So I was watching this press interview that Jesse(OMFGcata) posted on his channel where Robert Bridenbecker, Vice President of Online Technologies at Blizzard, talk about stuff and he said some things I found interesting. I'm not sure if this was already known, but I sure haven't heard about it so here goes (Yea I saw this video has been posted in another thread, but figured some people would want this brought to light).
There are no region locks at all for servers. For example: If you buy the game in NA you can still play anywhere, the only lock is for the RMAH auction house.
Excluding certain regions where the market is quite different, such as China.
Official Blizzard Quote:
If you buy Diablo 3, you are just buying Diablo 3, you can play wherever you want. So you guys get to choose. Now what we will do is we will lock you down to a specific auction house, so for example if you are a European national you would have access to the European auction house. You will still be able to play in North America. You can participate in the gold auction house if you want, but you can only participate in the real money auction house of your native country [editor note: region]. [Another example] North American citizen, play anywhere, participate in the gold auction house anywhere, but the RMAH only in North America.
Your account registration details will determine where you can use the RMAH. If it's set to Britain your default RMAH will be GPB and your playzone will be Europe. Playzone is changeable to where you want to play.
It was also stated that since there may be multiple currencies within a specific region you are free to, if you so wish, use the other currencies RMAH within your region.
Blizzard doesn't expect this to be very popular though due to those purchases being subject to currency exchange fee's and such.
Also there was some additional info regarding regional clients:
Official Blizzard Quote:
The download of the actual client will have no basis on where you can connect, all it's gonna dictate is what your language pack is... ... You wanna download the german client and play in Europe? you do that. You wanna download the german client and play in North America? you can do that too.
Q: So the functionality is closer to what Diablo 2 had where you could just choose server rather than Starcraft 2.
Yes.
This can be a pretty silly questions, but i wonder if you are able to use a character from say Australia and play in the US realm since theres no region lock.
I know in previous games you cant, but they may just change it for D3 since AH is separate.
This can be a pretty silly questions, but i wonder if you are able to use a character from say Australia and play in the US realm since theres no region lock.
I know in previous games you cant, but they may just change it for D3 since AH is separate.
No I doubt you will be able to transfer characters from different regions. Additionally, Australians won't have a server region of their own (But maybe a RMAH? No details on that yet). So as Blizzard has stated earlier you either play on SEA or NA (or Europe if you so please, according to this new info).
"so for example if you are a European national you would have access to the European auction house"
thats actually really great news, after i read about the RMAH restrictions, i thought "uh" .. - because at first i thought it'd be a RMAH-country-lock, meaning... if i live in germany, i will only have access to the german RMAH
that would suck, the chance to find the item you're looking for would be much smaller
so i can 100% assume that there'll be a ONE RMAH for ALL european countries and not one for each, right? o.o
Almost.
There will be a RMAH for each currency they support. We still don't know how many currencies they will actually support (if only the big ones such as €, £ or other smallers ones as well) but it seems they are probably going to be quite a few.
This would mean since you live in Germany you will default to the € RMAH. For me though I may be defaulted to SEK (Swedish crowns) since I live in Sweden. Those auction houses will be separated. BUT since they are both in Europe region we can change and then both buy and sell in either of those RMAH's if we'd like, but then be victim to whatever currency exchange transactions there are for those currencies.
So basically if you don't find what you want in your own RMAH then you could look around in the other currencies (within your region). It may get more expensive due to exchange rates, or you might be lucky and find a good deal and get it even cheaper than your own RMAH, lots of possibilities.
So if I understand this correctly, this means that all the gold/item farmers will only be able to sell on the RMAH in their region? This is awesome, at least for the people who don't live in a region populated by gold/item farmers (I'm assuming that there aren't just as many in ALL regions of course and assuming there isn't a way around the region restriction).
I don't see how this makes sense. Maybe I am understanding it wrong. If you can play with people who are not in your region, and trade with them, doesn't that basically mean they are creating a group of people who going to do arbitrage between the various Real Money Auction Houses? You will own a character that does U.S. and have someone own a character that does China. You will have them both play on U.S. Servers, but one will have access to U.S. RMAH and one will have access to Chinese RMAH. So basically, you're creating a de facto exchange between the regions, something I thought they were trying to avoid.
I don't really care that much personally one way or the other, but it kind of seems like, from an international law perspective, that this is doing exactly what Blizzard has said repeatedly they did not want to do.
