I don't see why they would take away the trading aspect of the game. We can currently use the AH or the trade channel. I am assuming that we will go back to D2 type trading just without the ability to name our games unless that's a change that hasn't been announced yet. When at all possible I try to trade/sell items through the trade channel as you don't have to worry about the 15% tax. It can take longer but I don't see much of a change coming with the removal of the AH.
We are mostly assuming Blizzard has something in store to replace the auction house for trading. I personally think limiting trading of certain items would be beneficial to the experience of finding items and would fix a lot of other problems, but I won't go into that conversation again as I know I am in the minority and it probably won't go in that direction anyways (which I can also live with).
"If we are intended to trade at all, what's the difference between using trade chat and the AH?"
Trading is slower and not as convenient. You can't just instantly be gratified by knowing exactly what everything that is available for trade is at the drop of a dime. Trading is also instantly gratifying, but at least not to the same scale as the auction house is, as you have the entire pool of items available right in front of you. With trading, you at least have to search them out to some extent. Bartering has it's own nuances that are both intriguing and frustrating at the same time. You actually have to interact with other players, but there's also scamming, and dealing/arguing with noobs face to face that don't know how to price things and want way too much for their items. It's just a different experience and the fact that it isn't instantaneous forces you to slow down character progression to some extent. For instance, you can't just buy all 13 pieces for your new character off the auction house in one fell under-15-minute swoop; with trading that would be really time consuming.
"If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that remove the whole economic aspect of this game?"
To me it all comes down to what you allow to be traded and what you don't allow. I think most people believe that bind on account will go away as it was only a bandaid solution to the auction house, but I personally think it still has its place. I don't think *everything* should be bind on account though, that would be bad, just certain things which I won't go into.
"If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that make this game a version of a single-player game?"
No. It's only a single player if you can't play with other people. Trading has nothing to do with that. You can still use your self-found items and play with other people.
1) Yes, most likely (don't see why not, Diablo 3 is still a trading game - that's a quote from one of the devs, though many years ago).
2) Most likely, though I doubt that it'll be the main source for trading. Look at Jay Wilson's quotes from an early Q&A, much of what he said there was valid, except for the fact that the AH is not the solution anymore.
3) Trade chat (or any other non-AH trading) usually has no mediator but requires direct social interaction. You know the person who is giving/receiving the item, you can negotiate the terms of the trade, you might even find friends (omg, socializing).
4) Yes, but this game is not about the economic aspect. If this game was supposed to be a simulator for economy researchers, they would've kept the AH. Thankfully, they don't consider Diablo 3 players amateur NYSE brokers and got rid of it. Still, they won't ban trading, the AH just made it too simple.
5) Yes, which is definitely not the intention.
I think you have a wrong perception about why they removed the auction house. If you haven't already, read their blog post. If you did already, read it again ;-) I also wrote my $0.02 about my opinion why the AH removal is a very important and good step for D3.
They said their reason for the removal of the auction house was something along the lines of "it changes the core gameplay experience."
If trading is still existent, depending on it's effectiveness, there is no change to that "core gameplay." You could still theoretically trade-off entire item sets and "gear up" a character without ever entering a dungeon.
If trading DOES still exist by either making trade games or using trade chat, does this sound like a good theory?--"Let's replace the current, efficient, and convenient trade-system with a crappy, inefficient, inconvenient one."
No. It's only a single player if you can't play with other people. Trading has nothing to do with that. You can still use your self-found items and play with other people.
I think it just limits your own multiplayer "journey." You can theoretically obtain anything you want by yourself. Currently, you have to extend beyond what you find on your own, period. You HAVE to extend beyond what YOUR farming obtains. You could not play *this* version of the game entirely single player and beat MP10 Inferno. In loot 2.0, it sounds like you could.
Not to mention, to me, I think it limits the multiplayer aspect mentally. "I just found a great monk weapon, I better find a monk to trade with or sell to." "I just found a great item that I can give to my friend Bob."
Instead, it sounds like they are aiming towards "Hey, another item for me....Hey look, it's another item for me, Hey big surprise! Another item for me!!" "ME ME ME ME ME!!!!! ME!!! ME!!!"
When the AH gets removed, are we intended to trade whatsoever?
I believe we're intended to trade up until the point that Blizzard goes ape-shit with BoA tags. I don't think you have to worry about that, though, because everything I've seen points to that being one of the most universally-unpopular opinions among fans.
Presumably yes. Although I sure hope it gets changed. The biggest problem that D3 has to overcome without the AH is that trade chat is completely ineffective when you're limited to 99 other people in the chat with you. This goes to a greater "social experience" issue, quite frankly, and they need to solve that from a top-down holistic perspective. They seem to understand this (at least from my perspective) since they've added clan support. To me that's a tacit acknowledgement that our "social" situation isn't right in D3. So I hold hope that they're going to give us other improvements on that front which will passively effect the trading experience.
If we are intended to trade at all, what's the difference between using trade chat and the AH?
Theoretically? Not much. From a practical perspective, well, it makes trading more of an art whereas the AH was a science. If you want to be a successful trader it's going to require a much different skillset than a successful flipper. There won't be any "standardized" prices, for example. You can't look at a 9/6/170+ Mempo and know, exactly, what it's worth. So the work has to be done by the players involved in the trade to work something acceptable out. There's less of a "this is the price, anything below this is a good deal and should be flipped, anything above this should be ignored" mentality to it. Without a centralized pricing hub it becomes less about "getting rich" and more about "finding the right deal" which is a good thing.
