Let's face it, everything that is happening here is because of money.
Some naive minds are thinking this is all happening, because Blizzard wants to make a better product, maybe it is time to wake up from your pony farm world and take off the pink glasses.
Better product = more money
Haha, no. Better reputation = more money. The money is already gone when people might realize they still don't like it.
What about their next product if this one ruins their reputation?
You can't do much worse than what the AH did to their reputation. Understandable many are upset about trading being gutted, but not nearly as many are going to rally around the outcry that Diablo 3 is a game where, "You have to buy items off the AH kill monsters to get loot."
I'm sure the lawyers that Blizzard (and Activision) employed were completely unaware of these legal restrictions preventing them from the keeping the Auction House.
I'm sure the lawyers that Blizzard (and Activision) employed were completely unaware of these legal restrictions preventing them from the keeping the Auction House.
That's not really an argument. Big organizations do illegal things all the time, consciously or unconsciously.
If everyone did their job 100% right, then.....well, I'll just leave it at that.
They may do illegal things, but they don't make them one of the central pillars of their product.
In two years, with the AH being the most controversial feature, someone, somewhere on the internet with the proper legal background would have exposed any legal issues.
The other parts of the argument: Blizzard wanting to get rid of the AH bots accounts etc, is no doubt a motivating factor...but so is the effect on gameplay.
If I remember correctly, legislation (in the US) that had a big impact on this wasn't solidly in place when they designed and implemented the AH. Some stuff changed in the meantime, and so have they.
The gameplay effect is, in my opinion, just gravy. It's a very nice bonus. I don't think they would've gone to these lengths had the legislation not turned against what they were doing.
That's the first I've heard of that. Even if it's true, why remove the Gold AH as well?
"By embedding real money in its service, Blizzard was vitiating any claim that D3 was separate from the real economy and therefore not subject to real world taxes and laws," Castronova wrote. "What a terrible precedent that would have made."
Virtual tax is a proposed tax on internet gamers for items bought or traded solely within the virtual world (Internet game worlds).[1][2][3] The tax on a transaction would be considered as if it were a purchase or sale (if real currency is involved) or barter (if not). Virtual property, on the death of the owner, would be considered as if it were any other intangible property for the purpose of estate or inheritance tax. The Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress has investigated taxing such transactions.[4] This tax might include items bought with virtual currency, virtual items traded for other virtual items, real items traded for virtual items, and real currency traded for virtual items.
Apparently this didn't become quite the hot-button legal issue (in the US) until late 2012 and early 2013. Once you read some of those articles, though, it does become quite clear as to why Blizzard actually shut down the GAH/RMAH so abruptly.
If BoA is actually to combat this, though... well /sigh.
typical Self-founder when he joins on public game. - " omg omg omg why did u buy that gear ? there is no way u found it". Ok lets start from the begining shall we?. Most of you SF, are tend to say " AH or RMAH give XY person an UNFAIR advantage" and when I hear it im just blown up with laughter, excuse me WHAT advantage? , does this person play ladder ? , does this player play 1v1 2v2 3v3 team deathmatch ? what exacly have an advantage ? , well I see this just of pure jealosy of other player items. Now listen to me VERY carefully: IF , Self found players ENJOYS finding loot by him self then he would care less if the person next to him bought an item for 1 bil , 10 bil or 1000 euro he just couldnt care LESS so a typical SF player should just accept the fact and play either solo or with trusted friends / guild / clan and THATS IT. Please tell me why are you so furiosly pinned to the option of reducing other players fun aspect ? because yes I have fun looking for new better items on AH and I enjoy looking at some items curret gold value. The real problem is not AH or RMAH its the friking chinise botters / 3rd party sites that sell gold therefore negatyvly impacting D3 economy. Now Blizzard should not put the comunity into fights like this making extreeme decisions from one end to another like " Lets make everything BoA and all our problems dissapear !" NO Blizzard just NO, Fight them , Im sure if Blizzard wanted it could have installed some new filters , more efficient antihacks and more, even sue this pric*ks who run the 3rd party sites as it was in WoW. and guess what ? Blizzard won the round for like 1.2 mil$ in a flash. Again SF players please disable your war Its always better to have more options than be stuck in just 1 option that everyone is forced to do, its not fun at all.
