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Pay 2 win becoming legitimate? Have we really lost our way this much?
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We just have to accept that for some, loot is secondary or even tetriary to the game. For others well they just see the $$. I can't say their views are less than mine. I can only speak for myself and I have already decided what this news does for me.
The truth is if people think this is bad. We are only just getting started. Diablo 3 is just testing grounds to see how far they can take this. If the playerbase embraces it expect to see more agressive RMT in the future. You don't have to be an oracle to see that coming.
yep i agree look at the facebook games pay to win is awsome for those who want to spit out cash and now most online games have it
sad day it is were my rum.......
.....
You are incredibly naive if you think that Blizzard's small fees are going to stop large, organized RMT.
Don't forget that Blizzard is already saving them the cost of having to run third party sites and out-of-game transaction services. Instead of paying paypal or another money-transfer company they just pay Blizzard.
Pay-to-win is cheating. Developers and players may endorse this, but it is still cheating. It's like taking steroids in sports, in my opinion.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The RMT weren't illegal. They were barely a violation of the ToS. The choices Blizzard had were between spending a whole bunch of money to try and stop something the players are supporting, or providing it in a more secure manner that limits the effectiveness of gold farming while also making money from it. As a business, this isn't even a decision. There is a benefit to fighting people abusing your systems, but there is no benefit in fighting your customers. Give the customers what they have demonstrated they want, and make money. That's more or less the definition of a business.
^^^ I have slipped into talking about Blizzard's RMT AH, which is the latest thing I've heard of. For the most part, I think their idea is a good one, and will give the people buying and playing Diablo 3 what they want. I'm still on the fence about actually buying the game myself. Torchlight 2 seems like it might be a better deal.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Except the devs themselves have admitted that the Diablo franchise has always been about loot first and foremost. it is mindboggling that they would just undermine the meaning of said loot simply because SOME people want and will RMT.
Another thing I find ridiculous is how many people are blind to the fact that Blizzard still hasn't addressed the issues for which RMT was banned in the first place. That's right, they haven't even MENTIONED them!
I can't argue against if this is good business sense. If i was a stockholder I would applaud it too. It all boils down to what it does to me as a gamer. I can't look at it with neutrality and unbias even if it makes sense from a business standpoint. Since my reasons for playing can't co-exist with an RMT AH I just have to see myself defeated by it.
Don't forget that Blizzard is already saving them the cost of having to run third party sites and out-of-game transaction services. Instead of paying paypal or another money-transfer company they just pay Blizzard.
There is a fee to post more items beyond your free daily/weekly/monthly limit. There is also a fee when the items sells. Finally, there is a fee to 'cash out' that money out of the system. Guess which fee is going to be the highest? Guess which fee will be scaled depending on the amount of money involved instead of a flat fee?
Setting up a website to process credit cards when you don't care about security, customer service, etc. is not very expensive at all, but more importantly the cost of an outside site does not scale with volume. If you sell more items, your cost per item goes down and you generate profit. In the AH that Blizzard is setting up, the cost will scale with volume. If you sell more items, it'll cost you the same per item reducing or eliminating your actual profit compared to an external site.
Finally, you're ignoring the impact of having (at a guess) 3 Million people with access to the Auction House. We can be conservative here and say 1 Million people will have access to the same AH. This is not only a huge audience to buy stuff from gold farmers, it's a huge potential pool of competitors. Competition lowers prices.
There's no way to know how things will actually play out, but in a free market with 0 barrier to entry it seems like there's going to be a lot of competition. Individuals will be able to conduct business with little or no concern about profit margins, while actual businesses will. I think the advantage lies with the players, not the gold farmers.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That is quiet a false statement, developper never spend a penny to stop RMT. RMT occur outside their limit, they cannot do anything about it except maybe call ebay to have them close or stop a transaction, but i think ebay don't give a shit about this anymore. But the thing company do and still have to do whatever RMT is supported by them or not is stop any mean to cheat/hack/bot their game to give them easy access to RMT materials. Now will Blizzard just ignore the problem entirely and let people freely hack/bot it? I suppose they won't even if they could, transaction are anonymous, and botting/hacking won't be done in the open like it is in an mmo. But i seroiously don't think they can ignore the problem, they will still have to spend at least the same amount of money to fight this, if not more in fact.
