PS. For me the worst thing in the "classic" trading system found in D2 and PoE is that trading takes so much time. I realize that it forces the player to really think what he should try to sell and what to scrap but still it just takes away too much of your time which really should be spent playing the game instead of browsing the forums.
That's the point, though. You don't NEED to trade. If the game rewards you when you play it (i.e., you get the drops you need), why do you need to trade?
I think what everyone wants to see here is a better way to trade on the game, but it's clear that the AH in it's current form is not the answer to that. Trading is and should always be a good option whether they need it nor not. In this case, I assume that you just don't need to trade, but for the people who do, they want a better way to do it without the hassles of the current AH system or the hassles of the original D2 system.
We need a way to trade that gives us versatility between giving someone gold or items, while simultaneously eliminating the need to be with that person in game. We also don't want this system to affect our loot tables or effect the economy of the game in drastic ways and not force future updates of the game to revolve around it. We need to find a middle ground between the convenience of the AH house and the more difficult, but versatile way of the original D2 trading system.
The Semi-Automatic AH ideal mentioned above is a good start for this, but I want to add some of my own ideas. To start, I don't think it should even be called an AH, I think we should just call it a market or a trading post and have an area in-game where we can access it. The following mechanics for this are what were mentioned in the Semi-Automatic AH:
The semi-automatic "Auction House";
- A seller puts an item up and writes what he would want for it (gold/items/etc.) and the item would be "reserved" (or transferred) to the "Auction House" so the seller can't use it while it is posted
- A buyer can then send an offer to the seller and the game automatically "reserves" the offered items/gold from the buyers stash so they can't be used while the trade is still "open"
- The seller goes through all the offers he has got and if he accepts one, the trade is done automatically and all the other items offered by other players are freed. This would remove the hassle of having to agree on a certain time to be online with somebody.
- The seller and the buyers could "free" their items at any time if they later decide they didn't want to trade and the trade is still "open".
Everyone here that's complaining about taking the AH down, i will almost place everything i own on the fact that at some point in time you have used the AH to either buy or sell items at some point in time.
Cool. I'll add you so you can give me your stuff.
So i'm guessing you are against the AH. Then don't use it? If you play SC and you are complaining about the fact that AH is ruining the game .... simple answer ... dont' use it. As you stated you don't. So why you even posting here?
Would give you my stuff. As you said you don't play HC, so no point. Also, would mean you would receive several items i gained via AH. So therefore you would be crying, best to keep them and get on with my grind then give them to a ungrateful child.
Now the problem is that you can't play without the AH if your not a geek that can play this game every day for many many hours and don't have a work. Cause the itemdrop is so freaking low because of the AH, so you can't find items at all that does you able to play in mp2+ almost on your own, if you are, then its very very very very very very time consuming. To much.
If the just did higher Itemdrops like how it should be, really, then there would be to much items on the AH and people would start whine about theyre not getting money and it would be a big inflation.
Call me naive, but can someone link me to the official blue post where it says that item drops in game are directly effected by the items on the AH.
Drops are not dynamically effected by the AH (i.e. an item isn't more or less likely to drop based on how many are or aren't on the AH), but they have said that they tuned drops around the existence of the AH. Which makes you question how Jay Wilson can say something like "we didn't expect that most people would even use the AH" when drops in the game were tuned from the beginning based on the existence of the AH. Just another example of how clueless he is/was.
They have already said that "AH was a fail". They sold 6.5 millions first week, 12 millions in 2012, but there just 1/12 that are playing the game, thats not good at all, especially with what the game could have been. And as we can see, blizzard tries actively to try to fix this problems with all these devblog post about futures and doing updates cause they know that it didn't go as expected.
1 million players EVERY DAY. 3 million active players every month. One quarter of players still active 10 months after release - not good at all? Good lord, other software publishers would kill for that ratio.
