So recently this came to my attention;

This post is from a diablo 3 fansite that recently visited blizzard. Now while that is shaky grounds this info has been spread around multiple sites and the site of origin: http://diablo.incgamers.com/ is currently being ddos'd.

The attendee may have misunderstood or it may all be bullshit. None the less this move is somewhat worrying. It may lead to all pvp fights being won by whoever has the biggest wad of cash.

So would anybody here be willing to pay for pixels?

With the incredible amount of diablo 2 items sold that blizzard doesn't make a single dime on, it honestly doesn't surprise me at all.

I put a lot of faith in Blizzard to implement it in a smart way, if they implement it at all.

edit: I really hope that in PvP skill matters more then having the perfect items anyways, if this isn't the case then PvP has already failed.

You say pay for pixels like it is some kind of bad thing. Like we all don't throw down piles of cash for small fragile discs or continuously insert quarters into machines that provide a few minutes of flashing images.

But no, I do not think that a competitive game should have micro transactions relating to balance..

@KoolAid said:

You say pay for pixels like it is some kind of bad thing. Like we all don't throw down piles of cash for small fragile discs or continuously insert quarters into machines that provide a few minutes of flashing images.

But no, I do not think that a competitive game should have micro transactions relating to balance..

yo KoolAids, maybe item trading is limited to vanity PvE stuff.

Maybe PvP is different tier.

I hope.

@niamahai:

I'd give them money if I can play as a paladin.

I think.

Everything I have seen of this makes me think it is a troll that is making the d3 community go crazy.

Either way, won't we find out in a few hours when the NDA goes down?

Looks like this is legit.

http://i.imgur.com/5vbj4.jpg

More and more pictures keep surfacing and the NDA was just lifted.

Reddit has compiled a good list : http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/j5hbb/nda_has_lifted_heres_the_main_points_from_the/

"The other auction house is to use real currency. This is player to player transaction (NOT Blizzard selling items - they made this very clear at the event). There is an unknown to us at this time 3rd party that Blizzard will be working with. They will be taking a cut in the sales. Blizzard is doing this because they realized the market was there in Diablo and Diablo 2 and the scamming that went with it. In this way they can control it (and what they didn't tell us but is obvious, capitalize on it)."

"The game is online only. No offline characters (I'm expecting this to be rather controversial in the community)"

"They have completely trashed the talent tree system and have replaced it with runes."

Those are the 3 that stood out the most to me

I think everything sounds great. :)

I've sold a fair amount of unique's from diablo 2 on Ebay.   Yes there are people who will buy your shit.    At least Blizzard is smart enough to take a cut instead of trying to fight the issue.

@Jimi: @niamahai:

Now that I've looked into it, I'm pretty sure it is an online auction house where players can buy and sell items for gold OR real money. It sounds like Blizzard will not be selling real items for cash. I'm totally all for this. Yes, the guy with the fat wallet can make a OP character. But this system has always existed within D2 and WOW, it's the dark internet underworld. It's actually pretty brilliant that Blizzard is acknowledging that and setting up systems to regulate and control the digital black market. It's like if the government suddenly legalized pot.

This bothers me a lot more than the DRM. Does anyone honestly think this is a good idea?

Yes, there's a standard auction house for in-game currency as well, but who's going to want to use that? Everyone is going to put their items up for sale, the second they drop in the hopes of making a quick buck. We aren't going to see people keeping equipment for themselves any more, it's all going to be sold off. It's going to feel like work and we're going to see an influx of people playing for the sole purpose of trying to make money.

There's not going to be any unique items up for sale at the very least.. but this isn't a system designed to make the game better, it's just a more subtle method for handling microtransactions for Blizzard/Activision to make money from.

@WinterSnowblind: Actually I think it's an amazing idea. Most people who play these types of games don't even bother with microtransactions. I can't remember who but it might have been the Zynga people who said that only about 5% of their players ever buy anything. If everyone starts throwing up their gear willy-nilly they're only going to be losing money since Blizz will be charging a listing fee for each and every item. There probably will be a handful of savants that turn D3 into some sort of crazy money making machine but most of us won't ever notice it.

Basically this lets Blizz make a profit off of the small percentage of players that normally would buy WoW shit from Chinese farmers (I am Chinese so no racism!) while putting cash into the hands of players with a good business sense. All it does it take something that already exists and makes it legitimate. It won't hurt the average player and if you're really dedicated to the game and stumble upon a crazy rare item for a class you don't care to play, maybe you'll be able to make a buck or two off of some adult gamer who doesn't have the time to grind it out. It's a win-win for everyone.

Believe me, in a post WoW world, there were already going to be people playing DIII for money. Now they just have to worry about competing with every other gamer for the same market share making it much less viable as a business. If anything we'll probably be seeing fewer DIII loot/gold sellers than we would have otherwise.

