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Auction Houses To Be Removed From Diablo III

An anonymous reader writes "When Blizzard built Diablo III, one of the controversial features was the inclusion of an auction house for players to buy and sell gear. On one hand, it created a safe environment for trading, which had been rife with scams in Diablo II. On the other hand, gathering loot was one of the main points of the game, and the auction house trivialized that. According to an announcement on Battle.net, both the Real Money auction house and the Gold auction house will be removed from the game as part of Blizzard's revamp of the loot system in Diablo III. The target date is well ahead of us: March 18, 2014. Blizzard said, 'We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.' Unexpected news, to be sure."

3 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Speaking as a game designer, what I noted by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When there is an auction house that lets you buy end game gear then all that happens is people grind gold and voila, the game is beaten.

    If you make it so the auction house won't let you sell gear, but crafting materials to craft end game lewt(Guild Wars2), then suddenly you make random crafting items desirable to trade with, but end game stuff can still be bought.

    The auction house is almost a detriment to keeping your game survive if you allow it buy end game content. Instead of allowing people to buy their end game content(and subsequently quit because they're max powered), you maybe only let early/mid game be bought and sold on the AH.

    There's two main ways to allow end game content and that is to allow people to buy crafting pieces on the AH, but instead of 100% always crafting the most powerful weapon, you give them random stats of randomized power. And you even say,"If you throw more crafting materials in the forge(more lucky rabbits feet and purple horseshoes!), you get better chance for better random stats." That way the ah goes strong even end game, but people can't just buy their way to perfect end game gear.

    Of course my theory is to never let them reach max power, but constantly get incrementally powerful, at lower and lower amounts of the time. If you're worried this impacts PVP, it does, but PVP can be more dynamic than just 1v1 in a zone you can't gain power in. Anyway if you want to read more about my end game MMORPG ideas, you can read here

  2. Dumping the Always Online? by AceCaseOR · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, since the Gold Shop and the Real Money Auction House were the primary reasons they were giving for requiring the always online, does this mean that they'll be patching that "functionality" out as well?

    --
    Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
  3. Re:So, any other changes Blizzard? by Quirkz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First thing I thought, too. If they do remove the requirement, I'd go out and buy it right away.