Mysteries of the Mighty Barbarians.

[GRT]

@Kaylia

Actually, they do indeed have much to gain if real world money becomes the only reliable currency to trade with. In fact, Jay Wilson (the devil) actually expects people to eventually lean towards the dollar currency.

A: I think people are going to lean more towards the real money AH and I think there is an answer for the person who says “I don’t want to trade in real money, I’d rather trade in gold…I mean, the gold AH is one of them and I think the gold AH will be viable to find a good amount of items, but one of the reasons we’re doing the free listings every week is to allow people to sell items to generate an e-balance so they never have to put real money into the system if they don’t want to. That allows someone to circumnavigate that option if they don’t want to buy with real money. And yeah, the e-balance is technically real money, but I earned it from items I sold and not from putting in a credit card.

Yes, you may not be losing money if you only trade with the e-balance that you gained from selling items for real money, but if eventually everyone can only trade with real money, then Blizzard is making money from fees of all the AH transactions, not just a portion of it and not profitting from gold-based AH transactions.

By the way, I never said D3's market will be all over the place. I said D3's gold-based economy will eventually be worthless, and that affects those of us who would rather avoid trading with real money, e-balance or otherwise. Call us suckers or old fashioned, but I do think ethics still have a place in an online game and the gaming industry.

[Kaylia]

#1. It's true, you can call it whatever you want. But since I'm upset with Blizzard right now, Imma call it a giant fucking casino. If you want me to stop, convince me why it isn't.

#2. Except they aren't selling us their power. In fact, Jay Wilson said explicitly that Blizzard will have nothing to do in terms of influencing the gold value.

That's why I'm saying they are either being disingenuous and sinister as fuck or being profoundly stupid.

What he is doing his PR, and his goal is to calm people that are freaking out for stupid reasons.

Blizzard can influence the gold value as much as they want, but they won't do it because 1) it's not profitable with this auction format 2)it will piss off people.

But beyond that, this entire thing is the stupidest fucking argument I may have ever seen. Gambling, auctioning, gaming, who gives a shit what you call it?

I'm not giving a shit about semantics. What bother me is the underlying misconception of the system that come with a poor choice of word. The error here are far more fundamental than the semantics.

[GRT]

edit: Probably already clear, but this is @grt

They are doing none of the above, they are simply stating they won't be setting any particular value for gold. What I'm saying is that they will make sure that the gold has value in the first place so players want to trade for it (and hence set its trade-value), because it will be needed for repairs / buying safe pages / crafting / or whatever other gold sinks they have in the game. They will also control the supply of gold so that it doesn't enter the system at an exponential rate making it silly for players to trade for gold.

haha, if that's what you deciphered out of Jay's "One of our goals with the system is to ensure that Blizzard is not influencing it in any way, it's a player trading system, it's not something that we want to be seen as having incentives to, or requirements to manipulate in any way," then I guess the FBI would like a word with both of you

[GRT]

What he is doing his PR, and his goal is to calm people that are freaking out for stupid reasons.

Blizzard can influence the gold value as much as they want, but they won't do it because 1) it's not profitable with this auction format 2)it will piss off people.

Right... so first you say Blizzard says something that's why you think that way, then you say Blizzard says something but they really meant something else.

It's late, I have a 18-hour flight to catch tomorrow, so yeah, you guys are absolutely right. Have fun congradulating yourselves.

[geno]

Congrats Kaylia, Hi5!

[geno]

@Kaylia

Actually, they do indeed have much to gain if real world money becomes the only reliable currency to trade with. In fact, Jay Wilson (the devil) actually expects people to eventually lean towards the dollar currency.

Yes, you may not be losing money if you only trade with the e-balance that you gained from selling items for real money, but if eventually everyone can only trade with real money, then Blizzard is making money from fees of all the AH transactions, not just a portion of it and not profitting from gold-based AH transactions.

By the way, I never said D3's market will be all over the place. I said D3's gold-based economy will eventually be worthless, and that affects those of us who would rather avoid trading with real money, e-balance or otherwise. Call us suckers or old fashioned, but I do think ethics still have a place in an online game and the gaming industry.

