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  1. #1

    "Offical" Diablo 3 RMAH FAQ

    Apparently during a press only blizzcon "Real Money Auction House" panel, the press got (among other things) a exclusive written FAQ.

    View the whole thing here

    Sunshine edit: Official Battle.net link with the same questions/answers in a nicer format: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/

    It appears to be only a compilation of stuff said previously, or other stuff you can find online. However it contains 2 very intresting questions/answers.

    If my character dies in Hardcore mode, will I lose the items that I purchased in the "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house for that character?

    Yes. Again, Hardcore-mode characters will only have access to a "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house, not the currency-based auction house, and will not be able to trade with non-Hardcore characters. Hardcore is an optional mode designed for players who enjoy playing with the risk of permanently losing their character if the character dies, and that includes the items they acquired with that character.
    And;

    What items can be traded in Diablo III?

    Nearly everything that drops on the ground, including gold, can be traded with other players directly or through the auction house system. Aside from certain quest items, there will be very few (if any) items that will be “soulbound” to your character and therefore untradable. We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date.
    Thoughts?
    Last edited by Sunshine; 2011-10-27 at 11:06 PM.

  2. #2
    Whole RMAH auction idea is not bad for players, but is bad for kids and students who will contribute +8h/day just for finding items and leveling up characters to sell them (also gold farmers will level up and sell characters). The amount of time they will sacrafice just to earn money and whole intention drives away whole fun. It reminds me of Entropia Universe back in old days, when there were some gun+mob combinations giving stable profit so earnings were from 50usd/day up to 200-300, sometimes much more.

    RMAH won't damage normal players gameplay. Nobody cares who wears what when one makes a "kill that boss" game. Arena finders will chose players with same gear also, so those who buy ready character + best gear will only be matched with same players. Afterall, everything is fine, we just get opportunity to earn some bucks to cover annual pass/game costs :P

  3. #3
    I don't think the Hardcore stuff is too surprising to anyone. It would be pretty devastating for someone if they spent hundreds of dollars on a character and lost it in the blink of an eye, especially to a connection error or lag spike. That would generate a lot of negative experiences for players and most likely a nightmare on the Customer Service end as well ("your servers fucked up and I'm out an entire weeks paycheck! I demand a refund of my character/money!!" etc)

    As for the RMAH it is nothing but good. Anyone who feels otherwise cares way too much about what other people are doing with their free time and spare cash. Diablo is a wonderful game in that you can get anything and everything the world has to offer only playing with your closest friends or solo. There's no requirements to join up with random people whatsoever to enjoy your playing experience, and thus, you never have to deal with people with purchased characters/gear if you choose not to.

    The biggest criticism I have of the game so far is no offline or LAN play option. That is kind of a bummer, while somewhat understandable because it makes controlling dupes etc. far more manageable.
    Last edited by Dhurn; 2011-10-26 at 01:29 PM.

  4. #4
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    God altoholics gonna get awfully rich then
    Quote Originally Posted by BoomChickn View Post
    The reason the smart people are miserable because their head hurts so much from facepalming at all the stupid people, its so simple.

  5. #5
    My main problem with the RMAH is that I don't see any use of it.

    Why would you spend (real life) money on a (non-MMO) RPG?

    - If you play singleplayer, there is no use in buying gear. Sure you get to faceroll the content, and then.... what? To me this makes as much sense as buying a game, paying for cheatcodes to enable godmode, and then finishing the game 30 min later.... that's a lot of wasted money 0_o
    - If you play multiplayer, it is most likely with friends. So you 1shot everything with your friends running after you... I can't imagine that being very interesting for long.
    - If you play Arena/PvP... You will get machted to people with similar gear, so this gives you 0 advantage.

    The main attraction of D2 was grinding your gear. Run after run after run after run. If you buy the gear... then what?

    As everyone else, I will definitly try SELLING stuff though. But I really can't imagine making money out of that.

    EDIT: Selling runes and/or full characters, I can see some use in though.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Slaughty8 View Post
    The amount of time they will sacrafice just to earn money and whole intention drives away whole fun.
    Yeah, because no one who played d2 ever spent massive amounts of time runefinding just so that they could trade them away for other stuff.