Tell me what sounds better? We have to close the AH because of legal issues? Or we have to close the AH because we want to improve your gaming experience?
Both sound ok.
Blizzard heads off any possible bad PR when you have to pay taxes on things you buy on the AH, and it allows them to re-balance the game in a world wear the flow of items between players is limted.
...but I've never worked for a living so what do I know?
IMO forcing any play style onto anyone is bad. Leaving options is good.
You want options? If Blizzard made a separate mode for people who enjoy trading and $$$ transfers over good gameplay, you would be forced to play with a minority of the community. Yes, that's because people who are pro-BoA are the majority. I wouldn't mind though. The problem is - if they enabled trading in a separate game mode, they would have to decimate the drop rates (from what the current plan is) and that would probably make that game mode feel much less rewarding in comparison.
typical Self-founder when he joins on public game. - " omg omg omg why did u buy that gear ? there is no way u found it". Ok lets start from the begining shall we?. Most of you SF, are tend to say " AH or RMAH give XY person an UNFAIR advantage" and when I hear it im just blown up with laughter, excuse me WHAT advantage? , does this person play ladder ? , does this player play 1v1 2v2 3v3 team deathmatch ? what exacly have an advantage ? , well I see this just of pure jealosy of other player items. Now listen to me VERY carefully: IF , Self found players ENJOYS finding loot by him self then he would care less if the person next to him bought an item for 1 bil , 10 bil or 1000 euro he just couldnt care LESS so a typical SF player should just accept the fact and play either solo or with trusted friends / guild / clan and THATS IT. Please tell me why are you so furiosly pinned to the option of reducing other players fun aspect ? because yes I have fun looking for new better items on AH and I enjoy looking at some items curret gold value.
They care that supposedly the drop ratios of items and how they roll affixes (and any changes to these) have to take into account the existence of the AH. And if that is true indeed, their gameplay experience is affected by the mere existence of the AH (and an economy).
I'm saying supposedly (again, SUPPOSEDLY) because all we have hinting that possibility to this day is a blue quote taken out of context. Until I hear from an actual developer that they decided to not implement a certain change because of the AH, I'm not believing that "conspiracy theory". Specially when there has been A TON OF changes to the quality of the loot drops and ratios even with the AH in the game, as people seem to conveniently forget to make their point.
Either way, first you have to understand their argument to start counter arguing. Otherwise the discussion doesn't really work.
You want options? If Blizzard made a separate mode for people who enjoy trading and $$$ transfers over good gameplay, you would be forced to play with a minority of the community. Yes, that's because people who are pro-BoA are the majority. I wouldn't mind though. The problem is - if they enabled trading in a separate game mode, they would have to decimate the drop rates (from what the current plan is) and that would probably make that game mode feel much less rewarding in comparison.
Do you really want options?
First off, yes I'd like options. That's a really stupid question.
Second off, any citations on the majority of people being pro-BOA other than the numbers in this poll?
Yes, options are good. That's why we have softcore and hardcore, and people who like PvP and people who like ladders. Taking options away is never a good solution. When they removed the AH they didn't remove OPTIONS, they just removed a streamlined manner of trading.
When they did the monster density changes it gave people more options where to farm - at least now if you farm places that aren't Weeping Hollow and Fields of Misery you're not left in the dust like you used to be if you weren't doing Alkaizer runs.
When they added the 1.0.7 crafting recipes (and when people talk about crafting in general) it's to give players options - you didn't find something you wanted, well if you amass this many salvage items you can try again for something more specific.
When they added adventure mode, bounties, nephalem rifts - it was all about adding OPTIONS as to how to spend your in-game time so that things don't get boring.
