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The Future of RMAH's
jusomdude
Member RarePosts: 2,706
Personally I would like to see more of the RMAH in MMO's. The game would have to be tailored for it though. I'm guessing Blizzard doesn't make nearly as much as they would if they charged a subscribtion fee for D3.
I wouldn't want it to be "buy to win," but i think it would be a nice feature to have for stuff like non combat pets, comsmetic gear, and consumable items, like gems, enchants, food, and pots. It can be expensive in game cash to keep your gear enchanted with the best enchants and gems in WoW for example. Many people don't want to waste their play time farming.
Imagine being able to actually make real money off your crafting profession.
Of coarse no one has to spend money on these things, you could always go out and farm the mats and craft the stuff yourself, or have a friend do it.
They might have to rework gear making professions, or just limit the things they can sell for real cash.
I think it would be awesome if I could at least pay my game's monthly fee if nothing else from selling in game items.
I think it could work for both P2P and F2P ( or B2P, basically the same) games.
Comments
"Many people don't want to waste their play time farming."
That's a flaw of the game then and not an excuse to introduce this abomination of mankind.
Why the f... pay to let the game be played for you? Don't give me that reason that 'working people don't have time'.
Guess what, nobody has time if they don't make room for it. You chose to play the game, then play it.
Don't accept RMAH because you know this will end in Pay to win. It is inevitable.
And the often thrown around argument 'but it won't affect people who don't use the RMAH'. Yes it will, diablo 3 is the prime example of how an RMAH can ruin the game. Diablo was originally about decking your char in superior gear. Now Diablo is about using $$$ to buy yourself to fame. And to ensure you WILL use the RMAH, blizz killed drop rates, nerfs every skill or stat that they deem hurting the RMAH and make gold next to worthless.
In short, they sacrificed gameplay so that it is inevitable you use the RMAH. And if Blizz can get away with this pay to win, so can everyone. All because it wa
Lol, really, the RMAH is a great thing. It works for Diablo3. It really isn't hard to clear Act 1 inferno with very cheap gear you get of the GOLD AH.
If players want to spend real money to advance then that's their choice.
Saying the RMAH will devolve into buy to win for games that implement it for things like I said in the first post is like saying games with similar things in their cash shops will devolve in to buy to win.
There is a lot of potential for RMAH. Yeah, it's gonna be a shit fest when pvp goes live in D3, since players can buy the best gear with real money... don't like it don't play it.
Care to share why it's such a bad thing besides the flawed assumption that it will devolve into buy to win? Keep in mind with what I suggested, ANY player can get the items traded through the RMAH whether or not they spend real money.
I think RMAH is interesting and don't think it'll be that bad of a 'P2W'.
Just look at Allods and the struggles it STILL has over the whole 'P2W' / cash shop debacle.
It is an alright game (and they fixed the CS debacle) but my god, 2 years later and still the perception is bad for that game.
In this world, perception = reality.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I've been saying this for quite some time now and completely agree. Also, grinds are a bad part of games. The current problem is, they are trying to remove the grind without knowing what to replace it with or thinking that it just needs removed and nothing else.
Another reason the RMAH is an issue...game security. No games are truly coded to be secured/hardened. Game economy is a fragile thing.
Lastly, to the playing a game for a living thing. Think of it like Vegas. On a given timeline, the house is the only true winner. Trying to make a living off something like an RMAH is like trying to be a professional gambler. Very few make it work. And the ones that do either don't do it for long or do it very slowly. The grinder. Also consider that the game is not like a card game. In these games, the number of players(possible buyers/sellers/suppliers) is volatile and the dealer can change the card names and their values at any time.
Personally I hope RMAH never comes to another game. I think Blizzard blew Diablo 3 in a big way with forced DRM, no pvp at launch and forced simplification just to name a few reasons. As for a sub to play Diablo 3, I know there would be the hardcore Blizzard fans who would lap it up, but anyone with any shred of intellect, or interest in the genral standard of gaming would abandon it. Which frankly, they probably already have, but being buy-2-play nobody really cares because they made their money already and they don't really care if only 1 million people play regularly.
