Introduction: As a long time forum lurker I thought I'd come out of the dark and share an idea for Diablo as I am very excited for the future potential of the game and series. As we all know, the heart and soul of Diablo 2 was the ability to trade. When Diablo three came out there were some significant problems. The ability to communicate to other players was, lets face it, terrible. Then the auction house was introduced. The auction house eliminated the need to even play the game by making gold a common currency and quickly lead to inflation nightmares for the average player. So with account bound items on the horizon I wanted to think of a way to bring trading back to the game while also limiting the ability of scams and also preserving an existing interface.
Introducing the Caldeum Bazaar:
The option to enter the bazaar opens up on your main screen upon completion of Act 2 to tie into story elements. Diablo has such rich lore and history, there is no reason to have a nameless "Auction House" when there is an area you visit in the game called a bazaar. This is where Barterign should be taking place to maintain the player within the game world. Using the Bazaar should feel to the player like they are visiting someplace to trade. Unlike visiting the auction house to just make gold. Yes, there is potential for players to steadily increase value of items from repeated trades although this will be limited by two main factors. The first and most important factor is that the act of trading requires two party consent. Players will have to revisit the Bazaar at a later time to assess trade offers and accept or deny them. Then there is the cost of listing or "requesting" (a new feature) an item. Then an additional cost to pick up the item. At the time I'm thinking Blood shards would work well for this.
Enough talk! Lets See it!
In this screen shot you can see the screen immediately after you click to go to the Bazaar. You may notice it is very similar to the auction house interface. This is by design intentional. Players are familiar with this interface and by maintaining that familiarity it should ease navigation for the player. The search functions should all be known to the player (although hopefully improved allowing for better searching IE letting players select from all possible affixes!). So lets go on to what's new and Check out the new tabs.
Search: The search tab's function should be familiar to players in function. It lets you search for items! You will notice however instead of a price for an item there is a short something written by the player showing what they may be seeking in exchange for the listed item, in addition the listing player has an option to "show" some items they are trying to replace/upgrade to give traders a focus for other items you may want in exchange for your awesome you are trying to trade. You can also find something new. Orders from other players. This is a player requesting a specific item (probably only named items) in exchange for something they have.
Barter: The barter tab will let you set up a trade offer or an order request. When you set up a trade offer you place the item you want to trade in the box similar to today on the auction house. Then under the box there is a small window to write what you want (160 characters?) Under that box is a small drop down menu with the option to say: Seeking replacements for. If you select this option you can drag and drop up to 5 of your current items. These items will not be traded and instead will give potential traders an idea of things you may want. To make a trade offer costs a resource, probably a blood shard. This makes it so that playing the game is required to use the Bazaar.
Creating an Order Request: To create an order you check a box next to the current place you would place an item to sell. This check box would instead turn that weapon slot into a drop down searchable menu of a list of items (probably only legendary?). Then instead of the option to show items you are trying to upgrade you can "show" items you would like to trade for the item you want. When you make an order items you are placing in the bottom box will all be traded for the item you want if someone accepts. This allows for players to potentially trade more than one item for another.To make an order request costs a resource, probably a blood shard. This makes it so that playing the game is required to use the Bazaar.
Offers: This menus shows your current offers and orders. If someone responds to one of your orders it will list all the responses here. You have the option to approve or deny offers for your items or orders. Because of the random nature of numbers in Diablo this allows you to assess the value of your items compared to other groups of items offered to you. This is also one of the main combatants to people attempting to play the game "exclusively" through the Bazaar. Once a player submits items for a trade they are locked into the bazaar until: time runs out or the other player interacts with the trade. With no option to buy out and giving the player to look at multiple offers for their items they could sit there a little bit. There is a slight problem with community today and instant gratification but I think we can handle it in exchange for a system that we would enjoy. Once a deal is finally struck you get to move to the pick up tab.
Pick Up: Once you make a deal that both parties have approved the said items for each player moves to the pick up tab. The pick up tab works very similar to the completed auction tab today. It will show a summary and history of your deals. But the main difference is you need to pay an additional resource to pick up the item that the bazaar merchants have been holding for you while awaiting your arrival. They don't like wasting time and want a Blood Shard from you to send it to your stash. You might call this highway robbery but again it forces the player to play the game in order to use the Bazaar.
Conclusion: I threw these two screens together tonight quickly because I would rather get the concept out there early rather than late. The whole idea is to make it so legendary items can be once again able to be traded and support a barter economy instead of one focused on an ever inflating currency. Gradually over time we would probably see something similar to SoJ as currency in D2, but as it stands there is zero barter economy within RoS's framework. If you like the idea or have suggestions and improvements please post!
