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Diablo 2 Items Bringing Home the Bacon
||Plazm|| writes: "I read an update over at Diabloii.net that talks about how some items in the game are producing sizeable income for some people. It points to an article at the San Francisco Chronicle describing some of these money makers. One banker claims he's made $25000 since he started with Diablo 2 and Ultima Online! Who are the people paying real money for this stuff? A few bucks is one thing, but a few hundred? I believe this has been talked about on /. before, but is the 'problem' getting worse? Is it a 'problem' at all?"
Check this out. I'm dropping out of school now =).
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
I don't see a problem with it. It's just the free market at work, supply and demand. This is the kind of thing we told the russians that they needed.
Buying this stuff is not for me, but I'm not one to stand in the way of capitalism.
the people that are buyign this stuff, at any price, are the same people that play Quake in god mode and look up all the cheat codes for a game before they even install it. It's sad but their will alwasy be an aspect of society that will want to cheat or get an advantage no matter what the cost. Look at the proliferation of scripts, pinging other players, etc. That occur in most games. People willing to pay for some advatantage, no matter how much it destroys the play ability of the game, are the script kiddies of the gaming world. 20 years ago they would have been using loaded dice to roll up their D&D characters.
At least this time it is costing them something in real money to get these kind of advantages. I tip my hat to blizzards work that they have locked their game down tight enough that people are going to extremes outside the game to get these kinds of advantages.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
...buying a copy of Microsoft Office!
To each, his own.
So doesn't it make sense?
As for whether or not this is a "problem": let people do as they please with their money, as long as they don't harm other people.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
The Script Kiddies have to do _something_ with the credit card numbers they steal.
OK, excusing the title, this is quite serious. My little brother and his friend showed me a while ago how to make money on Diablo II.
Get a Sorceress, put some diamonds in a helm, and wait. Your odds of finding magic items goes up.
As you fight on Battle.net, have a really good Telekenesis skill, so that you can steal every dropped item. Have a goodly stock of identify scrolls/books so that you don't need to Town Portal to check the items as you grab em.
Do this for 4 hours a day for 3 weeks and you'll have enough items to start eBaying. Happy hunting.
And, they want the uber-powerful items so bad, that they will spend their pocket change to get them. They play games for a living right? Its like a golfer getting better clubs. The players now get better items in which to play. Nothing wrong about that.
So people are spending money to get an advantage in a game, buying items that are essentially just bits on a server. A few years ago, people were spending about that much money buying items that were images on cardstock. It's not that different, except that the games of today weren't designed with the collectability and sale value of items in mind.
I wonder how selling of "virtual items" fits in with the idea of virtual property? Is it okay to sell something you didnt create? (If i were to plant a garden, is it (for lack of a better term) ethical for you to pick my flowers and sell them?)
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
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Buy Hex-Rated Stuff, fight the DMCA!
except when someone goes around killing things well below there level just to farm the equipment on ebay. Thus taking the item away from someone of then'apprpriet level' that the item is intended for.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You know, if thats what makes someone happy, purchasing virtual items, then why shouldn't we let them purchase virtual items. I buy lots of Legos and I'm a big fish guy, I spend 1000's of dollars on these things a year. Lots of people think I'm stupid for it, but you know what, thats what I like in life, I enjoy it and it makes me happy, thats what its all about.
The only problem I see is the fact that you can win at something because you have lots of money. But you know what, isn't that what the real world is anyway? I think Microsoft used this tactic, and someone by the name of my favorite breakfast juice...
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
...Buying LOW ICQ numbers.
We've sunk to a WHOLE NEW LOW.
People sure do suck.
Go see ramdac
I used to play EQ where 'farming' items was a problem. Eventually I got sick of it and stopped playing (but not just because of the farming). I think if other people can get ahead by purchasing digital items with real cash on the side, I need to find a different game to play. I know that modern gaming is supposed to support exchanging "things" but I guess I'm too old fashioned. I'd rather play a game where the determining difference is how much skill I have in the game, and when you can swap badges of these skill or (as is often the case now days) SELL them, there's really no way you can tell if someone really has the skill/dedication, or just shelled out some money to look cooler.
A few years back, a programmer working on Ultima Online was fired for selling in game items on e-bay. He would create the accounts on the server, stack in a few of the requested items, and then sell them.
It could turn into an extra revenue stream for the developers if used very carefully, but such a thing would eventually destroy the game for average players. And here is another question for you to consider. Is it illegal for a hacker to create these items using a bug or hack, and then sell them for cash? And of course, I mean outside of the legality issues of hacking onto the servers in the first place.
