AH "really hurt the game" - Wilson

[Zeek Daniels]

People traded items in D2 - there were even websites dedicated to item trade. What's different?

This is true but your average joe aka 90% of the D3 playerbase would not have resorted to websites and forums to trade their items. The ease of which you could use the AH and craft shortened the amount of time it took to play though the game. I never got past hell Act 2 Legitly in D2. But i got all the way to inferno act 2 Legit? Its just because of the AH. Im not a AH hater. I think its a wonderful tool. But it shortens the games lifespan. Players wrongly blame AH for the games problems when its their "Now" mentality that makes them use the AH to play though the game as fast as possible.

I think D3 is a great game, and pretty much plays just like D2. And im not gonna fault my access to gear as a negative to the game overall but jsut a negative to my play experience. If you want that D2 feeling, then dont use the AH plain and simple.

[Durandro]

The Gold AH itself wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was just poorly implimented.

Firstly, items needed to drop more regularly OR just generally have better itemisation then they currently have. 99% of drops are garbage, that needs to be fixed. Infact, having magic items be much rarer (like, 10% of current droprates off non-Act bosses) and have nicer overall stats would make each item drop more exciting.

Secondly, there should have been a cap on the amount of gold you could charge for an item. I know there is one currently, but its so high no-one could ever be expected to have that much gold. Perhaps even a max that changes depending on the quality of the item, so a super awesome rare weapon with excellent stats can be sold for a higher amount. But right now even mediocre weapons are way overpriced.

Thirdly, no real money for items. Seriously, stop that. If you want microtransactions then add in cosmetic stuff that doesn't effect game balance!

[Peso]

I wish they stopped trying to milk every dollar they can and instead make the game that was supposed to be fun for many years.

"I think we would turn it off if we could," Wilson said during his talk. But the problem is "not as easy as that;" with all of Blizzard's current players, he says the company "has no idea" how many players like the system or hate it. Blizzard, Wilson said, doesn't want to remove a feature that lots of players will be unhappy to see go."

Seriously just do a survey.. everyone would vote to remove it. Then you can fix itemization to the way it was supposed to be without RMAH/GAH.

[Thelxi]

No shit blizzard, thank you for admitting what people were screaming since beta.

[Korgoth]

Should have just made World of Diablo instead of half assing it by putting in an AH.

[Deleted]

You don't say, Mr.Wilson...

[bbr]

I can honestly say I agree with Jay on this - and i dont agree with the man on much.
The only way I can see them fixing this mess is by making certain items bind on use/bind on equip/bind on pickup.
Obviously not for ALL items,. but anything legendary should bind on use, and a new tier of items above that should be "bind to account".
Perhaps in the expansion if they add a max level 70 tier, new items should be focused on the player rather than the auction house.

That way, people will have a reason to go out and hunt monsters on their own rather than camping the Auction for it with their millions of gold.
The absolute BEST items should be earned, not bought. Look at WoW,. you won't buy high tier items on auction. If you could, nobody would raid. Period.
It's a huge oversight in Diablo 3 that you can trade any and all items, and reuse them without effect without limits.


The auction house itself is not the problem - it's great to be able to trade low level items, crafting materials and whatnot.
But the top tier of items should not be tradeable.
And the real money AH,. remove it entirely - currently the auctions are split, that's ridiculous.
Have a Gold only AH,. and allow players to pay real money for gold sold items - send that money straight to blizzard. Win-Win situation right there.

[DeltrusDisc]

I can honestly say I agree with Jay on this - and i dont agree with the man on much.
The only way I can see them fixing this mess is by making certain items bind on use/bind on equip/bind on pickup.
Obviously not for ALL items,. but anything legendary should bind on use, and a new tier of items above that should be "bind to account".
Perhaps in the expansion if they add a max level 70 tier, new items should be focused on the player rather than the auction house.

That way, people will have a reason to go out and hunt monsters on their own rather than camping the Auction for it with their millions of gold.
The absolute BEST items should be earned, not bought. Look at WoW,. you won't buy high tier items on auction. If you could, nobody would raid. Period.
It's a huge oversight in Diablo 3 that you can trade any and all items, and reuse them without effect without limits.


The auction house itself is not the problem - it's great to be able to trade low level items, crafting materials and whatnot.
But the top tier of items should not be tradeable.
And the real money AH,. remove it entirely - currently the auctions are split, that's ridiculous.
Have a Gold only AH,. and allow players to pay real money for gold sold items - send that money straight to blizzard. Win-Win situation right there.