Its not good equal to what the game could have had. If you see how many that bought it, and then see that only 1/12 is playing the game, its not so good. The numbers is high yes, and it is really much, no shit on that, but the active player base could be much higher if it were done right. Many top games has more than this, and i consider Diablo series to be on of the top games.
Please enlighten me to a single game (even the top rated games of 2010-2012) that have a ratio even remotely similar to this.
Games like Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 and Skyrim were major successes both with the public and the critics and yet I seriously doubt they have a ratio like that of people still playing.
Heck, I doubt the oh-so-mighty (F2P!) League of Legends actually has this (I'm way more inclined to believe the numbers have been forged by Riot to promote the game - sometimes searching for a match takes literally 10-15 minutes, with 1.2 million players online? yeah...).
"OH BUT D2..." - please, don't even start with that. There's absolutely no way for us to know either how many copies of D2 were sold to date, and even if we had, there's absolutely no way to know how many still played after "x" amount of time, or until today.
those other 2/12, they are probably just going in to see if anything has changed tho they still have their hope up and running that it will someday, since theyre not active every day. And then, we have not count all the bots in the game, that i think doing up a great number of users online.
Or maybe they're playing when they can, because you know, not everyone is dedicated 24/7 to a single game and to playing their whole lives. I've been on and off the game multiple times now. I have a friend who only plays D3 when there's no "new game" for him to try out, and since early 2013 has been a busy period (Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Bioshock, Dead Space 3, etc.), he hasn't played since December/January.
I can find public games on pretty much every MP (have chars with different power lvls on US) at all times of the day. I can't even find matches on DotA 2, LoL or CoD:BO2 so quickly (and these are ALL about online competitive matches).
It's amazing how naive and misinformed people are nowadays. Or maybe it's that tunnel vision hate syndrom I mentioned previously.
I think they should be removed - I also mainly think the only people lobbying to keep them around are those who consider themselves to be wealthy; losing something like an auction house might upset them because they would be losing acquired currency or otherwise valuable objects. Instead of the GAH or RMAH a Trade House would be ideal. You can list your items, maybe some keywords for what you want in a trade that people can search. People can click on their items and offer them to you via trade which you can either accept or deny. I think if its through a trade house - essentially a mass scale trade window like Diablo 2 (where you can only put up an item you own, obviously refined and easy to manage with the ability review the offers you've received and move on.) I think Gold will always be valuable - especially because of the crafting and what not - so I dont see why you couldn't offer gold as well. However,I think that gold should be less relied upon because, empirically, it's been prone to manipulation and exploitation by websites, botters, and the what-have-you's but that it doesnt necessarily need to be completely worthless.
I for one have made over one thousand dollars from the auction house. But let me be frank, I also know that the auction house directly ruined the game for me. I do not like it, yes I had some fun "playing the auction house," but I didnt buy Auction House III, I bought Diablo 3, and the games famous predecessor had a trading system that worked fantastically in correlation to itemization and character progression. That being said, because of the items you were trading and their specific purposes you were more engaged into it. People might say something like "SOJ's were currency, gold is no different" I will retort: SOJs were a fantastic trading medium because you could work for hours, days, or weeks depending on individual circumstances to get 40 SOJ's (an entire inventory's worth) methodically cashing in items for top prices, and getting great deals where you can to get those perfect items for your build and you knew at the end of the deal you could always sell them back (if you paid fair market value - which was incredibly easy to find out).
While a Trade House might not completely eliminate the anonymity of the Auction Houses (which subsequently lowers overall social action) It definitely seems more social. It definitely seems more community invested. I know a lot of people are happy to play the game as it is. I'm not saying "hate the game," I'm saying, recognize the fact that this game could be flat out fantastic with some adjustments. Yes, overall, its scary to think the game might have a drastic change in its economy and overall function. But if its for the better, shouldnt we make that leap?
