So I found a game that currently is what the D3 economy will be! Dungeons and Dragons Online. Basically all the top end uber gear binds to your character.
What the economy consists of is high level players selling all their decent randoms to low level players, as they have no use for them, since they have godly bound gear. Meanwhile, all people with uber bound gear just horde money as they have no use for it.
You think the game kinda has some sort of economy going for it when your a newbie, but that feeling only lasts until you get some uber bound gear. You then realize pretty much everything in the auction house is crap, and you then start your very own stockpile of platinum that you will never spend.
As far as bartering goes, which was a staple of D2 trading, DDO has none! All the top end gear binds, so all you could really barter for is pretty much your trash for some other players trash. However this is a total waste of time, when you realize you have a boatload of useless platinum laying around, and there's an auction house full of low end gear that sells for platinum.
In an attempt to control currency, they added in plenty of sinks. You have to pay for things like repairing gear, being able to modify your chosen feats or enhancements, hirelings, potions, various buffs, and guild type items. Its really a pain in the neck to pay for this stuff as a noob, but later on you have so much money anyhow that sinks become irrelevant. You could add in new sinks, but then you just stick it to the noobs harder.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist here, but how is D3's economy going to be any different then that of DDO? I'd be much more excited about sticking with the barter theme thats been prevalent in previous diablo games rather then reverting to another generic currency hording economy.
well im sure there will be no gear binding in d3 cuz there was none in d2 and d1..i hope. also as for the economy don't really know how its gonna work because in d2 gold didn't mean shyt it was basically item for item.
but things might change in d3 with the new artisan system and all.
There will definitely be binding equipment. This has already been confirmed by blizzard. I do think that this will help the economy in the long run because these items will not be able to flood the market.
As far as the economy in general, I think gold sinks are really for players who are leveling. Once characters max out, there is no real way to control these players sitting on more and more money. However, I think what helps diablo is their replayability. Where most RPGs have players consistsntly play their high level characters, Diablo is popular for it's replayability so players aren't sitting on their high lvl characters.
Lets just hope all the good stuff isn't 'bind on pickup' but instead 'bind on equip'. At least then when you get items that totally don't fit your current character they can at least be given to alts or traded before they become bound.
As long as they go with bind on equip with items, then I think bound items will be a good thing. Gets alot of items out of the economy making their use more valuable and making players have to make hard choices to keep/trade. Better than hearing the guy say 'lemme go get my SOJ mule'.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they have confirmed bind on equip items. Don't worry about the economy, as you said there will be plenty of gold sinks so the economy in D3 will be much better than the one in D2. It would be pretty cool for those who hit up the high levels of their chars and are stacked with money and good items to make some kind of PvP tournaments, I know I will be doing this. But I've never understood what those bind on equip items really are, can someone please explain to me? Are they like when I equip them I can't unequipped them anymore?
IT means once equipped you are not allowed to trade the item, you may unequipped it at anytime, sell it to a NPC at anytime but you are not allowed to trade it to another player.
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Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
Probably going to depend on the item. If it is one of the uniques with set stats then there will be more of them for you to find. If its like the rare/crafted items from D2 the odds of finding that exact same stats on another item are pretty slim.
Once again thinking back to the good old days the most valuable item you could find was a dual leech ring, especially if it had good stats. I imagine with the random item generation which is a Diablo trademark there will be some combination like that that everyone will be fighting for.
I really look forward to seeing what they do with items in D3. D2 was a major upgrade from D1 item wise. In D1 there weren't 'rares' there was just hard to get magic items (all blue) or the occasional unique item.
Hell the hot ticket item in D1 was a blue item named GPoTW (godly plate of the whale). But there were alot of em running around because in those days anyone could dupe items just by throwing it on the ground and picking it back up the right way.
D3 brought us rares and crafted items, which were basically blues on steroids. It was sweet to have items with so many differnt stats on them, but for the most part it made blue/magic items pretty much worthless as gold had no real value and the horadric cube recipes were pretty limited.
At least in D3 the crafting will be done by disenchanting unwanted magic items so all magic items will always have some value.
But yeah if they continue the rare items eventually you'll find some cool item with the perfect combo of stats on it and it will be pretty much unique.
