Not a fan of going to forums to scroll through forum thread titles to find items. AH was a mess, but they should still implement a tool to integrate it into the game itself. Maybe a Craigslist-type window where you post your item w/ a message. That post will only have a "Message Seller" button where you can send them an in-game message. Yes, seller may get spammed, Blizzard can put in some system to allow only one message per account w/ a read-receipt, and so forth. This also allows you to filter for the item specifically versus scrolling and searching a forum for something specific.
Wow, people are really coming out of the woodwork. Where were all you bastards when I was being outnumbered 20 to 1 on the whole AH issue?
I jest
The crowd that comments on the news is very different from the ones that post on the forums. In general, if you read news comments, it's basically the b.net crowd.
I, personally, don't give a shit if they remove the AH. I haven't used it for quite a while and I didn't plan on using it in the future. But I think without some way to facilitate trading that amounts to more than sitting in trade chat and competing with the chat bots.... that this is a myopic solution.
My biggest concern is that D2 was better-equipped to handle trading (better chat interface, named games, no need for battletags to join a game) than D3 currently is. That means, without some kind of improvement... trading in D3 is going to be worse than D2 and, likely, going to amount to forum use.
One thing I have always taken issue with is any "trading" solution that requires alt-tabbing. It's lazy, sloppy, and something that was appropos in 1998 but is completely unacceptable in 2013.
It has no bearing on how I play, but I can clearly see this as a major stumbling point. If someone chooses to trade an item it shouldn't take a feat of herculean strength to arrange a trade.
Not a fan of going to forums to scroll through forum thread titles to find items. AH was a mess, but they should still implement a tool to integrate it into the game itself. Maybe a Craigslist-type window where you post your item w/ a message. That post will only have a "Message Seller" button where you can send them an in-game message. Yes, seller may get spammed, Blizzard can put in some system to allow only one message per account w/ a read-receipt, and so forth. This also allows you to filter for the item specifically versus scrolling and searching a forum for something specific.
you mean, make an AH? =p
having the AH isnt bad. But also keeping the AH is bad, because then it would promote botting and gold farming and what not. So eventho its not a good decision to completely remove the whole thing, its 1 step forward and they can build upon that.
Wow, I had not even begun to consider the possibility of ever dreaming of seeing that one coming!!
Absolutely stunned and amazed!
I would say that the genie was out of the bottle already, but given that this will no doubt coincide with the expansion launch, this might just work!! Even more excited about Reaper of Souls now!!
I'm excited to play diablo again. I was really starting to lose faith in this game, but with the AH now having a doom counter, loot 2.0, ROS, mystic stat rerolling, crafting that will not suck, paragon 2.0, transmog, and new content to reward players who play the game the way it was meant my hopes are much higher.
Only two problems I have is 1) Really hope the targeted drops are a lot better, and I mean a lot better, and 2) wish it was sooner.
I dont think shuting down the AH will be a good thing.Unless they put a good trade system the channel will be overwhelmed with spam about trades. And there will be sites overpricing the best items for far beyhond 200 dolars or 200kk gold.
The problem with the AH was it turned the game into one where you play for the slim chance to get a drop good enough not to use on your own character, but to sell on the AH. Every piece of gear I have is from the AH. Because the drops suck, period. Itemization has been trash since day one. Instead of playing the game to improve my toons and experience the thrill of getting that awesome legendary or set piece, I play, praying that I get something that might sell on the AH so I can buy that better piece. I have over 400+ hours in game and in that time the number of legendaries I have seen could be counted on my hands. I have NEVER seen a set piece drop. Hell, the only piece I have that wasnt bought off the AH is my damn Hellfire rings. Loot 2.0 will fix that.
Everything announced since Gamescon has proven that the Diablo team is listening to the true gamer base out there. They are owning up to their mistakes, and saying, " Hey, we tried different things, they didnt work, so we are going back to what did!"
To those complaining that it will drive people to use 3rd party sites, you do understand the new loot system is meant to restore item balance to the point where you shouldnt feel the need to go to them. And FYI, using those sites are a CHOICE you make.If you do and get your account hacked, or your credit card info stolen, or your bank emptied, thats on you.
