DiabloFans

Quote from Prode88

Well whatever, they didn't need to ask me when they made this decision!

Let me be the first to commend your attitude regarding a design element you don't like lol. If everyone could take things this well then the community would be a hell of a lot nicer in general.

Not that this even really needed to be discussed, but the women being depicted at the same cup size. The bottom part of the breast is the same place/shape, and the larger part over the top is attributed to the THREE FLAPS of metal plating over the top. Consider the difference in size after three flaps of metal are taken away... I come away with.... No difference.

Since it may be helpful to atleast point someone in the direction of the answers they seek rather than being as snarky and rude as possible...

http://www.diablowiki.net/Main_Page

Contains all the answers to your questions

Quote from Equinox

Considering you have to go out of your way to dl a client of a game you are not supposed to be playing... lol

Should Blizz ban anyone for this? No. But, really, let's not pretend you didn't know you were not doing something that wasn't intended. If they gave a link on battle.net for you to dl the beta I'd agree. But if you went out of your way to dl the beta from I don't know where, no.

To quote again for more emphasis "But, really, let's not pretend you didn't know you were not doing something that wasn't intended." Epic awesome quadruple negative of doom! Not going to take sides on this debate but it is interesting that he accidentally intentionally said the thing thing since he negated his intended meaning, not not not not doing something, is doing something.

Quote from Barrier

they cant ban us because we dont have beta thats all

Sigh... My problem with this 'can't ban' stuff is that its just misinformation. Regardless of wether you have beta or not, your account can be flagged as banned from blizzard servers for any game. You can be banned by your account from a game you've never bought/opened/downloaded.

Once again, for the people that feel the need to spaz about it, I'm not saying anyone WILL be banned, but its not ok to tell people they CAN'T be banned for something.

I'm hoping to get a conversation going about what to expect in the Diablo 3 markets based on what we know going in, and what that suggests for early strategies. I'd love to hear from folks with actual training in Economics and new markets. :-)

Here's my initial thoughts.

-The average amount of gold generated per hour of individual playtime community-wide will go up as the average level goes up. How much real money people are willing to pay for gold scales with how much effort it saves them. So, I expect the gold exchange rate will consistently move in one direction: a dollar will buy more and more gold over time.

-I expect a level-floor effect in the RMAH. Given the above point about the exchange rate, the $1 selling fee will represent more and more gold over time, so the cut-off level (below which even the best-itemized items can't generate enough demand to justify the $1 fee) will go up over time. Below that level they will all sell on the GAH instead.

Corollary: Blizzard will eventually realize that and either lower the selling fee or change it to 15% to match the GAH and eliminate the distortion. Otherwise the RMAH will ultimately only be used for level-60 items.

-The best-rolled items for their level will tend to recirculate on the AH as players outgrow and resell them (no soulbinding). New items will continually be generated at that level as players progress through, so the quality of the top-quality items at a given level will continue to go up, approaching a limit. There will of course be variants preferred by gold-farming, magic-finding, DPS, etc strategies.

-Early on, no-one will be experienced at item valuation so all kinds of things will be posted and find buyers. As groupthink emerges eg "crit rules all" or whatever it turns out to be, desirable items will become easier to spot by buyers and sellers alike. Anything else should be salvaged.

-Speaking of salvaging: since vendor prices don't inflate, the value of salvaging compared to vendoring items will go up over time. It may initially be worth it to vendor things in order to get hard-to-acquire gold, but once the threshold is passed there'll be no going back.

(EDIT: the first market development has been that everyone salvaged like crazy and drove Subtle Essence below the vendor price. So vendoring is king for now, just buy any mats you need for crafting. But I stand by my statement above that since vendor prices don't inflate -- and neither do the BS's crafting fees -- eventually we will pass a threshold where salvaging will be the better economic choice.)

-Leveling up artisans is a major gold sink (ie money removed from the economy). It costs ~600,000g to fully level one's Blacksmith and ~140,000g for the Jeweler. That will put a damper on inflation for a while as most players will want to build those assets for themselves. Artisans are shared across all your characters so that's a single 740,000g sink per person. Once the bulk of the player base has the artisans they want, inflation will be more pronounced as people will have higher and higher gold incomes to spend on the same things.

-The ability to take one's profits in real-world currency will create a huge incentive to buy-and-repost items between the GAH and RMAH anytime there is enough of a market difference for that item in the two AHes given the current gold exchange rate. So unless you put a really low value on your time -- or "playing the market" is sufficient fun value in and of itself -- I expect these margins will be quickly narrowed to the point where it's not worth searching for them.

-The above is a GOOD thing for people who just want to sell/buy some things and get a fair price.

What are good market strategies given an expectation of inflation?

1) Don't sit on a pile of gold without doing anything with it. If there's nothing you want to spend it on right now, buy up salvage dust as a store of value and then sell it later at an inflated gold price. (EDIT: I stand by this, too. Tidal waves of gold will come spilling from lvl-60 characters back into outfitting new low-lvls for fast playthroughs. Prices for good low lvl items will go up way higher than new players could afford with their found gold. Crafting low lvl items will become profitable, and the price of salvage dusts will rise. Meanwhile, if your bank account can afford you one fantastic item today, the same amount will get you 1/20th of a fantastic item before you know it. Don't sit on gold.)

