What really should happen is that they create a usable and intuitive interface for advertising which items you're offering that persists while you're hacking away at mobs as well as while you're back in the channels/matchmaking interface.
Um...you just described exactly what an AH is. Verbatim.
I liked your idea about posting offers on items posted in the AH.
I'll use items from D2 to make the explanation of my system idea easier to grasp.
I find a Windforce but I'm a Paladin. So I put it up on the AH. Now a Bowazon comes along and sees the Windforce, and posts an offer of a Shako. I really want a shako, but I think that the Windforce is worth just a bit more, so I can send a message through the AH interface to the bowazon who offered a Shako asking them if they can add to their offer. The Bowazon only has a Jah rune as something worth trading, and asks me to counter offer with a bit more. I then adjust my offer to her up to the Windforce and 2x40.15 jewels. She then accepts the offer, and then I accept the offer through the AH interface, and the items are automatically placed into either our inventories or stashes, wherever there is available space. While I'm dealing with this bowazon, I'm also dealing with another bowazon or a necro who wants the Windforce for their alt. Each "trade conversation" is unique, and when I finally decide to accept one of the offers on my windforce, everyone else who had an offer on it is messaged by the AH saying that the windforce they were making offers on has been traded.
This seems like a really good idea to me. What do you guys think?
Eh. I don't know about this BoE stuff. It works great in WoW because of the way that raid loot works, with loot tables, etc. Recognizable gear is only acquired through hard work. That said, diablo has always been a game where you traded for 90% of the gear that you wore in the end game, where as in WoW you raided for 100% of the gear you used in the end game. If they want to limit the amount of end game gear in the market, a better way would be to make a system that turns high level rares and uniques into something more valuable than gold.
You trade rares and uniques to an npc for elixirs that raise stat points. Only way to get elixirs would be to trade these high level items for them.
I honestly think that they're going to scrap the boe idea. It just isn't something that we're going to like. It's not something small, either, like automated stat allocation that we can live with or that actually improves the game play. This just seems annoying. I mean, Why would I spend 1000 of my hard earned game gold for an item that once I use it, it loses all of it's trading value? It was always fun looking at my hoto and my hoz on my hammerdin and knowing that I could use those to trade for items for a trapsin. It doesn't even count as a gold sink, because the gold being spent isn't actually leaving the market.
I understand the need to take high level gear out of the market so that the items remain rare, but boe seems like a really bad idea.
I doubt they'd have reverse trading where people put up gold for items. It's not how economics works in the real world. You don't go to the grocery store and give the cashier 100 bucks and say, ok, when you get item xyz in stock, send it to me. You wait for items to be come available and go and buy them. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea per se, but part of the reason you pay when the items are available is so that you can comparison shop and watch trends. Sure, you can buy item xyz for 100 gold now and you're willing to pay that much, but what if you notice a trend of it dropping down in price during certain parts of the week?
Let's also keep in mind that if rare items with random stats rule the d3 economy like they keep saying they want to, even if it's only partially, then an interface where you put up gold and set it to auto buy an item with certain stats would be pretty complicated (because computers are stupid and you have to tell them exactly what you want them to look for and to do), would lend itself to a high rate of user error, and you would sometimes mess up the item query selection and end up buying an item that you didn't exactly want.
Let's say that you want to buy a rare sword that has a certain damage range with 4% life steal. now you put up the 200 gold that you want to spend on the item, except you accidentally put in mana steal instead of life steal and you're a barbarian. You're stuck with a sword that doesn't do anything for you and out 200 gold to actually buy what you do want.
It's just easier to program, build, and use an interface that allows the buyer to peruse a selection of items rather than create a wishlist for gold he wishes to spend.
I hope these long posts don't bore you guys. I really enjoy talking about game economics and systems. I'm going to school to become a game programmer/designer.
No an AH is impossible in D3... Remember that AH was hosted in each channel of the worlds in WoW in specific places. We dont have game channels we just have a game that only 4 players can be in so they would need to create an AH in the lobby and thats alot of extra stuff to add. The lobby would just be packed with spammers saying
S>SOJ 9 MIL@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
because itll probably cost money to put your items up for auction so people will prob just spam the lobby
I don't know how much you played wow...but if I dropped an item off at the AH in silvermoon, it showed up at the AH in orgrimmar. It's perfectly doable in diablo 3. It'd be an NPC in each town (or major city) that you talk to, click on an option to open up the global trade screen.
It'd work exactly the same way as it does in WoW. Sure, some people would spam trade, but that'd be true with or without an auction house. it would for sure be reduced dramatically with an auction house.
I don't know what you're smoking, but you're totally wrong about an AH not being able to work in Diablo.
A great money sink system in Diablo 3 would probably look very similiar to WoW. Repairs, respeccs, and transactional costs of doing trades via the AH.
A good economic system in a game that fights inflation has two parts:
1. Balanced rate of gold acquisition and gold loss. Don't make it too easy to turn huge profits. Sure, make it possible for the players who like to play around with the game economy, but don't make it a no brainer.
2. Integral systems in the game that require the use of gold and no other items.
These two things cause the following to happen:
1. Relatively hard to acquire wealth.
2. Acquired wealth has meaning and purpose.
Diablo 2 had integral systems in the game that required money. Lots of them. What it didn't have was a balanced rate of gold acquisition to loss. therefore, the integral systems didn't really seem integral and important, because no one ever had a problem getting the money to pay them.
The monk might be borrowing some points from some other classes, but the blend is really unique in the diablo universe. Isn't anyone else interested in his combo system? That's a really new and cool feature of the class that is totally unlike any other gameplay system in any diablo game. Sure, it might take some roots from the assassin's martial arts tree, but it's changed so much that it's a totally new beast.