I am glad to see the team returning to the roots that made the Diablo franchise one of the greatest franchises of all time.
/cheers
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I see the line in the sand. Time to find out who I am. Looking back to see where I stand. Evolution.
2) Need to now make all items drop more often, the drop rates of console likely are close to perfect.
3) No items should ever be BoA now, not Marquise, not Legendaries, not Mystic changes, nothing.
4) Legendary items need to never roll "random properties" as that will ruin the entire economy because nothing will have a steady pricepoint to base your find on. The only randomness on legendary items should be the values, and whether it rolls Str, Dex, Int (and other affixes such as "regenerates 1 mana per second" only if Int, changes to "Regenerates X Spirit per second" or "Hatred per second" if dex, etc. Also if the item has a class specific skill boost, then it could swap to another class as well; but never contradict the Primary stat).
If this doesn't happen, then the game will fail within 6 months after the AH is removed due to nobody knowing a proper price on anything.
5) Ensure that rares can be best in slot in terms of PURE damage/defensive stats, that means making legendary items slightly weaker in pure stats, but they have unique stats, stats that rares cannot get on certain slots, and more stats (by way of procs/special things) than rares. This keeps rares competitive and sought after for absolutely amazing ones.
6) Add in a Gambler, you can wager anywhere from 100k --> 100m to gamble an item, the more you gamble, the higher the chance it will be a legendary item.
7) Add in the ability to buy stuff for your banner and allow your banner to be seen on your character if you want it to be (or at least shown when you die, etc.). Make the things cost a lot of gold.
8) Add in a mode that you can gamble gold on killing monsters, if you pass the targetted time then items drop more and better depending on the amount of gold you put up.
9) Reduce the amount of gold you can find unless specifically geared for it.
This is excellent news. Though in all honesty, Loot 2.0 kind of makes this news meaningless to me.
The whole problem for me was that the AH was the tool you used to get the gear needed to play the game. Progression was just saving up gold(or buying it with money if you were so inclined) to buy enough gear so you could play on a tougher MP level.
Now you can play the game, get drops that let you player on higher MP levels, and get more loot faster, so you can play even higher levels. All self sustained.
What made the AH evil was its necessitiy to be successful in the game. The whole pay-to-win model that it imposed.
Lame. With expansion and all these new changes, I was going to give d3 another try... Making some real $$$ once in a while was fun. Now grinding will be unrewarding...
The problem with the AH was it turned the game into one where you play for the slim chance to get a drop good enough not to use on your own character, but to sell on the AH. Every piece of gear I have is from the AH. Because the drops suck, period. Itemization has been trash since day one. Instead of playing the game to improve my toons and experience the thrill of getting that awesome legendary or set piece, I play, praying that I get something that might sell on the AH so I can buy that better piece.
It's nothing to do with itemization.
The problem is not that drops "suck" or that itemization is "trash".
The problem is that you're comparing your drops to the drops listed on the AH by all the millions of other players. And of course, the chance of you finding something better than what is listed by the bucketload is incredibly tiny.
But there is literally nothing that could be done to drop rates that would change this situation. It would just move the goalposts of what you considered trash. Even if every second drop was legendary, you'd be in the situation where every piece of gear you had was from the AH, because you could get perfect legendaries with maximums in key stats for 20,000 gold, whereas you'd never seen anything drop yourself with perfect stats.
Well, this is something I didn't expect but makes me very happy.
I play self found single player since release and like it that way (give me offline and I'd explode of joy)
Yet I can see that a safe trading envyronment would add to the experience for those players who likes it and I wouldn't have any problem with an AH which does not affect the game so much (like items drop ratio, just to make an example).
Unfortunately AH in D3 was also a great limiting factor when it came down to development and new features: every time Blizz thought to implement something they had to ask themselves "will this work well with the current AH system?".....most often the answer was no.
So BoA made its comeback.
Now they have more freedom in what they plan and this is a good thing in itself.
For all the guys who likes to trade I hope Blizz come up with a reliable trading system, just one that's not mandatory to play the game at its fullest.