END COMMUNICATION
Several people have posted complaining that these gamers are trading "real money" for "flipping a few bits inside a machine".
Wake up guys, MONEY IS NO MORE REAL THAN THESE GAME ITEMS.
What is the value of a $20 bill? The paper and ink (and metal threads, and whatever else they throw in these days) aren't worth very much. The value of a $20 bill is *whatever people will give you for it*.
I think the people who are trading hundreds of dollars for these game items are paying far too much, but there is no inherent reason why such transactions are wrong.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
People take there high level characters and kill things at a much lower level just for the items. This is called farming.
When this happens it takes away from the people who need that item for game play. There are whole guilds that just farm, and camp the monster with the items and don't allow anyone else to fight that monster, even if its neccesary for the continuation of the game.
of course I have no sympathy for the makers of these game since they insist on not solving these problems programatically.
Its really not that hard.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Its actually kind of funny, the "coin" of the Diablo 2 world (for in game trades at least) is a ring called the Stone of Jordan. Since it is rather good equipment, and only takes up one slot in the inventory, it made sense to be the standard monetary unit. Then everyone figured out ways to either dupe them (a way that you could trick the game into giving you two of them if you only had one to start) or ways to get them through gamboling for items. Now, one would expect that since there were so many fake ones out there, or that since there are so many of them, that the value of them would plummet. Oddly enough that hasn't happened, and most people who trade in game will start out by listing the item they have, and how many SOJ's they want for it. Now if only the US economy could work like that I wouldn't have to worry about getting laid off any time soon.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Just the idea of being able to go back to my parents and saying "See, you were wrong! I *can* make a living playing video games!" would be worth it.
What the hell -- people auction off domain names. Isn't that the same thing? It isn't "real", either.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
this is only as long as they can get a supply. You create Items that can't be given to other characters, you've just ended 90% of the problem.
You're also talking about a enclosed economic situation. Meaning if I need sword type A to achieve something, and sword type A can only be gotten from 1 place that other players prevent me from getting to, thats a problem. Sure in meat space if I don't like the price a store sells milk for, then I can go to one thats more reasonably priced. But if a store has a monopoly on milk, then uses that monopoly to gouge customers and stop others from competing, thats wrong.
people can still sell there login and password for others to use, but there are a lot less people selling high level characters, then there are people selling stuff. Mostly because it take longer to achive a igh level then it does to kill something.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A buddy of mine played Everquest every night for months. His wife constantly told him what a waste of time it was. Then, one day, he got tired of the game and sold his high level character on EBay for $1500. She hasn't bothered him about playing games since.
This sort of thing is no worse than the Beanie Baby craze. If you can make good money playing games (or buying and selling stuffed dolls for hundreds more than the 50 cents worth of material they're made of), more power to you. I'm not into gaming as much as I used to be, but if I was I'd be more than happy to harvest items and sell them for cash. Talk about the ultimate job.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Buy from me! You have an account that was in effect before there was the Karma Kap! Get an account where you can troll for much longer than the 50 karma ones!
Ok, so you've got $25,000 eating a hole in your pocket and you want to buy that extra-special Sword of Sudden Doom (and tomato slicing) in Evercrack, DiabloII, .
/is/ the suffering and stress and paranoia of the lower levels. It's the effort and intrigue it takes to survive at those lower levels and work you way up. Once you get up high and don't have to worry any more, the game's over. So throw away your character and start a new one from scratch.
Sure, you can probably find someone to sell it to you. Sure, you can pick it up and start using it in game. Sure, it'll help you survive (probably by a large margin). But then where's the fun?
The game
If you leapfrog that whole phase and jump right into the uber-powered elite, then you've just skipped over all the enjoyment. It's just like when I was playing AD&D all the time and constantly encountering players who didn't want to play mages below 5th level "because it was just too hard". Phtt. Rodents.
Sure, I'll accept that the overwhelming majority of players out there don't appreciate the pleasure of struggling at the low power levels. These guys just hate that low level crap and want to get over to wailing on critters so large that only its ankle appears on their monitors.
Let these guys waste their money robbing themselves of the true pleasure of the game. It doesn't do anything to reduce my pleasure, and it removes these weenies from my immediate surroundings.
They're doing what they want and giving me a reason to call them lamers. I like that. Everyone wins.
-- Nolite audere delere orbiculum rigidum meum.