Blizzard has said that the best crafting items at least will have their recipes dropped by monsters and I'm guessing these are pretty badass items if I need to go look for just the recipe. Then they also said a lot of items have SET & RANDOM properties so let's say you have uber item A all will have stats B,C,& D but only certain ones will have either E,F,G,H,I or J.
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Not even Death will save you from Diablo Bunny's Cuteness!
The BOE issue and random properties could be difficult - but no different than not identifying any uniques for a good solid trade in the old days.
I think a huge part of how the items, economy etc are going to work is how they deal with an Auction House system or trading system. Anyone know of any comments out there about the AH or trading systems?
As far as the economy in general, I think gold sinks are really for players who are leveling. Once characters max out, there is no real way to control these players sitting on more and more money.
And there is no way to prevent such players from xferring to alts. Anyone with 1 friend in game can xferr all the money they want. Gold sink = noob annoyance, not long term game economy fix.
However, I think what helps diablo is their replayability. Where most RPGs have players consistsntly play their high level characters, Diablo is popular for it's replayability so players aren't sitting on their high lvl characters.
Hmm so lets see...D2 is well known for its replayability. Its also the only online rpg I can think of off the top of my head with no binding gear. Could there might actually be some sort of connection there?
Maybe the long term d2 players liked being able to say eh, I'm sick of my barb, I'm gonna trade all my barb gear for zon gear. I don't know about you but that option is a lot more appealing to me, and makes me want to experiment with a lot more characters then most other games do, where its eh, I'm sick of my barb...but do I really wanna spend 3 months doing the same boring grind I just did on my barb just to get them up to par?
I find it funny how a lot people are discussing economics all serious even though they barely have any knowledge how economics actually work.
Look guys, Blizzard hired people that actually studied economics to aid them. And those 4 years you spend learning basic economy is nothing compared to what those people know.
So what? This is totally irrelevant. When you buy a car does it bind to you, and it lasts forever, but nobody else is ever aloud to drive it? The actual economic ripple effect of owning an automobile is much more complex, but does knowing that hold any relevancy to a game economy? Unless all items are going to get permanently destroyed through usage and there is pthieving, real life economics don't really apply much to that of a game anyhow.
Can you just name for me one online rpg where gear binding was a success in keeping a long term, stable game economy? I can name a few where it didn't. Dungeons and Dragons Online and Last Chaos...
Besides if your main argument for why bound items are good is because BLIZZARD SAID SO, that's not not really all that good of a reason. I mean, after all, MY MOM said bound items are lame, she knows more then blizzard.
And there is no way to prevent such players from xferring to alts. Anyone with 1 friend in game can xferr all the money they want. Gold sink = noob annoyance, not long term game economy fix.
No, but it certainly does work. In Diablo 2 gold i abundant and never used for anything. Now they are adding in systems in which gold might actually be used. The crafting system, if it creates good items, can also be used for this purpose as well. It gives something for people to strive for besides itemization. Having more goals is better than having one goal.
Hmm so lets see...D2 is well known for its replayability. Its also the only online rpg I can think of off the top of my head with no binding gear. Could there might actually be some sort of connection there?
Maybe the long term d2 players liked being able to say eh, I'm sick of my barb, I'm gonna trade all my barb gear for zon gear. I don't know about you but that option is a lot more appealing to me, and makes me want to experiment with a lot more characters then most other games do, where its eh, I'm sick of my barb...but do I really wanna spend 3 months doing the same boring grind I just did on my barb just to get them up to par?
Yes... That's exactly how "replayability" works. You are suppose to make a new character and build it from the ground up. If you just trade all your items for different ones than you defeat one of the main time sinks of the game, and what the game is all about. Getting the items.
So what? This is totally irrelevant. When you buy a car does it bind to you, and it lasts forever, but nobody else is ever aloud to drive it? The actual economic ripple effect of owning an automobile is much more complex, but does knowing that hold any relevancy to a game economy? Unless all items are going to get permanently destroyed through usage and there is pthieving, real life economics don't really apply much to that of a game anyhow.
Can you just name for me one online rpg where gear binding was a success in keeping a long term, stable game economy? I can name a few where it didn't. Dungeons and Dragons Online and Last Chaos...