    ---------- Post added 2011-10-26 at 01:43 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Callypso View Post
    My main problem with the RMAH is that I don't see any use of it.

    Why would you spend (real life) money on a (non-MMO) RPG?

    - If you play singleplayer, there is no use in buying gear. Sure you get to faceroll the content, and then.... what? To me this makes as much sense as buying a game, paying for cheatcodes to enable godmode, and then finishing the game 30 min later.... that's a lot of wasted money 0_o
    - If you play multiplayer, it is most likely with friends. So you 1shot everything with your friends running after you... I can't imagine that being very interesting for long.
    - If you play Arena/PvP... You will get machted to people with similar gear, so this gives you 0 advantage.

    The main attraction of D2 was grinding your gear. Run after run after run after run. If you buy the gear... then what?

    As everyone else, I will definitly try SELLING stuff though. But I really can't imagine making money out of that.

    EDIT: Selling runes and/or full characters, I can see some use in though.
    You don't HAVE to buy the gear.

    I fail to see how this RMAH will work out badly for anyone.

    1. If you play and don't want to buy stuff with real money, then don't.
    2. If you play and do, then do.
    3. If you don't but you get some item you have no use for, you can sell it and then cash in the money or buy something with it and call it a break even.
    4. If you do and you get some item you have no use for, you can sell it and then cash in the money or buy something with it and call it a break even.

    3 of those situations are good for players, and one of them is "not bad."

    What is not to like about RMAH?
    Last edited by Einzweidrei; 2011-10-26 at 01:50 PM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Callypso View Post
    My main problem with the RMAH is that I don't see any use of it.

    Why would you spend (real life) money on a (non-MMO) RPG?

    - If you play singleplayer, there is no use in buying gear. Sure you get to faceroll the content, and then.... what? To me this makes as much sense as buying a game, paying for cheatcodes to enable godmode, and then finishing the game 30 min later.... that's a lot of wasted money 0_o
    - If you play multiplayer, it is most likely with friends. So you 1shot everything with your friends running after you... I can't imagine that being very interesting for long.
    - If you play Arena/PvP... You will get machted to people with similar gear, so this gives you 0 advantage.

    The main attraction of D2 was grinding your gear. Run after run after run after run. If you buy the gear... then what?

    As everyone else, I will definitly try SELLING stuff though. But I really can't imagine making money out of that.

    EDIT: Selling runes and/or full characters, I can see some use in though.
    Even in full or mostly legendary equipment, I think Inferno will still present quite a challenge and not be faceroll. At one of the D3 panels Jay Wilson said you will most definitely have to farm some Hell before stepping into Inferno with any success, which means you'll have to have at least some gear unless you just wanna get smashed by act 1 mobs. The AH gives the option to people who might not have weeks and weeks of spare time to farm to just buy some gear so they can see what Inferno is like.

  8. #8
    What stops Blizzard from making their own characters and start selling a bunch of their own items?
    Money laundering at its best.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Aranes View Post
    What stops Blizzard from making their own characters and start selling a bunch of their own items?
    Money laundering at its best.
    Massive PR hits, among other things. Think of how bad that would look, how terrible the reaction/fallout would be. To create a player driven market, then essentially flooding it and forcibly regulating prices to whatever they as a company decide to sell things for. They want the RMAH to succeed and be a useful tool for the players, if they implement their own items guess what happens? People just go back to third party sites in droves and get the items for cheaper than what Blizzard is selling them for. It would lead to the same problems as they had in D2. They don't want that shit any more than we do.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Dhurn View Post
    Massive PR hits, among other things. Think of how bad that would look, how terrible the reaction/fallout would be. To create a player driven market, then essentially flooding it and forcibly regulating prices to whatever they as a company decide to sell things for. They want the RMAH to succeed and be a useful tool for the players, if they implement their own items guess what happens? People just go back to third party sites in droves and get the items for cheaper than what Blizzard is selling them for. It would lead to the same problems as they had in D2. They don't want that shit any more than we do.
    Well, they obviously wouldnt use any official names or even Blizzard logos for that matter.. duh :P
    Think about if from a business standpoint. The AH is anonymous.. so your average "ProGamerXXX_LoL" named guy could sell on that and noone knows who (or in that case, what) he really is. And noone except Blizzard could verify the identity.

