Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

Isn't this pretty much what everyone told them right off the bat? That the AH makes playing the game pointless in the first place?

Get rid of the ODRM too and I might just consider getting it, Morhaine.

jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

I don't think they designed the loot system around the AH. If you remember loot from D2 or LoD, it was similar to what we have got in D3. It was hard to have nice items in D2/LoD without trading, and before 1.10, after several trades, you could have a character who would slay everything on Hell in any location. The same worked in D3, except for insane champions/unique monsters (Invincible-Molter-Jailer and similar), but they simply adjusted the difficulty.

I don't get why people want offline mode in Diablo 3 - a game where you know the story after 10 hours and after that you only look for loot so your character can be more leet than others and you play with others to socialize. Diablo single player is like drinking alone, it's the last step before the border between being a nerd and a lunatic.

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:
Diablo single player is like drinking alone, it's the last step before the border between being a nerd and a lunatic.

Not everyone likes being forced into multiplayer, or laggy online single player mode. Not to mention there's not a great internet connection everywhere if you travel.

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:

jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

I don't think they designed the loot system around the AH. If you remember loot from D2 or LoD, it was similar to what we have got in D3. It was hard to have nice items in D2/LoD without trading, and before 1.10, after several trades, you could have a character who would slay everything on Hell in any location. The same worked in D3, except for insane champions/unique monsters (Invincible-Molter-Jailer and similar), but they simply adjusted the difficulty.

I don't get why people want offline mode in Diablo 3 - a game where you know the story after 10 hours and after that you only look for loot so your character can be more leet than others and you play with others to socialize. Diablo single player is like drinking alone, it's the last step before the border between being a nerd and a lunatic.

You obviously haven't seen all the video of hardcore players who spent tons of time on their characters being killed by mystical lag bubbles and shit.

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:
I don't get why people want offline mode in Diablo 3 - a game where you know the story after 10 hours and after that you only look for loot so your character can be more leet than others and you play with others to socialize. Diablo single player is like drinking alone, it's the last step before the border between being a nerd and a lunatic.

You want to socialize. I don't (or, at least, be forced to). I want to play single player offline with savegames on my computer. If I want to go online to play with friends, feel free to store my saves and characters online to keep everyone honest (like D2). Why the hell didn't they just make it like D2 in the first place? Damn, I'm hankering to install D2 again right now.

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:
I don't think they designed the loot system around the AH.

Have you played the console version? It's pretty apparent after even just a chapter or two that the loot for PC isn't anything comparable because you're meant to "trade" for it (use the AH).

Just as a comparison, when my LAN party of 4 people played through D3 at release, we found 2 unique items in the entirety of the game; both were underleveled for where we were when we found them. In the console version, by the end of Act 2 I had 5 unique items equipped on my character, all level appropriate, combined with the random-stat yellow rare gear that I'd found that was also all level appropriate. I was better geared at level 24 on my console character than my level 42 character I had on PC was when I went back to check simply because my level 42 character still had a bunch of level 15-20 gear for lack of finding anything better that was right for my class/level.

Beat normal on console, you're ready for Nightmare. Beat Nightmare, you're ready for Hell. No re-grinding chapters for loot or gold or in most cases just buying the gear on the AH to progress.

There's really no comparison or question as to whether or not D3 was designed around the AH for its loot system, it absolutely was.

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:

jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

I don't think they designed the loot system around the AH. If you remember loot from D2 or LoD, it was similar to what we have got in D3. It was hard to have nice items in D2/LoD without trading, and before 1.10, after several trades, you could have a character who would slay everything on Hell in any location. The same worked in D3, except for insane champions/unique monsters (Invincible-Molter-Jailer and similar), but they simply adjusted the difficulty.

I don't get why people want offline mode in Diablo 3 - a game where you know the story after 10 hours and after that you only look for loot so your character can be more leet than others and you play with others to socialize. Diablo single player is like drinking alone, it's the last step before the border between being a nerd and a lunatic.

Because when I didn't have internet for the last 2 weeks I really would have liked to play Diablo 3, but couldn't due to lack of internet connection.

The Half Elf wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 00:19:

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:

jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

I don't think they designed the loot system around the AH. If you remember loot from D2 or LoD, it was similar to what we have got in D3. It was hard to have nice items in D2/LoD without trading, and before 1.10, after several trades, you could have a character who would slay everything on Hell in any location. The same worked in D3, except for insane champions/unique monsters (Invincible-Molter-Jailer and similar), but they simply adjusted the difficulty.

I don't get why people want offline mode in Diablo 3 - a game where you know the story after 10 hours and after that you only look for loot so your character can be more leet than others and you play with others to socialize. Diablo single player is like drinking alone, it's the last step before the border between being a nerd and a lunatic.

Because when I didn't have internet for the last 2 weeks I really would have liked to play Diablo 3, but couldn't due to lack of internet connection.

