Diablo 3 Auction House Announced - Spend and Earn Real Life Money!

[jvbastel]

Really don't understand what the uproar is about. You theoretically don't even have to spend any actual money to participate. Selling items in-game will put currency onto your B.Net account, which you can use to buy other items that players are selling. Nothing you physically own has to change hands, just think of it as alternative gold that you can cash-out if you feel like it.

The uproar is about people not knowing how Diablo works. The same people will be complaining when blizzard says "We don't care if an overpowered witch doctor one-shotted your lvl 96 barb in HC pvp, live with it".
Diablo and wow are 2 very different franchises, with a very different playerbase.

[SageKalzi]

(This will be in another thread as well.)

Made my heart sink reading that they're going to allow this.

So, Diablo 3 is going to be free to play then right? Like, you don't have to buy the game itself since you basically HAVE to spend money in-game to be viable? Oh, no? Well then at least it'll be a lower price since you have to, right? No again?

I was very interested in D3, now I'm not going to buy it. WoW is bad enough with the constant "SPEND REAL MONEY" bullshit and now they're going to do this to another one of their games.

Coming up next: Warcraft 4, in order to play multiplayer games you must pay Blizzard 5 cents per custom match you play and 10 cents per ladder game you play. Any tournament you play is 50 cents.

[oraz]

So what was the need of implementing this at this point?
I just don't get it now lol.

Cant beat the RMT/Item trading? Legalise it within your game and make a profit while doing it smells of 100% Kotick.

[edw]

Pretty sure most of the "unhappy" people that complain about this will be first to pre-order it xD ... and :
1. If you are playing for fun ... play for fun, it should not bother you the ah system
2. I can see how the ah will have prices like 1$ to 5$ max for items, think of the amount of ppl that will try to sell
3. People will always complain and rage . (Zat tree iz to tall!! OH ME GOD!!! NOOO RAGEZONEBOM)

[kiaran]

So this means my invested "free time" to play games will be awarded sometimes with real money to play for "free" another games or simple buying a damm hot-dog. Damm this is so nice! GO GO!Why all the QQ about this? I mean, Is that really ubber huge that your char have the same pixels as the rich guy's char from E-bay?Hahaha I can imagine this: Hey Average Joe, what are u gonna do this summer??Average Joe answer: "I'm gonna grind D3, to earn some money so I can buy a new crap car for college!"Well done average joe!Hahahahaha

[lloydxd]

How do you know having a real money AH will break the game? People are just so freaking scared about what they dont know, they dont see the logic. I remember playing WoW and how gold used to be really valuable. After gold farmers, gold started to scale out of hand and inflated the economy. Now blizzard can now actually control the economy with this model, which gives us players a better experience. BOTTOM LINE we get the benefits.It's almost like the government allowing people to buy weed but the gov't controls it. Sure, there might be some problems and issues that need to be resolved, but its way better than what we have now.

[Mort459]

The uproar is about people not knowing how Diablo works.

This.

Bringing a WoW mentality to D2 would murder it beyond recognition. It's not like you get to the level cap and gear up... that concept does not exist in Diablo games. You can get PHATLEWTS, yes, but you don't have to do the hardest bosses to get them. They can drop off of the equivalent of trash. The bosses only have a 0.001% chance of dropping the "BiS" axe (concept also doesn't realistically exist in Diablo, btw) instead of a 0.00001 chance like the trash does. And the bosses don't drop 6 guaranteed top level items... they drop 2-5 items of literally RANDOM quality.

The second you compare any aspect (outside of Statz and HP and EXPz lol!) of WoW to Diablo II, you are already wrong. I know DIII will get a little closer to the WoW system, but I'm praying it doesn't get too close. And honestly, even though it's kinda sad that real money AH is a viable option, it gives me a little hope that DIII WON'T be over-WoW-ified.

Meh, WTB Grandfather III $15. :-D

[Vevex]

How do you know having a real money AH will break the game? People are just so freaking scared about what they dont know, they dont see the logic. I remember playing WoW and how gold used to be really valuable. After gold farmers, gold started to scale out of hand and inflated the economy. Now blizzard can now actually control the economy with this model, which gives us players a better experience. BOTTOM LINE we get the benefits.It's almost like the government allowing people to buy weed but the gov't controls it. Sure, there might be some problems and issues that need to be resolved, but its way better than what we have now.

People just do not know what they are talking about. You can not break Diablo's economy, it was already complete shit. This thread is literal proof that people will QQ just to QQ. They will still buy Diablo 3, just as the people who "Are NOT going to buy Rift / Warhammer/ Age of Conan etc. because it's a blatant WoW ripoff!".

They'll join us...they will all join us.

[SageKalzi]

So this means my invested "free time" to play games will be awarded sometimes with real money to play for "free" another games or simple buying a damm hot-dog. Damm this is so nice! GO GO!Why all the QQ about this? I mean, Is that really ubber huge that your char have the same pixels as the rich guy's char from E-bay?Hahaha I can imagine this: Hey Average Joe, what are u gonna do this summer??Average Joe answer: "I'm gonna grind D3, to earn some money so I can buy a new crap car for college!"Well done average joe!Hahahahaha

Did you read what the front page said? They're going to take their cut, which could be anywhere between 10%-50%, which I'm leaning toward 10% at first, then to "cash out" that'll be another 10%-25%.

