The main problem AH's caused was not caused by the AH itself. It was caused by people who used the AH to outfit their toons with the very best gear they could buy, then got mad because they didn't get any upgrades as drops for a while after that. They screwed themselves, and then couldn't understand why, so they blamed the AH, rather than the real culprit: themselves.
Game design 101: It's NEVER the players fault.
I disagree completely. Sometimes it IS the players' fault. Spending too much time on World of Warcraft and losing your job is a self-control issue, not a game design issue. So is misuse of the AH in D3.
It's actually true for interaction design in general, and not just game design. It has been true forever, but there are still plenty of programmers who think the user is wrong. The last person to tell a lot of people they are "using it wrong" instead of admitting they failed completely was Steve Jobs at iPhone 4.
It is never the user's fault, period. If you're thinking differently, go to Apple.
Some great points being posted here. Twoflower really seems to have a way with words. Yes, D2's trade system could lead people to spending a lot of time dicking around with trade-forums and such, but there's something to be said for the contact established between players, feeling like you're bartering as opposed to buying from the 'want ads'.
This disconnect between the seller and the buyer has a negative effect on D3's social aspects.
A game developer can design a game where players aren't incentivized to hurt their own gaming experience - since the game developer is in full control. They obviously can't do anything regarding your personal life.
I still don't buy that argument. No one is forcing anyone to use the AH. No one and/or nothing. It's a *choice*.
Just to check: you know what 'coercion' is, right? Just saying that, sometimes, a choice isn't really a choice at all.
Yes. I know exactly what I mean. I saw this argument used in WoW, and I didn't buy it then. Nor do I now. 'The game forced me to' is just code for 'I made a choice but I don't want to acknowledge it'.
Edit: Usually in the way of "Because I play a certain way, this choice is not a choice." But, you still *chose* to play in that way. So, if a particular choice is not a choice, there was another choice you made before that binding you. Still your problem.
Flipping of items offers nothing to the community, it hurts it. If those people instead were playing the game with others instead of staring at the auction screen it would benefit the community. The only thing flipping does is help them increase their personal in game/out of game wealth and keep items out the hands of people who actually play the game and could use those items, likely helping even more people by being in their groups. Items should be USED, not sit in the auction house. If you get something you can't use, being able sell it makes sense, that is helpful, only if it isn't someone buying it just to sell it for more gold/money. Trade or sell one time makes sense, into the wrongs hand on a drop then into someone's hands who can use it.
That way items leave circulation, they can increase drop rates for good items. This rewards players for PLAYING the game. It will be fun actually having a good shot and getting something cool nearly every time you play. You spend that extra time playing, you will get good drops to sell andbecause crap doesn't stay in circulation they will still be worth something. so you can still accumulate wealth if that is your thing. You will be doing by playing though, it just makes sense.
Yes, you can beat Inferno without using it, after a long time if you farm your own gear, still, it will probably be very bad items you have. You would never be able to do Some MPlvl grades with own found gear. All this takes so much amount of time that its not fun doing the same things so many times before stepping forward and advance no the next. This because AH generates lesser Item drop. Me that hate to sit in the AH need to do it even if i don't like to be some kind of "Ah nerd" that spending all time about that. Diablo is about playing, not doing AH flipping and sitting in their doing great deals.
So you use a shortcut cause actualy playing the game takes too much time for you, and then complain that the shortcut is not as enjoable as actualy playing the game?
If you want to play selffound, you have to accept that you will not be as fast progressing as others who use the AH.
If you want to use the AH, you have to accept that you will need to spend some time with it.
You can not have both. And just removing one option is not acceptable to many of the players and I hope that BLizzard will not just do that so that you dont have to make a decision yourself.
I Want to find items on my own but its not possible doing that right now without offering thousands of hours to get anything good. And knowing that you can find something good is doing the game fun to play.
My friend has now spent like 8 hours or MORE, not finding a legendary or a set item. YES 8 hours. Those kind of things does the game booring, and you start to think like you will never find any item. And in total of around 150 hours, he have found 4-7 legendarys and 0 set items. If you spend like 150 hours in D2, you find like 100 uniques and 80 set items. And when it drop one of them, you always knew it was a good item that you probably could use instead of the other ones you had.
