DiabloFans

Here you go: http://us.battle.net...opic/8770118014

It covers all the latest updates, starting from Tuesday.

This does not say any thing about the AH for hardcore is it the same?
It is. The auction house is down for both Normal and Hardcore characters.

what about when the gold and refunds will be completed?
No ETA, but we believe it will require at least until tomorrow for our anti-hacks team to complete their work. If we have a more conclusive estimate (i.e. a more exact time), we'll absolutely share it. One just doesn't exist at the moment beyond what we've already provided.

Lylirra, thank you for posting, but I honestly think, for the bits of sanity left in the community, you should post on the sticky... let everyone you're having a team working on it. I myself reload the sticky post every 30-45 minutes, even though I know I won't be using the AH til tomorrow at best.
So long as the auction house is down, that means we're working on it. In fact, that's the reason why it's in maintenance right now. We wouldn't keep the auction house offline for kicks, since we know it's an inconvenience for many players.

I definitely appreciate the suggestion, but given that we anticipate the auction house won't be online until at least tomorrow, updating every half-hour would generate a lot of "no news" type of posts (which would make finding the relevant ones more difficult).

Happy to consider other options, though. Any/all feedback is welcome.

Without the AH, 90% of the game is down.
What are people going to do now, grind for garbage gear?
That's up to the individual player. If the game doesn't provide a lot of enjoyment for you right now without the auction house, then you've a few options. You could try self-found or "Iron Born" (there's a pretty strong community for that play style, especially in Hardcore), or wait to play until the auction house is back online.

We'll be keeping the main information post as up-to-date as possible, and we'll be sure to have Breaking News change once auction house maintenance is over, as well.

And your eta's on things needs to be more exact. Ty though.
If we had more exact ETAs, we'd provide them. We don't at the moment, however. Once we reach a point where we can share a time (or even a time frame), we will.

Right now, the ETA is "once our anti-hacks teams has completed their work." Unfortunately, that's hard to measure on a clock face. =/

Lylirra is hit for 1,000,000 Missing the Point damage!
I understood the point. I chose to answer the question at face value, however, rather than comment on what was otherwise an antagonizing, though rhetorical statement.

Can I presume then that by the time the AH opens up, all auctions will have expired?

Previously I recall seeing announcements that Blizz do NOT influence the auction house nor 'control' drops to prevent flooding of said market.

Any pre-emptive responses for when it does come online and there are pages and pages of auctions, many which will be below the 'just made' time left?
You presume correctly. By the time auction house is brought back up, all posted auctions will have expired naturally (since it will be > 36 hours).

How about an eta on when we will be able to trade igg for items with other players? Is it going to parallel the AH opening?
At this point, that's the plan. We'll update the main thread if that plan changes.

It would be nice of you guys to shed some light on what will happen to the items that were purchased with the duped gold.
EDIT: I don't know if that comes off as rude, but it's not meant to be. Sorry just in case!
No worries. I didn't interpret it as rude at at all.

To answer your question, though, that's still being determined, and I don't have any additional details to share. Right now, we're working on tracking down exactly where everything went, to whom, in what form, and the best way to reverse those effects (this can vary depending on the situation and the player). Whatever course of action we choose to take, though, we'll want to make sure that it impacts players who didn't use the dupe in the smallest way possible (if at all).

One would think that the statement "when we have more info, we'll let you know" would be easy understood, yet it seems that most of the forum goers are just like that kid constantly asking why.
Eh. It's human nature to be curious and want to understand what's happening. Can't really fault anyone for asking questions, you know? Especially if they're being sincere and polite.

Here are the exact values for clarification:

• Experience granted by the following monsters has been reduced to better match their HP:
• By 75% for:
• Brood Hatchlings, Cavern Spiders, Spiderlings, Stygian Crawlers, and Tormented Stingers
• By 60% for:
• Accursed, Betrayed, Blazing Ghouls, Ghouls, Murderous Fiends, Reviled, Savage Fiends, and Vicious Ghouls
• By 50% for:
• Bile Crawlers, Crazed Cultists, Crazed Summoners, Dark Conjurers, Dark Cultists, Dark Summoners, Dark Zealots, Deranged Cultists, Doom Wraiths, Enraged Zealots, Fallen, Fallen Grunts, Fallen Peons, Fallen Soldiers, Foul Conjurers, Ravenous Dead, Shade Stalkers, Shadow Vermin, Skeletal Crawlers, and Spine Lashers
• By 40% for:
• Dark Moon Clan Impalers, Moon Clan Impalers
• By 34% for:
• Blazing Guardians, Charged Constructs, Chilling Constructs, Frost Guardians, Noxious Guardians, Shock Guardians, Smoldering Constructs, and Toxic Constructs
• By 25% for:
• Dust Shamblers, Hungry Corpses, Retching Cadavers