Besides if your main argument for why bound items are good is because BLIZZARD SAID SO, that's not not really all that good of a reason. I mean, after all, MY MOM said bound items are lame, she knows more then blizzard.
Sure... World of Warcraft. If everyone can get their items by simply buying them or trading them for other items it defeats the replayability factor of the game. I am not saying that all items should bind to the character, but having the most powerful items bind on equip is important. Otherwise you are going to saturate the in-game market. You need to have people keep playing the game to get the items.
Each character is suppose to be a new experience, and when you get to the end of the game you are suppose to work on building it up. I consider trading items on one character for another to be a form of cheating, merely my opinion of course, but that is how I look at it. You are taking the one thing away from the game that it really offers. Imagine if the tiered gear was BoE in WoW.
No, but it certainly does work. In Diablo 2 gold i abundant and never used for anything.
Exactly, so why bother with it. D2's barter system showed that people can still trade without a currency. Why not just do things to make in game bartering easier, so we don't have to use out of game resources to find trades.
The crafting system, if it creates good items, can also be used for this purpose as well.
Just like the gems and runes in D2 omg! Both were used as a form of currency, but also used for crafting. The only sink to them was that they had uses, rather then ok, lets all horde useless gold and come up with a million useless sinks to try to control it. Just skip the bs and get right to the meat.
Yes... That's exactly how "replayability" works. You are suppose to make a new character and build it from the ground up. If you just trade all your items for different ones than you defeat one of the main time sinks of the game, and what the game is all about. Getting the items.
I'm gonna have to politely disagree here. A main part of the game for many players was pvp/pk. What kept such players attracted to D2 was you didn't have to deal with a "time sink" each time you wanted to experiment with a new character. The time sink was the few hours it took to get up to 80+, vs a lot of other games where you needs months invested to get an end game experience.
I know you pvm'ers will argue til your blue in the face, but for all the pvp'ers pvm was just the easy repetitive crap you did to get your gear. If this wasn't true why was botting so prevalent? If it was actually fun to just grind gear over and over, 3/4 of the active links to bnet wouldn't be people botting. In case you can't put 2 and 2 together, nobody bots to get better gear to bot with, people bot to skip the so called "time sink" and get right into the pvp/pk aspect of the game. Killing botting would be a good thing to keep the playing field fair for all, but needlessly increasing item grind time by causing gear to bind just doesn't seem like a good way to go about insuring d3 has the same replay factor as d2.
And there is no way to prevent such players from xferring to alts. Anyone with 1 friend in game can xferr all the money they want. Gold sink = noob annoyance, not long term game economy fix.
Yes? Transrferring money to alts isn't some magical way to circumvent the gold sinks of the game. They're still there, and you'll still run into them if you want to spend your gold on anything.
Hmm so lets see...D2 is well known for its replayability. Its also the only online rpg I can think of off the top of my head with no binding gear. Could there might actually be some sort of connection there?
To suggest that D2's success relies on not having any BoE items seems like a weak connection to me. I'd put my money on the itemization and random element to items, and in the case of PvP'ers, the basically unrestricted PvP play it offered. Trading items for items, given the structure of D2, was probably a helpful part of that, but not the driving factor of D2's success.
And of course, that doesn't include whoever disliked the game and stopped playing. Perhaps equally many did it because they could not grasp the trading system?
Maybe the long term d2 players liked being able to say eh, I'm sick of my barb, I'm gonna trade all my barb gear for zon gear. I don't know about you but that option is a lot more appealing to me, and makes me want to experiment with a lot more characters then most other games do, where its eh, I'm sick of my barb...but do I really wanna spend 3 months doing the same boring grind I just did on my barb just to get them up to par?
A valid criticism. While having no BoE items eventually leads to a flooding of the market, so long as the best gear is equally sought after, the relative prices between item setups will remain constant. Regardless of how many high runes a runeword is worth, a good piece of equipment can largely be traded 1:1 for another good piece of equipment.
How to fix this? Well, you have two chances. Either the BoE system isn't affecting as much good gear as you fear, or you'll have to hope that Blizzard's unannounced PvP system adresses this. If not, then yes, the D2 play style that you enjoy will probably be gone.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
If not, then yes, the D2 play style that you enjoy will probably be gone.