In a game like D3 that is not competitive in nature I see no problem in allowing people who don't have all the time in the world to acquire items through RM transactions in order to enjoy all the content the game has to offer. In D2, you needed fairly specific gear to run ubers, and not everyone has the amount of time to do loot runs endlessly, so why not allow an alternate path so everyone can enjoy that content?
In a co-op game like Diablo, what another player buys wont ever hinder me; however, if I team up with them it could let us progress quicker.
First of all, 3rd party RMT's already DO pay a fee/transaction. The site might have a flat cost, but the money-transfer services they use, such as PayPal, take a fee FOR EVERY TRANSACTION THAT GOES THROUGH. So no, the cost of selling 1 or 1000 items is absolutely NOT the same, even using 3rd party sites.
Secondly, many small-time RMT sites do not care one bit about security but the large, successful ones absolutely do. I know this from personal and friends' experience.
Finally, it's incredibly naive to believe that the average player is going to be able to compete against RMT groups for ,ultiple reasons:
1. RMT groups use exploited 3rd world labour. An item is going to be worth much less to a company that produces 100's of items a day than to a player who only plays 10 hours a week.
2. RMT groups use bots/hacking. Blizzard hasn't been able to stop bots/hacking in games where RMT is sctrictly prohibited, what on earth makes you think Blizzard are going to be able to stop them in a game where RMT is not only allowed but encouraged?
3. Gold/item farming optimization. RMT groups don't earn gold and items by actually playing the game, they find the most efficient way to obtain gold/high demand items and then do that content over and over again.
4. Market manipulation. RMT groups have the capital to manipulate the market and they WILL do it, as it can be incredibly profitable. Blizzard have said they will not regulate the market, so the average player will have the choice of entering a market dominated by RMT groups or not participating at all.
5. RMT groups WILL be numerous. They are already numerous in games that BAN them, so there is absolutely no reason to believe that they will not flock to a game that allows them to do their business legitimately.
This all culminates to players finding out that their [Epic Item] that took them 50 hours of gameplay to acquire is only worth $1.99 on the RMAH. A player CAN undercut them and post the item for $1.80, but how many people will want to flush away hours upon hours of work for a measly 2 bucks?
We need to make a distinction between 'getting loot' and 'having loot'. For many people like me there is a lot of fun in 'getting loot' but 'having loot' is of marginal importance. In fact to me people who obsess too much about 'having loot' seem a bit whacked and in need of help. If 'getting loot' is not fun then 'having loot' has no value to me.
In Diablo 2 I had 6+ accounts full of loot mostly uniques, sets, gems and runes. When the game stopped being fun for me, I walked away without a thought since all that loot had no value to me and I was not going to obsess over computer bytes. For this reason to people like me no RMT is going to devalue our loot since it is merely 'having loot' which is of no importance. As such I see no reason to get mad at people who play the game differently than me since their playstyle will not affect mine. I am not gonna 'nanny state' them over this.
A developer will spend money wherever it benefits them the most. If stopping RMT benefits them by benefiting the game and attracting players, then that's what they'll do (or make the effort to do).
Blizzard has already taken steps against hacking and botting by designing the game with server side security and checks. Running servers isn't free, but it's more secure than a totally client side game. Hacking and botting do not benefit anyone and Blizzard will spend money to try and stop it.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Phew, finally managed to slog through this entire thread...
Creslin321, you are a scholar and a gentleman! You have voiced my exact thoughts on this issue and continued voicing additional aspects of the problem during the length of this lengthy thread in a clear and eloquent manner. I would also like to offer my humble virtual props to Raithe-Nor and AKASlaphappy for being voices of reason in a thread filled with people who don't even know what P2W means.
Personally, I was really sad to read all the bad news about D3, as I was really excited about it just a few months ago. I most likely won't buy the game, as I absolutely refuse to support a P2W approach to game development. Luckily there will be alternatives in the action RPG genre (TL2, Grim Dawn, Path of Exile...) and it's good to see people agreeing with me - perhaps there's some hope for online gaming yet?
Secondly, many small-time RMT sites do not care one bit about security but the large, successful ones absolutely do. I know this from personal and friends' experience.
Finally, it's incredibly naive to believe that the average player is going to be able to compete against RMT groups for ,ultiple reasons:
1. RMT groups use exploited 3rd world labour. An item is going to be worth much less to a company that produces 100's of items a day than to a player who only plays 10 hours a week.
