Good change tbh, i spent 50% of my time camping the AH over playing. Now if they could modify the skill system so that it is not boring as hell and add runewords/uniques that add abilities then by god this might be a good game again.
I mean look at some D2 items like Enigma, Infinity, Insight etc they completely change the way a character plays the game and which spec he can use. Shit you can even go bear paladin, BEAR! And then there's more mods i'd love to see back. Faster hit recovery, -monster resistance, +skills, auras on equip, crushing blow, deadly strike, ignore targets defense etc etc.
But items and boring/cookie cutter 1-build per class is what i have the biggest issue with now. There's one build viable with slight slight variations to each class while in D2 there's tons per class. Sorc can go what, Nova/Blizz, Pure blizz, Meteorb, Meteor, Light/Chain light, Frozen orb/Energy shield, Blizz/Energy shield and probably one or two more. All of these play decently differently in positioning but also has variations of optimal gear setup.
On September 18 2013 13:30 TheRabidDeer wrote: [quote] You do realize that you already agreed to the previous EULA's which all have "Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time" in them, right? They don't need to get consent through the new EULA to remove the AH.
you really arent that naive are you? do you think they can give themselves carte blanche to do whatever they want?
RMAH was a specifically advertised portion of the game. they cant just sneak in a EULA and then say "oh ho ho, guess what you signed when you logged in and clicked "i agree" despite having no choice other than clicking it because we will take your game away."
If you dont agree with the EULA, you can return it to the vendor you bought it from. If you agreed, you can't. They didn't sneak anything in, it is a very standard online EULA. Do you even know what changed in the EULA? If anything?
Also, what if they decided to just shut down the game servers? As far as I am aware, they are legally allowed to do this if they wanted to. Obviously it would be a bad business move, but they can. Removal of a service is part of what you agreed to. Plain and simple. The way you act is like you invested into botting and are worried you are going to lose a source of income or something.
EDIT: Example of servers shutting down: EA shut down the servers for their Sports 11 titles. ie FIFA 11
i guess you are that naive.
you cannot (1) advertise a material term; (2) put in EULA saying you can do whatever you want; (3) wait until after they accept the EULA and play the game; and then (4) remove the material term.
if they are offering a refund now that they have removed the material term that is a different question. however, i am not sure how they can do that legally without offering to purchase my gear since it has monetary value.
we are not discussing a EULA at the outset. in that case, yes, you are correct that you can just return the game if you dont agree with the EULA. that is not the case here because if you dont accept the current EULA then diablo3 immediately shuts down (i.e., they are saying accept or fuck off).
You can't? Where is the precedence on that? I mean they are giving 6 months notice for a reason. And if you purchased recently, they may very well give a refund. If you bought it 2 years ago though, there is no way they could refund you. It is a video game, not a game to make money off of (this is further proven since it is NOT allowed to flip items for real money). Virtual goods do not have a REAL monetary value. They dont. Just because there is a way to sell them, does not give them real value.
a few hundred years of contract law is the precedent. EULA is the same as any other contract. you can't have illusory contracts, which is what you are describing when you say "they can do whatever they want."
as for notice, they told me accept the EULA or you cant play anymore today.
i have not researched the virtual item issue, but i assume they would have value since they can be bought and sold online. i can sell all of my char's gear right now and make more than d3 cost me.
So what would happen if they decided to shut the servers down? Would they have to refund all 10 million+ copies?
Also, while I am no lawyer the main thing that seems to determine the enforceability of an EULA is whether it is unconscionable. I think you would have a hard time arguing that the EULA is unconscionable in court.
Also, if virtual goods had a monetary value it would be taxed.
they made no promises regarding servers, so the Uniform Commercial Code would apply and most likely a court would look at the reasonableness of the time that the servers were up. two years is probably a reasonable amount of time for $60.
procedural and substantive unconscionability are certainly factors to determine enforcability of contract provisions, but they are not the end all, be all. express covenants and implied covenants are more determinative in this situation. they explictly promised a RMAH.
i skimmed the article about steam. that relates to arbitration and class-action waivers. thats a different issue than removing something you promised.
i do not know if virtual goods have value or not. i assume they do, but the law may not have caught up to the technology, which is so often the case.
