Note: This is gonna be a provocative post for some of you. There's no -1 button here, so be prepared to have an open mind or rather stop reading ;-) It's also very long, probably too long, so kudos to the 1-2 people that are gonna read the entire thing.
I've been thinking a lot about the three things mentioned in the thread title (itemization, AH, online-only mode) that were constantly subject of all debates over the past 15 months. As I like to discuss, I don't mind changing my opinion; I've voted for and against the AH, I feel both dislike but also understanding for the online-only mode, and I've argued about itemization a lot. So, let's get started and take a look at itemization, re-visiting the discussion.
Itemization
For quite some time, I agreed to it being the #1 reason why D3 is just a good game, but not yet an awesome game. But there were certain things in the past that made me re-think this attitude. It may have started with this thread, where we had a heated debate about D2 vs D3 itemization. When someone posted this old D3 loot rant picture (which upon first sight a year ago I was in agreement with), I felt that it missed the point and didn't really do the view of loot any justice - neither for D2, nor D3. Then came the RoS announcement and first details on Loot 2.0, and all the discussion about the new "build changing items". In particular itirnitii's thread in our wizard forum about the Serpent's Sparker not really being build-changing struck me. Is it really build-changing? After Travis posted that they changed it to affect the Hydra spell, it is indeed. But will every legendary item change a specific spell in similar fashion? I can't believe that, as there are currently 113 active and 75 passive skills in the game. To some extent, these "build-changing" affixes will have to be more abstract and general.
Either way, there are already a few items that are "build-changing". Sever, for example, in combination with monk's Exploding Palm, is a lot of fun (this is what I and my friends have been doing last week, blowing up 2-3 MP10 elite packs at once). You have to adapt your build and gear since the main damage is not coming from your spells, but from Sever's+EP's explosion. Another, obvious build-changing legendary is Thing of the Deep, in my opinion one of the nicest and funniest items currently in the game. There's also the range of legendaries to entirely remove the Zombie Dogs cooldown, the legacy Natalya's set that allows for almost unlimited use of Vault, or the 4-piece bonus of the Inna's set (I just love this set, as it allows me to completely disregard the resource cost for Sweeping Wind when creating my build). Of course, none of these items or set bonuses is as "game-changing" as the idea of Serpent's Sparker, but then again, I don't think they'll create one for every spell (as much as I'd like them to). The important takeaway is: these already existing items still change the way we think about our character, play style, and choice of skills.
So, what does this have to do with the removal of the AH? Bear with me, I'll get there soon.
Many of you will probably say "yeah, you highlighted some of the most prominent examples, but there's still a few dozens of skills that are not affected by any items". This is true to some extent. But there are certainly more builds and skills that could be affected than there currently are. One of my favorite bookmarked D3 URLs is this list: http://telparia.com/d3/eqAll.html (thanks to the creator: Sembiance). Whenever I mess around with new builds, I open this URL, CTRL+F and search if there are any legendary affixes that support this spell. And there are more than you think. For example, did you know that Mara's Kaleidoscope supports 58 different spells? Of course, no one uses it, because it can't roll trifecta. But it has the potential to be game-changing. Another example is Slorak's Madness - for a while, back when any Chantodo's Will was too expensive for me, it was an awesome crit chance boost for my CMWW wizard. Of course, no one actually cared about it, because it could barely roll 1000 DPS. But that's exactly the crux: Can't roll trifecta. Not enough DPS. Too expensive. That leads us to...
The Auction House
I already posted my story why I eventually decided to like the AH removal in Tecnorobo's thread yesterday. In short, after playing D1 and D2 self-found (trading with friends) I was indifferent about the AH, but was kind of forced into using it to close the gear gap to my friends, and eventually became hooked on it like so many others. And as we all soon discovered, new drops weren't looked at with regard to "does this improve my character?" but rather "how much gold is this worth on the AH?". This is the major difference between Diablo 1/2 and Diablo 3 - items not as an upgrade for you or your friends, but as a vehicle to get more money and eventually progress with help through the AH. Even if such a build-changing legendary dropped, first thing many players do is to check its price. Even if one decides to keep it for itself, it's nice to be able to say "I found an Echoing Fury today that is worth 1.5 billion, so I boosted my DPS quite a bit!". Besides, I wonder if anyone in Diablo 3 (except for self-found players) ever changed their build after finding a legendary. I wonder if anyone owns an item of which they don't know the gold value. And this is exactly why Blizzard decided to remove the AH.
