Mysteries of the Mighty Barbarians.

[GRT]

I think the best part will be when some of these people who hope to make money from Diablo 3 one day finds a job. Basically you realize that it's fun to have a game that's separated from your 9 to 5. Quit being a immature simpleton.

[Ksandra]

I think the best part will be when some of these people who hope to make money from Diablo 3 one day finds a job. Basically you realize that it's fun to have a game that's separated from your 9 to 5. Quit being a immature simpleton.

except...you can separate it...I can't think of ever bothering with the AH in the last ones. It isn't a major part of the game. You don't need to use them.


For the rest of us? Get those wallets out Euros!


Also, I have a job. I'm not going to play this to make money, but I also don't give a shit about gear Epeen in a non MMO game. If a purple drops, might as well sell it and make my money back from buying the game. Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

[GRT]

So... you didn't care about trading for sets or a Windforce dropping for you in D2?

And if you have a job and don't plan to use D3 to make money, why are you responding to that comment? lol

[Ksandra]

So... you didn't care about trading for sets or a Windforce dropping for you in D2?

Why the fuck would I have? That game came out when I was like...20. I just don't see the need for non-mmos to care about that stuff.

And if you have a job and don't plan to use D3 to make money, why are you responding to that comment? lol

'cause I made a comment about making money off the euros, then you posted about people making money off the game.

[Belkin]

So... you didn't care about trading for sets or a Windforce dropping for you in D2?

And if you have a job and don't plan to use D3 to make money, why are you responding to that comment? lol

When has anybody not wanted an extra 100 dollars. Hell, I'm willing to bet some items will be even more expensive than that. Put that item in your hands and try not to have the "shit, I can sell this to get my wife/girlfriend/friend a nice gift for their birthday/christmas" feeling in the back of your mind all the time. Sure, I can understand wanting to keep work and play separate, but god damn put some things into perspective.

Or you could think of it this way. You could either:

1. Pwn noobs that brings about brief flashes of satisfaction that are ultimately not worth a rats ass at the end of the day.

or

2. Real life money.

I'm not talking "Oh, I don't want to sell this item for 5 dollars because I've had it since I started the game and it's still kinda useful."

I'm talking "Fuck, I just found this 0.0001% item that sells for over 100 dollars and maybe I can't even fucking use it so I'll sell it and then go spend money on something for myself and then have extra money on top of that."

If you picked #1 as more satisfying, then you need to go outside more often I think.

[solracht]

A good item drops and you have to decide whether getting an upgrade for your character is worth more than getting $10-20. You don't see how that could ruin the gaming experience for people who do play for drops and to improve their characters?

Not that this wasn't possible to do years ago in D2, but as some people said, at least you had to ask yourself whether you really wanted to go through the trouble of using third-party means. It's in-game now, and literally one click away: that question dissapears, and the temptation to sell everything becomes stronger than ever.

And I'd like to make clear that I'm not personally complaining, but if you can't at least relate to those who do, or see why the complaints exist then I don't know what to say.

[GRT]

I'm actually starting to accept that maybe people do want to make this their part time job, what with the shitty economy and unemployment rate. But I don't appreciate this being kicked down the throats of even those of us still consider it a form a cheating. I already said I still will buy the game if only to play hardcore mode, but I would much rather they separated the servers into RMAH ones and non-RMAH ones.

[Belkin]

I can see why people will hate it. It favors people who have a fuckton of money, yes. I dislike that too, but do you wanna know the truth? It's gonna turn out just like JSP. They have the option to RMT for their FG and guess how many people use it, even with very reasonable prices on the exchange? Not that many. Blizzards official exchange rate is going to be horrid. So horrid in fact that the system will fall largely by the wayside when people realize that it's not JSP and that you can't outfit an entire character for less than 10 dollars.

You can piss and moan all you want about the ethics and the principle of such a system, but is it going to affect you in the least bit, especially if you aren't even going to use it? Probably not.

[Kaylia]

@GRT
Is it possible to log on D3 and only make money?

If the answer is yes, can you please explain how it is like a Casino? If the answer is no, explain how it is possible to constantly lose money with the "gambling".

Casino: money blablabla random odds blablabla game
Diablo 3: money blablabla random odds blablabla game
Therefore Diablo3 = Casino

That's what you're thinking, right? Too bad that's not how you make definition.

