If you're not going to read this post and just reply blindly, at least read the TL;DR for Section One.
TL;DR
Section One
- The sky is not falling (trust me, look up)
Section Two
- Players without real life money to SPEND on auctions, can still EARN real life money on auctions
- Blizzard making money off of their game after release is a GOOD business strategy (paying employees, hiring employees, and dare I say it, profiting)
- Players will STILL have to farm for the EPIC items
- Hacking is so much of a non-issue due to blizzards anti-hacking measures
Section Three
- No one is forcing you to use this real life currency auction house, and it won't ever get to the point where you will be forced to
- Raging will get you no where, make a petition instead of complaining
Section Four
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY : How is this name not taken?
Section One : Take a Deep Breath Before you Have an Asthma Attack
If you've made it this far, you clearly are a beautiful person. This portion is purely analysis, I am striving to present this section in an unbiased and solely informative manner.
December, January, February, March, and even April, these months I spent hours lurking these forums. The topics of interest, "Dungeons shouldn't be this hard, it's ruining the game!", "Dungeon queues for dps are going to make this game impossible to play", "I am quitting because X is imba!". At one point, nearly every third post was someone complaining about dungeon difficulty and how they're quitting because of it. What happened? Certainly some people did quit due to some of these reasons, as well as other reasons such as new shinier MMO's, but in the end the vast majority stayed. Another example, the original plans for the battle.net RealID system, which were nearly universally considered bad, blizzard came to their senses, and settled with a more reasonable approach to RealID, and now in it's current state has only improved, and will only continue to improve.
- Dungeon queues have improved for dps.
- Heroic 5-mans as have gotten nerfs ranging from significant to minuscule, and are no longer the hot topic.
- Class imbalance? Don't play Retribution PvP is my advice.
- RealID recently implemented it's cross realm party system, widely regarded is ****ing awesome.
These results imply two major things. First, just like in the PvP community, there will always be a Flavour of the Month. There will always be one single topic the majority of the actively voiced player base will pile all their discontent on to. Obviously right now it's Diablo 3 Auction System. Second, this shows that over time, things can improve. I never had an issue in 5 man heroic dungeons mainly due to the fact that I always made sure my group knew what has happening, how I was tanking, etc.. But I can say for a fact, 5-man heroics were especially unforgiving to less lucid players, in some cases, such as Stonecore, one-shotting a player who moves slightly too late. Blizzard realized that heroics are stepping stones for up-coming raiders, and as such shouldn't require the methodical skill as a current raider. Over time with community feed back, Blizzard slowly but surely molded Heroics to what they are today: Difficult, but not head-splitting difficult. As for the queue system, they're made various improvements to it, encouraging more people to queue as tanks and healers.
Overtime, Blizzard realized their short comings and mistakes, and took time to improve them correctly, and the player base has only benefited. If the auction system set in place by Blizzard for Diablo 3 truly is a mistake, they will realize that, and correct said mistake.
Section Two : Nope.jpg
This is where my opinion comes into play, and is generally my rebuttals to current arguments against this auction system. If you've read this far, I must say, you do look rather dashing sitting at your monitor, in fact, I might go as far to say you're rather sexy, is that a trophy sitting behind you? Does it say, presented your (name) for being so amazingly intelligent and beautiful? I thought so.
"I has no moniez therefor i can't make no moniez"
Out of all the largely supported arguments against this Real Life currency auction house system in Diablo 3, by far the most laughably ridiculous one is the argument that if you have little to no real life funds, you're screwed. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from making money off of the currency base auction house in Diablo 3.- The item. Obtain it.
- List the item on the currency auction house, using your opt out to put it up free.
- Make money off obtained item.
- Use money made off obtained item to fund further postings.
- ???
- It's MY money and I need it NOW! Cash out and Profit!
Congratulations, you've beaten the system with "clever use of game mechanics" (i.e. thinking logically).
Please note that we plan to waive the listing portion of the fee for a limited number of transactions per account.
Next
Blizzard blatantly profiting off of players is GREEDY!
