I voted for "keep them, but change" - e.g., some kind of higher fee, limits to how many auctions in a specific time frame, something that makes the interaction more difficult but still interesting enough for those who *want* the AH. I personally wouldn't mind if it would be removed, but I voted for some middle ground because I know there are many who like the AH...
The only effective way to counter the Real Money involvment and China Gold farming is by shutting down both AHs PLUS the entire trade part. Ofc that would mean they would have to make the Loots a lot better (so you actually find good stuff yourself), and increase the Stash size by 2000%.
You wanna have it fair? let everybody play Self found.
No more Athene's asking the fanbois for gear & gold.
I supported both during beta as I was curious how it would turn out. Seeing now how it's turned out plus the instant elation I felt as soon as I read Blizzard wants to remove them but can't ATM, I vote to remove both. Person to person bartering and trading was an Important part of the game for me and I had hoped it would be prevalent in D3, but alas the easiest way is to just throw stuff up on the AH.
Asspain of trade games is not something we need back.
If you want a purist mode, aka everything is account-bound, I'm all for that. Barring account binding, I'd look into ways to adjust the AH way before bringing back clunky trade games.
And +1 for turning the RMAH into a gold exchange. It's silly to have the same items able to go up on either place when the currency is convertable anyway. Every modern MMO does it via currency exchange for a reason.
I voted to take them down. Of course we'd require another viable trade solution. I hate to say it, but the game creation we had in D2 was perfect for the genre.
Trade games open up the social aspects, something that is sorely lacking in Diablo 3. Having to deal with scammers and idiot retard kids was an oft times grueling process, yes. However, many of my best friends from D2 I met by way of trade games.
It can be hard to met new people the way pub games are constructed now. Everyone is in such a hurry, it's almost like talking is taboo. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're the only human player in the game. In a trade game, the pace is dramatically slowed, people converse and friendships are spawned.
All the talk about how social is dead and here I think we have a viable solution. How this would effect the economy is another matter, a far more dynamic and convoluted matter indeed.
Asspain of trade games is not something we need back.
I've always used this same line to defend the existence of the AH's. However, after many moths, Diablo 3 reveals itself (to me) as a very lonely experience, quite odd for an online-only game. I have a rather large F/L.....most of them don't play anymore or they are rarely on.
The bartering process, though often frustrating, was perfect for the ARPG genre. This is an online-only game, yet the trades are set-up in way that completely disconnects the players from each other.
Trade games open up the social aspects, something that is sorely lacking in Diablo 3. Having to deal with scammers and idiot retard kids was an oft times grueling process, yes. However, many of my best friends from D2 I met by way of trade games.
I think we need custom games (again, once you beat Diablo on Inferno you should have an "open" game with free travel between acts to facilitate this) AND the Auction Houses.
We need more options as opposed to less options. I don't want to be forced into trading any more than you want to be forced into the AH. If I'm going to be anti-social I'm going to do that whether or not Blizzard attempts to socially engineer the game. I will always have my single-player options.
So instead of trying to foce people to play one way or the other (this whole debate has basically stemmed from people who have felt forced into the AH) why not settle for a middle-ground? Why can't we all have things we like? Why does it have to be ALL AH or NO AH? Why can't we expect some kind of gradient?
This is NOT a black-and-white problem. I'm pleased that most people have responded "no" in some manner because that really does emphasize that the average player may not want to have to hit the AH for upgrades 24/7, but that they also don't want to go to the other extreme. That encourages me that the people who have voted thusfar do actually have an ability to think critically as opposed to have a knee-jerk reaction to a situation.
Trade games open up the social aspects, something that is sorely lacking in Diablo 3. Having to deal with scammers and idiot retard kids was an oft times grueling process, yes. However, many of my best friends from D2 I met by way of trade games.
I think we need custom games (again, once you beat Diablo on Inferno you should have an "open" game with free travel between acts to facilitate this) AND the Auction Houses.
