Diablo 3 Impressions

[GreenGoo]

That's the weird thing about the AH. Yesterday I was pricing my Legendary gear just below the comparable stuff for sale (no duh). However, 95% of the stuff I put up expired. So this morning I put it up for a fraction of the cost -- AH prices were 20,000+ so I list it for 2000. Gone within 30 minutes (or less). It's an order of magnitude more than the vendors would give me but still a ridiculous price for what I would think is ridiculous gear. So what's happening is the AH isn't really showing what's available at any given time because (I think) Legendary gear that's priced right (1000? 2000? 3000?) is going very, very quick and the only thing you're ever seeing is a small snapshot of what's available because it's moving off the AH so quickly. Yeah, there's a ton of gear at 20,000+, but it's never going to sell when you can get stuff so cheap. I seriously have no idea who these people are with 20K buyout prices, but they're clearly smoking crack.

You're seeing a free market at work, but equilibrium has not been reached yet. They're not smoking crack, exactly, the market as a whole just hasn't decided what anything is worth yet.

It's actually really fascinating to watch. WoW had it's own moments like this, especially in the first year or two.

[msduncan]

That's what I'm talking about Smooth. A week ago I could put a really good item up for 24K, 50K, or 99K buyout. I was routinely selling at those prices. This week I've seen a DRAMATIC dropoff, mainly because the AH is FLOODED with a never ending supply of items. There's nothing to stem the supply. No bind on equips. No breaking of weapons. Nothing like that. Every time someone kills a mob it generates a new weapon that can be bought and sold endlessly. This is creating a huge supply problem and driving prices down like a brick in a swimming pool. A month from now prices will be in the hundreds of gold per item, and people will have MILLIONS of gold in their banks. I can't believe Blizzard launched without something to consume items!

I also want to mention I learned a very valuable lesson:

If you point this out in General chat you will be shouted down by an army of fanbois that think you are ridiculous for suggesting Blizzard didn't do something correctly. They will tell you that when there are too many of an item people will vendor them because prices will be too low to sell them. I tried to point out that this was my very point, but they seemed oblivious to it. If Blizzard wants to make some money with the real money AH, then they need to stem the flow of weapons in some way. Bind on Equip is the obvious choice. It's ridiculous that I can wear something and then sell it again. You can't have a functional economy with an endless easy supply of armor and weapons.

[Smoove_B]

I'm about 2 weeks behind on the AH but I can believe that early on the prices were insanely high. As you mentioned, at the rate they're going Legendary items are going to be sold for a few hundred gold in a week. I was a casual WoW player and I started LONG after the auction house had been established. It was relatively easy to figure out (for a n00b) how to price things and what was a realistic expectation for selling gear or crafted goods. Now? It's total chaos. A week ago I stupidly thought leveling up the Blacksmith was the way to go. For what I dropped into upgrading him I could have purchased full legendary gear for 5+ characters. I would expect some volatility in the AH initially but I guess I'm just not used to seeing what happens when something like this debuts in a new game. Madness!

[GreenGoo]

That's what I'm talking about Smooth. A week ago I could put a really good item up for 24K, 50K, or 99K buyout. I was routinely selling at those prices. This week I've seen a DRAMATIC dropoff, mainly because the AH is FLOODED with a never ending supply of items. There's nothing to stem the supply. No bind on equips. No breaking of weapons. Nothing like that. Every time someone kills a mob it generates a new weapon that can be bought and sold endlessly. This is creating a huge supply problem and driving prices down like a brick in a swimming pool. A month from now prices will be in the hundreds of gold per item, and people will have MILLIONS of gold in their banks. I can't believe Blizzard launched without something to consume items!

I also want to mention I learned a very valuable lesson:

If you point this out in General chat you will be shouted down by an army of fanbois that think you are ridiculous for suggesting Blizzard didn't do something correctly. They will tell you that when there are too many of an item people will vendor them because prices will be too low to sell them. I tried to point out that this was my very point, but they seemed oblivious to it. If Blizzard wants to make some money with the real money AH, then they need to stem the flow of weapons in some way. Bind on Equip is the obvious choice. It's ridiculous that I can wear something and then sell it again. You can't have a functional economy with an endless easy supply of armor and weapons.

