Azrabaine @ Maelstrom: Everyone seems to be worried Blizzard won't give us a currency or that they'll make sure there isn't any trading with BoE/BoP.
What's the problem with the way Diablo II did it? I'm not just saying my opinion, I'm asking the question: what were the problems with Diablo II's player-run economy and what do you want Blizzard to do?
So in my opinion, I like the idea of a player-run system. It seems much more fun to me. Sure, having a set currency like in WoW is simple, but I feel like it sucks the fun out of bartering (which is a reason I loved Diablo II). In WoW you can simply have a lot of gold but in Diablo II you can be your own self-sufficient merchant, peddling your wares across the Diablo world. I remember getting a +1 Summoning Skill Level charm and trading it up to three Ist runes and a Ber. Fun! With a set currency I'm afraid trading isn't going to exist like this and it will merely be a matter of picking the future cow level clean of items and then buying something off of someone
Bashiok: One of the largest issues with a bartering system is that it prevents any ease of entry into the system for players. I have an item and I think it's probably worth something, but I have no idea what its worth and no easy way to find out. You have an item I want, but I have no idea what you may want for it or if I'm going to get a fair trade for it. You may throw a bunch of acronyms at me, get frustrated I don't know what I'm doing, and then leave. That's not going to be a positive experience for either of us, and neither of us get what we want out of it. With a stable economy and currency, there's at least a common language that anyone can understand regardless of their game knowledge.
Cheque @ Dethecus: So, can you speak on whether gold going to be worth something in Diablo 3, or if the developers are planning to continue the item-based currency method?
Bashiok: We want gold to be worth something in Diablo III, yes.
branderic @ USWest: How would you react if D3 had item binding?
Bashiok: Diablo is a trading game, and we have no plans to change that. We don't have any inclination to make items bind to a character, or otherwise remove trading opportunities.
Will there be absolutely no items that will be bound to a character? It isn't possible to say with any certainty at this point, there might be.
Source: Diablo III Forums and Battle.net
Post an item, and let others bid. Either with items, Gold, etc..
Allow the seller to list whether or not he will accept gold, or items or what not.
Also allow "Instant Trade" for specific items from a drop down list, or specific mod's on an item.
You could go into any town and find the "Trader" and be able to sell or buy items.
Also allow 1 on 1 trading too, with the classic trade window from Diablo 2.
This would be the most effecient and price checking system.
For example.. I have "Usless Mace", I go to the "Trader" and see that "Useless Mace" is selling for 300 gold, or usually for a Hel rune.
Then I either place my item up for bid with the trader (Leave the item there), OR keep the item and find someone in game to see if they want to trade.
- Jeff
The reason for money being important in wow was the perepherials that could be bought. First it was the mount at lvl 40, costing a whoping 40 gold. For those that have played Diablo 1 and 2. 40 gold is what you get for sneesing. And in the end, all things that you had a use for, came from drops. Stores where not really used for anything except repairing your equipment. Even the potions where given in such amounts that I really had no need for them the moment I made it to act 4 on nightmare. If all your amassed gold is only really used for one thing, and that cost is covered so easily that you dont really care anymore, well then, there is no need for the money at all.
World of Warcraft handled this by charging for none-drop items, or rare-drop items that whas used constantly. Also they calculated the amount of money someone would have at a certain lvl, and priced mounts allowed at that lvl to make them truly hurt your purse. I cannot see a diablo game with perepherials like wow had, however I can see another version.
Something that has never been seen in a game is that money really matters in what equipment you can buy. There has been some sort of despise from gamemakers to allow good equipment to be bought for money. They have always been awarded as a drop or as a quest-item. This seems strange to me, and I am not even going to argue against this using the "realism" line.
Now I can understand that it might seem irritating, for lack of a better word, that someone could go to the easy areas, grind money, and then buy a powerful item. And I agree that it is worth more if you work for it. However, have you tried to go to early areas in WoW and grind for money for the mount? That would probably take more than a human lifetime to manage. Also, if someone IS grinding for money to buy (scary word that) a good unik sword, well then that person has earned that sword. What is the difference of wading through monsters to earn money for 20 hours, and doing Mephisto-runs for 20 for items? The difference is that there is a game-generated start for the money, and a game-generated end for it as well. Money in Diablo 2 had a tendency to just become a mountain in your stash. True, I gambled with them (for items, for the uninformed), but that was just because I really did not need the gold at all. the gambling part of Diablo is sort of what I am talking about. But lets say that you go to a store, you see a sword that you really REALLY want (funny how people always use swords in this kind of examples). To get it you need to increase your money 4 times. Going grinding, you earn money and experience. A few levels later, you return with the money, buying the sword, feeling compleated. This adds a mini-goal and a money sink.