If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that remove the whole economic aspect of this game?
One of the worst things about the game WAS the economic aspect. While items should have value (and they will), the primary concern when an event happens shouldn't be "this will ruin the economy." That mentality is detrimental to what the game really is. We should be able to have patches and such because they're good for the game, but too much has "it's bad for the economy" stifled decent changes. Taking the focus off the economy, while allowing items to still have value is a great step forward in this fight.
If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that make this game a version of a single-player game?
Well, as said, I really don't think you have to worry about "not intended to trade at all." Blizzard SEEMS to be pretty firm on trading being a part of the multiplayer Diablo experience. The community SEEMS to be pretty firm in favor of not removing all means of item exchange. To me that indicates that trading isn't just going to up and vanish since the devs and the community seem to be in-step on this topic.
If I think of some flashbacks to Diablo 2, I can remember attempting to sell things FOREVER and being unsuccessful for various reasons.
If we aren't supposed to be "NYSE brokers," are we supposed to be professional merchants from India with great bartering/haggling experience? lol. I think the AH takes a lot less skill, and more common sense than other strange ways of trading.
They said their reason for the removal of the auction house was something along the lines of "it changes the core gameplay experience."
If trading is still existent, depending on it's effectiveness, there is no change to that "core gameplay." You could still theoretically trade-off entire item sets and "gear up" a character without ever entering a dungeon.
If trading DOES still exist by either making trade games or using trade chat, does this sound like a good theory?--"Let's replace the current, efficient, and convenient trade-system with a crappy, inefficient, inconvenient one."
No. It's only a single player if you can't play with other people. Trading has nothing to do with that. You can still use your self-found items and play with other people.
I think it just limits your own multiplayer "journey." You can theoretically obtain anything you want by yourself. Currently, you have to extend beyond what you find on your own, period. You HAVE to extend beyond what YOUR farming obtains. You could not play *this* version of the game entirely single player and beat MP10 Inferno. In loot 2.0, it sounds like you could.
Not to mention, to me, I think it limits the multiplayer aspect mentally. "I just found a great monk weapon, I better find a monk to trade with or sell to." "I just found a great item that I can give to my friend Bob."
Instead, it sounds like they are aiming towards "Hey, another item for me....Hey look, it's another item for me, Hey big surprise! Another item for me!!" "ME ME ME ME ME!!!!! ME!!! ME!!!"
Yeah. I agree turning off all trading would definitely limit the multiplayer experience. But let's not say it would just be single player. As long as you're playing with other people single-player will never be the way to describe it in any sense.
To me it is all a trade off (pun). You make trading too easy (AH) the experience of finding your own items suffers. You make trading too hard or impossible then finding your own items becomes as rewarding as it can become but you lose out on some multiplayer interaction. There's a good balance in there, and while some might argue that trading everything is the perfect balance, I think the better balance is somewhere closer to turning trading off for just certain items, to preserve some of the desire for finding *specific* items, instead of just a flat experience where you just haphazardly hunt for anything and everything that has any sort of value.
But, that is all I will say on the matter. I will let others discuss
Shaggy, I largely agree with you except I have never found any item that made me wonder if I was going to screw up the economy. Maybe I am misunderstanding.
No, you're supposed to be a super-human entity that slays demons for a living. Now get out there and slay some demons, god damn it!
So, we won't trade at all in loot 2.0?
You're misunderstanding. He meant that too many good changes to the game were scrapped/delayed/overlooked because they would supposedly "ruin the economy".
I think you're asking the wrong question. It should be:
Q: "What changes could have ruined the game?"
A: "Focusing on the 'economy' aspect."
The fact that people in D3 talk and are worried about the "economy" highlights one of they key issues. This game is about killing monsters and acquiring loot, not about playing a virtual "economy" and getting rich.
Trading player to player is part of diablo,when i had top zuni pox drop on hc i could insta sell it on ah but were is the fun and enjoyment of getting top item if u gonna sell it in like 3 hours and u not geting top items often like 1 in 1500 hours or so,then i posted on d2jsp and ppl, top players started adding me i was selling item 3 days and it was alot of fun enjoying that 1 top ,so i made some new friends etc hope u getting the stroy of trading,
I think you're asking the wrong question. It should be:
Q: "What changes could have ruined the game?"
A: "Focusing on the 'economy' aspect."
The fact that people in D3 talk and are worried about the "economy" highlights one of they key issues. This game is about killing monsters and acquiring loot, not about playing a virtual "economy" and getting rich.
So, another person for no trading at all? As soon as there is trading (at all) there is economics.
So, another person for no trading at all? As soon as there is trading (at all) there is economics.
I didn't say "there is no economics". Of course there is. And I want items to be tradeable, I almost never play alone, and if I find an awesome drop I want to be able to give it to my friends.
In Diablo 3, though, the economy aspect has become so central to the game that every drop gets a price tag even before you evaluate its potential use for your or your friends' characters. That ruined the game, imho. Well, at least for some people, probably not for D2JSP/AH tycoons.
Blizzard said they didn't fix black damage weapons (bug) because people invested a lot in them. (I also suspect the 2nd socket in Manticore to be a bug that was never fixed because they didn't want to piss off buyers, but that's just my opinion !)
I dunno, that may be a failure of the D3 crew. Blizzard has never been shy about punishing people for the use of un-intended mechanics before, and I agree with that.