I don't see how this makes sense. Maybe I am understanding it wrong. If you can play with people who are not in your region, and trade with them, doesn't that basically mean they are creating a group of people who going to do arbitrage between the various Real Money Auction Houses? You will own a character that does U.S. and have someone own a character that does China. You will have them both play on U.S. Servers, but one will have access to U.S. RMAH and one will have access to Chinese RMAH. So basically, you're creating a de facto exchange between the regions, something I thought they were trying to avoid.
I don't really care that much personally one way or the other, but it kind of seems like, from an international law perspective, that this is doing exactly what Blizzard has said repeatedly they did not want to do.
Am I getting something wrong here?
You make an excellent point here and I'm completely stumped. I haven't watched the interview yet so I only have the knowledege the OP presented, but it looks like Blizzard shot itself in the foot on this one.
I don't understand what it means to be restricted to "only your region's RMAH."
Say I buy a North America box. I make a character on Europe servers.
Does this mean that I effectively can't use RMAH for that character?
Or can I use the North America server's RMAH to buy stuff? If I could, that would imply a global database is operative that lets you transfer items across the different servers.
At that point, the question comes up of whether there is a single gold auction house universal to all regions. Or furthermore, whether characters are even restricted to one set of servers, or might move about freely depending on where you want to play.
The problem with that is, even if they cant use the RMAH directly they still can flood the GAH with items and thus will devalue the items.
There's no incentive to do so if they aren't getting paid. They would essentially be limited to whatever money they can derive from rich Chinese region customers, which is a much smaller pool than if America and Europe were also paying into it. Unless they set up some 3rd-party gold-selling sites that complete the trades face to face. So... yeah another failed rationale on the RMAH.
If they are smart there will be one RMAH per region for instance USD for the NA and Euro for EU. Having one per currency would be pretty stupid and paypal can handle any currency conversions needed.
The question is if you have an NA account, and you create a character in the EU region, can you buy things from the EU GAH and then list it on the NA RMAH? Is this then going to create vast trade opportunities between regional GAH's and RMAH's due to barriers of entry and variable local prices?
That is interesting.... Ive known for a while that us SEA users (mainly Australia and New Zealand who would) can play on the NA servers similar to SC2, however as others have said if items are swappable by region this could also mean characters are?? Either way i'm gonna try to change my region in BNET cos SEA prices and currencies are gonna suck theres just gonna be too many, rather stick to USD or Euro.
Ok just found this on D3 website which directly contradicts what he says.
For reference the auction house section.
How does this impact the items I have purchased in the auction house?
Auction house purchases are bound to the servers in the region in which they're bought. Any items acquired on the Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia servers, in-game or otherwise, are bound to those servers and are not transferrable to the North American servers (and vice versa). Please keep this in mind when making purchases in the auction house.
Hm.. yeah, this interview is more recent than that information though. We still need a lot of clarification on this part because I very much doubt they want to allow cross-region trade in any fashion.
So I'm gonna wait til they actually declare how this will work in detail.
It is very vague and I would love to actually know whether it is the version of the game, your b-net account or your ip address that determines which RMAH you use. I would prefer not to be locked into an Asian RMAH preferrably.
My home RMAH is the NA server, but I find gold is easier to come buy in the Asia server ( random pick I swear ). I spend all my time in the Asia server, transfer all my gold to my toon on the US server, and then sell my gold. Granted you cannot buy items and trade them back to the Asia server.
The end result, since I've taken gold out of the Asia market, gold is now more valuable since there is less flowing around. The gold dumped into the US market will devalue its worth, now assuming my previous perception that US > Asia in gold worth, I have changed the value of gold ever so slightly to more of balanced value between the servers.
Good news indeed, thanks for the find!
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There are no region locks at all for servers. For example: If you buy the game in NA you can still play anywhere, the only lock is for the RMAH auction house.
Excluding certain regions where the market is quite different, such as China.
Official Blizzard Quote:
If you buy Diablo 3, you are just buying Diablo 3, you can play wherever you want. So you guys get to choose. Now what we will do is we will lock you down to a specific auction house, so for example if you are a European national you would have access to the European auction house. You will still be able to play in North America. You can participate in the gold auction house if you want, but you can only participate in the real money auction house of your native country [editor note: region]. [Another example] North American citizen, play anywhere, participate in the gold auction house anywhere, but the RMAH only in North America.
Your account registration details will determine where you can use the RMAH. If it's set to Britain your default RMAH will be GPB and your playzone will be Europe. Playzone is changeable to where you want to play.
It was also stated that since there may be multiple currencies within a specific region you are free to, if you so wish, use the other currencies RMAH within your region.
Blizzard doesn't expect this to be very popular though due to those purchases being subject to currency exchange fee's and such.