Do you remember the crazy amount of Cathan's seals you got in D2? And not even the first one was useful. Yes, there were more legendary and set drops in D2, but good legendaries dropped as rarely as good rares drop now. I dont need X legendaries per hour when they are mostly not usable.
( edit : this of course depends on what you call usable. But you contradict yourself there. You say that you need 1000's of hours in D3 to find something good, but every legendary in D2 was good. It CAN NOT be the same "good" you mean in both cases... )
And as I said, if you just make the game based on self found items, and you can collect enugh self found items to beat the game in 100 hours, then the game is over. It's boring. You have beat it and it is over. The way that it is now, it's always a balance between items you found, value you collected, gold you got from auctions, and all that together defines how strong your character is. That system works way better if you want to keep the game interesting. D2 was way to simple.
Good example is vipermagi which was sorta mediocre but for people just startint it was amazing and it was cheap as fuck and compared to d3 (cause it's all dps based on simple stats and not +skil lvl like for a lot of things in d2) where the items that don't suck all cost a lot and if u want it perfect or close ur fucked if u haven't got insane amounts of gold (items going for like 300mil is bs for people starting out ur only chance is to have a lucky drop).
Ok now lets actualy compare.
Look at vipermagi, see the stats that make it atractive, and then compare that to a perfect best in slot chest armor in D2 and see how much the difference is. Then we go to D3, apply the same difference to a BiS item and then see how much a item costs in the AH.
Vipermagi had +1 skill, 30 all resis and 30% FCR. A Chains of honor ( far from best in slot probably, but good enugh for my purpouse ) has 2 skills, 60 all resists and tons of stats that certainly add up to double the value of 30 FCR. So you could say that a vipermagi is at BEST half as good as a best in slot chest in D2.
Now lets look at a BIS chest in D3. I take a immortal king chest cause I know barbarians best. A realy good IK chest has 3 sockets, 80 all resist, 200 strengh and 200 vit. -50% = 1.5 sockets, 40 all resist, 100 strgh and 100 vit.
I just checked the EU AH and there are armors for less than 100k gold in the AH that have these "-50%" stats. Under 100k.
Directly compared you can get items as good as vipermagi for less than 100k gold in D3. Is that realy too much?
Now lets look at a BIS chest in D3. I take a immortal king chest cause I know barbarians best. A realy good IK chest has 3 sockets, 80 all resist, 200 strengh and 200 vit. -50% = 1.5 sockets, 40 all resist, 100 strgh and 100 vit.
I just checked the EU AH and there are armors for less than 100k gold in the AH that have these "-50%" stats. Under 100k.
Directly compared you can get items as good as vipermagi for less than 100k gold in D3. Is that realy too much?
To be fair, you are ignoring the potential for set bonus from IK in the example when combined with other IK parts. Making the other item worse than "-50%".
Not that it really changes the point you are trying to make of course.
However, no, 100k isnt too much. The "problem" is rather; finding the chest in your example is actually not that easy, compared to the 'close to zero' cost it has on AH.
Hell, it might very well be easier finding a vipermagi in D2 than finding a chest with those mediocre stats in Diablo 3. Especially considering one of them only requires lvl 29 while the other requires lvl 60 and can only be found in inferno.
Another thing is the difficulty of both games. Diablo 2 was for the most part an easier game than Diablo 3 (although D3 is getting easier every single patch unfortunately), so having a "-50%" item was probably more useful in D2 than in D3. Which kinda has to be taken into consideration as well. In the end, its the usefulness of the item that matters for people who want said item, not how much better or worse it is mathematically.
In any case, droprates were kinda low in D2 too. Just look at high level runes. Could certainly be argued that both games could have used higher droprates.
But getting that item, would not make you able to complete the game like many did with viper magi, since i compare highest settings for D2, with D3 on highest settings in difficulty. Atleast, thats way way impossible with the sorc for that kind of money, you would almost do mp0 diablo in inferno with a chest for those money (maybe you would, don't know, but it would pretty sure not be as easily done in mp0 compared to d2.)