In Diablo 3, though, the economy aspect has become so central to the game that every drop gets a price tag even before you evaluate its potential use for your or your friends' characters. That ruined the game, imho. Well, at least for some people, probably not for D2JSP/AH tycoons.
I don't think there's any middle-ground. Items all either have a price tag, or no price tag at all. If money/trading helps you kill monsters faster, it's going to be important to you. There's no way around that.
The options I see are:
Trading exists with a convenient trading interface (AH)
Trading exists with no convenient trading interface (trade chat?)
No trading at all.
Additionally, I think the D3 crew didn't like the fact that people could get a real "shortcut" in their gear improvement simply by spending a very marginal amount of real-world currency. If trading is possible, Chinese farmers etc. are GOING to find a way to sell them for real world currency. They really can't stop that kind of thing
To me the point of the game is to get items from drops. If that's inadequate, then the blacksmith will help you out. I only play with friends, and we don't even really trade. If good items drop that they can use, I just give it to them, and vice versa.
Honestly, I really don't get this insane need to trade every second drop with people out there that you don't know. I regard rares as upgrades/salvage material and legendaries as upgrades/trophies. So I really don't understand this mentality.
Additionally, I think the D3 crew didn't like the fact that people could get a real "shortcut" in their gear improvement simply by spending a very marginal amount of real-world currency. If trading is possible, Chinese farmers etc. are GOING to find a way to sell them for real world currency. They really can't stop that kind of thing
I don't think you understand, man. The fact that those types of deals are no longer officially supported by Blizzard means that they completely disregard them when coming up with changes and fixes to the game. They don't have to withhold changes because they're worried people who have payed real money for items will get upset. I mean, people that spend real money will still be upset when their gear is suddenly devalued, but when the RMAH shuts down it will no longer be Blizzard's problem, because your real money purchase will no longer be sanctioned by Blizzard.
It's incredibly liberating.
Slight edit:
I feel like I've heard this argument somewhere before
Sillyness aside, I believe Maka has the heart of the matter, jwylie. Blizzard isn't trying to STOP trading or even really stop 3rd party sites from trading/selling gold (they'll try, but that's not the point of shutting down the AH). They're trying to slow it down and remove the necessity of trying to balance around people being able to buy gear that could get 'broken' in a fix.
Right now it's TOO EASY to get those perfect stats and gear that you want. By making trades happen without a hard value on items (gold/rmah) then people have to decide for themselves what these things are worth. you don't have a computer telling you that item is work 3.5 mil gold. Now it's worth whatever gold or other items you want to trade for it. Some people will want to trade for other items and never want your gold, especially now that gold will no longer the easy to use dominate currency it once was.
I don't think you understand, man. The fact that those types of deals are no longer officially supported by Blizzard means that they completely disregard them when coming up with changes and fixes to the game. They don't have to withhold changes because they're worried people who have payed real money for items will get upset. I mean, people that spend real money will still be upset when their gear is suddenly devalued, but when the RMAH shuts down it will no longer be Blizzard's problem, because your real money purchase will no longer be sanctioned by Blizzard.
It's incredibly liberating.
It's my opinion that if they need to keep changing things in a game-breaking way, they are doing something wrong already. It is and was fairly rare in WoW that something changed so drastically that the entire paradigm was changed. Some classes could get buffed pretty significantly, but it wasn't like the difference of Legacy Legendaries to current Legendaries.
If I do get a good item in the future (whether I bought it with real money or not) and they nerf it to a game-changing degree, I will be really disappointed regardless of the existence of an AH.
To me the point of the game is to get items from drops. If that's inadequate, then the blacksmith will help you out. I only play with friends, and we don't even really trade. If good items drop that they can use, I just give it to them, and vice versa.
Honestly, I really don't get this insane need to trade every second drop with people out there that you don't know. I regard rares as upgrades/salvage material and legendaries as upgrades/trophies. So I really don't understand this mentality.
I don't know if you play on console or something, because on console apparently it is easier to earn your own items. But if youre on PC you are in a very small demographic of people. A tiny demographic.
There's almost no way in hell that you could tackle MP10 inferno all the way through by only earning your own items.
Right now it's TOO EASY to get those perfect stats and gear that you want.
I don't think so. Youre looking at 1billion+ gold for "the best" gear. 300million can do you pretty well and get you up to MP10 probably. If you try to earn either of those numbers by yourself with no RMAH, it's pretty damn hard and time consuming. If you choose to spend ~$5 you can give yourself a really solid boost, and I don't really see a problem with that. If someone is "okay" with taking shortcuts, then let that be their business. I bought a very small amount of gold myself on the RMAH and I take pride in what I have legitimately earned since then. 90% of my current items are self-earned now. That gives no real status to anyone but myself. It's largely in your own mind: your sense of pride and sense of achievement.
As for a "computer" telling me what things are worth, I don't really see it that way. I see a very reasonable inflation rate in the items and prices from the release of this game to now. Items I sold for 20million+ months ago are now 1million or less. Big deal? I've gotten items since then that CURRENTLY sell for 70million etc. And I earned them myself. When I find those kinds of items I see it as a victory regardless of the item being for MY current character- I don't know why they think that's part of the whole thing (the item being for you).
By using the inefficient trade-chat and public game trading method you are really screwing up your potential for progress. By having less of a pool of demand, you are going to have a LOT of trouble getting what you deserve for an item, and there's too much luck involved.