    It's a bit of a scary thought.
    Last edited by Aranes; 2011-10-27 at 01:15 PM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Aranes View Post
    Well, they obviously wouldnt use any official names or even Blizzard logos for that matter.. duh :P
    Think about if from a business standpoint. The AH is anonymous.. so your average "ProGamerXXX_LoL" named guy could sell on that and noone knows who (or in that case, what) he really is. And noone except Blizzard could verify the identity.

    It's a bit of a scary thought.
    Not really. They would do it in one of two ways:

    1. they play the game just like everyone else, levelling the character and getting gear as usual. In this way they're just a regular player and the fact that they're an employee of Blizzard changes nothing.

    2. They use their haxxoring ways to instantly spawn top tier gear/characters and flood the market with them.

    As I said in point 1, that's unimportant and will change nothing. Number 2 simply won't happen either, and not just because Blizzard say so. If they did that it would cheapen the game for everyone. Ask any economist what would happen if you printed 10 billion dollars and put it into the economy. The average, uneducated person would go 'SWEET, FREE MONEH' but the economist would have a heart attack. It'd be the worst idea possible and ruin the economy.

    It's a similar thing here. Put too many characters and sweet gear on the AH and it devalues it. When devalued, the content gets devalued, because it becomes significantly easier for everyone. If it's a lot easier then the players demand more and harder content, which means Blizzard needs to work harder to create that content. In the end, Blizzard lose.

    So no, your conspiracy theory simply wouldn't happen. It's not some 'get rick quick' scheme by Blizzard. They actually want what's best for the players and will ensure we have the best playing experience possible.

  12. #12
    Just an FYI... The arena system will Match u with people who are similar gear levels this is true, but... (and I'm FOR the ah not against in any way) pvp in the beginning won't be balanced... There won't be enough people at extremely high levels of pvp oriented gear. I know your thinking "there's no pvp gear in d3" but there will be more optimal setups... If u play thru the game get to level 60 and que for a pvp match, and u get matched against me, I just hit level 60 and bought fully optimized for pvp, gear arOund your gear level your at, ud most likely get steamrolled... If I bought the best possible gear from the ah... There would be few ppl who matched my gear initially... So if I were to que it would default to the next bracket of players because no1 at my level is que'ing. I assume this will be an issue for the first while diablo is out, this could be the on negative effect of the ah is turning players off pvp. Don't let blizz fool u by saying they have a matchmaking system. :P will take quite a while till that system is viable IMO.

    ---------- Post added 2011-10-27 at 03:03 PM ----------

    Just an FYI... The arena system will Match u with people who are similar gear levels this is true, but... (and I'm FOR the ah not against in any way) pvp in the beginning won't be balanced... There won't be enough people at extremely high levels of pvp oriented gear. I know your thinking "there's no pvp gear in d3" but there will be more optimal setups... If u play thru the game get to level 60 and que for a pvp match, and u get matched against me, I just hit level 60 and bought fully optimized for pvp, gear arOund your gear level your at, ud most likely get steamrolled... If I bought the best possible gear from the ah... There would be few ppl who matched my gear initially... So if I were to que it would default to the next bracket of players because no1 at my level is que'ing. I assume this will be an issue for the first while diablo is out, this could be the on negative effect of the ah is turning players off pvp. Don't let blizz fool u by saying they have a matchmaking system. :P will take quite a while till that system is viable IMO.

  13. #13
    Erm. If you're talking about level 60 when everyone is just hitting level 60, then how do you plan on buying gear from the AH? I mean... it won't have dropped yet. It needs to drop first for someone, and that someone then needs to decide to use the AH instead of equip it for themselves. It'll take a long, LONG time for any sort of decent gear to find its way to the AH on a regular basis, simply because it needs to drop/be crafted first.