Woohoo someone understands! D2 was an awesome game that has a lot of huge differences in comparison to a lot of other online rpg type games, so why mainstream D3 with the same lame systems of binding gear and a trash currency with no use other then sinks and hording, when D2 did just fine with "currencies" basically being small crafting items you could store a lot of.(runes/gems)
To suggest that D2's success relies on not having any BoE items seems like a weak connection to me. I'd put my money on the itemization and random element to items, and in the case of PvP'ers, the basically unrestricted PvP play it offered. Trading items for items, given the structure of D2, was probably a helpful part of that, but not the driving factor of D2's success.
And of course, that doesn't include whoever disliked the game and stopped playing. Perhaps equally many did it because they could not grasp the trading system?
Trading items for items is going to be crippled with binding gear and a currency rather then barter based economy. This is why I gripe about those systems, its one of the D2 staples that sets it aside from the masses, why jack it up and mainstream it so its just another WoW clone economy?
As far as the unrestricted pvp play, I'd agree with ya, that's another huge attraction to D2, and I'd hate to see D3 be neutered down to mutual only arena based pvp garbage, but hey, that's a whole different topic:P
As far as those that quit the game because they couldn't grasp trading...so what? RPG's should require some learning and thinking to get good at. I've ripped myself off trading plenty of times while learning the game. I've also ripped myself off plenty of times just to get something fast, which was another great thing about the way it worked. You could make wealth in the game just by trading for an item, then turn around and trading it again. I could play for an hour and gain more wealth then I'd have made mf'ing for an hour. Why dumb a game down to the point it has minimal learning curve just to appease people who can't be bothered to take a little time to learn the economy? Especially when its easy as making a few in game friends and double checking with them before making a trade...
BOE does one thing: create a sink for the best items. To take D2 as an example. Enigma, BOTD, CoH, etc, are items that no one in their right mind would sell to a merchant because these are the best items. These continue to build up and will never disappear from the economy. In D3 there are sinks for all other items in the form of salvaging, but the best items are worth more as items than as salvage materials, so they need a different sink. BOE is the simple solution.
How does binding cause an item to disappear from the economy? Last I checked if an item wasn't destroyed permanently its still in the economy. Sure, I can't trade my bound item, but I still have one so why would I trade anyone else for theirs? If there is only BoE items will still build up regardless.
As far as salvaging gear goes, this system was already in place in D2. Let's say you made a runeword that consists of 2 HR's and a base item worth another HR. Whatever random mod rolls on it rolls low. You might use it for a while simply because its still an uber runeword, but 2 weeks later you roll a higher one. You then trade(salvage) your lower roll obviously for less then the value of the original ingredients to create it. Meanwhile some poor player, or someone looking to just test a build out, is totally thrilled that they got something that is still awesome for fairly cheap. This was actually a pretty amazing system for casual players in D2. If you knew what things were worth it allowed you to gear up a pretty sweet character with actually very little grind time, but hey, what do I know, this couldn't possible have been attractive to anyone vs just grinding the same npc ai over and over.
Also why are you comparing the economy of a game with cars. That just does not work.
Wait a minute...so what your saying is if I apply a concept being used in game to a real life economic issue to show how lame it is, its a poor example and doesn't work...BUT
Look guys, Blizzard hired people that actually studied economics to aid them. And those 4 years you spend learning basic economy is nothing compared to what those people know.
It for some reason works the other way around?
Is this team of economic experts going to require that your UBER 1337 SWORD require a constant supply of materials(spare parts) to keep it in working order, and you have to give it a lube job every 3 months or 3000 miles? Also your going to pay property taxes on it gas it up, or recharge it every night if you go electric. Make sure you get the sport car model and not the minivan model so you can impress the ladies. Oh depending what state you play from, you might have to carry insurance as well. If you have kids that wanna take the UBER 1337 out for a night, you'll just have to go get some extras, since its bound and you can't just toss them the keys:(
So yeah anyways, if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm just not impressed that blizzard highered so called economic experts to try to design some cool fancy game economy, and binding gear is their so called improvement over D2?
***hint from your friendly forum troll*** botting did far more to screw up the D2 economy then lack of binding items.
Hokay, so first, saying blizz has a bunch of econ experts, and they're gonna whip the game into shape is kinda stupid. These so called experts run many sectors of the the real world economy, and look where it got us.