If I tried to sell my Skorn right now by avoiding the AH entirely, I know it would be a big pain in the ass to get what I really deserve for it. First of all, it would be very hard to find someone looking for a lifesteal/intelligence Skorn, VERY hard. Then, out of that tiny pool of people, the chances of any of them really knowing the value of it are low just like there's a low chance of some idiot over-paying me for it.
An AH presents comparisons (among many other things). "Ah, these are all typically selling for around X price, so I can be confident in it's value."
As for balance changes (I already said something about this but...) if they decided to nerf the balls out of my current Skorn tomorrow, even though I didn't pay real-money for it, I'd still be fucking furious. I worked really hard to get that decent Skorn, and if they trivialize or take that away from me in any way, I'm not going to be happy.
They need to let the game be somewhat persistent and constant and not be fucking with significant shit all the time.
If WoW was like: "Okay today Warriors are good, but next fucking week, Warlocks are going to be good and everything else is gonna literally blow." People would be upset. They tried to make WoW constant enough that you generally get "what you've worked for." They have definitely made some significant nerfs in the past, but it was never something that COMPLETELY ruined/changed the game for me. In WotLK I played a pvp-unholyDK at the height of their strength, and then they nerfed Scourge strike etc. I was pretty significantly weaker, but I didn't NEED to reroll. I still did pretty fine HOWEVER:
***If they one day nerfed my Skorn down to legacy values, that would be a ridiculous...RIDICULOUSLY significant change. And that HAPPENED in Diablo 3, it just happened in reverse. There is PRECEDENT for that level of change. THEY need to work on not doing that, not relieve themselves of some amount of the blame when they make such huge changes.***
"Hey, there's no AH/RMAH anymore, we can just do anything we fucking want MREHEHEE!!!" We don't want this.
It's my opinion that if they need to keep changing things in a game-breaking way, they are doing something wrong already. It is and was fairly rare in WoW that something changed so drastically that the entire paradigm was changed. Some classes could get buffed pretty significantly, but it wasn't like the difference of Legacy Legendaries to current Legendaries.
In WoW, you didn't have fully randomized loot, so comparing the loot between the two games really does both a disservice. The thing about D3 is they aren't changing anything in a game-breaking way, they are trying to fix things that people have found that makes the game less interesting. For example with IAS, they wanted to nerf it because it was found to be too good combined with other stats and people were stacking it. They fixed it and quickly found this made people unhappy becuase they had paid for it.
The game still functions fine, the IAS stat still works, its just not the 'be all end all' stat it was back then. This fix made loot more interseting (relativly) becuase now if your gear didn't have IAS you might not care as much. Gear choices opened up rather than being closed off.
I don't know if you play on console or something, because on console apparently it is easier to earn your own items. But if youre on PC you are in a very small demographic of people. A tiny demographic.
There's almost no way in hell that you could tackle MP10 inferno all the way through by only earning your own items.
You're talking about getting into MP10, that's a whole other discussion and MP10 was really made to challenge those people who had all the best gear anyway.
I'd like to see your demographic numbers because I've played the exact same way with my friends. I'm 90% self found or crafted, I was able to wade through MP5-7 roughly. I hardly ever sold items on the AH.
I don't think so. Youre looking at 1billion+ gold for "the best" gear. 300million can do you pretty well and get you up to MP10 probably. If you try to earn either of those numbers by yourself with no RMAH, it's pretty damn hard and time consuming. If you choose to spend ~$5 you can give yourself a really solid boost, and I don't really see a problem with that. If someone is "okay" with taking shortcuts, then let that be their business. I bought a very small amount of gold myself on the RMAH and I take pride in what I have legitimately earned since then. 90% of my current items are self-earned now. That gives no real status to anyone but myself. It's largely in your own mind: your sense of pride and sense of achievement.
Again the problem is you're talking about MP10. Sure, if MP10 is your goal then it might be very hard to get there without some form of AH. But why does that have to be the goal? What's wrong with the other MPs if they offer you a challenge and good loot to find? I think that's the crux the matter.
As for a "computer" telling me what things are worth, I don't really see it that way. I see a very reasonable inflation rate in the items and prices from the release of this game to now. Items I sold for 20million+ months ago are now 1million or less. Big deal? I've gotten items since then that CURRENTLY sell for 70million etc. And I earned them myself. When I find those kinds of items I see it as a victory regardless of the item being for MY current character- I don't know why they think that's part of the whole thing (the item being for you).
The point of my statement was that when you take away an efficient market like the AH, you lose that hard set gold value. When people are forced to trade and barter, then prices change. You could possibly get that 1 billion gold item now for just a few items if you find the right person that happens to need your items. A free market with a gold standard is fine usually, but right now because it's so easy to get to, it makes a game about random loot lose the randomness.
The point is that the AH is TOO efficient. You take take what is random loot and buy your way around that randomness. You also don't need to get the "best" gear to do this. If you want to get high amounts of crit, all you have to do is search for it, find something cheap that doesn't have "the best" stats on it, but has just enough to be useful.
The BEST gear is always going to be highly valued and hard to come by even with the AH, but the AH pretty much created this system where anything other than the best stats were devalued and people could pick up really amazing gear on the cheap. I've seen it, amazing gear that only sold for thousands of gold becuase it wasn't "perfect". Gear that would get you into the mid ranges of Monster Power without much issue. The sad part is once you bought a lot of this gear, you started running out of cool things to find because you already bought it all.
The idea is the better gear you have, the less upgrades you'll find. This is supposed to happen over time to increase longivity of the game, but with an AH you reach this point much quicker than you would on your own and it makes the game feel worse when you run out of stuff to find.