2. RMT groups use bots/hacking. Blizzard hasn't been able to stop bots/hacking in games where RMT is sctrictly prohibited, what on earth makes you think Blizzard are going to be able to stop them in a game where RMT is not only allowed but encouraged?
3. Gold/item farming optimization. RMT groups don't earn gold and items by actually playing the game, they find the most efficient way to obtain gold/high demand items and then do that content over and over again.
4. Market manipulation. RMT groups have the capital to manipulate the market and they WILL do it, as it can be incredibly profitable. Blizzard have said they will not regulate the market, so the average player will have the choice of entering a market dominated by RMT groups or not participating at all.
5. RMT groups WILL be numerous. They are already numerous in games that BAN them, so there is absolutely no reason to believe that they will not flock to a game that allows them to do their business legitimately.
This all culminates to players finding out that their [Epic Item] that took them 50 hours of gameplay to acquire is only worth $1.99 on the RMAH. A player CAN undercut them and post the item for $1.80, but how many people will want to flush away hours upon hours of work for a measly 2 bucks?
The average player alone will certainly not compete. A million average players can certainly compete when they have no bottom line or business expenses.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You lose any credibility with this sentence alone. "In fact to me people who obsess too much about 'having loot' seem a bit whacked and in need of help"
Failure to understand a motivating factor or people is a problem with you. Not everyone else
Furthermore your playstyle and motivations are just a drop in the sea compared to all the reasons why people play these games to begin with. It reeks with arrogance when you think "your way is the right way" and you couldn't be more wrong.
Yes, but why do like "getting loot"?
1. Is it because when you DO get it, you have something to show for your in-game effort and merit? If this is the case, the RMAH absolutely destroy any merit as people will assume you've bought the items.
2. Is it that you simply like playing the game for the sake of playing? If this is the case then, why have loot in the first place? Why not just have "Gear points" on level up that are used to upgrade your gear/character?
My sig has a lot of relevance to this topic actually (1007 is the opium of the masses). The focus on Uber Loot, or Epic Gear, or whatever crap you want to call it shows the weakness of the game design. It is all BS, who the hell cares if you have a shiny piece of crap that 11 million other players will eventually get? "It makes my toon strong" who cares? I am a min/maxer, and if the gameplay is not there, if the game play is not the draw, then even for me min/maxing is pointless.
The reliance on loot to being the central focus of the game just shows you how much the rest of the game is lacking. Game play should be the draw to the game, not collecting meaningless crap everyone else is going to eventually collect. I mean if game play were what drew people to MMORPGs, would the F2P model even be viable? Not by itself...
And this is not a themepark VS sandbox debate: the ride in the themepark could be entertaining, there is no need for the themepark design to focus on Cupie Dolls.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
We need that carrot
Developers have to start making their ARPGs and MMORPGS a whole lot more interesting, than they have been to this day, if we are to remove it
No, they won't. A million people don't hold any more market power than a single person if they do not have command and direction.
It's just like the real world stock market. There are millions of independant investors and do they hold any real market power? No, they only profit INDIVIDUALLY through opportunistic buying and selling. The REAL market power lies with ORGANIZED and DIRECTED investment firms and corporations; they are the ones who continously and significantly affect the market.
You are deluding yourself if you think that the average player is going to outcompete organized, optimized, dishonest RMT groups simply becasue there is a lot of them.
Exactly, they are rendering items moot in Diablo 3 by allowing ANYONE to INSTANTLY acquire ANYTHING.
Not a fan of the Pay to Win trend. I am really agaisnt the micros in Pay to Play games. They have momentum right now but trends to change quickly and I hope the goes away.
--John Ruskin
You guys shouldnt fight at forums discussing about items for Gold or Money, if you paid attention to the announcement there will be a version (Hardcore) without the money auctions and there will be always games with f2p, p2w or p2p system.
And its a shot in the dark from Blizzard cause it can fail (would you waste 50 hours to get an item if you can pay 1,99U$$ for it)? or it can be a new life style for some, well if you have a high leveled character and usually drop items on the floor, where is the problem on making some real cash?
/facepalm
In Hardcore mode you lose EVERYTHING if you die. You are saying that it's okay to force me to risk everything just so I can have an RMT-free experience?
No one is forcing you to do anything. You don't need to play D3 if you object to its business model, or its internal dynamics. I've always considered hard core mode to be WAY too risky for my personal taste. System crashes, power outages, internet connection issues (especially with Comcast) are just too random.