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
UGH
i don't see that much of a difference between gold farming and MFing, they are both just ways that people try to get rich...
i hope that D3's economy will use a blend of trading/barter AND gold as currency. bartering is cool and i like it, but i always felt like gold was worthless and that's weird for a RPG game... at least in my opinion.
Yes and no. While the effect is the same, if you have a player driven economy based on rare items (such as SoJs), when the botters and scammers over-run the economy or find a way to dupe something then the players can basically start using a different rarely dropped item. Which sucks because you can legitimately build a vast 'fortune' and go away for a month or two to find yourself completely broke.
I support a gold standard.
But still most of the good gear was traded for other good gear.. because no amounth of gold could make it certain that you get equal good item from gamble.
Something like extra imbues, extra sockets and whatever should be in game that would cost gold after the quest reward. This way there would be even more use for the gold.
Well yes they most of their customers are the casuals.. just look at what wow have become.
But still I think the change of the system is ok. Didn't really mind about hanging in trade channels.. I rather went to kill some monsters and hope something drops for me.
Accept Trade:
OK
Player: wug
Me: wug
Player: u first
Me: no u.
Player: i said first
Me: ok here
Player: lol @ item
CLOSED TRADE
hehe this encouraged me to get rich...
A couple comments here pissed me off enough to post this, and register here, though.
The D2 economy sucks, it is/was based on the average "power gamer", and completely alienated us casual gamers. No, I'm not a newb, or any other insult that I can see being thrown at me, I've beaten both diablo games (Diablo 2x through nightmare with a Barb and an Necro), but was forced to stick to open or single player because I desipise the griefers that inhabit the realms (that and, at the time, the internet wasn't as expansive as it is now). I never exploited hacks to make 6^10 SoJs, so I completely missed the ecomony, damn being an honest player, playing for fun, and not some idiotic form of street rep. I never really felt the need to do runs for "ph4t 1007" just to sell to kids, I'd rather have beaten the game by its own standards.
My ego was always big enough to ignore the realms, I was just here for fun. But sadly I was largely excluded because of the "hardcore" set of kids, who wanted their bling.
In short, the D2 version of pure trade failed most players, and I think was mostly because of previous exploits, and therefore not intended, nor optimal.
I would like to see something like WoW's Auction House, where the "1337" kiddies can do there thing, and the rest of us can do our own. There is no reason to punish casual players, espeically if they have lives, just to reward people who are playing for status. A balance can be acheived.
The thing that made Diablo II sooo F*****G amazing was that it was very realistic and while the action is very amazing and fast paced and there was demons running around, it was still realistic, because, u can get scammed or robbed (dont say wtf just yet) I'm not saying that I enjoy getting scammed or robbed off of a good item, but I like the fact that, just like you could get robbed in real life, you can get robbed in the game, (not to mention that some scams where genius and I couldnt help but smile after the initial shock :D)
Second, while the government controls part of the economy IRL, its mostly the people, and business men that affect it and change it all the time. but in the era that Diablo was set in, I dont think the government played a major role in the economy, so It only makes sense that its controlled by the people who play the game.
Lastly, for all you people who like the WoW-like Art, Duel system, economy system, etc, etc. STICK TO YOUR GODDAMN WoW AND LEAVE DIABLO FOR US!!!
instead of telling me to stick to playing Diablo II, You stick to your WoW!! I want Diablo III to be a "Diablo" sequel not a fast paced WoW game.
All I'm saying is that trying to come back into it, I don't even know where to start. I don't completely dislike the idea of a played based barter system, except that the accessibliity is a little low for my liking, because there is no place I can look to get a real example of what the worth of an item is. If the official community forums allowed for detailed character information, and possibly a player composed list of what they had, and what they wanted. The user was then allowed to search for something and see who has it, maybe send them a message and try to work out a deal there.
I don't know, it's not perfect, and not a complete plan, just an idea.
To get a lot of good items you need to do a lot of runs, hoping that someday a monster will drop something. But what usually happens is that you only get crappy items. Then what you do is wait for someone to make a game asking for this item and try to charge him the big price for it to screw him over. Like the other day I tradded a fal for two facets + some crap and then a couple of days later I found someone who tradded one of the facet for 1 hr.
To get a lot of gold, what you need to do is to kill a lot of monsters. It could take forever but as long as you're killing stuff you'll get there eventually piece by piece if you must.
So what's the difference? With D2 tradding system you had to spend a lot of time trying to trad crap for good stuff, while if gold would be more important you could get good items directly by tradding gold instead of trying to trade sh#t all the time.
1. Make gold more difficult to come by
2. Make items that can only be bought or are so rare to find its more likely players will buy it
Now as for D2...
I remembered playing LOD on b.net a few months after its release then stopped for a while..
AFTER A FEW FCKIN DAYS I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND THE FCKIN ECONOMY AND THE ACRONYMS WERE ENOUGH TO DRIVE ONE INSANE.
After that, i was so pissed off that i sold my account and played single player.
Blizzard has most likely monitored these aberrations and most probably have made good solutions for this.
I'd just sit back and wait for the developments. Surprises makes me happy.
And oh, your curiousity will be the death of you..
I feel this would be a great concept if implemented. If anyone has played the Pirates of the Burning Sea MMORPG you'll see that there is a similar system with regional auction houses. A player can put an item up for sale/auction with a range of prices and the system then takes the item and puts it up for all to see. Anyone interested in the item can bid whatever they're willing to pay but since there is a Min. Bid blocker in place, the buyer has to keep trying bids till an item with that min. bid is available. It's a really well organized and fair system. The developers might really want to look into this possibility alongside player trading.
While the barter system in D2 may have been okay it became completely broken with the release of 1.10 meaning the godly runewords and crazy level of duping. What this did was close off the economy too anyone not already involved. I could do 500 mf runs but it wouldn't mean anything simply because hrs became the standard trade item and all of the uniques and sets I had found in the 500 runs were worth nothing. The economy is clearly broken when 90% of the players are alienated.
Too the people saying basically it was great to be able to rip people off just because they need something, I have to ask are you serious? I can't wait till walmart realizes how much people rely on toilet paper and its price goes up to $20 a roll...
Upping the rarity of coinage can help balance the coin to item trading.
I couldnt imagine trading an item like a SoJ for the maximum gold amount possible even; though i do really think blizzard will if not already has pick up on this slight misbalance by blizzard north.
Think trading worthwhile coinage to worthwhile items not poor coinage to worthwhile items like in d2 :P.
Auction House FTW, and gold having worth would be nice actually, that is one of the FEW things that are good in WoW and bringing that over could be very cool indeed, saving up gold and doing auctions all day can give us something to do
And intelligence/good trading, such as buying low and selling high in the markets can make you rich, instead of just pure luck.
And it was always the items that you going out by yourself getting was one of those one in asdf chances D: