Someone obviously have not played D2lod for the past few years on BNET.Originally Posted by SteveG
sigh.... I don't even know where to start. Nah I'll just log off from the forums and do something else.
I keep hearing people insist, with great drama and self-righteous indignation, that it is obvious that the game was designed, ruined in fact, around the RMAH so Blizzard can nefariously make money -- but I have never seen any of them produce one iota of proof to back of any of this.
None. Zip, zero, nada.
Why? Because it isn't true at all.
Look and see if here are any forum posts, or twitter post, or interviews, or official announcements, or anything from the developers or the CM's that said that they were adding something, or removing something, or balancing something because they wanted to steer people towards the RMAH in order to play the game. You won't find any, because it isn't true.
And if they are building the game around making money from this mandatory RMAH, why did D3 ship without it? Why is there a Gold Auction House? Why are all the items on it items that were found by players? Why can you find usable, even optimal items at all?
Why, because they did not build the game around the RMAH.
If you think otherwise, then please provide proof... not, not anger, or speculation, or conspiracy theories, 'kay.
I will not say that Blizzard was oblivious to the fact that, by adding an easy way for people to trade and buy items, players would find it the easiest way to get gear, as they noted on several occasions that gamers, on the whole, take the path of least resistance. Nor do I refute the fact that the AH's have had an impact on the game. How that impact is perceived is a whole other issue.
I am not 100% sold on the concept of the drop rates being affected by the AH's; although Bashiok has said this, tweeted about it as well, Jay Wilson flat out denied it in the AMAA on Reddit...so, either Bash is confused/misinformed, or Jay is a liar. I think the former is more likely, as Bash has made errors in this way before, and Jay loses a lot more if he's lying than Bash does if he is confused. All that said, the dearth of legendary drops, especially in the lower levels, makes this a curious question.
I feel that Blizzard sold the RMAH to the public as an enhanced trading house, but for many players it has become the de facto boss to farm for gear, because there are some who ca not accept that they cannot progress as fast as they want to in the game, so, of course, Blizzard meant from the beginning for people to use the AH's, and twist the screws accordingly.
I had some of the same misgivings, to be honest, but I stepped back from the idea, and looked at it in total fairness. Did Jay not say we'd need to farm for months to be viable in Inferno? Yet we complain because Act 2 is too hard after two weeks.
Ultimately, I believe Blizzard wants the RMAH to succeed and be a solid revenue stream, but I do also believe they do not want that stream at the cost of losing customers due to apathy or emnity. If it was more of an issue of greed, I think we'd see a lot looser end game, less restrictions on postings, etc. I also ultimately believe that we all believe what we want to believe, and often make facts fit our conclusions.
Confirmation bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Interesting article, thanks for the link.
I'd recommend reading my post earlier in this thread. A game that revolves around the finding and trade of items is intrinsically linked to any medium for trade. Since the most efficient and common form of trade in Diablo 3 is the Auction House, it goes without saying that tuning has a direct impact on the proliferation and selling of items.
Wyatt Cheng has talked directly about the item curve and where to set it. Their initial tuning for item drops did not consider the AH due to lack of players internally testing, but you can bet your *** that Wyatt has spreadsheets of the item curve and how it will affect the economy when loot bands contract or expand. It's not a conspiracy to theorize that such tuning revolves around trading and finding of items - it's a simple necessity.
Whether that is for money-grubbing or not, it doesn't matter. Having a concentrated medium for millions to market their items requires the developers to take it into account.
I'm not somebody who posits conspiracy theories, but I do like to apply academic models to things like this, and you'll see what I mean in my previous post.
If at the end of my post you still disagree, I would encourage a well-thought-out reply in explaining how I'm incorrect.
First of all... some people believe that Blizzard dynamically adjusts drop rates based on what is on the AH, which seems pretty ridiculous. That's not the same as some of the ideas in this thread.
They definitely designed the game with the AHs in the front of their minds. This HAS been mentioned in statements by Blizzard.
But again, thinking they adjust drop rates in real time is conspiracy theory material...
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1) The game was designed around BOTH AHs, not just the RMAH. The drop rates are obviously less than what you see in D2 for the highest level gear. The gear is also more varied with the removal of truly meaningful unique items, so it's even less likely that you'll get the exact item you want. And the difficulty of Inferno provides another barrier to getting the best gear. It's undoubtedly harder to get the best items in D3 vs D2. This was a necessary move for Blizzard because they had to compensate for the AH making it so much easier to access gear than in D2.
2) Blizzard is not trying to make massive amounts of money off the D3 RMAH. It's a trial run for TITAN and a way to test monetization in their games. They care more about how it's used than how much money they make off it. There's a GAH because it allows Blizzard to see how people use each one. Also, does D3 really strike anyone as a game that had massive funding behind it? I mean it's Blizzard yeah, and it was in development for 10 years or whatever, but overall this game doesn't seem like it broke the bank for them really. I really think a lot of what D3 is about is testing the RMAH for future titles. Compared to an MMO, D3 is an extremely shallow game.
3) Blizzard doesn't have to force people to use the RMAH with tricks or conspiracies. Simply including a real money feature in the game as they have will drive people in that direction. They would have to deliberately make it terrible to use for people to avoid it.
4) People seemed to be confused about the difference between good items, great items and perfect items in D3. There are a lot of items that are good and useable that you may find every now and then, but the best items in D3 are insanely rare. It almost makes me wonder if the $250 RMAH cap will result in the creation of a black market.
5) Here's one statement by Bashiok: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/top...4997?page=3#49
That post clearly states that elements of the game have to be altered because trade is much easier in D3... it's not a controversial statement really, it's really obvious and not unacceptable honestly.
That follow up post was excellent. Any thoughts on my remarks re Bash vs. Jay? It seemed to me they were at cross purposes, but maybe they were speaking of two different philosophies?
You are missing the point of this thread. It is all well and good to say that Blizzard has spreadsheets etc to take into account the impact of the AHs in considering the economy and "loot bands". There is nothing wrong with that and is for the good of the game.
It is however another thing altogether to spout (not referring to you) crazy conspiracy theories that Blizzard has some nefarious plan to continuously adjust the gameplay and loot table in order to squeeze every red cent of profit out of the RMAH at the expense of us poor gamers. That's loony talk.
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