Diablo III General Discussion - Page 122

On August 01 2011 15:42 Phayze wrote:
So is there going to be a huge stream in like 20 mins? is that what i've been hearing? I've been lurking these chat streams and i'm not entirely sure whats going on. NDA lifts in 20 minutes, is there something planned for that, or is it just going to be a shitfest of information hitting the net all at once.

On August 01 2011 14:22 vlf wrote:

The point is that given that hacking hasn't be stopped, it's safe to assume that Blizzard will probably not be successful this time around as well. It doesn't imply certainty, obviously, but it's the most likely outcome given past scenarios. I was hinting at the possibility of hacking being more rewarding due to the ease of translating virtual goods to real, tangible ones. I'm not sure why you think this makes no sense at all or why you chose to focus on Blizzard minimizing hacking, which is arguable at best. Sure, they try -- it's in their best interest -- but that hardly means a thing when hacking is quite rampant, even more so on games where farming is a sort of, say, crux, like WoW.

On August 01 2011 14:22 vlf wrote:
As far as the second paragraph goes, I believe that illegitimate sites MIGHT be reduced to very few key communities which might limit themselves to setting up dummy transactions on, for example, forums such that they would, then, use Blizzard's system whilst avoiding higher royalty fees - removing a barrier to market flooding and setting themselves up without much of an investment.

On August 01 2011 14:22 vlf wrote:
I actually never claimed that what I was saying was gospel and I made it quite clear when I, myself, mentioned that we still do not by any chance know how the system will work. It was mere speculation given a very simple framework and basic assumptions. I don't really get how or why you'd even bother to point this out in the first place after I had put a disclaimer up on this same issue.

I'm making this list here for a few reasons... Reddit makes people's sites crash and I'm hoping you guys read this instead of giving incgamers more traffic since they leaked the information out early (which is a pretty shitty thing to do for those of us who play by the rules - very unprofessional IMO).
Anyway, here's the main details I took from the event:
We weren't given a beta start date. Beta does look to be coming soon though - I'd expect an announcement at the investor conference call on August 3 by Mike Morhaim. My guess is sometime this month.
The game doesn't look overly "ready" at this point. I will be surprised if they hit a 2011 release date.
The game is online only. No offline characters (I'm expecting this to be rather controversial in the community)
2 different kinds of auction houses will be in the game.
1 auction house is virtual money for items. So you'll be able to trade for items with in game currency.
The other auction house is to use real currency. This is player to player transaction (NOT Blizzard selling items - they made this very clear at the event). There is an unknown to us at this time 3rd party that Blizzard will be working with. They will be taking a cut in the sales. Blizzard is doing this because they realized the market was there in Diablo and Diablo 2 and the scamming that went with it. In this way they can control it (and what they didn't tell us but is obvious, capitalize on it).
Beta will have all 5 classes and will be able to play through the campaign through King Leoric. Basically the same thing we mostly saw at events like Blizzcon.
There will be a shared stash between your characters on your account.
There will be a hardcore mode. Same as Diablo 2. You will not be able to use the real currency auction house in hardcore mode.
It doesn't appear there will be a console release of the game when it goes live. Mac and PC will come out at the same time (duh). Not to say they won't release on a console in the future but it won't be with the initial release.
There's more information I'll be adding soon (running out of time and need to make sure our articles publish at 12:01) - so I'll be adding more here. Feel free to add some more in this threads comments on some of the big stuff I may have missed... but so far the ones I mentioned were the biggest that were up for discussion at the event on Wednesday.
If anyone wants - we host/own http://blizzplanet.com - we make literally nothing off the website (in fact we lose hundreds every year to pay for hosting, airline tickets and hotel rooms for events, etc.). It's a labor of love to us and we've been doing this for 10 years now. There's more info posted there with more in depth FAQs, screen shots, videos, etc.

On August 01 2011 16:06 Juvant wrote:
"Can I play on a server without a currency-based version of the auction house?

We want to provide a secure, fun environment for our players to purchase and sell in-game items using gold or real money and have no plans to divide the community. Players are free to participate in the gold-based auction house or the currency-based auction house, or to opt out of using any of the auction houses at all, progressing through Diablo III using only the items they obtain through their own adventures or direct trade with other players."

Ugh. Was hoping there'd be RMT free servers. Sigh...