O_o

People were saying the AH will hurt the game before the game launched. -.- Of course he wouldn't take their suggestions and waited until 10 months after the game launched and about a month or so after he left it, to conveniently admit... oh! Oops! Yeah, the AH is bad! lol mah bad, wish you all had told me lolz.

Seriously? -.-

[Thirstblood]

Oh BULLSHIT jay wilson, You probably knew it would happened. Fuck urself, find two best friends named, "ROPE" and "CHAIR" make it useful for urself. THANKS

Infracted: Suggesting someone kill themselves, whether another user or not, is not very respectful or constructive

[Deleted]

Congratulations to him for finally admitting something everyone playing already knew.

Does this mean that he actually agrees with that guy from the Diablo 2 team that said Diablo 3 is a goldhunting game instead of an itemhunting game? Because to me it seems so.

[Itisamuh]

I wish they would come to this conclusion for WoW, too. I hate the AH, player controlled economy is one of the main reasons I quit games.

[Osmeric]

Look on the bright side: this means they are less likely to repeat this mistake in the future. The rumor was that D3 was a trial run of RMAH for Titan and possibly WoW. I'd be surprised if that happened now.

[Deleted]

If you want that D2 feeling, then dont use the AH plain and simple.

It's not that simple. The quality of loot is lowered to compensate for the existance of the AH.
So it would be like playing D2, except with far worse drops. Not exactly a fun experience.

[Deleted]

Wow. Not only is he wrong, he's extra wrong. First, the auction house didn't kill anything. The itemization killed pricing, which killed the auction house. I'm not about to defend sitting in games for hours because you want an item, only for people to come in and either troll the shit out of you, or never bother trading because it's all about screwing over the person you're trading with.

The "extra wrong" comes because he flat out says the point of the game is to kill Diablo. Since when has the Diablo series been about story and not about gear farming?

Yea lol "the point of the game is to kill diablo" that is why you can kill him on 4 different difficulty levels^^. And after that you can kill him over and over and over again^^

[Tauren]

Wow. Not only is he wrong, he's extra wrong. First, the auction house didn't kill anything. The itemization killed pricing, which killed the auction house. I'm not about to defend sitting in games for hours because you want an item, only for people to come in and either troll the shit out of you, or never bother trading because it's all about screwing over the person you're trading with.

The "extra wrong" comes because he flat out says the point of the game is to kill Diablo. Since when has the Diablo series been about story and not about gear farming?

um no hes not wrong. to me a big part of diablo 2 is trading sure it wasnt action pact super smile on my face fun but thats how i liked it and thats what lot of ppl like it.. haha yea hes right. ah killed it for me that and random match making

---------- Post added 2013-04-03 at 07:31 AM ----------

I can honestly say I agree with Jay on this - and i dont agree with the man on much.
The only way I can see them fixing this mess is by making certain items bind on use/bind on equip/bind on pickup.
Obviously not for ALL items,. but anything legendary should bind on use, and a new tier of items above that should be "bind to account".
Perhaps in the expansion if they add a max level 70 tier, new items should be focused on the player rather than the auction house.

That way, people will have a reason to go out and hunt monsters on their own rather than camping the Auction for it with their millions of gold.
The absolute BEST items should be earned, not bought. Look at WoW,. you won't buy high tier items on auction. If you could, nobody would raid. Period.
It's a huge oversight in Diablo 3 that you can trade any and all items, and reuse them without effect without limits.


The auction house itself is not the problem - it's great to be able to trade low level items, crafting materials and whatnot.
But the top tier of items should not be tradeable.
And the real money AH,. remove it entirely - currently the auctions are split, that's ridiculous.
Have a Gold only AH,. and allow players to pay real money for gold sold items - send that money straight to blizzard. Win-Win situation right there.

im sorry have you played diablo game before d3? really high end items shouldnt be tradable? wow yea even more like wow. fuck blizzard fuck diablo 3

[bbr]

im sorry have you played diablo game before d3? really high end items shouldnt be tradable? wow yea even more like wow. fuck blizzard fuck diablo 3

Obviously,. d1 and d2,.
Can you say you owned every high end item available in each of those titles?
Yes, you can. How did you get them? Probably found them, or were able to trade for them,.

That's fine,. but in D3, you won't get that chance. "High end" in D3 is a whole different ballpark than it ever was in D2.

