The Auction House

So, real money hasn't been attached to the auction house yet. Thank god.

Right now, it looks mostly swarmed by goddamn lunatics charging $45k for a shitty rare that you'll out-level in an hour or two. I have picked up a few reasonable pieces here and there that have helped me along. Thanks to the overblown pricing on 85% of the other items in the auction house, I've managed to eke out a respectable business getting rid of some rare items I just don't have a use for anymore. The biggest frustration I have right now is the mandatory 2-day timeline for any auction. Since my fiancee and I did a pretty crazy marathon over the weekend, by the time I'd won the auction, I'd already found four or five better pieces of gear. Obviously now that I'm back to a normal routine that won't happen as frequently, but the lack of a buyout price on a lot of auctions is a little crazy.

Still, given the ludicrous prices, I'm curious to see what the real-money auction house will do to the game's economy.

Has anyone taken a peek? Found any awesome deals? Found pricing strategies that work pretty well? Only focusing on items with a reasonable buyout? Spent a staggering amount of gold already on a drunken flight of whimsy?

i feel like the auction house in D3 will significantly shorten the lifespan of that game.

a HUGE part of people continuing to play D2 was to do run after run for that elusive item. if you can just get it from an auction house and you easily finish your set and gear. then well. you're done. you no longer have that drive to keep playing. diablo is all about loot lust, if you take away that loot lust by being able to just buy the loot. the main draw of the game is sorta rendered redundant.

and dont get me started on how gross the real money auction house is. if EA tried that do you know how crazy everyone would be going over it?

@Clonedzero said:

i feel like the auction house in D3 will significantly shorten the lifespan of that game.

a HUGE part of people continuing to play D2 was to do run after run for that elusive item. if you can just get it from an auction house and you easily finish your set and gear. then well. you're done. you no longer have that drive to keep playing. diablo is all about loot lust, if you take away that loot lust by being able to just buy the loot. the main draw of the game is sorta rendered redundant.

and dont get me started on how gross the real money auction house is. if EA tried that do you know how crazy everyone would be going over it?

I don't know, you still have to buy the elusive item, and if it's a rare enough piece and the seller knows it it's still gonna cost tons and tons of gold that you have to earn through... (you guessed it) playing the game. The real money AH could change that of course, but if people want to use real money to outfit their character just so they don't have to play the game as often or at all, well that's their problem.