General Discussion - Time Capsule from PoE Closed Beta -- a classic PoE vs D3 thread circa 2012 - Forum

" CharanJaydemyr wrote: An interesting and as per usual in-depth discussion of what I consider the herd of elephants in the room. I'll admit, my instinct was to despise the RMAH, despite the fact that, yes, it will eliminate gold-farming and third-party selling sites. I never 'acknowledged' these and just played D2 my own way with my friends, etc. Gold-selling and buying items in game were as close to my D2 world as drug deals and extortion are to my real one. Probably going on not that far away 'physically' (in internet terms, much harder to explain but not that hard to understand), but still utterly disconnected from 'me'. What Blizzard did with the RMAH was bring the War-On-Drugs, as it were, directly to my doorstep. I could no longer ignore it even though it really didn't affect me. If people wanted to inject real cash into the Diablo gaming, so be it. To say it affected me in D2 would be a gross oversight. It just didn't. Except then it did: the SoJ sale fiasco, for example. I remember when the high-end gamers of D2 started to get their wish for harder content: if all realm players sold X amount of SoJs, uber Diablo would be unleashed on the world. Needless to say I thought it was a bloody stupid concept but was amused to see the occasionally world message about it. In hindsight, I know now that Blizzard's implementation of this sort of loot-grab could not but have had an effect on people using real life money to affect the system. And of course it only got worse from there. Ever since D1, Blizzard have shown they have little to no control over their diabolic monsters after release: duping ruined d1, botting D2. It's not that I didn't have faith in them to make good games; it's just that I knew that if I wanted to continue to see them as good games, I had to play them under my own terms. Very privately with people I knew, people I could trust not to abuse Blizzard's utter incompetence with post-sale customer support and game maintenance. I cannot and do no believe Diablo 3 will be any different there. I don't care how or why it happens, someone will find a fatal flaw in the Horned One's armour. And it will be widened quicker than Augustus Gloop's gob under a chocolate fountain. Without the RMAH, online-only play and other 'post-WoW Blizzard' features, I could have overlooked this yet again. But I cannot. Like it or not, everyone who plays Diablo 3 will be involved with everyone else. It might be at a great level of remove, but the links will be there. And I just don't trust Blizzard not to screw it up somehow. Someone will have a 'great idea' for a certain demographic of player, maybe something not unlike the SoJ-sale=uber diablo unleashed!!! concept...that will make things a little less attractive for another demographic. But Blizzard are not totally to blame either. Path of Exile could easily fall susceptible to these things too. It's online-only, for a start, and thus we are all connected somehow. I'd say the only reason both D1 and D2 were so thoroughly screwed was because the players wanted them to be. They saw that opportunity to prosper illegitimately and just couldn't help themselves. In a way, Diablo's success was also its failure. Speaking specifically of the RMAH: I think you've all conflated something very primal. After WoW, and during WoW, Blizzard's appetite for raw player-based income must have become incredibly engorged. 14 million subscribers and a cash shop will bring in a lot of moolah. Is WoW dying? It's certainly past its prime. Simple, then: how can Blizzard supplement this reduction in cash intake? Pfffft, doesn't take a genius to see how. All they did was acknowledge the problem and remove the middle-man. That. Is. It. Dress it up as a gallant move (and there's no denying that removing the middle-man is also to the consumer's benefit), tack on what cannot but be called a Tax and wait for the money to flow in. There's no easy solution. Using real-world currency to buy items that affect the balance of a game ruins that game. We all agree with that, surely. Whether players do it through dodgy third-party sites or through sanctioned Blizzard means, it's still ruining the game as we see it. But with Blizzard's blessing, perhaps all it does is change the game,evolve it beyond what a lot of us see as the purest, most concentrated definition of Diablo. Item hunting make strong good more item hunting. Throw real money into the equation and 'item hunting' becomes 'item buying'. I'm sorry, where's the fun in THAT? So if that is the state of the game now, no reason for Blizzard not to do precisely what governments would do if people could morally and socially agree that a certain soft drug is 'part of the game too': legalise it, subject it to quality control, monitoring, standardisation...and quietly tax the everloving crap out of it. Well the flaw in your reasoning about the duping and the botting etc, is that those were different times. There was nothing blizzard could have realistically done about them. Now, more than a decade into the future, very efficient systems exist that make duping and botting very hard to do (and if you'll do it, you'll get spotted by their software and face a permanent ban, I'd say that's not worth it). And again on