This just in...

[Slick]

Re: This just in...

I've seen a lot more d3 news today, about RL money being spent on auction house items (wtf)

W..what? I don't follow the D3 news, as a huge fanboy of Blizzard I trust their ability to develop games, so I just keep an eye on the release date announcments. After all, I enjoyed every single game they released more than anything else.

Albeit strange the lack of SP is, it doesn't bother me that much. But this RL money spending on items is just absurd! I really hope the end product wont have this bullcrap in it. I only see this feature fitting in those lame free-to-play MMO games, and I don't see it being implemented in such a solid game like Diablo.

I understand that, in the end, any game developers main goal is to make a nice profit. But this is just.. I'm out of words!

 

[Truscone]

Re: This just in...

Very very disappointing, no SP at all, auto stats, no skill trees ..etc
all these sad news these days make me lost interest on the game, i dont wanna buy "World of Diablo".

 

[Kestegs]

Re: This just in...

W..what? I don't follow the D3 news, as a huge fanboy of Blizzard I trust their ability to develop games, so I just keep an eye on the release date announcments. After all, I enjoyed every single game they released more than anything else.

Albeit strange the lack of SP is, it doesn't bother me that much. But this RL money spending on items is just absurd! I really hope the end product wont have this bullcrap in it. I only see this feature fitting in those lame free-to-play MMO games, and I don't see it being implemented in such a solid game like Diablo.

I understand that, in the end, any game developers main goal is to make a nice profit. But this is just.. I'm out of words!

I was initially in the same boat as you about the RMAH, but after getting the whole story I don't feel so bad about it. I also feel 100% sure it will be in the final copy. The fact is, this RMAH will not change much from D2 to D3, the people that payed for items in D2 just did it through third party cheat/hack/dupe/bot sites. The way the system works you don't ever have to put money in to the system to use it. You can sell your items and either cash out the balance, or use it for future trades. And, afaik, there will not be any extra features that are only available to paying players. The lack of SP is still very sad to me, but alas, I will likely still play.

 

[bodry]

Re: This just in...

The way the system works you don't ever have to put money in to the system to use it. You can sell your items and either cash out the balance, or use it for future trades. And, afaik, there will not be any extra features that are only available to paying players. The lack of SP is still very sad to me, but alas, I will likely still play.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you need to pay two types of fee: listing and sale fee. This means imo if you find something worthy for the Auction House, first you need to upload some cash to your battle.net account to be able to pay your listing fee and eventually try to sell your item. This means the opposite that you said, you always have to pay up before you start selling off the goodies.

 

[NatNit]

Re: This just in...

Correct me if I'm wrong but you need to pay two types of fee: listing and sale fee. This means imo if you find something worthy for the Auction House, first you need to upload some cash to your battle.net account to be able pay your listing fee and eventually try to sell your item. This means the opposite that you said, you always have to pay up before you start selling off the goodies.

1) For Real Money (TM!) transactions, Blizzard has stated that you will get a certain number of free transactions per week, or similar. This is likely to give you a chance to learn the system, and to give casual users a reason to venture in.

2) From my understanding, auctions that are non-Real Money (i.e. for gold) will have listing and sales fee taken as gold. So you can still use the auction house without getting real life funds involved.

 

[Jason Maher]

Re: This just in...

If anything, the real money auction house is an even sillier idea than no offline SP.

 

[Kestegs]

I can understand both of them actually. I don't like the idea of no sp, but I can understand the reasoning behind it.

 

[hubb]

Re: This just in...

Ye, I can't say I understand the big hullabaloo about the RMAH, and imo the other changes (like most of the other announcements the community are always up in arms about) are hard to assess without seeing how they fall in with the other systems.

On the other hand the lack of SP will seriously limit my ability to play. Their reasons (or at least the way they bring them across) are as always terrible, but I almost feel it's worth it to stop piracy, limit exploits and roll out updates/hotfixes more quickly and/or without bothering the players. Still sucks for me though :azn:

 

[Ordeith]

Re: This just in...

I've mostly been lurking here and not been active for a while but this is just...

I will not have the same problems as some of you have regarding internet connections but not having a single play option just kills it. I don't really care about real money auction houses since I will not be involved with the auction house in any way.

Not being able to assign skill points and stat points never was such a killer for dungeon crawlers (e.g nethack). The problem is that the diablo franchise took a step from dungeon crawler to "hack-and-slash action rpg" between diablo and diablo 2. In those types of action rpgs skill customization is a big part of the game, as well as stats which makes it a strange choice in my eyes.

In diablo 2 half the fun was coming up with different skill/item builds that would actually take you through the game (well, at least for us that have no reason to swing around our e-peens on cattle.net). The limited amount of characters puts an end to that as well (unless you're in the habit of deleting old characters ).

I will buy the game try it out, after that I am going to crack it open to look at the code. It all depends on how they have built the software as someone mentioned earlier, but considering the late announcement I have some hope that all the data will be in place. It annoys me that I am still giving them my money and adding work onto that to play the game as I want it...


Ordeith

 

[Greebo]

Re: This just in...

(...) I almost feel it's worth it to stop piracy, limit exploits and roll out updates/hotfixes more quickly and/or without bothering the players.

I'm 100% sure that neither of those goals will be achieved. If anything, a lot of people who would have bought D3 and used it according to EULA are less likely to do so now.