Yes, you can complete the game ( mp0 ) with that kind of gear. Not MP10, but that is good, cause otherwise the game would be too easy. It only makes sense that you need high end gear for high end monster powers. But low cost mid level gear is easily available in D3, just as in D2.
The only difference is that you want more, and better, and more, and better, but you dont want to invest more time. The only difference is YOU. Not the game.
However, no, 100k isnt too much. The "problem" is rather; finding the chest in your example is actually not that easy, compared to the 'close to zero' cost it has on AH.
Hell, it might very well be easier finding a vipermagi in D2 than finding a chest with those mediocre stats in Diablo 3. Especially considering one of them only requires lvl 29 while the other requires lvl 60 and can only be found in inferno.
True, I gotta agree. I dare to say that in the time you would spend to find a vipermagi in D2, you will certainly find something with the value of a vipermagi in D3 if you sold your findings correctly etc. I still think that this is the best solution and that Blizzard balanced it pretty nicely, specialy seeing that you can get usable items nowadays for affordable prices.
But it is not the same, I gotta admit that. I have probably looked at items in terms of their value for too long. I allready did that in D2, I knew that a shako is worth 25 perfect gems etc. When I was farming in D2 and a Shako dropped, I didnt think "oh nice, another shako" but I thought "oh nice, another 25 pgems". Not saying that this is the best way to look at it, but that is probably why the AH does not bother me at all.
Completing a game is quite relative though.
You can't complete MMOs typically, more content is just added continuously. People aren't exactly quitting those en-masse.
I seem to recall a decent amount of complaints about Diablo 2 being kinda easy. And it was. After you started to get decently geared, there was not much challenges left in the game. You could try to become more effective for farming, but that is making farming both the means and the end at the same time (I know they added uber bosses and stuff years after release, but still...).
Having challenges both for new players and those who did play for a 1000 hours is a good goal to have for Blizzard. There might very well be better ways to achieve it than MP levels, but the goal itself is fine.
You can't just have 1 balance that fits all, we saw that with inferno at release, with lots of people complaining that it was too hard.
A game developer can design a game where players aren't incentivized to hurt their own gaming experience - since the game developer is in full control. They obviously can't do anything regarding your personal life.
I still don't buy that argument. No one is forcing anyone to use the AH. No one and/or nothing. It's a *choice*.
Just to check: you know what 'coercion' is, right? Just saying that, sometimes, a choice isn't really a choice at all.
Yes. I know exactly what I mean. I saw this argument used in WoW, and I didn't buy it then. Nor do I now. 'The game forced me to' is just code for 'I made a choice but I don't want to acknowledge it'.
Edit: Usually in the way of "Because I play a certain way, this choice is not a choice." But, you still *chose* to play in that way. So, if a particular choice is not a choice, there was another choice you made before that binding you. Still your problem.
A game developer can design a game where players aren't incentivized to hurt their own gaming experience - since the game developer is in full control. They obviously can't do anything regarding your personal life.
I still don't buy that argument. No one is forcing anyone to use the AH. No one and/or nothing. It's a *choice*.
Just to check: you know what 'coercion' is, right? Just saying that, sometimes, a choice isn't really a choice at all.
Yes. I know exactly what I mean. I saw this argument used in WoW, and I didn't buy it then. Nor do I now. 'The game forced me to' is just code for 'I made a choice but I don't want to acknowledge it'.
Edit: Usually in the way of "Because I play a certain way, this choice is not a choice." But, you still *chose* to play in that way. So, if a particular choice is not a choice, there was another choice you made before that binding you. Still your problem.
A game developer can design a game where players aren't incentivized to hurt their own gaming experience - since the game developer is in full control. They obviously can't do anything regarding your personal life.
I still don't buy that argument. No one is forcing anyone to use the AH. No one and/or nothing. It's a *choice*.
Just to check: you know what 'coercion' is, right? Just saying that, sometimes, a choice isn't really a choice at all.
Yes. I know exactly what I mean. I saw this argument used in WoW, and I didn't buy it then. Nor do I now. 'The game forced me to' is just code for 'I made a choice but I don't want to acknowledge it'.