the cash matter, yeah, the auction house will ofcourse make them money. But if you do the math you see it's really not a whole lot. (The calculation I used also used pretty optimal sale numbers) 'There's no easy solution. Using real-world currency to buy items that affect the balance of a game ruins that game.' It only affects you if you mentally choose to let it affect you. I didn't care what people did with their money in D2, and I won't now. If there are people who do care, that's their loss. As for this: 'So if that is the state of the game now, no reason for Blizzard not to do precisely what governments would do if people could morally and socially agree that a certain soft drug is 'part of the game too': legalise it, subject it to quality control, monitoring, standardisation...and quietly tax the everloving crap out of it.' This already exists... they're called alcohol and tobacco. And whether you think blizzard's actions are ethical or not, it's still by far the best move they could have made to help the whole item buying situation. And about the 'tax' remark. Well yeah, again, they should make money off of it, and the 'tax' is also needed. If there's no transaction fees then everyone will completely flood the auction house with items anywhere from half-decent to absolute shite. ''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.'' IGN: Vaeralyse Last edited by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 2:30:39 PM	Posted by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 2:25:51 PM Quote this Post
Unless you simply restrict the RMAH to yellows, green and...purple? Are uniques in D3 purple now, rather than gold? Either way. There are better ways of regulating the QA of the Auction House than simply taxing it. And yeah, the tobacco/alcohol thing was unspoken, although barring the tragedy that was Prohibition, neither were ever really illegal. I was thinking about a different drug there, you see, because to go from 'illegal' to 'legal' requires a fairly major shift in philosophy and attitude. But while we're on the matter of tobacco, one of the big incentives the Australian government has made to reduce the number of smokers is to simply tax the buggery out of the product: a pack here typically costs around 15-16 bucks. ...And no one really believed that would reduce the number of smokers. But the non-smokers cheered it as a great step forward and even punishment of what has become here socially more unacceptable than certain illegal drugs, and the smokers just keep smoking. And the government makes oh so much money. This might seem tangential, but if you think in terms of how slippery Blizzard have behaved in the past, it is not entirely so. I admire your mathematics but question how long the variables will remain the same. On botting/duping: you know very well that I did not mean we'd see either as the problem. Just as no one saw duping or botting coming, whatever means people find to break Diablo 3, we can't predict. But it will happen. Because those were the greatest indications of the game's success. Didn't WoW have bots and farmers as well? Why? Because the market demanded them. Just as a society is never fully utopian and will always have demand for criminals to supply various services that none of us upstanding citizens want to acknowledge. If Diablo 3 isn't broken, it will be because the game isn't as successful as Blizzard wants it to be. And therein lies the paradox. And not even my darling GW was immune to this. My Monk (who happened to be a Monk/Mesmer at the time) got me banned simply by being in the wrong zone at the wrong time: a popular bot-farming area full of monk/mesmers that ArenaNet clearly blanket-banned with napalm and rage. I had to contact them directly and explain I wasn't a bot, and was promptly unbanned. That said, it didn't really become a problem in GW at the same level as D2/WoW because GW never relied on gear for real power. Stupid players just felt it did, and so stupid players were the majority of the gold/item farmers' clientele. Meanwhile the top tiers were still occupied by real players who did their own work. Gear dependency is going to attract farmers. The higher the dependency, the more intense that will be. And D3 is reportedly even more gear-dependent than any other Diablo before it. Honestly, thank GGG for PoE, because I really don't know how long I'd have kept my head in the sand on this one and kept shovelling Fruit-Loop flavoured D3 into my mouth. A while, likely. Even if Guild Wars 2 came out the day after, the two games are different enough to warrant shared game time. ...Thank goodness, also, that D3 is not the only ARPG due out this year. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between. I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period.	Posted by Foreverhappychan#4626 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:13:44 PM Alpha Member Quote this Post