As far as I am concerned, they (Blizzard) have failed just as badly as AoC, SWToR, and all the other flops that sold boxes on empty promises and delivered a broken, contemptible piece of rubbish masquerading as a video game. All in all, I'm happy i let my 9 yr old play my account in violation of the ToS just so I didn't pay for Diablo 3, I felt ripped off getting it for free.
TLDR;
RMAH should be grouped together with 'asian grinder'.... except even the asians didn't want RMAH lol!!
Kinda hard to say 'Diablo 3 is a failure' when it sold 10 Million copies. :P
And only 1.2 Million was through the 1 year WoW pass, so 8.8 million were $$$ purchases.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I never mentioned playing to make a living, I simply would like to make enough to pay for my sub or maybe a few premium features/expansions.
trying to play a game to make a living would be masochistic. Talk about long hours for peanuts. Maybe there would be some guys who "play" the AH. But really, with only consumables selling I don't think there would be much room for playing the AH.
Also, I think people that play D3 for hours on end hoping for the ultimate drop run a fools errand.
I think it would be a different story for consumables that sell hundreds/thousands per day and aren't too hard to accquire, they just take a little extra time to obtain if you don't buy them.
I think that's the key. You have to balance the availability to make the items actually worth something without making them worth too much.
Depends on what you are rating it on. It's a matter of perception. Which, is a very personal thing. Did it make a lot of money? Yep. Did it launch incomplete, flip flop on ideas, and leave a lot of players feeling buyer's remorse over their based on name/reputation purchase? Yes to that one also. The more important aspect is how the latter will affect future sales. Just like how D2 influenced purchases of D3. Which, is a question only the individual can answer and Blizzard won't know until it looks at the bottom line of it's next game.
I didn't buy D3 because I read up and knew what it was. I didn't buy D3 because I'd already been turned off to Blizzard products from other previous products. But, that's me.
In short, only time will tell.
I don't think so, I'm sure the shareholders and business executives consider it a financial success. More importantly to myself and other real gamers is it's critical success, where I believe it could be successfully argued that Diablo 3 is a failure.
So indeed congrats to the marketeers who successfully sold 10 million copies of the worst Diablo-esque (yes, I said it) game of the 21st century.
Insert appropriate pity remarks here - 'majority rules'
' might makes right'
' so many people just can't be wrong!'
I'm sure you get where I'm going.
Ah, I misunderstood. But the point stands. By "paying for your sub", I would guess you meant your WoW sub.
BTW, I have seen other people post things about making a living off playing the RMAH with stars in their eyes. Just like the people stepping off the bus in Hollywood or people selling everything to move to Vegas (sadly...I actually know one of these...he moved back...).
I agree.
On grinding, I have a little different take. I want "grind" in the sense that some things should be hard to get and ranging in rareness. What I hate is having those things available in one place on one MOB. I'd like to see a random factor mixed into a world-wide availability, so you can mix up where you go and be much more entertained while still making it a goal to achieve.
On playing games to make money. I can understand some people's desire for this. But I don't want the game I play, the game world I play in, to be twisted by this. The economy is a big part of the game play for me, and I don't want it screwed up by this huge outside factor. It also draws in "professionals" who add to the mess by using scripts or otherwise grinding 24/7 for stuff to sell, thus adding quantities that throw off values in a supply and demand economy.
On the issue of play-to-win, I consider even buying potions as buying "win". You didn't get those potions in game by making them from resources or by buying them from another player, you paid cash and got an advantage...repeatedly.
I don't even like paying cash for vanity items. That removes the game play of getting that stuff. It makes it widely available too, so there's no rareness control nor any "earned" factor involved.
Cash shops are purely a money grab, and they always affect the game in one way or another. They belong in games that need them because they aren't good enough on their own as a game.