Con: Buying a unike sword kills the joy of searching for it. Not knowing if you get it, once you see that drop with that beatifull brown golden text is something you will forever loose then.
Me: true, however, drop can still be made. But having items for sale, lets you get em while they are usefull. I have forgotten how many times I have found items that would have been usefull... oh 40 lvls ago, and they are compleatly useless now.
And honestly, once I get to a new area, I am always searching for the cool items in the stores. Come on people, I am in hell, standing next to one of the Arch angels. His human leftennants sell weapons and armor. Am I the only one feeling dissapointed that what I got of a dessert-rat-turned-deamon in a sandy waste that I now can demolish while sleeping, beats the crapp out of any item offered to my infront of the gates of hell by our angelic guardians?
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Now this is a sidenote: Something I have always loathed is that you find an item with good specs, it makes you better on the battlefield, it makes you survive, and it makes you as godly as you always wanted to be... .... ... ... and it looks like crapp when you wield it!
Perhaps a money-sink where you transfere the specs from an ugly weapon unto a cooler, more in tune with what your character is wearing, type of weapon (or armour for that matter) Done at stores!
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Return to the topic I am trying to explain. I can understand that rarity dissapears, and that inter player trade dissapears. If I can go to a store and buy an item easier than looking for it in drops, then why would I ever need to go bartering with others?
In all honesty, this is a con that I have just started thinking about. Would there still be trade between players? I guess it boils down to talent of the people making the game, where goes the line between making item-trader-npc's usefull, and killing inter-player trade? If there is no persistent items that a trader sells, that they change each level you gain, each game you create, well then. If you are looking for a specific unike item, I for one would create games untill it appears in the traders menu. But if I knew that it was more likley that it would drop from a monster, well then I would fight to get it. And if I could go to a barter-screen that was real wide, I would go there as well. People finding it through drop would get alot of money for it. If it is not certain that a trader carries that specific unike item, then they would get more money than the trader did.
In a system like that though, I would start crying blood if a trader had an item I wanted, but I knew that once I could afford it, it would be gone from the menu. A sollution to that problem would be a preorder slot at each trader though. But this does not solve the big question.
I quess that I am trying to make economy a reason for not hateing that all the npc's in a village barly regestering as part of the game, are so far apart when I am just in for refilling my consumer-items. None of the towns held any sort of intrest to me. I never even looked at them, and I cared nothing for the quest-givers. But then again, in a game like Diablo, perhaps I am asking for too much.
This was perhaps slightly off topic. Hope that it does not get flamed to much.
Like SoJ? hehe
Also good to hear that their MIGHT be BOE in small doses. Makes it so people gotta work for their epically good items, and helps the economy some.
Even then, they were pretty rare. I like the idea that gold will actually be worth something.
The way I think it will work is that you will be able to buy the equivalent of "rares" in stores, but Uniques will still exist. This would be fantastic in my opinion for several reasons.
1. Non-die hard fans will be able to see a specific target as to what they are aiming for in order to become a more powerful character. This was a real low point once you got up to the end of nightmare, because basically you were just wanting good item drops in order to succeed. The casual gamer would be able to complete a larger portion of the game
2. Die hard fans will still want to search for the uniques, as they are signs of power, and are more powerful than what you can buy in the stores. You would need these if you want to be a master at PvP.
What if they were to lower the selling cap, therefore restricting the amount of gold in the game. (There didn't seem to be an extraordinary amount of drops in the demo)
All subjeect to change of course.
The only way I can see an ebay system working on Diablo is setting the duration of the auction to a few hours or one day at most; otherwise the trading market will shift from player to player to an auction house style system which i am sure most diablo players wouldn't want. i wouldn't want that.
This is actually part of the reason why I detest playing online. After the first year or two of playing DII, I had about a 1 or 2 year hiatus. Then once I got back into playing again, it was only casually, as in an hour or two every other day. And since everything changed in that 1-2 years, I would have had to relearn basically everything, and I don't know all the acronyms and I don't know what anything is worth.
So I feel that a single currency would be a good thing to implement. Or at least like one of the above posters said, some sort of item value checking system.