" CharanJaydemyr wrote: Unless you simply restrict the RMAH to yellows, green and...purple? Are uniques in D3 purple now, rather than gold? Either way. There are better ways of regulating the QA of the Auction House than simply taxing it. And yeah, the tobacco/alcohol thing was unspoken, although barring the tragedy that was Prohibition, neither were ever really illegal. I was thinking about a different drug there, you see, because to go from 'illegal' to 'legal' requires a fairly major shift in philosophy and attitude. But while we're on the matter of tobacco, one of the big incentives the Australian government has made to reduce the number of smokers is to simply tax the buggery out of the product: a pack here typically costs around 15-16 bucks. ...And no one really believed that would reduce the number of smokers. But the non-smokers cheered it as a great step forward and even punishment of what has become here socially more unacceptable than certain illegal drugs, and the smokers just keep smoking. And the government makes oh so much money. This might seem tangential, but if you think in terms of how slippery Blizzard have behaved in the past, it is not entirely so. I admire your mathematics but question how long the variables will remain the same. On botting/duping: you know very well that I did not mean we'd see either as the problem. Just as no one saw duping or botting coming, whatever means people find to break Diablo 3, we can't predict. But it will happen. Because those were the greatest indications of the game's success. Didn't WoW have bots and farmers as well? Why? Because the market demanded them. Just as a society is never fully utopian and will always have demand for criminals to supply various services that none of us upstanding citizens want to acknowledge. If Diablo 3 isn't broken, it will be because the game isn't as successful as Blizzard wants it to be. And therein lies the paradox. And not even my darling GW was immune to this. My Monk (who happened to be a Monk/Mesmer at the time) got me banned simply by being in the wrong zone at the wrong time: a popular bot-farming area full of monk/mesmers that ArenaNet clearly blanket-banned with napalm and rage. I had to contact them directly and explain I wasn't a bot, and was promptly unbanned. That said, it didn't really become a problem in GW at the same level as D2/WoW because GW never relied on gear for real power. Stupid players just felt it did, and so stupid players were the majority of the gold/item farmers' clientele. Meanwhile the top tiers were still occupied by real players who did their own work. Gear dependency is going to attract farmers. The higher the dependency, the more intense that will be. And D3 is reportedly even more gear-dependent than any other Diablo before it. Honestly, thank GGG for PoE, because I really don't know how long I'd have kept my head in the sand on this one and kept shovelling Fruit-Loop flavoured D3 into my mouth. A while, likely. Even if Guild Wars 2 came out the day after, the two games are different enough to warrant shared game time. ...Thank goodness, also, that D3 is not the only ARPG due out this year. Again though, all the games you name that had issues, were very very old games. (Wow from an engine standpoint is now what, 8-9 years old?) Both prevention and detection technologies are now far more advanced, and so is blizzard's pocket money. If there's a problem with the game, you bet your ass they will find it and fix it. With everyones current bandwith a 1gb patch is no problem, whereas this wouldve been a ridiculous thought at the time of D2's release, just to name an example. Also, your smoking example doesn't really apply to my point. My point was, the tax stops people from posting items on the RMAH that don't really belong there. After all, why would you post an item for 1,50 if you had to pay a 1,25 transaction fee. Thus primarily only high end items will be posted there, and not random junk or low-end items. Also, an item's value isn't always determined by it's type. Maybe you'll find a blue item with an amazing mod on it, but then you can't post it because the RMAH doesn't allow it. (Note, by poor items I don't just mean whites or whatever, but just general not that great items, whatever the type, like bloodletter in D2.) And about my math, I'd say that 1 million sales a month is a really high estimate, given that non-subscription games have shown that even though they make a lot of money, a very large part of their player base still pays very little or nothing at all for added features. For GW (2) yeah, that's one of the nice qualities of GW. But to be fair, goldfarming isn't really a problem in WoW either. Yeah, there are a lot of goldfarmers, but no amount of gold gets you gear that's anywhere near decent. (My point being: In WoW farmable items can't be sold or traded for any kind of in-game Power other than 'Look at my kewl l33t EPIC mount') I'm not sure if this is entirely your point, or that you are referring to the game's mechanics here, but I still feel POE will have goldfarmers just like D2 did. That is ofcourse, if it becomes big enough to warrant their time investments, but I don't think that will be a problem as there's a large enough market for this game to get relatively huge. As for the gameplay aspect.. I'm glad you can at least get your enjoyment out of another game, if not D3. One of my few gripes with D3 is that it will completely trump Torchlight 2 which they ,for some reason, decided to release 1 month after diablo 3. The game looks awesome and I fear I won't try it until many many months after Diablo 3's release, because I'll, obviously, be busy playing Diablo 3. And games lose a sense of freshness when they've been out for several months. My 0,02$. Boring night.. hopefully there will be some replies waiting for me when I get back from the shower, don't let me down POE forum! :P ''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.'' IGN: Vaeralyse Last edited by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:35:18 PM	Posted by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:30:23 PM Quote this Post