This is my opinion as someone that really doesn't care for D3 in it's current state and DESPISES online DRM; God knows what you've gone through in the last two weeks, but if you haven't had the internet for the last 2 weeks in 2013 you have other people you need to be mad at that aren't (probably) Blizzard. Army regulations, Comcast/At&T/whoever not providing internet to your farm, you're on f**kin vacation in the amazon Rainforest so you shouldn't really give a f*ck about games in the first place anyway, Africa being developmentally behind a century, whatever. Stop with the lack of internet access excuse that apparently only effects Diablo 3 as a negative but no other game in existence. Seriously, Diablo 3 is the only game that gets this shit (....except Sim City...ya well at least Blizzard fixed their launch problems almost immediately), $60 battlefields/CoD yearly releases that far more people buy don't despite being 99% designed for online play. So was Diablo 3, whether you agree with it or not. Get over it. We've been bitching about this for years now and still Diablo 3 has sold over 10 millions units. Find something else to be pissed about, the game was a success. Derp to us all.

Now can Blizzard please f*ck off and implement Loot 2.0 and the Adventure mode into Vanilla Diablo 3 as a patch/fix. This garbage shouldn't be features of an expansion.
This comment was edited on Nov 11, 2013, 01:03.

Last week I've played D3 vanilla. I hail from metropolitan Brazil (I know, not much to brag about, but there you go). I died every single session to lag. So blizzard can go fuck itself until they release an offline patch. But hey, we're third world scum, who cares. Well, I do. the 60 bucks I paid them are still on me. Never again blizzard. never again.

Cpmartins wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 01:49:
Last week I've played D3 vanilla. I hail from metropolitan Brazil (I know, not much to brag about, but there you go). I died every single session to lag. So blizzard can go fuck itself until they release an offline patch. But hey, we're third world scum, who cares. Well, I do. the 60 bucks I paid them are still on me. Never again blizzard. never again.

Fair enough. Really. The following comment may not make it sound like I'm on your side but I am, Blizzard has made it difficult for anyone outside of North America/Asia to enjoy their games. BUT

I hope I can get a honest answer here. In your region in Brazil, is Call of Duty (any of them online console or PC), Battlefield (any of them online console or PC) , World of Warcraft, any other MMO that exists, Counterstrike, Team Fortres multiplayer, ANY Xbox Live service/game (that requires live online connection), anything from Playstation Home/Live/whatever (that requires home/live/whatever online connection) so much better an experience than Diablo 3 online, lag wise or whatever?

BF3 I played I bunch, plenty of 3rd party servers are local, so little ping issues(still get the "went around the corner and died " ones, but that's client side hit detection working, so, yeah, business as usual). D3 is just shit all around, every time, all the time. WoW I used to raid hardcore 10 man, little issues, save those on tight ping requirements (hello heroic rag sulfuras smash, I'm talking about you). So no. D3 is a different beast. It requires a flawless connection, all the time, every time. And that makes it unplayable to me.

Cpmartins wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 02:14:
BF3 I played I bunch, plenty of 3rd party servers are local, so little ping issues(still get the "went around the corner and died " ones, but that's client side hit detection working, so, yeah, business as usual). D3 is just shit all around, every time, all the time. WoW I used to raid hardcore 10 man, little issues, save those on tight ping requirements (hello heroic rag sulfuras smash, I'm talking about you). So no. D3 is a different beast. It requires a flawless connection, all the time, every time. And that makes it unplayable to me.

This is something I can't relate to unfortunately, beyond day one launch problems I never had to deal with these problems. That's unfortunate.

Off topic, did Diablo 3 cost your equivalent money in US of $60? I am hearing that the PS4, even more off topic, will cost $2000 of your dollars which equates to way more than anyone elsewhere is being charged.

Edit: Correction, $1800 USD worth of Brazil money for the PS4. Jesus I know this is offtopic but I am genuinely curious if Diablo 3 costs the equivalent of $60USD in Brazil.

Edit #2: Tired of reading Blizzard comments saying they're going to improve service to places like Australia but never do, for years now. I feel for you Cpmartins, you're being f*cked.

This comment was edited on Nov 11, 2013, 02:29.

Cram wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 00:46:
...being 99% designed for online play. So was Diablo 3, whether you agree with it or not. Get over it. We've been bitching about this for years now and still Diablo 3 has sold over 10 millions units. Find something else to be pissed about, the game was a success.

Sure it was a one-time success, I believe a very high percentage of the people who bought those 10 million units would have returned them after a week if they could. All the high sales numbers prove is that Blizzard screwed over a lot of people.

We'll see how well the expansion sells. 10+ million? I doubt it.

Flatline wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 19:37:
You obviously haven't seen all the video of hardcore players who spent tons of time on their characters being killed by mystical lag bubbles and shit.

