Quote from GalZohar
Forcing us to trade instead of using the AH would make Diablo 3 at least 10 times worse than it currently is, because instead of spending 1/2 our time on the AH to be optimal, we'd need to spend a lot more than 1/2 our time trading to achieve something.
If you have to spend "half" of your time on the AH to "be optimal" then you're doing it wrong - in a game where efficiency is a key concept the thought that people are spending such a disproportionate amount of time in the AH to gear up is nothing short of unsubstantiated and ridiculous. I can honestly say that I've spent under 1% of my total time playing in the AH and my toon is certainly not "the best" but it is a very viable toon in the current game.
However, you're right that the AH is a significant step forward from the D2 method when it comes to allowing people to exchange items while attempting to maximize the time they actually spend playing the game. This is obviously a design goal. They clearly want us playing the game, not running to Pindle, killing him, ignoring all the loot, leaving the game, creating a new game, etc., and that obviously extends to the method of item exchange. The AH (especially for sellers) is a much more passive endeavor than trading in D2 ever was. This is HIGHLY beneficial to people who are primarily selling and a huge improvement from the past. Is the AH perfect? Certainly not, but in terms of affording people the ability to enjoy the game without spending hours trying to trade that Trang'oul's chestpiece for something else it's an amazing success.
The problem is that it's also an obvious design decision that items in the Diablo franchise will be tradeable and won't decay (outside of inactive accounts and hardcore deaths). The fact that it's been a cognizant decision on Blizzard's part (since Diablo 1, through Diablo 3) to allow 99.999999% of items to be traded means that they want item exchange to occur. People who don't embrace that very fundamental design decision and then complain that their toons will not be optimal are being not only childish but ignorant.
If you wanted to be optimal in D2 you didn't fart around trying to find every last piece of gear for yourself. That's obviously the least-optimal way to play a game where the obvious inference is that damn near everything is tradeable. Yet time and time again, people cry about the AH saying they're "forced" to use it. Yet somehow people believe that in D3 they should be able to be "optimal" and also not have to use the AH at the same time. That is precisely what the saying "having your cake and eating it too" refers to.
Just look at Torchlight 2. It may be fun short-term, but the game was hacked to pieces within a few days. It's not a successful long-term paradigm to allow people to get what they want when they want it with zero challenge. I had been on a legendary cold streak recently. I found a Stormshield last night. My WD wants nothing to do with a Stormshield but I was still excited about it. It's no different than had I found a Windforce on my Necro in D2. My Necro didn't want a WF, but I sure as shit would have been happy as hell to find a WF regardless of if I could equip it or if I had to trade it for gear that I could equip. If I found 18 legendaries per day the only thing I'd be excited about is a perfect Stormshield. Is that really the game people want? Why people think that it's not enjoyable to find an awesome item that you cannot utilize, but can exchange for another item that you can utilize.... well that's beyond me because that's the essence of how a game with completely randomized and completely tradeable loot works. That's the heart of the design going back to the very first game. It was the heart of the design of the beloved D2 and LoD teams. It's the heart of the series.
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I didnt say it wasnt impossible to hack, just harder. I didnt see any bot in D3, but according to a friend there were clientside macros that only clicked to walk and auto picked gold, not items. (i'm not saying that there arent auto item picking bots, but i would like if someone has a confirmation on their existance).
anyhow, having serverside only instances of the game would bring down a lot of trial and error posibilities for hackers. Of course hackers dont make D2 offline hacks, but where do you think they tested them in the first place?
I obviously woud like offline mode, i play in argentina and have at least 200ms ping to the US, but i empathise with the reasons of the only online mode
About the AH, i wont discuss how equiping pre 1.04 was, because the game is now in 1.04 for a reason, obveously, and we are now discussing D3 1.04.
I can tell you that i beated inferno (in coop, never solo) without buying any item in the RMAH. I did TRADED in the AH. It is a fun part of the game for me to stack gold and decide what to buy. Or try to sell almost useless stuff for 10k. I never grinded more than 3M gold, i dont have any godly items (besides that shouders that dropped for me), yet finished the game.
You ask me if i found 500M in gear and i tell you i didn't. With 500M you could probably buy all tal rasha set and a masticore and probably have something left to spare. Then i ask you, did you ever found all tal rasha set, and a Windforce/Grandfather in D2? in less than 6 month?
I can tell you i did found 1 tal rasha set and 1 windforce in D2, it took me 3 years. And i never had enough SOJ to buy them.
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First i want to make clear that the "only online" gaming is NOT because of the AH. Blizzard explained, and makes perfect sense, that the "only online" mode is to prevent users to fully have in their computers the game "engine/server/game background", to make it WAY harder to hackers to make things like dupes, automatic picking bots, (d2loader, anyone?), maphack, etc etc. As the game is now, the engine that generates monsters, items, loot, characters, maps, is always on a secure blizzard server probably guarded by 3 snipers and laser alarm beans all over, and 2 or 3 D2 sorceress casting firewalls every now and then.
Regarding the AH, i dont see how it prevents people from enjoying the game. I can understand that it can be frustrating to grab an item, think it is good, and then run to the AH just to see that there are millons better, and that your item is in fact "crap".
Well i have a lot of "crap" that i found that i have hanging around for future chars, or gave to friends. On the other hand, i have on my sorc a 700dps crappy weapon (i cant afford a better one) and almost perfectly rolled rare shoulders that could sell for 50M that i found and love (yes... shoulders). The good thing of the AH is that i have the choice to trade those shoulders for a new weapon whithout any stress, but my choice is keeping the shoulders because i like them.
So, i think the problem is not the AH, but the way the AH makes people feel about their items.
What i DO miss is that the AH gives people some "closeness" to the godly items (even though you cant buy them), everyone already saw a windforce on the AH. You dont get that feeling of admiration/envy when you see fighting beside you that powerfull demon hunter with the best bow you can get.
On the good side, the AH is like a mini game inside the game of diablo. you can play to be a millonaire withut even killing 1 mob. In my old days i had a clan teammate that handled all the trading because he really enjoyed doing so. He didnt even had a lvl 80+ character. I bet he is having a blast now.