Say good bye to Diablo III auction house

[KentState]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/10974978/

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, 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. 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 III.
We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls™ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.
We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.
Josh Mosqueira and I wanted to provide everyone with a little more information behind this decision, so please have a look at the video, and stay tuned to this site for further updates in the months ahead.

Not sure if I agree with it completely shutting down. I did enjoy the auction house initially before the real money one was introduced.

 

[futurefields]

Wont this just create a huge divide in the quality of the gear between those who used the AH when it was available and those who cant?

 

[Zenoth]

It's a step in the right direction for D3, in my opinion. However, with this said Diablo III still needs more items and monsters variety, bigger maps (Act IV is a joke both in terms of map size and Act length) and more randomization, with new "random events" that would actually be worth doing or searching for. And there would be more to suggest, but there's many issues to deal with and thankfully the auction house was apparently their [recent] priority... took them some time to figure out it wasn't helping Diablo 3 nor was it beneficial for the game's core mechanic.

The goal of "a Diablo" game has always been to kill monsters and cross fingers for that rare or ultra rare drop with superb or perfect rolls, it never was to "let's go find out what's better than what I have on the auction house", the AH isn't a monster and it doesn't have to provide the entire players base the "best there is". I still don't understand why they never realized that in the first place during the game's development, but whatever, damage has been done since then and it will take time to "adapt" to the AH-less D3, the very D3 that should have been from the start.

The only people that will be disappointed by that change, possibly, are the casual gamers who barely have time to play and relied on the AH to gear up because it saved them time, since the only thing they actually had to do was to grind in-game Gold for that next AH trophy... and that was their entire Diablo experience.

So I fully agree with and support their decision to completely remove the AH, but doing that doesn't magically "save" the game. But ultimately, I have to say that since its release most major updates did make the game more enjoyable, but it's a slow process especially considering that if there's one thing Blizzard hasn't changed much about over the years is how much time they spend on working on... well on anything. Anyway, we'll find out how it turns out in about half a year from now.

 

[Anteaus]

Wont this just create a huge divide in the quality of the gear between those who used the AH when it was available and those who cant?

No because the AH will be active until March and the expansion will likely come out at the same time or soon after. Once it comes out everyone will have equal opportunity for gearing to max level.

 

[MetalMat]

A year and a half too late on this change.

 

[blackened23]

IMO this is a good change. A GREAT change. One that is a year and a half too late like the above poster mentioned. The AH caused so so many problems with that game, I welcome this.

In fact - I actually enjoy the console version of Diablo 3 more than the PC because of the better loot and lack of AH. The controls are very intuitive with the 360 pad as well.

 

[gorcorps]

Awesome

All that's left is to patch out the always on DRM that caused me issues during the beta and I'll be sold.

 

[lupi]

this was only posted about 9 hours ago.

 

[Chiropteran]

It's really a funny thing, this could be used a case study in human stupidity. The game is less fun because a convenient easy way to trade makes it less likely that you will find an upgrade through normal play, since buying upgrades from other players is so easy. This is a perfect example of players asking for something and then realizing the damage it has caused after they got it.

Game developers: please ignore players when they tell you what they want. Players don't even know what they want, they just think they do.

 

[Maximilian]

It's really a funny thing, this could be used a case study in human stupidity. The game is less fun because a convenient easy way to trade makes it less likely that you will find an upgrade through normal play, since buying upgrades from other players is so easy. This is a perfect example of players asking for something and then realizing the damage it has caused after they got it.

Game developers: please ignore players when they tell you what they want. Players don't even know what they want, they just think they do.

Oh come on... did you ever trade in diablo II? It was a nightmare! It took forever to find someone to buy your stuff with an actual SoJ or high rune. On the flip side if you want to buy something it took forever to find someone with that item and when you did they would want to gouge you for it, its worth 1 SoJ but no they want 2... Hated trading in DII, hated it.

WoW type auction house for DIII on paper looked like a great idea. TBH it would have worked out if the game was a tiny bit more like WoW. Keep the DIII graphics, keep the mechanics but have one big open consistent world for players, not the same crappy little 8 player games from a decade ago further divided into difficulty levels... that shit was passable in 2000 but not now IMO.

 

[StrangerGuy]

This is a case where both sides are stupid.

Blizz - Dumb for not realizing the players are forced to used to AH because the fundamental problem was it is nigh impossible to self find decent gear.

Playerbase - Dumb because for not understanding the AH won't be a problem if Blizz did the above.

 

[smakme7757]

It's a good idea.

With the AH everything that dropped was crap. You could always go and buy something better if you had the gold or wanted to use a few euros on the real money AH. Diablo 3 was all about the AH.

Now the focus will shift more to finding loot and killing monsters.

I finished the game on Inferno about a month after release, so I haven't actually played the game since then, but I'd imagine that if i didn't have the opportunity to buy the gear i needed then I'd have spent a much longer time completing inferno and found the game more enjoyable.

 

[Aikouka]

It's a good idea.

With the AH everything that dropped was crap.

Eh, the problem is that they were already fixing that with the Loot 2.0. At least from what I've read about what console users have been saying, the loot is definitely quite a bit better. They also announced loot with more interesting properties.

Personally, I would have preferred to see what happened after Loot 2.0's release. If the loot got a lot better, we may not have felt such a need to use the AH, which may reduce complaints.