"OH BUT D2..." - please, don't even start with that. There's absolutely no way for us to know either how many copies of D2 were sold to date, and even if we had, there's absolutely no way to know how many still played after "x" amount of time, or until today.
I believe Blizzard has said that less than about 10% of people who bought D2 even made it to hell mode, and less than about 1% of people who bought D2 continued to play it afterwards.
I think both auction houses should remain but changed. I played D2 and finding trades and spending time making games "iso" "ft" was a pain. I think The ah should be changed to send the seller pm so that a price can be negotiated from the listing price and possibly sold privately. Second, gold shouldn't be used as a form of currency since bots can practically create gold from nothing, saturating the market and decreasing the value of gold as we already see.
I think they should be removed - I also mainly think the only people lobbying to keep them around are those who consider themselves to be wealthy; losing something like an auction house might upset them because they would be losing acquired currency or otherwise valuable objects.
Or those that just want a comfortable way to look for new items ?
Instead of the GAH or RMAH a Trade House would be ideal. You can list your items, maybe some keywords for what you want in a trade that people can search.
Sorry, but that is just idiotic. The only thing a currency ( gold ) does is to make the life of traders easier. You realy think the currency is the fault of the system ? Why would everything be much better when you have to memorise the values of every item and then piece together some trades with gems and runes and little shit getting added and removed to get the value of the trade correctly ? Gold is so much easier than a trading system. People started realising that in the time of the ancient romans! Why would we go back to a money-less system ? Are you out of your mind ?
Nah, leave them alone. It's not the AH's that are the problem, it's the drop rate and quality of the drops. Tweek that and the prices will fall on the AH. Babies will be babies here and the truth of the matter is, there was an AH with D2, only the AH in D2 did not have an effect on the drop rates whereas they apear to have an effect here in D3. Repair that issue and you solve the problem with the babies hating on the AH's.
I really didn't want this thread to be about fighting and proving who's wrong and right. I just thought we could gain a little appreciation for how each other feels on this matter.
If we're to believe the poll indicates a reasonable facsimile of player opinion on this matter, Than two things jump out at me.
1) Most players want the AH's. They want them to stay, they want them in-game. 2) Most players feel some change must be made. Adding the 'Yes' votes with the 'No, but changes must be made' as well as the 14% that voted against one of the AH's individually, an overwhelming majority has some issue with the AH's.
Its not good equal to what the game could have had. If you see how many that bought it, and then see that only 1/12 is playing the game, its not so good. The numbers is high yes, and it is really much, no shit on that, but the active player base could be much higher if it were done right. Many top games has more than this, and i consider Diablo series to be on of the top games.
You also need to factor in how many copies of the game were purchased at the behest of a recently banned AH bot, so they could bot and get banned again while hopefully making enough money to cover another copy of d3 and turn a profit. Since you are taking total sales and comparing to to current playerbase, you should look at other games that have had huge banwaves for bots and hacks and see how the numbers compare. Starcraft 2 I can think of, World of Warcraft is another. Sure many of the numbers are people that quit and don't play, but you can't guarantee that any number that isn't still playing is someone who got banned, someone who quit, or even a multiboxer that doesn't want to pay for multiple accounts anymore, etc.
The obvious conclusion from the poll data is that the majority of players like or feel the need for an AH. Despite a few changes being desired or the removal of the RMAH, there is still an overwhelming desire to have the GAH in Diablo. Many of the changes too have nothing to do with the AH itself but rather the drop rate. So in the end, it must feel odd for the vocal minority to know that they are bitching about something that so many feel is a good inclusion to the Diablo experience.
2) Most players feel some change must be made. Adding the 'Yes' votes with the 'No, but changes must be made' as well as the 14% that voted against one of the AH's individually, an overwhelming majority has some issue with the AH's.
Except "remove" is not making a change. Remove is a radical, extremist idea. "Leave them alone and modify items" and "Keep them but make some changes" are obviously much more-similar opinions than "remove them."