So, you've waited long enough, what does this have to do with the itemization? Well, in my opinion, the auction house is much more than just the perfect distribution system (I drew a comparison to volcanoes in a different thread). It's also an annotated price list for items, a value-sorted inventory of loot currently in the game. I read a post recently (can't find it) of someone saying that in order to find out what the best items are, he just changes all parameters on the AH search. As soon as prices go through the roof, you know that an item is good. This highlights the innate problem of how we currently think about items in D3: an item's value is not simply determined by how much it can improve your character, but how much it's worth. This is, in my opinion, the most profound difference between D2 and D3 (unless you were a trade forum tycoon in D2). Furthermore, the very design of the AH interface (search up to 6 attributes) forces us into the stat-driven thinking. Pick your affixes, pick your price, and I'll tell you what you get. Your build? I don't care.
To phrase it more directly: In my opinion, the fact that in every second of the game you constantly evaluate your loot and compare your equip to that of others kills much of the fun. Character comparison in Diablo 2 was quite difficult and not as ubiquitous as in D3 now. I'm not just talking about Diabloprogress or D3up, websites that allow you to quantify and compare your characters; it's also the indirect comparison through every item slot whenever you search for upgrades on the AH. You're usually not looking at one item in isolation, but you are also constantly reminded how much better you could be if you could just afford this other item further down the list with 1.5% crit chance or 30 allres more.
Therefore, I believe the removal of the AH is more important for D3 than the introduction of Loot 2.0.
Sure, we can and probably still will compare our characters on websites like D3up, Diabloprogress, or simply the armory. We will still (at least for a while) think if we could sell this item for a few bucks, especially if we don't need it for one of our own characters. But in the long run, those that enjoyed self-found in D1 and D2, might come back to it. All these build-changing legendaries mentioned above are nice to have, but I'm not sure they're necessary. If you enjoy playing Hydra, you want to get a Serpent's Sparker. With a completely random system as implemented in D3 currently, you won't be able to specifically farm it (I hope they change this). I'll admit: If they enable my D2 Blizzard sorc by introducing an item that allows for Blizzard to stack again, I'll trade everything I have for that. But at least I have to put in some effort as well - find good items myself to trade it for, and find someone on the trade channels of official forums who agrees on a trade. It's not as simple as clicking on the and buy it for a few million gold, without social interaction. That brings me to my last point... "no offline mode".
The online restriction
I have mentioned a couple of times in other threads that I feel with all the people who live in countries or areas with bad internet connectivity. I really do (used to live there for quite some time as well). For you it really sucks. But just as for the AH, this is a design decision with trade-offs, and the pro's outweigh the con's. Now, many people say the online restriction was introduced because of the AH, specifically the RMAH. This is true, because if you allow an offline mode, people get access to stored character data but also the client-server-interaction when it comes to combat and drops. This opens the door for all sorts of hacks, as you can try to inject code (remember, offline, no Warden to detect this). Once you know how it works, you do the same stuff with the online version, intercept the packages being sent to the server and tell the game that you didn't just loot another pair of Frostburn Gauntlets, but a nifty crit chance Mempo. Eventually, cheats and dupes kill the economy, and since it's connected to real money currently, this must not happen.
Now, as the AH is removed, eventually the price tags on items will disappear (hopefully). People will go back to either self-found or trading through other means. So, let's just lift the online restriction as well, will you? Blizzard's answer is no. And while the rationale provided is quite short, lifting the online restriction would just give up all the benefits the D3 community gained through the AH removal.
If you play self-found in RoS, an offline mode would mean you could easily cheat by copying save games or using a trainer (just look at the console version to see how cheats were released even before the official release of the game). Telling self-found offline players to stay away from these trainers or not to dupe their amazing Echoing Fury to give it to all their other characters is the same as telling people now to "not use the AH". Many people choose the way of least resistance and the way to quickest progress for your character. After 100 hours of farming without a drop, you resort back to the AH (now) or copy that awesome rare sword from your friend's save game (future offline mode). The result is the same: you spoil the fun and decrease the chance to find an upgrade yourself. You become decoupled from your character, RPG-wise.
If you want to trade items in RoS, an offline mode would be terrible for you. Dupes everywhere, like in D2. If you stay legit, you risk trading your own earned loot against a duped item. How does that make you feel? Running around in cheated clothes? Not to mention the inflation - we saw this in a nutshell when gems dropped to 1 million last October for a week. A very small window of opportunity for cheaters opened, and within a few hours the economy went havoc.
Bottom line, the online restriction ensures that after the removal of the auction house Diablo 3 offers a good gaming experience. It is crucial for the success of Loot 2.0. It's crucial for the economy (this affects only those who like to trade). It sucks for the group of self-found players with bad internet connectivity. But just like the removal of the AH, there are always trade-offs: the AH tycoons and people who liked to spend hours on "playing the AH" won't like this change.
TL;DR: The removal of the AH will not be helpful for the success of Loot 2.0, it makes the difference between success and failure of RoS. At the same time, removing the online restriction would jeopardize this success immediately.
Hey, congratz for staying with me until the end! ;-)
To phrase it more directly: In my opinion, the fact that in every second of the game you constantly evaluate your loot and compare your equip to that of others kills much of the fun. Character comparison in Diablo 2 was quite difficult and not as ubiquitous as in D3 now.
I'm +1ing you simply for that. I've long argued that D3 has been much more in-your-face about what items other people are wearing as compared to D2 and that has driven people to have the "must hit the AH for immediate upgrades" mentality. The VISIBILITY of what loot other people have equipped (which is the consequence of the armory and derivative sites, as well as the AH) has done a lot of harm to how people approach the game.
For that reason alone, as much as I do have qualms with the removal of the AH, I think it goes a very long way to address this latent psychological effect that players experience with the massive information flow that seems to be part and parcel with our "Information Age" approach to everything and anything.
I have tried hard over the past 6-8 months to distance myself from that. And it's generally worked. The less I know about what other people are wearing the happier I am. Why? Because for me PvE is not a competition and I hate when other people make it a competition for me by showing me how leet thier 500k DPS set is. While I remain happy for them if that's how they want to play, it does bring a certain animosity to how I feel about the game.
So, I too yearn for a little LESS visibility on that front, and I think it would go a really long way to helping out those people who don't want to trade/use the AH, but feel that is the only option they have.
@Shad3slayer: Yeah, I even argued a week ago in a thread that the AH will never be removed. Silly me. So happy about that (after thinking about if for a while, I have to admit ;-)).
@shaggy: Thanks! Actually, I'm quite happy that you're back and active again. I've seen all your arguments in the past and also over the past few days. I'm just wondering how much we can go back to the "ignorance is bliss" D2 mode.
I agree with what you've said. When I pick up items and go back with a full inventory to be identified, I'm not thinking about what goodies I might get in terms of my character, I'm thinking of their monetary value on the AH. I do a quick eyeball of the items -- socket in applicable items? If yes, look closer, if no, DE. Things along those lines for each equipment slot. I still ask my friends if I believe something I found might be good for them.
I pretty much agree with everything you've said. In principle, at least. Obviously, each person's experiences will vary, but removing the visibility and convenience issues of the AH will go a long way toward making the game more fun. I will miss the AH as a knowledge base, a way to compare items' value or worth to what else is out there, but as long as the self-found game becomes more viable, I doubt that will be an issue.
Blizzard was brave to try the AH, and on paper it seemed like a great idea, but I think we've had enough time now to see the negatives and how they compare to the positives. This will be a huge change, and hopefully Blizzcon will give us more information on what they're planning to with the game in a world without the AH.
One last note: I'm still curious what the game would have been like with loot 2.0 AND the AH in place at the same time. I think a world where self-found is still viable even when AH is still an option would have been a good compromise to keep everyone happy.
Wow, so many people who at least attempted to read it (or read it, sorry about your eyes overneathe :P) ;-) Thanks.
Surprised that everyone fully agrees though, I know there are many who think otherwise (and it would be boring if not). Come on, rip my wall of text into pieces (there's enough to do that)
Can I get some DFans forum gold as compensation for all the suffering I endured for saying some of these things?
Also, Bagstone, I'd like royalties. Remember, I'm the original "close down the AH" DFan. This forum isn't big enough for the two of us.
Haha well, I ain't going anywhere. Guess we'll have to fight this out
But seriously, I really hope that you'll find full enjoyment once RoS hits. You're totally right - while I was initially indefinite or even pro-AH (as I said in the beginning), you always stood your ground. And I can't stress how much I admire that you resisted to use the AH, I couldn't do that. It took me much longer to realize that the greatness of D2 for me was due to playing self-found ;-)
I can't give you forum gold, but I can give you +1 (yeah I know, it's crappy) ;-)
Can I get some DFans forum gold as compensation for all the suffering I endured for saying some of these things?
Also, Bagstone, I'd like royalties. Remember, I'm the original "close down the AH" DFan. This forum isn't big enough for the two of us.
But seriously, I think it's pretty clear this is the right solution. When all the arguments the people against it can muster are "but I enjoy making money while I play" or "without the AH, this game's dead", you know you're on the right track.
Wow, so many people who at least attempted to read it (or read it, sorry about your eyes overneathe :P) ;-) Thanks.