This argument revolves around players feeling they're being nickle and dime'd. While Blizzard does in fact stand to profit from your profit, they won't make nearly as much money as they do off of World of Warcraft's expensive Character Transfer/Name Change/Race Change/Appearance Change/and various vanity items bought from the Blizzard Store. It will set you back fifteen USD to change the gender and/or skin colour of your character. Twenty-five USD to allow your character to ride on a mount made out of STARDUST (And you can't spell Stardust without tard). Yet very few people do actually complain about this, which has always struck me as odd. But when Blizzard announced to take a, "small nominal fee" from your posting, winning and cashing out, everyone ****s bricks. Guess who also charges to post items as well as charges for winning items in an auction setting, eBay. As for the cashing out fee, that's a toss up if you fail to see the big picture. Blizzard has expressly stated that you will be cashing out with a third-party service (i.e. paypal). Blizzard needs to be able to pay for the transactions fees, bandwidth fees, etc.. Just like you might get charged a fee for cashing your check at a different bank than your own or perhaps an ATM, you will be charged a fee to turn your "fake" money into real money. I can almost guarantee what blizzard receives in pure profit from you making a 5 dollar profit on a videogame will be less than 10 cents.
The second idea behind this argument is that Blizzard is "greediness" goes against what the gaming community is for. There is no evidence to suggest the video game industry isn't out to make money off of you. Black Ops DLC for three new maps : fifteen dollars. Madden NFL 2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011 : sixty dollars for the same game. Peoples reaction to blizzard announcing a small nominal fee when posting and winning items on an auction house : priceless.
The simple fact of the matter is, Activision-Blizzard is a company. It doesn't matter where your company is from or what your company does your companies goal is to make money, and that's all there is to it. Common sense dictates that most of this money will be spent going to employees, game development, testing, licensing, P.R., customer service and various other things IN the company. However the general population feel that this money is going directly into the coffers of the already super rich. As it stands, the player-base and company can only benefit from these small fees.
By making items purchasable with real money, you're making the game a faceroll.
To buy an item off the auction house and use it, the player must achieve two things.- Be the required level to use the item
- Find an auction posted by a player lucky enough to receive the item
The simple fact is this game has hundreds of thousands of drops. The chances of someone getting a super rare item slim. The chances of that person wanting to sell said item right away is even slimmer. At its core, Diablo is a game based on loot and how decked out your character is. If a player can more efficiently trade an epic item for another more pertinent epic item, as opposed to selling it on the auction house, they will. I won't even address the PvP issues, as Blizzard has stated they plan to focus soley on PvM, and NOT PvP.
Edit: Herecius also reminded me that Competitive Hardcore Players can NOT use the Currency Auction House, leading to a more balanced competition.
In a game of chance like Diablo 3, you're better off farming your own epics than waiting for them to crop up randomly on the auction house.
Hackers will ruin the economy by giving them selves super expensive and valuable items!
I have a short answer and a long answer to this arguement
Short Answer : No.
________________________
Long Answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Blizzard has so many anti-hacking measures set in place, the fact that this is even an argument is beyond me. The only hacks that have ever worked on a Blizzard game made in our current generation were few in far between, but the ones that did work always led to a ban. In World of Warcraft, the most common hack seen is the fly/speed hack. On a good day, you're lucky to last more than 10 minutes without being banned, on a bad day, less than an hour. In my time of playing WoW I've belonged to various hacking/glitching forums that revolved around hacking WoW, it was universally accepted that there never was and there never will be the ability to give your characters special abilities, items, or levels instantly. As for Starcraft 2, which I have played nearly every day since it was released, the only semi-invisible hack is a map hack, which can be easily spotted by anyone with half a brain, however I have never seen a map hacker in all my days spent on the ladder.
As for Diablo 3? Expect even more hacking prevention, Blizzard isn't dumb, they're not going to let players extort the auction system to their will by spawning items for themselves. I won't expand on the botting argument because of two reasons. EDIT: Thank you ilikefork1
That's quite a good point about player accounts getting hacked, no matter what there will always be scummy people, however most of those can easily be diverted with a free authentication app.
- There is no guarantee botting will even be possible.
- If botting IS possible, smart botters will only bot as much as a normal person plays, and dumb botters will be banned.
Section Three : Free Will, Use it.
You ACTUALLY don't have to use the currency based auction system!
I would link you to diablofans dot com slash #6 But I am not allowed to post links 
.
Get Over it or do Something About it!
You're not contributing to your cause by bitching on non-offical Blizzard forums. If you want to voice serious concerns then do so as you wish, but make sure blizzard is listening. Post on battle.net forums, email, call, or write Blizzard. If you think you can get enough people to sign a petition, DO IT. Other wise all your whining will be in vain.
Section Four : You Read This Far?
In the end, I am a Diablo fan and I plan on supporting one of my favorite franchises. If you don't want to play a game because you find one feature disagreeable, that's fine, I'll be glad not to see you in game.
***I typed all of this at 3 A.M. this morning, and only added section three and four today, I've scanned this and haven't noticed any errors, but there still may be some.
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Originally Posted by joeyray
Excellent read and I thoroughly agree!
