Home › Game Forums › Diablo 3
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Blizzard removes cash shop from Diablo III. Says it undermines gameplay.
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/17/diablo-3-closing-auction-house-in-2014/
Blizzard Production Director John Hight:
"It ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.
With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo 3."
Comments
Blizzard obviously is a smart company. They generally know what's going on, and, for the most part, make the right decisions involving their games. My question is, how did they not anticipate the RL cash shop would have this exact effect on their game? The Diablo series has ALWAYS been about killing monsters and amassing loot. Lots and lots of loot. How could they think allowing players to use real money to buy that loot online would do anything other than degrading the Diablo experience?
Rookie mistake by a company that should know better.
Wow, this is very surprising. Kudos for Blizzard on having the balls to make drastic changes to their game that sold over 10 million copies. I'm glad they still care about their reputation so much.
awesome... to bad they didn't think of that before they ruined the game.
Man I wish they would have just made a full blown mmo and not some arpg half breed that lacks on both ends. The theme of the game is awesome.. just the game itself fails to deliver much overall and doesn't live up to a game made over a decade ago.
They added the AH because of all the third party sites that were used in Diablo 2. They decided that if you can't get rid of them, you should incorporate what they do well and thus take that type of business out of third party sites' hands, at the very least, making it safer for their Playerbase.
Did it have adverse effects on the game? Yes, but it was still a good idea in many respects.
Ok so people will buy their stuff from China farmers, possibly at a lower price like in every other loot gathering mmo.
What changes?
Oh, I know WHY they did it. I get that. I'm just wondering how they couldn't have anticipated that it would have this exact effect.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
I am so excited about this. I just wish they would have listened to the players and thought out the process a bit more before implementing the auction house. I can't wait to see what goodies they have in store for us.
I have a giant sign that reads "OH REALLY? Isn't this what we told you pre-launch about the AH?".
However, It later seemed too big of a sign to actually carry around with me
.
It really isnt. The author should of said in the title that the Auction House is being removed. The title implies its only the RMAH. The entire AH is being removed, which means all those billions of gold people supposedly have is utterly and completely useless for obtaining items. So they will be able to repair indefinitely, woopety doo.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Plus the new items in the expansion will render almost all the other ones useless. It'll be a clean slate.
Uh, Isn't this a little late to change?
I stopped playing D3 years ago and don't think reaper of souls will be enough to attract me back.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
"Years" he says, D3 launched May 15, 2012.
I'd like to know a form of entertainment or feature that doesn't either close or stop if it doesn't make enough money. You haven't said anything clever here.
I'm glad they tried it and saw that it failed. It's a good lesson.
EDIT: BTW, the Blizzard launcher says they are shutting down the gold and RMAH in March of 2014.
How did you stop playing D3 years ago? It only came out last year. lol
people will still be able to trade wont they? i don't know if people will trade with gold but gold still wont be totally useless because of crafting.
They probably need to adjust the prices for crafting. Right now, a top level gem costs 20M gold to craft. It is pretty tough to get that kind of gold without selling stuff on the gAH.
What he said was not "clever", it was just cynical.
I'm guessing that that quote is implying that Blizz are not removing the RMT AH purely "because it undermines gameplay". A large part of the decision is most probably motivated by the fact that the income from the AH is not sufficient to offset the negative effect on gameplay of that RMT AH.
It could even be that the administration, security, legal and data storage costs of the RMT AH was eating up ALL the profit, so they decided to can it AND get some positive PR from the whole process...
Finally, awesome decision. It was always a mystery why the most powerfull players in D3 actually didn't played the game and I was forced to visit the AH if I wanted to progress.and upgrade my gear in the end game.
I really enjoy playing D3, every minute I am forced to be on AH isn't considered as play time, so I consider this measure as delivering the D3 back to players who really enjoy the game.
For people who camped the AH and made real money from it, I am sure you will find more games out there.
Now, considering the upcoming changes and this measure all together finally we will have a great game to play for quite some time.