Real Money Auction House RMAH for poe

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Blizzard-Take-15-Cut-Diablo-3-Real-Money-Auctions-42056.html

Someone else from this forum posted this link, either in this thread or another, but I'm pretty sure it was another. I want to acknowledge this and note I'm not trying to steal anyone's thunder.

I rarely place much credence in such articles and news stories but Ars Technica seems fairly solid to me. It's a simple explanation of what the RMAH means to Blizzard and to its users. Probably no new facts, but the bit about there possibly being a limited number of any one unique in the entire game is particularly disconcerting, I think.

It makes sense if said uniques are what is now known as 'soulbound' -- then it's like finding something really special, really rare, and it's all yours. Like the epic weapons of Eq1, which took approximately a millennium to earn and were indeed bound. But if an item is not bound, and there are only X amount of them in the entire game on all the servers, then suddenly of course you're encouraging all sorts of trading shenanigans.

From a purely selfish perspective, that'd mean I'd likely have to pay someone just to get a copy of the very item I helped design.

...Screw. That.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

Probably no new facts, but the bit about there possibly being a limited number of any one unique in the entire game is particularly disconcerting, I think.

It makes sense if said uniques are what is now known as 'soulbound' -- then it's like finding something really special, really rare, and it's all yours. Like the epic weapons of Eq1, which took approximately a millennium to earn and were indeed bound. But if an item is not bound, and there are only X amount of them in the entire game on all the servers, then suddenly of course you're encouraging all sorts of trading shenanigans.

Firstly I think you may be misreading the bit about "limited uniques". It doesn't (necessarily) mean there's a limited number, just that the server knows what the number is at any one time, so that if one appears that wasn't created, it can be identified as a dupe.

Sure, they could no doubt limit the number, if they wanted to. But even if they did, so what? What kind of "shenanigans" does that enable? The price for that item skyrocketing to levels that most players can't reach? Yes, that would happen, and yes, it does mean most players will almost certainly never get that item.

But that has always happened in games with trading. Very few people legitimately found Zod runes in Diablo 2, but did not finding one ruin the game for anyone? Surely not. Unless you're an obsessive collector type, some items being priced highly isn't a problem (because you can just...not have that item), and if you are that much of an obsessive collector type, games about grinding for months to get random drops are really not a healthy thing for you to be playing anyway, I imagine. :P

True enough with that last point. (I can't believe I've let myself be sucked into this thread again...)

BUT

A Zod rune was a hell of a lot more 'rare' than any given unique, I think. It was supposed to be the holy grail of runes, just as the Stone of Jordan was once the holy grail of uniques. Long ago, long long ago. I think it's slightly unfair to put the rarest of rare runes in the same category as a unique piece of equipment, given that Zod had quite a lot more functionality than even, say, the Oculus or Stormshield. It had a range of functions, in fact, that made it, in my eyes, an incredibly valuable item to anyone lucky enough to find one.


But yeah, I hope I am misreading it and that it's merely a measure against duping, but lord knows if I had an auction house and my own personal sandpit and I wanted to watch people scurry about like ants, I'd definitely limit the possible quantity of certain items and revel in the scurrying, maybe allowing a few more to spawn if the only people with them weren't playing nice and putting them on the auction house with ridiculously high price tags.

...That last sentence needs to be nerfed, and hard.

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Untill recently..*Cough diablo 3*...
SELLING ITEMS OR IN GAME ADVANTAGES OF ANY KIND TO ANOTHER PLAYER USING REAL MONEY HAS BEEN CHEATING.......

No, it wasn't..if you want making things up .. go ahead ..but don't represent it as facts.

Honestly, years and years ago when I first heard the term "unique item", I was initially under the impression that that meant there was only allowed to be one, in the entire game. I've since been a little disappointed that that hasn't really caught on as an idea.

I say that as someone who generally doesn't play MMOs, so I've no doubt there are quite a few examples of it. But yeah, I find it quite interesting; I've always thought it would fit quite well in things like fantasy RPGs, that are so often about ancient relics of great power, that let players equip themselves with a certain king's helmet or a certain assassin's blade. Surely that king didn't make thousands of those helmets, and I rather like the idea that even if I never actually see it, somewhere out there in the game world has this item that has a special place in the lore - it being all the more special for actually being as rare as the flavour text implies.