I'd argue that the market was never in place to sell a random yellow found in normal for large profit.

I'm somewhat aghast that this is confusing or upsetting people. Especially msd, who has had years of WoW experience to more fully understand how an AH works, even one with items with no bind.

Are people really flabberghasted that a decent yellow is worth more a few days after the game comes out, and then drops like a rock in price 2-3 weeks after release? And this is Blizzard's fault somehow?

Which is not to say that MSD's point about a missing item sink isn't valid. It is. But only if you expect your average yellow to find a steady demand and therefore a steady price. Supply will outstrip demand and your average yellow will be easier to sell to vendors than to the AH. I've been operating under the assumption that this is how they designed it and expect it to behave.

You're still going to find a market for those yellows that have great rolls and come up with 4 or 5 stats that are highly desirable. Vit. Str. Dex. Int. There will always be a market for those. Magic Find too imo. Something with +2 health regen, +4 heal on hit, Int and strength is going to be vendor trash. The exact same item level item with Vit, Str, Magic find, damage percent and 2 gem slots is going to have a market 4 years from now.

I'm sorry, I'm in a bad mood, but I keep seeing criticisms of the game that have already been refuted in the many years of D2, and will continue to be fine in D3 once people get there heads around it. Of course not the AH specifically, but lots of other criticisms that have me scratching my head because the answer is clear as day to anyone with even a sliver of previous Diablo experience. I feel the same way about the AH and WoW, except in that case you have to adjust for the increased supply, as MSD points out. That doesn't break anything, it just changes it. You can not expect to be able to sell even a decent yellow a month after release that you could on day 2 of release, even if you had item sinks built into the game. That's just common sense.

All that said, I'm struggling to imagine a market for blues at all. There may be a particular item level or stat combo that can come up that can't on yellows or something, but really, given that the AH is open to over 6 million people, blues are nothing but salvage or vendor fodder from day 1. I would LOVE to know how much gold has changed hands on blue item sales. It has to be tiny compared to yellows. Like 4 or 5 orders of magnitude less, or even more (orders of magnitude).

[Matrix]

I sell good amount of blues actually. Probably 30% of items i sell are blues. I usually look at stat combo, and anything with massive one stat or + vit + large another stat will sell well. Most i vendor ofcrouse, but some blues are really good. I just sold blue ring that increased attack speed by 10% and gave 10life for each hit. I sold it for 6,000. Thats as much as my best gold items got.

[GreenGoo]

Interesting. I'm not surprised there are blues worth selling, although I am surprised they sell. The AH already has so much to look through, who is looking at blues when there is a yellow that's a bit better and only a few hundred more?

Who really wants to spend more than a few minutes looking through the AH?

Jewellry has it's own market separate from everything else, as far as I can tell.

[Moat_Man]

While I enjoy playing the game (on Act III - Normal) I feel that the AH has blown the difficultly level out of the water. It has also reduced the excitment of loot drops. I can get way better gear that is tailored for my build (Wizard Level 27) on the AH.

I do miss the fun and challenge of equiping my character solely from loot drops like in Titan Quest or Torchlight, but I don't missing the frustration of having to wait what seems like forever to replace that one piece of crappy gear you have becuase you just can't find anything better.

Having said all the above, I think it would be very difficult for me not to use the AH because, well, it's there.

[Zurai]

There is an item sink. Problem is, Blizzard fucked up with it and no one wants to use it except for a single item.

In order to craft level 60 legendary items, you must use a certain number of legendary quality crafting materials. In order to get those, you either have to destroy a level 60 legendary (100% chance), or any other level 60 magic or rare item (much much lower chance).

Problem is, there's only one level 60 legendary worth crafting: The Helm of Command.

