yep, they obviously wanted more ppl to stay and keep the economy flowing and more money to continue streaming for as long as they can from the RMAH, they know it will taper out and have to be revitalized periodically with the PvP addition likely to be he first major injection for that and the re balancing patches forming a smaller injection.

However they screwed up and it turns out that the major injection has to be done much earlier than they planned (in what form the first major one will be, no one knows for sure, but i have some guess what it would be), with so much attention thrown into the AH (including the GAH since the RMAH and GAH affect each other), it’s clear why this occurred.

skitzor:
“it’s more that the potential the game had was immense, but seems to have been wasted in the pursuit of the RMAH being brought into light as fast as possible.”

that doesn’t make sense. blizzard deliberately put off the RMAH until the conditions were right. they load tested with the GAH and did a massive ban wave just before the RMAH came out.

I don’t understand how you can think that every decision they make revolves around the RMAH. sure, they want to make sure it works and makes them money, but they know that destroying everything else will make the RMAH useless because no one is playing.

Oh they definitely were throwing a lot of resources on this RMAH, or rather they were aware of how much money is present in there and they are using this as an experiment to see how much they can tap into it and how much resource is needed for it which is exactly why they are doing everything they can to keep the economy flowing (the whole point of many of the changes) since the RMAH is indeed useless if the economy is dead.

The design decision or rather the poor design decision that appeared within the 1st week of the game aside of the poor latency on the 1st week, especially in balance is difficult to understand considering how much time and resource they had…

They had to cut down the PvP portion? well… sure, i mean if the game’s balance was as broken was it was (and technically it still is now), if the PvP had been here i can’t imagine how broken it would’ve been…

It’s obvious that the AH is a very big part of their design, and the RMAH is obviously the key to it…. given how much resources were thrown into the AH system, both GAH and RMAH obviously share many of the infrastructure and mechanism but it’s kinda obvious which one is the main cast here, and which one is the sidekick in their intention.

because they will never fully ban botters.

“I call BS if you have never seen a gold spammer in general chat with 130 hours. Neodwolf just said he reached level 18 and saw spammers.”

call it what you want. it’s the truth.

“Affixes by themselves aren’t bad, but some combinations are impossible. For example invulnerable minions, arcane enchanted, mortar, teleport. ”

the game is supposed to be hard. and anyway, those affixes wouldn’t trouble a barb or possibly monk much. some affix combinations smash melee, and some smash ranged. some skill choices make some affix combos extremely easy, and some skill choices make them ridiculously hard. you shouldn’t be able to face roll everything. they looked at D2 and saw a game that was too damn easy.

“The reason for the changes is because there was simply to much gold in the market. There were several ways to make millions of gold a day (though this has been fixed now) they needed a quick gold sink to stop inflation, hence the repair costs being increase, every player uses repair. Even if you don’t die, your equipment still takes a beating and needs to be repaired.”

yes, repair costs were a great gold sink. they were also a means of buffing melee characters, as well as stopping players playing above what they should be. they wanted to stop people from chain rezzing/zerging monsters. they wanted to add a penalty to dieing. it also had the added benefit of being a good gold sink. they also buffed item drops at the same time, so people could farm act 1 if they couldn’t operate in act 3. these two changes went together and one can’t be discussed without the other. people didn’t need to be playing above their gear level anymore. they could sit in (the easy) act 1 and good things would have a chance to drop.

“The repair cost plus the insane elite packs affixes will lead to many deaths and thus the amount of gold a player has is substantially lower. The player can either go back a few acts to farm for gold or farm for items to sell on the auction house. Either way, you are being pushed towards the auction house. ”

this is what they wanted to stop. they wanted to add a big penalty for playing where you shouldn’t be. people were no longer forced to play in the very hard act 3 to get top level gear.

“I have a business background so the RMAH incorporated into a game is quite interesting as they can essentially dictate how much an item cost, change the item and change how often it drops. It’s a good business model however it does not appeal to some gamers. You also have to understand that Blizzard Activision is a business gaming corporation where shares, profit and stakeholders are key. ”

yes, it is a business. doesn’t mean every single decision comes down to this one aspect. there’s more benefit in making a good game for lots of people, as that would increase the market base.

“I liked the loot competition. It felt more like a game and less like a vending machine. You might like it but personally… well I find it as fun as a vending machine.”

I don’t understand how you can like competing against pickit.