" Tagek wrote: If there's a problem with the game, you bet your ass they will find it and fix it. I like my ass way too much to take THAT wager, sir. I felt precisely the same way about Diablo 2 after experiencing the deluge of duping and hacking in D1. Look at how well that turned out. The smoking example was to indicate that Blizzard can, once they've hooked people on the RMAH, adjust certain variables to their advantage. Can, not will. Can. All in all, your faith in Blizzard seems almost as frighteningly solid as mine in GGG. Difference is, I went with the devil I don't know. " Tagek wrote: Boring night.. hopefully there will be some replies waiting for me when I get back from the shower, don't let me down POE forum! :P Oooouch. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between. I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period. Last edited by Foreverhappychan#4626 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:36:21 PM	Posted by Foreverhappychan#4626 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:35:15 PM Alpha Member Quote this Post
" CharanJaydemyr wrote: " Tagek wrote: If there's a problem with the game, you bet your ass they will find it and fix it. I like my ass way too much to take THAT wager, sir. I felt precisely the same way about Diablo 2 after experiencing the deluge of duping and hacking in D1. Look at how well that turned out. The smoking example was to indicate that Blizzard can, once they've hooked people on the RMAH, adjust certain variables to their advantage. Can, not will. Can. All in all, your faith in Blizzard seems almost as frighteningly solid as mine in GGG. Difference is, I went with the devil I don't know. Well yes, but again though, diablo 2 is more than 12 years old, (14+ or so if you take development into account) and back then there were very few ways to prevent, detect and / or fix these kinds of problems. And also, as I said in my post, blizzard is now about 28113381731763127637126 times richer than they were back then, so they can afford to make good effort towards fixing any potential problems. 'Tagek wrote: Boring night.. hopefully there will be some replies waiting for me when I get back from the shower, don't let me down POE forum! :P Oooouch.' Not sure what you meant by this, but if you thought I was referring to the forums, I was not. I'm just having a boring night in general. Anyway, now I WILL go take a shower! Stop posting for a minute or so, charan, give me time. ''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.'' IGN: Vaeralyse Last edited by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:39:09 PM	Posted by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:37:30 PM Quote this Post
Fine, just a quick one. And you KNOW I'd be playing if I could. If wealth=problem-solving capacity and general ability to keep people from fucking their own shit up, then please explain Enron, celebrities and the United States. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between. I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period.	Posted by Foreverhappychan#4626 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:50:47 PM Alpha Member Quote this Post
Nice post OP, mostly agree with you. About hackes, they will be harder now becose it works like WoW. About boots, they will be easy as in any game that is online. They can not stop it becouse bots run on your comp localy, that means you can do whatever you want with it. Also people learned a lot in this previous years from creating bots in WoW, diablo and other games.	Posted by miljan#1261 on Apr 10, 2012, 3:56:34 PM Quote this Post
" CharanJaydemyr wrote: Fine, just a quick one. And you KNOW I'd be playing if I could. If wealth=problem-solving capacity and general ability to keep people from fucking their own shit up, then please explain Enron, celebrities and the United States. Finally back from the shower. Let's see what charan.. wait, what? This post is even smaller than MY average post size! I think you owe yourself an apoligy, charan. All jokes aside though: Well that's a comparison far beyond my grasp.. But also a pretty unfair one. You know as well as I do that those situations are infinitely more complex than 'fixing a video game'. :P I'm not saying wealth = problem-solving capacity, but I do think wealth is part of the equation when determining someone's total problem-solving capacity. ''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.'' IGN: Vaeralyse	Posted by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 4:07:51 PM Quote this Post