We need more options as opposed to less options. I don't want to be forced into trading any more than you want to be forced into the AH. If I'm going to be anti-social I'm going to do that whether or not Blizzard attempts to socially engineer the game. I will always have my single-player options.
So instead of trying to foce people to play one way or the other (this whole debate has basically stemmed from people who have felt forced into the AH) why not settle for a middle-ground? Why can't we all have things we like? Why does it have to be ALL AH or NO AH? Why can't we expect some kind of gradient?
This is NOT a black-and-white problem. I'm pleased that most people have responded "no" in some manner because that really does emphasize that the average player may not want to have to hit the AH for upgrades 24/7, but that they also don't want to go to the other extreme. That encourages me that the people who have voted thusfar do actually have an ability to think critically as opposed to have a knee-jerk reaction to a situation.
Beuatifully done.
It's occuring to me that perhaps the best fix would be a combination of these ideas.
One aspect that I find the AH's severely lacking in, is trading...as in...trading item 'X' for item 'Y'. i.e If I'd like to trade my STR Echoing Fury for a Dex EF, of course a small descript showing that I'd like a soc and 3% LS.
As it is, I'd have to "sell" my EF first and then hope I can find the one I want for a price I'm willing to pay. Otherwise, I have no weap until I can.
I'd like to thank everyone for keeping this civil, as I absolutely don't want this thread getting ugly and shut down. Thank you for that in advance.
I voted to remove both, but only under the condition that traditional trading remains intact and that loot tables are vastly improved upon. While it's certainly a drastic change, the game has yet to be out for an entire year, and I would rather see it happen now rather than later. With the removal of the AH system now, it will open up entire new possibilities for improvement on the game itself, rather than having to worry so much about the game's economy and forcing future game updates to have to revolve around the system.
One aspect that I find the AH's severely lacking in, is trading...as in...trading item 'X' for item 'Y'. i.e If I'd like to trade my STR Echoing Fury for a Dex EF, of course a small descript showing that I'd like a soc and 3% LS.
As it is, I'd have to "sell" my EF first and then hope I can find the one I want for a price I'm willing to pay. Otherwise, I have no weap until I can.
If they could somehow pull that off..... that would be amazing. A "Trading House" in addition to a standard Auction House would really eliminate that feeling that you have to first monetize your wares to then purchase other wares. It'd give you that feeling that you made a direct exchange... and I definitely understand that some people want that - hell, I want it at some time.
For me, amassing a big pile of items and gold is just as much "progression" in the game as hitting max level, etc. I love seeing my gold pile grow as much as I like seeing my pXP bar move. To me it's all me becoming more "powerful." I view resources (items, currency, crafting mats, etc.) as potential power. I've been crafting like a madman since 1.0.7. I haven't had stellar results, but I still love it. And I made a couple million gold on crafting materials that I'd been saving up prior to 1.0.7. That helped defray the cost of the chest patterns!
But, yes, a trading house. I don't know how long it'd take to develope and implement, but I'd be behind this soooooooooooooo much. I think it'd be a really awesome addition to the game.
I voted for both to stay as is. Not because I like the AHs, but because it's a pointless discussion and the game's been out for far too long to change that now. I would have preferred the game without either AHs though.
It's not too late until the x-pac drops. Once that happens, things are going to be set in stone. I find it odd that you concede that the game would be better without the AH's, yet, you claim they should remain because they're already in the game.
If your opinion is that the game would be better without them, yet you wish them to remain, you're essentially voting against improvement.
I agree that I'm tired of these posts, however. The discussion is exactly the same every single time and the outcome will always be: The AHs are here to stay, regardless of what fans or devs think about it.
This thread is everyone's opportunity to be heard. It is also an opportunity to add a static number to the opinions of the players, using the members here as a sample group. The intent of this thread isn't to be divisive and start a brush-fire of sorts.
The results of the poll are what's important. It gives us a chance to appreciate the difficult postion that Blizz has gotten itself into on this issue.