[Chesspieceface]

I churned about 300k last night... was bored of playing and tired so I flipped legendaries... averaged 20k profit per transaction. Not bad when you can be doing 3 or four at a time. Teehee... feels kinda dirty though.

[Tao]

My problem with the AH is that it's simply not an "optional" part of the game that you can choose to ignore if you don't feel like using it. As has been already testified too in order to proceed past the first half of Nightmare and beyond you MUST use the AH. Unless you are the type of player that doesnt care one whit about dying in the game in which case I suppose you could play naked and inch-death your way through any encounter. Personally I HATE dying in most games and particularly in Diablo. My first character, a Monk died to Izaul(Act IV level 30) on my first play through and I deleted and rerolled.
I stated in a previous post and GreenGoo and others have offered similiar opinions that we wish to find our own loot, for me even if that means farming, not amass quantities of gold and buy it from others. If the AH had been an added optional mechanic for those who want an easier path or simply dont have the time to farm I would be fine with that but it's become obvious loot tables/drop rates and itemization in game were designed around the inclusion of the AH and so it deeply impacts the very essence of what Diablo games have come to represent. If your going to call something Diablo 3 it really should embrace the concepts of it's predecessor. If you purchased book three of The Lord of the Rings and it all took place in space with blasters and laser rifles I think most folks would be dissapointed. Diablo 3 feels more like DiabWoW to me.
Personally I feel bad for the Blizzard employee that came up with the idea for the Blacksmith as a replacement/twist on the Gambler. Conceptually it's brilliant, unfortunately some idiot came up with adding the auction house.
My last and probably biggest peeve about the AH is that it reeks of "greed over intelligent design". I find it hard to believe Blizzard did not forsee all the inherent flaws and did not proceed anyway predicated on desire for the real money auction house.

[Zurai]

As has been already testified too in order to proceed past the first half of Nightmare and beyond you MUST use the AH. Unless you are the type of player that doesnt care one whit about dying in the game in which case I suppose you could play naked and inch-death your way through any encounter.

I did not buy any gear for my Barbarian until I hit Inferno. I also didn't die very much, and this was against enemies with 320% health and 130% damage (ie 3 player multiplayer).

[Lorini]

They are supposed to be lowering the cost of the BS to be more in tune with the existence of the AH. if they do that, the BS should become a reasonable alternative.

[Exodor]

I can't believe Blizzard launched without something to consume items!

The Blacksmith.

The problem is there's no reason not to just sell all your blues and buy upgrades on the AH.

They need to improved crafted items to make them worth making and maybe keep crafting supplies off the AH. That gives players incentive to destroy more items and reduces supply.

I don't think it will be enough and I suspect the higher-end stuff will have to be BoE eventually.

[wonderpug]

I'm with you, msduncan, I'm really surprised that there aren't more bind on equip items to stop used items from staying in circulation. As I bring my second character through normal difficulty, the practice is readily apparent: I'm seeing a lot more custom-dyed items than I did with my first playthrough.

With my set of randomly green, pink, or bright blue equipment, my guy pretty much looks like this:

[Chesspieceface]

I'll be the one to say it then.... LOVE the AH. If the game were tuned differently I could go without, but as it is... I love earning golds and shopping for better stuff. I really don't see how it is any different than the player moderated trade lobbies in D2, just Blizz gets their cut of every sale. Up around 500k saved up and My highest char is 42 and still in A2, NM. teehee.

[GreenGoo]

There is an item sink. Problem is, Blizzard fucked up with it and no one wants to use it except for a single item.

Even so, if we imagine they wanted to balance things across multiple options, with the blacksmith being one of them, we'd see items being generated by the game much faster than they'd be consumed by the blacksmith which results in a net flooding of the AH anyway. And even if that were not the case, there is no reason to consume an item that the RNG has already blessed with fantastic stats, so we'd still be left with items that stick around for years.

Reminds me of a little anecdote. I played PvE alliance when WoW first came out. Just like now, alt-itis took hold and I had many characters, including a gnome who delved into engineering. Well, I quit that and returned on a RPvP server as Horde, where I stayed for years.

