Why does GGG hate auction houses?

Yeah Scrotie. That has been my stance all along. The more transparent information that is avialable to everyone and the greater the ease of transaction the less room flippers will have to operate. I made that point in the other AH thread as well, with the example of the premium players pay to convert their small currency items.

For instance that 600 chroms can buy an exalt if you are willing to wait a long time in trade chat or in a noticeboard party, while the asking rate of chaos is 60:1 exalt and is a trade that can be completed relatively quickly.

But the ratio of chroms to chaos is usually 16:1. Meaning that a 60% premium is being charged for the convenience of getting the trade completed quickly.

Having an ingame currency exchange would, like you say, get rid of the middleman. No question the exchange ratios themselves will shift, but end buyers and sellers would be trading directly. Meaning that the new ratios are a true representation of the fair market value of each currency.

It seems like you, me, and deathflower are all on the same page (although I misunderstood deathflower earlier :P)

Unsurpisingly it also seems like we all know the most about this subject. If I had to guess the both of you have either a finance or economics degree as well?

"

Fluffy_Puppies wrote:

Unsurpisingly it also seems like we all know the most about this subject. If I had to guess the both of you have either a finance or economics degree as well?

I can't really say my area of expertise is in finance or economics. My field of study is in international business although we do study finance and economics as part of the curriculum.

"

grant_m wrote:

I have a degree in Real Life common sense.

What I've learned in my studies is that no parallels can be drawn between what goes on in a fake video game economy and what happens in Real Life.

AH = disaster.

I see this "argument" a lot. "I don't like AH because of some preconceived notions I picked up elsewhere, so I don't want it here. Why? BECAUSE I SAID SO! COMMON SENSE!"

An AH may not be the solution, but GGG needs to do SOMETHING to make trade easier. Players are relying on third-party programs and websites to supplement trade. That's shameful.

When I first started playing this game (back then they only had 2 acts), I was absolutely confused by currencies and various ratios and what not. I didn't care about trading and, even though it seems to be one of the mainstays of this game (from what I can gather), it was something I actively avoided.

To be honest, the farthest thing from my mind when I conceptualize any game is having excursions of trading with others. Bartering and bantering for items is just not fun to me. I stress this because I'm sure for many of you it is something you look forward to. But for me? I can't see the joy in it.

When I think about games I conjure thoughts of fantasy settings with awesome spells and skills, killing bad guys and focusing on the journey through the story (more often with friends than without). I focus a lot on that 'role play' portion of RPGs, if only internally.

Path of Exile is a game that has all of those elements. But, to properly utilize the skills and spells you've collected, you need certain gears. To make your builds and 'for-fun' characters work, you need items. The game's drops are quite varied and sporadic, so in that regard it forces you into trading. Sure, you can self-find (The whole time I've been playing this game that is what I've done), but if you don't want to grind seemingly endlessly, it helps to trade.

Having an Auction House would expedite the process and allow players to have more fun in the game.

I played Diablo 3 before, as well as Diablo 2. Diablo 3's Auction House gets blamed for a lot of things that was not it's fault entirely. As someone else mentioned, the item pool in Diablo 3 was absolutely horrendous. Legendary items (unique equivalent) were in many cases worse than their much more common 'rare' counterparts. The characters themselves didn't have as many customization attributes like PoE does, so it basically boiled down to Main stat (vit normally) + Main stat + health (or high damage if a weapon). It made the game boring, and mindless, without even having a real end game goal (other than, you know, those selling out for real money).


The Auction House didn't kill Diablo 3 for a lot of people. The game just didn't have a lot going for it. It was over-hyped and under-delivered. The RMAH, however, took the game out of the game. It was balanced around money instead of around fun.


I think the Auction House would work fine in Path of Exile. After all, it is a game meant to be played for its content, right? I can't imagine someone truly having fun hoarding a game's currencies to be pseudo-rich until the game itself dies off. I don't see a reason to let new or beginner players get confused, used, and abused by veterans of the game and that be their resounding first (or potentially last) impression of PoE. I can't imagine any game developer wanting something like that happening in their game, either.


Though, I doubt GGG will ever budge their stance.

