Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Details • Hacker News Board

Re: Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Details

#51

Post by pavel_lishin » Mon, Aug 01, 2011, 9:09 PM UTC

guildchatter wrote: post #45

Cushman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered what the ballpark was for people employed full-time playing Diablo 2. Thousands?

I dusted off my old copy of Diablo 2 last summer and played for a little while. The entire multi-player experience was dominated by bots spamming ads or bots that instantly pick up any rare items that dropped. The botting was completely out of control. I chatted with another player who used bots to farm for rare items and he claimed to have 24+ instances of the game running 24/7 split across several machines. He woul…

You should ask him to do an AMA, if you can get a hold of him. I wonder how profitable this was - especially compared to, say, mining bitcoins.

Re: Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Details

#52

Post by rictic » Mon, Aug 01, 2011, 10:11 PM UTC

coffeeaddicted wrote: post #43

sukuriant wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, when they're on their quest, they'll also find rare items they can sell or trade to get the thing they want. So we have trading. An economy! Now they're participating in another part of the game that didn't exist before. Perhaps they'll enjoy it. Look at Eve Online as another example. Would you make the following declaration? "Eve Online has a problem because the Titan Class vessels are hard to get. You have to…

These are details. (Yeah the weapons in Diablo 2 are procedurally generated,but only within certain limits so you can look up on D2 sites exactly within which ranges each unique item can be. So nearly all character guides start with build recommendations). It doesn't matter much if you just play for winning the game, but once people start playing for highscores or pvp they usually don't just play with the random stuf…

Blizzard has said that PvP in Diablo 3 is explicitly a lark. It will be given no priority for balance. The game is the PvE experience.

Re: Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Details

#53

Post by kbatten » Mon, Aug 01, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

From one view I understand at least some of the reasons they are doing this.

1) Money. D3 is free to play so monetizing non-subscription aspects makes sense.

2) People will buy in game items for real money so bringing that out of the dark underground makes sense.

However it still seems contrary to the gameplay, and would make finding some very rare item less special (unless you were going to sell it that is.)

On the bright side, hardcore mode will not have this, so I think overall it is acceptable.

Re: Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Details

#54

Post by alnayyir » Mon, Aug 01, 2011, 10:44 PM UTC

cube13 wrote: post #42

alnayyir wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eve is hemorrhaging accounts and the player outrage from the aftermath of their attempts to directly monetize the playerbase beyond PLEX accounts make them a VERY bad example to follow. http://beefjack.com/news/eve-online-revolts-could-cost-ccp-1... $1mm is a big deal for a small, niche company like CCP.

>Eve is hemorrhaging accounts and the player outrage from the aftermath of their attempts to directly monetize the playerbase beyond PLEX accounts make them a VERY bad example to follow. I would argue CCP's issues are more with their marketing and customer-facing people than anything else. Valve did that with TF2 hats(some cost $20 or more to buy), and didn't have nearly the same level of fallout with it. Blizzard's…

It was a misunderstanding of their market entirely. The Eve player-base is incredibly pissy.

Re: Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Details

#55

Post by BenSS » Mon, Aug 01, 2011, 10:54 PM UTC

mey wrote: post #48

BenSS wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more worried about how it'll effect the game from a personal/player angle than a laundering/fraud issue. Gold farmers are a problem in any MMOG, but this will likely exacerbate the issue. There's also the question of accounts nailed for abuse. What happens to the distributed items and trades? The company will be far less likely to forgive innocent parties connected to the original abuse account since there is rea…

The nice thing about virtual goods is they can make both the seller and the buyer whole at the same time if they wish by simply duplicating the item/good. The scarcity is artificial.

My concern is the other way. Duplication or balance bugs can make it very easy to suddenly produce an influx of goods and devalue (in real currency) other player holdings.