• The chance for the following monsters to drop loot has also been reduced to better match their HP:
• By 60% for:
• Accursed, Betrayed, Blazing Ghouls, Ghouls, Murderous Fiends, Reviled, Savage Fiends, and Vicious Ghouls
• By 50% for:
• Bile Crawlers, Crazed Cultists, Dark Cultists, Dark Zealots, Deranged Cultists, Doom Wraiths, Enraged Zealots, Fallen, Fallen Grunts, Fallen Peons, Fallen Soldiers, Ravenous Dead, Shade Stalkers, Shadow Vermin, Skeletal Crawlers, and Spine Lashers
• By 40% for:
• Dark Moon Clan Impalers, Moon Clan Impalers
• By 34% for:
• Blazing Guardians, Charged Constructs, Chilling Constructs, Frost Guardians, Noxious Guardians, Shock Guardians, Smoldering Constructs. and Toxic Constructs
• By 25% for:
• Brood Hatchlings, Cavern Spiders, Crazed Summoners, Dark Conjurers, Dark Summoners, Dust Shamblers, Fallen, Fallen Grunts, Fallen Peons, Fallen Soldiers, Foul Conjurers, Hungry Corpses, Retching Cadavers, Spiderlings

These changes were about balancing monster difficulty vs. monster reward. It also helped us make sure that we weren't making any zones in Act I, Act II, and Act IV too OP, or the next must-go-to place for farming, by increasing their density. This way, zones should be more even in terms of reward, which should in turn give players more options when deciding where they want to farm.

So once again we get the "on one hand see what we did for you isn't it great? "(monster density) then as a side maybe they wont notice "oh by the way no trash mob is worth killing anymore even though there is twice as many"

Why do you insist on giving on one hand and taking away more with the other? Really a STUPID way of doing things.
The goal of increasing monster density was two-fold: 1) play up the fantasy of being a barbarian, demon hunter, monk, witch doctor, or wizard by giving players more monsters to kill and 2) provide viable alternates to Act 3.

The first goal is pretty easy to achieve: just up the density. DONE. However, if that's all we did, we would have just shifted where players farmed, not actually created any alternatives -- which didn't really solve any problems. Increasing density was just part of the equation. To make zones more equitable, we also needed to better scale the rewards of the monsters in them.

There were several monsters in the game pre-1.0.8 that were more or less outliers in terms of reward. That is, they provided similar experience and had drop rates comparable to monsters that were much more difficult to kill. What we did is essentially make it so that their rewards now match their difficulty -- and that's something that's just better for game overall. Wyatt provided a relative explanation here, as well. He only focused on scorpions, but the rationale is the same.

(Also, keep in mind that we buffed the hell out of EXP. What's not included in that post is that Enlightened Shrines stack multiplicatively, too.)

If anyone's upset about the "nerfs," I suggest you try playing the game some. It really does balance out, or if anything, you come out ahead. Yeah, they drop less often, but you kill many more mobs with about the same speed, so it's a net gain. Add to that, the fact that it's a lot more fun to wade through a populated map then run through a vacant one and...just try it.
This was our goal, and we think we were able to get everything to point where it feels like a net gain when you're in the game playing.

Obviously, if you've played and you disagree, let us know. We're still monitoring feedback on the new density changes and would love to hear (see?) if players think we could make some further improvements.

Rejoice, heroes of Sanctuary! The Diablo III game guide has just been updated with information on the new features in patch 1.0.8:

• Matchmaking Tags
• Players Near You
• Combat Alerts
• Multiplayer Game Bonuses
• Updated Account Compromise & Rollback Policy
• Multi–User Chat Conversations

After your requests for information on the specifics behind the bidding system, we’ve also added a How Bidding Works section to the Auction House page. We’re always looking for ways to expand and improve the guide with answers to all of your questions. If there are any particular aspects of the game you’re curious about, let us know in the comments!