First things first, you need to forget all you know about gold in Diablo. Gold doesn’t flow like an eternal fountain like it did in past games. Now gold matters; now you actually want gold. It’s not just a resource used for gambling, or a way to “punish” the players for dying. Gold has become the economic lifeline of Diablo. While item to item trading will also be a key element of the franchise, now you can actually trade an item for gold and not feel completely stupid for doing so. In fact, it may just be better to trade for the gold. But why? you ask. Or, at least, I’m guessing you did. But I can’t hear you. Stop talking to your computer.
There are three main reasons gold is good; the first is artisans. These crafters follow you throughout the game and make items for you as you progress. The blacksmith will smelt weapons and armor for you, the jeweler places and removes gems from your items, and the mystic binds magical effects to your loot. Together, they can create some gear that is pretty awesome. These items don’t come cheap though, and require a combination of salvaged materials and gold to make. Also, as you level up, you’ll want your artisans to level with you in their quality of items. In order for them to do this, you must pay to increase their overall ranking. By the time you reach Inferno difficulty and your artisans are the highest ranking they can go, Exalted, you will have dropped 173,800 gold altogether on them (63,900 gold for the blacksmith and mystic, 46,000 for the jeweler). That’s A LOT of gold, and it isn’t including how much you’ll spend when buying individual items from each crafter.
The second is the auction house. If you’ve played World of Warcraft, or have knowledge of the its economy, you understand that the auction house is pivotal to the game’s financial system. In WoW, as players find or craft items, they’re able to put whatever they want up for auction. Typically, as long as the item isn’t pure junk, it’s better to place the item on the auction house rather than sell it to a vendor (who will give you a fraction of what a player might). A similar system is being implemented in Diablo 3. You will be able to place whatever you find, and maybe craft—I haven’t been able to clarify this—up for auction to be bid on or bought by a fellow player.
While gold is obviously important because you use it to purchase auction housed items, one might argue that as the market becomes saturated, gold’s importance will diminish. Like-items will be bountiful and, as such, the prices for these items will be driven into the ground. Keep in mind, however, that while this can still happen, theoretically, the pace will be severely diminished due to players sometimes wanting “crafted items” rather than “found items”. In order to make a crafted items, players will need salvaged materials. To get these materials, players will need to break “found items” down. So as Item X becomes saturated on the market, players will realize they can’t make the money they once could off of it and, in some cases, will break Item X down into its crafting materials. This should, hypothetically, stabilize the market until an expansion is released.
Lastly, we have the fact that gold will be harder to come by. In past games, Blizzard rewarded players by “throwing buckets of gold at them. It felt great to do but the problem was that long term it didn’t really have any meaning.” (Jay Wilson, Blizzcon, 2010) Which is true. As a long-time player of Diablo 2, I can personally attest that gold was near-worthless after the first 20 or so levels. It could be used for gambling, and occasionally for repairs, but once you had a good chunk of change, it wasn’t important. It wasn’t an economic resource.
It would be similar, for instance, to if I had three apples. I can do a couple things with these apples: eat them, trade them, throw them at the homeless, etc. The main thing is each apple has value to me. I only have three so I need to “spend” them wisely. However, if I were given 10,000 apples, suddenly each individual apple becomes significantly less valuable. The point is, each apple would lose its significance, its importance. It’s a basic rule of economics: the more you have of something, the less valuable it becomes.
By restricting your incoming gold, and by offering more options to spend this resource, Blizzard has essentially made gold THE economy. I can see item-for-item trading still happening, but I don’t think it will happen nearly as much as item-for-gold trading. And why would it? When you trade an item for another, all you’re getting is access to that one item. When you trade an item for gold, you gain access to a plethora of items, from the loot on the auction house to all your crafted gear.
Not a very constructive response. This post was just for people to get a good idea about gold and to start a conversation on the topic.
It didn't sound like you were looking for a discussion, but rather to teach/inform us about why gold is important in D3. In which case I'll refer you to my previous post.
Not a very constructive response. This post was just for people to get a good idea about gold and to start a conversation on the topic.
It didn't sound like you were looking for a discussion, but rather to teach/inform us about why gold is important in D3. In which case I'll refer you to my previous post.
Thats fine it's a forum, so i'm not surprised to see comments like this here and there.
The current Auction House habits and prices would suggestion players are under valuing the importance and power of gold.
