http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11222392843
The Blizzard forum mods have graciously decided to lift my ban on the forums and I read through most of the 26 page discussion in the other thread and here are some thoughts I would like to share with you guys on why there is noCOMPROMISE.
Hopefully I am not banned again for this post and this thread is NOT deleted.
-
The main reason that people are forBOA, is they somehow feel that it'sUNFAIRfor other people to play the game in the manner that they choose and that there needs to be an even playing ground in terms of progression for all players.
However they try to put it, this is in the end their main argument, reasons such as 3rd party sites and bots are just points that are added to give logic to their argument.
How about a quick reality check or in this case "virtual reality check?".
There is no competition in D3, there is no ladder in D3, there is no PVP in D3. The only thing that D3 has is a loot-reward system that rewards you through playing the game. The valuation of virtual goods that spawn in the world of D3 isn't designed by the game developers, this is a market that is created off just simple supply/demand.
The fact that people give value to D3 virtual goods in the manner that they do is a feat itself for a game developer in this era where the shift has already started towards micro-transactions where game companies are explicitly trying to create a sense of value for their pixels/data.
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Let me illustrate this to all you guys with a simple example of two types of players, both which I have encountered many times of in my days of trading and progressing through D3.
(The "Pay To Win" Player)
Person A spends $5000 on some of the best items that spawned across the server, for whatever reasons this person may have, he sees value in this transaction for his own personal reasons to the point that he is willing to invest his personal resources from the real world to further his progression and enjoyment in the virtual world of D3. This person whatever economic state he's in whether he has a large bank account or not is willing to invest a portion of his worth into his "virtual character".
Currently there are no means of facilitating this type of transaction implemented into the game itself and for good reason, the game itself is not trying to promote this kind of activity.
Now Person A must go through all the loopholes of trying to find a secure way to handle this transaction without the risk of Fraud/Scam/Hacks, or what not.
In the end Person A obtains the items/material/gold or what not he seeks to achieve his goal, providing himself a method to have fun and play the game he purchased.
This is why the RMAH/AH was launched with the release of D3, because regardless of what Blizzard does, these type of trades and sites will happen so the goal of the AH was to give a safe platform for these transactions to occur.
Now as to why the AH failed, is a whole different topic.
(The "Legit" Player)
On the other end there's Player B, now this player has been playing by himself and with his friends, does not enjoy the trading aspect of this loot based game and doesn't choose to partake in spending his real life resources into the game.
However, Player B does not enjoy the fact that he has spent over 1000 hours playing the game "legitimately" and feels it's not fair for Player A to be able to progress through the game faster than he has through the use of IRL currency.
-
Now I ask everyone and the development team, what exactly is the problem here?
-
The fact that people spent countless hours in D3 and never found anything that they would use (myself included), has NOTHING to do with the fact that people are spending money in this game through various systems of trade whether it be forums,websites,ah,rmah.
The fact that bots and gold sites are rampant through D3 has NOTHING to do with the fact that you don't pickup 90% of the legendary items that drop.
Here is a FACT
There is a very high demand for people who are willing to invest their time or resources into obtaining D3 items, I don't quite understand it myself yet, but at the same time I don't see why people would pay to have, for example, an ATM machine inside their home.
To each his own, if it makes you happy, good for you.
I'm sure most of you understand the simple concept of supply/demand so I won't bore you guys with what happens when there is a large demand for something and monetary incentive to try and provide it.
Personally, if I was on the Blizzard development team for ROS, I would be heavily focused on making a system that takes advantage of this demand that EVERY other game company is trying to create for their own titles.
First world problems if you ask me.
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I would also like to comment on this post by Lylirra
- Make it so that playing the game is the best way to get the best items. In this scenario, "playing the game" refers to the core mechanic, which is killing monsters. The designers really dig that kill monsters > get loot > kill more monsters > get more loot reward loop, and felt it was being compromised by the ease of trading, particularly for Legendary and Set items. We want those top-tier items to be earned through gameplay.
If the game was rewarding enough, then trading will only help to supplement people's needs not compromise it, the fact that the game design is not rewarding enough is what caused players to solely resort to trading (I personally have roughly 2000 hours played in D3, and to this date have not found a single item I have kept).