 

[smakme7757]

Eh, the problem is that they were already fixing that with the Loot 2.0. At least from what I've read about what console users have been saying, the loot is definitely quite a bit better. They also announced loot with more interesting properties.

Personally, I would have preferred to see what happened after Loot 2.0's release. If the loot got a lot better, we may not have felt such a need to use the AH, which may reduce complaints.

It still wouldn't matter.

The chances of you finding something better as a drop rather than on the AH is slim. If there are 900,000 other players the chances are they have found something better than you did and put it on the AH.

Nothing would change. It would just increase the overall "Awesomeness" of items, but the game would stay the same.

 

[Aikouka]

It still wouldn't matter.

The chances of you finding something better as a drop rather than on the AH is slim. If there are 900,000 other players the chances are they have found something better than you did and put it on the AH.

Nothing would change. It would just increase the overall "Awesomeness" of items, but the game would stay the same.

Sure, but I figured that if the overall quality of gear went up considerably, then the disparity between the average gear on the AH and what you find would possibly not be worthwhile enough to warrant purchasing the AH gear.

 

[flexy]

Wow...I really ENJOYED the AH and "making money" by finding ultra-cool items and then successfully selling them on the AH was one main reason that I even played! (However, I never used the RM AH).

I also remember that one day I got an ultra, ultra lucky deal on probably the best Sword in the game which someone put on the AH for 100.000 or so which I sold for a billion. DIII was cool since it was sort of like a "simplified" RPG/Action game where you could just farm and farm for hours and then spend the other part of the game selling/buying/trading stuff Sorry..I myself LIKED this.

Zenoth, I do not agree.

The AH did not only serve "the casual player to help them to gear"....although this of course happened ESPECIALLY since it was possible that someone simply *bought* gear from the RMAH. (Which I found an extremely stupid thing).

For me, the AH was always optional but it was a fun component of the game.

The "problem" was not so much the existence of the AH...but how the game from the get-go was designed with the lame loot and how the AH became essential because of that.

So or so...blizz doesn't seem to get ANYTHING right anymore...the decision to make the RMAH in the beginning was without a doubt bad...and now getting entirely rid of the AH is not that great either....but I can see WHY they do it since the the AH/RMAH probably screwed up so much there is no other choice than to remove it to "save" the game, loot system.

 

[zebrax2]

Two steps forward one step back. Personally i think limiting what you could sell on the gold AH(No equips) while keeping the RMAH as it is would be a better choice. Nonetheless this is a step in the right direction.

 

[Chiropteran]

Oh come on... did you ever trade in diablo II? It was a nightmare! It took forever to find someone to buy your stuff with an actual SoJ or high rune. On the flip side if you want to buy something it took forever to find someone with that item and when you did they would want to gouge you for it, its worth 1 SoJ but no they want 2... Hated trading in DII, hated it.

WoW type auction house for DIII on paper looked like a great idea. TBH it would have worked out if the game was a tiny bit more like WoW. Keep the DIII graphics, keep the mechanics but have one big open consistent world for players, not the same crappy little 8 player games from a decade ago further divided into difficulty levels... that shit was passable in 2000 but not now IMO.

Eh, I agree with you to an extent. I was fine with the AH. I realized why I didn't see upgrades drop very often, and I was fine with that state of the game. After the AH is removed I will continue to trade items with other players, in the more hassled way that involves individualized trading, and the drops will still suck, but at least there won't be dozens of cry threads created daily by players who don't understand math.

As far as changing the loot system to work better with an AH, I agree in part it could work but I think you make it sound easier than it is. Complete WoW style loot with most of it being bind on pickup and the rest being bind on equip would really change the feel and alienate a lot of old players. However, some sort of hybrid system where some good items are BoE and some are BoP while many remain unbound as currently would be interesting. Slightly less random stats could have helped some too.

Whatever. I think I'm done anyway, game has a lot of other flaws other than the AH, this one change won't make that much of a difference.

 

[bguile]

goodbye diablo 3 auction house!

So glad I didn't get this game. But its good to hear they are maybe coming to their senses. Did thjey ever put in pvp? A real pvp system like they showed off before the game launched.

 

[Tweak155]

Well I definitely welcome this change.

 

[darkewaffle]

I was looking forward to the expansion but I think I'm going to skip if they're removing the Auction House. Huge step backwards in terms of player friendliness. Trading blows and I don't see them able to balance drop rates being so high/catered to you that it comes too fast or so low that you still never find anything. I question if there's even a happy medium there.

 

[PowerYoga]

I quit playing a while back because of balancing issues and boring items and I see they still haven't addressed either. I guess I can't really expect the type of balance they had in D2 because that team is long gone.

 

[shortylickens]

They're doing stupid shit on purpose to make the Starcraft MMO more enticing.

 

[futurefields]

I fail to see how this fixes anything. Are they going to do full character wipes?

So older players will keep using their old AH gear because its a million times better on avg than what drops. And new players will be completely underpowered compared to them because they dont have access to an AH they have to use self found gear. Or they greatly increase quality of drops which also ruins a game like this (really good gear is supposed to be very rare, thats kind of the point)...

I hate to say it but the game is permanently ruined. You cant let an AH run for 2 years, and then shut it down so new ppl cant have access too it. This creates a huge imbalance.

 

[Rhezuss]

Great news! Now we'll be able to play the game and not play investors in a fantasy setting.