They didnt? Requiring an internet connection and access to battle.net servers is not a promise for online play? I see this as no different than the RMAH. They promised the RMAH, and it was in the game. Losing the RMAH is no different than losing the server. They are both access to services.
I dont see goods having value ever. Virtual items can be created on a whim, it would be like printing money. You also have the issue of potential dupes. I imagine there would be actual legal repercussions if you forged items or created items (if a blizz employee created one for example) with real value. Certainly something more harsh than a simple ban.
they added a new contract term, they didnt take something away. if they said "you can keep RMAH, but you have to agree to an arbitration provision" that is a different question.
I love it when dAPhREAk goes full Esquire in a thread and people suddenly realize just how little they know about law. Its like they get a small window to every day working at a law firm.
Blizzard did this mainly for hype. Well, sorta. Obviously they are removing potential revenue from the expansion by removing the Auction House. If Loot 2.0 really worked as promised, however, it would cause invalidation, and coupled with ladders they would be maintaining a service that would probably only give minimal returns and keep people cynical about the game. Removing it will cut costs come RoS (less maintenance) and has already blown up to be a Blizzard dick-sucking event on the Internet.
With Blizzard talking about ladders now, I see that being the reason to actually play the game. It's quite possible they might even make the game more competitive that way. This could very well lead into a bigger population of players staying with the game, and a perfect vessel for microtransactions, especially since we are getting the transmogrification in the Mystic.
On September 18 2013 22:03 unkkz wrote: Good change tbh, i spent 50% of my time camping the AH over playing. Now if they could modify the skill system so that it is not boring as hell and add runewords/uniques that add abilities then by god this might be a good game again.
I mean look at some D2 items like Enigma, Infinity, Insight etc they completely change the way a character plays the game and which spec he can use. Shit you can even go bear paladin, BEAR! And then there's more mods i'd love to see back. Faster hit recovery, -monster resistance, +skills, auras on equip, crushing blow, deadly strike, ignore targets defense etc etc.
But items and boring/cookie cutter 1-build per class is what i have the biggest issue with now. There's one build viable with slight slight variations to each class while in D2 there's tons per class. Sorc can go what, Nova/Blizz, Pure blizz, Meteorb, Meteor, Light/Chain light, Frozen orb/Energy shield, Blizz/Energy shield and probably one or two more. All of these play decently differently in positioning but also has variations of optimal gear setup.
It's ironic that you think the way to make the skill system less boring is by adding gear everyone is obligated to equip.
On September 18 2013 23:30 ETisME wrote: I think the real reason behind it is because auction house made it difficult for blizzard to port over consoles
It could be both or that the game was just better on counsel without the auction house. All the reasons people are stating could be correct.
The AH was a double edged sword and I'm not really sure it was ever going to work out.
Skim off the top tier items, the legendaries and uber rolls. Those are always going to be valuable and worth trading and hard for people to get. The problem isn't with them.
It's the 2nd tier, the mid range items.
Lets assume that each primary stat class desires different item stats to a degree. This is good for set-team co-op play, multiple characters, and gear diversity in general. As people have said it'd be even better if different builds would take advantage of different items/stats in a more meaningful way, but for now let's just assume that 3 different item sets are desirable (int, str, dex).
So I have my drops. Some % of those drops are trash, throw them away. The other % are items that have reasonable rolls/stat make ups. This is the same in D2 as D3, both games produced plenty of just trash items. These are your items with primary stat, maybe some survivability and say crit damage or attack speed, but not a perfect roll. Just your run of the mill average item you'd expect to see on a character who's not rich, but is capable of completing inferno (or the equivalent for other earlier levels/parts of progression).
Now the problem... Of those items that drop with some set of desirable stats roughly 66% of them are useless to my character, 33% are useful (33% of them would roll something like dex vs int or str). None of them are particularly valuable items, but they are moderately useful. Some % of the 33% that do apply to my class are also not strictly better than what I'm already wearing (lets say this accounts for 0-24% of the total drops) So what happens to that 66%-90% of the drops I get? They have some small inherent value, but not a whole lot. So you just toss them up on the AH for some extra cash, why not. So every character in effect is adding more items to the market than they are taking out. Items that are the bottom tier of mediocre fall away (get trashed) eventually, but they're always 'there' causing prices to stay low through competition.