When they buffed legendaries/sets the first time it was to attempt to give us more OPTIONS for gear. The second attempt is the same.
The entire skill system in D3 is designed around having options - it was obviously designed to allow us to try whatever crazy shit we wanted.
Transmog is about options as it pertains to visual appearances.
Enchanting is about allowing you to customize non-perfect gear to give you better options for gearing.
Everything about D3, the old shit Jay dreamed up, the new shit Josh is dreaming up..... it all seems to be about giving the player control over their experience which is why this "bind to game" stuff, and the people who say "trading ruins the value of my items" really baffles me.
You want options? If Blizzard made a separate mode for people who enjoy trading and $$$ transfers over good gameplay, you would be forced to play with a minority of the community. Yes, that's because people who are pro-BoA are the majority. I wouldn't mind though. The problem is - if they enabled trading in a separate game mode, they would have to decimate the drop rates (from what the current plan is) and that would probably make that game mode feel much less rewarding in comparison.
No, really, who cares if some people who trade "too much" finish out the game faster? The whole game should, and hopefully will, be based on making self-found enjoyable. The more enjoyable self-found is the less people will actually trade because they'll be having a great experience already - most self-found players already feel this way about the AH. The people who do trade will hit that wall and burn out and go away. The rest of us will trade here and there between our friends, possibly to get that last item we need to make our new build work, but nothing that would "ruin" the game.
We cannot have a game where design is dictated by the fear of people "abusing" trading or D2JSP or anything like that. We MUST demand a game that appeals to everyone because that's the foundation of D3. Diablo has been the "blue chip stock" of the ARPG landscape for almost 20 years now. When that's your position in the market you can't suddenly pull a 180 and start tying for niche appeal. You have to man up and live with the downsides of making a major game... and part of that is that 3rd party sites creep up because your game is popular.
People have been selling WoW gold for almost the whole duration of the game... and you know what? The game hasn't crumbled because of it. If anything, MoP drove lots of people away because, before any patches, Blizzard adopted a rather anti-alt stance which severely hurt the game. Why? Some people enjoyed playing alts when they weren't raiding on their mains. Other people claimed that alts were "too easy" to gear up and it should be harder. Blizzard agreed with the alt-haters, went down that road, and suddenly lost ~2 million subscribers. This should be a big lesson to the D3 developers - trying to socially-engineer WoW didn't work, and doing the same for D3 is going to cause more harm than good.
And that's the mistake Blizzard would be making. It's possible to cut back on "mass trading" and appease both groups without going this route.
You want options? If Blizzard made a separate mode for people who enjoy trading and $$$ transfers over good gameplay, you would be forced to play with a minority of the community. Yes, that's because people who are pro-BoA are the majority. I wouldn't mind though. The problem is - if they enabled trading in a separate game mode, they would have to decimate the drop rates (from what the current plan is) and that would probably make that game mode feel much less rewarding in comparison.
No, really, who cares if some people who trade "too much" finish out the game faster? The whole game should, and hopefully will, be based on making self-found enjoyable. The more enjoyable self-found is the less people will actually trade because they'll be having a great experience already - most self-found players already feel this way about the AH. The people who do trade will hit that wall and burn out and go away. The rest of us will trade here and there between our friends, possibly to get that last item we need to make our new build work, but nothing that would "ruin" the game.
We cannot have a game where design is dictated by the fear of people "abusing" trading or D2JSP or anything like that. We MUST demand a game that appeals to everyone because that's the foundation of D3. Diablo has been the "blue chip stock" of the ARPG landscape for almost 20 years now. When that's your position in the market you can't suddenly pull a 180 and start tying for niche appeal. You have to man up and live with the downsides of making a major game... and part of that is that 3rd party sites creep up because your game is popular.