Second, Blizz seems to be indicating that only the super awesome items are BoE. They're doing this specifically so you can't just trade them out for a new character because they don't want it to be like it is now, where everyone gets the same crap. They want people to be using different items, because the best is so rare. And they're doing that with (or, partially doing that with) BoE so that the items drop more.
Basically, I think they would rather have people play the game to get better items to the play the game, then trade to get better items. I for one am happy about that. If you're not, well, I'm sorry.
Also, you seem to have half grasped how BoE removes items from the economy. Yes, they're not destroyed, but they do not last forever. Where as before, when you changed characters, you could just trade gear out with someone else. In this case, no items where lost. And as people keep finding them (and probably duping them), there is just more and more and more. With BoE, you can't give away your old items, so that means you have to absorb MORE items. That's how it removes items from the economy. And as you can only play one char at a time, the stuff on your old barb may as well have been destroyed, as it's not doing anyone any good.
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What the economy consists of is high level players selling all their decent randoms to low level players, as they have no use for them, since they have godly bound gear. Meanwhile, all people with uber bound gear just horde money as they have no use for it.
You think the game kinda has some sort of economy going for it when your a newbie, but that feeling only lasts until you get some uber bound gear. You then realize pretty much everything in the auction house is crap, and you then start your very own stockpile of platinum that you will never spend.
As far as bartering goes, which was a staple of D2 trading, DDO has none! All the top end gear binds, so all you could really barter for is pretty much your trash for some other players trash. However this is a total waste of time, when you realize you have a boatload of useless platinum laying around, and there's an auction house full of low end gear that sells for platinum.
In an attempt to control currency, they added in plenty of sinks. You have to pay for things like repairing gear, being able to modify your chosen feats or enhancements, hirelings, potions, various buffs, and guild type items. Its really a pain in the neck to pay for this stuff as a noob, but later on you have so much money anyhow that sinks become irrelevant. You could add in new sinks, but then you just stick it to the noobs harder.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist here, but how is D3's economy going to be any different then that of DDO? I'd be much more excited about sticking with the barter theme thats been prevalent in previous diablo games rather then reverting to another generic currency hording economy.
but things might change in d3 with the new artisan system and all.
As far as the economy in general, I think gold sinks are really for players who are leveling. Once characters max out, there is no real way to control these players sitting on more and more money. However, I think what helps diablo is their replayability. Where most RPGs have players consistsntly play their high level characters, Diablo is popular for it's replayability so players aren't sitting on their high lvl characters.
As long as they go with bind on equip with items, then I think bound items will be a good thing. Gets alot of items out of the economy making their use more valuable and making players have to make hard choices to keep/trade. Better than hearing the guy say 'lemme go get my SOJ mule'.
Once again thinking back to the good old days the most valuable item you could find was a dual leech ring, especially if it had good stats. I imagine with the random item generation which is a Diablo trademark there will be some combination like that that everyone will be fighting for.
Hell the hot ticket item in D1 was a blue item named GPoTW (godly plate of the whale). But there were alot of em running around because in those days anyone could dupe items just by throwing it on the ground and picking it back up the right way.
D3 brought us rares and crafted items, which were basically blues on steroids. It was sweet to have items with so many differnt stats on them, but for the most part it made blue/magic items pretty much worthless as gold had no real value and the horadric cube recipes were pretty limited.
At least in D3 the crafting will be done by disenchanting unwanted magic items so all magic items will always have some value.
But yeah if they continue the rare items eventually you'll find some cool item with the perfect combo of stats on it and it will be pretty much unique.
I think a huge part of how the items, economy etc are going to work is how they deal with an Auction House system or trading system. Anyone know of any comments out there about the AH or trading systems?
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
And there is no way to prevent such players from xferring to alts. Anyone with 1 friend in game can xferr all the money they want. Gold sink = noob annoyance, not long term game economy fix.
Hmm so lets see...D2 is well known for its replayability. Its also the only online rpg I can think of off the top of my head with no binding gear. Could there might actually be some sort of connection there?
