Items drop way more often in Diablo 3 than in WoW where an auction house was successful.
And you know this, how?
WoW has a shit ton of items, I don't what unpopulated server you played on. They both (D2) have an assload of items, the thing is: are they all good/worth selling? Def not.
And now D3 has BoE items so you be able to just constantly horde items.
Yeah, we realized that binding is kind of a crappy way to pull items out of the economy. If you say that the average player produces 100 items an hour and maybe gets 1 upgrade in that time, then binding at best can account for removing 1% of items from the economy. And that's being very generous at high levels.
Binding isn't really substantial in making a viable economy, but it is really good at establishing item prestige. Which is how it's used in WoW.
We expect salvaging to be compelling enough to remove a good percentage of the most valuable items from the economy. High end components obtained from salvaging high end items are needed for high end crafting and enhancement.
We're not promising anything on patch content, but we also feel that keeping up on introducing new items consistently will keep it from being possible for a glut of the best items from building as 'the best' can be a constantly moving target.
An AH would make it way easier to get what you want without having to ask people in chats or games etc. I think an AH would be a good idea. They could have a weapons, helms, ammys, etc. games with an AH in them, or they could go class specific and have an assassin, barb, etc. AH. Help keep it divided...just a thought.
an auction house is like a merchant, except that you can give your items to that merchant an he'll sell em for you.
you talk to a guy in town, he shows you what he got, and you buy stuff.
an auction house would kill the trading.
people wont bother to trade.
what kept me playing the game for all those years was the trading.
Using an auction house IS trading. And it would cause it to flourish.
WoW uses an almost identical magic item system, with randomized prefixes and suffixes, rares, and uniques, so we know the AH works with randomized items.
Fewer items drop in WoW, but with both games the vast majority of items are vendor trash that no one will buy in the auction house. More items might ultimately make it into the Diablo Auction house, but they will nearly all be useful.
And as for the number, the more items are in the AH the more stable the economy is, because prices will flex more smoothly. It's in no way bad to have more selection. Even if it somehow was a bad thing though, there would be plenty of ways to break it up.
Edit: No need to worry though, there's like a 99% Blizz already has an auction house implemented. They're not stupid, they know it (or something very similar) is needed.
what kept me playing the game for all those years was the trading.
I have always hated face-to-face (manual) trading and prefer an Auction-house style GUI. Maybe the reason trading kept you playing the game is because the core game got really boring. It did for me.
All these people saying "nope, auction house won't work" aren't thinking straight. A streamlined GUI, that allows you to filter items based on whatever specs you need is BY FAR the most effective way to acquire items. (What appears to be) A small minority of people get off on the face-to-face trading sub-game, but most people hated that.
Also, let's remember two things:
1. Crafting: dis-enchanting items into mats will greatly offset a flood of items into the economy.
2. Econ 101: Economies have a tendency to correct themselves. If everyone floods the market with crap items, and there's no demand for them, the items won't sell. Then, people being not idiots, will stop spamming crap items on the AH because they'll just lose money and waste time posting them. After an initial period of volatility, the economy will settle into a predictable steady-state where buyers get their needs met by sellers. Volatility will creep back in, and supply/demand will correct it back to steady state.
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"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
what kept me playing the game for all those years was the trading.
I have always hated face-to-face (manual) trading and prefer an Auction-house style GUI. Maybe the reason trading kept you playing the game is because the core game got really boring. It did for me.
All these people saying "nope, auction house won't work" aren't thinking straight. A streamlined GUI, that allows you to filter items based on whatever specs you need is BY FAR the most effective way to acquire items. (What appears to be) A small minority of people get off on the face-to-face trading sub-game, but most people hated that.
Also, let's remember two things:
1. Crafting: dis-enchanting items into mats will greatly offset a flood of items into the economy.
2. Econ 101: Economies have a tendency to correct themselves. If everyone floods the market with crap items, and there's no demand for them, the items won't sell. Then, people being not idiots, will stop spamming crap items on the AH because they'll just lose money and waste time posting them. After an initial period of volatility, the economy will settle into a predictable steady-state where buyers get their needs met by sellers. Volatility will creep back in, and supply/demand will correct it back to steady state.