People have been selling WoW gold for almost the whole duration of the game... and you know what? The game hasn't crumbled because of it. If anything, MoP drove lots of people away because, before any patches, Blizzard adopted a rather anti-alt stance which severely hurt the game. Why? Some people enjoyed playing alts when they weren't raiding on their mains. Other people claimed that alts were "too easy" to gear up and it should be harder. Blizzard agreed with the alt-haters, went down that road, and suddenly lost ~2 million subscribers. This should be a big lesson to the D3 developers - trying to socially-engineer WoW didn't work, and doing the same for D3 is going to cause more harm than good.
And that's the mistake Blizzard would be making. It's possible to cut back on "mass trading" and appease both groups without going this route.
Thats one of the first pro trading arguments made in this thread which is actually reasonable, I play self-found right now because the AH exists, but if there were an avenue to trade which actually required engaging with people i would probably do it occasionally just to change it up, i'm not a fan of BOA legendaries but i think it makes sense for enchanted items.--unless they could return to there original state-- when traded.
Once they make the self-found experience enjoyable i really see no reason for limiting trading in any sense, why should the game experience by held hostage to 3rd party traders etc.
Trading should be inefficient, unnecessary and time consuming as an overall means of gearing, but still valuable when your searching for niche items.
Bind to clan and or freindlist with no time restriction could be a nice solution.
Im also perfectly fine skipping RoS and Blizzard BullShi*t. All they do is restrict some fundamental game options:
Trading ? " NO NO NO NO we should just even the chances for the people who dont like spending their time on AH or trading forums"
Magic Find ? " NO NO NO we should nerf it just to everyone have even chanses of finding epic loot within 1-2 months - yeah just like on consoles because of narrowing item roll range from 0-100 to something like 80-100"
Lets Nerf the MF so its basicly useless. Yeah who needs that stat anyway lol did you saw consoles legendary drops ? how strong they where in the FIRST week of the gameplay ? yeah brace yourselfs epic legendary's incoming. Game is becoming so casual and just to satisfy the crybabies and ragers who cant find any decent stuff so Blizzard must help them obviosly. Before Blizzcon I really enjoyed the datamined options I read about and I coulnt wait to play RoS but after the blizzcon Imboycotting RoS and D3 untill they fix this flameable CIRCUS ON WHEELS. Thank You
You guys are kidding right? I mean, you can't possibly be serious.
Why is it necessary for people to submit the exact same vote 3 times in a row? What would possibly change (statistics-wise) by having that option in the other polls? It's not like anyone would look at the percentages of "Nothing" in the last 2 polls to determine how many don't want BoA.
The first poll is more than enough to access what percentage of players do not want BoA at all.. the 2nd and 3rd poll already have this "if clause" implicit to them (as in, IF BoA stays, on what terms should it be).
The argument stays. To evaluate how many people don't want BoA, just look at the first poll, you don't even look at the last two.
In case BoA is not going away (and it probably isn't judging from feedback to D3 vanilla), what would be acceptable to have in the game? That is the question there; and yes, it is pertinent even if you don't want BoA on the game.
Unless you don't want to even give an opinion on what stays in the game if your choice isn't going to beat the majority. Because that's smart, uh?
I'm pretty calm. I don't have a final opinion on the matter. And I'm not the one making a mountain out of a molehill because a poll isn't made specifically for my opinion.
typical Self-founder when he joins on public game. - " omg omg omg why did u buy that gear ? there is no way u found it". Ok lets start from the begining shall we?. Most of you SF, are tend to say " AH or RMAH give XY person an UNFAIR advantage" and when I hear it im just blown up with laughter, excuse me WHAT advantage? , does this person play ladder ? , does this player play 1v1 2v2 3v3 team deathmatch ? what exacly have an advantage ? , well I see this just of pure jealosy of other player items. Now listen to me VERY carefully: IF , Self found players ENJOYS finding loot by him self then he would care less if the person next to him bought an item for 1 bil , 10 bil or 1000 euro he just couldnt care LESS so a typical SF player should just accept the fact and play either solo or with trusted friends / guild / clan and THATS IT. Please tell me why are you so furiosly pinned to the option of reducing other players fun aspect ? because yes I have fun looking for new better items on AH and I enjoy looking at some items curret gold value. The real problem is not AH or RMAH its the friking chinise botters / 3rd party sites that sell gold therefore negatyvly impacting D3 economy. Now Blizzard should not put the comunity into fights like this making extreeme decisions from one end to another like " Lets make everything BoA and all our problems dissapear !" NO Blizzard just NO, Fight them , Im sure if Blizzard wanted it could have installed some new filters , more efficient antihacks and more, even sue this pric*ks who run the 3rd party sites as it was in WoW. and guess what ? Blizzard won the round for like 1.2 mil$ in a flash. Again SF players please disable your war Its always better to have more options than be stuck in just 1 option that everyone is forced to do, its not fun at all.