That's how it worked in D2 too. And a single player hardcore character doesn't make sense - you will never be able to prove, that you haven't revived you character by backing up save games and doing it just for yourself means you have an unhealthy obsession.

Fletch wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 19:50:
You want to socialize. I don't (or, at least, be forced to). I want to play single player offline with savegames on my computer. If I want to go online to play with friends, feel free to store my saves and characters online to keep everyone honest (like D2). Why the hell didn't they just make it like D2 in the first place? Damn, I'm hankering to install D2 again right now.

Because there were few people who played single player D2 after finishing the campaign or finishing all the difficulty levels. When I've got the game in 2000 I could have a dial-up connection at best, which was not enough for on-line play so I've finished the game twice or so. But several years later, with a broadband, I never looked back at single player and so did all the people I know. And no one played on open Battle.net. I know that there are places where there are still problems with Internet connection, but I guess it's not enough to be important - every business cares about the Pareto principle.

PropheT wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 21:39:
Have you played the console version? It's pretty apparent after even just a chapter or two that the loot for PC isn't anything comparable because you're meant to "trade" for it (use the AH).

That's obvious, because after several months of people playing the PC version they knew how to design it for consoles without the AH. That's why they are doing Loot 2.0 for the PC version - to finally do it right.

jdreyer wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 13:32:
Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on razing Diablo 3's auction house, rebuilding Titan

"I think our players recognized that. We were really looking to see what would happen with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because they don't have an auction house. The response to the console versions was extremely positive, and most people cited the lack of an auction house."

Well, that and the offline mode.

They created the auction house to undercut or compete with black market gold farmers. I get that. The problem is that they took the additional step of designing the loot system so that it forced you to the auction house. That's where they screwed the pooch. Had they made a complete game that stood alone, THEN added in the auction house, I don't think you would have seen nearly the same number of complaints.

I didn't get my first set piece till mid inferno. It wasn't for my class, and it was boring. In D2 most of the set pieces and legendary items had interesting modifiers. Instead in D3 you get slightly more dex or crit than normal. Certainly nothing that might make you think of changing how you play.

PropheT wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 21:39:

GL1zdA wrote on Nov 10, 2013, 17:45:
I don't think they designed the loot system around the AH.

Have you played the console version? It's pretty apparent after even just a chapter or two that the loot for PC isn't anything comparable because you're meant to "trade" for it (use the AH).

Just as a comparison, when my LAN party of 4 people played through D3 at release, we found 2 unique items in the entirety of the game; both were underleveled for where we were when we found them. In the console version, by the end of Act 2 I had 5 unique items equipped on my character, all level appropriate, combined with the random-stat yellow rare gear that I'd found that was also all level appropriate. I was better geared at level 24 on my console character than my level 42 character I had on PC was when I went back to check simply because my level 42 character still had a bunch of level 15-20 gear for lack of finding anything better that was right for my class/level.

Beat normal on console, you're ready for Nightmare. Beat Nightmare, you're ready for Hell. No re-grinding chapters for loot or gold or in most cases just buying the gear on the AH to progress.

There's really no comparison or question as to whether or not D3 was designed around the AH for its loot system, it absolutely was.

Your entire argument doesn't show that D3 loot was designed around the AH though... All it says is, console versions have more (and I'll assume, better) stuff drop.

I'm not claiming it isn't, just that your argument has no proof... There were many loot complaints, irregardless of the AH involvement, and they made it less grindy.

-Alamar

Alamar wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 14:04:
Your entire argument doesn't show that D3 loot was designed around the AH though... All it says is, console versions have more (and I'll assume, better) stuff drop.

I'm not claiming it isn't, just that your argument has no proof... There were many loot complaints, irregardless of the AH involvement, and they made it less grindy.

It's pretty obvious, afaic, and circumstantial is good enough for me. But who am I? I can't imagine what would constitute "proof" to you. AH was a revenue stream, easily tweaked with shitty drops. I can't tell if you are just being a devil's advocate, or naive.

Fletch wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 19:05:

Alamar wrote on Nov 11, 2013, 14:04:
Your entire argument doesn't show that D3 loot was designed around the AH though... All it says is, console versions have more (and I'll assume, better) stuff drop.

I'm not claiming it isn't, just that your argument has no proof... There were many loot complaints, irregardless of the AH involvement, and they made it less grindy.

It's pretty obvious, afaic, and circumstantial is good enough for me. But who am I? I can't imagine what would constitute "proof" to you. AH was a revenue stream, easily tweaked with shitty drops. I can't tell if you are just being a devil's advocate, or naive.

I think many people think it's easy to implement a good loot system. But randomness, or probability in general, are hard. And in a game, where there are so many variables, it's really hard to find the right coefficients. I'm a programmer and every time I have to do even something simple with randomness I double and triple-check to be sure I get the results which I expect.