The loop feeds itself too. The more players buy bottomed out items on the AH the more items they get are worse than what they have so they end up on the AH further lowering prices and providing everyone with good gear.
Then players are now in the situation where upwards of 99% of what they get is useless even with a minimal investment and mediocre gear.
The AH setup makes this possible through it's global economy, incredibly low barrier to entry, and low risk. If Blizzard wanted to really curtail the AH they'd need to do things like restrict market access and raise the cost of entry. If they created an AH that was used only for the overall top tier* of items (much like a D2JSP), then the AH would have minimal impact on the game. As it is now the AH just creates this horrible feedback loop that makes the bland items even less interesting and makes balancing the game around an expected gear setup near impossible.
In fact now it's even more of a joke. The cost to entry is pretty much negative because putting things on the AH is effectively putting things into an additional inventory slot that you can't otherwise access.
*Once you are looking at the 'top tier' you can further break that down by the most desirable legendaries and rolls vs the 'pretty good' ones vs the 'mediocre' ones and so on. But in this context I just mean the overall top tier when you consider everything from trash blues up.
On September 18 2013 17:08 shirtman wrote: Currently, at a certain point of your gear quality, you are forced to use the auction house if you want to progress.
Looting just isn't much fun. Do I even pick up that hellrack? Oh a stormshield with a good block rating. I might be able to sell it cheaply!
I agree with Blizzard decision 100% if Loot 2.0 turns out good.
Agreed--I remember back in Diablo 2 doing cow runs and being so happy watching a unique drop. In Diablo III, that feeling has been gone for quite some time. Now when I do runs, I hope for an item that I can sell so I may one day buy an item I need.
Oh and I have a question for you. Do you by chance have your Diablo III Pc box with you? Just curious what it says on the box about the Auction House (I have the CE so mine is essentially blank).
On September 18 2013 13:26 dAPhREAk wrote: [quote] consent always applies. just because they cant get consent because of practical reasons means that they arent allowed to take away the functionality. they are trying to get "consent" through their new EULA (maybe, maybe its for another reason), but i highly question the legality of what they are doing since they are saying "accept no AH/RMAH or you cant play anymore." lets not be sheep people. just because you like the change doesnt mean laws go out the window.
You do realize that you already agreed to the previous EULA's which all have "Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time" in them, right? They don't need to get consent through the new EULA to remove the AH.
you really arent that naive are you? do you think they can give themselves carte blanche to do whatever they want?
RMAH was a specifically advertised portion of the game. they cant just sneak in a EULA and then say "oh ho ho, guess what you signed when you logged in and clicked "i agree" despite having no choice other than clicking it because we will take your game away."
If you dont agree with the EULA, you can return it to the vendor you bought it from. If you agreed, you can't. They didn't sneak anything in, it is a very standard online EULA. Do you even know what changed in the EULA? If anything?
Also, what if they decided to just shut down the game servers? As far as I am aware, they are legally allowed to do this if they wanted to. Obviously it would be a bad business move, but they can. Removal of a service is part of what you agreed to. Plain and simple. The way you act is like you invested into botting and are worried you are going to lose a source of income or something.
EDIT: Example of servers shutting down: EA shut down the servers for their Sports 11 titles. ie FIFA 11
i guess you are that naive.
you cannot (1) advertise a material term; (2) put in EULA saying you can do whatever you want; (3) wait until after they accept the EULA and play the game; and then (4) remove the material term.
if they are offering a refund now that they have removed the material term that is a different question. however, i am not sure how they can do that legally without offering to purchase my gear since it has monetary value.
we are not discussing a EULA at the outset. in that case, yes, you are correct that you can just return the game if you dont agree with the EULA. that is not the case here because if you dont accept the current EULA then diablo3 immediately shuts down (i.e., they are saying accept or fuck off).