The one problem I can see with having virtual items being sold for real currency is that ultimately the market for items in the on-line world is very malleable. The value of items is ultimately dependent on their scarcity and when the scarcity of an item is as simple as a changed parameter in a computer system, I can see real problems developing.
A couple examples of what could go wrong:
1) Somebody buys an item for $1000 figuring that it's going to go up in value. A few days later, the game designers decide to make that item very common. Can the game designers be held liable for financial losses incurred by that person's failed speculation?
2) In a permutation on item 1, what if the developers had made that change intentionally to destroy the market for those items?
3) What if a game designer adds a powerful item so that they can corner the market, selling them off for a handsome profit?
4) What if a bug in the system accidentally causes a fluctuation in the scarcity of a particular item (making it much easier to come by)?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This Just In...
.com age. Global economies that lessen the spread between the haves and the have nots.
IMF endorses Everquest as economic development platform for emerging nations.
Think about it. MMORPG's have succeeded in creating one of the only virtual economic systems that has established trade & currency rates against the world's established economies.
You could take a computer and satellite net access nearly anywhere, teach someone who currently makes US $0.35 a day how to play the game, and make back the investment of computer and net access withing a few months. After that, an adapted player might be able to make $2/hr-$100/hr. Most of these sales might not support an american in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to, but nearly all of these reported bounties might go a long way towards (as mentioned) funding a college tuition or even the development of a whole community.
It might be far fetched, but it also might be the leading edge of some of the things the net promised and never delivered in the
Since I'm way out on a ledge predicting things that will probably never happen let me continue.
2004: After launching a mostly unsuccessful MMORPG company XYZCorp slowly begins selling rare items via ebay on the sly. Discovered and villified by the press and fans, this company's game is soon abandoned. However, it plants the seed in a few heads.
2007: Company ABCCorp launches an MMORPG that includes various features, items and abilities that can be augmented by paying ABCCorp directly.
2013: A "lottery" MMORPG is created that includes a complex form of gambling that involves paying for the opportunity to enter areas, receive quests and conduct raids. HAlf of this money is returned to the game in the form of prize pools that reward the luckiest and most dedicated players with cash prizes for completing very hard tests & adventures. Incredible feats and new discoveries could pay out "lottery" style winning of tens of thousands of dollars.
sleeper
(OK, I am putting down the crack pipe now)
I don't think it's a problem in the sense that it's spoiling the fun of the game for others, in the sense that it's cheating, or anything. It's just like buying and selling Magic cards or something like that. It doesn't spoil everything for the people who just like to play from time to time.
It can be a problem for those who spend more money than they have, and end up going into debt or denying themselves food and the like for weapons.
It's the same as any other hobby, y'know? Why single it out as a "problem" because it's with video games instead of baseball cards or something?
If you gain an advantage from something you did not work for, could it be said that you have gained an unfair advantage?
I don't play these online roleplaying games, but let me give you a real-life example...
Let us say I am beating the snot out of Mike Tyson (hey this is my example, I can beat up Mike Tyson in my exmples) and I'm up by several points. Don King comes over to my corner, hands me some cash and I take a enough hits to give Mike some more points.
Money for a score, where as this Ebaying is money for an item in a game without scores. Either way you're taking a dive.
in Half-Life it is only my skill which changes my ability to get a weapon. And if it is gone, I just wait for a while and it will be back. And if not I just kill the next sucker standing by and get it. But now for the serious comment. Besides playing stupid online shooters I still play MUDs (Multi-User-Dungeons), the good ol' text based ones. We are definitely not as massive as these new Ecoquest, Ultima Online, and whatever but we see the same problems. People offering (virtual) money for swords, to kill somebody, a quest or whatever you can achieve in the game. We don't carry it out on ebay, though. If virtual money (which belongs to the game) is offered, I do not see any problems with that. You earn the money in the game and everybody has basically the same chance to do so. In the real-world (and please no "that's capitalism" replies now) not everyone has the same chance. And some people might get incredible powerful in a very short time. And that kills the fun in the game (IMHO). In those MUDs I play, you have admins that take care of it. You even have a player council that might take care of it. I am looking forward to play Neverwinter Nights, an RPG that will allow 64 simultaneous players. I can run my own server and if people wreck the game, they get banned (/evil grin).
How would you feel if you were playing online chess and discovered that the opponent that beat you 10 straight games had done so with a chess program he purchased? I know that I would feel cheated because I was playing against him to test my skill against his. I don't care if he bought the chess program on "the free market."