- In light of the AH shutting down, still try to limit the negative impact the third-party market has on the game as much as possible. (This goes back to goal #1 and is one of the reasons why the current rules are set up the way they are.)
This will never be achieved, there is simply just too much incentive for people to try and find a way to monetize D3/ROS.
The demonbuddy case is a prime example of this, after all that was said and done between Blizz and Demonbuddy all that came of it was a disclaimer at the bottom of their site that reads.
"Botting in Diablo 3 is not against any law, except in Germany."
(I have never botted nor am I promoting this behavior)
Not to mention some very successful sites that have been around since D2 that are still active and going very strong from what I researched.
Greatest hopes? That the new loot model for the majority of players feels rewarding and satisfying -- and natural, too -- and that there's an actual sense of personal progression as you advance from finding Rares to finding Legendaries. An item being BoA ideally won't be a dealbreaker because the loot hunt itself is in a good place (this is where the rewarding/satisfying/natural part comes in).
Progression, rewarding and satisfaction are all in the eyes of the players unique to their preferences and personal needs, just because you set forth a path for players to take doesn't mean that they will follow your design. If the consumer pays $40 for a product that they feel is worth the value, them playing the game however they choose seems pretty logical to me?
Greatest fears? As with anything game design related, the greatest fear is that -- despite your research, your testing, your experience, and your gut -- what you've designed isn't fun for most players and winds up hindering the game more than helping it. We don't believe that will be the case with BoA (and feel it will actually be the opposite), but no one here is infallible.
More research, more testing and more experience is needed.
It simply doesn't matter if the BOA system is better or not based off whatever research you guys have done with the data you have collected over the past 2 years.
The fact of the matter is, this game was released trying to harness the open trade model and provide a safe platform to do so.
Now we are going the complete polar opposite with an expansion.
Whether it will be better or not simply doesn't matter because the transition between the two may cause more problems/issues that were not seen while speculating through data
Okay, tried to implement AH into the game, it failed for variety of reasons.
When you guys design D4, please go ahead and make the game entirely BOA with all these restrictions, because I for one will not be buying that game.
As for ROS on the other hand, well I suppose I somewhat feel obligated to play the game despite not being happy with the system since it's a game I truly enjoy and have spent countless hours with the original.
I really feel like we're going down the same game design that WOW had, having been someone who has played WOW intensively in the past and quit for various reasons, if the Diablo franchise is going to go down the same road of expansions with a few extra zones and some new items with some lore that most people don't care about every year then I for one am done with this series just like I was done with WOW.
-
There is no compromise, in the end people will always find a way to get what they want, and others will be willing to do whatever it takes to cater to that demand. There simply is too much incentive for this not to happen.
How about we actually get a NEW FEATURE with the release of the expansion.
Here's a thought
LADDER /w BOA restrictions
NORMAL MODE /w FREE TRADE
and let people do whatever they want to do with their money/time for paying $40 for an expansion that has almost 0 new features to the original.
mmm maybe we're getting somewhere...
-
Also would like to ask again, something I ask fairly often.
But I'm HONESTLY so curious to why there is no PVP in this game when the expansion is already slated for a release date and being pre-sold?
Did I mis-interpret something when I bought the original D3, spent countless hours on my character and was waiting patch after patch for this mysterious feature that never came to existence?
From my understanding of it the issue isn't about fairness, the RMAH or any of that. It's simply an issue of to many players causes the market to get flooded, now i'm aware that more players also causes more demand, but it's not a straight line because 1 player will need fewer items than they obtain meaning that for every extra player the supply further outweighs the demand and in order to balance this the drop rates are decreased so that the supply decreases. I mean imagine if they kept drop rates similar to D2 but for D3 with millions playing, everything in the game would be found on day 1 and be worthless within a week.
This all meant with the player base in the millions the drop rates had to be so low that even within 2000 hours of playing you would likely find nothing, this along with other market stuff like fluctuating prices, low/mid tier decreasing in value while top tier increases and gold value decreasing caused playing the AH to be the only viable way to obtain top-tier gear and keep up with the market. On top of this gold further devalued as it's balanced out with the rate in which people made gold via playing the AH further devaluing playing the game.
