OP, you make some interesting points about why do people play the game, and what makes Diablo. My personal preferences differ greatly though.
Originally, I wanted a cool coop game that everyone could easily play together, regardless of time commitment: I knew that many old friends will get the game, and I just wanted a game where we can hang around, without the need of subscription and whatever. I knew that won't happen as soon as they announced online only and RMAH. These things need totally different balancing than solo/small group gaming, and as an MMO AH veteran, I knew that things will get ugly right from start. Unfortunately I was right, only 3 friends log in occasionally nowadays out of the ~30 I started playing with, and it's got nothing with the lack of socialization, we're a bunch of nerds who know each other from RL, we do that regardless. I just hoped that one game can bring us all together (and is not Minecraft ,) ).
However, after realizing that the game will suck, I didn't give up on Diablo 3 totally:
I thought about trying myself out in RMAH. That is not a diablesque challenge at all, but currently the only thing that makes me return to the game is getting money out of it. Because nothing says pwning better than having the money of the scrubs in your pocket. So I farmed, I sniped and I flipped. And I still do when patches are coming and people are trading more frequently.
I still wish a different Diablo though. One that gives more power to the gamer to customize their experience. One that has more variation. Like, offline/lan/room games. Random map generation. Random monster ecosystems. Oh, and I hate that in 2013, in an AAA game, I still need to use external calculators/resources.
This is the stuff I'd recommend to the new Game Director. Unreal I know. But Diablo needs radical changes in the long run.
Bagstone:
I understand what you mean about not having any benchmarks. However because D3 is expected to have a lot of players and AH is the centre of gear progression, the chances of you yourself rolling all the correct affixes and THEN rolling the correct range of values is extremely unforgiving, to the point which it is easy to be demotivated. They have since added legendaries which act a bit like D2 crafted oranged...This has been great for you and me, I've found many upgrades for myself through 1.0.4, but has made the AH even more homogeneous.
Vertical progression, in terms of character power, is always going to be tied towards the AH economy, but how can we encourage players to progress horizontally - try new builds, have alternative gear sets tailored to those builds, etc...and no we aren't talking about things like Enigma which changes the entire flow of gameplay, we are talking more on the power level of say the Dream runeword - not overpowered but nevertheless interesting.
Serpenth:
You really hit the nail on the head on wanting to message the creator of the auction. The linear, min-bid/BO in 1d12h structure of the AH does not lend itself to flexibility. When I create auctions, I would have loved people to message me to make an offer. Right now if you don't care you can just list for minimum and hope your item gets noticed, or you can set what you think is a reasonable minimum only to relist it every 2 days.
Being able to trade packages is like the EvE contracts system - only difference is that EvE has so many ship classes and methods of earning income that the economy is already very diversified. It is hard to encourage that level of trade until we stop players all wanting trifecta.
Mastodon:
I agree there is a degree of fun to be had making a bottom line and flipping items in both auction houses. However with practice (and the windows clock), it becomes an almost mechanical process. And as you already pointed out...it's not really playing Diablo...you do it only for that bottom line....your character is irrelevant in this activity :<
Vertical progression, in terms of character power, is always going to be tied towards the AH economy, but how can we encourage players to progress horizontally - try new builds, have alternative gear sets tailored to those builds, etc...and no we aren't talking about things like Enigma which changes the entire flow of gameplay, we are talking more on the power level of say the Dream runeword - not overpowered but nevertheless interesting.
Even within the very limited build variety of the wizard class, I found some horizontal progress recently. By trying out a new build that *needs* different gear (less IAS, more APoC, less crit chance, more EHP, and so on) you need to change some significant pieces of gear, and after all that impacts your entire gear composition.
What was "finding a new piece of gear" in D2 (like Enigma) and "building a new character around it" (i.e., leveling a new character because skills and stats were fixed), has now become "find a new and interesting build" and "acquiring the gear for it". Yes, all of this can be done with the help of the AH and therefore, if you have the money, within minutes rather than a few days of leveling your new toon up. However, if some BoA items are essentially for your new build, you'll take the AH out of the equation. It's just a matter of solving the same problem in different ways. I can understand that some people always come back to the way everything was done in D2, but I also appreciate that Blizzard doesn't take the easy way out and actually *tries* to do something new. Whether they succeed or fail remains to be seen; any Diablo game showed its real value after some years, not 3 weeks *before* a new patch hits. You can't evaluate something that hasn't even happened yet.