For posterity sake, I do not wholly disagree with you here. Blizzard does indeed gain from the extra fees in the structure if people prefer the RMT AH. And you are technically right that Blizzard could, if they wanted, make gold worthless and this be the result. In some ways, I trust that they will not, because contrary to the conclusions you've made from your quote, they've also said multiple times they do NOT want gold to be worthless and will ensure that it won't. I'm also certain the quote you have continually referenced was only made to calm fears that Blizzard would have direct control over the USD value for gold, when in fact they only have secondary control with the gold supply. That said, I could be wrong and they could be perfectly fine with the gold market failing.

Still, I will call you old-fashioned because your irrational fear of an e-balance is without any merit and certainly lacks a claim of ethical insecurity. The fee structure is a legitimate difference from previous free models, but I don't find it particularly intrusive and am actually quite supportive of Blizzard having an actual revenue stream from Diablo 3 that will help to rationalize them providing continued content and support in the future (especially because the only time you'll see fees is when you are already profiting off the system).

[Kaylia]

Yes, you may not be losing money if you only trade with the e-balance that you gained from selling items for real money, but if eventually everyone can only trade with real money, then Blizzard is making money from fees of all the AH transactions, not just a portion of it and not profitting from gold-based AH transactions.

I already covered everything I had to say in my post before. I'm just going to repeat this one last time because it's getting old, so do whatever you want with it.

The cash AH is far more profitable than the gold one. That's why they made it in the first place and everybody understand this. However, as long 1 gold piece has a meaningful cash value (something that will be dictated by the money sink), both AH will be useable, and you will see item on both.

@Kaylia
By the way, I never said D3's market will be all over the place. I said D3's gold-based economy will eventually be worthless.

This statement can't be true unless the gold has no purpose. Doing so would indeed kill the gold based AH, but it wouldnt necessarily increase the total amount of transaction on the cash one. All the gold to cash transaction would be gone, and this probably count for a large amount of them.

[Kaylia]

Right... so first you say Blizzard says something that's why you think that way, then you say Blizzard says something but they really meant something else.

You're not reading my post, are you?

My reasoning aren't based on what blizzard told us, but what would be the most profitable for them, and my own observation of online economy.

What Blizzard say doesn't matter much. I'm simply operating under the assumption that they want to optimize the money they make from this game, because this is most likely what is happening.

Congrats Kaylia, Hi5!

As if pointless internet debate could end!

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Out, the both of you. Fucking christ.

[geno]

Last time me and Kaylia were on opposite sides (I think it was SC2). Trust me, that was far worse.

[avelle]

I hope the investors conference call has some good information in it today, because page after page of bitching about the RMT AH is getting old.

[Tajin]

About dem graphics, the very first trailer they showed waaay back when with the erm... barbarian raping the shit out of some skeletons was pretty nice, lots of mobs on screen, shiny effects and decent environment, the technical interview video with the chick on the forest, had very few enemies, the shiny spell effects are still shiny but the forest had too much mist at not enough foliage, maybe it was that particular area, but it did indeed look like crap.

Even the preview back then of the.. witch doctor, looked much better, maybe it was the video quality.

[IGN video removed]

[Uzor]

Like a beta date. I'd kill for that.

[djzombie]

Lots of sites have been speculating the beta will start sometime this month between today and the 15th, but nothing official yet. I too would love a solid beta date from blizz. Tired of waiting for this shit.

[Uzor]

They said they'd reveal beta date when all systems had been announced, which I'm guessing has now. So it should start before end of September.

They said beta would last 6 months, and started May. So I'm estimating a release date in October or November, so I'm guessing beta starts somewhere between end of August and middle of September. Probably September 15 and last 1 month, then break until release date in early November.

[avelle]

It's looking like there was no beta announcement during the investor's conference call.

[aurik]

That's not the sort of thing they'd announce there. Beta will probably be within a couple of weeks, game launch around xmas.

[avelle]

That's not the sort of thing they'd announce there. Beta will probably be within a couple of weeks, game launch around xmas.

Ya, I thought that it was unlikely too.

The newest presskit has been posted on their site if anyone is interested. It has the various goodies (screenshots, videos, etc) you've probably already seen elsewhere, just higher quality.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company...presskits.html

[Weltall]

wut?

wut?

Should be obvious almost every player logged onto D2 to farm rare items; anyway, every single person I knew played for this reason.

[Lucavi]

I miss my sureshill frost flanged mace and all my other mid-level goodies.