2) Put off leveling your artisans. 740,000 looks like a mountain of gold now, but that price will look cheaper and cheaper over time as it won't inflate. Moreover, since the quality-standard for the best-itemized pieces of a given level will go up over time (as the best ones recirculate and new bests get generated), it will get rarer and rarer to randomly roll a crafted item that is worth more than the mats you spent. A far better strategy will be to buy whatever you would try to craft off the GAH for the market rate and then sell it back when you're done with it. You'll comfortably be able to outspend players who sink some of their gold into artisans.

3) Put another way: artisans are content. People will level them because it's a part of the game they want to see. If that describes you too, great! No bad vibes at all playing the way you want to play. My point is that tons of people will pursue a crafting strategy regardless of whether it is an economic win for them. Therefore the actual economic win will be in the contrarian strategy: sell salvage dust to crafters, use the profits to buy what you want of their products. (Or if there's a min Blacksmith level required to salvage per item level, only level him as required for your salvage needs.)

My theory is girls just get more attention than guys do, period. (A lot of it can be negative too /shrug)

There are even a few meme's about it, usually facebook related. [EXAMPLE IMAGE LINK]
I just think girls are "viewed" more than guys (be it on facebook, match.com, forums, etc), and thus would have higher results in "hits" versus a male. Does that make sense? It's tomorrow already and I'm not usually up this late so I'm not sure if I'm making sense.

Like if a guy and a girl were in a race to sell apples. The girl will have 100 customers and sell 89 apples. The guy will have 15 customers and sell 15 apples. The girl will sell more apples because she generates more customers. I guess that's kind of my theory.

Quote from Don_guillotine

I think OP is somewhat correct, but it's not simply about the poster's sex. Posters that differentiate from others are probably more likely to get an upvote. Whether the differentiation is from rad posting, being or not being a girl, or a groovy signature, probably does not matter that much.

Quote from succubus_queen

On the pretty girl gets the promotion thing though, there's a lot more to that. I work in technology, and I never feel like I'm taken as seriously as the males. My male counterparts can be somewaht dismissive, and I have to work harder to get my ideas taken seriously. Respect is not easy to come by for a woman in a male dominated industry or work environment. Also being thought attractive is more likely to get you undocumentable harassment than promotions.

This.

Around here, female law students outnumber male law students (something like 55-45 ratio), but the industry is still strongly male-dominated since law schools were male-dominated until the 90's. It's pretty easy to observe that women need to take an extra step to be taken as seriously as men.

I was literally just talking about this with a girl at work today, and it's upsetting. This is unfortunately apparent in real life as well as in the gaming community, especially if you're a pretty girl. If you post your picture in a thread titled "REAL LIFE PICTURES!" along with 15,000 other people, somehow you'll be singled out and ripped to shreads:

1. either because you don't exist (even though... my mother clearly remembers giving birth to me)
2. nothing you say is ever correct - even if male Joe Schmoe next to you confirms your statement using identical words.
3. your fan boys will stalk your facebook, cant take a hint after 3 years, somehow fall in love with you even though they've never met you in RL
4. or you make ONE mistake talking about a game you havent played in 5 years, and the moment your memory comes back to you, it's too late because you'll never be taken seriously again - go brush your hair you silly girl

/rant

Quote from Bleu42

Quote from theecheshirekat

<---has no votes.

There you go bud =) Your first even upvote is from me!


edit; FREEEEEE CAAAAAAAAAANDYYYYYY

Here's one from me too. It's late in the day. What am i saving these votes for?

Quote from tanis0

To use myself as an example, I've currently got 31 upvotes for 222 posts (not counting this one), which is ~0.140 upvotes per post. Since I was curious, I just did some spot-checking and that seems to be a relatively high ratio among random male users I sampled (which was a very small sample size of about 20 users). Since she used herself as an example, succubus_queen currently has 53 upvotes for 252 posts, which is ~0.210 upvotes per post, and which is also ~50.6% more upvotes per post than I have. Actually, she has slightly more than that because I just upvoted her for a thoughtful response she made to a question I asked her in another thread.

Now, here are some possible explanations:

1) Her posts are more well-written than mine.
2) More people agree with what she says than with what I say
3) Topics in which she posts get more eyes than those in which I post
4) She tends to post in threads earlier than I do and thus her posts are more visible and are seen before people move on
5) More people skip my posts because I tend to be longwinded
6) She's been around longer and has posted more than I have and thus has more people who recognize and like her than I do
7) She's more active on this site than I am (she has 12 friends in her list to my zero, for example)
8) The numbers are screwy (She's got 853 active posts but her count only shows 252, so are off-topic not counted the same way, and if not, are upvotes?)
9) She's a woman

Probably all of those are factors to some extent. I don't think that anyone ever thinks, "she's a woman so I'll upvote her." At most, I think they just notice her avatar / forum name, notice she's a woman and then pay more attention to her because that's what guys do. Regardless, I think that's a very small factor in her overall stats. The fact is that she's an intelligent, interesting and polite poster, and that, imho, has far more to do with the upvotes she has than does her gender.