“Ahhh. Dont like the new forum interface so much…. bit clunky – hard to quote etc easily compared to old format (genuine feedback!).”

yeah, they seem to be changing it a bit, but it’s still not very good. old system was much better. unfortunate.

If anyone wants to know how to ruin a game in 4 patches, just bit Blizzard up. Finished the game before 1.03 thankfully so I’m thankful I finished it before it went further to crap.

Skitzor – I think the easily reached level cap actually does take an element of ‘chase’ out of the game. It’s far easier to feel like you’ve reached the end than in d2.

I liked the loot competition. It felt more like a game and less like a vending machine. You might like it but personally… well I find it as fun as a vending machine.

I get the frustration with the old trade system. I’m not saying it didn’t piss me off royally at times – just had some character too it. RMAH is great from an efficiency point of view but it is sterile and has as much personality as an excel spreadsheet.

I know making it like wow is cheaper. But it’s bad. I get the why I just don’t like it. It’s small things that frustrate me like calling Unique items Legendary. Just stick with the established form which makes Diablo it’s own game and not another… why blatantly copy wow. It’s just so obviously stupid (and keep it gold not orange… it’s ugly and not awesome at all).

The thing I do find really hard in this instance though is to cut Blizzard slack. They haven’t got themselves into a pickle by trying to do something new or innovative with D3. They’ve just imported elements of wow… and ignored what it was about D2 that made it great. I think that’s the crux of it for me. But hey. someone always says this.

I call BS if you have never seen a gold spammer in general chat with 130 hours. Neodwolf just said he reached level 18 and saw spammers.

Affixes by themselves aren’t bad, but some combinations are impossible. For example invulnerable minions, arcane enchanted, mortar, teleport.

Below is my opinion on the changes and relates to Inferno.
The reason for the changes is because there was simply to much gold in the market. There were several ways to make millions of gold a day (though this has been fixed now) they needed a quick gold sink to stop inflation, hence the repair costs being increase, every player uses repair. Even if you don’t die, your equipment still takes a beating and needs to be repaired.

The repair cost plus the insane elite packs affixes will lead to many deaths and thus the amount of gold a player has is substantially lower. The player can either go back a few acts to farm for gold or farm for items to sell on the auction house. Either way, you are being pushed towards the auction house.

So you either have enough gold to upgrade your equipment to not die as often, able to sell awesome items etc or you are forced to buy items on the RMAH.

Some of you may disagree but this is what I think is happening and what I would do if I was running a business (RMAH) like Blizzard is doing. If I was Blizzard I would also put items on the RMAH though there is no proof that they are or aren’t doing this already.

I have a business background so the RMAH incorporated into a game is quite interesting as they can essentially dictate how much an item cost, change the item and change how often it drops. It’s a good business model however it does not appeal to some gamers. You also have to understand that Blizzard Activision is a business gaming corporation where shares, profit and stakeholders are key.

8 Million in sales is a success in business. However sales do not make it a good game

The more I play Diablo 3, the more I realised it’s addressed the things I hated about Diablo 2. The AH provides a means to get some decent gear… though, I just wished they implemented better loot drops like in Torchlight.

I honest doubt that I’ll go beyond Nightmare difficulty. As I’m playing as all 5 classes, there’s only so many times one can play through the same campaign. It because of this, I’m anticipating an expansion pack.

I still hate the always on internet requirement.

I have played for ~130 hours and have never seen a spammer. and anyway, the things they banned were botters that were GFing, not spamming chat. the botters finding hundreds of k of gold every hour cause the problem.

“People have every right to think that the game is built around the RMAH because of the amount of stealth changes, increase repair cost, nerfs, nerfs on loot drops from goblins, chest drops not being affect by MF.
Yet the main problem with inferno is elite mobs with impossible to beat affixes still remains, that and boring loot.”

what changes have made the RMAH more attractive? was it the incredible increase in drop rates that make items more common? was it the massive nerf to inferno making it much easier to progress? because both of things would reduce RMAH usage.

and you mention the repair costs. repair costs means less RMAH money for them.

goblins, chests and destructibles were nerfed because of botters, not because of the RMAH.

and impossible affixes? the game is supposed to be hard. how can people not understand that?

jonlee:
The conditions aren’t right as it stands yet they still released the RMAH and a “massive ban” did jack all. Have you been in game and see the amount of spammers there are.

So as I as reading this quote text just appeared… Had to try it.