On a whim, years after abandoning the PVE server, I logged in and just happened to choose my gnome, which was never a main of mine anyway. Within 5 minutes I get a tell from a complete stranger, saying that he just wanted to say hi, and that he still used a salt shaker (used in leather working I vaguely recall) my gnome had made and he linked it. Lo and behold, there was my name on the shaker. We're talking 5 years at least since I'd made it or even logged into that server. It was very cool and that event has stuck with me.

On the flip side that shaker means that there was 1 less demand for new salt shakers. Because the shaker never gets consumed, there is no need for a new one and thus the demand and price for new shakers is reduced. This is the concern of msd (which is valid, but only if you feel there should always be a market for new shakers. If by design demand for shakers should be high and then drop off, then it's working as designed).

Even if everything was working as designed and the blacksmith was eating items like crazy, very few people are going to throw away a perfectly awesome yellow just to roll the dice on making something else.

[GreenGoo]

They are supposed to be lowering the cost of the BS to be more in tune with the existence of the AH. if they do that, the BS should become a reasonable alternative.

I still use him, although rarely, because he's in game and he feels like an organic part of the game mechanics, whereas the AH is clearly outside of the game. It's there so people don't have to create public games with titles like "trading x for 5 stones of jordan". I'm consciously trying to accept the realities of D3 including the AH because I like the gameplay of D3 quite a bit. A BIG hurdle for me is what happens when I buy a really sweet piece of kit? I know I'm not going to find a drop to replace it for a very long time, barely a winning lottery ticket, so my excitement to play, and my excitement when I see a yellow drop for that slot, is reduced. Buying from the AH actually diminishes what I find fun about playing a Diablo game, and that is seeing what the RNG will produce, with the hope that it will improve my character, even if it's incrementally. They've gone a long way from turning Diablo from its loot origins into just shopping for what you want. If the combat wasn't so well implemented I'd probably have a MUCH lower opinion of the game than I do. I understand a lot of people find it annoying to go several levels stuck with a piece of junk on their feet (for example) but for me that just makes every new and unidentified boot drop that much more exciting.

Diablo has always been loot first, combat second. Now it's combat first, shopping when combat gets a little tough.

I use the Blacksmith because he's there, because I'm kind of a crafting completionist left over from my time in WoW, and because I like gambling.

[GreenGoo]

I'll be the one to say it then.... LOVE the AH. If the game were tuned differently I could go without, but as it is... I love earning golds and shopping for better stuff. I really don't see how it is any different than the player moderated trade lobbies in D2, just Blizz gets their cut of every sale. Up around 500k saved up and My highest char is 42 and still in A2, NM. teehee.

For the record, imo there is no accomplishment in gaming the AH. ESPECIALLY since it seems to be populated by people who have never learned the ins and outs and hard lessons of the WoW AH. I know it seems exciting to flip items, and I don't begrudge anyone from doing it and enjoying themselves, but with the amount of inexperienced players out there it isn't much of a challenge.

I can guarantee you that I could turn 1k into 1 million without ever logging into the game proper. That's a pretty scathing criticism of Diablo gameplay imo.

I expect Matrix to do pretty much that. It's right up his alley and he seems pretty good at it.

If I even start to do something like that I'll consider D3 a complete failure and probably shelve it until such time as changes are made, if they ever are.

The D3 AH seems a dumbed down and oversaturated version of WoW's AH, with some things that give it its own flavour.

As I said though, I'm actively trying to change my perceptions and enjoy D3 for what it is, instead of moping over what it is not. I could see me playing characters that use the AH freely while playing other characters that I artificially restrict and never touch the AH. I'll probably need more character slots before that happens though.

[GreenGoo]

Playing 3 HC characters now. Just finished King Leoric with my barb. Was never in question although the HC aspect certainly made me pay closer attention. A couple of yellows dropped, one of which was a nice weapon upgrade. A couple of blues also dropped, but they were not noteworthy

I decide to return to the King and see if farming him did anything.

