D3 Auction Houses close 3-18-2014

On September 18 2013 03:21 digmouse wrote:

I'd like to see in which ways, Auction House is the "best part of the game".

On September 18 2013 03:24 masterbreti wrote:


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.

On September 18 2013 03:29 TheTenthDoc wrote:


If there's still player-to-player trade, you can still get those thrills. You just have to do more than refresh the auction house over and over.

On September 18 2013 03:33 masterbreti wrote:


it isn't nearly as much as a awesome find. Because you don't have as many stupid people selling their items for cheap. more often you will have people selling that kind of stuff to vendors.

On September 18 2013 04:56 KiWiKaKi wrote:
gonna be so much fun to spam 2 hours in a channel to get what I need

WTS

BUMP

BUMP

BUMP

BUMP

BUMP

BUMP

On September 18 2013 04:44 Zelniq wrote:
they need to make gold valuable somehow and i'm not sure there's an easy solution for that

On September 18 2013 04:56 KiWiKaKi wrote:
gonna be so much fun to spam 2 hours in a channel to get what I need

On September 18 2013 05:03 KalWarkov wrote:
- Are all those billions of gold that players have right now really completly useless in the expansion?

On September 18 2013 04:56 KiWiKaKi wrote:
gonna be so much fun to spam 2 hours in a channel to get what I need

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.

On September 18 2013 04:20 DeltruS wrote:
Lesson's I've learned from Path of Exiles no auction house economy:

• Low supply low demand items get much of their value simply because they are hard to find. This adds in a whole new aspect to the economy. Players can flip items without scamming the other player. WOW! This is something that doesn't happen often in D3.
  
  
• Players are much more happy when they buy a good upgrade. The seller if happy too. The difficulty of trading makes buying a good upgrade feel like getting the same item from drops.
  
  
• There are no set prices. The price of an item is in each player's mind. This raises the skill ceiling in trading, moving it away from a mindless auction house economy.
  
  
• Lots of players simply don't like trading. Because of the difficulty of trading, it can often be more worth it just to farm nonstop and sell only the best items. A side effect of this is that many players don't sell most of their loot, so if you feel like selling there will be much more demand.
  
  
• Selling items gained through botting is much harder.

My respect for Blizzard has quadrupled with this announcement.

On September 18 2013 04:44 Zelniq wrote:
they need to make gold valuable somehow and i'm not sure there's an easy solution for that

On September 18 2013 06:02 sob3k wrote:
Holy shit I'm very surprised and impressed. I thought blizzard was too far gone to admit a fuckup like AH and fix it.

On September 18 2013 04:44 Zelniq wrote:
they need to make gold valuable somehow and i'm not sure there's an easy solution for that

On September 18 2013 06:12 Aiobhill wrote:
Bait and switch at its finest.

Long before launch people predict real money AH will massively hurt the game. Millions buy it anyway - many based on Diablo II reputation. Game goes gold, is extremely lackluster and indeed real money AH massively hurts the game. Blizzard pockets money form box sales and AH sales.

Fast forward 18 or so months. AH sales should be a trickle at best these days, Hype about add-on is non-existant, Blizzard does the smart thing, distances itself from the AH loudly and hopes for the sheep to come back.

On September 18 2013 06:12 Aiobhill wrote:
Bait and switch at its finest.

Long before launch people predict real money AH will massively hurt the game. Millions buy it anyway - many based on Diablo II reputation. Game goes gold, is extremely lackluster and indeed real money AH massively hurts the game. Blizzard pockets money form box sales and AH sales.

Fast forward 18 or so months. AH sales should be a trickle at best these days, Hype about add-on is non-existant, Blizzard does the smart thing, distances itself from the AH loudly and hopes for the sheep to come back.

On September 18 2013 06:16 rd wrote:


Lol, people like to picture Blizzard in a smoke filled room trying to rip-off the community. It's like you think the reason they added the Auction House was NOT because it's a gold standard in modern RPG's -- including the single most successful MMO THEY made, and it was not because they thought like other games, it would make D3 better, but they actually added it to farm auction fees from the RMAH against the whims of the community.

On September 18 2013 06:12 Aiobhill wrote:
Bait and switch at its finest.