The game still functions fine, the IAS stat still works, its just not the 'be all end all' stat it was back then. This fix made loot more interseting (relativly) becuase now if your gear didn't have IAS you might not care as much. Gear choices opened up rather than being closed off.
If anything is ever seeming "too good," I can sense it. When this happens I usually expect that it will be dealt with. For example, right now I think witch doctor firebats are too damn strong and are too dominant that other builds get no use for the most part.
If I spent a ton of real-world money on a firebat witch doctor, it would be my own fault when it inevitably gets nerfed because I expect it. I guess everyone shouldn't be expected to have this "sense," but actually, to some degree I think it is mandatory.
I'd like to see your demographic numbers because I've played the exact same way with my friends. I'm 90% self found or crafted, I was able to wade through MP5-7 roughly.
That's a big achievement and I bet you are a rare case. You did yourself a dis-service by not using the AH, however. It's a useful tool.
But why does that have to be the goal? What's wrong with the other MPs if they offer you a challenge and good loot to find? I think that's the crux the matter.
Well, the general argument against the AH is it's ease of making someone very powerful. MP10 is this games final challenge, for the most part, and uber bosses on MP10 also.
The AH simply doesn't get you to this final goal as quickly as people make it sound. What other end-goal is there? It's THE hardest thing, and it is therefore the benchmark. If someone had the goal only to beat normal difficulty, they could argue that it's too easy to achieve that goal, but that's just not the standard.
I will say that I was proud when I got to MP8 and all of the earlier ones. I was proud that I earned it, etc. But, I am the most proud for being able to tackle MP10. If you only want to achieve 80% of the goal, that's fine too, I don't judge. But, on average, only achieving 80% of a goal is faster.
Quote from Blizzard:
But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.
I don't really understand this, because as I say, I had to work pretty hard and find a lot of valuable gear to progress up to where I am.
You could possibly get that 1 billion gold item now for just a few items if you find the right person that happens to need your items. A free market with a gold standard is fine usually, but right now because it's so easy to get to, it makes a game about random loot lose the randomness.
The 1 billion item is worth such for a reason. If some fool trades you said 1 billion item for a bunch of invaluable and common stuff, that's their own prerogative. Ultimately, the items have an innate value due to their rarity and strength. Rare + strong items are the most valuable, period.
About the random loot, I disagree because every item in the game will be found a LOT cumulatively. If there's something you want, someone is 99% guaranteed to have it, and even more likely, a lot of people will have it.
The BEST gear is always going to be highly valued and hard to come by even with the AH, but the AH pretty much created this system where anything other than the best stats were devalued and people could pick up really amazing gear on the cheap.
If all the players are cumulatively finding these high-demand items, their value goes down. That pool of cumulative players is always there. Removing the AH doesn't change that. However, without the convenient AH interface, you are going to have a very hard time getting the consensus about what things are worth and how many of these items are "out there." You will have to "poll" a lot of people and spend a lot of time finding out what people think about an item. If you don't extensively do your research, you will be getting improper values for your items, and paying improper values for other peoples items constantly.
Additionally, perfect items aren't the only good ones. My Skorn isn't perfect, but its pretty darn good. For my resources, it was an appropriate buy. If someone else had more gold, or had real money to spend, I'm sure they could get an absolutely perfect one, and that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Kudos to them for getting the gold legitimately, or kudos to them for having a job where they get disposable income in real life.
The idea is the better gear you have, the less upgrades you'll find. This is supposed to happen over time to increase longivity of the game, but with an AH you reach this point much quicker than you would on your own and it makes the game feel worse when you run out of stuff to find.
I've found a few things over the hours that I've played which I do indeed use myself. I've also found countless (COUNTLESS) items that I've sold to other people and added to my cumulative value. You don't run out of things to find. If I find a Skorn that's almost as good as mine, I still call it a victory. Someone will want it. I don't get mad because it's not an upgrade to my setup.
You know, you could've saved a lot of time if only you had disclosed that you were coming from a WoW mindset. This is not an MMO, man, and the developers don't want it to be, just face it. It just happens to be played online.
In this context, I don't see how it matters what kind of game it is. If the rule-makers of Chess wanted to change things dramatically, and it favored a certain playstyle significantly, that would still be inappropriate of them.
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Will trade chat still exist?
If we are intended to trade at all, what's the difference between using trade chat and the AH?
If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that remove the whole economic aspect of this game?
If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that make this game a version of a single-player game?
"If we are intended to trade at all, what's the difference between using trade chat and the AH?"
Trading is slower and not as convenient. You can't just instantly be gratified by knowing exactly what everything that is available for trade is at the drop of a dime. Trading is also instantly gratifying, but at least not to the same scale as the auction house is, as you have the entire pool of items available right in front of you. With trading, you at least have to search them out to some extent. Bartering has it's own nuances that are both intriguing and frustrating at the same time. You actually have to interact with other players, but there's also scamming, and dealing/arguing with noobs face to face that don't know how to price things and want way too much for their items. It's just a different experience and the fact that it isn't instantaneous forces you to slow down character progression to some extent. For instance, you can't just buy all 13 pieces for your new character off the auction house in one fell under-15-minute swoop; with trading that would be really time consuming.
"If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that remove the whole economic aspect of this game?"
To me it all comes down to what you allow to be traded and what you don't allow. I think most people believe that bind on account will go away as it was only a bandaid solution to the auction house, but I personally think it still has its place. I don't think *everything* should be bind on account though, that would be bad, just certain things which I won't go into.