So ultimately, this is why they are introducing BoA so that they can can keep decent enough drop rates so that people actually gain from playing while preventing the market being flooded and all the issues stated above happening. If you have a better idea that doesn't require a massive reconstruction of the games systems then feel free to offer, but in my opinion you're wrong to say that the reason there moving to BoA is to keep the game fair.
Oh and for PvP, they've stated since release this is a PvE game not PvP and while they've always promised PvP is coming they never promised it would be a ranked, balanced version simply the ability to hit each other and you have that. If you want to PvP seriously there are many games that offer that so go play one of those but they wont be returning to increase the PvP features until there finished getting PvE to work fluidly if ever.
Sigh. What a looooooooong text, and all of it under a completely wrong premise. While some of the things you say are sound, you got the entire motivation for your post wrong from the start.
The main reason that people are forBOA, is they somehow feel that it'sUNFAIRfor other people to play the game in the manner that they choose and that there needs to be an even playing ground in terms of progression for all players.However they try to put it, this is in the end their main argument, reasons such as 3rd party sites and bots are just points that are added to give logic to their argument.
When will this finally stop. D3 is not a competitive game, there is no such thing as "unfair". Also, no one gives a rat's ass about 3rd party sites, D2JSP was never a problem in many years of playing Diablo 2.
The problem is that there are two extremes: 1) players who want to find all their upgrades themselves, who don't want to (publicly) trade - the self-found crowd. 2)players who trade every single item and maximize character progression with making perfect use of every single item they get by trading their way to the top.
Both approaches are totally fine and legit, and neither group should care about the other in a non-competitive game. However, both these groups play the same game with the same droprates, and that's the problem: how do you create a satisfying gaming experience for both of them? The easier it is to trade, and the more items are tradeable, the lower the droprates need to be (http://i.imgur.com/MN0b4eW.jpg). Blizzard just felt that there is no middle ground that makes both sides happy and decided to switch from one extreme (AH) to the other extreme (no trading except for the 2 hour window).
I've said it so many times - I think it's an overreaction to "teach everyone a lesson that the game is possible to be played without trading", but ultimately they will lift restrictions to something like clan trading (because right now I don't see too much benefit in clans). But these elitist statements like "oh, everything is BoA because the self-found players kept whining" are just insane. Self-found players had a grudge against the AH after Blizzard said it caused them to lower the droprates, but no self-found player I know ever tried to force other people into self-found or voted for BoA. Trading simply got out of hand to a point where people stopped playing the game, and BoA is an overreaction to bring these people back to the core of the game (just like Lylirra explained).
Edit: Fixed some horrible grammar mistakes after coffee finally kicked in.
CROSS-POSTED FROM BNET FORUMS
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11222392843 The Blizzard forum mods have graciously decided to lift my ban on the forums and I read through most of the 26 page discussion in the other thread and here are some thoughts I would like to share with you guys on why there is noCOMPROMISE.Hopefully I am not banned again for this post and this thread is NOT deleted.
-
The main reason that people are forBOA, is they somehow feel that it'sUNFAIRfor other people to play the game in the manner that they choose and that there needs to be an even playing ground in terms of progression for all players.
However they try to put it, this is in the end their main argument, reasons such as 3rd party sites and bots are just points that are added to give logic to their argument.
How about a quick reality check or in this case "virtual reality check?".
There is no competition in D3, there is no ladder in D3, there is no PVP in D3. The only thing that D3 has is a loot-reward system that rewards you through playing the game. The valuation of virtual goods that spawn in the world of D3 isn't designed by the game developers, this is a market that is created off just simple supply/demand.
The fact that people give value to D3 virtual goods in the manner that they do is a feat itself for a game developer in this era where the shift has already started towards micro-transactions where game companies are explicitly trying to create a sense of value for their pixels/data.
-
Let me illustrate this to all you guys with a simple example of two types of players, both which I have encountered many times of in my days of trading and progressing through D3.