I look forward to eventually recouping the cost of my $100 CE after 1000+ hours of enjoying the shit out of the game.

i like this, no ones saying you have to spend a ton of money but it also makes choices have more meaning and value. I'll totally throw 20-30 bucks at this to get started then never put any in again. All you have to do is set yourself a minimum balance that you wont go below in your account.

So say i set mine at 10 bucks that way i always have some money to put up new auctions i can bring my balance back up selling drops and such.

This may sound bad but i think it will make rare drops so much more rewarding. The only thing im scared of the dupes... Blizzard better have there shit together on that front or there could be some serious shit.

@dudy80: I'm pretty sure this is one of the primary reason why DIII is going to be online only like WoW, so they can keep a tight reign on everything. No worries about dupes.

This bothers me a lot more than the DRM. Does anyone honestly think this is a good idea?

Yes, there's a standard auction house for in-game currency as well, but who's going to want to use that? Everyone is going to put their items up for sale, the second they drop in the hopes of making a quick buck. We aren't going to see people keeping equipment for themselves any more, it's all going to be sold off. It's going to feel like work and we're going to see an influx of people playing for the sole purpose of trying to make money.

There's not going to be any unique items up for sale at the very least.. but this isn't a system designed to make the game better, it's just a more subtle method for handling microtransactions for Blizzard/Activision to make money from.

@StarvingGamer: Yea, just you know the internet. Someone always finds a way to break it.

I hope blizzard ignores the pushback, i think people will fall in love with the idea if they just give it a chance.

I hate the concept. Now even more people will throw their real money at the game items than before (illegally).

The best items will now almost exclusively sold for real money. And since there will always be people with too much money, they'll just buy themselves the best stuff, giving them an edge over people who don't want to engage in real money transactions. For me, this greatly decreases the value of the game; especially the PVP part. I'm not doing this stuff out of principle and in Diablo 3 this means being a second class player now.

@CptBedlam said:

I hate the concept. Now even more people will throw their real money at the game items than before (illegally).

The best items will now almost exclusively sold for real money. And since there will always be people with too much money, they'll just buy themselves the best stuff, giving them an edge over people who don't want to engage in real money transactions. For me, this greatly decreases the value of the game. I'm not doing this stuff out of principle and in Diablo 3 this means being a second class player now.

Except there is no edge... pvp they have said is just for kicks and its a co-op game... so who cares? Think of it this way.... sure its real world money but if you want you could totally just sell items to get real money and buy what you want like normal. The skeleton didn't drop a ring of extreme virtue. it dropped 5 dollars!

@dudy80: Yeah but they've managed to do fine with WoW so far. If anything DIII should be even easier to police.

The skeleton didn't drop a ring of extreme virtue. it dropped 5 dollars!

@StarvingGamer: Yea, i think it will be fine, just was saying thats the only issue here. As long as thats rock solid diablo 3 will have the best economy of any game ever made because its real. barring that people give the real money AH a chance.

@CptBedlam said:

@dudy80 said:

The skeleton didn't drop a ring of extreme virtue. it dropped 5 dollars!

This really worries me. I want to enjoy the game for other traditional reasons, not for the financial profits - and chances are with this system in place I won't be able to not think about this when valuable loot drops even if I try. It's just too much real life in my game, I don't like it.

This thing is most of the time i dont think anything will have a ton of value, at least after the game is out for a long time. Sure there will be those super rare zod rune type items that if you get one your going to throw it up for 500 bucks. Besides that after theirs tons of items out there most things will settle out to under 50 cents is my guess.

Sorry for the double post.

@CptBedlam said:

@dudy80 said:

The skeleton didn't drop a ring of extreme virtue. it dropped 5 dollars!

This really worries me. I want to enjoy the game for other traditional reasons, not for the financial profits - and chances are with this system in place I won't be able to not think about this when valuable loot drops even if I try. It's just too much real life in my game, I don't like it.

There's nothing stopping you from enjoying the game and never using the auction house...or you could use the in-game currency auction house and not the real money auction house, they're separate. My use of the auction house for buying or selling items will not affect your game experience one bit.

This isn't an MMO, I don't understand why people are getting all up in arms about the feature. All it does is add an extra gameplay element to Diablo III for those that choose to use it.

woow that sounds strange but then again this is blizzard the guys who could probably make a consoll or something

I never really played Diablo competitively, and mostly played it single-player (although the rare coop-multi I tried was fun). I sort of like the idea of selling a rare item you found for actual money...  but if you're into comparing your accomplishments to others it would make it sorta hard to see how your "pure" character compared to someone who sank a bunch of money into their dude. 
 
Given my playstyle I'd more be annoyed at having to be connected all the time, especially considering our dodgy connections.

