Diablo 3 Auction House Re-Dated; Dev Questions DRM

[Deadly_Ramon]

[citation][nom]Brandon S[/nom]LOL I love the fat guy in the picture xD...reminds me of the world of warcraft episode of south park[/citation]

His Youtube name is boogie2988, and he's mostly acting, though I'm sure he's a little annoyed, as were the rest of us, with the game's initial login bugs. The full video from which the article's screenshot was taken is at http://youtu.be/GsqUZkmO-zk .

 

[gogogadgetliver]

NEWSFLASH: Diablo 3 is working fine now and has been since day 2.

 

[fedelm]

Everyone is saying that the online-only is necessary due to the RMAH. I have to agree with that; it would be complete bollocks if you could just spam or hack items in offline then sell them for real money.

My question is: why is this AH even a necessity?

Taking that out of the equation, always-online requirement shouldn't even have to had been there in the first place, am I right?

Perhaps I'm missing something, I'm not big on MMOs...(which Diablo 3 seems to be resembling).

Haven't played the game yet, waiting for prices to drop and reviews to come out...sometime this year I hope!!

Cheers.

F from Arg

 

[h4ndsome]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]This doesn't even talk about the glut of DLC's which have cause developers to deliver half done games and then flesh out the games with DLC the customer has to pay for which increases the cost of the games dramatically.This whole argument about piracy is also dubious. For the record, I have never downloaded and played a game that was pirated. I value my computer too much to take the risk and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to play a game I don't pay for. That disclaimer aside, I have yet to see hard evidence that piracy does indeed affect sales that much. For one thing, they have to prove that someone who downloads a pirated copy would have bought it to begin with and there is no possible way to prove that. If someone plays a pirated Diablo 2 but they wouldn't have bought it anyway, Blizzard is out no money. I'm not saying it's right that the person pirated it, I'm just pointing out the fallacy of the argument.I've also seen articles where they have supposedly surveyed those who do download pirated game and many of them say they use it as demos to know whether or not to buy it. I have no idea if that's true or not, there is no way to prove that either, but there is some logic to it. Many games don't have a demo, or a demo good enough to make a judgement about a game, so I can see the rationale.I also do not believe for one moment that D3's online DRM is to prevent piracy. I believe the RMAH is the sole reason it's there. Initally we were told that they didn't want people duping or hacking items locally then placing them on the RMAH. But when they recently announced that there will be global play, but that items dropped not in your home region would not be able to go on the RMAH. Well, if they can prevent that, it would be very simple to code items in a local client to have certain tags that would make it impossible to place on the RMAH. If you can't access the server controlled items, there would be no way to know what tags would be needed to properly hack a locally dropped item.But someone who were to play D3 offline is a lot less likely to use the RMAH which means Activision Blizzard is out the transaction fee of these potential non sales so to speak. But if everyone has to play online where the server controls the drop rate which can be adjusted at any time by Blizzard, then the single player has to compete with the botters and farmers for the server controlled drops making it more likely a person will be tempted to use the RMAH to get an item they need.Honestly, the developers are doing more damage to gaming than pirates ever could.[/citation]


Anyone in here crying about RMAH or AH has not played D3.

Let's make things clear. If you want to advance beyond nightmare in D3, you simply have to use the AH. In theory you could farm every nightmare act for weeks to have the gear to make it to the next act then farm every hell act for months, but no one would. I wanted the single player offline as well, but guess what? The game is impossible to play past normal without a trading system.

What profit is Blizzard making from the gold based AH at the moment? Anyone? Please tell me.

What the gold based AH & online play allows is for people to sell & buy gear as they're leveling up and advancing in the game. It's as simple as that.

Will people be selling level 40 items that are useless to anyone past level 45 in the real money AH? Probably. Will anyone buy them? Probably not. What people will be selling & buying will be godly items farmed from inferno.

tl;dr everyone here crying about a trading system in a game they've never payed.

 

[ringzero]

Everyone's talking as though DRM is the ONLY reason Diablo 3 is online-only. Of course it's part of it, but it's also largely an online game now. Yes, people play it solo, just like they want to play WoW solo. But that doesn't change the reality that co-op and the online auction house are core functions. It's simply more manageable for them to manage it if it's all online all the time.

Also, Blizzard's infrastructure for this game is entirely different than previous versions. They've got just about everything on their own server and your application on your computer is incredibly thin, for rendering the screen and playing sound and that's about it. Your character, the maps, and all the items are on Blizzard's server. This GREATLY decreases the chance for cheating and duping and hacking in general, creating a much better playing experience for everyone.