Surprised that everyone fully agrees though, I know there are many who think otherwise (and it would be boring if not). Come on, rip my wall of text into pieces (there's enough to do that)
I'll play devil's advocate: as far as the always-online thing goes, one basic argument is that Blizzard needs to keep control of what people can and can't do, so that people won't hack and cheat their way through the game. If people get bored of the game too quickly (even if it's their own fault), then they stop playing the game and blame Blizzard for the game not being interesting enough.
Which is undeniably a bad situation. But here's the thing: this is not an mmo, and we are not paying a monthly subscription for this game. If someone buys the game, cheats to beat it too quickly, and then stops playing, then what has Blizzard lost? Well, nothing really. They already bought the game, so Blizzard already profited. My question is: why is worth it to Blizzard to ensure a "better gameplay experience" using online-restriction when that system includes so many negatives (latency and disconnects; inconvenience to players; people who genuinely enjoy cheating and playing at the highest difficulty with OP gear just for a change of pace; people who just want the option to play offline when playing online isn't reasonable for them)?
And yes, I realize there are other factors, security etc, for the online requirement. But like I said, devil's advocate.
You nailed a good, if not amazing, point saying that the AH changed the perspective on how we see the items. They weren't items anymore but just gold piles to acculumate to buy a new upgrade.
I remember having a discussion with some gaming pals before the release of Diablo 3 and when the AH was announced. The topic was: "What if you drop a big item?" Well, i was the only one that said to keep it because it was funnier.
But as much as i wanted to keep loot for myself, i started selling stuff, just to keep up with all my friends that used it, so it was forced on me.
Hopefully, without an AH, i'll start to hoard equipment again for a future alt, or just give it away to some friends that just started playing or trade with them. That was the best feeling when i played Diablo 2 with pals.
Which is undeniably a bad situation. But here's the thing: this is not an mmo, and we are not paying a monthly subscription for this game. If someone buys the game, cheats to beat it too quickly, and then stops playing, then what has Blizzard lost?
A customer. This man will be bored out of his skull from cheating his way to the top. He won't have the future nostalgia associated with doing the long hours we've all done online, not being able to cheat.
Which is undeniably a bad situation. But here's the thing: this is not an mmo, and we are not paying a monthly subscription for this game. If someone buys the game, cheats to beat it too quickly, and then stops playing, then what has Blizzard lost?
A customer. This man will be bored out of his skull from cheating his way to the top. He won't have the future nostalgia associated with doing the long hours we've all done online, not being able to cheat.
But as Blizzard themselves have admitted, you can't please everyone. I would argue that this is the type of customer is going to be in the minority compared to people who genuinely enjoy playing the game legit offline and may decide not to buy the game if that isn't an option.
My question is: why is worth it to Blizzard to ensure a "better gameplay experience" using online-restriction when that system includes so many negatives (latency and disconnects; inconvenience to players; people who genuinely enjoy cheating and playing at the highest difficulty with OP gear just for a change of pace; people who just want the option to play offline when playing online isn't reasonable for them)?
And yes, I realize there are other factors, security etc, for the online requirement. But like I said, devil's advocate.
It's a valid argument, and I think it all comes down to playing the numbers. How many people don't buy the game because it's online only? In days of Facebook and Steam, the majority of people are online anyways. "The majority" here are people in North America, Europe, and Australia/NZ. The rest of the world kind of only gets the finger (but having lived there, I know you get used to that). So this is not a big loss.
So, once people bought the game and start playing, how many people do you lose after some time because the connection is so freaking bad, and how does this number compare to those that would drop off in a game full of cheats? Hard to tell. But from observing young people nowadays, I often feel their first concern is to be online anyways. Internet down = Facebook down = you're virtually dead to your friends. OMG. So the same people that buy your game and represent your #1 target audience, have other incentives to stay online all the time. So why not keep them at bay by providing one of the first cheat-free ARPG experiences? It's worth a shot.
Granted, now that the RMAH isn't anymore, I wonder if we'll see other micro payments to compensate for the HUGE amount of money required for server maintenance (this is seriously not trivial), as well as the (in my opinion) quite awesome customer support. So, keeping more players engaged without getting any money from them might result in a problem in the long run. We'll see what other income source they come up with now that the AH is gone, not sure if an x-pac every 2 years is enough to pay this off.
But yeah, your argument is valid. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they say "fuck it" in 2-3 years and include an offline mode (read between the lines, there's no offline mode planned "at the moment"). I just know that as soon as dupes become prevalent in D3, the game isn't fun anymore to me.
