Blizzard kills D3 Auction House

[STEvil]

So funny I figured it was worth a news thread, lol

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

[Evantaur]

Good

[kromosto]

and here is the confession that they are idiots. most of the old players including me said this from the beginning and took this much time and lots of player losses for them to understand. they lost a lot of diablo fans like me and i will not return back.

[DeathReborn]

I find it funny how they intend to remove the Auction House and replace it with, well nothing it seems. All I have seen mentioned is trade screens, something which has always been there. I applaud them for finally realising how stupid the AH implementation was but I laugh at how those who continue to play D3 will become victims of scam sites, dodgy valuations & the joy of teenage morons spamming the chat.

[iddqd]

So, instead of improving it, they simply remove it entirely? Y'know what other game has an auction house and isn't a miserable failure? It starts with "W" and ends with "orld of Warcraft". So clearly the presence of an AH isn't the root of the problem.
Actually, the AH is incredibly poorly-implemented. The way you query the database, the way it returns (and sorts) results, the way the auction system is set up - all terrible. You end up spending ~30 minutes filtering for an item you want and sifting through unwanted results. By that time, it turns out someone had already bought the damn thing.

If ebay worked like this, nobody would ever use ebay.

But, y'know, a poorly-implemented auction house is one thing. It wouldn't have mattered one bit, if the game was any good. Another thing entirely is a poorly-designed game that happens to have a poorly-implemented AH in it.

[Dalten]

So, instead of improving it, they simply remove it entirely? Y'know what other game has an auction house and isn't a miserable failure? It starts with "W" and ends with "orld of Warcraft". So clearly the presence of an AH isn't the root of the problem.
Actually, the AH is incredibly poorly-implemented. The way you query the database, the way it returns (and sorts) results, the way the auction system is set up - all terrible. You end up spending ~30 minutes filtering for an item you want and sifting through unwanted results. By that time, it turns out someone had already bought the damn thing.

If ebay worked like this, nobody would ever use ebay.

But, y'know, a poorly-implemented auction house is one thing. It wouldn't have mattered one bit, if the game was any good. Another thing entirely is a poorly-designed game that happens to have a poorly-implemented AH in it.

The performance and lack of features of the AH really had nothing to do with removing it. Just the fact that it existed in a non-mmo with extremely low drop rates on fun items meant that unless you were really lucky or high as a kite on ritalin and could play for days at a time, you had to use the AH to advance. It was so easy to go buy upgrades that the primary factor that gave d2 its legacy was gutted from d3 by the AH.

[NKrader]

Still a lame game.. And the console port is even worse..

D2 for life!

[Manicdan]

the D3 AH experience is a problem because its no longer about what you find, its how much money/gold you have in your wallet/account, plain and simple. in WoW you still have mostly soulbound items that you can never trade, which is why its AH is not a problem.

nomatter how much they try to fix the AH, it still will not change the point i just made. i loved D3, but i spent more time browsing the AH for deals than i did farming gear. that was a sure sign. i might jump back in since it has not monthly cost and was pretty fun gameplay.

[Dami3n]

The best announcement since Jay departure. AH/RMAH is the worst thing Blizzard could introduce in the game.

[iddqd]

The performance and lack of features of the AH really had nothing to do with removing it. Just the fact that it existed in a non-mmo with extremely low drop rates on fun items meant that unless you were really lucky or high as a kite on ritalin and could play for days at a time, you had to use the AH to advance. It was so easy to go buy upgrades that the primary factor that gave d2 its legacy was gutted from d3 by the AH.

It's equally easy to buy items in D2. Items that you're less likely to get from a drop than you are to win the lottery.

The difference is that D2 is a good game, while D3 isn't.

[Buckeye]

Come on, D3 is not that bad of a game. Some parts of it have some pretty good battles.

It was the loot system and progression model that sucked forcing people to use the AH.

As Manicdan said, WOW's model works pretty well and they should have used that.

[STEvil]

Come on, D3 is not that bad of a game. Some parts of it have some pretty good battles.

It was the loot system and progression model that sucked forcing people to use the AH.

As Manicdan said, WOW's model works pretty well and they should have used that.

Some parts, some good battles.

And by then you've played through it so many times you can probably recite the storyline in your sleep. Whats good about grinding so much or having to play the same content so many times?

[Buckeye]

That's the same way I felt about D2

and Torchlight, Path of Exile etc also LOL

[Det0x]

I qoute this as a diablo 3 player that have logged way over 1000 hours into this game, multiple paragon level 100 toons, and with a few "world records" if thats even possible in a game like this. (can link videos)

I was so happy to see they removed the AH at first, but I thought about it more during dinner just now and I already starting to miss it, i never dislike the AH system, it's a trading platform that allow you to quickly search some items and do some trade.

The problem has never really been caused by AH, it's the looting system which prevent us to get better items, and the only way to get them atm is through AH (or trade). I don't understand if they are really making all these changes for loot 2.0, smart loot, account bond items, then already less and less people will be using AH, and mission complete.