You're likely 100% right though in saying that the AH's will remain. Blizz acknowledged that, as is, the AH's present a problem and they're working on a solution.
My guess is that the solution will come via a complete rethink and retooling of game creation and the public game realm.
Think of all the money Activision would miss if they removed the RMAH!
It should be abundantly clear that Blizz feels making a great game for the players trumps this notion of them wishing to nickle and dime us. If they want to sell 10 million + copies of the x-pac, they'll do the right thing and not predicate their every decision upon a 15% transaction fee.
Voted to remove the GAH but these other changes should occur too.
- remove the GAH
- Increase drop rates(itemization patch may take care of this issue)
- when the new itemization goes through, do the same for all crafted items(I.E. crafted items should have the increased stats that dropped items are suggested to have).
- decrease required crafting materials but increase gold cost
- remove the floor and ceiling for prices on the RMAH
I can't really comment on the RMAH as I've never used it. Not my cup of tea. But I think it would be a massive mistake to remove the GAH, for several reasons:
1) As other people have said, the GAH is currently a main feature in the game and many gamers like it. Removing it without any viable substitute will likely not sit well with gamers who currently enjoy the GAH, myself included.
2) The GAH makes gold valuable. I was a passionate D2 player albeit far from a top tier player. Gold had very little perceived value to me in D2. I couldn't trade it to people for items (they wanted items in return). I could use it to repair items but repairs were and still are so infrequent that I gain gold way faster than I loose it to repairs. (If anything, repairs are a check against graveyard zergs rather than a large gold sink itself.) In D3, gem creation is a massive gold sink but Blizzard could just as easily remove gold and the GAH, make gem drops rarer, and the net effect would be relatively the same. The same with crafting, just make demonic essence drops rarer and the need for gold to regulate crafting goes away.
That all said, I really like valuable money in games. Gold should be both valuable and *liquid*. In other words, gold should be there to help facilitate the easy exchange of goods. Without the GAH, I doubt gold would accomplish that objective. Trading will devolve to bartering and bartering is simply not as efficient as having currency.
3) Decentralized trading makes it hard if not impossible to research fair prices and find acceptable trades. For better or for worse, the GAH helps inform everyone of the going rate for a particular item, especially for standard items like gems. It's the same reason the real world trades barrels of oil much more frequently on an exchange rather than decentralized person-to-person trades.
Also, something that continually plagued me in D2 was my inability to get extremely rare hell-difficulty items. And people with extremely rare hell-difficulty items generally only wanted to trade them for extremely rare hell-difficulty items. In D3, if I find ten 1M gold items, I can sell them individually and then use the 10M to buy one 10M gold item. I don't have to find one person with a 10M gold item that is willing to accept ten 1M gold items. Valuable gold and gold exchanges make all items liquid, both big and small.
4) I think the concept of "game changing" legendaries makes the need to easily trade via the GAH even greater. I suspect that if Blizzard makes/changes/upgrades/tweaks legendaries as they stated they would like to do, then certain popular builds will have mandatory legendaries to make the builds viable. If certain legendaries become mandatory (and already some legendaries in certain instances are already overwhelmingly popular), then I suspect people will want to buy those legendaries in order to play the spec they want, and not hope the RNG fairy is kind enough to bestow the necessary legendaries upon them. (I believe this is a key reason that rune skills were totally overhauled in beta. Blizzard feared that certain builds would require certain levels of the old rune items. And therefore, what build you used would be based on the RNG of the items you find, not only your desire to try new builds. You access to certain stats already has huge ramifications on what builds you can use and therefore why compound the problem.)
The GAH should be for easy trading of items found via random drops. BOA crafting helps keep gold valuable and provides a predictable source of rares for players uninterested in GAH or having bad luck with RNG. I would be open to more BOA craft slots (with the possibility of slightly better or more predictable stats than drops) if that meant keeping the GAH alive and kicking for selling item drops.
