Would a real money auction house work within WoW? (D3 style)

[Grogo]

k I am just going to lay this here and see how you guys feel about this.

Remember the Diablo 3 auction house? There an actual real money aspect to it and you had the gold side for bidding and on the other side you had real currency for bidding. People could sell any gear. What if raiding gear (all gear) was BOE and you could sell anything on either side of the market so to speak. It would bind on equip however (unlike D3) Imagine someone selling mythic gear, legendaries, hard to get gears...for real money...that would/may be a real shot to economy...hell that would be a game in itself.

Many different options to start this up with. Many people loved it in D3 and many people also hated it. Perhaps it could be done better with in WoW, I think it might be interesting to discuss.

[Xyanide]

No.... Are you serious? A real money auction house in an MMO?

[Matt0193]

In a word, no.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

No.... Are you serious? A real money auction house in an MMO?

EVE Online: People buy $20 PLEX all the time just to buy internet virtual spaceships that can be destroyed... I'd imagine there'd be more than a few WoW players out there who would pay $5 for an AH mount and such, though in all seriousness I doubt it would work too well in WoW.

[Tyrgannus]

1.) Taking out gold sinks is a bad idea

2.) Enough real money already goes into WoW

[TRENCHCRAFT]

In theory it could work, but put to practice you'd run into a serious issue with people setting up intricate bots to down current heroic mode content to sell the drops for thousands of dollars of real money; aside from every other issue you'd have with implementing it.

It worked for Diablo 3 because of the kind of game Diablo 3 was (plus, without a Blizzard-endorsed Auction House, people just went right back to ebay like they did with Diablo 2).

[starkey]

Q. Why is the auction house system being removed from Diablo III?

The gold and real-money auction houses have provided a convenient and secure system for trading, but it's also become increasingly clear that despite the benefits they provide, they ultimately undermine Diablo’s core gameplay. A big part of Diablo is the thrill of battling demons and finding epic loot. While buying epic loot in the auction houses might be more convenient, it doesn't feel anywhere near as heroic as plowing through a pack of fearsome-looking monsters and having them drop that one awesome item that seems like it was made for your character.

[TRENCHCRAFT]

Q. Why is the auction house system being removed from Diablo III?

The gold and real-money auction houses have provided a convenient and secure system for trading, but it's also become increasingly clear that despite the benefits they provide, they ultimately undermine Diablo’s core gameplay. A big part of Diablo is the thrill of battling demons and finding epic loot. While buying epic loot in the auction houses might be more convenient, it doesn't feel anywhere near as heroic as plowing through a pack of fearsome-looking monsters and having them drop that one awesome item that seems like it was made for your character.

I wonder what Ebay is?

[starkey]

I wonder what Ebay is?

Ebay, if i wanted D3 items id use JSP

[TRENCHCRAFT]

Ebay, if i wanted D3 items id use JSP

It doesn't matter what you use, if Blizzard doesn't have an auction house, people will just buy their items off of third party sources and nothing will change.

Blizzard isn't stupid (despite mounting evidence of such), they know this. I'm sure they just decided that they'd make a nice little chunk of money from it then retire it and stop drawing ignorant flak towards themselves by people who seriously don't understand people will always keep buying/selling Diablo items whether or not there's an official Blizzard supported medium for it.

[Mongler]

Many different options to start this up with. Many people loved it in D3 and many people also hated it. Perhaps it could be done better with in WoW, I think it might be interesting to discuss.

Really? Because I can't even count on one hand how many people truly liked it. Neat premise, horrible execution.



On topic though; this is a bad idea through and through (and I feel they learned that lesson in D3). It isn't conducive to the game whatsoever, in that it doesn't promote gameplay at all. Raids wouldn't be near as intricate as they are now. Putting myself in a developer's shoes in this situation - I wouldn't see the point in spending all these resources into creating a grand scale raid if gear simply became buyable. Raids would essentially become invalidated through this method once there is enough gear floating around on the RMAH. Would you really find yourself rerunning the same raid if you just practically bought out all the gear you wanted? The rich would get rich and the poor would become poorer (the poor being people that actually want to raid in the first place and not buy their gear).