"If we are not intended to trade at all, doesn't that make this game a version of a single-player game?"
No. It's only a single player if you can't play with other people. Trading has nothing to do with that. You can still use your self-found items and play with other people.
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2) Most likely, though I doubt that it'll be the main source for trading. Look at Jay Wilson's quotes from an early Q&A, much of what he said there was valid, except for the fact that the AH is not the solution anymore.
3) Trade chat (or any other non-AH trading) usually has no mediator but requires direct social interaction. You know the person who is giving/receiving the item, you can negotiate the terms of the trade, you might even find friends (omg, socializing).
4) Yes, but this game is not about the economic aspect. If this game was supposed to be a simulator for economy researchers, they would've kept the AH. Thankfully, they don't consider Diablo 3 players amateur NYSE brokers and got rid of it. Still, they won't ban trading, the AH just made it too simple.
5) Yes, which is definitely not the intention.
I think you have a wrong perception about why they removed the auction house. If you haven't already, read their blog post. If you did already, read it again ;-) I also wrote my $0.02 about my opinion why the AH removal is a very important and good step for D3.
If trading is still existent, depending on it's effectiveness, there is no change to that "core gameplay." You could still theoretically trade-off entire item sets and "gear up" a character without ever entering a dungeon.
If trading DOES still exist by either making trade games or using trade chat, does this sound like a good theory?--"Let's replace the current, efficient, and convenient trade-system with a crappy, inefficient, inconvenient one."
I think it just limits your own multiplayer "journey." You can theoretically obtain anything you want by yourself. Currently, you have to extend beyond what you find on your own, period. You HAVE to extend beyond what YOUR farming obtains. You could not play *this* version of the game entirely single player and beat MP10 Inferno. In loot 2.0, it sounds like you could.
Not to mention, to me, I think it limits the multiplayer aspect mentally. "I just found a great monk weapon, I better find a monk to trade with or sell to." "I just found a great item that I can give to my friend Bob."
Instead, it sounds like they are aiming towards "Hey, another item for me....Hey look, it's another item for me, Hey big surprise! Another item for me!!" "ME ME ME ME ME!!!!! ME!!! ME!!!"
I believe we're intended to trade up until the point that Blizzard goes ape-shit with BoA tags. I don't think you have to worry about that, though, because everything I've seen points to that being one of the most universally-unpopular opinions among fans.
Presumably yes. Although I sure hope it gets changed. The biggest problem that D3 has to overcome without the AH is that trade chat is completely ineffective when you're limited to 99 other people in the chat with you. This goes to a greater "social experience" issue, quite frankly, and they need to solve that from a top-down holistic perspective. They seem to understand this (at least from my perspective) since they've added clan support. To me that's a tacit acknowledgement that our "social" situation isn't right in D3. So I hold hope that they're going to give us other improvements on that front which will passively effect the trading experience.
Theoretically? Not much. From a practical perspective, well, it makes trading more of an art whereas the AH was a science. If you want to be a successful trader it's going to require a much different skillset than a successful flipper. There won't be any "standardized" prices, for example. You can't look at a 9/6/170+ Mempo and know, exactly, what it's worth. So the work has to be done by the players involved in the trade to work something acceptable out. There's less of a "this is the price, anything below this is a good deal and should be flipped, anything above this should be ignored" mentality to it. Without a centralized pricing hub it becomes less about "getting rich" and more about "finding the right deal" which is a good thing.
One of the worst things about the game WAS the economic aspect. While items should have value (and they will), the primary concern when an event happens shouldn't be "this will ruin the economy." That mentality is detrimental to what the game really is. We should be able to have patches and such because they're good for the game, but too much has "it's bad for the economy" stifled decent changes. Taking the focus off the economy, while allowing items to still have value is a great step forward in this fight.
Well, as said, I really don't think you have to worry about "not intended to trade at all." Blizzard SEEMS to be pretty firm on trading being a part of the multiplayer Diablo experience. The community SEEMS to be pretty firm in favor of not removing all means of item exchange. To me that indicates that trading isn't just going to up and vanish since the devs and the community seem to be in-step on this topic.
If we aren't supposed to be "NYSE brokers," are we supposed to be professional merchants from India with great bartering/haggling experience? lol. I think the AH takes a lot less skill, and more common sense than other strange ways of trading.
Yeah. I agree turning off all trading would definitely limit the multiplayer experience. But let's not say it would just be single player. As long as you're playing with other people single-player will never be the way to describe it in any sense.
To me it is all a trade off (pun). You make trading too easy (AH) the experience of finding your own items suffers. You make trading too hard or impossible then finding your own items becomes as rewarding as it can become but you lose out on some multiplayer interaction. There's a good balance in there, and while some might argue that trading everything is the perfect balance, I think the better balance is somewhere closer to turning trading off for just certain items, to preserve some of the desire for finding *specific* items, instead of just a flat experience where you just haphazardly hunt for anything and everything that has any sort of value.
But, that is all I will say on the matter. I will let others discuss
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So, we won't trade at all in loot 2.0?
What changes could have ruined the economy?
I think you're asking the wrong question. It should be:
Q: "What changes could have ruined the game?"
A: "Focusing on the 'economy' aspect."
The fact that people in D3 talk and are worried about the "economy" highlights one of they key issues. This game is about killing monsters and acquiring loot, not about playing a virtual "economy" and getting rich.
So, another person for no trading at all? As soon as there is trading (at all) there is economics.