One could amass a hefty amount of gold by simple spending 150.00Beta bucks for 80 to 50k gold.
That translate to a number of things - buying cheap magical items from vendors for salvaging or mass crafting.
One could produce 177+ piece of Common Scrap 177+ pieces of Subtle Essence and ~10-5 Fallen tooth by using 50 k in gold at vendors.
1 x Common scrap = 1.00 Beta buck
1 x Subtle Essence = 1.00 Beta buck
1 x Fallen Tooth = 4.00 Beta buck
By spending 150.00 Beta Bucks in gold, salvaging from the vendor, potential earnings are estimated at 395.00 Beta Bucks by selling Crafting materials at going rates.
Notes: you can buy the same item from a vender an infinite amount of times.
Problem is you cannot easily sell such common scrap because the market is overflooded with it.
Also 1 beta buck is the minimum profit which will probably translate to 1 cent. When you add fees, I doubt this become profitable... maybe at the very beginning... maybe.
I support the Op, nice post. You on the other hand are why we need a Vote DOWN arrow on posts.
i agree with him, this is a diablo fans site, meaning everyone coming here is a fan therefor the mass majority of them already know this simple information. anyone who's spent 5 minutes on the main website knows this information. as well as anything about runes and skills and artisans so threads about them are pointless because its always posted on the front page. so anyone who wants to know everything about diablo can just go to news and announcements can they not?
wrong, not everyone in the world knows this information, they may search, or look for a community that has the answers they are looking for. Bam this pops up in the search engine for one example. They see this is the kind if information users post, and they now become part of the community.
Gold may be important to increase stash size and leveling up your artisans and buying stuff from them, but not in the case of selling. I know I will be using the Nephylem cube to get scrap to craft. So for me it's importance is kind of minimal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Recruiting for East Realm Also recruiting for Sc2 on both EU and NA servers
Gold may be important to increase stash size and leveling up your artisans and buying stuff from them, but not in the case of selling. I know I will be using the Nephylem cube to get scrap to craft. So for me it's importance is kind of minimal.
This doesn't make much sense to me. You can't say gold is important for buying but not for selling. Gold is either important or it isn't and if it is then you will need to sell things eventually to obtain a healthy amount of it.
It seems you're assuming you will do nothing but use crafted/dropped armor (even if you did gold would still be extremely important) but there will definitely be upgrades for you to buy from...
Vendors (they made their gear much more viable)
The AH
Artisans, which as you already mentioned and know costs gold to have things crafted (including creating gem slots on gear, removing gems, combining gems, and enchanting gear, all of which you will do very often)
So, my point is, you will end up selling stuff as well as destroying it for materials simply to use these services and other avenues of obtaining gear.
Gold will only matter if it is difficult to amass large quantities and there are significant sinks in the game to use gold in. If everyone can hit the gold cap, whatever that may be, then gold will be worthless. If you have to sell every last scrap you find to a vendor just to pay your repair bills and amassing wealth takes effort and skill, then gold will have value. Its as simple as that. We wont know if they succeeded in giving gold value until the game launches. As far as i can tell from beta, gold is close to worthless in the beta, but thats only 13 levels and very limited content, so its not worth judging success yet.
Gold will only matter if it is difficult to amass large quantities and there are significant sinks in the game to use gold in. If everyone can hit the gold cap, whatever that may be, then gold will be worthless. If you have to sell every last scrap you find to a vendor just to pay your repair bills and amassing wealth takes effort and skill, then gold will have value. Its as simple as that. We wont know if they succeeded in giving gold value until the game launches. As far as i can tell from beta, gold is close to worthless in the beta, but thats only 13 levels and very limited content, so its not worth judging success yet.
i saw a video of hell or inferno gameplay and it showed gold dropping in stacks of 50 and 120 at the most. so as of now gold drops barley increases as the game gets harder. if items dont sell for a ton then gold find will actually be viable end-game.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Gold will only matter if it is difficult to amass large quantities and there are significant sinks in the game to use gold in. If everyone can hit the gold cap, whatever that may be, then gold will be worthless. If you have to sell every last scrap you find to a vendor just to pay your repair bills and amassing wealth takes effort and skill, then gold will have value. Its as simple as that. We wont know if they succeeded in giving gold value until the game launches. As far as i can tell from beta, gold is close to worthless in the beta, but thats only 13 levels and very limited content, so its not worth judging success yet.