The idea of a game is to pit players against one another and let the best player win, not to sell the victory to the player with the most disposable income and least scruples.
Because you can't edit your weapons on realms.
-------------------
Killswitch
Judging from your user ID#, I suspect you weren't around when this was tried.
/. management (well, Rob and at least one other) described the whole thing.
Somebody with a high-hundreds/low thousands karma (i.e. a student with *far* too much time on their hands) (was it FascDotKilledMyPR? apologies if I'm wrong.) tried to flog their account on ebay. Apparently, there were some ridiculously high bids (some valued karma more than dollars)
In one of his rare moments of creative lucidity, Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda aranged for the karma for this individual to vary (at random) between a cap value and zero, with the cap value reducing at a rate that would bring it to zero at the moment the ebay auction closed.
The whole debacle is best recorded in an IRC log where the
This ends your "Boring And Useless" slashdot history lesson.
{ps - no URLs, because I have better things to do than look them up}
See for yourself. Recently closed items w/ "Diablo II" in the title, sorted by closing price.
I did some hunting around on e-bay to see how viable this really is. I found that of the 5227 items that popped up in a search for "diablo 2":
4397 of the items were priced less than $10.
456 of the items were priced between $11-25.
227 of the items were priced between $26-$50.
95 items were priced between $51-$100.
38 items were priced between $101-$200.
and 14 were priced higher than $201 (and one of those 14 isn't related to the game, it's a windsurfing sail).
Eyeballing the lists, it appears that more than half of the auctions at all level have no bids. This is just a guesstimate (I don't have time to count up the number of bids on the 5,080 items less than $50, it is true for the items over $51)
I'm highly skeptical that anyone could routinely make >$5000 month, easy, as is claimed by the guy in the article.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
... you can make money with the Internet :)
I am a Sysadmin. I do not work cheap. My services run a minimum of $25 an hour, which is not cheap (Although if I wanted a much more intense job I could get double that.).
I play EverQuest in my free time. In EverQuest, there is a very cool item I wanted called A Flowing Black Silk Sash. The sash is a rather powerful item, is always in demand, and is somewhat rare. This has created conditions that make getting the sash take anywhere from a few hours with help from some friends, to a few days with a bit of luck. Given my character's status on her server, it probably would have taken me six to twelve hours to get this item. That works out to $150-$300 US of my time.
Instead, I tracked down someone selling his EverQuest account on ebay. I emailed him to see if he had said sash for sale on one of his characters, and sure enough he did. Within 24 hours we had exchanged the money via paypal and the item in game. Total cost to me = $100 and about ten minutes of free time, and I actually did the work while on the job. I was then able to use those extra hours study new things to do as a sysadmin, thus increasing my marketability, and in the long run, my overall salary.
Some people call me a cheater, I think of myself as economically minded.
Uhhh, exactly $20 in the USA.
Any questions?
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
A couple of friends of mine made some serious amounts of money selling/buying/trading Asheron's Call characters and items last year. You'd be surprised how close to 'real world' markets some of these deals went...Often they would buy a character with decent items cheap on eBay, hold it for a week, and then just split the character up and sell the items and character seperately making a profit on the whole deal..Somewhat similar to robber barons buying up companies, spliting them up and selling off the pieces. Pay Pal and eBay both acted as great facilitators, with electronic money changing hands back and forth fludily between parties.
Having said that, no, I really don't understand the mindset of someone who pays $500 or more for 'uberloot' or a very high level character.
Trust me, I can do more, way more, than I spend on a virtual item than I would invest in my time to get it. Not that I would ever buy some, but I have played virtual games a lot and I know what kind of killer it is!
And to be honest, I rather pay $25 for a virtual sword that I for a DVD, because I will have way more fun with it. People have just no idea about what the real value of money is, when they complain about these purchases or sound like its any good living.
Oh, my so two skilled computer wizards got $2000 cash each in two weeks. Is this anything special? There are people paid way more for computer support and its as virtual as these items. :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
It used to be that people would write into contracts that a certain portion of debt had to be repaid in gold, as protection against devaluation of the dollar. By making the greenback legal tender, these sorts of contracts were made unenforcable. Furthermore, in the options and futures markets, one does not necessarily have to pay in shares of stock or barrels of oil, or whatever. One may instead delviver the fair market value of those goods. Finally, if you were to offer in trade a car in exchange for (for example) two cows, then you would be legally obligated to accept the dollar value of two cows.