@MB said:

@CptBedlam said:

@dudy80 said:

The skeleton didn't drop a ring of extreme virtue. it dropped 5 dollars!

This really worries me. I want to enjoy the game for other traditional reasons, not for the financial profits - and chances are with this system in place I won't be able to not think about this when valuable loot drops even if I try. It's just too much real life in my game, I don't like it.

There's nothing stopping you from enjoying the game and never using the auction house...or you could use the in-game currency auction house and not the real money auction house, they're separate. My use of the auction house for buying or selling items will not affect your game experience one bit.

This isn't an MMO, I don't understand why people are getting all up in arms about the feature. All it does is add an extra gameplay element to Diablo III for those that choose to use it.

Exactly, and the part people dont seem to realize is that they can put no money in and still use the real money AH. Blizzard said there going to allow a certain amount of free auction postings a week so you can make money from your sales and basically just act as if its your normal in game currency.

The whole thing is just so unnecessary, they already implemented soul-binding in WoW 7 years ago to fight the trading, and it's been a huge success.

@Ares42 said:

The whole thing is just so unnecessary, they already implemented soul-binding in WoW 7 years ago to fight the trading, and it's been a huge success.

Binding totally ruins a game like diablo, wow has it because items are based on a raid tier. Your items in wow show what bosses you and your guild have downed and your progression. In diablo trading is a big deal because everything is random, its so satisfying to get a rare drop and trade it for something else you want.

I think it's really awesome, I'm looking forward to see if I will be able to sell anything at all. It's a good way for Blizzard to work with the WoW tendency of selling gold, acconts and items, and make some money of it on their own. I don't see how it's going to give anyone more of an edge than it was already possible to get in WoW.

With the incredible amount of diablo 2 items sold that blizzard doesn't make a single dime on, it honestly doesn't surprise me at all.

I put a lot of faith in Blizzard to implement it in a smart way, if they implement it at all.

edit: I really hope that in PvP skill matters more then having the perfect items anyways, if this isn't the case then PvP has already failed.

This will be my new job, and it'll be awesome.

I hope (but I seriously hope it would actually happen) that you could choose a "natural PvP" where you might have bought AH stuff for in-game money but never anything for real Dollarz.

What's an Acution House?

@CptBedlam said:

@dudy80 said:

The skeleton didn't drop a ring of extreme virtue. it dropped 5 dollars!

This really worries me. I want to enjoy the game for other traditional reasons, not for the financial profits - and chances are with this system in place I won't be able to not think about this when valuable loot drops even if I try. It's just too much real life in my game, I don't like it.

This thing is most of the time i dont think anything will have a ton of value, at least after the game is out for a long time. Sure there will be those super rare zod rune type items that if you get one your going to throw it up for 500 bucks. Besides that after theirs tons of items out there most things will settle out to under 50 cents is my guess.

Sorry for the double post.

@S0ndor said:

@NickL said:

With the incredible amount of diablo 2 items sold that blizzard doesn't make a single dime on, it honestly doesn't surprise me at all.

I put a lot of faith in Blizzard to implement it in a smart way, if they implement it at all.

edit: I really hope that in PvP skill matters more then having the perfect items anyways, if this isn't the case then PvP has already failed.

It's a Diablo game. Loot > Skill. Always.

You obviously never played pvp in diablo 2. While loot did matter it was fairly easy to beat someone with perfect items if you had decent gear and were good at the game.

Man Co. anyone?

The problem I have with it is the online only factor. My last plane flight was more or less 9 straight hours of diablo 2, it would be a pain if diablo 3 wasn't the same.

Man Co. anyone?

@Ares42: Ya, I just read the article. Man this is shady as fuck.I wouldn't be surprised if the government actually shut this idea down. I mean people will literally be paying for numbers on the internet. This cannot be good for the economy.

@Ares42 said:

@Haru48 said:

Man Co. anyone?

There is a pretty significant difference though. Valve is very clear in saying "you pay us money, you get better items", and you can take it or leave it. Blizzard however is basically scamming people of money. The game already supports free trade, and all equal value trades of items and gold aren't tampered with in any way. But as soon as there's money involved Blizzard takes a slice of the pie, and the seller is left with less value than he originally had. As I've described it earlier, it's very much like a casino (or maybe even a pyramid scheme). It attracts people into the system with the possibilities of high profit, but for every dollar of profit someone else needs to put more than a dollar into the system, as Blizzard is constantly draining the pool for their own profit.

Except your not buying diablo 3 the investing program.... your buying a game. And all blizzard did was take a market that was already there and make it legit, wouldn't you rather the developer take a small slice then have some website in china make 100% profit? Besides, no ones saying you have to use this. Besides its a co-op game, its not like you get ahead here buy buying items, pvp sure but thats not going to be serious anyways.