But yeah, your argument is valid. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they say "fuck it" in 2-3 years and include an offline mode (read between the lines, there's no offline mode planned "at the moment"). I just know that as soon as dupes become prevalent in D3, the game isn't fun anymore to me.
It wouldn't surprise me either. I mean, realistically, the servers will go down someday and the game will essentially be dead if they don't open it up to offline. 2-3 years may be optimistic, though.
But as for dupes and such, maybe I'm not understanding you. I would think that the offline characters would be separate from Bnet? General security issues I understand, but I don't see how people could use offline to cheat items into their bnet characters?
And as the above posts point out, offline hasn't really made the game hack-free and there's really no way to know if it would be worse if offline were introduced.
But yeah, your argument is valid. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they say "fuck it" in 2-3 years and include an offline mode (read between the lines, there's no offline mode planned "at the moment"). I just know that as soon as dupes become prevalent in D3, the game isn't fun anymore to me.
It wouldn't surprise me either. I mean, realistically, the servers will go down someday and the game will essentially be dead if they don't open it up to offline. 2-3 years may be optimistic, though.
But as for dupes and such, maybe I'm not understanding you. I would think that the offline characters would be separate from Bnet? General security issues I understand, but I don't see how people could use offline to cheat items into their bnet characters?
And as the above posts point out, offline hasn't really made the game hack-free and there's really no way to know if it would be worse if offline were introduced.
What happens is if you make an offline mode, you have to give the user the ENTIRE game; server structure, game and item coding, the games architecture. THATS where people are then able to find a way to hack the live servers and dupe, just like in D2.
Currently almost the entire game is server side with no way for us to get the encrypted coding, which is why there's no dupes, trainers ect. Besides the occasional exploit (which isnt hacking) D3 has been well protected.
They'd have to quite literally re make the game to create an offline mode that couldn't hurt the online one.
But as for dupes and such, maybe I'm not understanding you. I would think that the offline characters would be separate from Bnet? General security issues I understand, but I don't see how people could use offline to cheat items into their bnet characters?
Security through obscurity. If people don't know the code, it's more difficult to hack the servers. An offline mode would make significant parts of the game engine visible (e.g., how loot is calculated) - unless you program an entirely new, second game (unrealistic).
And as the above posts point out, offline hasn't really made the game hack-free and there's really no way to know if it would be worse if offline were introduced.
Hm, I'm not aware of any cheats/dupes, care to enlighten me? At least there are no dupes other than rollback dupes, and those are "service hacks", have nothing to do with program code and it's fixed since rollback items are made BoA now.
D2's servers are alive and kicking. But I don't need to remind you of that, hopefully.
No, I'm well aware of that. But I imagine the D3 servers are quite a bit more expensive to maintain. As Shade mentions above, they will likely introduce some new type of microtransaction. What happens when people stop buying those?
And like I said, 2-3 years is unrealistic. Even 20 years is probably stretching it. We're talking VERY long-term.
To both of the above: I realize how offline could -potentially- increase hacking and such. I thought OP's earlier comment was about people transferring their offline character into bnet or vice-versa. That was my misunderstanding, I never meant to bring the security issue into it.
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I've been thinking a lot about the three things mentioned in the thread title (itemization, AH, online-only mode) that were constantly subject of all debates over the past 15 months. As I like to discuss, I don't mind changing my opinion; I've voted for and against the AH, I feel both dislike but also understanding for the online-only mode, and I've argued about itemization a lot. So, let's get started and take a look at itemization, re-visiting the discussion.
Itemization
For quite some time, I agreed to it being the #1 reason why D3 is just a good game, but not yet an awesome game. But there were certain things in the past that made me re-think this attitude. It may have started with this thread, where we had a heated debate about D2 vs D3 itemization. When someone posted this old D3 loot rant picture (which upon first sight a year ago I was in agreement with), I felt that it missed the point and didn't really do the view of loot any justice - neither for D2, nor D3. Then came the RoS announcement and first details on Loot 2.0, and all the discussion about the new "build changing items". In particular itirnitii's thread in our wizard forum about the Serpent's Sparker not really being build-changing struck me. Is it really build-changing? After Travis posted that they changed it to affect the Hydra spell, it is indeed. But will every legendary item change a specific spell in similar fashion? I can't believe that, as there are currently 113 active and 75 passive skills in the game. To some extent, these "build-changing" affixes will have to be more abstract and general.