I'm not sure I like the mechanic of resetting game progress as the only way to fight him again. What you do, as far as I can tell, is quote delete unquote your progress back to just before the quest you take to kill him, and then start playing at that stage again. I could be missing something as it doesn't seem intuitive to me.

In any case, I reset my quests, ran through a couple of floors and fought him again. And came within a few pixels of dying. Heh. Was just a couple of unlucky hits in a row while I was complacent, having just defeated him with much worse gear, but I hammered that potion key about 5 times just to make sure I was chugging down some health.

After I defeated him a second time, he dropped 1 blue. It was a helmet and since I wasn't wearing any head gear it was at least an upgrade for me.

So much for farming bosses, it seems.

P.S. For interest, I didn't have a single fury/rage burning skill readied. Everything I was using was fury producing. Leap, stomp, cleave and something else I don't recall right now. Having both stomp and leap was a great boon. Elective Mode has its benefits.

[Chesspieceface]

I'll be the one to say it then.... LOVE the AH. If the game were tuned differently I could go without, but as it is... I love earning golds and shopping for better stuff. I really don't see how it is any different than the player moderated trade lobbies in D2, just Blizz gets their cut of every sale. Up around 500k saved up and My highest char is 42 and still in A2, NM. teehee.

For the record, imo there is no accomplishment in gaming the AH. ESPECIALLY since it seems to be populated by people who have never learned the ins and outs and hard lessons of the WoW AH. I know it seems exciting to flip items, and I don't begrudge anyone from doing it and enjoying themselves, but with the amount of inexperienced players out there it isn't much of a challenge.

I never said I loved it because I can game it... I didn't buy D3 to play "dumbed down commodity trader".... I love the AH because with the current game design making build design totally gear dependent, I very much enjoy the option to get kitted out the way I please provided I have the resources. And as I have not proceeded beyond NM and was too tired to focus last night gaming the AH on a lark provided me with more of said resources by which I can spend, spend, spend. But I don't find flipping fun... Although I made 110k in a single transaction today... that was kinda special. I just love that millions of people are all farming for each other, and selling to a common central market.

[wonderpug]

When there's so much equipment available on the funny money auction house, I really wonder how things will shake out when the real money AH comes online. Will all the level 60 items shift over? Will the good deals on the funny money AH dry up as people snatch them up to try their luck flipping them on the RMAH?

[GreenGoo]

I just love that millions of people are all farming for each other, and selling to a common central market.

I loathe it for that exact same reason. Obviously opinions are differing. Blizzard, I can only assume, is banking on your opinion being in the majority.

[Zurai]

There is an item sink. Problem is, Blizzard fucked up with it and no one wants to use it except for a single item.

Even so, if we imagine they wanted to balance things across multiple options, with the blacksmith being one of them, we'd see items being generated by the game much faster than they'd be consumed by the blacksmith which results in a net flooding of the AH anyway. And even if that were not the case, there is no reason to consume an item that the RNG has already blessed with fantastic stats, so we'd still be left with items that stick around for years.

Two things.

First, even a level 50ish legendary (Cataclysm, which I have the recipe for) costs 100+ blue ingredients and 30+ yellow ones. If Cataclysm were actually a useful item, I'd be very hard pressed to make them very quickly. It takes a long time to get that many crafting ingredients -- and that's a level 52 item, which doesn't take the legendary ingredients to make. It would also be very expensive in terms of opportunity costs; even if the cost of selling the items averaged to 100 gold per blue and 500 per yellow, that's ~35k in ingredients for a level 50 legendary (plus the 10 tomes and 47k to craft it makes ~90k just to craft it).

Second, it's true to an extent that items will stick around forever. However, it's not a 100% retention rate. Items that are only a step on the road to Act 3-4 Inferno will absolutely get crunched up. I've actually done a little of that myself when I couldn't get a reasonable price for them on the AH. I'd rather have the shot at a legendary ingredient than spend a week playing guess-the-price-this-will-actually-sell-at.

[Zurai]

I just love that millions of people are all farming for each other, and selling to a common central market.