Long before launch people predict real money AH will massively hurt the game. Millions buy it anyway - many based on Diablo II reputation. Game goes gold, is extremely lackluster and indeed real money AH massively hurts the game. Blizzard pockets money form box sales and AH sales.

Fast forward 18 or so months. AH sales should be a trickle at best these days, Hype about add-on is non-existant, Blizzard does the smart thing, distances itself from the AH loudly and hopes for the sheep to come back.

On September 18 2013 06:19 ianjamesbarnett wrote:


That isn't bait and switch at all... AH was criticized from the very start. This is a simple case of fucking up and fixing it after a long time of continuous complaints and lack of results.

On September 18 2013 06:18 Plansix wrote:

I love the people who think that Blizzard and other video games companies are out to get them and steal their money. If you ever see interviews with programmers or producers who are between games or not working, it is so clear they just want to make a good game.

On September 18 2013 06:27 Aiobhill wrote:


Do you seriously believe the decision to add a RMAH was made at programmer or even producer level? Seriously? Doubt it very much. The suits at Activision-Blizzard are not being paid for twiddling their thumbs.

On September 18 2013 06:27 Aiobhill wrote:


Do you seriously believe the decision to add a RMAH was made at programmer or even producer level? Seriously? Doubt it very much. The suits at Activision-Blizzard are not being paid for twiddling their thumbs.

On September 18 2013 06:29 NovaTheFeared wrote:
Blizzard implementing the RMAH was clearly a money grab. If you can't see that I don't know what to tell you.

On September 18 2013 06:29 NovaTheFeared wrote:
Blizzard implementing the RMAH was clearly a money grab. If you can't see that I don't know what to tell you.

On September 18 2013 06:29 NovaTheFeared wrote:
Blizzard implementing the RMAH was clearly a money grab. If you can't see that I don't know what to tell you.

On September 18 2013 06:33 Plansix wrote:

Did I say that? No I did. I just pointed out that no one sets out for make a bad game or a feature everyone hates. Even the suites do not plan to make shitty features noone likes.

On September 18 2013 05:56 rd wrote:


Because the AH is a conflicting feature to what the D2 experience really is, which is finding items, not grinding gold and then buying them. And they're not appeasing a few people, they're appeasing anyone who has ever played and enjoyed Diablo 2, whether or not those players even realize it. If this change is that significant to cause you to quit, well then its possible the Diablo franchise was never going to appeal to you anyways.



These are the common experiences of finding and trading items in D2. Unlike D3, PoE actually stuck to the D2 formula which has been so widely successful in so many other games (I don't know if D2 copied something from somewhere else but they sure as hell popularized the shit out of it)

On September 18 2013 06:42 dAPhREAk wrote:

guess it will go back to eBay being the money grabber, and taking more of your money than Blizzard did.

On September 18 2013 06:56 NovaTheFeared wrote:


Blizz got 0 dollars from me, I refunded D3. That's how badly the game sucked.

On September 18 2013 06:57 dAPhREAk wrote:

thank you for pointing that out. incredibly insightful.

On September 18 2013 06:50 masterbreti wrote:



Well here is the thing. D2 was an awful game, and people really shouldn't stick to a old game, that was lackluster, to set the standard for what games of this genre should be like now.

By that same logic, the games that we have now should be no better than games we had in 1998, graphics and all, because being innovative and coming up with cool new ideas is bound to get you hated for everyone with a tiny bit of nostalgia.

That's the only problem D3 really had, was that people basically wanted a trip down memory lane and an HD D2, which Blizzard doesn't do, and always tries to innovate. But the community hated on them for it, and now they have to remove the single best feature in D3, and in ARPG's in general, because they are afraid of losing a few hardcore fans.

On September 18 2013 07:38 Gourmand wrote:
Sooooo, will it close before or after Reaper of Souls release?

On September 18 2013 06:50 masterbreti wrote:



Well here is the thing. D2 was an awful game (please don't lynch me), and people really shouldn't stick to a old game, that was lackluster, to set the standard for what games of this genre should be like now.

By that same logic, the games that we have now should be no better than games we had in 1998, graphics and all, because being innovative and coming up with cool new ideas is bound to get you hated for everyone with a tiny bit of nostalgia.

