Official Blizzard Quote:
"Yes, true, as Jay said at BlizzCon we are planning to have some amount of items that will bind to a character upon equipping them.
We absolutely won't have items that bind when picked up, except for the obvious things like quest items and other character-specific items that wouldn't/shouldn't be tradable anyway.
That alone, I think, should dissuade the most severe concerns with binding items. And before I go on just understand that while a lot of this is very stable in its concepts, the details aren't final.
For Bind on Equip (BoE), the idea right now is that it would only be applied to "end game" items of specific quality levels. So to start, it's not every item, and it's not even every item above a certain level. For the BoE items that will exist, you can pick them up, if you don't want it you can still trade it, or give it to another character, a friend, vendor it, whatever you like. But, if you make the commitment to keeping the item and equipping it, yes, it's yours now.
The reasoning is that in reality we need a solid way to keep the economy stable at the end game. With items building up over a potentially infinite amount of time there's no way to have any measure of control over worth of items. While an item may be the rarest and best in the game, over four or five years a stockpile has built up and those items are now commonplace and hold little value as compared to their rarity. The gold being earned by players stays the same or likely increases as players become more proficient at playing the game while they spend less as items lose their value. Gold value drops, and we're skirting into a familiar cycle.
By ensuring we can rely on some amount of "consumption" of items, their relative worth stays high, the market is predictable and both sellers and buyers enjoy a stable marketplace for (hopefully) many years.
Diablo II has an inconsistent approach which is the somewhat stable Ladder economy, since it's quite literally flushed out every so often. But it's a very intrusive approach to a problem that could be solved through other means that don't require making everyone start over.
As a quasi-aside: There's an idea being thrown around, and this is really not guaranteed in any way, that some or potentially all items that are bound to you could be bound to your entire account. So if you yourself "own" an item from it being bound, you can trade it between all the characters on your account freely. Feed alts your old-but-still-very-nice items, etc. That's just an idea, it may not take shape, but it's a possibility."
How would I get rid of it if I find a better item? Just drop it?
I know, I only wish it was just a bit more clear about what your options were once it was bound to you, even if it was only the current iteration.
I think this feature is a great addition to the game, and will help solve some of the "messiness" in Diablo II's late economy.
In addition, if they make these items Bind On Account, I don't think anyone can complain to this change as a whole.
This basically means if you find a kickass item, you are going to use it, so you would effectively have to find that kickass item twice in order to trade it.
But, he is only talking about super end-game items, which is fine IMO.
Oh I love the idea, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm just interested to hear a bit more about the mechanics.
But...getting to play a beta would be even better...
Btw, I like the bind to account better than bind to character....
1. @ Odin, you are wrong by saying that Diablo is known as a single player game when it's known by everyone as one of the best online RPG ever created and this isn't just me talking. Ask any D player.
Don't believe me, here's a quote by Wikipedia.
It was rated game of the year mainly based on it's multiplayer capabilities.
2. @ Debo, no Odin wasn't right. But YOU are. BoE and BoP doesn't affect single player at all, and is solely designed to save a game economy from being turned into D2. Obviously, Odin either didn't get the message, or hasn't figured out yet that Diablo is mainly a multiplayer game sporting a single player option for both anti socialists and/or people with shitty internet connections wishing to enjoy the game at full speed.
As a side note, if Blizzard made Account Items possible, they could do it for single player as well. Meaning that your loot could be interchangeable between single player characters. Don't know if that would be good or bad but I'm just speculating.
Here we go again...
Let me finish the sentence for you.
"but you know... I didn't sign no petition for nothing.
If you actually take time to read the full thread before posting, you would of seen that in the quote from Blizzard, they didn't actually say that they wouldn't bring back the ladder. What they ment was that it's not the best way to deal with the situation. Although progress doesn't seem to be an important factor to you", it is greatly appreciated by most people.
1. If you don't mind BOE then why you posting this complaint...
2. Once again if you actually read the quote from Blizzard, you would of seen, it clearly stated that BoP items will be quest items. Or things that are usually suppose to be BoP. Meaning your loot will still be tradable. So what's the problem exactly?
I don't agree. Diablo is a Single Player foremost. I rarely played online (although i played a lot LAN or DirectIP), but i consider myself hardcore D player. And even when you play multiplayer (which is great, i remember on Diablo1 me and my friends played for a week without sleeping/eating) it still feels like Single Player with other characters running around to interact with. Diablo was always about the adventure and the story, and mostly you get it on SP.
Don't get me wrong, MP is great, but its not the main part of Diablo.
I think if we do a poll on which mode you first play when you run the game (or play mostly on) there will be more people that will choose SP.
Also, about the BoE/BoP - sounds fine to me and it doesn't concern SP. Its all better if they make MP better.
I highly disagree, someone needs to make a poll...
The argument of adventure and story is null and void once you've done the bosses 4 times each for experience, and you've done 20 mephisto runs for MF.
Diablo was all about the items, and ultimately, that was its major flaw.
I don't give a damn what anyone has to say about this. These are Blizzard's words.
If it wasn't primarily a single player game, you could not run through the entire game alone, you could not complete it entirely alone, there would be things impossible to do alone, and THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE.
First and foremost a SP game. I'm just sad to hear all thisthis. Also, "Hey! Lets make a poll on the internet about it!" Brilliant, except that you don't realize most people that will play SP will certainly not be visiting an online community of the game and answering that poll. Nice idea.
Blizzard do realize that there are a lot of people that plays this game online religiously, and makes changes accordingly that affects them mostly, but not the single player part (BoA mainly, would have no impact whatsoever on your SP experience).
That doesn't mean its suddenly a MP game, and even if 90% of the player base (which I'm sure is not the case) ends up playing online, its still primarily a SP game because of Blizzard and how they designed it.
They just gave me a reason to stop anticipating Diablo 3.
that caught my attention as well.
additionally i'm worried about hardcore. hardcore doesn't need bind on equip items for items to be consumed.
i can imagine that adding another level of consumption to a community that already has fewer items floating around due to deaths may not work out well.
and i'm still worried about what boe items will mean for the hardcore looting feature, if looting will even return.
......sigh
There could be a ladder still it just won't have resets, which means the ranking will have to change from who hits 99 first to something else. Maybe, who has played the most, that day/week/month. I'm sure they'll have a ranking system of some type.
Oh, and I played SP since the game came outs, I only got into battle.net in the last year or two. I avoided it at first because of lag and pk issues, but now exclusively play ladder cause there's a lot more to the game if you do.