Edit: Usually in the way of "Because I play a certain way, this choice is not a choice." But, you still *chose* to play in that way. So, if a particular choice is not a choice, there was another choice you made before that binding you. Still your problem.
I totally agree. No one is forcing you to use it. Like for me I use the AH to get some profits, it motivates me to play the game more. If the AH in D3 will be remove, there are still places in the web that they can do auctions.
A game developer can design a game where players aren't incentivized to hurt their own gaming experience - since the game developer is in full control. They obviously can't do anything regarding your personal life.
I still don't buy that argument. No one is forcing anyone to use the AH. No one and/or nothing. It's a *choice*.
I totally agree. No one is forcing you to use it. Like for me I use the AH to get some profits, it motivates me to play the game more. If the AH in D3 will be remove, there are still places in the web that they can do auctions.
Luckily incentivize != force.
Doesn't change a thing though. You cant possibly be arguing that the game aren't offering fairly strong incentives to use the AH, and therefore you as a player will be putting yourself in a worse position by not using it.
The argument of not being forced to do anything is ridiculously at best
You could play without hands or with your eyes closed as well. No one force you otherwise. You would just be artificially struggling to play with those self-imposed restrictions.
Luckily incentivize != force.
Doesn't change a thing though. You cant possibly be arguing that the game aren't offering fairly strong incentives to use the AH, and therefore you as a player will be putting yourself in a worse position by not using it.
Worse position compared to whom ? Are you in a race that we dont know about ? Is this a competition ? If you realy only play for the fun of it and for killing some monsters, who are you comparing yourself with all the time ?
The argument of not being forced to do anything is ridiculously at best
You could play without hands or with your eyes closed as well. No one force you otherwise. You would just be artificially struggling to play with those self-imposed restrictions.
You basicaly agree that you are not forced to use it, but also admit that it is too tempting for you to resist. Looks realy like you just cant make up your mind. You dislike it enugh to make long forum posts about it but on the other hand you dont dislike it enugh to not use it.
I mean what do you lose if you stop using the AH? You are afraid to fall behind others who are gearing up faster and clearing areas faster. But you are doing that anyway, every second you dont play the game. It's this strange mix between wanting to "just have fun" in the game but on the other hand still wanting to compete with the top players. It comes from players who can not make up their minds, and it leads to endless complaining on forums that could be avoidet if you just sit down for 5 minutes and clearly think about what your ambitions are in the game.
Luckily incentivize != force.
Doesn't change a thing though. You cant possibly be arguing that the game aren't offering fairly strong incentives to use the AH, and therefore you as a player will be putting yourself in a worse position by not using it.
Worse position compared to whom ? Are you in a race that we dont know about ? Is this a competition ? If you realy only play for the fun of it and for killing some monsters, who are you comparing yourself with all the time ?
The argument of not being forced to do anything is ridiculously at best
You could play without hands or with your eyes closed as well. No one force you otherwise. You would just be artificially struggling to play with those self-imposed restrictions.
You basicaly agree that you are not forced to use it, but also admit that it is too tempting for you to resist. Looks realy like you just cant make up your mind. You dislike it enugh to make long forum posts about it but on the other hand you dont dislike it enugh to not use it.
I mean what do you lose if you stop using the AH? You are afraid to fall behind others who are gearing up faster and clearing areas faster. But you are doing that anyway, every second you dont play the game. It's this strange mix between wanting to "just have fun" in the game but on the other hand still wanting to compete with the top players. It comes from players who can not make up their minds, and it leads to endless complaining on forums that could be avoidet if you just sit down for 5 minutes and clearly think about what your ambitions are in the game.
Come on man, be strong! Be decisive!
You're ignoring that the AH is a major function of the game. A major function that is 100% REQUIRED if one wants to ascend to a certain level. That....THAT is why so many people piss 'n' moan about the AH's. They seem to betray one of the major draws of an online ARPG. That being, bartering and trading with actual people. The AH sterilizes this aspect to relegate the player into shopping the "want-ads" (AH's).
Are people forced to use it? No. Then again, people aren't forced to play at all. Players want a better experience, and many folks feel, as is, the AH's present an obstacle to a better game-play experience.