Plus, the screams of "WoW has become P2W" would never die. People already detest the cash shop. The hate for a WoW RMAH would be tenfold.

[Brilynn]

Let me go ahead and just add this to the list of things that should never Ever EVER happen. Ever. Maybe someti-- Wait, no, NEVER.

[Deleted]

It didn't even work in Diablo 3

[Otimus]

People who are saying it wouldn't work are insane. It's a terrible idea and I never want it to happen, but the WoW audience would throw money at this in a heartbeat.

[Sevarin]

no. not ever.

[Mormolyce]

I actually liked the D3 RMAH, never understood the QQ about it. People see a dollar sign and freak the fuck out. Then again, I only sold, never bought.

Even at the time I secretly hoped they'd bring it to WoW. I sell shitloads of things on the AH, it'd be kind of cool if I could make actual money from it.

- - - Updated - - -

It didn't even work in Diablo 3

In D3 you could buy gear. Which didn't bind so massive deflation was inevitable.

WoW is an entirely different proposition.

Anyway, I actually thought it worked just as well as the gold AH did.

[lokithor]

Really? Because I can't even count on one hand how many people truly liked it. Neat premise, horrible execution.



On topic though; this is a bad idea through and through (and I feel they learned that lesson in D3). It isn't conducive to the game whatsoever, in that it doesn't promote gameplay at all. Raids wouldn't be near as intricate as they are now. Putting myself in a developer's shoes in this situation - I wouldn't see the point in spending all these resources into creating a grand scale raid if gear simply became buyable. Raids would essentially become invalidated through this method once there is enough gear floating around on the RMAH. Would you really find yourself rerunning the same raid if you just practically bought out all the gear you wanted? The rich would get rich and the poor would become poorer (the poor being people that actually want to raid in the first place and not buy their gear).

Plus, the screams of "WoW has become P2W" would never die. People already detest the cash shop. The hate for a WoW RMAH would be tenfold.

I loved it because I made money off it.

[Txiv]

Real money, probably not a great idea for wow. Maybe if free subs didnt exist but with the programs to try the game out there it could become a huge botting problem.

that being said there was one element of the D3 AH they should absolutely put into wow: commodity average pricing. The way gems were sold in D3 was soooooo much nicer than how they are sold in wow. and you could do it with all non armor trade goods; flasks, potions, enchants.

[Thagrynor]

The fact that you have to ask "Remember the D3 Auction House?" and remind people about it, because it is gone, should tell you that using real money in game to buy things ruins the game.

There is ZERO positive outcome from buying gear in WoW with real money as far as the game itself goes. Sure you can go and drop a few hundred bucks and buy gear, however, that doesn't mean you have seen the content or have the skill to complete that content. Secondly, if you are talking about selling Mythic gear as BOEs for real money, how do you determine who gets that money? I mean, 20 people worked to get those items to drop. That means everyone should get 1/20th of whatever it sells for. But how do you make sure that money gets split properly when it is real currency? You can't put that kind of money into a guild bank, like you can with the gold to cover repair costs. And there are already problems of people taking drops from raids and selling them just for in game gold. Can you imagine the shit storm if it were for real money?

Like I said ... zero positive outcome for this idea.

[Otimus]

Real money, probably not a great idea for wow. Maybe if free subs didnt exist but with the programs to try the game out there it could become a huge botting problem.

that being said there was one element of the D3 AH they should absolutely put into wow: commodity average pricing. The way gems were sold in D3 was soooooo much nicer than how they are sold in wow. and you could do it with all non armor trade goods; flasks, potions, enchants.

I agree with that. The entire AH is in need of a major overhaul in WoW. It's archaic and borderline useless without addons. What's really sad, though, is the mobile AH is like 5,000,000 times better, and that IS made by Blizzard for WoW, so it's not like they're not capable.