Either way, there are already a few items that are "build-changing". Sever, for example, in combination with monk's Exploding Palm, is a lot of fun (this is what I and my friends have been doing last week, blowing up 2-3 MP10 elite packs at once). You have to adapt your build and gear since the main damage is not coming from your spells, but from Sever's+EP's explosion. Another, obvious build-changing legendary is Thing of the Deep, in my opinion one of the nicest and funniest items currently in the game. There's also the range of legendaries to entirely remove the Zombie Dogs cooldown, the legacy Natalya's set that allows for almost unlimited use of Vault, or the 4-piece bonus of the Inna's set (I just love this set, as it allows me to completely disregard the resource cost for Sweeping Wind when creating my build). Of course, none of these items or set bonuses is as "game-changing" as the idea of Serpent's Sparker, but then again, I don't think they'll create one for every spell (as much as I'd like them to). The important takeaway is: these already existing items still change the way we think about our character, play style, and choice of skills.
So, what does this have to do with the removal of the AH? Bear with me, I'll get there soon.
Many of you will probably say "yeah, you highlighted some of the most prominent examples, but there's still a few dozens of skills that are not affected by any items". This is true to some extent. But there are certainly more builds and skills that could be affected than there currently are. One of my favorite bookmarked D3 URLs is this list: http://telparia.com/d3/eqAll.html (thanks to the creator: Sembiance). Whenever I mess around with new builds, I open this URL, CTRL+F and search if there are any legendary affixes that support this spell. And there are more than you think. For example, did you know that Mara's Kaleidoscope supports 58 different spells? Of course, no one uses it, because it can't roll trifecta. But it has the potential to be game-changing. Another example is Slorak's Madness - for a while, back when any Chantodo's Will was too expensive for me, it was an awesome crit chance boost for my CMWW wizard. Of course, no one actually cared about it, because it could barely roll 1000 DPS. But that's exactly the crux: Can't roll trifecta. Not enough DPS. Too expensive. That leads us to...
The Auction House
I already posted my story why I eventually decided to like the AH removal in Tecnorobo's thread yesterday. In short, after playing D1 and D2 self-found (trading with friends) I was indifferent about the AH, but was kind of forced into using it to close the gear gap to my friends, and eventually became hooked on it like so many others. And as we all soon discovered, new drops weren't looked at with regard to "does this improve my character?" but rather "how much gold is this worth on the AH?". This is the major difference between Diablo 1/2 and Diablo 3 - items not as an upgrade for you or your friends, but as a vehicle to get more money and eventually progress with help through the AH. Even if such a build-changing legendary dropped, first thing many players do is to check its price. Even if one decides to keep it for itself, it's nice to be able to say "I found an Echoing Fury today that is worth 1.5 billion, so I boosted my DPS quite a bit!". Besides, I wonder if anyone in Diablo 3 (except for self-found players) ever changed their build after finding a legendary. I wonder if anyone owns an item of which they don't know the gold value. And this is exactly why Blizzard decided to remove the AH.
So, you've waited long enough, what does this have to do with the itemization? Well, in my opinion, the auction house is much more than just the perfect distribution system (I drew a comparison to volcanoes in a different thread). It's also an annotated price list for items, a value-sorted inventory of loot currently in the game. I read a post recently (can't find it) of someone saying that in order to find out what the best items are, he just changes all parameters on the AH search. As soon as prices go through the roof, you know that an item is good. This highlights the innate problem of how we currently think about items in D3: an item's value is not simply determined by how much it can improve your character, but how much it's worth. This is, in my opinion, the most profound difference between D2 and D3 (unless you were a trade forum tycoon in D2). Furthermore, the very design of the AH interface (search up to 6 attributes) forces us into the stat-driven thinking. Pick your affixes, pick your price, and I'll tell you what you get. Your build? I don't care.
To phrase it more directly: In my opinion, the fact that in every second of the game you constantly evaluate your loot and compare your equip to that of others kills much of the fun. Character comparison in Diablo 2 was quite difficult and not as ubiquitous as in D3 now. I'm not just talking about Diabloprogress or D3up, websites that allow you to quantify and compare your characters; it's also the indirect comparison through every item slot whenever you search for upgrades on the AH. You're usually not looking at one item in isolation, but you are also constantly reminded how much better you could be if you could just afford this other item further down the list with 1.5% crit chance or 30 allres more.
Therefore, I believe the removal of the AH is more important for D3 than the introduction of Loot 2.0.