Both the gold ah and RMAH have become a part of this game, i personally find then alright really good utility in oppose to D2 where we had to resort of forums for trade or make do with a spammed out trade channel.
Are people forced to use it? No. Then again, people aren't forced to play at all. Players want a better experience, and many folks feel, as is, the AH's present an obstacle to a better game-play experience.
No. The AH is just a tool.
The obstacle is their lack of wealth, and their mistake is to assume that they should get the same items as player X but with less time investment and for free.
Edit : i just realised that you wrote "the players feel as if the AH is a obstacle".
Well that's another problem again. Their feelings dont match the real situation. But that is hardly the games fault. They should just get real.
Well that's another problem again. Their feelings dont match the real situation. But that is hardly the games fault. They should just get real.
Please...tell me what "real" is?
No. The AH is just a tool.
That's an interesting interpretation. This ARPG, Diablo 3, is clearly a game predicated vastly upon items. Access to the best items is excruciatingly limited by way of just playing the game. Players become stuck in the mud, as it were.
I'll say, you make good arguments and present them well. However, I find serious objection with the essence of what you're saying.
Basically what you're saying is "If you don't like the AH, don't use it." That's a short-cut to thinking and inherently dishonest. Nothing good comes from such a stance.
Basically what you're saying is "If you don't like the AH, don't use it." That's a short-cut to thinking and inherently dishonest. Nothing good comes from such a stance.
By contrast, you are saying "if you like the AH, you're wrong and you shouldn't have that option."
Nothing good comes from being so blissfully disrespectful of the fact that being a self-found purist is not the only legitemate way to play this game. I've been playing strictly self-found of late, but I cannot reasonably associate myself with the militant extremist attitude that the AHs must be removed.
That's an interesting interpretation. This ARPG, Diablo 3, is clearly a game predicated vastly upon items. Access to the best items is excruciatingly limited by way of just playing the game.
Yes, the best items are indeed very rare. That's why they are the best. There would be no "best" if everybody would find those "best" items all the time and everywhere they go.
No, this is not a interpretation. The AH IS a tool to exchange items ingame. Like the chat channels are tools for communicating or the matchmaking system is a tool for finding players to play with. Just like gold is a tool to make trading easier by having a nice currency that you can translate the value of any item into.
Nothing good comes from being so blissfully disrespectful of the fact that being a self-found purist is not the only legitemate way to play this game. I've been playing strictly self-found of late, but I cannot reasonably associate myself with the militant extremist attitude that the AHs must be removed.
I like you Specialy the comparison with extremists Ouch, that burn !
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
ModeratorIt's actually true for interaction design in general, and not just game design. It has been true forever, but there are still plenty of programmers who think the user is wrong. The last person to tell a lot of people they are "using it wrong" instead of admitting they failed completely was Steve Jobs at iPhone 4.
It is never the user's fault, period. If you're thinking differently, go to Apple.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Wise ElderThis disconnect between the seller and the buyer has a negative effect on D3's social aspects.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC)
Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
Yes. I know exactly what I mean. I saw this argument used in WoW, and I didn't buy it then. Nor do I now. 'The game forced me to' is just code for 'I made a choice but I don't want to acknowledge it'.
Edit: Usually in the way of "Because I play a certain way, this choice is not a choice." But, you still *chose* to play in that way. So, if a particular choice is not a choice, there was another choice you made before that binding you. Still your problem.
That way items leave circulation, they can increase drop rates for good items. This rewards players for PLAYING the game. It will be fun actually having a good shot and getting something cool nearly every time you play. You spend that extra time playing, you will get good drops to sell andbecause crap doesn't stay in circulation they will still be worth something. so you can still accumulate wealth if that is your thing. You will be doing by playing though, it just makes sense.
So you use a shortcut cause actualy playing the game takes too much time for you, and then complain that the shortcut is not as enjoable as actualy playing the game?
If you want to play selffound, you have to accept that you will not be as fast progressing as others who use the AH.
If you want to use the AH, you have to accept that you will need to spend some time with it.