I'd love to see 200+ people vote on this to give a better sample. So far, the results are reflecting exactly what I suspected. A very evenly distributed schism between the players toward the issue of the AH's.
It appears *most people want the AH's to stay, either as is or with some revising.
Again, I believe a rethink of game creation and the public game realms is the answer.
I think the AH is fine, I think game changes need to be made. I actually think the RMAH is a great feature for a company and could see more companies use it going forward. If you could launch a game for less or nothing and utilize the player economy and/or offsetting with additional (cosmetic) micro transactions to bring in revenue I see nothing wrong with that. It's an optional part of the game for the players and a revenue for the company. Win Win.
That said, I have only pretty recently started playing with both GAH and RMAH and think there are game changes that could be made to improve both.
To curb the 3rd party sites. (I'd never risk useing them but with the amount of spam I see I am sure people do) why not change the way people purchase gold on the RMAH. Have a set price, say a $5.00 block of gold. People could put as much or as little gold as they wanted up for that $5.00 block. People buying gold would always get whatever the best ratio of $ to gold is. I can understand Blizzard not wanting to work in tons of super small transactions so this would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, no matter what the inflation is on gold.
More top teir gear that is bind to account but found from killing not crafting. Get people killing the beasts! 1 way that could be fun is if when you started up a game, randomly in one of the zones of that act there would be a boss mob that would have a high chance of dropping one of these top teir items. With the RNG you would always want to look for the mob because you could get lucky and getting an item better than you are wearing.
More gold sinks. HIGH priced dyes, or particle effects. High priced repair kits. Cheaper to repair in town but nice to have if you don't want to hit town but need repair. Add in those non combat pets and make them EXPENSIVE. Other consumables MF potions, Armor potions, Thorns etc.
As I've said many times, removing the AH and RMAH won't solve anything...
They need to increase the quality of the drops. And adjust RNG and drops so players can find upgrades for their main character.
I agree the game is a lot better than at release. I played at release but only got to maybe level 30. I started playing again right after xmas holidays and I play daily now. Love killing me some demons~ I feel the game can only get better as well so excited for the future patches coming down the pipe.
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BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
You wanna have it fair? let everybody play Self found.
No more Athene's asking the fanbois for gear & gold.
If you want a purist mode, aka everything is account-bound, I'm all for that. Barring account binding, I'd look into ways to adjust the AH way before bringing back clunky trade games.
And +1 for turning the RMAH into a gold exchange. It's silly to have the same items able to go up on either place when the currency is convertable anyway. Every modern MMO does it via currency exchange for a reason.
Trade games open up the social aspects, something that is sorely lacking in Diablo 3. Having to deal with scammers and idiot retard kids was an oft times grueling process, yes. However, many of my best friends from D2 I met by way of trade games.
It can be hard to met new people the way pub games are constructed now. Everyone is in such a hurry, it's almost like talking is taboo. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're the only human player in the game. In a trade game, the pace is dramatically slowed, people converse and friendships are spawned.
All the talk about how social is dead and here I think we have a viable solution. How this would effect the economy is another matter, a far more dynamic and convoluted matter indeed.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
I've always used this same line to defend the existence of the AH's. However, after many moths, Diablo 3 reveals itself (to me) as a very lonely experience, quite odd for an online-only game. I have a rather large F/L.....most of them don't play anymore or they are rarely on.
The bartering process, though often frustrating, was perfect for the ARPG genre. This is an online-only game, yet the trades are set-up in way that completely disconnects the players from each other.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
I think we need custom games (again, once you beat Diablo on Inferno you should have an "open" game with free travel between acts to facilitate this) AND the Auction Houses.
We need more options as opposed to less options. I don't want to be forced into trading any more than you want to be forced into the AH. If I'm going to be anti-social I'm going to do that whether or not Blizzard attempts to socially engineer the game. I will always have my single-player options.