I loathe it for that exact same reason. Obviously opinions are differing. Blizzard, I can only assume, is banking on your opinion being in the majority.

It's no different from Diablo 2, except that the item you're buying is probably not duped and there's an actual interface for finding the item you're looking for.

[Butterknife]

I read quite a bit about Diablo 3 before it came out. Diablo 2 was probably my favorite game ever. That being said, I'm atypical -- I don't like multiplayer all that much and I never played Diablo 2 with others, didn't look up "perfect" builds and played alts over and over trying out things I had thought of.

I've never used the auction house in Diablo 3. Currently I'm at 80 hours played and I'm not enjoying the game nearly as much as Diablo 2. The main reason of course is that there are no set or legendary items dropping. Yellows and blues are OK and all, but I am used to far more variety in my action RPGs (and I have played all of them -- even the bad ones). The loot game is more fun in Titan Quest or Borderlands than this game. Nonetheless the action/fighting part of the game is really well done and while I am fighting I enjoy it. If I give up on finding orange or green items, I can still enjoy that I am finding an upgrade for my character's gear every half-hour or so.

I don't have a "main" character. I've leveled all 5 characters, more or less together. My highest is a level 34 Barbarian, my lowest is a level 25 Witch Doctor. I share what gear I find between my characters. I use the Blacksmith exclusively -- breaking down every item I find and not really selling anything to the vendors. I have over 200 blue materials, and over 350 yellow (yellow materials just don't get used at the same rate blue ones do, mainly because the crafting of a rare only uses a few yellow materials but TONS of blue).

I hate the idea of the auction house. I'm aware of the financial reasons why they did it. I also remember how I never got any gear in World of Warcraft from finding it -- I got all my gear on the auction house. I spent hours playing the markets, selling a lesser-known recipe that was easy to find for 10 times what I had paid a vendor. The problem is that I don't want to play that game. Perhaps when the difficulty gets to be too much I'll knuckle under and play the auction house. More likely, I'll just give up and play something else.

I hate to say it, but after Starcraft 2 and this, my next Blizzard game is not an automatic purchase.

[Lagom Lite]

One way to improve the Blacksmith is to be able for a player to "lock" a specific kind of improvement for their creation. Such as, "Chance to Blind on hit" or "+Lightning damage" or "+Dexterity". So when creating a yellow rare weapon, you'd get 3 random properties plus the one you suggested instead of 4 random properties.

Also, the Jeweler needs to cut his pricing. Seriously.

[J.D.]

I disagree with needing the auction house to get through Nightmare. I'm on act III NM and have yet to even open the auction house screen. Yet I'm still a killing machine with my lvl 43 wizard using only things my friend and I loot while playing. I die a few times here and there, mostly due to wallers and jailers, but not enough to be noteworthy.

I've got 100k in the bank and upgraded my jeweller and BS up to level 5 each. And a stash full of treasure for other characters I want to start.

Still not feeling the need to even sniff in the direction of the AH.

[J.D.]

Double post

[YellowKing]

Yeah I'm deep into Act 3 Nightmare and haven't used the AH once. I just use skill management to make up for gear gaps. For instance, with the Act 2 final boss I completely revamped my passive skill set to include armor & health bonuses. Gem swapping is another valid tactic. Gear is an important part of the game, but there is enough flexibility that it doesn't have to be the ONLY part of the game.

[IceBear]

Keep seeing people hating SC2...I enjoyed it for what it was...old school RTS (didn't expect anything new so maybe that's why I didn't mind it) with fun cutscenes and nice little base in between for customization.

Yeah, I'm not going to use the AH in D3 as I agree with GreenGoo...the main draw for playing the game now that I've beaten it on normal is to see what nifty item drops; and frankly that's not much of a draw for me - only still playing it because it's something I can play for 30-60m with brain switched off (and don't really have the time for anything deeper right now). If I just buy the items then there's really no point for me to play D3 at all

[GreenGoo]

I just love that millions of people are all farming for each other, and selling to a common central market.