To Maka and the other fellows who, alongside my humble self, since before release were sayng "this AH system will ruin the game!":
May the heroes rise from the pit of despair and the bards sing of the day of death renewed to everlasting immortality....awaiting your return to the lands of Sanctuary may peace be with you on this day...your day of birth.
Problem is everything revolved around the AH - trading and gameplay. You play for selling shit on the AH, to flip, snipe and farm gold so you can gear your char.
And in the same way, D2 revolved around trading channels. Was it better? I don't think so.
And again, the difference between D2 and D3 is not the trading methods, but the sheer undertuning of D2 because it was meant to be playable offline.
Also, the other major economy difference between D2 and D3 is the absence of a way of getting items out of the market, either through character death (for SC) or ladder (for D2). THAT is a fundamental problem.
Only a lunatic would go self found in that environment couse it's not meant for it due to the bad itemization witch takes the AH into account.
And a lot of people played entirely self-found in D2? Especially all those with high-end runewords? Everyone traded (and duped, and hacked).
And again, it is much more possible to play self-found in D2 because of its tuning.
Time spent in game means almost nothing especially till you get to inferno. It means nothing afterwards too if you don't get extremely lucky with a semi-good items... that you realize you need to sell on the AH to get gold to get gear... from the AH. Am blunt here but it's basically just that.
I understand your point, but that means AH needs additional fixes to prevent flipping and sniping. Removing it completely is basically recognizing that you're incompetent in game economy balancing (which Josh apparently is).
I don't follow the news and dunno if they have a different method to facilitate trading, if you take a decision of such magnitude you have a back up plan. Maybe they have something planned?
In this case, their communication was handled extremely poorly and someone should be hanged for that to make an example.
On the point of third party sites - well people should know better but who am i to judge? If they wanna use em let em use em, if they got their info stolen who's to blame? No one but themselfs.
Even with the AH, tp sites still run rampart and blizz does not seem waging legal war against em.
Of course they're not waging legal wars against them, since they're doing the same thing. However, if you remove the AH, they'll probably have to change the EULA accordingly and forbid selling game items and gold (although gold will be much less useful with such a model) for real money. And THEN they'll have to wage legal wars, exactly like they do with WOW gold selling sites.
This is the only acceptable middle ground. No one enjoyed the ah, it was not a convenience but a necessity and made people quit the game.
Because getting scammed in trade channels will totally make people stay?
Also, of course it was a necessity, because of how the game was tuned in the first place. In D2, you could play self-found because the game was undertuned. In D3, you have much more difficult modes (e.g. Inferno MP10). Also, in D2, you had ladders to periodically remove items from the economy, which you don't have in D3.
What we need, consequently, is a way to remove items from the economy, not remove the AH.
Think for a second, if it was a lose-lose situation they would not have done it.
Blizzard is not perfect and they have been known to make mistakes (mostly in WoW).
Josh is a big D2 fan on one hand and a total newbie in running a game with online economy on the other hand, and my guess he simply needs to take off the D2 rose tinted glasses. And since he is currently riding on a high horse as the claimed savior of D3 (as opposed to Jay Wilson) he may have been able to hoodwink the finance guys in Blizz HQ to do that.
Maybe they'll make more money selling expansions than milking the very few people left spending actual money on virtual good like idiots.
Selling boxes is not enough in today's environment. You gotta have a source of recurrent revenue as well. Which means either RMAH or cash shop.
Problem is, while a cash shop with transmogs and cosmetic items will totally take care of the recurrent revenue part, it will not take care of user frustration in trade channels. Unless of course, the plan is to make ROS like the console version where legendaries are raining on you and you can beat the game because you sneezed on the monsters. Which would be even more stupid.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The crowd that comments on the news is very different from the ones that post on the forums. In general, if you read news comments, it's basically the b.net crowd.
I, personally, don't give a shit if they remove the AH. I haven't used it for quite a while and I didn't plan on using it in the future. But I think without some way to facilitate trading that amounts to more than sitting in trade chat and competing with the chat bots.... that this is a myopic solution.