Basically what I'm driving at is this: it is illegal to refuse to accept US dollars within the borders of the US. You are right that hyperinflation could devalue currency very quickly, however as long as the police and, push come to shove, the armed forces, have enough power to keep the population in line, the value of a dollar cannot hit zero.
That being said, I agree with your point that if people will give you money for your Diablo stuff, it has value. It is certainly a highly unstable investment, but that doesn't mean its necessarily worthless.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
you're missing econimies of scale, or in this case, power.
If you have one or two killer items, it then becomes much, much easier to aquire other killer items.
Otherwise known as "it takes money to make money" (but once you have it, many doors are opened to you)
I have a fairly high-level Diablo II character, a level 70 barbarian who has completed all quests to include the newly-added Act 5 quests from the expansion pack, all in Hell difficulty.
He's already got some real kick-ass gear, chief among those a war club capable of basically insta-gibbing Andariel on normal difficulty and a set of ancient plate providing 700+ in defense.
Now, I've had some folks lambast my character due to the fact that he uses this big old hammer without the use of a shield, but I figure that's okay: It's within his character to get hit a bunch by the boogerheads, and I accept that outcome during a normal gaming session.
Now, with the expansion pack, I see on Diabloii.net that there is this new item set that seems for all intents and purposes to be genetically designed for my character: big honkin' hammer, plate, belt, boots, gauntlets, and helmet -- all way more better than what he's currently packing.
Now that he's passed all the trials before him, I see no better way for him as a character to wile away the days than to search for that complete item set.
However, in all honesty, it would me/him YEARS to collect them.
I myself would pay a premium for the complete set from some other D2 player, but certainly not in triple-digits. I would do so because the D2 character I run in question is ready to ascend to NPC status, I have no interest whatsoever in playing him other than to have him help out other folks finish the necessary quests.
Maybe I might be interested in getting him to clvl 99, but not nearly as much as I'd like to see him get that set.
I'm ready to retire him to being a secondary character to someone else's adventure, I'd just like to get him 100% complete in the process.
If the game itself would only drop *one* of those items, I'd forego the monetary route, but in all sad honesty, it's not gonna happen.
Does this make sense?
IF.cmg
I think he was talking about whether or not you can own natural resources, such as the garden in his example. Another interesting question that is semi-related is who is the owner of IP created by a computer program? Is it the owner of the computer program? And if so, what does this say about compilers or word processors?
This question is somewhat solved by dividing output up into two catagories, one where the writer of the program created most of the output (e.g. UIs, statistical compilations, etc.), and one where the user created most of the output (e.g. compiled programs, word processor documents, etc.). But what about things that are half and half, such as game screenshots? Or things that are neither, such as computer created symphonies? I think this is a question that cannot be answered easily.
Many MMORP companies now include a clause in the user license agreement that says something to the effect of:
"we reserver the right to ban your account(s) or revoke item(s) without prior notice if you are caught selling items outside of the game."
This phenomenon has given rise to new terms such as "item farmers" and "rare-drop campers". These groups of unprincipled players make it nearly impossible for a small party or individual to "win" the item(s) through proper gameplay and skill. This has a deleterious effect on the gameplay and reduces the overal value of the game experience for all the other players. What economists call a negative externality, that is to say a negative result for a third party to the original transaction. In this case other players being unable to acquire rare items in the ways that the game designers originally intended because people are greedy and take them to sell offline. If you play these games (Ultima, Everquest, et al) and you participate in the selling of game items outside of the game then I respectfully ask you to consider the harm that you are doing to the game. In the same way that parasistes are not beneficial to the host so you too are not beneficial to the growth and continued enjoyment of the industry or the game. If you get your account baned for selling items outside of the game believe me when I say that nobody will sympathise with your plight in the least. In conclusion, Please do not sell game items outside of the game (eBay, BidBay, whatever). If you are a player who buys from these people then you are just as much a part of the problem. Remember that as long as people demand these kinds of transactions somebody will supply them. If you care about the game and its continued growth then you will not engage in these kinds of purchases. Thank you for reading.
What, are you the Fresh Prince, pre-BelAir?
that this is very real. I know someone who definately makes very good money off selling diablo-2 equipment online.
Contrary to what people think...most of the sales are NOT for large money. They are from a couple bucks to about $20, that's it. You make the money on volume.
It's not like it takes no effort either. The time taken to acquire the gear, complete the auctions, devlier items, post new auctions, etc, can be considerable.
