Diablo 3 Auction House: A New Day Job?

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**Laughing Man**

Blizzard Entertainment wrote:We’re introducing a powerful auction house system that will provide a safe, fun, and easy-to-use way for players to buy and sell the loot they obtain in the game. Items can be sold and purchased using real-world money or in-game gold.

An Easier Way To Trade
Sure, slaying monsters, demons, and cultists is a surefire way to obtain a ton of random new loot in Diablo III, but with the new auction house feature, it’ll be easier than ever to gear up your character with the exact items you’re looking for. You can also post the items you don’t need for players who are desperately searching for what you’ve got!

Don’t Need It? Put It Up For Auction!
Nearly everything found in the game, including gold, can be exchanged with other players directly or through the auction house system. So say you’re a witch doctor and you’ve just found an incredibly rare, incredibly powerful axe that only barbarians can use. In the previous Diablo games your best option might have been to sell the axe to an in-game vendor, but in Diablo III, you now have the ability to list that axe in the auction house for your fellow barbarian players to bid on. And you know another player will probably appreciate the true value of that axe more than some heartless vendor who’ll likely just melt it down for scrap….

Amazing Search Functionality
The auction house’s "smart search" functionality can automatically sort items in the auction house based on which upgrades would be most beneficial to your character. Also, searching for the best gear for multiple characters on the same Battle.net account can be done all from the same interface without having to log out.

The Choice Is Yours
Use of either the real-money or gold-based auction house is completely optional -- that decision can be made on a per-item basis, and both versions of the auction house are functionally the same. In addition, players have the option to simply sell the items they obtain to in-game vendors for gold. They can also trade items to other players through a direct character-to-character trading system in the game in exchange for gold, other items, or just an overwhelming sense of goodwill.

Players Only
Blizzard does not plan to post items for sale in the auction house. The driving purpose of the auction house is to provide players with a fun additional in-game option for what they do with the items they obtain in the game. Items sold in the auction house will be posted by players and purchased by players.

Safe and Sanctified
The real-money auction house provides players with an easy-to-use, Blizzard-sanctioned way to collect money for items they obtain while playing Diablo III. It also helps protect players from the scams and theft often associated with questionable third-party sites by providing a secure, completely in-game method for purchasing and obtaining the items they want for their characters.

Faster Than A Seven-Sided Strike
Sellers can post items for auction from any of the Diablo III characters on their Battle.net account, or from their shared stash (extra inventory space accessible with any of the characters on their account), without logging out. And after a buyer has won an auction, the item will become immediately available to be equipped and put to good use in the ongoing struggle against the forces of the Burning Hells.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2397-Diablo-3-Auction-House-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money

So, what's your opinion? I'm personally rather happy about it. Diablo has always had issues with item and gold sellers, and internalizing it makes it safer for customers (not to mention a tidy little profit for Blizzard). I'm not honestly expecting to make much, but I might at least be able to subsidize my WoW account.

**Leigen_Zero**

Makes perfect sense to me,

Problem: No matter what we do, unscrupulous individuals use dodgy websites claiming to sell our in-game items for real money and end up ripping off countless numbers of people.

Solution: create in-game functionality that allows genuine item/gold farmers to still ply their trade while simultaneously stopping the scammers by introducing a guarantee of service delivery, traceability and accountability...

**Ahtman**

I feel like they turned Diablo into a F2P MMO w/o the persistent world but with the shop for micro transactions.

**Laughing Man**

Ahtman wrote:I feel like they turned Diablo into a F2P MMO w/o the persistent world but with the shop for micro transactions.

It wasn't already?

**TrollPie**

Wasn't for me. I only ever play D2 solo. It's just so much better that way.

**Soladrin**

TrollPie wrote:Wasn't for me. I only ever play D2 solo. It's just so much better that way.

There is so much wrong with that statement that I don't even know where to begin.

Anyhow, I like it, a good server wide economy driven by players will keep prices low on avarage, and no scamming is always a good thing.

**Wolfun**

Eh. It looks like I won't be bothering with Diablo 3.
Introducing this stuff, and scrapping the modding scene is just a step in the direction I don't like.

**Spyder68**

To me its a very good step.

The last few MMO's that have been released have been hit so hard by Gold spamming and scams.

Some days on Rift/Aion/Final Fantasy mmo.. The spam was so bad you had to turn off chat.

This is just going to get worse.. as there is good money in selling in game currency.

Now with this, Diablo 3 is doing this system, which has potential. If im playing and i loot the Super rare epic Bow that i dont want or need. I could sell it for some $$ instead.

I would rather see a legit player make some money off items rather then gold spaming farmers.

Now, i havent looked at diablo 3 alot yet, but is it going to be like diablo 2 where you can make your own locked game if you want ?

**Leigen_Zero**

Wolfun wrote:
Introducing this stuff, and scrapping the modding scene is just a step in the direction I don't like.

As far as I can remember, Blizzard weren't happy with modding in the previous 2 games either. If I remember correctly, they would periodically scan your install for mods on log-in and disable your battle.net account (mainly because of all the mods that people used to cheat)

As for the comments on D2 online, I never really enjoyed it either, by the time I picked up D2 the multiplayer was so min-maxed/optimal-build-or-GTFO that it was pointless playing, as:
a) no-one would accept low-level characters on quests (because they were all speedrun-leveled min/max optimal builds with identical equipment)
b) due to the increased difficulty on multiplayer, low-level chars had a tough time running solo.