People have every right to think that the game is built around the RMAH because of the amount of stealth changes, increase repair cost, nerfs, nerfs on loot drops from goblins, chest drops not being affect by MF.
Yet the main problem with inferno is elite mobs with impossible to beat affixes still remains, that and boring loot.

The personalised loot is great but what ivantsr is also getting at is that there is no point being in a party anymore. There is no benefit in being in a group. It has turned into this single player game which is online with no community interaction. A good indication is looking at how many people are online as it only shows those open to public games.

Lastly, the leveling speed is way to fast and the progress from Normal to Inferno is way to short. They needed to increase the difficulty for nightmare and hell.

People have every right to think that the game is built around the RMAH because of the amount of stealth changes, increase repair cost, nerfs, nerfs on loot drops from goblins, chest drops not being affect by MF.
Yet the main problem with inferno is elite mobs with impossible to beat affixes still remains, that and boring loot.

The personalised loot is great but what ivantsr is also getting at is that there is no point being in a party anymore. There is no benefit in being in a group. It has turned into this single player game which is online with no community interaction. A good indication is looking at how many people are online as it only shows those open to public games.

Lastly, the leveling speed is way to fast and the progress from Normal to Inferno is way to short. They needed to increase the difficulty for nightmare and hell.

I think the core game and mechanics are brilliant, but I find the loot rather uninspiring and I’ve lost a bit of interest in grinding for new drops. As we are aware, legendaries are borked at the moment, so going to have a break until 1.1 lands and re-evaluate. The change to the Magic Find was a bit of a kick in the balls as well, no longer applying to opening Chests and breakables was a disappointing change for me.

As for the auction house, I’ve not used it myself; felt it kind of defeated the purpose of the game if I just went and loaded up on equipment from the auction house. It’s already hard enough to find an upgrade amongst the masses of crap items, just feel upgrading from the auction house would make it even less likely to find upgrades.

I get the impression from many people who have used the auction house come to the above realisation and have simply stopped playing (amongst other reasons no doubt!). I can see the merits of the auction house and was quite excited about it’s inclusion initially, but in hindsight I think it would have been a better game without it for a lot of people.

As for the “end game”, I realise it’s not an MMO and if people have got 100+ hours out of it then they’ve got pretty good value for money by current gaming standards. I just think they should have had a go at making something a bit different rather than leaving it solely to the item grind.

Been having fun with Path of Exile in the mean time, while it’s not as slick as Diablo 3 from a combat sense, it just feels like a much more interesting experience. The end game “map” system they’ve come up with sounds amazing (you can check it out in their latest development diary). The passive skill tree, whilst overwhelming at first, gives you a much better sense of character development and permanency. The currency/barter system is brilliant, the way it interacts and modifies items is a really neat idea. Honestly, I think it deserves more coverage.

Cheers.

that doesn’t make sense. blizzard deliberately put off the RMAH until the conditions were right. they load tested with the GAH and did a massive ban wave just before the RMAH came out.

I don’t understand how you can think that every decision they make revolves around the RMAH. sure, they want to make sure it works and makes them money, but they know that destroying everything else will make the RMAH useless because no one is playing.

“1. getting to 99 was hard… you didn’t just get to 60 and wait for an expansion to increase the level cap and then easily achieve that also.”

and they didn’t like that type of grinding. some people do, some people didn’t. they made a choice, and either way they went they would have pissed people off. I would like to see some sort of system put in place above level 60. kripp talked about some sort of system where you slowly unlock small upgrades to your character (stuff like faster town portal).

“2. loot was competitive – if you had more player, to increase mf and thus drop quality there were other people in game that could find it also. hence competition.”

I am so fucking glad they personalised loot. after a decent amount of time you weren’t competing with players, you were either competing with a computer program, or your two computer programs were competing. it was stupid and unnecessary.

“3. lack of AH meant trade had to at least be partially social. the in game market used ITEMS as currency, rather than currency as currency (though this is not a fatal flaw it’s minor really – the currency that is).”

but every time the D2 economy could tie back to a standard currency, they did. d2jsp FG was a currency, SOJs were a currency for a time, and after the runeword patch runes were a standard currency. sure, trade was more social, but it was much slower and more tedious. I don’t know how much you can handle going into a game and getting WUG WUG WUG WUG WUW WUG WUW. then opening a trade window and finding they either have a bunch of stuff you would never afford, or a bunch of crap you don’t want. or going into a trade channel and continuously pasting something you wrote.