Maybe the long term d2 players liked being able to say eh, I'm sick of my barb, I'm gonna trade all my barb gear for zon gear. I don't know about you but that option is a lot more appealing to me, and makes me want to experiment with a lot more characters then most other games do, where its eh, I'm sick of my barb...but do I really wanna spend 3 months doing the same boring grind I just did on my barb just to get them up to par?
So what? This is totally irrelevant. When you buy a car does it bind to you, and it lasts forever, but nobody else is ever aloud to drive it? The actual economic ripple effect of owning an automobile is much more complex, but does knowing that hold any relevancy to a game economy? Unless all items are going to get permanently destroyed through usage and there is pthieving, real life economics don't really apply much to that of a game anyhow.
Can you just name for me one online rpg where gear binding was a success in keeping a long term, stable game economy? I can name a few where it didn't. Dungeons and Dragons Online and Last Chaos...
Besides if your main argument for why bound items are good is because BLIZZARD SAID SO, that's not not really all that good of a reason. I mean, after all, MY MOM said bound items are lame, she knows more then blizzard.
No, but it certainly does work. In Diablo 2 gold i abundant and never used for anything. Now they are adding in systems in which gold might actually be used. The crafting system, if it creates good items, can also be used for this purpose as well. It gives something for people to strive for besides itemization. Having more goals is better than having one goal.
Yes... That's exactly how "replayability" works. You are suppose to make a new character and build it from the ground up. If you just trade all your items for different ones than you defeat one of the main time sinks of the game, and what the game is all about. Getting the items.
Sure... World of Warcraft. If everyone can get their items by simply buying them or trading them for other items it defeats the replayability factor of the game. I am not saying that all items should bind to the character, but having the most powerful items bind on equip is important. Otherwise you are going to saturate the in-game market. You need to have people keep playing the game to get the items.
Each character is suppose to be a new experience, and when you get to the end of the game you are suppose to work on building it up. I consider trading items on one character for another to be a form of cheating, merely my opinion of course, but that is how I look at it. You are taking the one thing away from the game that it really offers. Imagine if the tiered gear was BoE in WoW.
Exactly, so why bother with it. D2's barter system showed that people can still trade without a currency. Why not just do things to make in game bartering easier, so we don't have to use out of game resources to find trades.
Just like the gems and runes in D2 omg! Both were used as a form of currency, but also used for crafting. The only sink to them was that they had uses, rather then ok, lets all horde useless gold and come up with a million useless sinks to try to control it. Just skip the bs and get right to the meat.
I'm gonna have to politely disagree here. A main part of the game for many players was pvp/pk. What kept such players attracted to D2 was you didn't have to deal with a "time sink" each time you wanted to experiment with a new character. The time sink was the few hours it took to get up to 80+, vs a lot of other games where you needs months invested to get an end game experience.
I know you pvm'ers will argue til your blue in the face, but for all the pvp'ers pvm was just the easy repetitive crap you did to get your gear. If this wasn't true why was botting so prevalent? If it was actually fun to just grind gear over and over, 3/4 of the active links to bnet wouldn't be people botting. In case you can't put 2 and 2 together, nobody bots to get better gear to bot with, people bot to skip the so called "time sink" and get right into the pvp/pk aspect of the game. Killing botting would be a good thing to keep the playing field fair for all, but needlessly increasing item grind time by causing gear to bind just doesn't seem like a good way to go about insuring d3 has the same replay factor as d2.
Yes? Transrferring money to alts isn't some magical way to circumvent the gold sinks of the game. They're still there, and you'll still run into them if you want to spend your gold on anything.
To suggest that D2's success relies on not having any BoE items seems like a weak connection to me. I'd put my money on the itemization and random element to items, and in the case of PvP'ers, the basically unrestricted PvP play it offered. Trading items for items, given the structure of D2, was probably a helpful part of that, but not the driving factor of D2's success.
And of course, that doesn't include whoever disliked the game and stopped playing. Perhaps equally many did it because they could not grasp the trading system?
A valid criticism. While having no BoE items eventually leads to a flooding of the market, so long as the best gear is equally sought after, the relative prices between item setups will remain constant. Regardless of how many high runes a runeword is worth, a good piece of equipment can largely be traded 1:1 for another good piece of equipment.
