PSA: AHs don't ruin games, Designers ruin games

Ladies and gentlemen Guns don't kill people, people kill people guns are just a tool...oops sorry OK I got my PSA's mixed up here let me try that again:

Auction houses/trade systems/trade automation etc. etc. don't ruin games. Bad design ruins games. An auction house is just a system that allows you to convert some of the stuff you don't need into stuff that you do need. It allows the orbs you find to be quickly converted into items you need, instead of randomly rolling them and getting junk that you don't. How being able to get items that you want in a more efficient manner from players who don't need them could be considered bad is mind boggling to me. Except that....

Blizzard told you that D3 was an otherwise awesome wonderful game that just had one little tiny flaw....*insert evil scary music* the auction house!!

So the auction house was removed.

Many of the sheep, er sorry, I mean people bought this rationale and repeated it Ad Nauseam.

This is where I insert my radical view on things

TLDR:

D3 wasn't a bad game because of the auction house, it was a bad game because it was a failed game design, at least from the perspective of a D2 fan.

In D2 you could gear yourself out like a boss in no time and yet I didn't quit. I was just getting started when I got my gear all finished out, same thing in path of exile...you see getting godly gear is really just the beginning not the end of a well designed ARPG.

Key words there being well designed.


Any of you who say that what ruined D3 was the AH, well go play it, the AH is gone, and it is still just a game that falls some place between meh and srsly this is the sequel to one of the best ARPGs ever?!!?!

Scapegoating the AH/trade systems/efficient economies just gives Blizzard a free out that they don't deserve. It was a failed game.

-Did the auction house dictate that PvP take freaking forever to be implemented in a meaningful way? No

-Did the auction house dictate that the level cap be 60 and it be super easy to get there, leaving no significant method of future character progression? No (They have even admitted this was a mistake by adding paragon levels after the fact)

-Did the auction house dictate that there not be ladder seasons or competitive ladders? No (they have also admitted this was a mistake by announcing they will add a ladder system soon, but knowing the current direction of D3 it will probably be epic fail in terms of how it is implemented)

-Did the auction house dictate that there be no meaningful commitment or means to diversify your character in terms of long term investment into character stats or skills? No

-Did the auction house dictate that the game play as slow as a perma temp chains map? No

-Did the auction house dictate that the whole game be based on nothing other than farming to get more items for the sake of getting more items?! NO!

*Insert your own internal game design flaw here, I mean seriously the list just goes on to infinity*

Did Blizzard make the mistake of building certain portions of the game or even designing certain drop rates around the AH? Yes but don't blame the messenger blame the dude who wrote the message. Ya dig? Don't blame the AH that it was implemented in a failed way in a failed game. Blame the individuals who thought lame achievements and WoW like game play in an ARPG would be all it would take for instant success.

So on behalf of Auction houses, automated trade systems, and more efficient markets everywhere please stop yer' hatin' and if you must continue yer' hatin' please go play D3 it has a lovely soulbound-no auction house thing going on right now I'm sure you will love it !

P.S.

Just a point of clarification I'm not against an optional self found league. I would say that an optional self found league would be kind of cool. I wish there were more long term optional leagues so that when players get bored with one league they can go have fun with another one. This might be the cure to taking breaks 2 months into a league. If the selection of available leagues was larger it might leave players with a desire to try them all over 4 months and thus stay continuously engaged!

What? but I love spending hours upon hours selling items instead of actually playing the game!

/sarcasm

They really need an auction house. The trading simply makes me not want to play lmao

If they had an auction house I think I would instantly come back to the game and play more than one day a month. Currently, it's too much work to sell items I get. If I farm with a high IIQ/IIR build and gets even good uniques, I don't want to go and try to sell 5-10 good items a day.

edit: Don't bother talking sense to these elitist morons that actually enjoy trading for hours. Some people have jobs, and other things to do. I like this game, but not enough to trade for hours on end in trade/chat / forums every day.

Fuck the AH

This is a pointless debate. PoE will never have an in-game AH simply because the non-gold based currency values are player driven meaning there is no objective metric an AH server could use to compare bids with different currencies.

face to face trading is much better then an AH

"

Hackusations wrote:

This is a pointless debate. PoE will never have an in-game AH simply because the non-gold based currency values are player driven meaning there is no objective metric an AH server could use to compare bids with different currencies.

Nonsense...ppl put the item in for whatever they want, 5 fusing, 10 ex, 3 mirrors whatever.

Buyout only AH. Bid-AH isnt needed but can be done too, inserter has only to determine in which currency ppl will bid. But Bid-AH doesnt fit to poe and wont come.

Buyout-AH on the other side is due since years. It's GGG's own fault of not finally implementing it, they lost many players because of that and will continue to lose players.

So lets have fun with a retarded "board in a3 merc" and whisper trade system. Its bad.

The notice board is our auction house silly. Post away.

This is a sophomoric argument. Just because D3 has a lot of other issues doesn't mean that the AH wasn't contributing to it being mediocre.

Dont get why people allways act like there is no AH. Poe.xyz basically is an AH. Just face 2 face. On a non ingame base website.
Implent this system ingame would only make trading faster. But ye.. then we couldnt SAY AH SUCKS POE HAS NO BAD AH AS BAD d3. sry worst english world.

I was expecting to read about why auction houses don't ruin games, but instead read about why Diablo 3 still sucks.