First you assume "forum people" are uneducated, then you imply you are trained in mathematics and adept at solving multi-variable problems, and finally you say it's impossible to make projections based on incomplete data sets and it's utterly pointless to even try?

So.... um.... well.... I'm at a loss for words. Didn't I see you in a couple of science threads on here?

That was the worst logic I've seen from you tonight. Not answering a question when you don't have enough data to determine the parameters it is the smart thing to do. Taking a blind guess is dumb as fuck.

Yes, most people on the net are moron (especially in nerd rage thread). Some make compelling argument occasionally, but they aren't representing the majority, and these comments are usually loss in a sea of garbage. Using a general consensus like you did is stupid, and that's what I was saying.

Secondly, it's possible to make projection about certain thing, but it's impossible to make a guess when the difference between 0.9999, 1 and 1.001 is meaningful and when the answer could easily be anywhere. When we are missing every ingredients to determines the inflation parameter, it would be stupid to make a statement like you did.

In this case, we don't know shit about gold inflation and where the economy will stabilize (not limited, but essentially covered by the "money input - moneysink") . If gold is in demand, the price will eventually reach a point where people will want it just as much as they want items, or real money, and once we reach that point, people will be willing to trade a currency that has value for an item or money that also has value.

If you want an example, would you rather get 50 buck,100 000 000 gil or a relic in FFXI? Unless you have moral issue with rmt, why would anyone take 50$ when you could sell the gil for 10 times that amount? It's going to be the same deal here.

[geno]

For those confused about the way the system works (there is an unbelievable amount of misinformation in the last few pages and around the web right now), I'm going to try to do a quick FAQ on it from all the info I've read and the conclusions I've made. These are my own thoughts about the system and I may not be 100% correct, but I think I have most of the details down.

• How do the two auction houses work overall?

There are two separate auction houses, one where items can only be sold for gold and one where items can be sold for real money. The gold AH works exactly as you expect it would, similarly to a game like FFXI, where everything is internal and the profits of a sale return to your character in the form of gold.

The RMT AH works fairly similarly but with some slight differences. First, the RMT AH collects two fees, one for listing an item (whether it sells or not), and a second when the item sells. Both fees are fixed, not percentage based, so prices do not affect them.

When a sale is made at the RMT house, you then have two options (so long as you set them up beforehand presumably). Your first option is to send the money to your Blizzard account ("Blizzard bucks" as people have been referring to it) where it can then be spent on anything real money can be spent on within Blizzard games (WoW accounts, RMT house, maybe more?). Once this option has been taken, it is not possible to cash-out directly unless you put the money back into the game (buy another item) and then take it back out (sell the item) and choose the other option (note: this is a clearly inefficient way to cash out if that is your intention). This option has no additional fees associated with it.

Your second option is to send the money directly to a third-party service (I find it extremely likely this service will just be PayPal, but the agreements are not set in stone yet so they were unlikely able to explicitly say so), where upon a third "cash-out" fee will be collected. It also seems likely that this 'cash-out' fee will simply be the fee paypal takes (either directly, or through Blizzard), but I have seen no confirmation of that. In the event that this fee is meant solely for Blizzard, then I'd still think it unlikely any other fees will be levied directly by Paypal as it seems likely Blizzard would have some deal in place for the service, but once again, this is only my understanding from various hints in interviews and FAQs.

• Won't gold becomes useless when people would clearly prefer to make real money profits?

Both items AND gold can be sold on the RMT house. This means there will naturally be a floating exchange rate between gold and real money dollars. This rate will be based solely on the how much demand there is for items in USD. As items are priced out, USD values will be associated with them and pretty quickly there will result a direct exchange rate between gold and USD. Once this happens, it will fluctuate up and down very similarly to real currency markets. Additional gold should steadily be added to the system at a rate proportional to the number of players, as items will as well. Because of the liquid currency market, you can expect consistent pricing between both auction houses very early on (as in, if the rate was 1000 gold for 1 USD, you would find a sword worth 1USD on the RMT house to tend to be worth 1000 gold on the gold AH).

• But even if they are the same value, why would anyone use gold?