Originally, I wanted a cool coop game that everyone could easily play together, regardless of time commitment: I knew that many old friends will get the game, and I just wanted a game where we can hang around, without the need of subscription and whatever. I knew that won't happen as soon as they announced online only and RMAH. These things need totally different balancing than solo/small group gaming, and as an MMO AH veteran, I knew that things will get ugly right from start. Unfortunately I was right, only 3 friends log in occasionally nowadays out of the ~30 I started playing with, and it's got nothing with the lack of socialization, we're a bunch of nerds who know each other from RL, we do that regardless. I just hoped that one game can bring us all together (and is not Minecraft ,) ).
However, after realizing that the game will suck, I didn't give up on Diablo 3 totally:
I thought about trying myself out in RMAH. That is not a diablesque challenge at all, but currently the only thing that makes me return to the game is getting money out of it. Because nothing says pwning better than having the money of the scrubs in your pocket. So I farmed, I sniped and I flipped. And I still do when patches are coming and people are trading more frequently.
I still wish a different Diablo though. One that gives more power to the gamer to customize their experience. One that has more variation. Like, offline/lan/room games. Random map generation. Random monster ecosystems. Oh, and I hate that in 2013, in an AAA game, I still need to use external calculators/resources.
This is the stuff I'd recommend to the new Game Director. Unreal I know. But Diablo needs radical changes in the long run.
I understand what you mean about not having any benchmarks. However because D3 is expected to have a lot of players and AH is the centre of gear progression, the chances of you yourself rolling all the correct affixes and THEN rolling the correct range of values is extremely unforgiving, to the point which it is easy to be demotivated. They have since added legendaries which act a bit like D2 crafted oranged...This has been great for you and me, I've found many upgrades for myself through 1.0.4, but has made the AH even more homogeneous.
Vertical progression, in terms of character power, is always going to be tied towards the AH economy, but how can we encourage players to progress horizontally - try new builds, have alternative gear sets tailored to those builds, etc...and no we aren't talking about things like Enigma which changes the entire flow of gameplay, we are talking more on the power level of say the Dream runeword - not overpowered but nevertheless interesting.
Serpenth:
You really hit the nail on the head on wanting to message the creator of the auction. The linear, min-bid/BO in 1d12h structure of the AH does not lend itself to flexibility. When I create auctions, I would have loved people to message me to make an offer. Right now if you don't care you can just list for minimum and hope your item gets noticed, or you can set what you think is a reasonable minimum only to relist it every 2 days.
Being able to trade packages is like the EvE contracts system - only difference is that EvE has so many ship classes and methods of earning income that the economy is already very diversified. It is hard to encourage that level of trade until we stop players all wanting trifecta.
Mastodon:
I agree there is a degree of fun to be had making a bottom line and flipping items in both auction houses. However with practice (and the windows clock), it becomes an almost mechanical process. And as you already pointed out...it's not really playing Diablo...you do it only for that bottom line....your character is irrelevant in this activity :<
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Even within the very limited build variety of the wizard class, I found some horizontal progress recently. By trying out a new build that *needs* different gear (less IAS, more APoC, less crit chance, more EHP, and so on) you need to change some significant pieces of gear, and after all that impacts your entire gear composition.
What was "finding a new piece of gear" in D2 (like Enigma) and "building a new character around it" (i.e., leveling a new character because skills and stats were fixed), has now become "find a new and interesting build" and "acquiring the gear for it". Yes, all of this can be done with the help of the AH and therefore, if you have the money, within minutes rather than a few days of leveling your new toon up. However, if some BoA items are essentially for your new build, you'll take the AH out of the equation. It's just a matter of solving the same problem in different ways. I can understand that some people always come back to the way everything was done in D2, but I also appreciate that Blizzard doesn't take the easy way out and actually *tries* to do something new. Whether they succeed or fail remains to be seen; any Diablo game showed its real value after some years, not 3 weeks *before* a new patch hits. You can't evaluate something that hasn't even happened yet.