No I rather not have a trading system. I think Jay Wilson is right: A game like diablo we the players shouldn't be trusted to find ways to enjoy the game. I think it is an integral part of Diablo that they monitor how we play the game and measure how differently we play the game versus their initial intention. I think removing trading all together is the correct move. It just makes the game less complicated. I don't have think think about what I'm going to do with my items. As a guy with a full time job I need a game that is straight forward.
I'm not in favor or opposed to BoA. Blizzard knows about this being a huge issue with the community and it's still very early in beta. They will update us on what the situation is going to be with BoA and how they plan to deal with it. Just try and chill out about it until they put out more beta patches.
They haven't even finished gear and weapon models... let them at least finish some of the bare bones to the game before adjusting something more intricate.
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Introducing the Caldeum Bazaar:
The option to enter the bazaar opens up on your main screen upon completion of Act 2 to tie into story elements. Diablo has such rich lore and history, there is no reason to have a nameless "Auction House" when there is an area you visit in the game called a bazaar. This is where Barterign should be taking place to maintain the player within the game world. Using the Bazaar should feel to the player like they are visiting someplace to trade. Unlike visiting the auction house to just make gold. Yes, there is potential for players to steadily increase value of items from repeated trades although this will be limited by two main factors. The first and most important factor is that the act of trading requires two party consent. Players will have to revisit the Bazaar at a later time to assess trade offers and accept or deny them. Then there is the cost of listing or "requesting" (a new feature) an item. Then an additional cost to pick up the item. At the time I'm thinking Blood shards would work well for this.
Enough talk! Lets See it!
In this screen shot you can see the screen immediately after you click to go to the Bazaar. You may notice it is very similar to the auction house interface. This is by design intentional. Players are familiar with this interface and by maintaining that familiarity it should ease navigation for the player. The search functions should all be known to the player (although hopefully improved allowing for better searching IE letting players select from all possible affixes!). So lets go on to what's new and Check out the new tabs.
Search: The search tab's function should be familiar to players in function. It lets you search for items! You will notice however instead of a price for an item there is a short something written by the player showing what they may be seeking in exchange for the listed item, in addition the listing player has an option to "show" some items they are trying to replace/upgrade to give traders a focus for other items you may want in exchange for your awesome you are trying to trade. You can also find something new. Orders from other players. This is a player requesting a specific item (probably only named items) in exchange for something they have.
Barter: The barter tab will let you set up a trade offer or an order request. When you set up a trade offer you place the item you want to trade in the box similar to today on the auction house. Then under the box there is a small window to write what you want (160 characters?) Under that box is a small drop down menu with the option to say: Seeking replacements for. If you select this option you can drag and drop up to 5 of your current items. These items will not be traded and instead will give potential traders an idea of things you may want. To make a trade offer costs a resource, probably a blood shard. This makes it so that playing the game is required to use the Bazaar.
Creating an Order Request: To create an order you check a box next to the current place you would place an item to sell. This check box would instead turn that weapon slot into a drop down searchable menu of a list of items (probably only legendary?). Then instead of the option to show items you are trying to upgrade you can "show" items you would like to trade for the item you want. When you make an order items you are placing in the bottom box will all be traded for the item you want if someone accepts. This allows for players to potentially trade more than one item for another.To make an order request costs a resource, probably a blood shard. This makes it so that playing the game is required to use the Bazaar.
Offers: This menus shows your current offers and orders. If someone responds to one of your orders it will list all the responses here. You have the option to approve or deny offers for your items or orders. Because of the random nature of numbers in Diablo this allows you to assess the value of your items compared to other groups of items offered to you. This is also one of the main combatants to people attempting to play the game "exclusively" through the Bazaar. Once a player submits items for a trade they are locked into the bazaar until: time runs out or the other player interacts with the trade. With no option to buy out and giving the player to look at multiple offers for their items they could sit there a little bit. There is a slight problem with community today and instant gratification but I think we can handle it in exchange for a system that we would enjoy. Once a deal is finally struck you get to move to the pick up tab.
Pick Up: Once you make a deal that both parties have approved the said items for each player moves to the pick up tab. The pick up tab works very similar to the completed auction tab today. It will show a summary and history of your deals. But the main difference is you need to pay an additional resource to pick up the item that the bazaar merchants have been holding for you while awaiting your arrival. They don't like wasting time and want a Blood Shard from you to send it to your stash. You might call this highway robbery but again it forces the player to play the game in order to use the Bazaar.
Conclusion: I threw these two screens together tonight quickly because I would rather get the concept out there early rather than late. The whole idea is to make it so legendary items can be once again able to be traded and support a barter economy instead of one focused on an ever inflating currency. Gradually over time we would probably see something similar to SoJ as currency in D2, but as it stands there is zero barter economy within RoS's framework. If you like the idea or have suggestions and improvements please post!
Good mock-up, though.
They haven't even finished gear and weapon models... let them at least finish some of the bare bones to the game before adjusting something more intricate.