    Because of this system it's very unlikely one person will be able to power ahead of everyone else, because random loot will balance it out. There'll be a group of players powering ahead yes, but then they'll all fight against each other and leave the others alone. So your scenario simply cannot occur, at all.

    Also, PvP balance is such a tiny concern for the devs. If you steamroll someone they'll just go 'grats dude' and leave it alone. Similarly, if someone steamrolls you they'll go 'huh... I guess that class is OP, isn't it? Ah well.' *goes back to lunch break*

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Ironbeaver View Post
    I know your thinking "there's no pvp gear in d3" but there will be more optimal setups
    Yea I definitely agree with you here, and that's surely gonna be how teams set themselves apart from others if the ilvl of the items is all similar for the MMR. I have to admit I'm not too familiar with the set of affixes/suffixes quite yet but I'm sure gear with FHR/all resist/lifeleech will still be present and those will obviously be huge in Arenas.

    Kisho raises a good point in that there most likely won't be a ton of great items early on in the AH. I'd anticipate most people will want to at least deck out one or two main characters before they start selling strong pieces on the AH. For example, my personal feeling is that if I'm leveling a Barb and get an incredibly strong 1H Crossbow, I'm more likely to just reroll a DH alt in my spare time than put it up for sale/trade maybe that's just me though.

  15. #15
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    i REALLY hope they will not include buying/selling characters ><
    "We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date."

    On the other side, as an veteran Diablo player, i recon i could earn good money on selling geared/un-geared lvl 60s, but i rather not they make it possible.
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  16. #16
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    The official Battle.net version seems to be the same questions in a nicer format, for those who want to read: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/
    Last edited by Sunshine; 2011-10-28 at 07:10 PM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Frolk View Post
    i REALLY hope they will not include buying/selling characters ><
    "We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date."

    On the other side, as an veteran Diablo player, i recon i could earn good money on selling geared/un-geared lvl 60s, but i rather not they make it possible.
    Eh, it's probably similar reasoning to the implementation of the RMAH in the first place. People will do it anyway, this just gives them a way of doing it safely. It shouldn't make things too unbalanced, since someone still needs to do the work to get the character to 60 and it's meant to be a hell of a slog to get a character there in the first place. So generally speaking, if someone has worked hard on levelling a character to 60, it probably means they won't want to sell it either.

    Sure, some will level characters with the sole purpose of selling them. More power to them, give people options. But it's not like the market will ever get flooded with level 60 characters just ripe for pickin'. The immense time sink that levelling will be will prevent that.

  18. #18
    I just dont get, do we have to pay for using the rmah ???

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Mowdy View Post
    I just dont get, do we have to pay for using the rmah ???
    You have to pay for each individual item you buy, yes. Otherwise there isn't any sort of subscription fee or anything. The only fees relating to RMAH are as follows:

    -A fee to list the item (though they have stated that the first x amount of auctions you post a week will be free, with x being an unknown number at this moment)
    -A cut of the purchase price will be given to Blizzard (similar to how the AH works in WoW, where each item sold has a small cut removed for AH fees)
    -A fee to transfer your money from your Paypal account into your bank account (which is paying Paypal, not Blizzard; Blizzard won't see any of that money)
    -The actual cost of an item if you decide to buy one on the RMAH.

    That said, it is possible to use the RMAH without using any real money. Here's how you do it:

    -Find an imba awesome item while playing the game.
    -Put it on the RMAH.
    -Someone buys the imba awesome item. You choose to put the money into your Battle Net 'wallet'.
    -You then use the money from that 'wallet' to pay for all stuff you buy on the RMAH.

    No money has left your bank account in this scenario.

  20. #20
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    If my character dies in Hardcore mode, will I lose the items that I purchased in the "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house for that character?

    Yes. Again, Hardcore-mode characters will only have access to a "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house, not the currency-based auction house, and will not be able to trade with non-Hardcore characters. Hardcore is an optional mode designed for players who enjoy playing with the risk of permanently losing their character if the character dies, and that includes the items they acquired with that character.

    I think I might have to make a seperate character just for Hardcore mode after I do everything else :P

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