(The "Pay To Win" Player)
Person A spends $5000 on some of the best items that spawned across the server, for whatever reasons this person may have, he sees value in this transaction for his own personal reasons to the point that he is willing to invest his personal resources from the real world to further his progression and enjoyment in the virtual world of D3. This person whatever economic state he's in whether he has a large bank account or not is willing to invest a portion of his worth into his "virtual character".
Currently there are no means of facilitating this type of transaction implemented into the game itself and for good reason, the game itself is not trying to promote this kind of activity.
Now Person A must go through all the loopholes of trying to find a secure way to handle this transaction without the risk of Fraud/Scam/Hacks, or what not.
In the end Person A obtains the items/material/gold or what not he seeks to achieve his goal, providing himself a method to have fun and play the game he purchased.
This is why the RMAH/AH was launched with the release of D3, because regardless of what Blizzard does, these type of trades and sites will happen so the goal of the AH was to give a safe platform for these transactions to occur.
Now as to why the AH failed, is a whole different topic.
(The "Legit" Player)
On the other end there's Player B, now this player has been playing by himself and with his friends, does not enjoy the trading aspect of this loot based game and doesn't choose to partake in spending his real life resources into the game.
However, Player B does not enjoy the fact that he has spent over 1000 hours playing the game "legitimately" and feels it's not fair for Player A to be able to progress through the game faster than he has through the use of IRL currency.
-
Now I ask everyone and the development team, what exactly is the problem here?
-
The fact that people spent countless hours in D3 and never found anything that they would use (myself included), has NOTHING to do with the fact that people are spending money in this game through various systems of trade whether it be forums,websites,ah,rmah.
The fact that bots and gold sites are rampant through D3 has NOTHING to do with the fact that you don't pickup 90% of the legendary items that drop.
Here is a FACT
There is a very high demand for people who are willing to invest their time or resources into obtaining D3 items, I don't quite understand it myself yet, but at the same time I don't see why people would pay to have, for example, an ATM machine inside their home.
To each his own, if it makes you happy, good for you.
I'm sure most of you understand the simple concept of supply/demand so I won't bore you guys with what happens when there is a large demand for something and monetary incentive to try and provide it.
Personally, if I was on the Blizzard development team for ROS, I would be heavily focused on making a system that takes advantage of this demand that EVERY other game company is trying to create for their own titles.
First world problems if you ask me.
-
I would also like to comment on this post by Lylirra
If the game was rewarding enough, then trading will only help to supplement people's needs not compromise it, the fact that the game design is not rewarding enough is what caused players to solely resort to trading (I personally have roughly 2000 hours played in D3, and to this date have not found a single item I have kept).
This will never be achieved, there is simply just too much incentive for people to try and find a way to monetize D3/ROS.
The demonbuddy case is a prime example of this, after all that was said and done between Blizz and Demonbuddy all that came of it was a disclaimer at the bottom of their site that reads.
"Botting in Diablo 3 is not against any law, except in Germany."
(I have never botted nor am I promoting this behavior)
Not to mention some very successful sites that have been around since D2 that are still active and going very strong from what I researched.
Progression, rewarding and satisfaction are all in the eyes of the players unique to their preferences and personal needs, just because you set forth a path for players to take doesn't mean that they will follow your design. If the consumer pays $40 for a product that they feel is worth the value, them playing the game however they choose seems pretty logical to me?
More research, more testing and more experience is needed.
It simply doesn't matter if the BOA system is better or not based off whatever research you guys have done with the data you have collected over the past 2 years.
The fact of the matter is, this game was released trying to harness the open trade model and provide a safe platform to do so.
Now we are going the complete polar opposite with an expansion.
Whether it will be better or not simply doesn't matter because the transition between the two may cause more problems/issues that were not seen while speculating through data
Okay, tried to implement AH into the game, it failed for variety of reasons.
When you guys design D4, please go ahead and make the game entirely BOA with all these restrictions, because I for one will not be buying that game.
As for ROS on the other hand, well I suppose I somewhat feel obligated to play the game despite not being happy with the system since it's a game I truly enjoy and have spent countless hours with the original.
I really feel like we're going down the same game design that WOW had, having been someone who has played WOW intensively in the past and quit for various reasons, if the Diablo franchise is going to go down the same road of expansions with a few extra zones and some new items with some lore that most people don't care about every year then I for one am done with this series just like I was done with WOW.