**Da Boss**

This won't effect how I plan to play Diablo 3 at all.

**Retrias**

I plan to play solo, possibly with cracks.... so.... Yeah probably wouldn't matter that much

**TrollPie**

Soladrin wrote:
TrollPie wrote:Wasn't for me. I only ever play D2 solo. It's just so much better that way.

There is so much wrong with that statement that I don't even know where to begin.

The first time I tried battle.net on D2:
Spent 10 minutes sifting through Baal runs to find a game for low-level characters. Found none. Created my own game.
2 spambots appear, then leave.
Eventually get to level 30 or so on my own. I then try to join a game, I find a bunch of dicks who keep going on about how I'm such a n00b and all my equipment sucks. They then all tun hostile at once and kill me. Then kill me again as I try to retrieve my corpse. I leave. Join 5 more games, the same experience. I then ragedelete my character and go back to solo. The only time I go online now is via lan with my brothers.

**Ahtman**

I played multiplayer but never over Battle.net. I still don't see why people ever payed real money for anything in the game.

**Melissia**

Crap like this is part of the reason why I prefer playing single player on the Diablo series to begin with.

**The Foot**

I really only enjoyed playing with friends though since there were too many people that annoyed me. The auction house thing seems like a good idea for that game though, should be helpful to people to actually get things they want.

**halonachos**

Yeah, I'm officially done with diablo and Blizzard. Why can't people just sell the things they don't need to the stores in game, that's why they're there. You kill things for xp, take whatever it drops and sell it to buy better items if you need it.

**Soladrin**

Yeah.. I've always played diablo (1 and 2) in a clan, so I guess I had less of the public game douchebaggery.

**Cane**

I still remember seeing several duped Stone of Jordan rings on Ebay back in the D2 days along with everything else you could equip.

I am surprised that Blizzard is doing this but its also a smart move and the internet black market was going to do this anyway. I suppose its only a matter of time before WOW gets this feature and it'd be great to be able to trade WOW characters and items for Diablo stuff.

Hopefully there's no monthly subscription but I haven't been keeping up with this game.

Also the runes system got too cluttered and hardcore must have ganking elements still if they want to stay true to its feel.

**N'Ferno**

This announcement just sparked a bots arms race of epic proportions. Imagine that, a diablo 3 bot farming items all day, able to sell useless stuff directly through the cauldron available on you (No more town porting to empty bags yay!) and you get to sell whatever rares you get!

Of course this is all hypothesis at this point, but I bet quite a few people will try this out.

However Blizzard calls the cashing out option an advanced feature, so I suspect there will be a monthly fee for this service, with the added comissions on the transaction itself.

**candy.man**

This sounds like a good idea in theory but probably not a good idea in practice. I can imagine the catastrophic amount of spam in the public chat....

Hopefully this auction house thing only applies to closed battle.net chars and not single player/open battle.net.

**johnscott10**

Hmm im somewhat undecided upon this new take tbh.

On one hand yea it can stop scamming sites(but probly wont).

On the other you will create more of what you want rid of.....I myself would spend hours and hours just collecting in-game cash if i new I could make some real cash from it so it wouldnt surprise me if alot of people do that.

Now I havnt played any of the Diablo games, so this next part only applies if it was made for WOW.

Now with me being in a tight guild(owned by my friend) there is no way to balance(think thats the word im lookin for) say who gets what in a raid. The raid leader could exploit their position to give them all the rarest stuff just to sell on instead of giving it to the person who needs it. It would be the same for the instances, everybody would want to be the leader so they could line their back pockets. The only way around this though would be the need or greed system, but even then say an item of level say 300 that Warriors use is dropped, even players with a better version of that item say 345 would still need roll it to get some cash.

It seems a bit dodgy to me tbh.

**mondo80**

I've read blizzard FAQ on this, you can exchange items for gold(in-game currency) or real cash and vice-versa using a thrid party cash exchange (paypal most likely).

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The diablo series has player supported clans, not guilds like wow has.

**LordofHats**

And so Diablo dies. Sold out soul and all to whoever has the most $$$.

Just because there are douce bags who exploit the internet (also idiots paying ridiculous prices for items that don't even exist), doesn't mean the developer has to become one of the said douche bags. But then I've had that opinion of Blizzard for years. The entire point of Diablo is to collect random loot and hopefully really awesome named items. See that auction house accepting real money? The point. It just got flushed down the toilet. What interest I had in Diablo is gone now. Diablo is no longer a game. It's ebay for lines of code.

Back to Titan Quest

**Vimes**

Ever since they announced no LAN support Diablo 3 was dead for me anyway. The supported gold selling with the auction house is simply a little reminder that it was a good decision.

**Soladrin**

Yeah I have to say, they might as well name it world of diablo now...

Titan Quest needs a sequel

**Spyder68**

I don't see what the big deal is..

People are going to buy in game items and currency no matter what..

Adding a system just creates the chance of a flooded market since everyone can do it.

Every mmo type game now has spammers, farmer bots selling of in game items and currency.

Example of Aion, was looking through there sight and guild sell item drops.. Item drops, they bring person in to loot then that person leaves.

They use in game currency for above.. but i bet alot buy their gold to do it with.

Guild i was with in WoW used to do the same thing for items that members no longer needed.

It already happens now, adding it to game wont make a difference.