@Ares42 said:

Except your not buying diablo 3 the investing program.... your buying a game. And all blizzard did was take a market that was already there and make it legit, wouldn't you rather the developer take a small slice then have some website in china make 100% profit? Besides, no ones saying you have to use this. Besides its a co-op game, its not like you get ahead here buy buying items, pvp sure but thats not going to be serious anyways.

@Ares42 said:

@dudy80 said:

@Ares42 said:

Except your not buying diablo 3 the investing program.... your buying a game. And all blizzard did was take a market that was already there and make it legit, wouldn't you rather the developer take a small slice then have some website in china make 100% profit? Besides, no ones saying you have to use this. Besides its a co-op game, its not like you get ahead here buy buying items, pvp sure but thats not going to be serious anyways.

But in actuality you sorta are. The game is designed to drizzle you with items you don't want for yourself, but want to trade away. And the option of trade that in most cases serves you best (unless you manage to trade your item for an equally or more valued item you want) is to sell those items for real money. Just look at comment fields all over the internet, there's almost no one saying they won't try to sell items they don't need. As for your argument that it already exists and it's better that Blizzard gets a piece of the cake, there's a big difference. When an illegal market exists it's pretty normal that the market is in no way fair and exploits people in many different ways, but when you try to make that same market legit it's expected to follow fair trade laws. If Blizzard wanted to make this market legit they should've either done what most companies already have done (by just straight up selling items themselves) or open for free trade among players. The way this system is presented Blizzard is basically making every player into a salesman for their wares without paying them any wages, while making a profit on it and having no risk factor at all.

Actually no, your a salesman for your self. The small cut they take, yes they will make a profit but most of it is going to go back into customer service anyways. You think these things are free to run? And the RMAH is not required to play the game. I actually had a ton of fun on characters that i played self-found in diablo 2. Anyways, unless you have a degree in law and can show me where its says Blizzard cant do this your point is moot, its sketchy but the fact that you dont have to use it and that 95% will most likely go less then 100 bucks +/- on this thing means its not likely many are going to be adding diablo 3 profits to there taxes.

@Ares42 said:

Actually no, your a salesman for your self. The small cut they take, yes they will make a profit but most of it is going to go back into customer service anyways. You think these things are free to run? And the RMAH is not required to play the game. I actually had a ton of fun on characters that i played self-found in diablo 2. Anyways, unless you have a degree in law and can show me where its says Blizzard cant do this your point is moot, its sketchy but the fact that you dont have to use it and that 95% will most likely go less then 100 bucks +/- on this thing means its not likely many are going to be adding diablo 3 profits to there taxes.

@Ares42 said:

@dudy80 said:

@Ares42 said:

Actually no, your a salesman for your self. The small cut they take, yes they will make a profit but most of it is going to go back into customer service anyways. You think these things are free to run? And the RMAH is not required to play the game. I actually had a ton of fun on characters that i played self-found in diablo 2. Anyways, unless you have a degree in law and can show me where its says Blizzard cant do this your point is moot, its sketchy but the fact that you dont have to use it and that 95% will most likely go less then 100 bucks +/- on this thing means its not likely many are going to be adding diablo 3 profits to there taxes.

When Blizzard is both supplier and profit-maker, it's pretty obvious you're a salesman for them. Yes you make a profit yourself too, but you're selling their product for their benefit. As for their costumer service costs, that's just a question of profit-margin. But by just allowing this there's absolutely nothing stopping them from making it so they earn significantly more than cost. And no, I have no degree, and I'm not saying it's illegal. I'm saying the same as you, it's sketchy. And that's not something we want to see from a company like Blizzard that for so long has been a company about fan service. As for your assumption, that's pretty much what Blizzard is hoping for. Let's say the game has 2 million players. They each participate in 5 transactions at an average of 20$ each. If Blizzard then charges 1$ per transaction they've made 5 million bucks on small trades between players. Most people would come out of it with a very minor gains or losses, but Blizzard comes out of it as a big winner. Best case scenario for Blizzard is to see as many small transactions as possible.

Yea, but on the same hand as much as people are fighting this im really curious to see it. It will be interesting to see if they stick to there guns on this, but im not against it because i think a in game economy tied to real money will be rock solid and it could be really interesting to see how this shakes out. People keep saying that everyones only going to sell on the real money ah but thats not going to be true at all since you can sell gold as well. Once gold has a $ value things will equal out and you will have 2 prices, your shanko might be 2 bucks or say 3M gold.

Its something new, and im not totally against that as odd as the whole thing is.

pay to win, huh *crosses game off list 
 
Just go look at eve to see what real money interaction for 'Real world transactions' does to the market value of in game currency. The player base their was against it for a reason. Nothing good will come of this, it's just a nickel and dime tactic.  

Prepare for some ridiculous drop rates, and more repetitive game play than you could shake a stick at.. I hate this kind of game design.. it's getting old.