Instead of trying to play "numbers can say anything" games, can we just admit that outright removal of the AH is not as wildly popular as SOME have portrayed it to be for months and months and that, consequently, it's almost certainly not on the table as an option - even though Travis already said that weeks ago?
Now that we know that outright removal is such a vocal minority, can we focus on how to improve the game for everyone as opposed to make 80% suffer at the whim of the 20%? If anything we should draw from this it's that MOST players like options and don't want to be shoehorned into a "no AH" playstyle just because a handful of self-found purists feel that is the only legitemate way to play.
Instead of trying to play "numbers can say anything" games, can we just admit that outright removal of the AH is not as wildly popular as SOME have portrayed it to be for months and months and that, consequently, it's almost certainly not on the table as an option - even though Travis already said that weeks ago?
You will never get the zealots to agree with that. That sir would take common sense and more than two brain cells to rub together.
2) Most players feel some change must be made. Adding the 'Yes' votes with the 'No, but changes must be made' as well as the 14% that voted against one of the AH's individually, an overwhelming majority has some issue with the AH's.
Except "remove" is not making a change. Remove is a radical, extremist idea. "Leave them alone and modify items" and "Keep them but make some changes" are obviously much more-similar opinions than "remove them."
I was just using that as an example, those whom voted 'YES' obviously have serious issue with not just the AH's themselves, but how they're implemented and how Blizzard allows us to use them.
After reading through this thread and the more reasonable posters, I'm likely going to change my vote to 'NO, but changes need to be made'. It seems the most reasonable attitude at this point.
Instead of trying to play "numbers can say anything" games, can we just admit that outright removal of the AH is not as wildly popular as SOME have portrayed it to be for months and months and that, consequently, it's almost certainly not on the table as an option - even though Travis already said that weeks ago?
I 100% agree.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few etc etc etc :Thumbs Up:
Let's take it easy with the quote pyramids. I've edited a few posts to make things easier on the eyes (lemme know if you notice a mistake in your post).
2) Most players feel some change must be made. Adding the 'Yes' votes with the 'No, but changes must be made' as well as the 14% that voted against one of the AH's individually, an overwhelming majority has some issue with the AH's.
There's kind of a problem with that, though.
Some people want the change to be that you can post as many items as they want - that's outright stupid, no hardware can handle that kind of crap. Some people want changes to the "bidding" system, so people can't "snipe" items. The current system is as close to a fair system as a bidding system can be. Don't want to be sniped? Just bid the highest amount you're willing to pay for the item. The ones complaining they got "sniped" are probably the ones who thought they were gonna get a Witching Hour for 3k gold and make 5 million gold instantly. Some people want just the comparison tooltip (and voted for that), or other minor/slight changes. Some people want no RMAH. Some people want more lasting auctions.
It's just wrong to put these all together and say "all these people think there's something seriously wrong with the AHs", when that's simply not true.
That is the reason I personally didn't choose that poll option (even though I'd like some changes), because I knew it would be severely misinterpreted.
Remove both AHs.
It is not the best solution ever to do so, but I'm not sure the alternatives are in any way realistic. Would require too much work (to the degree of creating a Diablo 4).
In any case, removing AHs surely couldn't stand on its own. It wouldn't change much.
Itemization, drops, end-game variety etc all had to be improved as well.
Also, there probably isn't much way around moving further toward account-bound items, or rather account-bound enhancement of items, since non-BoA without AHs would only transfer most of the trading to third parties, now that people have got the taste the easiness of trading.
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I think what everyone wants to see here is a better way to trade on the game, but it's clear that the AH in it's current form is not the answer to that. Trading is and should always be a good option whether they need it nor not. In this case, I assume that you just don't need to trade, but for the people who do, they want a better way to do it without the hassles of the current AH system or the hassles of the original D2 system.