 

[Jprobes]

[citation][nom]h4ndsome[/nom]Anyone in here crying about RMAH or AH has not played D3.Let's make things clear. If you want to advance beyond nightmare in D3, you simply have to use the AH. In theory you could farm every nightmare act for weeks to have the gear to make it to the next act then farm every hell act for months, but no one would. I wanted the single player offline as well, but guess what? The game is impossible to play past normal without a trading system.What profit is Blizzard making from the gold based AH at the moment? Anyone? Please tell me.What the gold based AH & online play allows is for people to sell & buy gear as they're leveling up and advancing in the game. It's as simple as that.Will people be selling level 40 items that are useless to anyone past level 45 in the real money AH? Probably. Will anyone buy them? Probably not. What people will be selling & buying will be godly items farmed from inferno.tl;dr everyone here crying about a trading system in a game they've never payed.[/citation]

Yup. I agree 100%.

I have a Level 58 Wizard and Act III/IV in Hell is brutal. Champions with Arcane/Mortar/Walls is a combination that forces you to use the Auction House.

You need a AH regardless if it is real money or not just to progress. You could farm for months and never get the drops you need from NM/Hell Act I to progress. Itemization is key if you want to do NM, and Min/Maxing itemization is a requirement for Hell A3/A4/Inferno.

You simply cannot have gear that has useless stats on it. The only way for a person to mitigate their loot is through a AH, RM or not it doesn't matter. I challenge anyone to clear Hell without using the AH, see you in a year if you are lucky.

I am done discussing this game to anyone who hasn't played it past Act I.

 

[steven_15]

I just have one question. Where do you suppose the gear on the AH is coming from?

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]h4ndsome[/nom]Anyone in here crying about RMAH or AH has not played D3.Let's make things clear. If you want to advance beyond nightmare in D3, you simply have to use the AH. In theory you could farm every nightmare act for weeks to have the gear to make it to the next act then farm every hell act for months, but no one would. I wanted the single player offline as well, but guess what? The game is impossible to play past normal without a trading system.What profit is Blizzard making from the gold based AH at the moment? Anyone? Please tell me.What the gold based AH & online play allows is for people to sell & buy gear as they're leveling up and advancing in the game. It's as simple as that.Will people be selling level 40 items that are useless to anyone past level 45 in the real money AH? Probably. Will anyone buy them? Probably not. What people will be selling & buying will be godly items farmed from inferno.tl;dr everyone here crying about a trading system in a game they've never payed.[/citation]
Um, thank you for backing up my point. the online play is there to force you to use the AH, and of course Blizz is hoping that it will be the RMAH so they can make a cut. What you just told me I had used common sense to deduce and is why I didn't buy the game.

With online only play, you get the server controlling the drop rate which means you have to compete with THOUSANDS probably tens of thousands, of botters and farmers competing for those same drop rates. And do you expect if too much of an item gets out there which will drive down the price of said item Blizz won't nerf the drop rate? If you think they wouldn't I have some nice beach front property in Nevada I'd like to sell you.

Yes, someone may not want to use the RMAH, but considering the greed factor is going to lead the better items someone wants to get will more than likely have those items on the RMAH in regions that allow an RMAH. Even if an item someone wants is on the gold AH, if they don't have the gold to get it, well, the RMAH item is just a few key presses of a credit card number away.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Jprobes[/nom]Yup. I agree 100%.I have a Level 58 Wizard and Act III/IV in Hell is brutal. Champions with Arcane/Mortar/Walls is a combination that forces you to use the Auction House. You need a AH regardless if it is real money or not just to progress. You could farm for months and never get the drops you need from NM/Hell Act I to progress. Itemization is key if you want to do NM, and Min/Maxing itemization is a requirement for Hell A3/A4/Inferno.You simply cannot have gear that has useless stats on it. The only way for a person to mitigate their loot is through a AH, RM or not it doesn't matter. I challenge anyone to clear Hell without using the AH, see you in a year if you are lucky.I am done discussing this game to anyone who hasn't played it past Act I.[/citation]

And thank you for confirming what I have thought all along and was the reason I didn't buy the game. It forces you to use the AH.

Gee, I thought in previous comments to me Jprobes you were saying Activision Blizzard wasn't going to force the use of the AH through lack of item drops?