Some say it's rediculous; I say, it's great. Some people can play D2 for 6 hours a day or more. Some have jobs, and can only play a couple hours.. so they have the option of going online, and reliably buying a few cool items to play with, rather than spending the time (time is money).
Cheers.
First, you won't see a game that says this. Why? Because their has to be DEMAND in order to get money. And there is never demand without a reason.
How can you sell things that belong on someone elses server? You aren't 'selling' an item. You are simply giving someone the benefit of the results of your own work in exchange for money.
Why do you have a problem with people selling the items to others who wish to buy them?
How does it ruin the game? and what game are you referring to? It certainly doesn't ruin diablo2....
Games where you get people camping out to sell stuff online.. I can see your point. But banning the online sale is not the answer; modifying the game to prevent camping is the answer, whether by not having items spawn on the same character all the time, or other anti-camping features.
Why should people care what happens outside their game? Sorry.. welcome to the real world. If something has value to someone else, then cash can be exchanged for it.
The reason there is a problem in some games, like EQ, where guilds will camp out and lock down areas of the game to get the items to sell them....is because the real-world value of the items creates a demand for the items in-game that was not forseen by the developers. But it is the players who create this demand, by buying the items in the first place.
The problem, of course, is there are some players with jobs/money to burn, and others who don't, and it would seem unfair to those who don't.
However.. I know full well that people also monopolize areas of a game for OTHER reasons besides e-bay... in-game reasons... so really, it's an overall game-design problem.
If the people at Blizzard have ways of logging these things (the purchase would be logged by ebay, etc, but the game mechanics would pretty much have to be logged on battle net), it could make for a very interesting court case / slashdot article someday in the future.
Seeing someone sucessfully prosecuted for selling a fraudulent item would also be an interesting way of discouraging duping, etc.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Sound like my ex girlfriend...
"Bloody hell josh, it's a car, you'll never get your money back"
"You're gonna do WHAT to your car now!!?!??!?"
Same sort of thing... To me, it's money well spent (I don't expect it back, I expect increased enjoyment driving my car), but she just couldn't understand it.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
"Legal tender" only applies to "payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services."
read the full explanation
"The game /is/ the suffering and stress and paranoia of the lower levels"
That couldn't be farther from the truth.
Diablo 2 (with expansion, since that's what most people on the Closed Battle.net realms* use these days) has 3 difficulty levels and 5 acts. The difficulty levels are normal, nightmare and hell. You must beat each act in sequence progress to the next difficulty level.
Normal is easy. Normal is *ridiculously* easy. The ONLY way to make normal SLIGHTLY difficult is to play a sick variant character (like a sorceress that doesn't use spells and tries to compete in melee combat).
Normal is also boring. There's no fear of dying. The first act plays the same every single time, and it's damn slow.
Never mind that each character class will generally play the same way through normal. It normally isn't until you reach mid nightmare or hell that a specific character is developed enough (with skill distribution and equipment) for you to start being able to use strategies you've developed or had in mind for the character.
"Sure, I'll accept that the overwhelming majority of players out there don't appreciate the pleasure of struggling at the low power levels. These guys just hate that low level crap and want to get over to wailing on critters so large that only its ankle appears on their monitors."
Perhaps there's a reason for this? Why do people play video games. In most cases it's to have fun, right? What would most people consider to be more fun, tromping around a small grassy field with a disk of wood strapped to one forearm and a small pointy piece of metal strapped to the other, poking zombies that are so slow they routinely die before they can even take a swing at you...or running (or teleporting) around wearing a powerful set of armor you wrested from the cold body of some vile demon, wielding a magical weapon you had to work long and hard to acquire, fighting hordes of demons that *will* kill you if you falter? There are reasons most people like the mid-to-end-game more than the early game. What's wrong with that?
"Let these guys waste their money robbing themselves of the true pleasure of the game. It doesn't do anything to reduce my pleasure, and it removes these weenies from my immediate surroundings."
Obviously you think something is wrong with that. They're "weenies" and "robbing themselves of the true pleasure of the game." This is the "true pleasure" defined by you, right? Where no one else could really be enjoying the game as much as you are because they aren't playing the game the way that gives you the most enjoyment?
"They're doing what they want and giving me a reason to call them lamers. I like that. Everyone wins."
What reason is that? The fact that they:
a. don't enjoy playing the game the way you do
b. do what they want and not what you want
I'm not convinced those are reasons enough to call people lamers. Sorry, take your rant elsewhere.