That's the only problem D3 really had, was that people basically wanted a trip down memory lane and an HD D2, which Blizzard doesn't do, and always tries to innovate. But the community hated on them for it, and now they have to remove the single best feature in D3, and in ARPG's in general, because they are afraid of losing a few hardcore fans.

On September 18 2013 10:17 justiceknight wrote:
so its time to spend my 1b on "i dunno what to invest" items now?

On September 18 2013 10:26 andrewlt wrote:
I liked the auction house and was hoping that they could make it work. It was an easier way to trade and get upgrades I've been unlucky to get. If they really couldn't find a way to make it work, then removing it is the next best thing.

The biggest problem with it was that it provided everybody with an incentive to dump their old items back on the market once they get upgrades. And dump good drops that weren't upgrades on the market. This created an increasing baseline where every new character, whether by a new or experienced player, could buy a good starting set almost for free. That pretty much destroyed the most fun part of every character, which is the initial stages where your weak character gets upgrades from drops very often.

On September 18 2013 10:37 Mithhaike wrote:
I am totally surprised at this move by Blizzard. Considering how much trouble they went thru to enable RMAH in many countries, the decision to backpeddle away from AH is incredible.

I was of the camp that thought Blizzard no longer cares about the games and only care about the money. I admit now that it seems I was wrong.

I personally think the removal of AH is a extreme step though, they could have just kept it for normal games, and disable it for Ladder Characters. Give people a choice. The disabling for ladder character is good because the game will be reset anyway, there wont be any class lawsuits from people claiming that Blizzard stole their money by resetting the game.
Yes i am deadly serious about those lawsuits, it's America ffs. There was a woman who sued Mac and won because she dropped hot tea/coffee on herself, and she wasn't warned it was hot.

I am of high hopes for this expansion, like how D2 was fixed by D2X. I will see you guys in ladder

Oh the Diablo3 forums can create it's own Trading thread hahaha. I rather trade with TLers!

On September 18 2013 10:56 Mithhaike wrote:
Does it change my statement in any way or form?

Did she drop it on herself instead of people dropping it on her?

Did she need a sign to know that shit was hot?

It doesnt matter how injured she is. She injured herself without her excercising due caution. However the judge disagreed with common sense, so leave it be.

On September 18 2013 10:56 Mithhaike wrote:
Does it change my statement in any way or form?

Did she drop it on herself instead of people dropping it on her?

Did she need a sign to know that shit was hot?

It doesnt matter how injured she is. She injured herself without her excercising due caution. However the judge disagreed with common sense, so leave it be.

On September 18 2013 11:04 TheRabidDeer wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants
"Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses. Her past medical expenses were $10,500; her anticipated future medical expenses were approximately $2,500; and her loss of income was approximately $5,000 for a total of approximately $18,000. Instead, the company offered only $800. When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald's of "gross negligence" for selling coffee that was "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured". McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000. Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle."

"Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000."

"Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald's was 80% responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20% at fault."

Also, it was jury not judge. Yes she dropped it on herself but coffee was served almost unreasonably hot to accommodate for people that dont drink it right away.

On September 18 2013 11:59 dartoo wrote:
This might be a good time to start cloning a website like dota 2 lounge, but for diablo. There's people bound to miss the ah. Will be a lot more convenient to trade items like that as opposed to using forums.

Or does something like this already exist?

On September 18 2013 12:17 Burrfoot wrote:
All they need if gold isn't a "valuable" currency anymore is something like tradable level 70 demonic essences. (angelic essences!).

On September 18 2013 12:31 Black Gun wrote:
as far as i heard, there was an emergency shutdown of the US battlenet servers tonight which lasted for about 2 hours. i got curious and tried to log on US (normally eu player) and had to agree to a new end user license agreement. could this have to do with this step? like... for legal reasons, they have to get the end users' official consent for this step 6 months before it takes place or something like that?

there is also a maintenance downtime on eu tonight. there hasnt been a maintenance on eu for over a month...

On September 18 2013 12:36 dAPhREAk wrote:

just saw that and i declined it.

debating whether to ask for a refund. lol at them trying to force a EULA down our throats in order to bypass their false advertising.

On September 18 2013 12:43 TheRabidDeer wrote:

I dont think you can get a refund after playing a game for 2 years. There is also probably a clause somewhere stating that online content will change. It is also not really false advertising since it WAS in the game.