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]steven_15[/nom]I just have one question. Where do you suppose the gear on the AH is coming from?[/citation]
Botters and farmers who spend all day online absorbing the drop rates so that it lessens the chance of people who actually play the game for enjoyment to actually get the drop.

 

[Jprobes]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]And thank you for confirming what I have thought all along and was the reason I didn't buy the game. It forces you to use the AH. Gee, I thought in previous comments to me Jprobes you were saying Activision Blizzard wasn't going to force the use of the AH through lack of item drops?[/citation]

Your misconstruing my statement about RMAH to make your point. You don't need to spend hard earned dollars and cents to progress in this game, you need to spend the gold you earn in game to progress in the game.

I don't get your statement at all. You played WoW. it is the same style Auction House that I am sure you profited from immensely when you played. Selling gear for gold and buying upgrades when ever you can. I almost guarantee if you did Naxx60 progression you bought 1/2 of your consumables on the AH. Unless you are completely useless to society and didn't work and could spend all day farming for the 100's of potions and consumables that was required at the time.

Bottom line is that you are complaining about a game you have never played. You are complaining about a service you have never used in a game that you have never played. You are complaining about abstract scenarios that you have played out in your head to the point that you actually believe them to be true. and they are about a game you have never played.

Wildkitten = Has never Played Diablo 3. Wildkitten = Has no working knowledge of the subject at hand. Wildkitten = Has no idea what the hell it is talking about.

And to end this once and for all. You will never need to use a RMAH to play the game at its highest of difficulties. Rather the RMAH is there so that people like you and I, who used to raid 5 nights a week (Naxx 60, BC & Sunwell) can profit off of the time we sunk into this game on the up and up by selling the very very high end gear that we don't need to whomever is stupid enough to purchases it for real money.

In the end the only thing the RMAH will be good for is the super high end items you get from Inferno, everything you need to get to that point can be had and found on the G-AH

BTW, Blizzard implemented a 10 item posting limit on the AH.

I'm sure you have a lot to say about that.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Jprobes[/nom]Your misconstruing my statement about RMAH to make your point. You don't need to spend hard earned dollars and cents to progress in this game, you need to spend the gold you earn in game to progress in the game.I don't get your statement at all. You played WoW. it is the same style Auction House that I am sure you profited from immensely when you played. Selling gear for gold and buying upgrades when ever you can. I almost guarantee if you did Naxx60 progression you bought 1/2 of your consumables on the AH. Unless you are completely useless to society and didn't work and could spend all day farming for the 100's of potions and consumables that was required at the time.Bottom line is that you are complaining about a game you have never played. You are complaining about a service you have never used in a game that you have never played. You are complaining about abstract scenarios that you have played out in your head to the point that you actually believe them to be true. and they are about a game you have never played.Wildkitten = Has never Played Diablo 3. Wildkitten = Has no working knowledge of the subject at hand. Wildkitten = Has no idea what the hell it is talking about.And to end this once and for all. You will never need to use a RMAH to play the game at its highest of difficulties. Rather the RMAH is there so that people like you and I, who used to raid 5 nights a week (Naxx 60, BC & Sunwell) can profit off of the time we sunk into this game on the up and up by selling the very very high end gear that we don't need to whomever is stupid enough to purchases it for real money.In the end the only thing the RMAH will be good for is the super high end items you get from Inferno, everything you need to get to that point can be had and found on the G-AHBTW, Blizzard implemented a 10 item posting limit on the AH.I'm sure you have a lot to say about that.[/citation]
Wildkitten knows human nature.
Human nature is real money over gold.

Not to mention, let's be honest about something. People completed this long awaited game that was in development for ELEVEN years in just seven HOURS. In D2 and Diablo, you got gear to continue on. Now you have to finish the game and get into tougher levels to get better gear. Ok, what's the incentive? Dragon Age took around 40 hours to complete. You could do hard mode right away if you wanted.

And now it's so funny. They are being completely hacked even getting past the authenticators. Blizzard stumbled into a mess with this one.

 

[steven_15]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Botters and farmers who spend all day online absorbing the drop rates so that it lessens the chance of people who actually play the game for enjoyment to actually get the drop.[/citation]

Probably true. However that gear on the AH got there because players put it there, so the AH is clearly not the only source of items. I agree about the RMAH just being a cash grab, but clearly people are not only able to find items without the AH, they are able to find better items. Otherwise they would not be selling their now outdated equipment to others, they'd be still using it themselves.