Once upon a time....
There are only two parties that profit (money wise) from RMAH. The company that operates the RMAH and a very small minority of people (I do not call them players intentionally) who use the RMAH as part of their job to make money. It's business for them. They don't play the game, they don't care if the gameplay is fun or not. They work the RMAH for profit.
Personally, I don't need a second job. I want to play a game and not work the RMAH. All those players who think they can make a profit of a RMAH will be disappointed. Unless they change their game time into work time.
Yeah, I can see how it could be buying win with some buff potions. But I have to restate this, the potions don't have to be bought with cash. If you have the time to go out and farm your own mats and craft them then you just buy them with your time. And you actually play the game. Plus, if you care to, you could even try to sell some.
I don't have much problems of players buying from other players with real cash as long as the items aren't epicly powerful. I don't really agree with developers selling their infinite supplies of items though. That would just take any money trading, fake or otherwise, away from the players.
At least with RMAH trading, you know that the items came from someones actual work. And it promotes crafting, and actual gameplay.
Fun fact, Diablo2 only sold 4-5 Million in its lifetime.
So if you are a business and D3 sold twice as much (in what 3 months?), what will D4 be like? Or D3 expansions?
Time will tell but so far, all I'm seeing is 'Yes the public is buying D3 more than D2'.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
There will be players who try to make a living off it. I don't see how anyone is forcing you to make money in the game. If you don't want to try and profit off it then don't.
Why do you get so uptight about it? The game is still there to be played for fun if that's all you care about.
I'm not even talking about D3. I'm talking about the possibility of RMAH in more games.
That's the nice thing about gaming. You can choose how you want to play.
I hope the future of rmah is in the virtual graveyard.
And on it's tombstone you should read :
Here lies one of the worst ideas of gaming history.
May it rest in peace and never be resurrected.
I have no problem with cash shops in games, but I have a huge issue with RMAH models like Diablo 3, where Blizzard is taking a cut of every transaction. I didn't touch D3 because of it, and I would stay away from any other game like it. The issue is that when the developer completely controls the supply of desirable items, they should not be profiting from trading between players.
Now, a RMAH where there was no transaction fee might be a different matter.
That's just what we need. Maybe colleges will begin offering degrees in "Gold Farming".
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I really don't like the idea of RMAH, first of i don't want my real life and my "virtual life" (yes a good mmo is an virtual life for me) to mix like that. It depends a lot on how it's being implied, the Auction house in D3 just made me quit the game, there is no reason for me to spend hours upon hours for me grinding gear if i can just buy it for real money, it makes the endgame pointless. I guess there is plausible ways of including RMAH in a MMO in a good way, but i just can't think of any good examples from any game I've played.
If you make an RMAH where you can just buy cosmetic stuff and such i can actually see a point in it, although i don't think any developer would be happy with letting the players take the money they could have earned by selling those kinds of items in their own shop.
P2W games don't need a RMAH. The items that are sold through the CS are always tradeable to other players. This ensures that the CS can reach the entire player base.
P2P games don't need a RMAH. EVE is the perfect example of how to reward players with their PLEX system.
RMAH has too many drawbacks and blizzard is finding this out the hard way.
I agree. I dont think Titan will have a RMAH. They added the RMAH to D3 because they wanted to find out if it works. But I dont think they are satisfied. A lot of players dont like it. And people spend to much time playing the AH/economy instead of playing the game. I think that is bad for the game long term.
Maybe Titan will have a CS and/or some sort of freemium business model. But no RMAH...
I like it too.
The key is that finally a player, like me, can SELL items. And this will avoid gold inflation, because the currency is real and pecked to real value in the world.
The D3 RMAH has problems like not able to search for more than 3 stats, a price floor of commodity that is inefficient.
However, all are fixable, and the core concept is good.
I don't think it is an issue if some players are spending more time in the AH than fighting mobs. It is playing the game either way.