[Lomak]

Obviously,. d1 and d2,.
Can you say you owned every high end item available in each of those titles?
Yes, you can. How did you get them? Probably found them, or were able to trade for them,.

That's fine,. but in D3, you won't get that chance. "High end" in D3 is a whole different ballpark than it ever was in D2.

Yea , difference being that high end items in D3 are just as boring as all the rest of the items in D3. Yawn.

[philefluxx]

Players wrongly blame AH for the games problems when its their "Now" mentality that makes them use the AH to play though the game as fast as possible.

My issue with the AH is that the tuned drops to accommodate. Maybe had they offered a offline mode with drops tuned without a AH then it would not have been a problem, but thats not what was offered.

[Glorious Leader]

I'm positive that somewhere someone told them the AH was fucking terrible and that they should rethink it but they pressed ahead anyway and it bit them in the ass. What did they expect though? People wouldn't use the AH to offset utterly atrocious RNG? 30 lvls on my WD without a fucking upgrade what do you think I was going to do? Of course people used it, they designed the game so people would...

[Vespian]

pfft, so many opinions about DIII and DII that just don't match. The only thing those two games have in common, is their archetype. The rest has all gone downhill.

- When Diablo II initially released, each class had three distinctive paths to take, with some sub-specs across the trees, but in general you went from the lowest to the highest level requirement and stuck with it. LOD later (I believe a patch within LOD) expanded on the idea that any skill could potentially be the "main" ability and gave life to the game for another 3 years, for some that life hasn't ended yet.
- Diablo III likes to make you think tht there's so much choice, but in general you're waiting for that next level, maybe get an ability you want, maybe you get nothing you want for the next 10 levels.

- Diablo II: Stats mattered. Or actually, it's reversed. Stats had to be carefully planned around the gear you were going to wear, because having as many as possible stats stacked in Vitality, really improved your survival rating. Then why, do I argue this is in favour of the game? Because I had 3 different sorxes with 3 different types of gear with 3 different purposes. One for baroness, one for sewer runs, one for bossruns (that last one was aqlmost literally indestructible in pve). I planned them, raised them and saw it was good. The fact that I put time and energy into something of my own making meant a lot to me. It was part of the experience. Just like my Poison Mancer, with which I stuck a knife, into Uber Diablo's chest, from up close! to make him bleed/stop healing. After that poison did the job, but those thrilling moments where you run up to him and stick that knife in *miss* *miss* FUUUUUU *hit* *sweat dropping from my brows as I swiftly turned and ran*. Hell yeah. So much fun to be had just trying out things that are considered less than optimal. THAT was DII.
- Diablo III: Screw choice, it works in WoW, so why wouldn't it work in DIII. WEll, maybe because RPG. WoW having no stat distribution was a BAD thing. DIII has NO real choice and even if you make a choice, it's not a permanent one. To me, that's a huge dealbreaker.

- DiabloII: I didn't get all the uniques in the game by buying or selling or trading. I get them all myself. ME. I did that. I went from blue to rare to unique and possibly set items. Later a few runewords. I didn't trade. I spent 5 out of 6 of my years playing without any trading whatsoever. After each runestorm (ruststorm?) I went out and occasionally traded some items for some alts of mine, but those didn't happen until, well..late, in mjy experience. Point being anyhow, is that Rares were upgrades. Not all of them, but the droprate was high enough that you could at least get a good upgrade once so many times. Everything was perfectly balanced.
- DiabloIII: Itemization completely turned upside down to facilitate the AH. The AH having the obvious effect that it had. NOTHING I find, with exception of the current uniques (I guess?) is worth a damn thing. And it doesn't have to be worth a damn thing, but it's not even functional. There's a friggin lvl 63 disgrace thread due to this. DII didn't have that. Didn't need it. The best rare was better than a unique. All uniques were generally better than an average rare. All average rares were better than their magical counterparts. And the RNG wasn't *fixed* to drop crap all the time.

The AH is largely responsible for what happened to DIII. It's not responsible for the boring skill"trees" and it's not responsible for the lack of personalization in general, but it's the main component that affected how the game would deal with item drops. How often, what kind and what stats have all been tweaked to facilitate the AH. So when people say that it's not the AH, but the item drops, personally, I think they missed the link. No AH would have meant better item drops.

And if they ever end up fixing it, as the article suggests (ladders are indeed a good way of dealing with it), they also better fix the droprates and the RNG.