uy items off the AHkill monsters to get loot."In two years, with the AH being the most controversial feature, someone, somewhere on the internet with the proper legal background would have exposed any legal issues.
The other parts of the argument: Blizzard wanting to get rid of the AH bots accounts etc, is no doubt a motivating factor...but so is the effect on gameplay.
It must be awesome having insider info on how Blizzard makes its profits.
That's the first I've heard of that. Even if it's true, why remove the Gold AH as well?
I believe the issue with the GAH was that the AH fee was considered a "virtual tax."
From this article:
From Wikipedia - Virtual Tax:
Citation #1 in that blurb:
http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/personal-income-taxes/virtual-tax.htm
Apparently this didn't become quite the hot-button legal issue (in the US) until late 2012 and early 2013. Once you read some of those articles, though, it does become quite clear as to why Blizzard actually shut down the GAH/RMAH so abruptly.
If BoA is actually to combat this, though... well /sigh.
Blizzard heads off any possible bad PR when you have to pay taxes on things you buy on the AH, and it allows them to re-balance the game in a world wear the flow of items between players is limted.
...but I've never worked for a living so what do I know?
Do you really want options?
I'm saying supposedly (again, SUPPOSEDLY) because all we have hinting that possibility to this day is a blue quote taken out of context. Until I hear from an actual developer that they decided to not implement a certain change because of the AH, I'm not believing that "conspiracy theory". Specially when there has been A TON OF changes to the quality of the loot drops and ratios even with the AH in the game, as people seem to conveniently forget to make their point.
Either way, first you have to understand their argument to start counter arguing. Otherwise the discussion doesn't really work.
First off, yes I'd like options. That's a really stupid question.
Second off, any citations on the majority of people being pro-BOA other than the numbers in this poll?
Yes, options are good. That's why we have softcore and hardcore, and people who like PvP and people who like ladders. Taking options away is never a good solution. When they removed the AH they didn't remove OPTIONS, they just removed a streamlined manner of trading.
When they did the monster density changes it gave people more options where to farm - at least now if you farm places that aren't Weeping Hollow and Fields of Misery you're not left in the dust like you used to be if you weren't doing Alkaizer runs.
When they added the 1.0.7 crafting recipes (and when people talk about crafting in general) it's to give players options - you didn't find something you wanted, well if you amass this many salvage items you can try again for something more specific.
When they added adventure mode, bounties, nephalem rifts - it was all about adding OPTIONS as to how to spend your in-game time so that things don't get boring.
When they buffed legendaries/sets the first time it was to attempt to give us more OPTIONS for gear. The second attempt is the same.
The entire skill system in D3 is designed around having options - it was obviously designed to allow us to try whatever crazy shit we wanted.
Transmog is about options as it pertains to visual appearances.
Enchanting is about allowing you to customize non-perfect gear to give you better options for gearing.
Everything about D3, the old shit Jay dreamed up, the new shit Josh is dreaming up..... it all seems to be about giving the player control over their experience which is why this "bind to game" stuff, and the people who say "trading ruins the value of my items" really baffles me.