I didn't say "there is no economics". Of course there is. And I want items to be tradeable, I almost never play alone, and if I find an awesome drop I want to be able to give it to my friends.
In Diablo 3, though, the economy aspect has become so central to the game that every drop gets a price tag even before you evaluate its potential use for your or your friends' characters. That ruined the game, imho. Well, at least for some people, probably not for D2JSP/AH tycoons.
I dunno, that may be a failure of the D3 crew. Blizzard has never been shy about punishing people for the use of un-intended mechanics before, and I agree with that.
I don't think there's any middle-ground. Items all either have a price tag, or no price tag at all. If money/trading helps you kill monsters faster, it's going to be important to you. There's no way around that.
The options I see are:
Trading exists with a convenient trading interface (AH)
Trading exists with no convenient trading interface (trade chat?)
No trading at all.
Additionally, I think the D3 crew didn't like the fact that people could get a real "shortcut" in their gear improvement simply by spending a very marginal amount of real-world currency. If trading is possible, Chinese farmers etc. are GOING to find a way to sell them for real world currency. They really can't stop that kind of thing
Honestly, I really don't get this insane need to trade every second drop with people out there that you don't know. I regard rares as upgrades/salvage material and legendaries as upgrades/trophies. So I really don't understand this mentality.
Slight edit:
I feel like I've heard this argument somewhere before
Sillyness aside, I believe Maka has the heart of the matter, jwylie. Blizzard isn't trying to STOP trading or even really stop 3rd party sites from trading/selling gold (they'll try, but that's not the point of shutting down the AH). They're trying to slow it down and remove the necessity of trying to balance around people being able to buy gear that could get 'broken' in a fix.
Right now it's TOO EASY to get those perfect stats and gear that you want. By making trades happen without a hard value on items (gold/rmah) then people have to decide for themselves what these things are worth. you don't have a computer telling you that item is work 3.5 mil gold. Now it's worth whatever gold or other items you want to trade for it. Some people will want to trade for other items and never want your gold, especially now that gold will no longer the easy to use dominate currency it once was.
It's my opinion that if they need to keep changing things in a game-breaking way, they are doing something wrong already. It is and was fairly rare in WoW that something changed so drastically that the entire paradigm was changed. Some classes could get buffed pretty significantly, but it wasn't like the difference of Legacy Legendaries to current Legendaries.
If I do get a good item in the future (whether I bought it with real money or not) and they nerf it to a game-changing degree, I will be really disappointed regardless of the existence of an AH.
I don't know if you play on console or something, because on console apparently it is easier to earn your own items. But if youre on PC you are in a very small demographic of people. A tiny demographic.
There's almost no way in hell that you could tackle MP10 inferno all the way through by only earning your own items.
I don't think so. Youre looking at 1billion+ gold for "the best" gear. 300million can do you pretty well and get you up to MP10 probably. If you try to earn either of those numbers by yourself with no RMAH, it's pretty damn hard and time consuming. If you choose to spend ~$5 you can give yourself a really solid boost, and I don't really see a problem with that. If someone is "okay" with taking shortcuts, then let that be their business. I bought a very small amount of gold myself on the RMAH and I take pride in what I have legitimately earned since then. 90% of my current items are self-earned now. That gives no real status to anyone but myself. It's largely in your own mind: your sense of pride and sense of achievement.
As for a "computer" telling me what things are worth, I don't really see it that way. I see a very reasonable inflation rate in the items and prices from the release of this game to now. Items I sold for 20million+ months ago are now 1million or less. Big deal? I've gotten items since then that CURRENTLY sell for 70million etc. And I earned them myself. When I find those kinds of items I see it as a victory regardless of the item being for MY current character- I don't know why they think that's part of the whole thing (the item being for you).
By using the inefficient trade-chat and public game trading method you are really screwing up your potential for progress. By having less of a pool of demand, you are going to have a LOT of trouble getting what you deserve for an item, and there's too much luck involved.
If I tried to sell my Skorn right now by avoiding the AH entirely, I know it would be a big pain in the ass to get what I really deserve for it. First of all, it would be very hard to find someone looking for a lifesteal/intelligence Skorn, VERY hard. Then, out of that tiny pool of people, the chances of any of them really knowing the value of it are low just like there's a low chance of some idiot over-paying me for it.
An AH presents comparisons (among many other things). "Ah, these are all typically selling for around X price, so I can be confident in it's value."
As for balance changes (I already said something about this but...) if they decided to nerf the balls out of my current Skorn tomorrow, even though I didn't pay real-money for it, I'd still be fucking furious. I worked really hard to get that decent Skorn, and if they trivialize or take that away from me in any way, I'm not going to be happy.
They need to let the game be somewhat persistent and constant and not be fucking with significant shit all the time.
If WoW was like: "Okay today Warriors are good, but next fucking week, Warlocks are going to be good and everything else is gonna literally blow." People would be upset. They tried to make WoW constant enough that you generally get "what you've worked for." They have definitely made some significant nerfs in the past, but it was never something that COMPLETELY ruined/changed the game for me. In WotLK I played a pvp-unholyDK at the height of their strength, and then they nerfed Scourge strike etc. I was pretty significantly weaker, but I didn't NEED to reroll. I still did pretty fine HOWEVER:
***If they one day nerfed my Skorn down to legacy values, that would be a ridiculous...RIDICULOUSLY significant change. And that HAPPENED in Diablo 3, it just happened in reverse. There is PRECEDENT for that level of change. THEY need to work on not doing that, not relieve themselves of some amount of the blame when they make such huge changes.***
"Hey, there's no AH/RMAH anymore, we can just do anything we fucking want MREHEHEE!!!" We don't want this.