Great points. The salvaging cube or whatever it is called will also help get rid of items, because the better the item is you salvage the better things you can get out of it. People might not even put stuff up on the AH if they'll get something better in return for salvaging.
Diablo 3 players are only seperated by regions, not servers. Items drop way more often in Diablo 3 than in WoW where an auction house was successful.
Conclusion: An Auction House would be way too frikkin overwhelmed by items.
I'm not sure whether we can say more items drop more in Diablo 3. More gear perhaps, but a lot of it will be trash that's going to be salvaged, in fact from what we know it seems Blizzard is intending for the salvaging mechanic to play a big part in stabilizing the economy. So most items you find will simply be broken down by yourself and never sold to anyone else, and that's how most people will play.
Even so, as stated above, it doesn't really matter if there's a ton of shit on the AH, as long as the system is designed with that in mind. From a pure buyer's perspective, the interface will play a big part here and should allows you to sort through all current auctions well enough. I imagine there will be several options here: similar to WoW it seems reasonable you will be able to search for auctions by names, item type and level range.
However, I can also see several new parameters being introduced. Perhaps we'll be able to search for items with a specific prefix? Perhaps we can add certain modifiers we want to appear on our item.
That is, if the AH looks much like it does in WoW, which I'm not entirely convinced it will, I'm certain there will be a streamlined trading fuction implemented, but if Blizzard does something other than a pure AH we shall have to wait and see.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Diablo 3 players are only seperated by regions, not servers. Items drop way more often in Diablo 3 than in WoW where an auction house was successful.
Conclusion: An Auction House would be way too frikkin overwhelmed by items.
I'm not sure whether we can say more items drop more in Diablo 3. More gear perhaps, but a lot of it will be trash that's going to be salvaged, in fact from what we know it seems Blizzard is intending for the salvaging mechanic to play a big part in stabilizing the economy. So most items you find will simply be broken down by yourself and never sold to anyone else, and that's how most people will play.
Even so, as stated above, it doesn't really matter if there's a ton of shit on the AH, as long as the system is designed with that in mind. From a pure buyer's perspective, the interface will play a big part here and should allows you to sort through all current auctions well enough. I imagine there will be several options here: similar to WoW it seems reasonable you will be able to search for auctions by names, item type and level range.
However, I can also see several new parameters being introduced. Perhaps we'll be able to search for items with a specific prefix? Perhaps we can add certain modifiers we want to appear on our item.
That is, if the AH looks much like it does in WoW, which I'm not entirely convinced it will, I'm certain there will be a streamlined trading fuction implemented, but if Blizzard does something other than a pure AH we shall have to wait and see.
The only problem with AH searching is that there's those different prefixes and suffixes that make items just a hair different than each other. For instance ** of the bear, ** of the wolf , etc. I wonder how they're going to account for this.
It seems like people forget that D2 items weren't chaotically random. They had a method to their madness also. For example:
Cruel Maul of Atlas would give 201-300% damage (Cruel) and 21-30 strength (Atlas).
Volcanic Staff of Sorcery gives +3 sorceress fire skills (Volcanic) and 11-15 energy (Sorcery).
WoW's item system, of the monkey, of the bear etc. was just a dumbed down version of D2's system. I have all confidence they'd run into no problem implementing an AH, and I personally have no urge to do face to face item trades. It's a good way to get ripped off and wastes my time.
Not to say you still couldn't spend time playing the AH or even trade face to face still. People still do it in WoW.
The only problem with AH searching is that there's those different prefixes and suffixes that make items just a hair different than each other. For instance ** of the bear, ** of the wolf , etc. I wonder how they're going to account for this.
Like I said, a system that allows you to categorize images based on prefixes and suffixes would be very useful. In fact, if the system were to function similar to how it does in WoW it would be a requirement.
For instance, you could be looking for swords in the 35-40 level range that had the prefix "Dragon's", and taht would then perhaps return fifty results of "Dragon's Bastard Sword" or "Dragon's Longsword" etc.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
This is one of those topics I find hard to explain how I view it. I feel we're thinking way to inside the box on how the D3 team would approach an AH. Most of the assumptions I see are that a Diablo AH would function exactly like the AH in WoW. To put it simply, the D3 team has been working on this game for far to long to just copy and paste a WoW style AH into Diablo, which regardless of the amount of items that drop comparatively, Diablo's economy has different needs. It has been stated by Blizzard that they've been working on developing the trading system for a long time, this alone should assure us that what ever they choose to use will surely suit Diablo's economy. It has also been said by the team that Diablo, "Is about loot". Now seeing as the development team knows this, isn't is safe to assume that they'll put a great amount of effort into making sure this all important loot can be traded and marketed appropriately?