We need a way to trade that gives us versatility between giving someone gold or items, while simultaneously eliminating the need to be with that person in game. We also don't want this system to affect our loot tables or effect the economy of the game in drastic ways and not force future updates of the game to revolve around it. We need to find a middle ground between the convenience of the AH house and the more difficult, but versatile way of the original D2 trading system.
The Semi-Automatic AH ideal mentioned above is a good start for this, but I want to add some of my own ideas. To start, I don't think it should even be called an AH, I think we should just call it a market or a trading post and have an area in-game where we can access it. The following mechanics for this are what were mentioned in the Semi-Automatic AH:
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Wise ElderVoted: No, but changes should be made to both.
Like selecting Hardcore during character creation, AH and/or RMAH on/off selection should be an option as well.
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Drops are not dynamically effected by the AH (i.e. an item isn't more or less likely to drop based on how many are or aren't on the AH), but they have said that they tuned drops around the existence of the AH. Which makes you question how Jay Wilson can say something like "we didn't expect that most people would even use the AH" when drops in the game were tuned from the beginning based on the existence of the AH. Just another example of how clueless he is/was.
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Moderator1 million players EVERY DAY. 3 million active players every month. One quarter of players still active 10 months after release - not good at all? Good lord, other software publishers would kill for that ratio.
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Wise ElderGames like Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 and Skyrim were major successes both with the public and the critics and yet I seriously doubt they have a ratio like that of people still playing.
Heck, I doubt the oh-so-mighty (F2P!) League of Legends actually has this (I'm way more inclined to believe the numbers have been forged by Riot to promote the game - sometimes searching for a match takes literally 10-15 minutes, with 1.2 million players online? yeah...).
"OH BUT D2..." - please, don't even start with that. There's absolutely no way for us to know either how many copies of D2 were sold to date, and even if we had, there's absolutely no way to know how many still played after "x" amount of time, or until today.
Or maybe they're playing when they can, because you know, not everyone is dedicated 24/7 to a single game and to playing their whole lives. I've been on and off the game multiple times now. I have a friend who only plays D3 when there's no "new game" for him to try out, and since early 2013 has been a busy period (Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Bioshock, Dead Space 3, etc.), he hasn't played since December/January.
I can find public games on pretty much every MP (have chars with different power lvls on US) at all times of the day. I can't even find matches on DotA 2, LoL or CoD:BO2 so quickly (and these are ALL about online competitive matches).
It's amazing how naive and misinformed people are nowadays. Or maybe it's that tunnel vision hate syndrom I mentioned previously.
I for one have made over one thousand dollars from the auction house. But let me be frank, I also know that the auction house directly ruined the game for me. I do not like it, yes I had some fun "playing the auction house," but I didnt buy Auction House III, I bought Diablo 3, and the games famous predecessor had a trading system that worked fantastically in correlation to itemization and character progression. That being said, because of the items you were trading and their specific purposes you were more engaged into it. People might say something like "SOJ's were currency, gold is no different" I will retort: SOJs were a fantastic trading medium because you could work for hours, days, or weeks depending on individual circumstances to get 40 SOJ's (an entire inventory's worth) methodically cashing in items for top prices, and getting great deals where you can to get those perfect items for your build and you knew at the end of the deal you could always sell them back (if you paid fair market value - which was incredibly easy to find out).
While a Trade House might not completely eliminate the anonymity of the Auction Houses (which subsequently lowers overall social action) It definitely seems more social. It definitely seems more community invested. I know a lot of people are happy to play the game as it is. I'm not saying "hate the game," I'm saying, recognize the fact that this game could be flat out fantastic with some adjustments. Yes, overall, its scary to think the game might have a drastic change in its economy and overall function. But if its for the better, shouldnt we make that leap?
I believe Blizzard has said that less than about 10% of people who bought D2 even made it to hell mode, and less than about 1% of people who bought D2 continued to play it afterwards.
Or those that just want a comfortable way to look for new items ?
