Krovven wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:18:
Xero, there is no point to having any kind of Ah in Diablo 3. The patch/expansion is going to make most of the new loot bind on account. The ones that are not, will become bind on account once you enchant them.

Legacy loot can not be enchanted, only loot that drops post patch. Legacy loot can still be traded and given to friends. Most if not all Legendaries in RoS will be bind on account, but you can trade them with friends you were playing with at the time the item(s) dropped. Similar to how it works in WoW.

Ahh bind on account. How wonderful, the wowification of Diablo complete!!! What a crock of horseshit. Just when I thought that things couldnt get worse.

Yakubs wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:06:
You don't need the auction house to ruin the game for you. The game itself did that just fine.

This.

Count me as one of the happy non-purchasers, won't spend a dime on this lip-service money grab either.

I knew the pile it was to become looong ago.

Krovven wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:10:
If that's what you think, log into the PTR and try it out for yourself. Or do you even own the game to even make a judgement without pure speculation?

The game on the PTR is the best it has been. Getting your own loot is worth it.

I do own the game, and I will get the exp. I'd rather not waste my limited gaming time on the PTR getting stuff that will just get wiped and changed once the game comes out in a month(less?). I've said in the past I haven't kept 100% up to date with the latest builds, but from what I have seen and read about on news sites, this exp pack seems like a step in the wrong direction. BOA items have no place in Diablo or any game like this. Going from 100% open trading to having to find everything yourself is a step in the very wrong direction. Yes these game types are about killing and finding loot yourself... but they're also about trading and sharing loot with friends. Look at this clan feature of showing loot that drops for your friends, but OH WAIT you can't trade it if they're not using it and you need it for an upgrade. Or wait they upgraded their last piece, so you can't trade for their old one because they were using it! To each his own, but i'd rather not have to get every piece of every loot for every one of my characters to try out. Please tell me i'm wrong... but from everything I have been reading about the exp pack i'm not.

Xero wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:08:
I've been a huge advocate against the Auction House since the beginning and well after it's release. I come to realize now that the auction house should stay as long as it's using in-game currency. The real money auction house aspect is what killed the game since Blizzard drove the item drops and loot towards producing the best sales possible to get some of that % of transactions.

I completely agree. Blizzard is killing the useful gold AH in order to not admit that the RMAH was the real issue. Especially Blizzard's tweaking of drop rates, and maybe even selling of items themselves to make real cash.

SimplyMonk wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 17:33:
Auction Houses in general ended up, for me at least, being detrimental to the series because I no longer cared about item drops (which were worthless for the most part possibly due to Blizzard pushing the AH) and only wanted Gold so I could buy better gear on the AH.

Game is probably better off without them, but just because Blizzard no longer has an official RMAH, doesn't mean that real money won't still greatly affect the game. Blizzard just won't get their cut and instead you'll have to negotiate with some shifty third party and hope they don't scam you if you still want to drop some money for that legendary set.

In all honesty, if they wanted to kill the third party market, they should just make all loot of any value BOA to the players that downed the mob. Would suck for being able to twink your buddy who just started playing, but you'd see everything but leveling/botting/farming services dry up.

Like you say, D3 ended up being a pure grind for gold for buying stuff, because the drop rates were so ludicrously low. Even when you actually found a legendary, it was most likely worthless because not only did you need to roll the item itself; you also need trifecta/socket, with microscopical odds of actually happening.

Fact is, with the official auction house removed (both GAH and RMAH), only a small portion of the player base will engage in that kind of trade, compared to now where it's basically mandatory because of the current drop rates. Also I have a fair bit of schadenfreude for the people getting scammed from third party shopping, since I consider the practise of buying gold from farmers almost on par with wallhackers and their friends..

"D2's loot drops were compelling"

No, they really were not unless you played offline.

Auction Houses in general ended up, for me at least, being detrimental to the series because I no longer cared about item drops (which were worthless for the most part possibly due to Blizzard pushing the AH) and only wanted Gold so I could buy better gear on the AH.

Game is probably better off without them, but just because Blizzard no longer has an official RMAH, doesn't mean that real money won't still greatly affect the game. Blizzard just won't get their cut and instead you'll have to negotiate with some shifty third party and hope they don't scam you if you still want to drop some money for that legendary set.

In all honesty, if they wanted to kill the third party market, they should just make all loot of any value BOA to the players that downed the mob. Would suck for being able to twink your buddy who just started playing, but you'd see everything but leveling/botting/farming services dry up.

descender wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:33:
I just don't believe D2 was the rose-colored happy fun time that everyone seems to think it was.

<snippage>

It was simply the only game of it's kind at the time, so everyone played (the shit out of) it.

Don't just believe! *Know* that Diablo2 was a great game at the same time that it was the only game of its kind. LAN play was superlative and mitigated any of the on-line negatives you mentioned, which didn't really appear until well into the game's lifetime and the play mechanics were simple to learn and fun to master.

D2's loot drops were compelling, the difficulty level was correct for both solo and multi-player and the art/soundtrack was masterful. The technical framework was also robust: no crashes. (Though the warp-speed paladin was common)

Yes, Diablo 2 is every bit as good a game as everyone remembers and Diablo 3 has none of the things that made Diablo 2 a success and has a whole lot of things that make it a failure. The 'Real Money' auction house being just one of them.