This....
The absolute only reason gold failed as a currency in D2 was it was too easy to hit the cap. I always find it hilarious when people think D2 currency failed because there was too much gold floating around lol... Which is the same as saying the economy failed because the #s were too big, rofl!
Gold will only matter if it is difficult to amass large quantities and there are significant sinks in the game to use gold in. If everyone can hit the gold cap, whatever that may be, then gold will be worthless. If you have to sell every last scrap you find to a vendor just to pay your repair bills and amassing wealth takes effort and skill, then gold will have value. Its as simple as that. We wont know if they succeeded in giving gold value until the game launches. As far as i can tell from beta, gold is close to worthless in the beta, but thats only 13 levels and very limited content, so its not worth judging success yet.
i saw a video of hell or inferno gameplay and it showed gold dropping in stacks of 50 and 120 at the most. so as of now gold drops barley increases as the game gets harder. if items dont sell for a ton then gold find will actually be viable end-game.
But you have no idea how much gold find that person had.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Do you want to get scammed? Perhaps a nice keylogger?
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
But you have no idea how much gold find that person had.
your right i dont. maybe the gold drops are the same throughout the entire game and he had a bunch. still stands to reason that gold find will be viable end-game if gear has enough of it. the gold auction house alone makes gold SUPER valuable. people will sell items on the GAH to get more gold to buy better items on the GAH. its true the uses in-game greatly effect the prices as well. but as i posted a thread before, itll only take like 150k gold to max out all 3 artisans and then where does all your gold go? AH
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
The current Auction House habits and prices would suggestion players are under valuing the importance and power of gold.
The current Auction House habits make about as much sense as putting a person onto a scale with a duck to determine if they are a witch.
But ducks weigh the same as wood, due to their unique flotation properties, and are therefore clear balance indications of witchcraft, for what but witches and wood burn? It's simple science, my lad.
The auction house is full of overpriced junk... the search doesn't work, the buyout doesn't work half the time. It's a real disaster at the moment. The small amount of player and their spread online presense creates the opportunity for very volatile prices of goods. You can for instance buy 10k gold for 10 BB and sell it for 30 BB an hour later, and similar things.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Traitors! Even in death, the armies of Khanduras will still obey their king!"
The auction house is full of overpriced junk... the search doesn't work, the buyout doesn't work half the time. It's a real disaster at the moment. The small amount of player and their spread online presense creates the opportunity for very volatile prices of goods. You can for instance buy 10k gold for 10 BB and sell it for 30 BB an hour later, and similar things.
I can only imagine that all this will be fixed for release.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
There are three main reasons gold is good; the first is artisans. These crafters follow you throughout the game and make items for you as you progress. The blacksmith will smelt weapons and armor for you, the jeweler places and removes gems from your items, and the mystic binds magical effects to your loot. Together, they can create some gear that is pretty awesome. These items don’t come cheap though, and require a combination of salvaged materials and gold to make. Also, as you level up, you’ll want your artisans to level with you in their quality of items. In order for them to do this, you must pay to increase their overall ranking. By the time you reach Inferno difficulty and your artisans are the highest ranking they can go, Exalted, you will have dropped 173,800 gold altogether on them (63,900 gold for the blacksmith and mystic, 46,000 for the jeweler). That’s A LOT of gold, and it isn’t including how much you’ll spend when buying individual items from each crafter.
The second is the auction house. If you’ve played World of Warcraft, or have knowledge of the its economy, you understand that the auction house is pivotal to the game’s financial system. In WoW, as players find or craft items, they’re able to put whatever they want up for auction. Typically, as long as the item isn’t pure junk, it’s better to place the item on the auction house rather than sell it to a vendor (who will give you a fraction of what a player might). A similar system is being implemented in Diablo 3. You will be able to place whatever you find, and maybe craft—I haven’t been able to clarify this—up for auction to be bid on or bought by a fellow player.
While gold is obviously important because you use it to purchase auction housed items, one might argue that as the market becomes saturated, gold’s importance will diminish. Like-items will be bountiful and, as such, the prices for these items will be driven into the ground. Keep in mind, however, that while this can still happen, theoretically, the pace will be severely diminished due to players sometimes wanting “crafted items” rather than “found items”. In order to make a crafted items, players will need salvaged materials. To get these materials, players will need to break “found items” down. So as Item X becomes saturated on the market, players will realize they can’t make the money they once could off of it and, in some cases, will break Item X down into its crafting materials. This should, hypothetically, stabilize the market until an expansion is released.