My biggest concern is that D2 was better-equipped to handle trading (better chat interface, named games, no need for battletags to join a game) than D3 currently is. That means, without some kind of improvement... trading in D3 is going to be worse than D2 and, likely, going to amount to forum use.
One thing I have always taken issue with is any "trading" solution that requires alt-tabbing. It's lazy, sloppy, and something that was appropos in 1998 but is completely unacceptable in 2013.
It has no bearing on how I play, but I can clearly see this as a major stumbling point. If someone chooses to trade an item it shouldn't take a feat of herculean strength to arrange a trade.
you mean, make an AH? =p
having the AH isnt bad. But also keeping the AH is bad, because then it would promote botting and gold farming and what not. So eventho its not a good decision to completely remove the whole thing, its 1 step forward and they can build upon that.
blizzard, i love you again
Absolutely stunned and amazed!
I would say that the genie was out of the bottle already, but given that this will no doubt coincide with the expansion launch, this might just work!! Even more excited about Reaper of Souls now!!
Only two problems I have is 1) Really hope the targeted drops are a lot better, and I mean a lot better, and 2) wish it was sooner.
http://diablo3.judgehype.com/screenshots/gamescom2013/conference/28.jpg
Its hard to trade and or sell awesome items when they are BoA.
Having said that the price of gems has more than quintupled in the last 24 hours.
The problem with the AH was it turned the game into one where you play for the slim chance to get a drop good enough not to use on your own character, but to sell on the AH. Every piece of gear I have is from the AH. Because the drops suck, period. Itemization has been trash since day one. Instead of playing the game to improve my toons and experience the thrill of getting that awesome legendary or set piece, I play, praying that I get something that might sell on the AH so I can buy that better piece. I have over 400+ hours in game and in that time the number of legendaries I have seen could be counted on my hands. I have NEVER seen a set piece drop. Hell, the only piece I have that wasnt bought off the AH is my damn Hellfire rings. Loot 2.0 will fix that.
Everything announced since Gamescon has proven that the Diablo team is listening to the true gamer base out there. They are owning up to their mistakes, and saying, " Hey, we tried different things, they didnt work, so we are going back to what did!"
To those complaining that it will drive people to use 3rd party sites, you do understand the new loot system is meant to restore item balance to the point where you shouldnt feel the need to go to them. And FYI, using those sites are a CHOICE you make.If you do and get your account hacked, or your credit card info stolen, or your bank emptied, thats on you.
I am glad to see the team returning to the roots that made the Diablo franchise one of the greatest franchises of all time.
/cheers
I see the line in the sand. Time to find out who I am. Looking back to see where I stand. Evolution.
Member of the Dfans clan.
BNet Tag: Evolution85#1878
2) Need to now make all items drop more often, the drop rates of console likely are close to perfect.
3) No items should ever be BoA now, not Marquise, not Legendaries, not Mystic changes, nothing.
4) Legendary items need to never roll "random properties" as that will ruin the entire economy because nothing will have a steady pricepoint to base your find on. The only randomness on legendary items should be the values, and whether it rolls Str, Dex, Int (and other affixes such as "regenerates 1 mana per second" only if Int, changes to "Regenerates X Spirit per second" or "Hatred per second" if dex, etc. Also if the item has a class specific skill boost, then it could swap to another class as well; but never contradict the Primary stat).
If this doesn't happen, then the game will fail within 6 months after the AH is removed due to nobody knowing a proper price on anything.
5) Ensure that rares can be best in slot in terms of PURE damage/defensive stats, that means making legendary items slightly weaker in pure stats, but they have unique stats, stats that rares cannot get on certain slots, and more stats (by way of procs/special things) than rares. This keeps rares competitive and sought after for absolutely amazing ones.
6) Add in a Gambler, you can wager anywhere from 100k --> 100m to gamble an item, the more you gamble, the higher the chance it will be a legendary item.
7) Add in the ability to buy stuff for your banner and allow your banner to be seen on your character if you want it to be (or at least shown when you die, etc.). Make the things cost a lot of gold.
8) Add in a mode that you can gamble gold on killing monsters, if you pass the targetted time then items drop more and better depending on the amount of gold you put up.