You can not have both. And just removing one option is not acceptable to many of the players and I hope that BLizzard will not just do that so that you dont have to make a decision yourself.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
Do you remember the crazy amount of Cathan's seals you got in D2? And not even the first one was useful. Yes, there were more legendary and set drops in D2, but good legendaries dropped as rarely as good rares drop now. I dont need X legendaries per hour when they are mostly not usable.
( edit : this of course depends on what you call usable. But you contradict yourself there. You say that you need 1000's of hours in D3 to find something good, but every legendary in D2 was good. It CAN NOT be the same "good" you mean in both cases... )
And as I said, if you just make the game based on self found items, and you can collect enugh self found items to beat the game in 100 hours, then the game is over. It's boring. You have beat it and it is over. The way that it is now, it's always a balance between items you found, value you collected, gold you got from auctions, and all that together defines how strong your character is. That system works way better if you want to keep the game interesting. D2 was way to simple.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
Ok now lets actualy compare.
Look at vipermagi, see the stats that make it atractive, and then compare that to a perfect best in slot chest armor in D2 and see how much the difference is. Then we go to D3, apply the same difference to a BiS item and then see how much a item costs in the AH.
Vipermagi had +1 skill, 30 all resis and 30% FCR. A Chains of honor ( far from best in slot probably, but good enugh for my purpouse ) has 2 skills, 60 all resists and tons of stats that certainly add up to double the value of 30 FCR. So you could say that a vipermagi is at BEST half as good as a best in slot chest in D2.
Now lets look at a BIS chest in D3. I take a immortal king chest cause I know barbarians best. A realy good IK chest has 3 sockets, 80 all resist, 200 strengh and 200 vit. -50% = 1.5 sockets, 40 all resist, 100 strgh and 100 vit.
I just checked the EU AH and there are armors for less than 100k gold in the AH that have these "-50%" stats. Under 100k.
Directly compared you can get items as good as vipermagi for less than 100k gold in D3. Is that realy too much?
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
Not that it really changes the point you are trying to make of course.
However, no, 100k isnt too much. The "problem" is rather; finding the chest in your example is actually not that easy, compared to the 'close to zero' cost it has on AH.
Hell, it might very well be easier finding a vipermagi in D2 than finding a chest with those mediocre stats in Diablo 3. Especially considering one of them only requires lvl 29 while the other requires lvl 60 and can only be found in inferno.
Another thing is the difficulty of both games. Diablo 2 was for the most part an easier game than Diablo 3 (although D3 is getting easier every single patch unfortunately), so having a "-50%" item was probably more useful in D2 than in D3. Which kinda has to be taken into consideration as well. In the end, its the usefulness of the item that matters for people who want said item, not how much better or worse it is mathematically.
In any case, droprates were kinda low in D2 too. Just look at high level runes. Could certainly be argued that both games could have used higher droprates.
Yes, you can complete the game ( mp0 ) with that kind of gear. Not MP10, but that is good, cause otherwise the game would be too easy. It only makes sense that you need high end gear for high end monster powers. But low cost mid level gear is easily available in D3, just as in D2.
The only difference is that you want more, and better, and more, and better, but you dont want to invest more time. The only difference is YOU. Not the game.
True, I gotta agree. I dare to say that in the time you would spend to find a vipermagi in D2, you will certainly find something with the value of a vipermagi in D3 if you sold your findings correctly etc. I still think that this is the best solution and that Blizzard balanced it pretty nicely, specialy seeing that you can get usable items nowadays for affordable prices.
But it is not the same, I gotta admit that. I have probably looked at items in terms of their value for too long. I allready did that in D2, I knew that a shako is worth 25 perfect gems etc. When I was farming in D2 and a Shako dropped, I didnt think "oh nice, another shako" but I thought "oh nice, another 25 pgems". Not saying that this is the best way to look at it, but that is probably why the AH does not bother me at all.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
You can't complete MMOs typically, more content is just added continuously. People aren't exactly quitting those en-masse.
I seem to recall a decent amount of complaints about Diablo 2 being kinda easy. And it was. After you started to get decently geared, there was not much challenges left in the game. You could try to become more effective for farming, but that is making farming both the means and the end at the same time (I know they added uber bosses and stuff years after release, but still...).