Speaking for myself, and myself only, I feel no matter how hard we try we're not going to come to the same conclusion as the D3 team has over the years they've spent developing this unknown trading system. They're some of the most creative, intelligent, and passionate minds in the business, and have been putting their heads together for years over this problem. It's fun to discuss, but come time to see it I think we'll see how far off we all were. That being said, I also feel some great ideas have come up in discussion ;).
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
It has been stated by Blizzard that they've been working on developing the trading system for a long time, this alone should assure us that what ever they choose to use will surely suit Diablo's economy.
This is totally true.
BUT, they've spent long period of time developing other things that basically ended up being identical to comparable WoW systems. Barbarian Rage resource = Warrior Rage resource, for example. And yet they iterated it many many times before they reached this result (remember the three-balls rage meter?)
The WoW AH is pretty much perfected. They'll probably tweak a few things, and they may have tried a few crazy ideas before settling on it, but my guess is that it will remain pretty much intact. It works so damn well already.
Most of the time they've spent developing it is probably testing it and making those little tweaks. Even small changes need lots of time.
The only problem with AH searching is that there's those different prefixes and suffixes that make items just a hair different than each other. For instance ** of the bear, ** of the wolf , etc. I wonder how they're going to account for this.
Like I said, a system that allows you to categorize images based on prefixes and suffixes would be very useful. In fact, if the system were to function similar to how it does in WoW it would be a requirement.
For instance, you could be looking for swords in the 35-40 level range that had the prefix "Dragon's", and taht would then perhaps return fifty results of "Dragon's Bastard Sword" or "Dragon's Longsword" etc.
That's what I was thinking...everyone always wanted a cruel sword for a barb because of the enhanced damage...however I think that most of the things being put on the AH will be set/legend/uniques and those all have standard names so the problem could solve itself.
It has been stated by Blizzard that they've been working on developing the trading system for a long time, this alone should assure us that what ever they choose to use will surely suit Diablo's economy.
This is totally true.
BUT, they've spent long period of time developing other things that basically ended up being identical to comparable WoW systems. Barbarian Rage resource = Warrior Rage resource, for example. And yet they iterated it many many times before they reached this result (remember the three-balls rage meter?)
The WoW AH is pretty much perfected. They'll probably tweak a few things, and they may have tried a few crazy ideas before settling on it, but my guess is that it will remain pretty much intact. It works so damn well already.
Most of the time they've spent developing it is probably testing it and making those little tweaks. Even small changes need lots of time.
This is one of those topics I find hard to explain how I view it. I feel we're thinking way to inside the box on how the D3 team would approach an AH. Most of the assumptions I see are that a Diablo AH would function exactly like the AH in WoW. To put it simply, the D3 team has been working on this game for far to long to just copy and paste a WoW style AH into Diablo, which regardless of the amount of items that drop comparatively, Diablo's economy has different needs. It has been stated by Blizzard that they've been working on developing the trading system for a long time, this alone should assure us that what ever they choose to use will surely suit Diablo's economy. It has also been said by the team that Diablo, "Is about loot". Now seeing as the development team knows this, isn't is safe to assume that they'll put a great amount of effort into making sure this all important loot can be traded and marketed appropriately?
Speaking for myself, and myself only, I feel no matter how hard we try we're not going to come to the same conclusion as the D3 team has over the years they've spent developing this unknown trading system. They're some of the most creative, intelligent, and passionate minds in the business, and have been putting their heads together for years over this problem. It's fun to discuss, but come time to see it I think we'll see how far off we all were. That being said, I also feel some great ideas have come up in discussion ;).
Well in blizzcon 2010 Jay said that they have not yet decided what trading system will be, so it may be they only recently started making it.
I see this as all the more reason to believe they've been testing all sorts of trading systems for a long time now. I feel since they know how important this system is, they started development on it very early.