" Tagek wrote: For GW (2) yeah, that's one of the nice qualities of GW. But to be fair, goldfarming isn't really a problem in WoW either. Yeah, there are a lot of goldfarmers, but no amount of gold gets you gear that's anywhere near decent. (My point being: In WoW farmable items can't be sold or traded for any kind of in-game Power other than 'Look at my kewl l33t EPIC mount') Im sure the game wouldve looked and been better if it wasnt for disparities between GGG and Blizzard ie. manpower/experience/financing/marketing etc. Pretty sure both games will be good and offer some fun. From time perspective blizzard has long lasting D2 to surpass while here we have an indie title that has to get some attention with good idea and design. Dont get me wrong im not saying PoE > D3 in terms of success just saying that to me both are worth playing and i will eventually !:) As for the quote i think you are a little bit wrong there. Gold can get you pretty much anything in WoW - Gladiator title boost - np Join progressive guild for a raid and get loot - np Titles and mounts with progressive guild - np All it comes down to having enough gold to pay for it heck even my old guild has done something like this and we had quite a lot of people interested in it. Suppose there are systems who could prevent RMA activities and botting etc one would think that a multimilionaire company like Blizzard could afford its implementation yet it isnt there. Quesiton is why is it not beneficial or does it come down only to cost vs benefit. Easier to take a chunk from RMA rather than implement entire system. I think RMA in D3 might spoil some fun from the game especially for competitive people who like to earn things and show off after at least in early stages of game. Some people while still in mintority enjoy earning things and then showing off after - Look @ that i earned it with "hard work". Long term effect will probably be that people wont mind and get used to it after all the "Im first" folks will achieve everything there is to. I also question the whole system and its potential effects - Blizz does something like this then someone else will take it further and say "hey they got away with we will as well. Several years back nobody wouldve thought wed be buying beta access yet here we are :) I got carried away a little but yea im pondering if this goes through with D3 what we will see next...	Posted by Cr4shtest#6458 on Apr 10, 2012, 4:09:51 PM Quote this Post
" Cr4shtest wrote: " Tagek wrote: For GW (2) yeah, that's one of the nice qualities of GW. But to be fair, goldfarming isn't really a problem in WoW either. Yeah, there are a lot of goldfarmers, but no amount of gold gets you gear that's anywhere near decent. (My point being: In WoW farmable items can't be sold or traded for any kind of in-game Power other than 'Look at my kewl l33t EPIC mount') Im sure the game wouldve looked and been better if it wasnt for disparities between GGG and Blizzard ie. manpower/experience/financing/marketing etc. Pretty sure both games will be good and offer some fun. From time perspective blizzard has long lasting D2 to surpass while here we have an indie title that has to get some attention with good idea and design. Dont get me wrong im not saying PoE > D3 in terms of success just saying that to me both are worth playing and i will eventually !:) As for the quote i think you are a little bit wrong there. Gold can get you pretty much anything in WoW - Gladiator title boost - np Join progressive guild for a raid and get loot - np Titles and mounts with progressive guild - np All it comes down to having enough gold to pay for it heck even my old guild has done something like this and we had quite a lot of people interested in it. Suppose there are systems who could prevent RMA activities and botting etc one would think that a multimilionaire company like Blizzard could afford its implementation yet it isnt there. Quesiton is why is it not beneficial or does it come down only to cost vs benefit. Easier to take a chunk from RMA rather than implement entire system. I think RMA in D3 might spoil some fun from the game especially for competitive people who like to earn things and show off after at least in early stages of game. Some people while still in mintority enjoy earning things and then showing off after - Look @ that i earned it with "hard work". Long term effect will probably be that people wont mind and get used to it after all the "Im first" folks will achieve everything there is to. I also question the whole system and its potential effects - Blizz does something like this then someone else will take it further and say "hey they got away with we will as well. Several years back nobody wouldve thought wed be buying beta access yet here we are :) I got carried away a little but yea im pondering if this goes through with D3 what we will see next... Gold doesn't really get you any of those things really.. All actual GOOD guilds require you to have lots of available time and actually being a good player. Titles =/= power, neither do mounts. Maybe there's some things you can buy, but ultimately nothing that will make a huge difference. (and definetely not anything that's worth the humongous investment of real life money) About D3 being and the whole competitive thing. Sure, if you're that kind of person you might not like the RMA, but let's not forget that in diablo 2, lots of people bought gear to pvp. This situation would exist regardless of blizzard implements the RMAH or not. ''Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.'' IGN: Vaeralyse Last edited by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 4:14:47 PM	Posted by Tagek#6585 on Apr 10, 2012, 4:13:47 PM Quote this Post