First off, Bashiok made a long reply to this thread on the subject of what types of trading systems will be in Diablo 3:
Next up, and this isn't too surprising, Bashiok responded to the same overly enthused member in this thread about how the user interface and icons we've seen in Diablo 3 so far are really just placeholders.I'm not sure I understood all of what you said, sorry, it sort of read like stereo instructions written by the guy that scares people away from using the pay phone at the 7-11 down the street.
Just a couple of my own cents on the system. First off we really don't have a solid plan for any sort of external trading system, that is anything beyond being in the same game with the person. We know we'd like something like that though if at all possible.
Foremost - spamming is bad. I think trade channels usually suck because of the requirement to spam. The amount of time and effort spent just to get your items noticed borders on brain-explosiony. Throw in the lack of easily gauged economy and you're usually left out in the dark, laughed at, ripped off, etc. Your suggestion seems to mix the idea of an auction house and trade channel, in that you can use a channel in-game to spam, and then have some sort of UI to trade the item. That definitely solves one issue, which is needing to leave the game and just sit in a chat channel. What it doesn't solve is needing to sit in a chat channel and spam. Sure, you could probably play and spam the channel every once in a while but it's really not the cleanest approach. You're still spamming a chat channel, you're still limited to the people that want to see that spam (ie not many).
Since you brought it up let's move on to the World of Warcraft's auction house. World of Warcraft did not invent the auction house trading system. It may have certainly refined it, but an irrational hatred of the game that some of you seem to have really shouldn't translate to game systems that aren't original to it. There are some major advantages to an auction house similar to WoW's. You don't have to be present being the biggest and best. You can be playing with friends, PvPing, asleep, at school or work, and someone has the ability to see your items, and you have a greater chance to sell/trade them. You don't have to spam a channel, you don't have to even be online and playing. That's HUGE, and really the main reason so many people use trading systems such as websites and forums for Diablo II. You want to focus on playing the game or not playing the game, not sitting around hoping someone wants your item.
It also helps form a visible and easily identified economy. I'm a new player, I got a sword I think it's probably pretty nice, I can go on an auction house and search for it or similar swords and get an idea of how much it should sell for. In this case being in a trade channel is no better whether it's in-game or out of game. What you'd probably end up with is people still going to forums and more static styles of trading found on websites, but even then any unified sense of economy is spread thin. Maybe that's not such a bad system in itself, and an official trading site could work. Of course what you lose either way though, auction house or website, is in-game player interaction. Which is what I assume you're striving to keep.
When it comes down to it, any change or addition or removal of any systems have to be weighed. Do the positives outweigh the negatives?
I'll go back to what I said at the beginning and state we don't know what if any types of trading systems will be in the final game. Maybe there won't be, it may be that eventually we settle on leaving it Diablo II style. We have some ideas of what would be cool, but at the end of the day we're not going to do anything that isn't far and away a more positive change for the game.
So there you have it. As far as the UI and icons go, we've yet to see what's really going to appear in the game."Wow... well you're obviously very excited.
Uhm, well out of all the things you said I guess I could probably talk about the icons. All of the Diablo III UI and icons are created by the Diablo III team, mainly our UI designer Mike Nicholson. We're not taking any art from other games, it's all created for Diablo III. It should also be noted that everything seen thus far should be considered placeholder, a lot of the UI has already changed fairly significantly."
Moving right along, another member asked Bashiok questions about whether or not Blizzard plans on making use of Direct X 10 in Diablo 3. Here's what he had to say:
Plenty to digest for one day, eh? Let the discussions begin!"We're not currently using any specific DirectX 10 features in Diablo III. That could potentially change of course, but if it did we don't have any plans to then require DirectX 10 to play the game."
It makes it really hard to hustle. I would never intentionally rip kids off or scam, but in D2 I had a very good knowledge of how much all items were worth in terms of HR's etc. I could use this to my advantage and I think I became a better player because of this. With the auction house, every item is worth the same, and if you want to move merchandise in a fast manner, you have to undersell. Not something I would want to do...
Basically it puts n00bs and trading gurus on more or less the same page, which is not something I want to see happen.
I'd prefer this trading system. I dont even think Diablo 2 trading could be classified as a system, unless you used d2jsp.
I always said the same thing....god I hope they put some form of trading system in D3 thats better and make a real currency we can use...
Any new trading system will be better than D2' system.
Trades should be mixable at the auction house
You brought up a good point... WoW does not allow item to item trade! But i think the D3 team would realiae that money is to easy to come by lol... I think thats why it would be a compleatly different system than WoW or any other trading system that i know of as of right now... I would propose an bid system where the poster of the item obiously posts the item and has (a time set by him) to accept any bids lets say 24 hrs... so i post up a torch, people have 24 hours to offer me items that they put in their (lets call it trading bank) and i have to accept the offer i want which then would transfer the items from each players trading bank.
Just gold.....
sarcasm mode on or off? anyway, YES Blizzard will make gold the main currency for the despair of many (not mine)... I just hope they don't focus 100% in gold, the bartering system is nice too.
Works brilliantly in World of Warcraft.
You can set static prices (gold) or set the auction so you can accept offers from people with items to offer in exchange. If you want to trade for something of equal or lesser value you should be the players own choice and people put offers in (and have the ability to take them away before transaction) with the ability for the player selling the item to choose which auction best represents his needs or desires :cool:
Yes you can do that, once you have the item in your inventory you can drop it for everyone to take off the ground.
I think it is more of a concern for those who have graphics cards that "aren't allowed" to do DX10. If I remember correctly the Geforce 7700 kicked the but of most of the 8000 series cards and yet you were forced to go to 8000 if you wanted DX10. Basically get a worse card for better graphics, which is just plain stupid.
It is a concern for those who have a budget system with cards that cannot be upgraded to PCI express but still want to play D3!
On a side not I am glad Blizzard will not bend to the diabolical forces thrusting DX10 and the pointless upgrading of graphics cards on everyone:thumbsup:
Agreed, then you can look through your offers every once in a while and accept or reject them. The only downside is you would have to keep your gear in the trade until the deal is done or you pull the offer down. This could be a problem if you fill the space that your offer previously occupied or you are actually using the gear.
It would be great if they also left in the D2 trading "system" on top of this for quicker in-game trades.
Man, I can't wait for this game to come out. No other game does it for me online-wise ...
Seriously though, the need for a streamlines economy for millions of players outweighs the need for individual players making money off of less knowledgeable players if the system is going to work efficiently.
Not necessarily. Judging by the levelling speed and need for good gear in Diablo 2, if the same pattern comes back in D3 then the main potion of the market is going to be in the end-game bracket. The market for lower-levels would be a low-supply and low-demand piece of the whole.