Diablo 3 Auction house shutting down

[Flarecobra]

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/blizzard-shutting-down-diablo-iii-auction-house-175443749.html

Blizzard is eliminating one of the biggest pain points of Diablo III.

The in-game auction house, where players use real money to buy high-level gear and in-game gold, is going away on March 18, 2014.

"When we initially designed and implemented the auction house system, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades," Blizzard's John Hight wrote in a post. "But after much review and player feedback, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot."

The auction house has caused no end of economic problems for the game. In May, a glitch in the service let some players duplicate their in-game gold, which resulted in massive inflation. Blizzard eventually donated the money to charity.

The details of how the shutdown will occur are still being worked out. Blizzard said it would give players plenty of warning about the particulars, though, letting them act accordingly.

"When we originally set up the auction house, it was supposed to be a safe and convenient way for you to trade items and in that respect, it was very successful, but it became a double edge sword," said Hight in an accompanying video (embedded below).

The move might have been telegraphed earlier this month when the console version of Diablo III hit shelves. Blizzard chose not to include the auction house in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. However, it noted in the game's FAQs, "Players [were] still ... able to trade items with others during play as well as acquire upgraded follower-crafted items."

Players met the announcement with a mixture of surprise and celebration.

"Holy crap guys - major props," said user Merkimedes. "This could not have been an easy decision to make, especially with revenue on the line. It needed to be done - good job."

Well, I am not really a Diablo 3 player... but from what I'm hearing, this is one of the best things to occur to the game. Can a player whom has actually played this shed some light on this?

[Aldurin]

The auction house basically railroaded a lot of the progression-of-loot element that is iconic to the form of gameplay. Players were divided into two groups, those who used the auction house as the pay-to-win method, and others who were making ungodly amounts of gold due to initial auction prices being stupidly high (completely breaking the balance of price inflation as the game progressed). At least that's my view from when I first played it around the first month of release, and others can probably elaborate on the shitshow of when using real money was properly implemented.

[Inbred Chocobo]

End game play of Diablo 2: Go run through some of the final acts and kill bosses, and hope for some awesome drops. Maybe do it with friends.

End game play of Diablo 3: Go through a kill mobs to build up a bonus loot drop, then kill a boss. Sort through gear, figure out what can sell on the AH and what cannot. Put things on AH, go through AH list to see if anything of worth can be bought for your character. Sometimes with other people.

OR

Kill mobs to build up bonus loot drop, kill boss. Look through gear, and none that is useful you could vendor, then rinse and repeat. People look at you funny when you mention vendoring the item, since you lost out on a couple million gold by not playing the AH game. Don't play with other people since they will mention how you can buy better gear than what you got, and look at you weird if you don't play the AH game.



Basically, the AH market dominated the end game of Diablo 3. If you weren't using it you were watching people go miles ahead of you if you did random play. So you could single player it and avoid the AH entirely, but it was difficult to do so. Considering that half of your time on Diablo three would be looking at a number chart and a gold chart, you realize that this was not Diablo 3 at all, but an Auction Simulator.

[Amake]

I played through the game and saw everything it had to offer, but I never actually looked at the auction house function. That might tell you something about the auction house all by itself. I've never even seen it up close and it still made me sick of the game just from watching my brother play.

Getting bigger numbers on your items has never been a great motivation for me to begin with, and the auction house turns the goal of the game from "finding items with bigger numbers" to "grind enough to pay people to find items with bigger numbers for you". Maybe with it gone I'll give the game another chance. Though probably not.

[Bells]

a friend of mine beat the whole game without ever even knowing of the action House. He loves Diablo 2 but didn't follow on D3 launch at all, so it was all new to him.

He was struggling to get a certain Magical bonus for his Monk so i showed him the AH, and he used it to locate of a pack of items he wanted for his Monk build. But it was more of a case of "None of the vendors or drops are giving me what i want, i have money, the AH have something 30% better than what i wanted to find in the first place... i'll get it"

He then proceeds to play D3 normally and barely touching the AH until that scenario repeated itself.

I suppose this is how you SHOULD use the AH in the developers mind... but that's also showing that its a mind that doesn't understand the player base. Because there is now way in HELL this was ever going to be the "zero point" middle ground. There is a competitive aspect to the game, there are builds... people WILL make goddamn spreadsheets about it....

Glad to see it gone though... hope the new expansion improves the game somewhat. I myself was turned off by the online DRM and AH so i never got the game for myself though...

[Inbred Chocobo]

Well the online only thing is still going to be around. They have said that it is sticking around. So if the online only aspect is what ticked you off of D3 then that isn't changing.

[Azisien]

Yeah as a design concept the Auction House headed up butting heads directly with one of the core design pillars of Diablo, cleaning out dungeons and sorting through sweet loot.

While grinding is literally unavoidable for the endgame, it was a choice of grinding between Diablo and Stock Investor Portfolio Simulator 2012-2013, the latter of which yielded much greater rewards in terms of loot.

And the AH wasn't just for endgame, you could get miles ahead at any point of the game if you used AH and your friends didn't. IN fact it seemed often cheaper to do so before endgame, because then you didn't have endgame prices, just garbage people look to make a quick buck on.

This is a step in the right direction for Diablo 3 but the game overall didn't have the charm on me that Diablo 2 had. Also I still find watching Blizzard cinematics the weirdest mixture of some of the best animation I've seen and the fucking worst writing to the point I can't believe a company of professionals went with it. I guess a big chunk of their market is like stoned 13-15 year old's though.

Also still not over getting the shit hacked out of my BNet accounts multiple times. Fuck Blizzard. Still boycotted. I do wonder if taking out the AH would have an effect on that. Supported monetization will become black market monetization, but at least there may be less to gain from breaking into accounts to do the monetization, and the Bot Army can replicate itself into D3 from D2.

[Bells]

Well... less "Becoming" black market... more like "going back to"

[synkr0nized]

Also I still find watching Blizzard cinematics the weirdest mixture of some of the best animation I've seen and the fucking worst writing to the point I can't believe a company of professionals went with it.

hahaha
I know what you mean.

But they are so good for some reason!