So, let's say the minimum, 20% they're taking from you on the stuff you sell for real money. Say you make 400 dollars a month off of it (unlikely) and you just lost 80 dollars.

You won't be making much off of this, and even if you do, Blizzard is taking their cut.

[Papabull]

I did a meph run last night and he droped 2 Bolts a unique staff that required lvl 12 and some potions.. on Hell difficulty. Theres alot of RGN in D2

[Saturate]

Woah, the QQ is strong in this thread. Of course, most of it is just plain old hypocritical crying that you only get to see in these amounts within the gaming community. And the ironic part is, that like always, most of you will still play the game, one way or another.Why wouldn't you be able to get a few bucks for an item that became obsolete to you, considering that the time you've spent grinding it is otherwise just wasted? And considering that you don't have to spend a dime of your cash on something similar, ever? Also, look at the in-game economies logically and you will realize that the price of most of the items in the game won't be that high. It's not like people will be getting rich all over the place. And like in all Blizzard's games, skill will still mostly > gear. So this is, in theory, a pretty smart move by Blizzard, and a good one at that. Let's just wait and see how it plays out in practice. Until then, I'm waiting for the pre-order.

[Mort459]

since you basically HAVE to spend money in-game to be viable?

Er.... you've clearly never played Diablo 2. There is no such thing as tiers. There is no such thing as a DPS chart. There is no such thing as BiS. You will be able to solo the last boss with blues.

There is such an easy solution to most people's problem. Sell items for $$. Use ONLY your profits from selling items to buy new items.

[Adjusting]

Nothing new here you could always buy gear for the diablo games. Glad to see Biizz control it more now.

[Duster505]

The uproar is about people not knowing how Diablo works. The same people will be complaining when blizzard says "We don't care if an overpowered witch doctor one-shotted your lvl 96 barb in HC pvp, live with it".
Diablo and wow are 2 very different franchises, with a very different playerbase.

This has nothing to do with gameplay issues - It has to do with how it affects ppl that will be used to farm items for real life money - in many cases slaves that are sold off to pay off debts.

[Ishu]

So what was the need of implementing this at this point?
I just don't get it now lol.

Because in D2 people had to buy items from third-party sites (it wasn't illegal, but it also wasn't supported by Blizzard). Some of these sites were scam sites, and people got hacked. So those people make whine tickets to Blizzard that their account got hacked, and Blizzard has to fix that problem. So they decided to make an in-game system in D3 to prevent these whine tickets as third-party item trading would happen if Blizzard didn't make their own system.

[Nebthet]

Because in D2 people had to buy items from third-party sites (it wasn't illegal, but it also wasn't supported by Blizzard). Some of these sites were scam sites, and people got hacked. So those people make whine tickets to Blizzard that their account got hacked, and Blizzard has to fix that problem. So they decided to make an in-game system in D3 to prevent these whine tickets as third-party item trading would happen if Blizzard didn't make their own system.

Oh well, makes more sense to me now, thanks.

[Mewtwo]

The ONLY WAY I would even be partly okay with this is if the items anyone buys with real money from anyone are bound to the character and CANNOT be resold on the AH for in-game currency.

Edit:

Actually, after re reading that, I don't think I like this at all. Missed the part about straight gold being able to be sold. Makes my post kind of pointless. I am not okay with this =/

Went from being a day one buy to being a probably won't buy.

[Bashkar]

Did you read what the front page said? They're going to take their cut, which could be anywhere between 10%-50%, which I'm leaning toward 10% at first, then to "cash out" that'll be another 10%-25%.

So, let's say the minimum, 20% they're taking from you on the stuff you sell for real money. Say you make 400 dollars a month off of it (unlikely) and you just lost 80 dollars.

You won't be making much off of this, and even if you do, Blizzard is taking their cut.

You didn't lose anything; you never had it in the first place. That's still $320 you didn't have in the first place, that you made by playing a video game. There's really nothing else to say on the subject.

[Deleted]

Great change.This already happened in Diablo 2 but the market was controlled by untrustworthy sites. Blizzard has just taken control of the market and made it official, destroying those sites and providing a legitimate avenue for real money transactions.

Blizzard had 3 options really:
1. Fight the sites. Send lawyers after them and battle through legal battles just to have another one pop up 10 minutes later.
2. Ignore them. Just ban people who do it slowly, one by one, if proven.
3. Control the market themselves.

They picked the smart option. -Very- impressed.

This. An interesting move indeed.

I doubt something like this will make it's way into WoW, as WoW already has a subscription and a microtransaction store. D3 is a one-time payment (The game box/CD License key) F2P model with an optional currency based Auction House.


Looking forward to earning a little from investing effort.

[Mth]

The ONLY WAY I would even be partly okay with this is if the items anyone buys with real money from anyone are bound to the character and CANNOT be resold on the AH for in-game currency.

I'd actually agree to and accept this. Would also be nice if labeled "Bought with real money" or something.