You can't? Where is the precedence on that? I mean they are giving 6 months notice for a reason. And if you purchased recently, they may very well give a refund. If you bought it 2 years ago though, there is no way they could refund you. It is a video game, not a game to make money off of (this is further proven since it is NOT allowed to flip items for real money). Virtual goods do not have a REAL monetary value. They dont. Just because there is a way to sell them, does not give them real value.
a few hundred years of contract law is the precedent. EULA is the same as any other contract. you can't have illusory contracts, which is what you are describing when you say "they can do whatever they want."
as for notice, they told me accept the EULA or you cant play anymore today.
i have not researched the virtual item issue, but i assume they would have value since they can be bought and sold online. i can sell all of my char's gear right now and make more than d3 cost me.
So what would happen if they decided to shut the servers down? Would they have to refund all 10 million+ copies?
Also, while I am no lawyer the main thing that seems to determine the enforceability of an EULA is whether it is unconscionable. I think you would have a hard time arguing that the EULA is unconscionable in court.
Also, if virtual goods had a monetary value it would be taxed.
they made no promises regarding servers, so the Uniform Commercial Code would apply and most likely a court would look at the reasonableness of the time that the servers were up. two years is probably a reasonable amount of time for $60.
procedural and substantive unconscionability are certainly factors to determine enforcability of contract provisions, but they are not the end all, be all. express covenants and implied covenants are more determinative in this situation. they explictly promised a RMAH.
i skimmed the article about steam. that relates to arbitration and class-action waivers. thats a different issue than removing something you promised.
i do not know if virtual goods have value or not. i assume they do, but the law may not have caught up to the technology, which is so often the case.
They didnt? Requiring an internet connection and access to battle.net servers is not a promise for online play? I see this as no different than the RMAH. They promised the RMAH, and it was in the game. Losing the RMAH is no different than losing the server. They are both access to services.
I dont see goods having value ever. Virtual items can be created on a whim, it would be like printing money. You also have the issue of potential dupes. I imagine there would be actual legal repercussions if you forged items or created items (if a blizz employee created one for example) with real value. Certainly something more harsh than a simple ban.
found this on taxation of virtual good transactions. looks like you are required to report income from sale of virtual goods for purposes of taxation, but the law is pretty unclear. IRS and other agencies are looking into figuring out how to rulemake, but so far its not a high priority.
I can't believe there are so many posts on the blizz forums crying about AH/RMAH going away. I guess they are the majority left when everyone else left.
Fact is, if they left in the AHs in and introduced Loot 2.0 it would just be silly. Everything on the AH would lose so much value. Look at the cost of andariels. How much is one with a socket and low penaltiy running now? When i stopped they were around 7m. I bet they are sub 1 mill now. Ones without sockets are probably free.
Loot 2.0 would actually make the game fun to PLAY.
Loot 2.0 + AH would make every single item free. Way too much supply of everything. And its not like it needed help.. I couldn't sell freaking Ice Climbers. Now even crappy ones will be worth something. And finding them would be awesome.
i just received an email from Blizzard notifying of the Auction House closure. interesting. they never felt the need to notify me of anything else before now. i wonder if they are just the wee bit concerned about closing down something they promised and know some people love.
On September 19 2013 05:48 Amnesty wrote: I can't believe there are so many posts on the blizz forums crying about AH/RMAH going away. I guess they are the majority left when everyone else left.
Fact is, if they left in the AHs in and introduced Loot 2.0 it would just be silly. Everything on the AH would lose so much value. Look at the cost of andariels. How much is one with a socket and low penaltiy running now? When i stopped they were around 7m. I bet they are sub 1 mill now. Ones without sockets are probably free.
Loot 2.0 would actually make the game fun to PLAY.
Loot 2.0 + AH would make every single item free. Way too much supply of everything. And its not like it needed help.. I couldn't sell freaking Ice Climbers. Now even crappy ones will be worth something. And finding them would be awesome.
I remember trying to sell a socketed Andy's and could not even got for 5,000 gold. Which is the cut off point since the minimum for Legendary items should be pretty much the same as brimstones.
As for them being the majority, I think not. This is often the case with forums, a small group of people tends to appear to be the majority by virtue of being the loudest. I am on the forums often enough (for the sake of entertainment) and trust me, there are enough that are cheering and celebrating its removal.
