Blizzard wants Diablo 3 player to feel like they own their equipment, not renting them.
Diablo 3 senior game designer Andrew Chambers recently said during an "Ask a Dev" session that players acquiring most of their gear through the Auction House is a definite issue. The team wants players to feel like they own their gear, and not merely "renting" the goods. This is why new crafted items are now bound to player accounts.
"Making the new crafted items account bound was done for one very distinct reason: to give players more incentives to play the game rather than the Auction House," added designer Travis Day. "Something we discuss frequently is how the Auction House has impacted the game and how we can refocus players away from farming the Auction House and onto farming monsters."
Day added that Demonic Essence was made account bound to encourage players who wish to create the new items to play the game rather than head into the Auction House and buy all the mats necessary to mass-produce the items.
"For that same reason we wanted the product of the recipes to be account bound as well," Day said. "We want players to not only find or produce their own items more often but also diminish the impact the Auction House has on the game, and we felt like this was a good opportunity to take our first steps in that direction."
Shortly after the launch of Diablo 3, former game director Jay Wilson defended the addition of both in-game gold-based and real-world cash-based auction houses, saying that the core of Diablo is a trading game. In Diablo 2, players bought equipment, but not in a service provided by Blizzard. He also said the best items to acquire will be through trade.
"My general response to [critics of the real money auction house] is if they didn’t think real money was involved in Diablo 2 then they were fooling themselves because it absolutely was," he said. "And it didn’t ruin that game so we don’t believe it will ruin Diablo 3."
But players have reportedly felt different, that they're spending too much time farming the listings for new items rather than playing the game itself. Blizzard obviously agrees in the latest patch, v1.03, which helps players focus on the adventure, not the auction.
"No matter what we do, some players are going to have vastly better gear than others, and that’s probably always going to be the case depending on your level of investment," added Diablo 3 senior technical designer Wyatt Cheng.
In the words of the immortal Jay Wilson... **** those losers
Nobody cares about Diablo3 anymore, losing playerbase to other games like TL2 and PoE daily.
Torchlight II-god
Don't get me wrong, I loved D2, but I didn't want to feel like I was shelling out top dollar for something that sounded like it wasn't even beta worthy.
Still waiting for an article that says "D3 finally fully playable!"
Sounds like it might be getting there.
Nobody cares about Diablo3 anymore, losing playerbase to other games like TL2 and PoE daily.
Nobody cares about FIALbo III anymore.
Exactly.
In the words of the immortal Jay Wilson... **** those losers
How did they not see this coming?
What kind of idiots do they have working for them?
Of course it's a problem, this was seen by most people before the game even launched. If players can buy their gear rather then spend 12 weeks farming it, of course their going to do that, every time! Why do you think MMO's have brokers and their wildly used? People want the easy way, and they'll spend money to get it. Which is why a lot of people don't craft.
Right, just like Tim Cook didn't want to sue Samsung but when Jobs died he did nothing to stop them.
Blizzard is now suffering what Apple is, the lost of its cult following.
Yeah, I gotta agree with this one. I'd say on the whole I was more disappointed with my Mass Effect 3 purchase than Diablo 3, but at least I got a free copy of BF3 with my $60 ME3 purchase.
I did make some money back on the game when I cleared Inferno last June and sold off my gear, but still... I wish I could have just given that $60 to Grinding Gear Games. They're doing a better job with like 12 people in just a few years than Blizzard did with hundreds of people for over a decade.
the skill tree design is much much better in d2 compare to d3. i play d2 3 week right b4 d3 coming out, i must say beside gfx and few new UI d2 is better in every single way. it seems diablo just like movie.. d1 is original idea, d2 is improve and make tons $$$ then d3 turn to sh1t
Sure they do. That's why they went through so much trouble to monetize half the AH.
They had to strike a fine balance between finding deer in the gaming using the auction house, I haven't played Diablo three but I played Diablo two, and I played torchlight two
From I understand some of the rarest items in Diablo two are one in 1 million chances of having it drop, this is good if you want to extend the life you game at the insanely high-end, but it also makes grinding and people just selling their loot more common. I'm really interested if Diablo three really is that much different than the Diablo II on the loot drop scale.
Because in torchlight two they didn't make the game for to be a grind fest they made it for you to play it over and over again, so they made the hard to find loop easier to get to the point where it's not that much of a grind.
While saying is that like to know if it's really Diablo threes fault that people use the auction house or if it's that people of gone so impatient for the grind that if it's just easier to use the auction house they use it.
aren't you thankful!?