So instead of trying to foce people to play one way or the other (this whole debate has basically stemmed from people who have felt forced into the AH) why not settle for a middle-ground? Why can't we all have things we like? Why does it have to be ALL AH or NO AH? Why can't we expect some kind of gradient?
This is NOT a black-and-white problem. I'm pleased that most people have responded "no" in some manner because that really does emphasize that the average player may not want to have to hit the AH for upgrades 24/7, but that they also don't want to go to the other extreme. That encourages me that the people who have voted thusfar do actually have an ability to think critically as opposed to have a knee-jerk reaction to a situation.
Beuatifully done.
It's occuring to me that perhaps the best fix would be a combination of these ideas.
One aspect that I find the AH's severely lacking in, is trading...as in...trading item 'X' for item 'Y'. i.e If I'd like to trade my STR Echoing Fury for a Dex EF, of course a small descript showing that I'd like a soc and 3% LS.
As it is, I'd have to "sell" my EF first and then hope I can find the one I want for a price I'm willing to pay. Otherwise, I have no weap until I can.
I'd like to thank everyone for keeping this civil, as I absolutely don't want this thread getting ugly and shut down. Thank you for that in advance.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
If they could somehow pull that off..... that would be amazing. A "Trading House" in addition to a standard Auction House would really eliminate that feeling that you have to first monetize your wares to then purchase other wares. It'd give you that feeling that you made a direct exchange... and I definitely understand that some people want that - hell, I want it at some time.
For me, amassing a big pile of items and gold is just as much "progression" in the game as hitting max level, etc. I love seeing my gold pile grow as much as I like seeing my pXP bar move. To me it's all me becoming more "powerful." I view resources (items, currency, crafting mats, etc.) as potential power. I've been crafting like a madman since 1.0.7. I haven't had stellar results, but I still love it. And I made a couple million gold on crafting materials that I'd been saving up prior to 1.0.7. That helped defray the cost of the chest patterns!
But, yes, a trading house. I don't know how long it'd take to develope and implement, but I'd be behind this soooooooooooooo much. I think it'd be a really awesome addition to the game.
It's not too late until the x-pac drops. Once that happens, things are going to be set in stone. I find it odd that you concede that the game would be better without the AH's, yet, you claim they should remain because they're already in the game.
If your opinion is that the game would be better without them, yet you wish them to remain, you're essentially voting against improvement.
This thread is everyone's opportunity to be heard. It is also an opportunity to add a static number to the opinions of the players, using the members here as a sample group. The intent of this thread isn't to be divisive and start a brush-fire of sorts.
The results of the poll are what's important. It gives us a chance to appreciate the difficult postion that Blizz has gotten itself into on this issue.
You're likely 100% right though in saying that the AH's will remain. Blizz acknowledged that, as is, the AH's present a problem and they're working on a solution.
My guess is that the solution will come via a complete rethink and retooling of game creation and the public game realm.
It should be abundantly clear that Blizz feels making a great game for the players trumps this notion of them wishing to nickle and dime us. If they want to sell 10 million + copies of the x-pac, they'll do the right thing and not predicate their every decision upon a 15% transaction fee.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
- remove the GAH
- Increase drop rates(itemization patch may take care of this issue)
- when the new itemization goes through, do the same for all crafted items(I.E. crafted items should have the increased stats that dropped items are suggested to have).
- decrease required crafting materials but increase gold cost
- remove the floor and ceiling for prices on the RMAH
1) As other people have said, the GAH is currently a main feature in the game and many gamers like it. Removing it without any viable substitute will likely not sit well with gamers who currently enjoy the GAH, myself included.
2) The GAH makes gold valuable. I was a passionate D2 player albeit far from a top tier player. Gold had very little perceived value to me in D2. I couldn't trade it to people for items (they wanted items in return). I could use it to repair items but repairs were and still are so infrequent that I gain gold way faster than I loose it to repairs. (If anything, repairs are a check against graveyard zergs rather than a large gold sink itself.) In D3, gem creation is a massive gold sink but Blizzard could just as easily remove gold and the GAH, make gem drops rarer, and the net effect would be relatively the same. The same with crafting, just make demonic essence drops rarer and the need for gold to regulate crafting goes away.