So if, hypothetically, Blizzard were to do something like that, I'd be all for it.

I was going to say much the same thing, actually. Unique to me means precisely that. UNIQUE. Not a friggin' replica, which is all any unique in an ARPG has ever been, albeit a well-made one. And until I encountered the ugly world of third-party trading, I wondered why they didn't do that. Why not make items so rare that only one exists in the whole game world? Who wouldn't want to hunt for such a thing?

Like I said, soulbinding is the perfect solution to such an issue (or least locking it to your account, if you want to twink that One-Of-a-Kind Sword from your witch to your duelist), but it's not exactly going to make Blizzard any money if it can't be put on the AH over and again...and each time it sells, it makes them a little pocket money...

And our famous Sixth Class, who may well be an accountant, knows fully well the value of nickel-and-diming it...(is that the way that term is used? I'm Australian, we don't have real money, just fun bucks).

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ManiaCCC wrote:

"

Untill recently..*Cough diablo 3*...
SELLING ITEMS OR IN GAME ADVANTAGES OF ANY KIND TO ANOTHER PLAYER USING REAL MONEY HAS BEEN CHEATING.......

No, it wasn't..if you want making things up .. go ahead ..but don't represent it as facts.

Okay then...... In "most" M/MORPG games, if you did this as a customer to another individual customer.... It was cheating.

Of course there were some games that did allow it, but they were just "as time has shown" failures...

My bad, Im just getting sick of walls of text. And trying to make this alittle "Finite" rather then constantly having to explain petty things.

"I will even go and fix it for you....geez."

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ManiaCCC wrote:

"

Untill recently..*Cough diablo 3*...
SELLING ITEMS OR IN GAME ADVANTAGES OF ANY KIND TO ANOTHER PLAYER USING REAL MONEY HAS BEEN CHEATING.......

No, it wasn't..if you want making things up .. go ahead ..but don't represent it as facts.

You either didn't understand what tachi meant or ignored it or you just wanted to take the text out of context. It HAS been illegal activity BEFORE the one game, which name I refuse to say, introduced the RMAH. So like tachi said, Blizzard just gave up on fighting against cheaters and moved the actions to players. That's not the right way.

My stance still stays the same, if PoE ever get RMAH, GGG can forget my support. I suspect there is alot more supporters who are with me, atleast im not alone against RMAH.

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Ceppana wrote:

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ManiaCCC wrote:

"

Untill recently..*Cough diablo 3*...
SELLING ITEMS OR IN GAME ADVANTAGES OF ANY KIND TO ANOTHER PLAYER USING REAL MONEY HAS BEEN CHEATING.......

No, it wasn't..if you want making things up .. go ahead ..but don't represent it as facts.

You either didn't understand what tachi meant or ignored it or you just wanted to take the text out of context. It HAS been illegal activity BEFORE the one game, which name I refuse to say, introduced the RMAH. So like tachi said, Blizzard just gave up on fighting against cheaters and moved the actions to players. That's not the right way.

My stance still stays the same, if PoE ever get RMAH, GGG can forget my support. I suspect there is alot more supporters who are with me, atleast im not alone against RMAH.

Look..I know where are you coming from but again..it wasn't illegal activity unless you were buying dupes. Duping and selling duped items were in fact illegal. But for different reason. It's not nitpicking ..as I can understand why are some players against RMAH ..but too many are working with false assumptions..

CharanJaydemyr, what are these benefits of souldind in ARPG? I don't see any..really.

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CharanJaydemr wrote:

Like I said, soulbinding is the perfect solution to such an issue

You say this is the perfect solution, but what is being solved, exactly? Should people not be able to trade for something rare? Should Blizzard not make money off it? Why not? I say let people keep track of who's got it for now, if they can, and let them offer stupidly high prices for it. Let the player choose not to sell because it'll only get more valuable. I think that kind of hot-potato trading, rather than the normal sort of dream-world "if I farm for long enough, I'll get everything I want" would be interesting to see.

And now that you mention "hunting for it", this kind of "actually unique" item would make an interesting addition to Path of Exile's cut-throat leagues :)