Why remove a platform which they have build and improve over the time. The real high end items are always being traded outside AH, D2JSP, Loothunter...etc, with or without AH, they will always be like that, to fix people having the best items just by paying, Loot 2.0 is the answer, removing AH is not.Now people who wants to trade normal gear we loot in games are force to use forum which is D2 style...

How are we gonna buy materials/gems?
How are we going to sell some decent loot we find during our farming?
How are we going to find out how much this particular item we just found are worth ?

And for people who likes to do gearbuild, all that is gone. To trade, we are back to stone age on posting forum and trade privately.

Seems unnecessary to completely remove it, might as well just make all items account bond and not tradable. That will stop the bot since nothing is tradable.

(c) invis

I recommend the uniformed to watch this video: http://www.twitch.tv/invisuk/c/2951092

[kromosto]

@DetOx yes why i left the game is all about the problems of the loot system which you described with some missing topics but what you are missing is loot system was that bad because blizzard wanted to force people use AH so the problem of the loot system is just because of AH.

and AH is broken because they decided to add it just a little time before the launch of the game .This caused a broken AH because they never had enough time to think how to integrate AH in diablo while not effecting the fundamental aspects of the game and how to make a good AH system which will support loot system. but they decided to make loot system to support AH.

[Dami3n]

Is simple, loot and itemization sucks because they are build around a economy based in gold and the AH. Is a core problem, a design issue.

[M.Beier]

Come on, D3 is not that bad of a game. Some parts of it have some pretty good battles.

It was the loot system and progression model that sucked forcing people to use the AH.

As Manicdan said, WOW's model works pretty well and they should have used that.

Lack of skill tree made it a bad game.

[Buckeye]

Lack of skill tree made it a bad game.

Are you hating on D3 !!!!

[Flanman]

Lack of skill tree made it a bad game.

that's what I loved about d2. you could do so many builds with each class, granted there were the obvious power house builds, but I feel as if with d3 if you don't do a certain build you're not gonna make it. then again, I haven't played in months so I'm not sure if that has changed.

[M.Beier]

that's what I loved about d2. you could do so many builds with each class, granted there were the obvious power house builds, but I feel as if with d3 if you don't do a certain build you're not gonna make it. then again, I haven't played in months so I'm not sure if that has changed.

Exactly
An amazon wasnt just an amazon, and most of all the sorc wasnt jut a sorc, you were either lightning or fire - or hell mf which was combined cold and light... I really looked forward to D3, but realized it was impossible without trading in AH, and I wanted to do all the stuff myself, not trade.... Just not possible because game wasnt about building a decent char, just about trading/buying the right stuff...

[Manicdan]

i really liked the lack of skill trees because you could make so many combinations. but they have to be perfectly balanced or else you start making cookie-cutter builds that have to be used or else. i played a demon hunter and relied on a very select few in order to survive inferno (i think thats the hardest difficulty, its been a year since i played)

[5pot]

While this is a step in the right direction for the game itself. I still will not be playing it. I refuse to give them more money for the exp pack, which I cant help but think thats why theyre ditching the AH anyways. More people come back, more people pay x amount of dollars for the pack.

If they actually cared, they would give out the exp pack for free, along with an apology. Since I know this wont happen, screw them.

Been playing path of exile anyways. At least they have a huge skill tree.

[iddqd]

i really liked the lack of skill trees because you could make so many combinations. but they have to be perfectly balanced or else you start making cookie-cutter builds that have to be used or else. i played a demon hunter and relied on a very select few in order to survive inferno (i think thats the hardest difficulty, its been a year since i played)

With skill trees, you still end up using only a few of the abilities. The actual nice thing about skill trees, and particularly the way they were organized in D2 (that nobody really thinks about) is that skills had levels, which determined how powerful they were. Which made it easy to have items that improve skills in a standardized way, eg: you could have +N to All skills on a unique-grade amulet in D2. Or, perhaps, +N to <Character class> skills only. And due to the geometry of the skill trees, you could even do +N to a <Skill sub-tree> within <Character class>. Finally, you have the (least attractive,) +N to <Particular Skill>, which is the only type of direct item-skill interaction that's sorta possible in D3. All the other ones are not possible.

So, you could have this powerful item property that boosts the effectiveness of your characters' skills, independent of their weapon DPS. And there are varying grades of this property, which let you have a lot of play when designing items. I think the biggest problem with D3? In a game, that's essentially all about collecting loot, the one thing you can't have is really boring loot.

[G.Foyle]

Bravo Blizzard, it only took you almost 2 years. Not bad, I believe Windows and some web browsers have had some unfixed bugs for even longer.

[iddqd]

That's them essentially admitting they have no idea how to make trading work.

Next step would be to admit they have no idea how to make the rest of the game work, and remove diablo.