Also there was some additional info regarding regional clients:
Official Blizzard Quote:
The download of the actual client will have no basis on where you can connect, all it's gonna dictate is what your language pack is... ... You wanna download the german client and play in Europe? you do that. You wanna download the german client and play in North America? you can do that too.
Q: So the functionality is closer to what Diablo 2 had where you could just choose server rather than Starcraft 2.
Yes.
Some more interesting bits can be found in the full Interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZirE9nd8ILc
So a question ontop of this.
This can be a pretty silly questions, but i wonder if you are able to use a character from say Australia and play in the US realm since theres no region lock.
I know in previous games you cant, but they may just change it for D3 since AH is separate.
No I doubt you will be able to transfer characters from different regions. Additionally, Australians won't have a server region of their own (But maybe a RMAH? No details on that yet). So as Blizzard has stated earlier you either play on SEA or NA (or Europe if you so please, according to this new info).
Almost.
There will be a RMAH for each currency they support. We still don't know how many currencies they will actually support (if only the big ones such as €, £ or other smallers ones as well) but it seems they are probably going to be quite a few.
This would mean since you live in Germany you will default to the € RMAH. For me though I may be defaulted to SEK (Swedish crowns) since I live in Sweden. Those auction houses will be separated. BUT since they are both in Europe region we can change and then both buy and sell in either of those RMAH's if we'd like, but then be victim to whatever currency exchange transactions there are for those currencies.
So basically if you don't find what you want in your own RMAH then you could look around in the other currencies (within your region). It may get more expensive due to exchange rates, or you might be lucky and find a good deal and get it even cheaper than your own RMAH, lots of possibilities.
Hope that clears it up.
I don't see how this makes sense. Maybe I am understanding it wrong. If you can play with people who are not in your region, and trade with them, doesn't that basically mean they are creating a group of people who going to do arbitrage between the various Real Money Auction Houses? You will own a character that does U.S. and have someone own a character that does China. You will have them both play on U.S. Servers, but one will have access to U.S. RMAH and one will have access to Chinese RMAH. So basically, you're creating a de facto exchange between the regions, something I thought they were trying to avoid.
I don't really care that much personally one way or the other, but it kind of seems like, from an international law perspective, that this is doing exactly what Blizzard has said repeatedly they did not want to do.
Am I getting something wrong here?
So if the chance arises I'll be able to play with some of my diablofans comrades in the U.S....or at least I'll try.
You make an excellent point here and I'm completely stumped. I haven't watched the interview yet so I only have the knowledege the OP presented, but it looks like Blizzard shot itself in the foot on this one.
Say I buy a North America box. I make a character on Europe servers.
Does this mean that I effectively can't use RMAH for that character?
Or can I use the North America server's RMAH to buy stuff? If I could, that would imply a global database is operative that lets you transfer items across the different servers.
At that point, the question comes up of whether there is a single gold auction house universal to all regions. Or furthermore, whether characters are even restricted to one set of servers, or might move about freely depending on where you want to play.
There's no incentive to do so if they aren't getting paid. They would essentially be limited to whatever money they can derive from rich Chinese region customers, which is a much smaller pool than if America and Europe were also paying into it. Unless they set up some 3rd-party gold-selling sites that complete the trades face to face. So... yeah another failed rationale on the RMAH.
If they are smart there will be one RMAH per region for instance USD for the NA and Euro for EU. Having one per currency would be pretty stupid and paypal can handle any currency conversions needed.
The question is if you have an NA account, and you create a character in the EU region, can you buy things from the EU GAH and then list it on the NA RMAH? Is this then going to create vast trade opportunities between regional GAH's and RMAH's due to barriers of entry and variable local prices?
Intriguing.
For reference the auction house section.
How does this impact the items I have purchased in the auction house?
Auction house purchases are bound to the servers in the region in which they're bought. Any items acquired on the Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia servers, in-game or otherwise, are bound to those servers and are not transferrable to the North American servers (and vice versa). Please keep this in mind when making purchases in the auction house.
So I'm gonna wait til they actually declare how this will work in detail.
My home RMAH is the NA server, but I find gold is easier to come buy in the Asia server ( random pick I swear ). I spend all my time in the Asia server, transfer all my gold to my toon on the US server, and then sell my gold. Granted you cannot buy items and trade them back to the Asia server.
The end result, since I've taken gold out of the Asia market, gold is now more valuable since there is less flowing around. The gold dumped into the US market will devalue its worth, now assuming my previous perception that US > Asia in gold worth, I have changed the value of gold ever so slightly to more of balanced value between the servers.
Good news indeed, thanks for the find!