Blizzard should be able to keep gold useful and valuable as the common currency used for in game tasks. If they are additionally able to make sure its inflation rate is relatively stable and it retains its value predictably, there is no reason to believe it won't be a commonly traded commodity. Because of this, the two auction houses can sort of be viewed as a single entity, where all items have a certain universal value that can be further detailed in the two currency options. If anything, the gold AH should quickly become the preferred item selling market, particularly for the the low to mid range priced items as fees can be avoided there. Smart sellers would very clearly prefer to sell 10 items for gold, then sell 1 lump sum of gold for real money and pay the two fixed fees once, instead of 10 times on the real AH. This seems a flaw in Blizzard's design in all honesty, as I see very little reason for items of any kind to be traded on the real money AH except that lazier portions of the market may not want to do deal with converting their money into gold.

• How can I play the game if I do not wish to spend any money beyond the purchase price, but still wish to have full access to item markets?

There are a couple of ways to do this, but I think the most efficient way is to hold and work with primarily gold. You can buy and sell items on either auction house as necessary, but you will tend to convert spare resources into gold when your purchases and sales are done. This can be done best by working primarily with the Gold AH, but if you do need to use the RMT AH, it would be best to work with Blizzard bux to avoid having the extra fee levied. So as a seller, you'd sell your item, take Blizz bux, buy gold. Alternatively, as a buyer, you'd sell your gold, take Blizz bux, buy your item.

If for some reason the gold AH becomes a desolate wasteland (as some people have predicted, though if Blizzard is able to control gold better than they did in D2, this should not be the case), it would probably be better to begin sticking primarily with Blizzard bucks. Cash-out money can be used as well, but it creates an additional unnecessary step (take out cash, put in cash), as well as levies an additional unnecessary fee. In many ways you can just simply think of Blizzard bucks as the actual in-game currency, so long as you are not putting any additional money in via credit card or w/e, it will simply be a form of accumulated in game wealth.

• But won't this inclusion of real money in the system alter the value of items making them (choose: cheaper, more expensive)?

Possibly? I wish I were more confident in this and had a better idea of how this system will play out, but as of now, I only have guesses. I'd like to see someone with better math skills in complex systems like this take a stab at it. Two currencies, exchangeable for each other, but also both acceptable for items, where one is the USD and the other is an in-game currency with a theoretical constant rate of inflation proportional to the number of players. I get confused just trying to describe the system in any detail.

In any case, item value should have little meaning to the average player. As prices go up, you may be hurt as a buyer, but you will gain as a seller. And the opposite will be true if prices go down. It should all be relative if you are just playing the game as normal and selling items you find to buy items you want.

• So as an average player, what will this system change from d2?

In real terms? Not much. In your own mind? Depends on the person. Some people will have a completely different experience seeing an item drop they want to use that they also know they can easily and legally sell it for serious money. The fact that that choice is laid out in front of them can be make it a bit painful, make you feel guilty for keeping it or cheap for selling it. But like I've said before, it is always a matter of perspective. Some people will have no problem with the decision at all, they'll make it as they see fit but their game experience won't be worsened anyway by it. Others will ignore it completely and pretend the RMT AH never existed in the first place. Then of course there will be those that will treat this as their job, selling everything they can get their hands on and having fun doing so.

Personally, I think most people (myself included) will make some sort of compromise. "I will keep items I can use, and cash-out items I can't" or "I will sell everything and not worry about gear for xxx long" or "I will keep everything & sell/trade only without cashing out, but cash-out everything when I'm starting to get bored." All of these types of mindsets can break that disharmony when you see an item drop.

[Kaylia]

I'm actually starting to accept that maybe people do want to make this their part time job, what with the shitty economy and unemployment rate. But I don't appreciate this being kicked down the throats of even those of us still consider it a form a cheating. I already said I still will buy the game if only to play hardcore mode, but I would much rather they separated the servers into RMAH ones and non-RMAH ones.

You're fucking dense if you believe that most of us will play for the money. We played and enjoyed D1 and D2 and will play D3 for the same reason. The only difference is that instead of making 10 "museum" mules, I might make 10 or 20$ out of the ordeal, and if I don't, I'm not gonna lose anything.

And from your post, you sound like the one who is jaded about this game. It might be just me, but I have the feeling you're the one who played D2 like it was a job.