How to fix this? Well, you have two chances. Either the BoE system isn't affecting as much good gear as you fear, or you'll have to hope that Blizzard's unannounced PvP system adresses this. If not, then yes, the D2 play style that you enjoy will probably be gone.
Woohoo someone understands! D2 was an awesome game that has a lot of huge differences in comparison to a lot of other online rpg type games, so why mainstream D3 with the same lame systems of binding gear and a trash currency with no use other then sinks and hording, when D2 did just fine with "currencies" basically being small crafting items you could store a lot of.(runes/gems)
Trading items for items is going to be crippled with binding gear and a currency rather then barter based economy. This is why I gripe about those systems, its one of the D2 staples that sets it aside from the masses, why jack it up and mainstream it so its just another WoW clone economy?
As far as the unrestricted pvp play, I'd agree with ya, that's another huge attraction to D2, and I'd hate to see D3 be neutered down to mutual only arena based pvp garbage, but hey, that's a whole different topic:P
As far as those that quit the game because they couldn't grasp trading...so what? RPG's should require some learning and thinking to get good at. I've ripped myself off trading plenty of times while learning the game. I've also ripped myself off plenty of times just to get something fast, which was another great thing about the way it worked. You could make wealth in the game just by trading for an item, then turn around and trading it again. I could play for an hour and gain more wealth then I'd have made mf'ing for an hour. Why dumb a game down to the point it has minimal learning curve just to appease people who can't be bothered to take a little time to learn the economy? Especially when its easy as making a few in game friends and double checking with them before making a trade...
How does binding cause an item to disappear from the economy? Last I checked if an item wasn't destroyed permanently its still in the economy. Sure, I can't trade my bound item, but I still have one so why would I trade anyone else for theirs? If there is only BoE items will still build up regardless.
As far as salvaging gear goes, this system was already in place in D2. Let's say you made a runeword that consists of 2 HR's and a base item worth another HR. Whatever random mod rolls on it rolls low. You might use it for a while simply because its still an uber runeword, but 2 weeks later you roll a higher one. You then trade(salvage) your lower roll obviously for less then the value of the original ingredients to create it. Meanwhile some poor player, or someone looking to just test a build out, is totally thrilled that they got something that is still awesome for fairly cheap. This was actually a pretty amazing system for casual players in D2. If you knew what things were worth it allowed you to gear up a pretty sweet character with actually very little grind time, but hey, what do I know, this couldn't possible have been attractive to anyone vs just grinding the same npc ai over and over.
Wait a minute...so what your saying is if I apply a concept being used in game to a real life economic issue to show how lame it is, its a poor example and doesn't work...BUT
It for some reason works the other way around?
Is this team of economic experts going to require that your UBER 1337 SWORD require a constant supply of materials(spare parts) to keep it in working order, and you have to give it a lube job every 3 months or 3000 miles? Also your going to pay property taxes on it gas it up, or recharge it every night if you go electric. Make sure you get the sport car model and not the minivan model so you can impress the ladies. Oh depending what state you play from, you might have to carry insurance as well. If you have kids that wanna take the UBER 1337 out for a night, you'll just have to go get some extras, since its bound and you can't just toss them the keys:(
So yeah anyways, if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm just not impressed that blizzard highered so called economic experts to try to design some cool fancy game economy, and binding gear is their so called improvement over D2?
***hint from your friendly forum troll*** botting did far more to screw up the D2 economy then lack of binding items.
Second, Blizz seems to be indicating that only the super awesome items are BoE. They're doing this specifically so you can't just trade them out for a new character because they don't want it to be like it is now, where everyone gets the same crap. They want people to be using different items, because the best is so rare. And they're doing that with (or, partially doing that with) BoE so that the items drop more.
Basically, I think they would rather have people play the game to get better items to the play the game, then trade to get better items. I for one am happy about that. If you're not, well, I'm sorry.
Also, you seem to have half grasped how BoE removes items from the economy. Yes, they're not destroyed, but they do not last forever. Where as before, when you changed characters, you could just trade gear out with someone else. In this case, no items where lost. And as people keep finding them (and probably duping them), there is just more and more and more. With BoE, you can't give away your old items, so that means you have to absorb MORE items. That's how it removes items from the economy. And as you can only play one char at a time, the stuff on your old barb may as well have been destroyed, as it's not doing anyone any good.