-
There is no compromise, in the end people will always find a way to get what they want, and others will be willing to do whatever it takes to cater to that demand. There simply is too much incentive for this not to happen.
How about we actually get a NEW FEATURE with the release of the expansion.
Here's a thought
LADDER /w BOA restrictions
NORMAL MODE /w FREE TRADE
and let people do whatever they want to do with their money/time for paying $40 for an expansion that has almost 0 new features to the original.
mmm maybe we're getting somewhere...
-
Also would like to ask again, something I ask fairly often.
But I'm HONESTLY so curious to why there is no PVP in this game when the expansion is already slated for a release date and being pre-sold?
Did I mis-interpret something when I bought the original D3, spent countless hours on my character and was waiting patch after patch for this mysterious feature that never came to existence?
http://www.youtube.com/mannercookie
http://www.twitch.tv/mannercookie
From my understanding of it the issue isn't about fairness, the RMAH or any of that. It's simply an issue of to many players causes the market to get flooded, now i'm aware that more players also causes more demand, but it's not a straight line because 1 player will need fewer items than they obtain meaning that for every extra player the supply further outweighs the demand and in order to balance this the drop rates are decreased so that the supply decreases. I mean imagine if they kept drop rates similar to D2 but for D3 with millions playing, everything in the game would be found on day 1 and be worthless within a week.
This all meant with the player base in the millions the drop rates had to be so low that even within 2000 hours of playing you would likely find nothing, this along with other market stuff like fluctuating prices, low/mid tier decreasing in value while top tier increases and gold value decreasing caused playing the AH to be the only viable way to obtain top-tier gear and keep up with the market. On top of this gold further devalued as it's balanced out with the rate in which people made gold via playing the AH further devaluing playing the game.
So ultimately, this is why they are introducing BoA so that they can can keep decent enough drop rates so that people actually gain from playing while preventing the market being flooded and all the issues stated above happening. If you have a better idea that doesn't require a massive reconstruction of the games systems then feel free to offer, but in my opinion you're wrong to say that the reason there moving to BoA is to keep the game fair.
Oh and for PvP, they've stated since release this is a PvE game not PvP and while they've always promised PvP is coming they never promised it would be a ranked, balanced version simply the ability to hit each other and you have that. If you want to PvP seriously there are many games that offer that so go play one of those but they wont be returning to increase the PvP features until there finished getting PvE to work fluidly if ever.
Sigh. What a looooooooong text, and all of it under a completely wrong premise. While some of the things you say are sound, you got the entire motivation for your post wrong from the start.
When will this finally stop. D3 is not a competitive game, there is no such thing as "unfair". Also, no one gives a rat's ass about 3rd party sites, D2JSP was never a problem in many years of playing Diablo 2.
The problem is that there are two extremes: 1) players who want to find all their upgrades themselves, who don't want to (publicly) trade - the self-found crowd. 2)players who trade every single item and maximize character progression with making perfect use of every single item they get by trading their way to the top.
Both approaches are totally fine and legit, and neither group should care about the other in a non-competitive game. However, both these groups play the same game with the same droprates, and that's the problem: how do you create a satisfying gaming experience for both of them? The easier it is to trade, and the more items are tradeable, the lower the droprates need to be (http://i.imgur.com/MN0b4eW.jpg). Blizzard just felt that there is no middle ground that makes both sides happy and decided to switch from one extreme (AH) to the other extreme (no trading except for the 2 hour window).
I've said it so many times - I think it's an overreaction to "teach everyone a lesson that the game is possible to be played without trading", but ultimately they will lift restrictions to something like clan trading (because right now I don't see too much benefit in clans). But these elitist statements like "oh, everything is BoA because the self-found players kept whining" are just insane. Self-found players had a grudge against the AH after Blizzard said it caused them to lower the droprates, but no self-found player I know ever tried to force other people into self-found or voted for BoA. Trading simply got out of hand to a point where people stopped playing the game, and BoA is an overreaction to bring these people back to the core of the game (just like Lylirra explained).
Edit: Fixed some horrible grammar mistakes after coffee finally kicked in.