Sorry, but that is just idiotic. The only thing a currency ( gold ) does is to make the life of traders easier. You realy think the currency is the fault of the system ? Why would everything be much better when you have to memorise the values of every item and then piece together some trades with gems and runes and little shit getting added and removed to get the value of the trade correctly ? Gold is so much easier than a trading system. People started realising that in the time of the ancient romans! Why would we go back to a money-less system ? Are you out of your mind ?
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Wise ElderIf we're to believe the poll indicates a reasonable facsimile of player opinion on this matter, Than two things jump out at me.
1) Most players want the AH's. They want them to stay, they want them in-game.
2) Most players feel some change must be made. Adding the 'Yes' votes with the 'No, but changes must be made' as well as the 14% that voted against one of the AH's individually, an overwhelming majority has some issue with the AH's.
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You also need to factor in how many copies of the game were purchased at the behest of a recently banned AH bot, so they could bot and get banned again while hopefully making enough money to cover another copy of d3 and turn a profit. Since you are taking total sales and comparing to to current playerbase, you should look at other games that have had huge banwaves for bots and hacks and see how the numbers compare. Starcraft 2 I can think of, World of Warcraft is another. Sure many of the numbers are people that quit and don't play, but you can't guarantee that any number that isn't still playing is someone who got banned, someone who quit, or even a multiboxer that doesn't want to pay for multiple accounts anymore, etc.
Except "remove" is not making a change. Remove is a radical, extremist idea. "Leave them alone and modify items" and "Keep them but make some changes" are obviously much more-similar opinions than "remove them."
Instead of trying to play "numbers can say anything" games, can we just admit that outright removal of the AH is not as wildly popular as SOME have portrayed it to be for months and months and that, consequently, it's almost certainly not on the table as an option - even though Travis already said that weeks ago?
Now that we know that outright removal is such a vocal minority, can we focus on how to improve the game for everyone as opposed to make 80% suffer at the whim of the 20%? If anything we should draw from this it's that MOST players like options and don't want to be shoehorned into a "no AH" playstyle just because a handful of self-found purists feel that is the only legitemate way to play.
You will never get the zealots to agree with that. That sir would take common sense and more than two brain cells to rub together.
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Wise ElderI was just using that as an example, those whom voted 'YES' obviously have serious issue with not just the AH's themselves, but how they're implemented and how Blizzard allows us to use them.
After reading through this thread and the more reasonable posters, I'm likely going to change my vote to 'NO, but changes need to be made'. It seems the most reasonable attitude at this point.
I 100% agree.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few etc etc etc :Thumbs Up:
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Wise ElderThere's kind of a problem with that, though.
Some people want the change to be that you can post as many items as they want - that's outright stupid, no hardware can handle that kind of crap. Some people want changes to the "bidding" system, so people can't "snipe" items. The current system is as close to a fair system as a bidding system can be. Don't want to be sniped? Just bid the highest amount you're willing to pay for the item. The ones complaining they got "sniped" are probably the ones who thought they were gonna get a Witching Hour for 3k gold and make 5 million gold instantly. Some people want just the comparison tooltip (and voted for that), or other minor/slight changes. Some people want no RMAH. Some people want more lasting auctions.
It's just wrong to put these all together and say "all these people think there's something seriously wrong with the AHs", when that's simply not true.
That is the reason I personally didn't choose that poll option (even though I'd like some changes), because I knew it would be severely misinterpreted.
It is not the best solution ever to do so, but I'm not sure the alternatives are in any way realistic. Would require too much work (to the degree of creating a Diablo 4).
In any case, removing AHs surely couldn't stand on its own. It wouldn't change much.
Itemization, drops, end-game variety etc all had to be improved as well.
Also, there probably isn't much way around moving further toward account-bound items, or rather account-bound enhancement of items, since non-BoA without AHs would only transfer most of the trading to third parties, now that people have got the taste the easiness of trading.