Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
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Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#2This sounds like a great idea and should make the game a lot more rewarding. For one, it will make crafting useful instead of a waste of money.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#3Official annoucement here : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/10974978/ but i felt ars added some useful context and commentary.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#4Finally. This was the absolute worst aspect of DIII. It completely ruined the gearing up aspect of the game. Loot drops were tuned down because of it, so how did everyone get gear? They bought it. Lame.
The new direction of this game looks really good. These kind of changes make me want to play the xpac. I had previously sworn off the game entirely.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#5This is a good and smart move, but it's only one step towards fixing the nature of the game.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#6This is a good and smart move, but it's only one step towards fixing the nature of the game.
I'm curious as someone who has never played the game: What else do they need to fix? I've only heard complaints about the auction house
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#7Wow, this is a surprising reversal of trends as far as user generated content and micro-transaction based economies go, but the auction house really did change the core mechanics of Diablo 3.
As a player I really did kind of like the auction system during the initial grind from level 1 to 60, but when there was no more level progression and the only progression was item progression, it just stopped being fun because the only purpose of playing was to kill things for the best drops that you could sell on the auction house. There was no longer a use for almost everything that dropped.
The auction house mechanic might work on a MMO style game, but Diablo 3 isn't a MMO and the auction house broke the one mechanic that made the game a lot of fun - random loot drops.
It's treasure hunting basically. Auction house turns treasure hunting into a job, and thus it's less fun after a while.
This is a good lesson for game designers. The treasure hunting random loot mechanic works only if it can't be short circuited. The moment you can "buy" treasure, it's no longer treasure, it's a commodity and collecting commodities is a job, not a game.
Treasure hunting is a game.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#8So, I have a bit of a personal episode here I'd like to share.
I played a lot of Diablo 2, more than I care to admit, and so the launch of Diablo 3 was a really big deal to me. I pre-ordered it on day 1, I pre-installed the game weeks before launch and I read every piece of information about the game. When the game came out, I initially loved it; just an absolute pleasure to play. It was great, until I found the auction house.
Within a few days, I had enough gear to handle most everything in the game and after a week or two I had a max-leveled character of each class. What was left to do? I hit the level cap, and even though they eventually came out with a second cap, the idea of grinding made no sense when the auction house existed. The most practical thing to do was trade and that got so boring so quick :/.
The design choices that Blizzard made as a direct result of the auction house are both terrifying and a fantastic lesson for anyone in the startup world.
As a direct result of making money off of the activities of people in the game, Blizzard made the following game inhibiting decisions:
* Penalizing players for dying for longer and longer periods of time
* Limiting in-game communication systems severely
* Penalizing players for playing in groups
I could go on, but the bottom line was this: Activision put profit over gameplay and burned one of the best franchises in the history of gaming for little profit. The game was absolutely atrocious as a direct result of the goddamn auction house. It took my favorite game and turned it into a stock simulator.
What made Diablo great was the camaraderie, the lack of a driving arching focus on optimization/monetization, and an amazing community of folks. Diablo 3 tried to turn all of that into money and it sucked.
Thank god and good riddance to that rubbish auction house.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#9So, I have a bit of a personal episode here I'd like to share. I played a lot of Diablo 2, more than I care to admit, and so the launch of Diablo 3 was a really big deal to me. I pre-ordered it on day 1, I pre-installed the game weeks before launch and I read every piece of information about the game. When the game came out, I initially loved it; just an absolute pleasure to play. It was great, until I found the auct…
I agree with you 100% and I'm coming from a similar situation. The question is, are you going to play again once it's removed? I almost definitely won't give it another shot.
Still play D2 on occasion though.
Re: Diablo 3 to permanently remove its auction houses in March 2014
#10All this will do is make users use external auction houses. As long as they keep in-game trading of rare and legendary items, people will just take it to eBay or some other site, and then arrange the swap in-game.
It makes it less instant gratification, but won't stop the buying of items.