"

RegulusX wrote:

"

grant_m wrote:

I have a degree in Real Life common sense.

What I've learned in my studies is that no parallels can be drawn between what goes on in a fake video game economy and what happens in Real Life.

AH = disaster.

I see this "argument" a lot. "I don't like AH because of some preconceived notions I picked up elsewhere, so I don't want it here. Why? BECAUSE I SAID SO! COMMON SENSE!"

An AH may not be the solution, but GGG needs to do SOMETHING to make trade easier. Players are relying on third-party programs and websites to supplement trade. That's shameful.

I agree. Not to mention, the mere fact that those sites and programs exist means there is a high demand for a better trading system. If we had a good trading system in game, no one would feel the need to make a 3rd party site for it.

"

grant_m wrote:

I have a degree in Real Life common sense.

What I've learned in my studies is that no parallels can be drawn between what goes on in a fake video game economy and what happens in Real Life.

AH = disaster.

So you haven't learned anything. Besides that you forgot to make an argument.

virtual economies mirror real world economies in many ways. One key difference is that the concept of scarcity is flipped on its head.

But how an AH functions and the interactions an AH would have on a virtual economy is identical to a real world economy.

All of you fearful chicken littles hate AHs because of Diablo 3, without even being able to understand that the AH is not what was wrong with D3. The problem was Zimbabwe levels of inflation coupled with the ability to buy items and additional gold with real world money.

You see gold could be continuously farmed without having any inherent value, and without having a way to get it out of the economy. As in the faucet was turned all the way on, but the sink was blocked, eventually the market was overflowing with gold. Large numbers of players kept producing gold, until the point that gold was entirely useless. Players knew it was useless and knew it would be worth less each and every day. So people with good or hard to get items kept charging higher amounts to compensate the perceived (and actual) lack of value of the gold.


Just like how Zimbabwe kept printing more and more money until the people lost all faith that the colorful sheets of paper they held had any value what so ever. Leading to people requiring more and more of these worthless sheets of colorful paper in exchange for their tangible goods and services.

WOW! Would you look at that? Something that applied in a real world economy applied perfectly to a virtual economy! Imagine that.

PoE uniquely does not need to worry about hyper inflation because each of the currency items has an intrinsic value derived by the currency's use and the utility that use provides.

I have corrected you multiple times grant. I don't do it for your good. You are too dug in to be swayed. But other people who don't have a preconceived bias need to see that there is no substance behind your fear mongering except for your own ignorance.

EDIT: posted this at 4:20am so there are some typos. Just goes to show that I can own you even when I am tired out of my mind...

"

Fluffy_Puppies wrote:

All of you fearful chicken littles hate AHs because of Diablo 3, without even being able to understand that the AH is not what was wrong with D3.

Yup. Also people like to forget but D3's hc economy was actually pretty stable.

"

Fluffy_Puppies wrote:

All of you fearful chicken littles hate AHs because of Diablo 3, without even being able to understand that the AH is not what was wrong with D3. The problem was Zimbabwe levels of inflation coupled with the ability to buy items and additional gold with real world money.

No. The inflation never bothered me much. I made some money on the RMAH so that's the only silver lining.
The problem I had with AH was that it was by far the best way to get loot. It's boring. Trading is already too prominent in PoE and an AH would just make it worse.

You seem to desperatly need this: http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/factsopinions/factsopinions.html
Come back when you have completed your training.

"

Sickness wrote:

The problem I had with AH was that it was by far the best way to get loot. It's boring. Trading is already too prominent in PoE and an AH would just make it worse.

Then don't use it? Soda pops the easiest way to get fat, do you see us northerners drinking it until we explode?? No, we do it in moderation. For people with diabetes, they avoid it. For people who can't stand the auction house's efficiency, you avoid it.

"

Sickness wrote:

You seem to desperatly need this: http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/factsopinions/factsopinions.html
Come back when you have completed your training.

"

Sickness wrote:

completed your training.

"

Sickness wrote:

completed

That's your problem right there. You're never done learning. Ever.

If trading's too prominent, not sure how that's possible, fix that problem, don't hamper one feature of the game to make up for how another feature sucks.