I loathe it for that exact same reason. Obviously opinions are differing. Blizzard, I can only assume, is banking on your opinion being in the majority.

It's no different from Diablo 2, except that the item you're buying is probably not duped and there's an actual interface for finding the item you're looking for.

Yes, you're right. I don't know why they wasted millions on developing the AH. It's exactly the same as D2.

[Zurai]

I just love that millions of people are all farming for each other, and selling to a common central market.

I loathe it for that exact same reason. Obviously opinions are differing. Blizzard, I can only assume, is banking on your opinion being in the majority.

It's no different from Diablo 2, except that the item you're buying is probably not duped and there's an actual interface for finding the item you're looking for.

Yes, you're right. I don't know why they wasted millions on developing the AH. It's exactly the same as D2.

Way to be a snide asshole about missing the point.

I didn't say the AH was the same. In fact, I explicitly said it was different.

I said that millions of people farming for each other was the same. You know, the subject of the post you responded to and I continued to respond to?

There were still millions of people farming for each other in D2. They were still selling everything to each other. The differences between selling in D2 and selling in D3 were that all the good stuff was duped in D2 and D3 has an actual mechanical interface for streamlining player-to-player trade.

[GreenGoo]

You're the one missing the point.

I get your side of it. I really do.

I think the benefits of the AH and design decisions made in support of it reduce the appeal to Diablo 3 to me and others with similar opinions to mine.

They've replaced sitting in a custom public game with a sales pitch title with a vendor who gets supplied by over 6 million other players.

If I could have supplied all my characters in Diablo II with top quality gear for every slot in, let's say, 30 minutes, I never would have bothered to play D2. Lots of people would still play. I get that. But by removing a significant portion of the excitement of loot drops we're left with an ARPG that is all action and a lesser loot system that's not as much fun for people like me. Luckily D3 is really fun to play even when a lot of the excitement of loot has been removed. D2 would have suffered more than D3 is going to. If we removed the novelty of D1, it would have been less than 1/2 the game it was if it has had an auction house like D3 has.

And yeah, I'm being an asshole because I'm trying to be empathic to those who like the AH, but then I hear things like it's just like D2 but easier. As I said, I don't want a vendor with access to every drop all 6 million+ players have ever seen. It sucks.

I want a game designed around loot drops, not a game that provides you with a catalogue of all items the game has produced up until that point and tells you to enjoy the shopping experience. The shopping experience sucks. I don't want to shop, and I don't want a game balanced around the idea that shopping is available.

I don't begrudge others who like it. There are people who like other things I don't like too and that's great. I was expecting a loot system in the Diablo tradition, and instead it's diminished in my eyes. Oh well. At least I have a better understanding of why I'm feeling a pull to reinstall D2 and play that instead, despite it being less of a game from a game mechanics standpoint.

I get that there are people who think it's great to look through a menu at the drive through window and have their character instantly upgraded in all slots in 5 minutes. Ugh. One of the major appeals to even playing the game is getting loot to upgrade your guy. They've turned it into shopping.

[Zurai]

If I could have supplied all my characters in Diablo II with top quality gear for every slot in, let's say, 30 minutes, I never would have bothered to play D2.

Oh really? Can I see your I-Killed-Inferno-Diablo-solo screenshot? I want to take a look at your build.

Wait, you mean you havn't beaten Inferno? Why?

Oh, because you don't have top quality gear in every slot.

Because it took a lot longer than 30 minutes.

----

My current Inferno character is wearing about 60% AH pieces and 40% pieces that dropped in games I was in. The dropped pieces are almost universally better (my weapon and my String of Ears are the only really good AH pieces I have, and the dropped belt I was previously using before the String of Ears was really, really good).

In order to gear yourself up with all top level gear using only the auction house requires you to spend hours and hours and hours doing nothing but flipping items to build up 100M+ gold. I find that actually playing the game and selling the good-but-not-an-upgrade items I find is a lot more fun and still profitable enough to allow me to buy the occasional is-an-upgrade item. Plus I do find those 450 armor, 100 dexterity, 50 all resist shoulders every so often that I immediately equip.