~Moller
"Um, that's perfect topazes, not diamonds. Current reports suggest that a magic find percentage over 200 doesn't do much good, so there's no need to go overboard."
In the most recent patch (v1.09) Blizzard implemented a Diminishing returns formula for items that added a % chance to find magic items (magic find). A full explanation of magic find is here at Blizzard's official strategy site. Items can drop normal (white colored), magical (blue), rare (yellow), part of an item set (green) or unique (gold). The diminishing returns formula is not posted on that site, but basically diminishing returns kick in bigtime for unique items around 200% increased MF, kick in later for set items and even later for rare items. If you're wearing items that give you a 400% increased chance to find a magical item, you only get like, a 220-230% increased chance of getting a unique.
Blizzard probably implemented this because with the previous patch (1.08), magic find worked on all monsters, including bosses (who always drop at least magical items), so characters were loading themselves down with MF gear and "farming" the bosses over and over to get rares, sets and uniques to drop. (Normal monsters don't always drop, so it's simply more reliable to farm bosses for drops). So since people were abusing magic find, it was decreased in potency ("nerfed").
"And they 'balanced' telekenesis so that you can only pick up minor items (like potions). This is very annoying in single player mode, where there is no one to steal drops from..."
Actually, telekinesis (TK) was changed because someone (or a group of someones) wrote an "item-grabber" hack. The hack basically was a packet sniffer/sender, and when it registered that a rare, set, or unique item had dropped on the ground, it send a packet to the server saying "I picked that item up." Of course, the program could be configured to also grab gold, potions, scrolls, runes, anything. I don't recall if Blizzard broke the functionality of the hack in a patch before deciding to kill Telekinesis to solve the problem...but if they did it most likely took about two days for the people writing the hack to figure out the new packets and re-write the program. The program still works, but since TK is broken it only lets characters pick items up if they are right next to it (I think, there were rumors that players could send packets to make the server think they walked over to an item and picked it up when they didn't move, but that sounds fishy).
"Some moderately valuable items (like the Stone of Jordan ring or perfect skulls) became the new currency for a while. SoJs have become much more rare these days, and aren't used as currency as much."
The Stone of Jordan (SOJ) became a currency because it was a useful item, took up one inventory slot, and was relatively easy to get if you had enough gold (prior to patch 1.08 you could "gamble" for items. The Stone of Jordan is a unique ring. There are two other unique rings, but since before 1.08 uniques couldn't generate if one was already in the game, you could hold the other two rings and spend lots of easily obtainable gold gambling on rings and makes lots of SOJ's).
"Pskulls are an interesting currency, because they are constantly being generated, but also constantly being used up"
PSkulls used to be currency before patch 1.08. PSkulls could be used to "re-roll" the stats on a rare item (rare items have up to 6 modifiers, magic items only 2), and this reroll could produce ANY stat available, with better stats possible than any drop you could get from a monster. PSkulls were also rare, since gems dropped *very* infrequently from monsters, and the highest quality gem that could drop was a normal (3 normals make a flawless, 3 flawless make a perfect, or a gem shrine makes 1 normal go to 1 flawless, etc. there are also chipped and flawed under normal). Now, in 1.09, flawless gems (skulls are gems, technically) can drop, and do drop quite frequently, so they are much more common. Also, the main reason PSkulls plummeted in price was that the way to use 6 PSkulls and a Rare to reroll the rare had it's power decreased GREATLY. It can now produce items with stats 40% as powerful as the previous max (item level of 100 previously possible, max level of 40 available now).
Interestingly, gold (the currency inside the game) isn't often used for trading, because it isn't valuable enough!
That's because you lose a set percentage of your gold when you die, and you can only carry a certain amount of gold. There are other smaller reasons, but those are the main ones.
All in all, it's not too easy to base your economy on factors (like rarity) that can be changed at the whim of some programmers.
Then the programmers deliberately try to affect the economy. Right now new SOJ's are going up because no new ones are coming into the game, and all other items are being produced at an alarming rate. A few more weeks of this and the SOJ currency *might* break, but I doubt it, it's too ingrained in people's minds.
That's about all I can think of about the subject. Hope it helped.
~Moller
I mean, come on. A fool and his money? These people are clearly idiots, and they're going to waste their money on SOMEthing. So why not bilk them for items? That's how I would feel about it.