Yes, my numbers are messed up because I spend a lot of time in the off topic section, and those don't count. My upvotes are really 54 upvotes for nearly 900 posts (instead of 252). So my upvotes are largely due to posting a lot instead of popularity, skill, or gender. And my upvotes per post ratio is pretty bad counting off topic. On the other hand though, most of my upvotes come from on topic contributions, and the other 600+ posts never really had a chance at getting upvoted because they are mostly short chatty stuff, flame wars, and bad jokes.

Guess it can be hard to break it down and determine a lot by ratios because it depends a lot on posting style. If someone's posts are mostly answering questions, or presenting game related ideas and concepts they are going to end up with a higher ratio of votes per post than someone who is in off topic spamming things like "congrats!" "happy birthday!", or "cool song!"



I think you are right about why people get voted up most often. People who are polite, persuasive, and can express their ideas without antagonizing people tend to get popular and take in lots of votes per post.

Since you reviewed my profile a few minutes ago, I think I'll weigh in on this. I mainly post off topic, because I think casual conversation with people who share my interests (like gaming) is good fun. I mostly just post on topic when I have something unique to add, that hasn't already been said, because some conversations tend to get a bit repetitive. Most of the things I have been voted up on in the past are contributions to magic find, or PvP versus PvM priority in game, or whether RMAH will be a viable way to make money. Things along those lines. Not off topic contributions or idle chit chat.

The notion that someone would vote someone up based on gender is pretty funny actually. As far as I know, there is no way to see who voted you up, so its not like anyone thinks they are winning points with you when they do it.

In my experience on this site, whoever contributes the best ideas or concepts to the conversation, in a constructive way, tends to get voted up. Sometimes that has been me, and sometimes not. When I look over a conversation and see someone else is providing more depth, or better articulated concepts than me, they will get voted up more than me, regardless of gender.

If they do this, then someone will figure out which buttons you need to press to be "the best:, and in 365 days, we will all be just doing what blizzard already is doing, and auto-picking our stats based on whats "best".

It's the same thing in the end, what is the big deal.

Sorry I am kinda new on this site, and I always had an error when I tried to search for "map" since it's less than 4 characters so couldn't really figure out how could I find topics about this.

But ty for ur very useful comments I appreciate it very much!

Though I don't think they avoid the "being a dot on the map" problem, since as I said, I can just hold down left click to move and open-close-open-close the map and it will be always the same as in diablo 2 but in an annoying way. Well whatever, they didn't need to ask me when they made this decision!

I actually do understand what you mean about the barb feeling good. It is more a class issue that it is a gameplay or numbers issue. The Barb and DH have a very satisfying sound effect every time they hit something. Almost like feedback from a controller. I felt this too but I didn't get this from the monk.

The wizard is slightly different, melee attacks and spells act differently. Casting Magic Missile does not provide as satisfying a feedback compared to Bard/DH. But when you find the wizard spells that work for you, you'll be happy. I easy got over this feeling when I found a good DPS weapon and when I started getting runes for my Magic Missile. The Split rune makes MM feel very good. Also the more spells you unlock for the wizard, the better. You feel very very satisfied with how Electrocute works.

Quote from Antirepublican

Because they are....the #s are just not there.

Please don't start this argument again Antirepublican. You have your views. Fine. Stop trying to cram it down everyone's throats. Especially since you're completely closed to any input from anyone else.

Quote from Mysticjbyrd

Most people are likely going to stick to a single class at 1st rather than leveling up all 5....so it actually means quite a bit.

Your wrong about another thing too. We have the skill info, so its not impossible to predict the strengths and weaknesses of the classes. ATM the wizard aint got much powa....

Well, you're ignoring a lot of factors and also assuming you know what most people are likely to do.

Short list of aforementioned factors:
-We may have the info on what skills will be offered, but the complexion of combat challenges and how Situational DPS will actually develop is a complete unknown.
-Just having the skills does not account for what synergies people will find practical in the later stages of the game.
-Gear

Why you don't know what most people will do:
-You have no data, only a bland assumption.

Also even if one assume's you are correct and that most people will stick with what they start with, whatever is in favor or out of favor among people playing the beta won't have much to do with what the vast aggregate of players choose at launch. I don't think its a tenuous assumption to think that casual players will choose the class that appeals to them aesthetically or conceptually over what some random forum post tells them to pick. Hard core power gamers are unlikely to fall into the trap that level 13 is representative of even level 16+, and will make decisions based on what they think will perform best in inferno.

The only people I foresee being trapped by the "trend" of which class is "in-favor" are the middle class gamers afraid of looking like casual players, but not willing to put in the independant analysis a hard-core gamer would.

Maybe that group is large enough to skew the numbers of which class is played... but EVEN IF IT IS, its still pretty meaningless. Are you picking your class for yourself or for someone else's judgement?