[Kaylia]

A good item drops and you have to decide whether getting an upgrade for your character is worth more than getting $10-20. You don't see how that could ruin the gaming experience for people who do play for drops and to improve their characters?

Instead of selling it right away, why don't you hold on the item until you get fed up with d3, then sell it. In the worse case, you can buy it again a few month down the line since the price are likely to go down every new expansions/updates.

[Arelian]

As much as I would like to control where people spend their money, it's not up to you or I to decide. You're just trying too hard to find argument against it if you have to resort to what other people "might" do with their own money.

Yes, most people on the net are moron (especially in nerd rage thread). Some make compelling argument occasionally, but they aren't representing the majority, and these comments are usually loss in a sea of garbage. Using a general consensus like you did is stupid, and that's what I was saying.

So, in your first post you chastise Mioko for attempting to form an argument based on a what-if scenario and in your second you put forth one of your own, stating that in your own experience most people on the internet are retarded. That's all fine and dandy, but you really shouldn't go around telling someone they have an invalid argument because they can only postulate what people "might" do when the basis of one of your own arguments is in the same vein.

[GRT]

@Kaylia,

I know I've already linked to when Jay Wilson said D3's crafting system is the equivalent of D2's gambling system, so all I have to do is say since D3 will be a facility for gambling using real money, then it's reasonable to call it a casino. But you seem to want to argue about the semantics of what constitues gambling in terms of randomness and payout. I don't want to argue about semantics, but you should know that whether or not you only win or lose money doesn't name the institution, the form of activity does. (And it's interesting how you are making a lot of assumptions at the front of your post and then cry about lack of parameters at the bottom.)

Then let's address the parameters. It's always the easiest answer when you say "we don't have enough parameters or data" when you make projections. I don't know how it works for pure mathematicians which seems to be what you assign yourself, but for those of us who work with math in the real world and have to constantly make best guesses (or "blind guesses" as you call it) with what data we do have, then we assign each unknown as a variable and work with them. We just address those variables and present them together with the final model. That's why I was speechless when you said you work with multi-variable problems, yet with the same breath say it's "utterly pointless to try" to come up with a projection based on incomplete data.

In this case, we have seen literally thousands of detailed cases where two forms of currency are used the same way in the same market. From what we know, it's actually incredibly easy to make projections based on already established models, and the outcome is usually the dominance of one currency over another by an eventually disasterous margin. In fact, we are looking at one right now between the dollar and the yuan, with the devaluation of the dollar potentially reaching up to 60%. If it turns out any different between real money and gold in D3, then that would be a unique case instead of the norm, and the only way I can see that happening is if Blizzard constantly adjusts the drop rate of gold and the number value of goldsinks to match the fluctuating amount of real money being put into circulation. I guess this is made easier by the "Blizz Bux," or the money you store on your account that they can keep track (although it will be very interesting to see if they don't really get into real legal trouble with that kind of blatant currency manipulation).

By the way, I don't know how much gil is worth in FF11 right now, but with D3's system, it will never be between a choice of a value in one currency and 10 times the value in another. Instead, if Blizz maintains a constant drop/sink ratio throughout the game's lifespan, it will be a choice between playing the game for the (unadjusted) gold drop or sitting in front of the AH to try to make up the difference through browsing and trading.

[GRT]

You're fucking dense if you believe that most of us will play for the money. We played and enjoyed D1 and D2 and will play D3 for the same reason. The only difference is that instead of making 10 "museum" mules, I might make 10 or 20$ out of the ordeal, and if I don't, I'm not gonna lose anything.

And from your post, you sound like the one who is jaded about this game. It might be just me, but I have the feeling you're the one who played D2 like it was a job.

I don't know how many people are going to play for money, but it seems like quite a few from the reactions all over the net. I can appreciate it if you can sort your shit out so neatly like you described, but since you think most others are idiots, then why are you using your own methods to represent everybody else?

Also, of course I'm jaded about D3 if RMAH goes through on every server. That's what I've been bitching about in all my posts! Thanks for finally noticing, I guess I should work on my communication skills.

And what made you feel like I played D2 like a job anyway? That really confuses me.

Anyway, I wonder if you kept a count of how many assumptions you've made in that post. For someone who whine about lack of data, you certainly don't seem to care when you assume.

