Shutting down the Gold AH -- Feasible, smart, or disastrous idea?de

[Kaeros]

I have a thread here where I detailed why I think the Gold AH is an absolutely broken system in Diablo 3: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...ems&highlight=

Basically, my post there boiled down to a few things:

• Drop rates are severely under-tuned for the individual to keep the market in check. As a result, players are playing 50+ hours without seeing a single Legendary/Rare drop.
• At any point, you can hop on the AH and buy amazing gear for a fraction of the time/cost it'd take in game to do the same. The AH has become the "path of least resistance", so it is naturally what players will gravitate toward. This is very, very bad. In fact, Blizzard has used this exact argument in the past when they talked about making boss runs less rewarding. They said themselves that they want the path of least resistance to be the funnest, most engaging path to take (therefore, hunting packs of elites and gaining Valor).
• Crafting is rendered mostly worthless by the AH.

Anyway! That's the problem, but this time I want to talk about a solution: What if Blizzard closes the Gold Auction House, leaving only the RMAH to exist? Does this fix things?

If the Gold AH closes, Blizzard would certainly have to implement another mechanism to facilitate trading. In keeping with the spirit of the Diablo franchise, I still think that the D2 Trading/Bartering system fit very well with the genre. Since it's 2012 now, make it more user-friendly, and integrate it into the Battle.net UI. Make it as easy as possible for players to initiate trades with each other.

Replace the Gold AH with a classic trade system, and:

• Players that want to trade still have a way to do so, in or out of game.
• The time investment / difficulty of trading increases, meaning an ultimately smaller market.
• With a smaller market, it unties Blizzard's hands so they can increase individual drop rates without tipping the scales. Players can actually see some Legendaries/Set Items peppered through their playthrough, even if they aren't earth-shatteringly great.
• Fosters community, something Blizzard at least says they're interested in.
• Moves the meta-game away from "trolling the AH for deals" gameplay, and moves towards "actually playing the game."

Best of all, for Blizzard and players that wish to use it, the RMAH could still exist. The user-base for the RMAH is never going to be as high as it is for the Gold AH, meaning that it is ultimately less influential on drop rates. Its existence won't tip the scales very much in either direction.

What do you guys think? As far as I'm concerned, Diablo 3 will never achieve longevity as long as the Gold AH remains, like I said, the path of least resistance. The GAME needs to fulfill that role.

[Kiroptus]

Never going to happen. The GAH is a way to let the user spend their virtual money on their items, which is blizzard's way to conduct the player on where they really want them to be: The RMAH.

[XenoXb]

The problem with trade is that it favours people with bigger social circles who naturally will have greater opportunities for trade, creates a volatile market through judging items on a case by case basis rather than against other items on the market, and removes gold as a currency as we saw in D2. Bartering is simply put an outdated inherently imbalanced system. Yes you might get higher drop rates, but as mentioned the items will not be distributed fairly. The AH ensures that it doesn't matter who you are or what game you join, as long as you have the money you can buy what someone is offering.

[Frostlion]

Regardless of whether it would work or not, I cannot imagine Blizzard would ever remove the gold AH. So while it's an interesting abstract idea to ponder, it ultimately doesn't mean much.

One thing they might consider though, is limiting what items you can put on the GAH and thus solving at least some of your problems. In particular, I could imagine the following two restrictions:

1) Unique items (after the planned buff to their stats) cannot be sold on the GAH. Blizzard has said a good gear setup should be a mix between rares an uniques, and with a few exceptions, there will be comparable rares, so the GAH still retains it's core function. However, they can increase the drop rate of legendaries. Specifically legendaries and blacksmithing plans for levels 1-50 or so; I have no problem with the best end-game items being extremely rare.

2) You get blacksmithing recipes where half the stats are fixed to your liking (though not their values), but you cannot sell these. This would make crafting more viable and rewarding again, without removing the possibility to craft for friends or the AH using the old recipes. In fact, this is how it already works to some extend for the extremely rare legendary and set crafting recipes that nobody every finds because they would then instantly flood the AH.

I would consider this a fair compromise. It still leaves an important and interesting function for the GAH for people who want to use it, while also offering a good and equally interesting alternative for those who are looking at other ways of trading.

[zacheroog]

This RM/G AH garbage isn't going anywhere. But I would love to see GAH and RMAH go away. When I first thought of a "Diablo Auction House," I had something completely different in mind. Something more along the lines of the built-in trading system being expanded. Like a separate game zone or chat room where you could quickly pop open some trade windows with people. I didn't think we would be spending gold/dollars on an ebay screen. It doesn't feel like a video game at all.

Instead, they went all MMO on us for some reason with these dull Auction Houses. No thanks, I'll go play a real MMO, and not Diet-WoW.

[Odoakar]

I've started to be very sceptical towards RMAH relase, I really doubt we will see it any time soon. With all the exploits and bugs, and even talks of bots, I don't see them rolling out RMAH. I was so dissapointed yesterday to see how people are abusing treasure goblins and pots/weapon stands, I don't even have any interest to log into game this morning...what's the purpose, nothing good will drop and the prices on AH are ridiculously overpriced.

[swayzesghost]

Shutting down the gold AH will be necessary to "save" this game. Won't happen, though. What I'm really curious about now is, will Blizz continue the plans for the RMAH, knowing that it will inevitably fragment the game and make the community worse and less cordial with each other? The best thing to do is abandon the idea for RMAH right now.

Diablo 3 has seen to it that I'll never play another game you can buy things in that isn't made by Valve. They are the only ones who understand how to do stuff like this right.

[Lanthanide]

The best thing to do is abandon the idea for RMAH right now.

The business case for this game was based on the RMAH. IMO Diablo 3 wouldn't have been free to play without it.

[Greizer]

The AH is part of the game; therefore if I'm using it, I'm playing the game. Git yer grubby hands offa my AH (unless they're there to improve the horrible UI ).

[jamesL]

Azzure thinks the GAH proves
"Diablo 3 Economy a Smashing Success"