The Last Day of the Diablo 3 Auction House

It’s the The Last Day of the Diablo 3 Auction House with the shutdown coming up later tonight. It’ll go offline for Americas players during the regular early morning Tuesday maintenance time, and you should check the Auction House FAQ for full details. Now that we’re here, how do you guys feel about this end of an era? The AH has been controversial since it was announced, and while many players have used it extensively and enjoyed it, others feel it’s a terrible game feature (the whole thing and/or especially the Real Money aspect).

I think the issue is more complicated than AH good vs. bad. The overall itemization system was pretty bad when Diablo 3 launched, in terms of item quality and variety, legendary drop rates and utility, the game putting vastly too much importance on certain affixes, etc. This created a situation where it was all but impossible to self find gear and succeed on higher difficulty levels, and that made players feel like they were forced to use the AH if they wanted to succeed. So players blamed the AH, when it was just the tip of the iceberg. (And as with iceberg tips, they might be cold, but at least you’re not drowning while standing atop them.)

It’s ironic with the shutdown coming now, since now that we’re into D3v2, and approaching Reaper of Souls, the Auction House feels like a helpful aspect of the game and economy, without dominating it. You can self find happily, and all the best gear (legs and sets and crafted items, plus enchanted stuff come RoS) has to be self found due to the item binding. Thus the AH is just a handy way to exchange lower quality gear (rares) and a way for poorer players to turn materials and gems into gold, while giving richer players a time-saving way to obtain more crafting materials.

That’s my view, anyway. You guys may well disagree and if so here’s your chance to vote, and explain what’s wrong (or right) about the Auction House in comments. You might want to log into D3 first, though, since this evening is your last chance to turn extra gems and mats and crafting plans into cold hard gold.




Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.




We talked about the AH shutdown on the podcast last night for a while (it’ll be posted later today) and one point I wondered then and still wonder now… what are people going to do with big ticket items? There are still tons of 500m and higher priced items for sale, and if they don’t sell today they never will. Gold can not be traded, and even if it could, the best D3 gear today will be mediocre to junk come RoS, especially since legacy items can’t be enchanted.

So what are people sitting on CC Mempos listed and trifecta Nat’s Rings and other 1b+ priced stuff going to do? Try to dump them at 90% off just before the AH shutdown? Deny reality and keep the listings at full price? Hold onto them and hope they can somehow be traded someday in the D3v2 future, to whoever isn’t playing Reaper of Souls?

I don’t know and I’m glad I sold all my pricy gear months ago, since it’s easy to self find to 90% of that item quality now, and for the past couple of weeks I’ve been having fun doing that and scoring huge profits as I liquidate my remaining mats and gems.