;-). The only part about it that really annoys me is people "buying their way to power" and gaining godly suits of equipment without having to gain the tiniest bit of skill in whatever game it is. So in a sense it ruins the challenge factor of the game, but twinking is certainly nothing new and there is no argument that will make them stop. ;-)
Sadly, the only game I have godly items for is Diablo 1, and those don't sell too well (plus there's that whole sentimental value thing
Just learn to live with it, and to laugh at the cretins who paid 100 bucks for a Stone of Jordan.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
At any point in time a $20 bill is worth $20 in those day's dollars. That is of course, until the US government goes bankrupt.
Until then, you can decompose a bill into its constituent atoms and price each one, but that is missing the point. It is worth $20 because the US government guarantees to pay the amount printed on the face.
This is not gold we are talking about here dudes.
Gold is more like the commodities being sold in these games. There is no value printed on them backed up by an institution. Commodities, unlike currency, are worth whatever people are willing to pay.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
You're right; I don't play Diablo II. I played the demo and was sufficiently turned off that I didn't even try the full version.
You don't talk about how a game plays if you've only played the demo. Honestly, I would say you shouldn't talk about how Diablo 2: LOD *works* unless you've gotten characters to level 70+. Pre-LOD I would have said 50+, but you can get to that point now without ever leaving normal difficulty. You're simply not going to understand the overall picture without having invested enough time into the game to do so, or had someone who *has* invested that much time distill down the relevant points for you.
But the argument that you present here isn't an argument in favor of buying those neato magic toys to leapfrog over the lower levels. Instead, you've presented an argument to avoid Diablo II entirely.
No, the main argument I was presenting was that you shouldn't classify a huge group of people as "lamers" because they enjoy things that you don't.
The reason that your second scenario is more fun is because there's challenge. It's not that you're playing at a higher level. Your first scenario has no challenge. What possible source of enjoyment could that have?
Simply because something isn't challenging doesn't mean it provides no enjoyment. It does not logically hold, nor is it backed up by any facts.
A properly designed game maintains the same level of challenge regardless of a player's level. Different level characters merely encounter different types of situations. But relative to the characters' own skills, the challenge is the same. Any game that falls short of that is faulty.
That would make EverQuest faulty, right? The game is ridiculously easy at the low levels, and insanely hard in the end game. Unless you're going to tell me that 70 person raids of 60th (or near 60) level characters to kill one mob is the same level of challenge that a 1st level character has trying to kill things?
And I'm doubtful that a "properly designed game" would have the same challenge level regardless of a player's experience level or position in the game. I'm having trouble thinking of a game that follows such a challenge curve, every game I can think of starts off easy to allow you to become accustomed to the game environment and typically pushes all of your skills to the utmost during the endgame (while still remaining beatable).
Then again, I'm not a game designer, so I really shouldn't be commenting too much on what a "properly designed game" is, since I don't know that much about it. Imagine that, refraining from commenting on something I don't know much about.
~Moller
I haven't seen that, I must be in the wrong areas. Or I have colossally bad luck ;-)
But yea, that explains why the economy suddenly went to hell over the past week. A huge influx of new, powerful items with no increase in the amount of currency. That easily makes the currency unit skyrocket in value, or makes everything else drop drastically in value. Probably mostly the value of everything else dropping, since the rate of SOJ's coming into the game since the expansion came out has been effectively constant (at a rate relatively tiny to the previous rate).
~Moller
Since Telekinesis is the only way for the sorceress to grab dropped items in a multiplayer game with other players competing for the drops, she has gone from "uber" (grabbing every item via telekinesis before other players can pick them up) to nothingness. Now she has to walk over to the item and click on them, which is nearly impossible to do - the sorceress is the "stand back and fire spells" character, while most of the other ones are "walk up to the monster and clobber it" characters. And when the monster dies, the items drop where it falls down. Now guess who will be first to grab the items, considering the egoistical "me first" behaviour of most gamers ...
This is why most of the hardcore treasure hunters don't look for loot in MP games. They make password games (or limit the # of people in a game to 1) and do repeated Mephisto/High Council/Baal runs on Nightmare or Hell. So you don't have the inflated hit points from multiple people in the game and Boss drops are not affected by the number of people in the game.
Besides, the problem you described also applies to bowazons and necros. None of them are close enough to the action to pick up the drops before the tanks. Sorcs have an advantage over zons and necros because they can teleport in...but in the end it's still impractical to treasure-hunt in games with other people.
Unless you're lucky enough to play with people you know and trust. If you are, I envy you.
~Moller