They're some of the most creative, intelligent, and passionate minds in the business
After seeing SC2 battle.net and its featues I no more trust in blizzard making awesome stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if they make some kind of poor crappy trading system.
I don't play SC2 a lot, so I personally don't have any problems with it. I know a lot of others do though. This one mistake shouldn't be how you base your opinion on the entire company though. Not to mention these are completely different people developing this game, and requesting features for it's B.net style.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
If you want to restrict the flood of items simply limit how many you can put up, 5, 10, 20, etc. shorten durations, there are many things that can happen, and you can bet the the AH system of sorts will be in place. the 4 person per game hampers the trading system beucase there aren't emoungh people to be effective, rooms would close really fast. It could be possible that the AH's will be different in difficulties or acts? but if it is massive o well! I don't think the AH will kill trading just help it grow. I hated trading, it took forever and people were jag-offs 90% of the time. I would rather grind and have my stuff on the AH than stand there for 5 hours being with people saying "WUG ewwww noob"
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Sometimes you don't always know where you stand... until you know that you won't run away.
stop comparing diablo and wow, they have nothing in common.
They're both RPGs with randomized loot and a valuable ingame currency. They both have large communities who wish to trade with eachother without hassle.
diablo is not an mmo, and the only way to socialize in the game is either by trading (which wont be popular with an AH) or by helping people or getting helped.
Or playing the game cooperatively--the main function of battle.net.
dont take AH for granted, we still dont know and im sure blizz dont wanna take down trading.
It's highly likely there will be an auction house. And it doesn't take down trading, it gives you a better way to do it. Manual trade is still an option.
ok you take away haggling, since games r reduced to 4 players and you dont need to see people for trading, what would be the point of playing online?
Seriously? You're saying "The only purpose of playing online is to trade items face-to-face and haggle." Literally the most absurd argument I've ever seen on this matter. Possibly any matter ever.
stop comparing diablo and wow, they have nothing in common.
diablo is not an mmo, and the only way to socialize in the game is either by trading (which wont be popular with an AH) or by helping people or getting helped.
I am so sick of this argument, it infuriates me. There is a very very large intersection between a game like WoW and a game like Diablo. They are played with other people, you create and build characters, those characters fall into identical RPG archetypes, said characters rely heavily on gear for their effectiveness.. I could keep listing things, but it's pretty boring, so. The point is, just because one's massively multiplayer and the other isn't is immaterial. And I would argue that Diablo has ALWAYS shared some minor elements with "massively multiplayer" games..mainly because parts of Diablo are indeed persistent: battle.net. You can get into a game at any time with almost anyone. That right there lends itself to having certain similarities with WoW.
in wow, since the world is so huge and openworld, an AH is practical.
So your argument is, since an AH is practical in a large persistent world, and Diablo does not have a large persistent world, therefore an AH would NOT be practical in Diablo? Hopefully you can see the fallacy in that argument. Just because it's convenient in WoW has no bearing on the fact that it's ALSO convenient in Diablo.
The real reason an AH is convenient? So many items. With such a huge influx of items, there has to be a common center where people can go to efficiently and effectively exchange said items. That's why one of the first things humans ever built when tribes got large enough was a marketplace. You wouldn't just walk through an entire city with a wagon full of crap yelling "CELL PHONE CASES! GOT SOME CELL PHONE CASES!" No. Go to the fucking mall and get a console.
That's also why, in a game that relies on other people but does NOT have a persistent in-game world, an AH is absolutely critical! Trading and economy was so ridiculously broken in D2 that people literally created a web site that made their own, out-of-game economy because the in-game one was pathetic. If you don't agree with that, we're done here.
dont take AH for granted, we still dont know and im sure blizz dont wanna take down trading.
and btw for me, as soon as you cant haggle , i dont call it trading, you dont trade in an AH, you just buy stuff, just like with merchants.
Seriously? You're gonna make a semantic play right now? Trading is the exchange of goods between two parties. If you honestly believe that the word "trading" means meeting face-to-face and physically exchanging stuff through a p2p trading window, and anything other than that is not trading, I can do nothing for you.
Omninom rebutted your points perfectly, but I simply had to contribute for the sheer enjoyment I get out of debunking ridiculous collections of words.
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"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
and btw for me, as soon as you cant haggle , i dont call it trading, you dont trade in an AH, you just buy stuff, just like with merchants.