Sure, we can and probably still will compare our characters on websites like D3up, Diabloprogress, or simply the armory. We will still (at least for a while) think if we could sell this item for a few bucks, especially if we don't need it for one of our own characters. But in the long run, those that enjoyed self-found in D1 and D2, might come back to it. All these build-changing legendaries mentioned above are nice to have, but I'm not sure they're necessary. If you enjoy playing Hydra, you want to get a Serpent's Sparker. With a completely random system as implemented in D3 currently, you won't be able to specifically farm it (I hope they change this). I'll admit: If they enable my D2 Blizzard sorc by introducing an item that allows for Blizzard to stack again, I'll trade everything I have for that. But at least I have to put in some effort as well - find good items myself to trade it for, and find someone on the trade channels of official forums who agrees on a trade. It's not as simple as clicking on the and buy it for a few million gold, without social interaction. That brings me to my last point... "no offline mode".
The online restriction
I have mentioned a couple of times in other threads that I feel with all the people who live in countries or areas with bad internet connectivity. I really do (used to live there for quite some time as well). For you it really sucks. But just as for the AH, this is a design decision with trade-offs, and the pro's outweigh the con's. Now, many people say the online restriction was introduced because of the AH, specifically the RMAH. This is true, because if you allow an offline mode, people get access to stored character data but also the client-server-interaction when it comes to combat and drops. This opens the door for all sorts of hacks, as you can try to inject code (remember, offline, no Warden to detect this). Once you know how it works, you do the same stuff with the online version, intercept the packages being sent to the server and tell the game that you didn't just loot another pair of Frostburn Gauntlets, but a nifty crit chance Mempo. Eventually, cheats and dupes kill the economy, and since it's connected to real money currently, this must not happen.
Now, as the AH is removed, eventually the price tags on items will disappear (hopefully). People will go back to either self-found or trading through other means. So, let's just lift the online restriction as well, will you? Blizzard's answer is no. And while the rationale provided is quite short, lifting the online restriction would just give up all the benefits the D3 community gained through the AH removal.
TL;DR: The removal of the AH will not be helpful for the success of Loot 2.0, it makes the difference between success and failure of RoS. At the same time, removing the online restriction would jeopardize this success immediately.
Hey, congratz for staying with me until the end! ;-)
I'm +1ing you simply for that. I've long argued that D3 has been much more in-your-face about what items other people are wearing as compared to D2 and that has driven people to have the "must hit the AH for immediate upgrades" mentality. The VISIBILITY of what loot other people have equipped (which is the consequence of the armory and derivative sites, as well as the AH) has done a lot of harm to how people approach the game.
For that reason alone, as much as I do have qualms with the removal of the AH, I think it goes a very long way to address this latent psychological effect that players experience with the massive information flow that seems to be part and parcel with our "Information Age" approach to everything and anything.
I have tried hard over the past 6-8 months to distance myself from that. And it's generally worked. The less I know about what other people are wearing the happier I am. Why? Because for me PvE is not a competition and I hate when other people make it a competition for me by showing me how leet thier 500k DPS set is. While I remain happy for them if that's how they want to play, it does bring a certain animosity to how I feel about the game.
So, I too yearn for a little LESS visibility on that front, and I think it would go a really long way to helping out those people who don't want to trade/use the AH, but feel that is the only option they have.
@shaggy: Thanks! Actually, I'm quite happy that you're back and active again. I've seen all your arguments in the past and also over the past few days. I'm just wondering how much we can go back to the "ignorance is bliss" D2 mode.
Blizzard was brave to try the AH, and on paper it seemed like a great idea, but I think we've had enough time now to see the negatives and how they compare to the positives. This will be a huge change, and hopefully Blizzcon will give us more information on what they're planning to with the game in a world without the AH.
One last note: I'm still curious what the game would have been like with loot 2.0 AND the AH in place at the same time. I think a world where self-found is still viable even when AH is still an option would have been a good compromise to keep everyone happy.
Ha. Bagstone.
Surprised that everyone fully agrees though, I know there are many who think otherwise (and it would be boring if not). Come on, rip my wall of text into pieces (there's enough to do that)
Haha well, I ain't going anywhere. Guess we'll have to fight this out
But seriously, I really hope that you'll find full enjoyment once RoS hits. You're totally right - while I was initially indefinite or even pro-AH (as I said in the beginning), you always stood your ground. And I can't stress how much I admire that you resisted to use the AH, I couldn't do that. It took me much longer to realize that the greatness of D2 for me was due to playing self-found ;-)
I can't give you forum gold, but I can give you +1 (yeah I know, it's crappy) ;-)
You have all our gold now.
Ha. Bagstone.
I'll play devil's advocate: as far as the always-online thing goes, one basic argument is that Blizzard needs to keep control of what people can and can't do, so that people won't hack and cheat their way through the game. If people get bored of the game too quickly (even if it's their own fault), then they stop playing the game and blame Blizzard for the game not being interesting enough.