Xero wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:11:

Mr. Tact wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:07:
Am I losing my mind, or didn't WoW have a trading mechanism where you put the items in and then each side has an opportunity to approve the trade? Borrow some code from across the hall? (Yes, I realize it isn't quite that easy... but the point is valid)

WoW actually has it done right because there is no real money involved outside of your monthly prescription. Blizzard wanted some kind of income out of D3 since they only made money off the initial game sale and that was the end of it.
At this point if they are smart they will incorporate WoW style auction house and leave it at that. No real money required!

I think even a RMAH could possibly be viable, we just can't trust Blizzard not to screw-up the gameplay for profit. Its like telling a dog not to eat the bacon you've dropped on the floor. They just can't help themselves.

Frijoles wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:37:

Cutter wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:01:
I'd be much more interested in seeing how many of those supposed 6 million sales even finished the game and how many people continued to play for how long. I'd suspect there was a massive rate of attrition with this title.

At least we'll have some idea based on how well the expansion sells.

No, because....I think many original owners will feel now that the AH is gone this expansion will "fix" the game, so they're more likely to come back to it to get more value from their original purchase. Which leads me to believe they're doing all this precisely because there was massive attrition on it. They got greedy and they now realize they pushed it too far. That's why there's no RMAH or ODRM for the consoles. They wanted to test the boundaries with the PC version first and now they know how far they can go.

Xero, there is no point to having any kind of Ah in Diablo 3. The patch/expansion is going to make most of the new loot bind on account. The ones that are not, will become bind on account once you enchant them.

Legacy loot can not be enchanted, only loot that drops post patch. Legacy loot can still be traded and given to friends. Most if not all Legendaries in RoS will be bind on account, but you can trade them with friends you were playing with at the time the item(s) dropped. Similar to how it works in WoW.

Mr. Tact wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:07:
Am I losing my mind, or didn't WoW have a trading mechanism where you put the items in and then each side has an opportunity to approve the trade? Borrow some code from across the hall? (Yes, I realize it isn't quite that easy... but the point is valid)

WoW actually has it done right because there is no real money involved outside of your monthly prescription. Blizzard wanted some kind of income out of D3 since they only made money off the initial game sale and that was the end of it.
At this point if they are smart they will incorporate WoW style auction house and leave it at that. No real money required!

Linksil wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 16:03:

Krovven wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 15:55:

descender wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:03:
Now they'll have people trading items/gold for real money through third party websites and such, and people will get scammed like crazy.

Yea, no. Legendaries are bind on account and other items become bind on account once you enchant them.

Which is why I think Diablo 3 without being able to trade is going to be a lot worse then Diablo 3 with an AH.

If that's what you think, log into the PTR and try it out for yourself. Or do you even own the game to even make a judgement without pure speculation?

The game on the PTR is the best it has been. Getting your own loot is worth it.

I've been a huge advocate against the Auction House since the beginning and well after it's release. I come to realize now that the auction house should stay as long as it's using in-game currency. The real money auction house aspect is what killed the game since Blizzard drove the item drops and loot towards producing the best sales possible to get some of that % of transactions.
What I've come to realize is that it wasn't the auction house in general that was bad, it's just the real money part. If you take away the auction house completely, we won't be able to make trades as easily or readily available as with the auction house. I didn't realize how much fun it can actually be when your trading stuff via the auction house until I gave it a shot. Of course only using in-game currency as that makes the game world still feel very much a live in that the gold that drops from your kills actually have a value some what.
They should leave the auction house for it's main purpose WoW style and kill off the terrible real money aspect as that takes away from any fun and direction the loot has.

Am I losing my mind, or didn't WoW have a trading mechanism where you put the items in and then each side has an opportunity to approve the trade? Borrow some code from across the hall? (Yes, I realize it isn't quite that easy... but the point is valid)

Krovven wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 15:55:

descender wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:03:
Now they'll have people trading items/gold for real money through third party websites and such, and people will get scammed like crazy.

Yea, no. Legendaries are bind on account and other items become bind on account once you enchant them.

Which is why I think Diablo 3 without being able to trade is going to be a lot worse then Diablo 3 with an AH.

descender wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 12:03:
Now they'll have people trading items/gold for real money through third party websites and such, and people will get scammed like crazy.

Yea, no. Legendaries are bind on account and other items become bind on account once you enchant them.

Frijoles wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 14:51:
I preordered 2 CE expansion copies to go with my other 2 CE. I may get a 3rd, just because it seems to tick you off for some reason.

I just want to say every time I see your icon, I think of that movie...I even watched it over the holidays.

Optional nickname wrote on Feb 19, 2014, 13:06:
you want to give Blizzard money for this? LAWL!
Have you no shame? no spine? principle? integrity? please do yourselves a memorable service, and donate $60 to your local charitable organization, instead of fuelling the corporation headed by Bobby Kokedicks. You'll feel so much better about yourselves!

I preordered 2 CE expansion copies to go with my other 2 CE. I may get a 3rd, just because it seems to tick you off for some reason.