I saw this one quote and realized that you've played WoW, and that you go into the auction house and hit the "buy now" price. That is trading, your just willing to pay the player's mark up for convenience. Big difference with merchants which only offer a solid price. You can bid in the AH, which people do for purples and such you know the rare good stuff. For everything else you need i.e., mats, or greens to break down, you can just pay for the mark up price.
I just felt that point needed to be clarified.
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Conclusion: An Auction House would be way too frikkin overwhelmed by items.
Not a real flaw?
Possible solutions?
Post your thoughts.
WoW has a shit ton of items, I don't what unpopulated server you played on. They both (D2) have an assload of items, the thing is: are they all good/worth selling? Def not.
And now D3 has BoE items so you be able to just constantly horde items.
I think it'll be fine
Bashiok:
How to do blue quotes... ?
Using an auction house IS trading. And it would cause it to flourish.
WoW uses an almost identical magic item system, with randomized prefixes and suffixes, rares, and uniques, so we know the AH works with randomized items.
Fewer items drop in WoW, but with both games the vast majority of items are vendor trash that no one will buy in the auction house. More items might ultimately make it into the Diablo Auction house, but they will nearly all be useful.
And as for the number, the more items are in the AH the more stable the economy is, because prices will flex more smoothly. It's in no way bad to have more selection. Even if it somehow was a bad thing though, there would be plenty of ways to break it up.
Edit: No need to worry though, there's like a 99% Blizz already has an auction house implemented. They're not stupid, they know it (or something very similar) is needed.
I have always hated face-to-face (manual) trading and prefer an Auction-house style GUI. Maybe the reason trading kept you playing the game is because the core game got really boring. It did for me.
All these people saying "nope, auction house won't work" aren't thinking straight. A streamlined GUI, that allows you to filter items based on whatever specs you need is BY FAR the most effective way to acquire items. (What appears to be) A small minority of people get off on the face-to-face trading sub-game, but most people hated that.
Also, let's remember two things:
1. Crafting: dis-enchanting items into mats will greatly offset a flood of items into the economy.
2. Econ 101: Economies have a tendency to correct themselves. If everyone floods the market with crap items, and there's no demand for them, the items won't sell. Then, people being not idiots, will stop spamming crap items on the AH because they'll just lose money and waste time posting them. After an initial period of volatility, the economy will settle into a predictable steady-state where buyers get their needs met by sellers. Volatility will creep back in, and supply/demand will correct it back to steady state.
-Thomas Jefferson
Great points. The salvaging cube or whatever it is called will also help get rid of items, because the better the item is you salvage the better things you can get out of it. People might not even put stuff up on the AH if they'll get something better in return for salvaging.
Even so, as stated above, it doesn't really matter if there's a ton of shit on the AH, as long as the system is designed with that in mind. From a pure buyer's perspective, the interface will play a big part here and should allows you to sort through all current auctions well enough. I imagine there will be several options here: similar to WoW it seems reasonable you will be able to search for auctions by names, item type and level range.
However, I can also see several new parameters being introduced. Perhaps we'll be able to search for items with a specific prefix? Perhaps we can add certain modifiers we want to appear on our item.
That is, if the AH looks much like it does in WoW, which I'm not entirely convinced it will, I'm certain there will be a streamlined trading fuction implemented, but if Blizzard does something other than a pure AH we shall have to wait and see.
The only problem with AH searching is that there's those different prefixes and suffixes that make items just a hair different than each other. For instance ** of the bear, ** of the wolf , etc. I wonder how they're going to account for this.
Cruel Maul of Atlas would give 201-300% damage (Cruel) and 21-30 strength (Atlas).
Volcanic Staff of Sorcery gives +3 sorceress fire skills (Volcanic) and 11-15 energy (Sorcery).
WoW's item system, of the monkey, of the bear etc. was just a dumbed down version of D2's system. I have all confidence they'd run into no problem implementing an AH, and I personally have no urge to do face to face item trades. It's a good way to get ripped off and wastes my time.
Not to say you still couldn't spend time playing the AH or even trade face to face still. People still do it in WoW.
For instance, you could be looking for swords in the 35-40 level range that had the prefix "Dragon's", and taht would then perhaps return fifty results of "Dragon's Bastard Sword" or "Dragon's Longsword" etc.