 

[Kestegs]

By keeping much of the code on server side this actually is pretty likely. Does it mean people won't hack the game? No. Does it mean they can quickly fix exploits when they do happen? Yes.

And the reality is, that the RHAH will actually give them the money to keep protecting /updating the game. I'm sure that D2 ran out of money a long time ago, and the sales of new copies are not enough to even come close to what it takes to maintain the servers. This should never happen in D3, so they will be properly motivated to maintain it, and aggressively go after hackers.

 

[Mydienon]

Re: This just in...

I'm sure that D2 ran out of money a long time ago, and the sales of new copies are not enough to even come close to what it takes to maintain the servers.

What do you mean? How did D2 run out of money? Do you think D2 was a financial loss due to the costs post-release? Or, are you saying Blizzard stopped funding D2? You say you're sure that D2 ran out of money--has there been some information released by Blizzard about this?

I'm not attacking you, I'm honestly curious how you came to this conclusion. I only return to catch up on Diablo news and developments once every couple years or so. It sounds like this is some information I missed.

Here's what I believe to be true:

As of August 29, 2001, Diablo II had sold 4 million copies worldwide.

...the Diablo: Battle Chest was the 19th best selling PC game of 2008 – a full seven years after the game's initial release...

Copies of the Diablo: Battle Chest continue to be sold in retail stores, appearing on the NPD Group's top 10 PC games sales list as recently as 2010.

To say the D2 project ran out of money implies that it was running at a loss, or if that's not the case, that the funds were directed toward something else considered higher-priority. I would be extremely surprised if the former is true, and if the latter is true, that's a management decision that has little to do with the technical quality of the software.

 

[Greebo]

Re: This just in...

@kestegs:

Explain to me how is the new system any different than the current battle.net? I mean, b.net is full of hack, it's the main reason why I'm here not there. Yes, no one has the code that runs the ubers, but in no way does it make b.net safer from exploits. Not that I know of. I'm talking dupes and stuff here, not sure what you were talking about.

This is PR. It's not the real reason, it's what they say to sell more copies of the product. There's nothing wrong with that, it's good PR. In the sense that it will be good for blizzard. But let's not confuse discussion about facts with PR.

 

[Kestegs]

I guess I should have put "I imagine" instead of "I'm sure" :crazyeyes:

I didn't realize it was still such a high selling game actually. I also have no idea how much it cost to make the game to begin with. Maybe I imagine the costs of running the bnet servers to be more. If I am wrong in my thinking, then I would agree less with the fact of making D3 online only.

 

[nulio]

Re: This just in...

I had already decided not to play D3, so I'm trying not to think much about these news.

I saw this, it's funny ^^ http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-bMtwfTg/0/L/i-bMtwfTg-L.jpg

 

[Kestegs]

I find it funny that you are using ubers as an example. Why does the spf not allow the uber mod? Because the code is server side, and the modders haven't cracked it properly yet.

Look at WoW (which I don't play, but this is what players tell me), code is stored server side (like D3), someone cracks it and makes a dupe hack. Blizzard doesn't have to put a major patch out to fix it, like patch 1.12 to 1.13. Instead they just make a minor tweak to the server side code, and hack no longer works. These fixes can happen in a matter of hours, not weeks or months, like in D2.

 

[Greebo]

Re: This just in...

@kestegs:

You misunderstand me. I'm asking just what good does it do to the players? Sure, ubers can only be played on b.net. That doesn't change the fact that b.net is full of dupes. How would allowing us to play ubers on SP cause any negative cashflow to Blizzard?

What exactly did Blizzard gain, in terms of money, by making ubers online-only? Am I supposed to understand that more people bought the game for the sake of the two small charms in question? I like to think that this forum alone is worth more in terms of revenue (a lot of people have more than one copy of the game here, me included) than a group of people who purchased D2 to play ubers on b.net.

D3 development team doesn't understand that. They want to nudge people towards trades which include real cash, so they make all content online only. I understand that, I do. They will make more money this way. I just think they are wrong. If they charged per month per 1,000 items in stash capacity, they'd make way more. Of course something like ATMA would be enemy #1 then.

I understand what Blizzard does. It will be good for them in terms of profit. It will not be good for the enjoyment of the game. I'm out, but I'm a minority. I imagine even of people who posted in this thread, half of them will buy D3.

Just let me ask you this: if b.net if full of dupes now (and the argument against SP used by the developers is that all SPFers cheat, so make people play on b.net where we prevent that), just what will be happening when these items are legally worth cash?

 

[Cyrax1]

Re: This just in...

Just read an article today of something that some people here (myself included) think that may happen to D3.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: This just in...

How would allowing us to play ubers on SP cause any negative cashflow to Blizzard?

Piracy is much easier if you don't need to get your hands on code from their server, no? Not that I'm an expert, but common sense would suggest this.

 

[JihadJesus]

Re: This just in...

The reason the ubers have not been duplicated is because no one who would make the mod has access to the code that runs them - that's on the servers.

Now take that, and make it true for everything - item drops, map generation, loot tables, damage calulations, skill bonuses, monster stats. All of it, hidden on the server.

That's Diablo 3: you pay for access to a game they run on their servers that you never actually see. It probably will prevent dupes, or at least slow them them down. Exploits will still exist, but they'll be much more easily and quickly fixed.

However, I refuse on principle to pay full retail price to rent a game until the publisher decides to pull the servers. Thankfully they made it easy for me with many of their other design for dummies inspired decisions.