EDIT: Why is it that no matter what blizz does, it is always a bad move?

On September 18 2013 12:47 ThaZenith wrote:


It's more that, no matter what you do you can't make EVERYBODY happy.

On September 18 2013 12:43 TheRabidDeer wrote:

I dont think you can get a refund after playing a game for 2 years. There is also probably a clause somewhere stating that online content will change. It is also not really false advertising since it WAS in the game.

EDIT: Why is it that no matter what blizz does, it is always a bad move?

On September 18 2013 12:47 ThaZenith wrote:


It's more that, no matter what you do you can't make EVERYBODY happy.

On September 18 2013 13:00 dAPhREAk wrote:

its more an academic issue than anything else. they took away something they promised without consent. why should they be allowed to do that?

On September 18 2013 13:08 dAPhREAk wrote:

this is a weird mentality. they arent changing the color of the wizard's robe. they are changing something so important that they decided to specifically advertise it on the box. there is limited room on the box cover, but this is what they chose to specifically point out.

On September 18 2013 13:17 TheRabidDeer wrote:

Without consent? I don't think consent applies here. They can't get the unified consent of 10 million+ people. They do have the "consent" of a huge amount of the player base on top of developer agreement that the AH was generally bad for the game.

It was a feature that most other games dont have. Note that they advertised the RMAH, not the gold AH. Being able to make money off of a game (legally) is a unique selling point.

On September 18 2013 13:26 dAPhREAk wrote:

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.

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHjHUG1DIc
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.

On September 18 2013 13:30 TheRabidDeer wrote:

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.

On September 18 2013 13:54 dAPhREAk wrote:


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."

On September 18 2013 13:54 dAPhREAk wrote:

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."

On September 18 2013 14:48 TheRabidDeer wrote:

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

On September 18 2013 15:05 dAPhREAk wrote:

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).

On September 18 2013 15:15 TheRabidDeer wrote:

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.

On September 18 2013 15:20 dAPhREAk wrote:

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.

On September 18 2013 15:20 dAPhREAk wrote:

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.

On September 18 2013 15:32 UniversalSnip wrote:

so what odds do you give on this being prosecuted

On September 18 2013 15:36 TheRabidDeer wrote:

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.

Steam had a run-in with their EULA recently too. Agree to it or you lose access to ALL of your games (maybe even more than $1000 worth). The change prevents you from participating in a class action lawsuit. It was legal.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133806-valves-updated-steam-agreement-bars-class-action-lawsuit-but-is-it-legal

Also, if virtual goods had a monetary value it would be taxed.

On September 18 2013 15:37 UniversalSnip wrote:
so there aint shit to talk about. the difference between an impossible and irrelevant academic exercise and a waste of breath is very hard to distinguish for me

On September 18 2013 15:42 dAPhREAk wrote:

then why are you wasting your breath responding? how inane.

On September 18 2013 15:41 dAPhREAk wrote:

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.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverherzfeld/2012/12/04/what-is-the-legal-status-of-virtual-goods/

On September 18 2013 15:50 Douillos wrote:
@ daPhreak: did you open up the gamE? I had a new EULA to agree too. I didn't read, 'cause I'm not very interested in the whole "can blizz be sued?" subject, but maybe it would be interesting for you to go through it?

On September 18 2013 15:50 Douillos wrote:
@ daPhreak: did you open up the gamE? I had a new EULA to agree too. I didn't read, 'cause I'm not very interested in the whole "can blizz be sued?" subject, but maybe it would be interesting for you to go through it?

On September 18 2013 15:49 TheRabidDeer wrote:

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.

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.

On September 18 2013 16:58 TOCHMY wrote:
This might actually make me reinstall D3 and even maybe buy the expansion. Good stuff. Hope you learned your lesson BLIZ

On September 18 2013 17:34 SnK-Arcbound wrote:

I think the only one who didn't learn their lesson here is you lol.

On September 18 2013 17:16 Nilrem wrote:


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 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.

On September 18 2013 18:49 paralleluniverse wrote:
I've been raging against the RMAH since the very first day it was announced and the only reason I have refused to buy Diablo 3 is because of the RMAH.

Perhaps now I'll finally buy the game on March 18 2014, when it's gone.