Speaking for myself, and myself only, I feel no matter how hard we try we're not going to come to the same conclusion as the D3 team has over the years they've spent developing this unknown trading system. They're some of the most creative, intelligent, and passionate minds in the business, and have been putting their heads together for years over this problem. It's fun to discuss, but come time to see it I think we'll see how far off we all were. That being said, I also feel some great ideas have come up in discussion ;).
This is totally true.
BUT, they've spent long period of time developing other things that basically ended up being identical to comparable WoW systems. Barbarian Rage resource = Warrior Rage resource, for example. And yet they iterated it many many times before they reached this result (remember the three-balls rage meter?)
The WoW AH is pretty much perfected. They'll probably tweak a few things, and they may have tried a few crazy ideas before settling on it, but my guess is that it will remain pretty much intact. It works so damn well already.
Most of the time they've spent developing it is probably testing it and making those little tweaks. Even small changes need lots of time.
That's what I was thinking...everyone always wanted a cruel sword for a barb because of the enhanced damage...however I think that most of the things being put on the AH will be set/legend/uniques and those all have standard names so the problem could solve itself.
They can always fix it later too if need be.
I don't play SC2 a lot, so I personally don't have any problems with it. I know a lot of others do though. This one mistake shouldn't be how you base your opinion on the entire company though. Not to mention these are completely different people developing this game, and requesting features for it's B.net style.
Playing with other people.
They're both RPGs with randomized loot and a valuable ingame currency. They both have large communities who wish to trade with eachother without hassle.
Or playing the game cooperatively--the main function of battle.net.
It's highly likely there will be an auction house. And it doesn't take down trading, it gives you a better way to do it. Manual trade is still an option.
No, you bid on items, that's why it's called an AUCTION house. That's half the fun.
Seriously? You're saying "The only purpose of playing online is to trade items face-to-face and haggle." Literally the most absurd argument I've ever seen on this matter. Possibly any matter ever.
I am so sick of this argument, it infuriates me. There is a very very large intersection between a game like WoW and a game like Diablo. They are played with other people, you create and build characters, those characters fall into identical RPG archetypes, said characters rely heavily on gear for their effectiveness.. I could keep listing things, but it's pretty boring, so. The point is, just because one's massively multiplayer and the other isn't is immaterial. And I would argue that Diablo has ALWAYS shared some minor elements with "massively multiplayer" games..mainly because parts of Diablo are indeed persistent: battle.net. You can get into a game at any time with almost anyone. That right there lends itself to having certain similarities with WoW.
So your argument is, since an AH is practical in a large persistent world, and Diablo does not have a large persistent world, therefore an AH would NOT be practical in Diablo? Hopefully you can see the fallacy in that argument. Just because it's convenient in WoW has no bearing on the fact that it's ALSO convenient in Diablo.
The real reason an AH is convenient? So many items. With such a huge influx of items, there has to be a common center where people can go to efficiently and effectively exchange said items. That's why one of the first things humans ever built when tribes got large enough was a marketplace. You wouldn't just walk through an entire city with a wagon full of crap yelling "CELL PHONE CASES! GOT SOME CELL PHONE CASES!" No. Go to the fucking mall and get a console.
That's also why, in a game that relies on other people but does NOT have a persistent in-game world, an AH is absolutely critical! Trading and economy was so ridiculously broken in D2 that people literally created a web site that made their own, out-of-game economy because the in-game one was pathetic. If you don't agree with that, we're done here.
Seriously? You're gonna make a semantic play right now? Trading is the exchange of goods between two parties. If you honestly believe that the word "trading" means meeting face-to-face and physically exchanging stuff through a p2p trading window, and anything other than that is not trading, I can do nothing for you.
Omninom rebutted your points perfectly, but I simply had to contribute for the sheer enjoyment I get out of debunking ridiculous collections of words.
-Thomas Jefferson
I saw this one quote and realized that you've played WoW, and that you go into the auction house and hit the "buy now" price. That is trading, your just willing to pay the player's mark up for convenience. Big difference with merchants which only offer a solid price. You can bid in the AH, which people do for purples and such you know the rare good stuff. For everything else you need i.e., mats, or greens to break down, you can just pay for the mark up price.
I just felt that point needed to be clarified.