Having 2.0 with AH would kill it for me, they need to be separate. I am just going to have to get a bunch of blacksmith plans off of the AH before it closes so can get the achievement.
On September 18 2013 03:17 masterbreti wrote: This is an awful decision by Blizzard. Why are they taking out the best part of the game just to appease a few people? It makes no sense to me.
For me the AH was an easy way to earn a bit of gold and be able to get items i needed and would take months to farm on my own. Now Gold is worthless, everything i farm is too, and it'll take me months to farm a single gem because I don't sit around playing all day in order to be able to farm one efficiently.
I won't be playing Diablo 3 anymore once this goes through. Waste of time now.
I'd like to see in which ways, Auction House is the "best part of the game".
because it was the thrill of the AH that was the only selling point for me in buying D3. The thrill of getting a good deal on a pair of boots, or selling my gems at a really high price. those things were so much more fun then farming for hours on end just in the small chance of getting an item i won't even be able to use anyways.
but i guess on the bright side, the RMT market will go up, and i'll end up selling my gold for a decent price.
Sorry but I believe you are in the minority. Most people I've talked to (myself included hehe~) hate the AH and only use it because they believe they are forced to for competitive reasons. I sometimes enjoyed using but would rather have it out of the game as I hate being so dependant on it. If you want an AH simulator, you will have to find a different game.
All in all, I think this was a very hard and bold decision by the new game director. He has some balls and cares about the game. I have hope for Diablo 3's future if this was the correct decision or not. Please remember all the people crying about the "they added AH because they want more money" argument.
On September 18 2013 13:34 Iblis wrote: Taking the AH after implementing loot 2.0 is not a good thing for everyone. Character progression right now: 1%: self done: level up, unlock inferno and GL dropping anything. 5%: AH trading, investing your farm should give you a starter gear to get you started 5-100%: Invest huge gold farmed ingame / money amount in a secured way and get to where you are satisfied with your character
For Ros: 80% self done: taken from console players you get to 400-600k dps and 500-800k EHP with the new high affixes rolls(80+all resist, huge main stats+vit) Look at this barbarian 8 days after console launch 80-100%: GL sitting in trade channels and forums getting lowballed, scammed and losing faith in humanity bit by bit.
The AH wasn't the issue about the game. Designing everything in the game around it was, notably Loots and Legendaries 1.X. And now that they are redesining the game as a Diablo game where you may loot things that are good for a character unlocking 90% of your character potential by yourself with high value loots they remove the secure way of getting from high value to BiS/near BiS items. Ways to go from the worst to not that bad.
I agree, you shouldn't need to use AH to do anything in the game. But people that want to start min-maxing their character getting the 5-10% more efficient than a self found character after 300-400h of played in D3 should have a convenient way to do it like an AH.
Who the fuck decided that 12 all resist or 20 str/vit/dex/int as an affix roll on a ilvl 63 item was something someone may be excited about. Sure the presence of the AH made available mid level item affordable after some months of farming/botting but anyone knows how unrealistic the inferno progression was, you didn't farm act1 to go to act 2 and then 3, you skipped and went for act 3 to Tyrael siegebreaker, elite hunting or chest "exploit" because ilvl 61 weren't ever going to make you able to sustain Act 2 difficulty and the only other choice was to farm gold and get mid/high level gear once affordable.
You should have been able to loot decent gear (never less than 75% of max affixe value for a specific affixe), at launch they wanted rares to be the high end perfect items and looted rares were so shit because you were supposed to have access to AH they made legendary even more shit except atk speed legendary because they can't design balanced affixe even if it is their job.
They are playing the let's chase every decision Jay Wilson made and doubled and remove it, they should not remove the only thing that made D3 more confortable and accessible to play in the long run than D2.
I'll just leave this post from Bashiok dated 5/26/2012 for you here.
Hopefully they'll add something to game to make trading a bit easier for those who enjoy it. Something where people can post items they don't want and browse for items that they do want and can afford.
EPT![[image loading]](http://lone0001.ca/gallery/Unboxings/Diablo_3_Unboxing/IMG_1648.JPG)
