in profits off of selling ingame content in Diablo 3'. Maybe I'm over-exaggerating but seeing the success of TF2 loot, it's entirely possible. If I want any chance of catching that early cash cow that it potentially will be (eg. Tarnhelms and other easy to find items will not have fully saturated the market and people will still pay money good for them), I have to think and play the game completely differently; and I've waited for this game far too long to ignore why I love the original two as much as I do.
I'm dumbfounded as to how people can accept that type of crap.
No, I'm fucking disgusted with anyone willing to accept it and keep playing as though nothing's wrong.
Communities are going to be so godamn separated, it's not even funny.
They let the only one in that could potentially earn them some cash, hacking? Cleaned up. Modding? Cleaned up.
And if they REALLY cared enough about the issues with item purchasing, then they'd have kept taxation out of the purchases to insure that they did it for the soul purpose of ridding 3rd party websites and not for profit.
"Wa wa wa, Blizzard understands what its fans want, this is soooo terrible." Please.
You're mad that Blizzard is incentivizing something which was already incentivized! There was no auction system in D2, there was no muling system, there weren't even ways to log into two accounts at once. But people bought multiple copies, ran two games at once, botted, hacked, farmed til their eyes fell out, sold things on ebay, etc etc. People made money with a system which was actively trying to stop them from doing so for close to a decade. Blizzard couldn't stop the fans, so they're at least going to make trading/selling beneficial and scam free within reason. It smells like the F2P model, which is why people are balking, but it's not, so deal with it.
There are plenty of stupid things Blizzard has done recently, like totally screw up SC2, but so far they seem to be right on the money with D3.
Really, dude?
You're so godamn out of perspective.. You're willingly accepting metagaming and gold farming.
Do you buy your way through games? I bet given the chance, had a company developing an FPS game, offered the ability to aim-bot for a price, you'd be all over it.. "AS LONG AS IT'S COMING FROM THE DEVELOPERS!"
To assume the majority of a player-base would cheat given the chance, is ridiculous.
The problem is that, when someone does start cheating, people feel the need to create a middle-ground by 1uping them with the same shit.
It's not that they wanted to, to begin with.. But to stay competitive or in the "loop" it's needed. That is, of course.. Everyone creates their little niche groups and plays with 5 close friends.
But then if that's the case, why not have a LAN mode, eh?
What are they making an incentive? The Auction System which only those with $$ can use, because if you used the Gold system, you'd only get lower tier shit?
How about the players' request for LAN? No? Eehhmm.. Offline play altogether? No? And no Modding?
That's totally incentive towards player request.
Looks as though their only incentive is for maximum profit.
:poly127:
the asian online gaming community is more than a little different from the western, you can't really use it as a point in a discussion about game balance in the western market
its mentioned in the FAQ there is an account stash that you share between all characters on the account.
feel like everyone needs to relax, this is a really cool addition. It doesn't hurt the game, you don't have to participate if you don't want to. the AH in wow was a very successful addition, adding $ option is a great way to circumvent the shady dealings players go through to get high level characters/gear/etc. They mention in the FAQ that people will be able to sell characters at a later date on the AH too... which if you actually appreciate the game and love playing it, you can make money selling characters you level. Who cares if someone else would profit, we all can profit if we want to!
I knew a ton of people who bought gold and characters in WoW, and nearly all of them had their accounts hacked, and everything stolen 6 months later. Some of those same people would also sell their characters to buy others, or to pay the bills at their house.
Seems like we're missing some other really cool feature they have discussed; like the fact that all loot drops are unique to the individual, so you don't have to worry about your party ganking your rare drop & selling it on the AH for real money. If it drops, it only drops for you, everyone gets their own drops... which is aweeeesome!
For god's sake, all this rant for an auction-house and the possibility of buying/selling items? or there are other reasons? I think there is no metagaming in that, because that's not something out-of-game for me. You can find AHs in every mmo, and with this, they may erase the people making profit with their game.
Lan mode? We all know LAN was removed to fuck pirates. This D3 won't be pirated as much as D2, give or take. The game looks cool and it will be Fantastic!.
I don't know, for me personally, I will never pay for in game equip-able items. There's usually always something better and there are actual physical things I would rather spend my money on. I imagine I'm not alone in the idea, so I figure there will be plenty of people that use the gold auction house. And if someone buys out my item and then sells it for real money, who cares. Someone bought it from me, so I get what I want, I could care less if they sell it for real world money. That said, this doesn't change my desire to buy this game when it comes out at all. I will still pre-order it, especially if there's a collectors edition.
Rai, calm down and take off the tin foil hat. No one is impressed by you getting up in arms and making wild insulting accusations of other members on this board. Any item that can be sold can be earned. Will people buy them and have these equipped? Yes. Of course they will. But for someone to sell it, they have to find it. That means you have just as well of a chance to find it for yourself out there in the game. Chill the fuck out, quit QQ, and just look forward to the game.
Or don't and move on.
No tin-foil hat here, these are fuckin' facts.
And will kick your ass if you meta-game in D&D. :poly127:
Besides having to share the game with 10 year olds that like curse cause they think it makes them cool, and call me names for no reason, this was one of the biggest reasons I don't play online. Dealing with people who stop fighting the bad guys, so they can grab the loot of the baddies I've killed. Leaving me to fight alone. I was VERY happy to hear they made this change. This won't bring me online, but it's a start.
Then I guess you better find a different game.
Considering the fact that the game isn't even out yet..
Meow
I've never played Farmville so I'm not sure whether I would class it as a game or not, but it's quite plainly clear that Mafia Wars, Farmville and Zynga were the driving force behind the western popularisation of microtransaction based gaming. And from a business perspective, rightly so. If I was in an industry that could turn that much money, that quickly, just by implementing a different business model, I'd be all over it too.
Anyone believing the bulshit that 'it's what players want' is just sticking up for the company responsible for the bs. It's like Ubisoft continue to tell us that players love their DRM.
I CAN'T FRIGGIN WAIT FOR DIABLO3!!!...BRING IT!!!...
Yeah man totally they should get a big sign on them that says "spent $3, violated the sanctity of all gaming"
When you click it your cursor turns into a middle finger, forever.