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

"

Ragnar119 wrote:

"

Tagek wrote:

Ofcourse, they implement it to make a profit. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying there are other motives besides making a profit for them to implement this system. And really, if you'd think about it for a while longer then you'd see it really won't bring them any amount of money that even begins to compare to game sales or wow profits. But enough of this.

The thing is, that they saw that people are selling on other sites, so they wanted a part of the cake. That's the reason for implementing RMHA, it's not to stop gold famers per se, but to get income from it.

"

Tagek wrote:

You really don't understand how item selling works.

A goldfarm is a company, generally driven by a couple of people. I'd say if you assume 50 employees per company that's a very high end assumption, but I'll assume it right now anyway. So 1 company that has it's own prices, has 50 employees farming for them. The more items a company has available, the lower the prices.
Since the company only has 50 people working for them, they can only bring in a limited amount of items in a certain amount of time. For example: In diablo 2 you often saw that item farming websites never really had more than 5 pieces of a particular item at the same time.
The RMAH, however, Is basically a company too.
Except this company is driven not by 50 employees, but by several million employees. The employees in this case being the players who play the game and sell and buy items from the auction house.
When the RMAH has that much more employees than another company, it will have many more items available than the illegal websites. This results in it having a lower price (again, following basic economics, more goods = lower price) and thus the RMAH will always have lower prices than Illegal websites.

So yes, illegal websites can still try to sell items, but you'd have to be one hell of an idiot to buy something illegally and for double the money when it's available legally for a normal price.

I was not thinking on sites, so sorry I misread it.
Your logic would be good, if there was only 1 site that sells items, so they can keep the prices up, but that was not the case.
Also the RMHA employers how you call them, don't sell items only, they also buy items. Where illegal sites only sell items. There will be no lower prices, if there is high demand for items, because they don't only sell items, but also buy them.
And the last thing, I don't know why you think that illegal sites would sell more expensive items than on RMHA. They will sell items depending from diamond, but because of RMHA limitation it will be much more cheaper to sell it on sites.

I'm Tired of replying to your 'arguments' based on non existent facts, so I'll stop after this but :

Every differnt gold farmer company is a different company, but in d2 there were only a few trusted ones that everyone used, that is what this applies to.
Also, they most definetely did buy items, I guess you haven't really investigated those sites.

Again, you don't seem to understand basic economics.
If they only have a few items at a time, it means they have to sell them for a lot of money otherwise it was wasted effort. The RMAH will have thousands of items at the same time, thus lowering overall prices. It's not hard to understand.

Again though, I'm tired of explaining this if you just take everything I say and counter it with things that simply aren't true. Good day to you sir.

"

protolight wrote:

"

Tagek wrote:

If you take a 1.25 dollar posting fee

but there also will be additional fixed fee if the item is sold.

Nope, they no longer have posting fees. Just a transaction fee of roughly that amount.

"

Tagek wrote:

^

You can retrieve your earned money through paypal (or whatever other pay-out services), so it's not a money only goes in kind of system

Quoted from the D3-FAQ:


If I read that correctly, I would have to choose after the auction if I want my winnings deposited on my battle.net-account or directly paid out to, say, PayPal? And once they are deposited to my battle.net-account, I cannot cash them out any more, it seems to say.
And that Blizzard (and PayPal) will charge on those chash-outs.

Sheesh.

(and that's still discounting the fact that I don't trust in PayPal -which, by the by and totally unrelated- is also the reason I still don't have a silver supporter pack. I'd love to get one, but both PayPal and CCs are not really the method of choice for money transfers here).

"

Avireyn wrote:

"

Tagek wrote:

^

You can retrieve your earned money through paypal (or whatever other pay-out services), so it's not a money only goes in kind of system

Quoted from the D3-FAQ:

Spoiler

"[A]s an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. "Cashing out" would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account."

If I read that correctly, I would have to choose after the auction if I want my winnings deposited on my battle.net-account or directly paid out to, say, PayPal? And once they are deposited to my battle.net-account, I cannot cash them out any more, it seems to say.
And that Blizzard (and PayPal) will charge on those chash-outs.

Sheesh.

(and that's still discounting the fact that I don't trust in PayPal -which, by the by and totally unrelated- is also the reason I still don't have a silver supporter pack. I'd love to get one, but both PayPal and CCs are not really the method of choice for money transfers here).

This is true, but money is still never really stuck on your battle-net account even if you didn't choose to cash out. You could simply use the battle-net money to buy an item that's posted for a fairly low price for example, and resell it for more. Then you can choose to have that money transferred to paypal or whatever.

Ofcourse, if you don't like paypal this is not that great a system for you, but this refers to internet payments in general.

"

Tagek wrote:

This is true, but money is still never really stuck on your battle-net account even if you didn't choose to cash out. You could simply use the battle-net money to buy an item that's posted for a fairly low price for example, and resell it for more. Then you can choose to have that money transferred to paypal or whatever.

Ofcourse, if you don't like paypal this is not that great a system for you, but this refers to internet payments in general.

That's a good idea *nod* Assuming you have something worth selling and someone willing to buy. But I think only time will tell how viable that is (and, in fact, how much money can be made by selling in-game goods).