Which is undeniably a bad situation. But here's the thing: this is not an mmo, and we are not paying a monthly subscription for this game. If someone buys the game, cheats to beat it too quickly, and then stops playing, then what has Blizzard lost? Well, nothing really. They already bought the game, so Blizzard already profited. My question is: why is worth it to Blizzard to ensure a "better gameplay experience" using online-restriction when that system includes so many negatives (latency and disconnects; inconvenience to players; people who genuinely enjoy cheating and playing at the highest difficulty with OP gear just for a change of pace; people who just want the option to play offline when playing online isn't reasonable for them)?
And yes, I realize there are other factors, security etc, for the online requirement. But like I said, devil's advocate.
I remember having a discussion with some gaming pals before the release of Diablo 3 and when the AH was announced. The topic was: "What if you drop a big item?" Well, i was the only one that said to keep it because it was funnier.
But as much as i wanted to keep loot for myself, i started selling stuff, just to keep up with all my friends that used it, so it was forced on me.
Hopefully, without an AH, i'll start to hoard equipment again for a future alt, or just give it away to some friends that just started playing or trade with them. That was the best feeling when i played Diablo 2 with pals.
A customer. This man will be bored out of his skull from cheating his way to the top. He won't have the future nostalgia associated with doing the long hours we've all done online, not being able to cheat.
Ha. Bagstone.
But as Blizzard themselves have admitted, you can't please everyone. I would argue that this is the type of customer is going to be in the minority compared to people who genuinely enjoy playing the game legit offline and may decide not to buy the game if that isn't an option.
It's a valid argument, and I think it all comes down to playing the numbers. How many people don't buy the game because it's online only? In days of Facebook and Steam, the majority of people are online anyways. "The majority" here are people in North America, Europe, and Australia/NZ. The rest of the world kind of only gets the finger (but having lived there, I know you get used to that). So this is not a big loss.
So, once people bought the game and start playing, how many people do you lose after some time because the connection is so freaking bad, and how does this number compare to those that would drop off in a game full of cheats? Hard to tell. But from observing young people nowadays, I often feel their first concern is to be online anyways. Internet down = Facebook down = you're virtually dead to your friends. OMG. So the same people that buy your game and represent your #1 target audience, have other incentives to stay online all the time. So why not keep them at bay by providing one of the first cheat-free ARPG experiences? It's worth a shot.
Granted, now that the RMAH isn't anymore, I wonder if we'll see other micro payments to compensate for the HUGE amount of money required for server maintenance (this is seriously not trivial), as well as the (in my opinion) quite awesome customer support. So, keeping more players engaged without getting any money from them might result in a problem in the long run. We'll see what other income source they come up with now that the AH is gone, not sure if an x-pac every 2 years is enough to pay this off.
But yeah, your argument is valid. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they say "fuck it" in 2-3 years and include an offline mode (read between the lines, there's no offline mode planned "at the moment"). I just know that as soon as dupes become prevalent in D3, the game isn't fun anymore to me.
It wouldn't surprise me either. I mean, realistically, the servers will go down someday and the game will essentially be dead if they don't open it up to offline. 2-3 years may be optimistic, though.
But as for dupes and such, maybe I'm not understanding you. I would think that the offline characters would be separate from Bnet? General security issues I understand, but I don't see how people could use offline to cheat items into their bnet characters?
And as the above posts point out, offline hasn't really made the game hack-free and there's really no way to know if it would be worse if offline were introduced.
Ha. Bagstone.
What happens is if you make an offline mode, you have to give the user the ENTIRE game; server structure, game and item coding, the games architecture. THATS where people are then able to find a way to hack the live servers and dupe, just like in D2.
Currently almost the entire game is server side with no way for us to get the encrypted coding, which is why there's no dupes, trainers ect. Besides the occasional exploit (which isnt hacking) D3 has been well protected.
They'd have to quite literally re make the game to create an offline mode that couldn't hurt the online one.
Security through obscurity. If people don't know the code, it's more difficult to hack the servers. An offline mode would make significant parts of the game engine visible (e.g., how loot is calculated) - unless you program an entirely new, second game (unrealistic).
Hm, I'm not aware of any cheats/dupes, care to enlighten me? At least there are no dupes other than rollback dupes, and those are "service hacks", have nothing to do with program code and it's fixed since rollback items are made BoA now.
No, I'm well aware of that. But I imagine the D3 servers are quite a bit more expensive to maintain. As Shade mentions above, they will likely introduce some new type of microtransaction. What happens when people stop buying those?
And like I said, 2-3 years is unrealistic. Even 20 years is probably stretching it. We're talking VERY long-term.