That all said, I really like valuable money in games. Gold should be both valuable and *liquid*. In other words, gold should be there to help facilitate the easy exchange of goods. Without the GAH, I doubt gold would accomplish that objective. Trading will devolve to bartering and bartering is simply not as efficient as having currency.
3) Decentralized trading makes it hard if not impossible to research fair prices and find acceptable trades. For better or for worse, the GAH helps inform everyone of the going rate for a particular item, especially for standard items like gems. It's the same reason the real world trades barrels of oil much more frequently on an exchange rather than decentralized person-to-person trades.
Also, something that continually plagued me in D2 was my inability to get extremely rare hell-difficulty items. And people with extremely rare hell-difficulty items generally only wanted to trade them for extremely rare hell-difficulty items. In D3, if I find ten 1M gold items, I can sell them individually and then use the 10M to buy one 10M gold item. I don't have to find one person with a 10M gold item that is willing to accept ten 1M gold items. Valuable gold and gold exchanges make all items liquid, both big and small.
4) I think the concept of "game changing" legendaries makes the need to easily trade via the GAH even greater. I suspect that if Blizzard makes/changes/upgrades/tweaks legendaries as they stated they would like to do, then certain popular builds will have mandatory legendaries to make the builds viable. If certain legendaries become mandatory (and already some legendaries in certain instances are already overwhelmingly popular), then I suspect people will want to buy those legendaries in order to play the spec they want, and not hope the RNG fairy is kind enough to bestow the necessary legendaries upon them. (I believe this is a key reason that rune skills were totally overhauled in beta. Blizzard feared that certain builds would require certain levels of the old rune items. And therefore, what build you used would be based on the RNG of the items you find, not only your desire to try new builds. You access to certain stats already has huge ramifications on what builds you can use and therefore why compound the problem.)
The GAH should be for easy trading of items found via random drops. BOA crafting helps keep gold valuable and provides a predictable source of rares for players uninterested in GAH or having bad luck with RNG. I would be open to more BOA craft slots (with the possibility of slightly better or more predictable stats than drops) if that meant keeping the GAH alive and kicking for selling item drops.
Indeed.
They are on the case, I trust.
I'd love to see 200+ people vote on this to give a better sample. So far, the results are reflecting exactly what I suspected. A very evenly distributed schism between the players toward the issue of the AH's.
It appears *most people want the AH's to stay, either as is or with some revising.
Again, I believe a rethink of game creation and the public game realms is the answer.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
That said, I have only pretty recently started playing with both GAH and RMAH and think there are game changes that could be made to improve both.
To curb the 3rd party sites. (I'd never risk useing them but with the amount of spam I see I am sure people do) why not change the way people purchase gold on the RMAH. Have a set price, say a $5.00 block of gold. People could put as much or as little gold as they wanted up for that $5.00 block. People buying gold would always get whatever the best ratio of $ to gold is. I can understand Blizzard not wanting to work in tons of super small transactions so this would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, no matter what the inflation is on gold.
More top teir gear that is bind to account but found from killing not crafting. Get people killing the beasts! 1 way that could be fun is if when you started up a game, randomly in one of the zones of that act there would be a boss mob that would have a high chance of dropping one of these top teir items. With the RNG you would always want to look for the mob because you could get lucky and getting an item better than you are wearing.
More gold sinks. HIGH priced dyes, or particle effects. High priced repair kits. Cheaper to repair in town but nice to have if you don't want to hit town but need repair. Add in those non combat pets and make them EXPENSIVE. Other consumables MF potions, Armor potions, Thorns etc.
They need to increase the quality of the drops. And adjust RNG and drops so players can find upgrades for their main character.