There's definitely a market there (in WoW, there are people selling duped mounts atm, and they *still* go for 400-800€ (roughly about 500-1,000 US$?).

But still, I'm a purist at heart, and I don't like real money being involved in ingame purchases in any way. Didn't like duping in Diablo, hated botting/duping in Diablo II, and the last thing I personally want is a sanctioned RMAH in Diablo III. But, as I said, that's personal preference.

Anyhow, thanks for the info. It's always good to know how things work, even if I don't like them.

"

Avireyn wrote:

"

Tagek wrote:

This is true, but money is still never really stuck on your battle-net account even if you didn't choose to cash out. You could simply use the battle-net money to buy an item that's posted for a fairly low price for example, and resell it for more. Then you can choose to have that money transferred to paypal or whatever.

Ofcourse, if you don't like paypal this is not that great a system for you, but this refers to internet payments in general.

That's a good idea *nod* Assuming you have something worth selling and someone willing to buy. But I think only time will tell how viable that is (and, in fact, how much money can be made by selling in-game goods).

There's definitely a market there (in WoW, there are people selling duped mounts atm, and they *still* go for 400-800€ (roughly about 500-1,000 US$?).

But still, I'm a purist at heart, and I don't like real money being involved in ingame purchases in any way. Didn't like duping in Diablo, hated botting/duping in Diablo II, and the last thing I personally want is a sanctioned RMAH in Diablo III. But, as I said, that's personal preference.

Anyhow, thanks for the info. It's always good to know how things work, even if I don't like them.

No, you have money on your bnet account, and ofcourse there will be items you can buy. That was the point I was making.
And yeah, sure, A lot of people would like no real money purchases in games like this. But the reality is, they will be there. Blizzard knows this, and any reasonable person knows this. So they might as well help everyone out by creating a solid system, that also helps them fund their stuff. That's how I view it anyway.

EDIT: np. :P

"

Tagek wrote:

"

Nachash wrote:

Tagek, as one of the most ardent (and generally reasonable) D3 supporters around, I'd be interested to get your take on one of the elements that seems to be missing from this discussion (admittedly I haven't read all 66pgs.), namely, the difference in mood/atmosphere of the two games.

For me, this is what killed D3 and what makes PoE so appealing. D1 was all about the dark macabre atmosphere, something that PoE lives up to quite nicely (dead babies anyone?). D3, on the other hand, seems to have washed out all of the darkness and sinister brutality. Characters seem like superheroes out to destroy equally comic-bookesque villains. The horror is gone. For me, every other element of gameplay could be amazing, but without the sinister macabre atmosphere it just isn't worth playing.

Any thoughts?

First of all thanks for the semi-compliment. ^^

Secondly, I do believe we have discussed this in the thread, but I don't blame you for not reading all 66 pages. :P

I don't feel this way. You could argue the graphics changed the atmosphere, and I definetely can see why you feel like that even if I love the current graphics.

However, the horror is definetely not gone from the game.
If you take a closer look at footage from the game there are still plenty of horror elements. I have seen people hanging from trees, people exploding and turning into zombies, and plenty of corpses lying around.
I'm sure there'll be plenty of disturbing things in the final game as well.


I also feel like the characters are actually very believable. The barbarian is a huge guy, but that's logical, he's a barbarian (and one of the strongest, at that), just like the marauder is huge.

The witchdocter looks exactly like a player version of the guys from ACT 3 in d2, which I personally love.

The character that shows the most believability for me is
the monk.
He's the exact opposite of what you would expect a male melee fighter to look like. He looks sleek and fit, but in no way bulky or extra muscular.
So yeah, I think the characters look great and very believable. (And the monsters I've seen so far looked great as well)

I don't know Tagek, I think we have a difference of opinion when it comes to the realism of the D3 characters and the animation of their abilities...but as to the atmosphere, I think one has to look too hard to find the horror and sinister that jumps out and grabs you in PoE. The darkness of the world should be ubiquitous, saturating every part of the universe. That was certainly true of D1 and PoE, but not from what I've seen and read of D3. That doesn't mean D3 will be a "bad game," it just doesn't hold my interest and lacks the spirit of Diablo. I'm sure the Torchlight series is great gameplay but I've never been interested in it because of the cartoony atmosphere. Granted, D3 isn't as cartoony but definitely isn't as dark and gothic as it should have been.

I still feel like there's a lot of horror elements in D3.
Also, if you watch the video I linked in an earlier post you can see a great explanation for the current style.
This style is very clear, while POE still makes me lose track of my character once in a while.
That's not to say either one is good or bad, but I think there's a definite place for both of them, and I applaud blizzard for actually trying something new instead of 'copying the clones of it's own game' so to speak.

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.

Also, I feel like it's very difficult to do a proper next-gen upgrade of diablo 2's art style.
POE has a cool artstyle, but it's nowhere near as awesome as diablo 2's was at the time. To me, just the poor resolution and pixel quantity is also part of the charm of that game's graphics. Blizzard did actually go for a much more realistic style at first, but they found it didn't work out quite as good.