Having challenges both for new players and those who did play for a 1000 hours is a good goal to have for Blizzard. There might very well be better ways to achieve it than MP levels, but the goal itself is fine.
You can't just have 1 balance that fits all, we saw that with inferno at release, with lots of people complaining that it was too hard.
I totally agree. No one is forcing you to use it. Like for me I use the AH to get some profits, it motivates me to play the game more. If the AH in D3 will be remove, there are still places in the web that they can do auctions.
I totally agree. No one is forcing you to use it. Like for me I use the AH to get some profits, it motivates me to play the game more. If the AH in D3 will be remove, there are still places in the web that they can do auctions.
Doesn't change a thing though. You cant possibly be arguing that the game aren't offering fairly strong incentives to use the AH, and therefore you as a player will be putting yourself in a worse position by not using it.
The argument of not being forced to do anything is ridiculously at best
You could play without hands or with your eyes closed as well. No one force you otherwise. You would just be artificially struggling to play with those self-imposed restrictions.
Worse position compared to whom ? Are you in a race that we dont know about ? Is this a competition ? If you realy only play for the fun of it and for killing some monsters, who are you comparing yourself with all the time ?
You basicaly agree that you are not forced to use it, but also admit that it is too tempting for you to resist. Looks realy like you just cant make up your mind. You dislike it enugh to make long forum posts about it but on the other hand you dont dislike it enugh to not use it.
I mean what do you lose if you stop using the AH? You are afraid to fall behind others who are gearing up faster and clearing areas faster. But you are doing that anyway, every second you dont play the game. It's this strange mix between wanting to "just have fun" in the game but on the other hand still wanting to compete with the top players. It comes from players who can not make up their minds, and it leads to endless complaining on forums that could be avoidet if you just sit down for 5 minutes and clearly think about what your ambitions are in the game.
Come on man, be strong! Be decisive!
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Wise ElderYou're ignoring that the AH is a major function of the game. A major function that is 100% REQUIRED if one wants to ascend to a certain level. That....THAT is why so many people piss 'n' moan about the AH's. They seem to betray one of the major draws of an online ARPG. That being, bartering and trading with actual people. The AH sterilizes this aspect to relegate the player into shopping the "want-ads" (AH's).
Are people forced to use it? No. Then again, people aren't forced to play at all. Players want a better experience, and many folks feel, as is, the AH's present an obstacle to a better game-play experience.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC)
Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
No. The AH is just a tool.
The obstacle is their lack of wealth, and their mistake is to assume that they should get the same items as player X but with less time investment and for free.
Edit : i just realised that you wrote "the players feel as if the AH is a obstacle".
Well that's another problem again. Their feelings dont match the real situation. But that is hardly the games fault. They should just get real.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Wise ElderPlease...tell me what "real" is?
That's an interesting interpretation. This ARPG, Diablo 3, is clearly a game predicated vastly upon items. Access to the best items is excruciatingly limited by way of just playing the game. Players become stuck in the mud, as it were.
I'll say, you make good arguments and present them well. However, I find serious objection with the essence of what you're saying.
Basically what you're saying is "If you don't like the AH, don't use it." That's a short-cut to thinking and inherently dishonest. Nothing good comes from such a stance.
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC)
Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
By contrast, you are saying "if you like the AH, you're wrong and you shouldn't have that option."
Nothing good comes from being so blissfully disrespectful of the fact that being a self-found purist is not the only legitemate way to play this game. I've been playing strictly self-found of late, but I cannot reasonably associate myself with the militant extremist attitude that the AHs must be removed.
It's so naive, so wrong, so.... egomaniacal.
Directly from Wikipedia :
Realityis the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined.
Yes, the best items are indeed very rare. That's why they are the best. There would be no "best" if everybody would find those "best" items all the time and everywhere they go.
No, this is not a interpretation. The AH IS a tool to exchange items ingame. Like the chat channels are tools for communicating or the matchmaking system is a tool for finding players to play with. Just like gold is a tool to make trading easier by having a nice currency that you can translate the value of any item into.
I like you
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841