It must also be said that their reason for removing the AH is flakey. They claim that they want the best way to get items to be in game. But that runs counter to the fact that Diablo 2 was a trading game, and so is Diablo 3. What trading system will they replace the AH with. If trading is discourage, and farming in-game is encourage, as their reasoning suggests, then this game will be a mindless and tedious grind. It will not be fun, and hence it will not be worth playing.

In fact, their reasoning implies that convenient trading is bad, and their argument could be used against any sufficiently convenient trading system. The ideal trading system is an improved trading post where people can choose to list what they have, what they want, or acceptable trades, similar to the trading post forums. Such a system would be a very successful way to trade and obtain items. But if they rule it out in favor of more grinding, then the game will be almost as pointless as it is now.

If you're going to have a RMAH to prevent people visiting dodgy websites to buy items for real money, which is the primary reason people used to fanatically defend the RMAH, then Blizzard should also sell bots for real money, for exactly the same reason.

On September 18 2013 19:53 tdt wrote:
play the console version drops are incredible making your whole post a red herring non starter with loot 2.0. I already found better stuff in 100 hours than I bought from 10s of billions of flipping let alone found in 1000 hrs of PC version.


drops had to be bad to make AH wroth blizzards time and expense and decent profit. They made inapplicable and crappy items drop 99.99% of the time so you had to traffic in AH. Now you get INT items if you're a witch doctor and good ones too. I got a Homunculus - with 10 crit -20 dogs and 120-562 dam. Compare that to old one.

On September 18 2013 20:37 Cascade wrote:

I'm not sure the "everyone were trading in D2" sentiment is really accurate.

Maybe your friends and D2 contacts traded, but would guess (have no data though) the vast majority of the D2 players did like me and only played it single player, or at most with their friends over LAN or so. A bit like it is tempting to think that all SC 2 play a lot of 1on1 if you are in high master, while the vast majority almost never touch 1on1.

I flipped in D3 on the AH, but I have no intention of going to third party sites to continue trade, or spend in trade channels to bargain, and I think that the big majority of D3 players will not go to third party sites to trade when the AHs close.

On September 18 2013 16:49 dAPhREAk wrote:

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.

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.

On September 18 2013 04:44 Zelniq wrote:
they need to make gold valuable somehow and i'm not sure there's an easy solution for that

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

On September 18 2013 17:16 Nilrem wrote:


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 15:49 TheRabidDeer wrote:

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.

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.

On September 18 2013 03:24 masterbreti wrote:


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.

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHjHUG1DIc
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.

On September 19 2013 06:44 Taguchi wrote:


I'll just leave this post from Bashiok dated 5/26/2012 for you here.

Bashiok on AH and droprates

There really is no way around the problem of the AH speeding the loot acquisition rate for everyone.

On September 19 2013 08:00 WolfintheSheep wrote:

That answer looks like a blatant lie, now that the console version actually shows what they think good single player drop rates/itemization actually is.

On September 19 2013 08:15 Nilrem wrote:


Nah, it was not a lie. It acknowledges the Auction Houses role on items while ruling out dynamic control over items. Keep in mind that the PC version will not be the same as console. The console s drop rate and types of items were developed by the console itself. What loot 2.0 will give the PC users is less items but better (and not the mass items console users are getting).

The auction house has absolutely no effect on drop rates.

When we say we "took the AH into account," that means it's one of many factors

On September 19 2013 08:48 sob3k wrote:

Well its a lie even within that one response:

On September 19 2013 08:48 sob3k wrote:


Well its a lie even within that one response:



is not compatible with

---

Outside of that, its also just bad either way you cut it:

1. He pretty directly lied to the playerbase. In reality they did change drop rates to take into account the AH.

2. He told the truth and they didn't, which would be incredibly poor and shortsighted game design. It would be like balancing an MMO around soloing all the content and being surprised when people form parties.

On September 19 2013 08:00 WolfintheSheep wrote:

That answer looks like a blatant lie, now that the console version actually shows what they think good single player drop rates/itemization actually is.

On September 19 2013 09:42 Taguchi wrote:


Your stuff talks about a conspiracy theory saying that the AH DIRECTLY influences and changes dynamically the ingame droprates, which the devs say are hardcoded. I firmly believe they're not lying when they say that.

Get it now?

On September 19 2013 09:50 sob3k wrote:
My bad I read that not thoroughly enough.