No, really, who cares if some people who trade "too much" finish out the game faster? The whole game should, and hopefully will, be based on making self-found enjoyable. The more enjoyable self-found is the less people will actually trade because they'll be having a great experience already - most self-found players already feel this way about the AH. The people who do trade will hit that wall and burn out and go away. The rest of us will trade here and there between our friends, possibly to get that last item we need to make our new build work, but nothing that would "ruin" the game.
We cannot have a game where design is dictated by the fear of people "abusing" trading or D2JSP or anything like that. We MUST demand a game that appeals to everyone because that's the foundation of D3. Diablo has been the "blue chip stock" of the ARPG landscape for almost 20 years now. When that's your position in the market you can't suddenly pull a 180 and start tying for niche appeal. You have to man up and live with the downsides of making a major game... and part of that is that 3rd party sites creep up because your game is popular.
People have been selling WoW gold for almost the whole duration of the game... and you know what? The game hasn't crumbled because of it. If anything, MoP drove lots of people away because, before any patches, Blizzard adopted a rather anti-alt stance which severely hurt the game. Why? Some people enjoyed playing alts when they weren't raiding on their mains. Other people claimed that alts were "too easy" to gear up and it should be harder. Blizzard agreed with the alt-haters, went down that road, and suddenly lost ~2 million subscribers. This should be a big lesson to the D3 developers - trying to socially-engineer WoW didn't work, and doing the same for D3 is going to cause more harm than good.
And that's the mistake Blizzard would be making. It's possible to cut back on "mass trading" and appease both groups without going this route.
Thats one of the first pro trading arguments made in this thread which is actually reasonable, I play self-found right now because the AH exists, but if there were an avenue to trade which actually required engaging with people i would probably do it occasionally just to change it up, i'm not a fan of BOA legendaries but i think it makes sense for enchanted items.--unless they could return to there original state-- when traded.
Once they make the self-found experience enjoyable i really see no reason for limiting trading in any sense, why should the game experience by held hostage to 3rd party traders etc.
Trading should be inefficient, unnecessary and time consuming as an overall means of gearing, but still valuable when your searching for niche items.
Bind to clan and or freindlist with no time restriction could be a nice solution.
Trading ? " NO NO NO NO we should just even the chances for the people who dont like spending their time on AH or trading forums"
Magic Find ? " NO NO NO we should nerf it just to everyone have even chanses of finding epic loot within 1-2 months - yeah just like on consoles because of narrowing item roll range from 0-100 to something like 80-100"
Lets Nerf the MF so its basicly useless. Yeah who needs that stat anyway lol did you saw consoles legendary drops ? how strong they where in the FIRST week of the gameplay ? yeah brace yourselfs epic legendary's incoming. Game is becoming so casual and just to satisfy the crybabies and ragers who cant find any decent stuff so Blizzard must help them obviosly. Before Blizzcon I really enjoyed the datamined options I read about and I coulnt wait to play RoS but after the blizzcon Im boycotting RoS and D3 untill they fix this flameable CIRCUS ON WHEELS. Thank You
That is the magical "unbiased" method to make sure that people who want BoA are always a majority in the polls...
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
Why is it necessary for people to submit the exact same vote 3 times in a row? What would possibly change (statistics-wise) by having that option in the other polls? It's not like anyone would look at the percentages of "Nothing" in the last 2 polls to determine how many don't want BoA.
The first poll is more than enough to access what percentage of players do not want BoA at all.. the 2nd and 3rd poll already have this "if clause" implicit to them (as in, IF BoA stays, on what terms should it be).
In case BoA is not going away (and it probably isn't judging from feedback to D3 vanilla), what would be acceptable to have in the game? That is the question there; and yes, it is pertinent even if you don't want BoA on the game.
Unless you don't want to even give an opinion on what stays in the game if your choice isn't going to beat the majority. Because that's smart, uh?
I'm pretty calm. I don't have a final opinion on the matter. And I'm not the one making a mountain out of a molehill because a poll isn't made specifically for my opinion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar
He may also want to take a look at the link I've provided.