Lastly, we have the fact that gold will be harder to come by. In past games, Blizzard rewarded players by “throwing buckets of gold at them. It felt great to do but the problem was that long term it didn’t really have any meaning.” (Jay Wilson, Blizzcon, 2010) Which is true. As a long-time player of Diablo 2, I can personally attest that gold was near-worthless after the first 20 or so levels. It could be used for gambling, and occasionally for repairs, but once you had a good chunk of change, it wasn’t important. It wasn’t an economic resource.
It would be similar, for instance, to if I had three apples. I can do a couple things with these apples: eat them, trade them, throw them at the homeless, etc. The main thing is each apple has value to me. I only have three so I need to “spend” them wisely. However, if I were given 10,000 apples, suddenly each individual apple becomes significantly less valuable. The point is, each apple would lose its significance, its importance. It’s a basic rule of economics: the more you have of something, the less valuable it becomes.
By restricting your incoming gold, and by offering more options to spend this resource, Blizzard has essentially made gold THE economy. I can see item-for-item trading still happening, but I don’t think it will happen nearly as much as item-for-gold trading. And why would it? When you trade an item for another, all you’re getting is access to that one item. When you trade an item for gold, you gain access to a plethora of items, from the loot on the auction house to all your crafted gear.
And that, my friend, is the power of gold.
Nice post.
Thats fine it's a forum, so i'm not surprised to see comments like this here and there.
I support the Op, nice post. You on the other hand are why we need a Vote DOWN arrow on posts.
One could amass a hefty amount of gold by simple spending 150.00Beta bucks for 80 to 50k gold.
That translate to a number of things - buying cheap magical items from vendors for salvaging or mass crafting.
One could produce 177+ piece of Common Scrap 177+ pieces of Subtle Essence and ~10-5 Fallen tooth by using 50 k in gold at vendors.
1 x Common scrap = 1.00 Beta buck
1 x Subtle Essence = 1.00 Beta buck
1 x Fallen Tooth = 4.00 Beta buck
By spending 150.00 Beta Bucks in gold, salvaging from the vendor, potential earnings are estimated at 395.00 Beta Bucks by selling Crafting materials at going rates.
Notes: you can buy the same item from a vender an infinite amount of times.
Also 1 beta buck is the minimum profit which will probably translate to 1 cent. When you add fees, I doubt this become profitable... maybe at the very beginning... maybe.
Fantastic posts OP
Recruiting for East Realm
Also recruiting for Sc2 on both EU and NA servers
Bod home Page
This doesn't make much sense to me. You can't say gold is important for buying but not for selling. Gold is either important or it isn't and if it is then you will need to sell things eventually to obtain a healthy amount of it.
It seems you're assuming you will do nothing but use crafted/dropped armor (even if you did gold would still be extremely important) but there will definitely be upgrades for you to buy from...
i saw a video of hell or inferno gameplay and it showed gold dropping in stacks of 50 and 120 at the most. so as of now gold drops barley increases as the game gets harder. if items dont sell for a ton then gold find will actually be viable end-game.
This....
The absolute only reason gold failed as a currency in D2 was it was too easy to hit the cap. I always find it hilarious when people think D2 currency failed because there was too much gold floating around lol... Which is the same as saying the economy failed because the #s were too big, rofl!
But you have no idea how much gold find that person had.
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
your right i dont. maybe the gold drops are the same throughout the entire game and he had a bunch. still stands to reason that gold find will be viable end-game if gear has enough of it. the gold auction house alone makes gold SUPER valuable. people will sell items on the GAH to get more gold to buy better items on the GAH. its true the uses in-game greatly effect the prices as well. but as i posted a thread before, itll only take like 150k gold to max out all 3 artisans and then where does all your gold go? AH
The current Auction House habits make about as much sense as putting a person onto a scale with a duck to determine if they are a witch.
But ducks weigh the same as wood, due to their unique flotation properties, and are therefore clear balance indications of witchcraft, for what but witches and wood burn? It's simple science, my lad.
I can only imagine that all this will be fixed for release.