“4. GATTSBERSERK is on the money… it items used to be exciting! They used to have awesome stats and +skills and modifiers that made you go. ‘holy shit. that looks awesome’ – not…. ok the numbers are bigger, but I am yet strangely unaroused.”

yeah I agree. more modifier diversity is something I have talked about since release. they have been working on legendaries since the community let them know they were crap, which will hopefully mean more interesting modifiers. cut them a bit of slack, going from skill based to stat based items is a deceptively large change.

“A further problem of course is that particularly for those who were there at day 1, the game reared it’s ugly head with the ‘always online’ mechanism… for what is effectively a single player or small scale multiplayer ARPG.”

they wanted people to have a social experience online. unfortunately for most it hasn’t turned out that way, but they are dedicated to this goal and more changes should be coming. single player D2/D3 is crap.

One could argue, that this whole deal including the disgusting latency during the first few weeks of the game was probably for the RMAH sake…

If the game didn’t have an ‘always online’ system, it’s probably easier for ppl to just accept that once they reached a point, the game is over and done and there’s nothing else to do.

Plus since everything is in 3D now it’s easier to model the asset in certain sense compared to when everything is sprite based, and not surprisingly this coincide with WoW’s asset design style.

technically this shouldn’t affect the 2D image, but they are meant to be reflection of the gear which is extra crucial here since you can actually see the gear’s detail on the avatar clearly.

D2 ate my teenagehood. why?

1. getting to 99 was hard… you didn’t just get to 60 and wait for an expansion to increase the level cap and then easily achieve that also.

2. loot was competitive – if you had more player, to increase mf and thus drop quality there were other people in game that could find it also. hence competition.

3. lack of AH meant trade had to at least be partially social. the in game market used ITEMS as currency, rather than currency as currency (though this is not a fatal flaw it’s minor really – the currency that is).

4. GATTSBERSERK is on the money… it items used to be exciting! They used to have awesome stats and +skills and modifiers that made you go. ‘holy shit. that looks awesome’ – not…. ok the numbers are bigger, but I am yet strangely unaroused.

Also on that note… the pictures were better – the artists on d2 were amazing (the weaponry artist actually has a book all about swords, it’s awesome).

5. Stylistic changes. Why make it feel more like wow… and less like diablo. That is all.

The Diablo 3 forums want me to vomit blood, it has to be the worst community I have ever seen. People complain about everything and anything. There is barely any constructive feedback and if there is, it instantly moves to page 3 because of all the haters posting.

you speak like it’s a good thing that trading was slow and tedious in D2.

“Their greed from the RMAH clouded their judgement and severely damaged their reputation by implementing a pay-to-win service in a game that is anything but free to play.”

they implemented it because otherwise lots of people would use unsafe third party websites. it just happened to also be of benefit for them. I’m sick of seeing stupid conspiracy theorists try to bring everything back to the RMAH. there were facilities to buy items for D2, and the RMAH is optional. it’s no more pay-to-win than D2.

blizzard are obviously dedicated to patching problems and creating updates. if you people saw what D2 was like on release you would shit your pants at the opportunity to rip into it. give D3 some time.

also, keep in mind that D3 isn’t going to appeal to everyone. grinding is just apart of the game. if you don’t enjoy it, then fine. the game and blizzard aren’t immediately shit because the game doesn’t appeal to you. repetitive play to get better and better and better items is just diablo.

“except the only reason to do so really is to clear the only content available ie: inferno which we cleared in the first week of the game release…”

yeah, so many people had so little trouble with inferno content they decided to nerf the crap out of it. wait.. that’s not right. majority of players were having immense problems with inferno so they nerfed it, and the people that did clear it typically cheesed through it in some way. nerfing inferno was a horrible decision as inferno is easier to clear. but every noob out there was crying about it being too hard so blizzard made it easier. wasn’t the best decision.

This isn’t a subscription based game.
If you were to get to level 60 and complete inferno with each class you’ve “completed” the game. That’s still a heap of hours into the game.

That’s your $80 worth of content and gameplay. I haven’t and won’t be paying that much for the game, but that’s still probably more content you would get from $80 worth of any subscription based MMO.

There seem to be so many things wrong with Diablo 3 its not funny, but why exactly end-game content is such a serious thing, I don’t quite understand.

It’s not like they need to keep you playing. How important should replayability really be if they already have your once off payment? (RMAH not included)