[Secksi]

Something I loved about d2 was crafting and rerolling magic items to get the best prefix/suffix...then seeing how much of whatever the current currency(SoJ/Runes/etc) is I could get for it.

I view this as basically the same thing just without any actual interaction with other people in trade channels or trade forums.

I'll sell my nice stuff on the real money ah with whatever free transactions I'm given each however often for blizzbucks then turn around and get the items I want or need for my current favorite character with them.

I know I won't be opening my wallet to buy anything, though I'm not opposed to linking my paypal if I find an item or two that will get my 60 bucks back I'm going to pay for the game.

[geno]

GRT is talking a lot about the two currency issues and while I feel he does not do a very good job of explaining what he means, I don't claim to be able to do a better job. It actually is a fairly complex system and one that is very unique and unprecedented (no other games that I know of use such a system, and real world comparisons like the Yuan-to-dollar are so WILDLY different as to make comparisons useless without some deep understanding of economics and currency markets).

But at the heart of the issue, it really doesn't matter so much if the market for gold completely fails, because blizzbux can and will instantly become a very usable replacement in-game currency. You can buy and sell with it and never spend a real world dime, only cashing-out when and if you care to. And because blizzard dollars are pegged to the USD and backed by Blizzard (a purchase made with 1 Blizzard dollar can be received as 1 USD minus the cash-out fee), there are no valuation or exchange worries to be had.

Something I loved about d2 was crafting and rerolling magic items to get the best prefix/suffix...then seeing how much of whatever the current currency(SoJ/Runes/etc) is I could get for it.

I view this as basically the same thing just without any actual interaction with other people in trade channels or trade forums.

I'll sell my nice stuff on the real money ah with whatever free transactions I'm given each however often for blizzbucks then turn around and get the items I want or need for my current favorite character with them.

I know I won't be opening my wallet to buy anything, though I'm not opposed to linking my paypal if I find an item or two that will get my 60 bucks back I'm going to pay for the game.

This is exactly the situation outlined above, and is certainly a plausible common usage of the system they have in place. Like I said above, we really won't know how people will actually use the system until its in place, but I think this method has as much merit as any other. The only things a Blizzbux dominated market will be unable to handle well will be small, low-value items (which would most certainly be priced under $.01), but thankfully, no matter the state of inflation, gold will still exist as a divisible item of barter for things like that.

[GRT]

I wouldn't say WILDLY different. Each case is different, but the similarities are sometimes important enough between two cases that you can make preliminary projections using a different, or older, model for another. The dollar-and-yuan model has key characters both in regulations (where one currency is artificially manipulated and the other is a market-adjusted currency) and in trade behavior (cheap labor, product variation etc) that make it a fairly acceptable model to be used for the RM-gold scenario from what we know of RMT at this point. Of course that's my opinion, but I work with this kind of information in my day job often enough that I don't think I'm that far off base


edit: when i say cheap labor, i don't just mean Chinese farmers, but everyone who would otherwise not work for a regulated wages... which includes part time work

[Imitarate]

oh my god are you people still going on about this, holy fuck. and nobody's made fun of them changing from 7 slots to 6 to "maximize the number of combinations" despite the 12 they used being mostly arbitrary and the fact that 8-10 out of those 900+ will actually be good regardless.

[geno]

oh my god are you people still going on about this, holy fuck. and nobody's made fun of them changing from 7 slots to 6 to "maximize the number of combinations" despite the 12 they used being mostly arbitrary and the fact that 8-10 out of those 900+ will actually be good regardless.

I'm still talking about the AH thing because its hands down the most interesting part of the news that came out. Personally, I find this kind of thing fascinating and enjoy speculating as to how people will use it and how it will develop and influence other titles. As a gamer though, I'll keep my opinions on how much fun it is to myself until I've had a chance to use it.

As for the 7 vs 6 active skills thing, I felt Bashiok's explanation was satisfactory ('enough diversity of builds but with some added tension of choice' is what I'd break it down to). In any case, it's a matter of playability and how much fun and diversity either option allows, and there is just no way to know that without actually sitting down with the game imo. As a spectator, either number seems pretty arbitrary to me, they could just playtest with various figures until they find what people enjoy the most.