I can't wait for all of the discussion about what the best combos are in various situations. I'm really liking 100 Fists --> 100 Fists --> Crippling wave, and then putting exploding palm 3x on something and blowing everything up. Crippling wave would keep everything slowed and together, and then in range of the corpse explosion from exploding palm.
Think about the depth to the combat and tell me it's not innovative and new.
Bottom line, if you don't like the monk don't play it. There are 4 other classes to choose from, but you'll definitely see me rocking a monk.
I doubt that they'll make a system function differently in pve than it does in pvp. There would be a lot of problems to resolve in implementing that, not to mention it would be really confusing, or poses the possibility to be confusing.
I personally think that mana is ok for the wizard and witch doctor. It makes sense for the melee classes to have a different system. Fury works really well with the barb, and I didn't notice that mana globes were dropping for the monk. This leads me to believe that it also uses fury or maybe another system.
It'd be cool if it's physical abilities didn't use a resource but it's holy magic abilities did for the monk.
0
Um...you just described exactly what an AH is. Verbatim.
I liked your idea about posting offers on items posted in the AH.
I'll use items from D2 to make the explanation of my system idea easier to grasp.
I find a Windforce but I'm a Paladin. So I put it up on the AH. Now a Bowazon comes along and sees the Windforce, and posts an offer of a Shako. I really want a shako, but I think that the Windforce is worth just a bit more, so I can send a message through the AH interface to the bowazon who offered a Shako asking them if they can add to their offer. The Bowazon only has a Jah rune as something worth trading, and asks me to counter offer with a bit more. I then adjust my offer to her up to the Windforce and 2x40.15 jewels. She then accepts the offer, and then I accept the offer through the AH interface, and the items are automatically placed into either our inventories or stashes, wherever there is available space. While I'm dealing with this bowazon, I'm also dealing with another bowazon or a necro who wants the Windforce for their alt. Each "trade conversation" is unique, and when I finally decide to accept one of the offers on my windforce, everyone else who had an offer on it is messaged by the AH saying that the windforce they were making offers on has been traded.
This seems like a really good idea to me. What do you guys think?
0
You trade rares and uniques to an npc for elixirs that raise stat points. Only way to get elixirs would be to trade these high level items for them.
I honestly think that they're going to scrap the boe idea. It just isn't something that we're going to like. It's not something small, either, like automated stat allocation that we can live with or that actually improves the game play. This just seems annoying. I mean, Why would I spend 1000 of my hard earned game gold for an item that once I use it, it loses all of it's trading value? It was always fun looking at my hoto and my hoz on my hammerdin and knowing that I could use those to trade for items for a trapsin. It doesn't even count as a gold sink, because the gold being spent isn't actually leaving the market.
I understand the need to take high level gear out of the market so that the items remain rare, but boe seems like a really bad idea.
I'll post some ideas about alternatives later.
0
Let's also keep in mind that if rare items with random stats rule the d3 economy like they keep saying they want to, even if it's only partially, then an interface where you put up gold and set it to auto buy an item with certain stats would be pretty complicated (because computers are stupid and you have to tell them exactly what you want them to look for and to do), would lend itself to a high rate of user error, and you would sometimes mess up the item query selection and end up buying an item that you didn't exactly want.
Let's say that you want to buy a rare sword that has a certain damage range with 4% life steal. now you put up the 200 gold that you want to spend on the item, except you accidentally put in mana steal instead of life steal and you're a barbarian. You're stuck with a sword that doesn't do anything for you and out 200 gold to actually buy what you do want.
It's just easier to program, build, and use an interface that allows the buyer to peruse a selection of items rather than create a wishlist for gold he wishes to spend.
I hope these long posts don't bore you guys. I really enjoy talking about game economics and systems. I'm going to school to become a game programmer/designer.
0
I don't know how much you played wow...but if I dropped an item off at the AH in silvermoon, it showed up at the AH in orgrimmar. It's perfectly doable in diablo 3. It'd be an NPC in each town (or major city) that you talk to, click on an option to open up the global trade screen.
It'd work exactly the same way as it does in WoW. Sure, some people would spam trade, but that'd be true with or without an auction house. it would for sure be reduced dramatically with an auction house.
I don't know what you're smoking, but you're totally wrong about an AH not being able to work in Diablo.
A great money sink system in Diablo 3 would probably look very similiar to WoW. Repairs, respeccs, and transactional costs of doing trades via the AH.
A good economic system in a game that fights inflation has two parts:
1. Balanced rate of gold acquisition and gold loss. Don't make it too easy to turn huge profits. Sure, make it possible for the players who like to play around with the game economy, but don't make it a no brainer.
2. Integral systems in the game that require the use of gold and no other items.
These two things cause the following to happen:
1. Relatively hard to acquire wealth.
2. Acquired wealth has meaning and purpose.
Diablo 2 had integral systems in the game that required money. Lots of them. What it didn't have was a balanced rate of gold acquisition to loss. therefore, the integral systems didn't really seem integral and important, because no one ever had a problem getting the money to pay them.
0
I can't wait for all of the discussion about what the best combos are in various situations. I'm really liking 100 Fists --> 100 Fists --> Crippling wave, and then putting exploding palm 3x on something and blowing everything up. Crippling wave would keep everything slowed and together, and then in range of the corpse explosion from exploding palm.
Think about the depth to the combat and tell me it's not innovative and new.
Bottom line, if you don't like the monk don't play it. There are 4 other classes to choose from, but you'll definitely see me rocking a monk.
0
I personally think that mana is ok for the wizard and witch doctor. It makes sense for the melee classes to have a different system. Fury works really well with the barb, and I didn't notice that mana globes were dropping for the monk. This leads me to believe that it also uses fury or maybe another system.
It'd be cool if it's physical abilities didn't use a resource but it's holy magic abilities did for the monk.