[GreenGoo]

To support MSD's concern, I have a somewhat crappy level 22 yellow 1handed hammer with a bit of a mishmash of stats. Not great, but not terrible. Maybe I could get a couple of gold above vendor price. I just looked through 7 pages (seven pages) of 1 handed yellows with buyouts of 400g or less. Vendor prices for most of these are a little over 300g. Throw in the 15% cut the game takes off the top and there are at least 7 pages (I stopped looking) of yellows for sale for a few percent more than vendor prices.

Now I realize this is low end stuff for normal, which is pretty much the base of the supply pyramid, but it still means that less than a month after the game has come out that there is very little to be gained (for this particular category and level) by using the AH to sell items, and everything to be gained by buying items on the AH.

The glut is already massive. Should be interesting in about a year or so. On the plus side, storage is cheap these days, and unless the game community grows significantly, we're probably seeing a peak of items of this level and quality that should drop over time. Less players in this level zone, less excitement over the AH in general (novelty factor) and other things should see the supply and demand shift to higher end stuff.

[GreenGoo]

If I could have supplied all my characters in Diablo II with top quality gear for every slot in, let's say, 30 minutes, I never would have bothered to play D2.

Oh really? Can I see your I-Killed-Inferno-Diablo-solo screenshot? I want to take a look at your build.

Wait, you mean you havn't beaten Inferno? Why?

Oh, because you don't have top quality gear in every slot.

Because it took a lot longer than 30 minutes.

Uh....if the entire game is just a single encounter then it's more limited in scope than even I expected.

Comments like that show a fundamental inability to see past your current gaming experience and view the system as a whole.

Your argument *might* be valid if the only people playing the game are the ones pushing the content limits, but what about me and the other 6 million players? Even MMO designers understand that while you need new content for the bleeding edge players, you need to cater to 99% other players if you want to succeed.

Someone needs to generate all that AH filler. But as MSD points out, they only need to do it once, then it's available forever.

[Zurai]

Uh....if the entire game is just a single encounter then it's more limited in scope than even I expected.

Comments like that show a fundamental inability to see past your current gaming experience and view the system as a whole.

Uh, you're the one who specified full top level gear.

Stop moving the goalposts.

[Lorini]

I've read that adding exta Magic Find gear helps in finding drops that are more level appropriate. GG, while I appreciate what you are saying, I think you and Zurai are looking at this from totally different viewpoints. Zurai, I know you think you've done more in the game than the rest of us since you are in Inferno, but really, our viewpoints are just as valid. I've played over 100 hours but my highest character is 41. He's hit a brick wall already even with AH stuff because I'm simply not that good of a Diablo player. Some people will like the AH and for people like me who never even finished Normal in D2, the AH allows us to play farther.

They are not going to get rid of the AH, nor are they going to make stuff BOE. The fact that there's going to be a shitload of stuff on the AH is really Blizzard's problem, not the player's problem. The more the better, as far as I'm concerned, makes stuff cheaper. And as the player base fragments into people who are only going to farm Inferno and those who don't ever intend to even see Inferno like me, then supply should increase over time.

I think the Inferno people may in fact hit a crossroads when the RMAH comes up. If the stuff that's going for $10M in the current AH starts going for $200 in the RMAH, things are going to get real interesting.

[GreenGoo]

Uh....if the entire game is just a single encounter then it's more limited in scope than even I expected.

Comments like that show a fundamental inability to see past your current gaming experience and view the system as a whole.

Uh, you're the one who specified full top level gear.

Stop moving the goalposts.

Top quality gear for your character. Not much point buying level 60 stuff if your character is only level 40. Try to see past your myopic viewpoint.

[Zurai]

Zurai, I know you think you've done more in the game than the rest of us since you are in Inferno

1. Well, yeah, one would generally say that having played through every part of the game with multiple characters gives one the right to think one has done more in the game than people who havn't.

2. I don't think my opinion is any more valid than others because I'm in Inferno. I only reference it to provide context.