9) Reduce the amount of gold you can find unless specifically geared for it.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumThe whole problem for me was that the AH was the tool you used to get the gear needed to play the game. Progression was just saving up gold(or buying it with money if you were so inclined) to buy enough gear so you could play on a tougher MP level.
Now you can play the game, get drops that let you player on higher MP levels, and get more loot faster, so you can play even higher levels. All self sustained.
What made the AH evil was its necessitiy to be successful in the game. The whole pay-to-win model that it imposed.
Good riddance I say.
It's nothing to do with itemization.
The problem is not that drops "suck" or that itemization is "trash".
The problem is that you're comparing your drops to the drops listed on the AH by all the millions of other players. And of course, the chance of you finding something better than what is listed by the bucketload is incredibly tiny.
But there is literally nothing that could be done to drop rates that would change this situation. It would just move the goalposts of what you considered trash. Even if every second drop was legendary, you'd be in the situation where every piece of gear you had was from the AH, because you could get perfect legendaries with maximums in key stats for 20,000 gold, whereas you'd never seen anything drop yourself with perfect stats.
By the way, I completely agree with you that this is a good move!! Just disagree with your analysis as to why it is a good move.
I play self found single player since release and like it that way (give me offline and I'd explode of joy)
Yet I can see that a safe trading envyronment would add to the experience for those players who likes it and I wouldn't have any problem with an AH which does not affect the game so much (like items drop ratio, just to make an example).
Unfortunately AH in D3 was also a great limiting factor when it came down to development and new features: every time Blizz thought to implement something they had to ask themselves "will this work well with the current AH system?".....most often the answer was no.
So BoA made its comeback.
Now they have more freedom in what they plan and this is a good thing in itself.
For all the guys who likes to trade I hope Blizz come up with a reliable trading system, just one that's not mandatory to play the game at its fullest.
To Maka and the other fellows who, alongside my humble self, since before release were sayng "this AH system will ruin the game!":
immortality....awaiting your return to the lands of Sanctuary may peace be with you on this day...your day of birth.
The Crew
And again, the difference between D2 and D3 is not the trading methods, but the sheer undertuning of D2 because it was meant to be playable offline.
Also, the other major economy difference between D2 and D3 is the absence of a way of getting items out of the market, either through character death (for SC) or ladder (for D2). THAT is a fundamental problem.
And a lot of people played entirely self-found in D2? Especially all those with high-end runewords? Everyone traded (and duped, and hacked).
And again, it is much more possible to play self-found in D2 because of its tuning.
I understand your point, but that means AH needs additional fixes to prevent flipping and sniping. Removing it completely is basically recognizing that you're incompetent in game economy balancing (which Josh apparently is).
In this case, their communication was handled extremely poorly and someone should be hanged for that to make an example.
Because people act totally rationally. Right.
Of course they're not waging legal wars against them, since they're doing the same thing. However, if you remove the AH, they'll probably have to change the EULA accordingly and forbid selling game items and gold (although gold will be much less useful with such a model) for real money. And THEN they'll have to wage legal wars, exactly like they do with WOW gold selling sites.
Also, of course it was a necessity, because of how the game was tuned in the first place. In D2, you could play self-found because the game was undertuned. In D3, you have much more difficult modes (e.g. Inferno MP10). Also, in D2, you had ladders to periodically remove items from the economy, which you don't have in D3.
What we need, consequently, is a way to remove items from the economy, not remove the AH.
Josh is a big D2 fan on one hand and a total newbie in running a game with online economy on the other hand, and my guess he simply needs to take off the D2 rose tinted glasses. And since he is currently riding on a high horse as the claimed savior of D3 (as opposed to Jay Wilson) he may have been able to hoodwink the finance guys in Blizz HQ to do that.
Selling boxes is not enough in today's environment. You gotta have a source of recurrent revenue as well. Which means either RMAH or cash shop.
Problem is, while a cash shop with transmogs and cosmetic items will totally take care of the recurrent revenue part, it will not take care of user frustration in trade channels. Unless of course, the plan is to make ROS like the console version where legendaries are raining on you and you can beat the game because you sneezed on the monsters. Which would be even more stupid.