In WoW, you didn't have fully randomized loot, so comparing the loot between the two games really does both a disservice. The thing about D3 is they aren't changing anything in a game-breaking way, they are trying to fix things that people have found that makes the game less interesting. For example with IAS, they wanted to nerf it because it was found to be too good combined with other stats and people were stacking it. They fixed it and quickly found this made people unhappy becuase they had paid for it.
The game still functions fine, the IAS stat still works, its just not the 'be all end all' stat it was back then. This fix made loot more interseting (relativly) becuase now if your gear didn't have IAS you might not care as much. Gear choices opened up rather than being closed off.
You're talking about getting into MP10, that's a whole other discussion and MP10 was really made to challenge those people who had all the best gear anyway.
I'd like to see your demographic numbers because I've played the exact same way with my friends. I'm 90% self found or crafted, I was able to wade through MP5-7 roughly. I hardly ever sold items on the AH.
Again the problem is you're talking about MP10. Sure, if MP10 is your goal then it might be very hard to get there without some form of AH. But why does that have to be the goal? What's wrong with the other MPs if they offer you a challenge and good loot to find? I think that's the crux the matter.
The point of my statement was that when you take away an efficient market like the AH, you lose that hard set gold value. When people are forced to trade and barter, then prices change. You could possibly get that 1 billion gold item now for just a few items if you find the right person that happens to need your items. A free market with a gold standard is fine usually, but right now because it's so easy to get to, it makes a game about random loot lose the randomness.
The point is that the AH is TOO efficient. You take take what is random loot and buy your way around that randomness. You also don't need to get the "best" gear to do this. If you want to get high amounts of crit, all you have to do is search for it, find something cheap that doesn't have "the best" stats on it, but has just enough to be useful.
The BEST gear is always going to be highly valued and hard to come by even with the AH, but the AH pretty much created this system where anything other than the best stats were devalued and people could pick up really amazing gear on the cheap. I've seen it, amazing gear that only sold for thousands of gold becuase it wasn't "perfect". Gear that would get you into the mid ranges of Monster Power without much issue. The sad part is once you bought a lot of this gear, you started running out of cool things to find because you already bought it all.
The idea is the better gear you have, the less upgrades you'll find. This is supposed to happen over time to increase longivity of the game, but with an AH you reach this point much quicker than you would on your own and it makes the game feel worse when you run out of stuff to find.
If anything is ever seeming "too good," I can sense it. When this happens I usually expect that it will be dealt with. For example, right now I think witch doctor firebats are too damn strong and are too dominant that other builds get no use for the most part.
If I spent a ton of real-world money on a firebat witch doctor, it would be my own fault when it inevitably gets nerfed because I expect it. I guess everyone shouldn't be expected to have this "sense," but actually, to some degree I think it is mandatory.
That's a big achievement and I bet you are a rare case. You did yourself a dis-service by not using the AH, however. It's a useful tool.
Well, the general argument against the AH is it's ease of making someone very powerful. MP10 is this games final challenge, for the most part, and uber bosses on MP10 also.
The AH simply doesn't get you to this final goal as quickly as people make it sound. What other end-goal is there? It's THE hardest thing, and it is therefore the benchmark. If someone had the goal only to beat normal difficulty, they could argue that it's too easy to achieve that goal, but that's just not the standard.
I will say that I was proud when I got to MP8 and all of the earlier ones. I was proud that I earned it, etc. But, I am the most proud for being able to tackle MP10. If you only want to achieve 80% of the goal, that's fine too, I don't judge. But, on average, only achieving 80% of a goal is faster.
Quote from Blizzard:
I don't really understand this, because as I say, I had to work pretty hard and find a lot of valuable gear to progress up to where I am.
The 1 billion item is worth such for a reason. If some fool trades you said 1 billion item for a bunch of invaluable and common stuff, that's their own prerogative. Ultimately, the items have an innate value due to their rarity and strength. Rare + strong items are the most valuable, period.
About the random loot, I disagree because every item in the game will be found a LOT cumulatively. If there's something you want, someone is 99% guaranteed to have it, and even more likely, a lot of people will have it.
If all the players are cumulatively finding these high-demand items, their value goes down. That pool of cumulative players is always there. Removing the AH doesn't change that. However, without the convenient AH interface, you are going to have a very hard time getting the consensus about what things are worth and how many of these items are "out there." You will have to "poll" a lot of people and spend a lot of time finding out what people think about an item. If you don't extensively do your research, you will be getting improper values for your items, and paying improper values for other peoples items constantly.
Additionally, perfect items aren't the only good ones. My Skorn isn't perfect, but its pretty darn good. For my resources, it was an appropriate buy. If someone else had more gold, or had real money to spend, I'm sure they could get an absolutely perfect one, and that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Kudos to them for getting the gold legitimately, or kudos to them for having a job where they get disposable income in real life.
I've found a few things over the hours that I've played which I do indeed use myself. I've also found countless (COUNTLESS) items that I've sold to other people and added to my cumulative value. You don't run out of things to find. If I find a Skorn that's almost as good as mine, I still call it a victory. Someone will want it. I don't get mad because it's not an upgrade to my setup.
In this context, I don't see how it matters what kind of game it is. If the rule-makers of Chess wanted to change things dramatically, and it favored a certain playstyle significantly, that would still be inappropriate of them.