

Diablo III real-money action house finally goes live - unstoppableted
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/13/diablo-iii-real-money-action-house-live/

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jlarocco
I'm a bit disappointed with D3 so far. Everything about the game just seems
setup to squeeze money out of people.

For example, in D2 the skills you chose were a crucial component of how well
you did later in the game. You could create a build with relatively crap
equipment who could do well later in the game based on their skills. But in D3
skills don't matter and everything is based on equipment - and you can buy
equipment for real money and give Blizzard a cut.

Also, it doesn't seem big enough. I got my first character through normal in
something like 3 days. And then I'm repeating the same old thing. It was 11
years between the release of D2's expansion and Diablo 3. I know they have
other games, but they could have spent a little more time making the world
bigger. My guess is they start selling service packs. They know people will
buy them, so why not?

I'm enjoying it, and I'll probably play one character up to 60 and try out the
others, but I just can't see myself playing it like I did D2.

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arkitaip
It's embarrassing that D3 is the result of 11 years of development. It's one
of the most unoriginal, badly written, cynical and frustrating games I've
played in many years. I'm at the very end of the damn thing (final boss,
Normal) only I can't really bother to finish it because it's too repetitive.

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psweber
I've enjoyed a lot about the game, but I agree with you about the story. I
suffered through all the dialogue in normal mode. Franticly clicking the X on
all the conversations in nightmare mode has made the game much more bearable.

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arkitaip
What happens after you beat Diablo? Do you start from the very beginning with
the same hero as before? Because my guy is a ~30 wizard and it's got to be
pretty difficult to get to a higher level on Normal.

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dmoy
Yes. You beat the game on a character in Normal, after getting to like ~30 or
whatever (dunno, made up number). Then you can play through again from the
beginning doing the exact same thing, with tougher monsters, in Nightmare.
Beat nightmare and you're at 40~50 or whatever. Repeat again on Hell, at which
point you're probably 60. Repeat again on inferno.

So basically you play the same game over and over again.

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Caballera
Yeah, I started playing about 2 weeks ago.. played every class to 20, but
played my Monk to 32 and finished 'Normal' mode. Was disappointed that the
road to 60 is paved by going through the same content again, just a little bit
harder. You would think after 11 years they would have been able to release a
complete game.

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timdorr
It sounds to me like you never played Diablo 2. The basis of that game was
repeating through the same content (albeit with randomly generated maps) in
search of better and better gear. This mechanic hasn't fundamentally changed
in Diablo 3.

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tomflack
I feel it has fundamentally changed with the removal of the skill tree.
Instead of making choices and ending up with a semi-unique character, I can
change my skills at any time.

My character isn't "mine" any more. The only real way to progress is to grind
for loot now. Or pay someone for it. (something my friends and I never did in
d2)

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kmontrose
A good chunk of runes aren't available at 30, and you only have the full set
at 60.

I know that my skill set changed pretty radically on subsequent difficulty
levels, the same tactics didn't work terribly well.

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tomflack
Once you max out you're the same as every other character of that class.

In D2 I'll admit the skill tree had some severe flaws, but it allowed unique
customization to an extent.

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Anderkent
I don't see how 'I skilled and use these skills, they skilled and use those
skills' is that different to 'I use these skills, they use these skills'.
Except for experimenting with own builds is much easier now, so the motivation
for following a cookie cutter build is weaker.

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cnbeuiwx
Diablo 3 is a lot better than I expected. Its a lot of fun bashing mobs in co-
op mode with your friends. While its the same maps on all difficulty levels,
there are random mobs and encounters quite often, and it never gets old
finding nice items to sell on AH.

The only problem is that inferno is too difficult at the moment. Patch 1.03
will adjust the monster damage by about 25%. Right now, you cant kill elites
with a melee character. In fact, you die to normal mobs very often because of
their huge damage output. So people stay on Hell and play that content
instead, which is not really intended. Inferno is supposed to be hard but
doable, not impossible. Right now only ranged characters with the best gear
can play that difficulty level.

Overall, I love the game and will play it for many more weeks or even months.
I will never use the real money AH though. :)

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Fuzzwah
Successfully recouped the cost of buying the game by selling off a few items
I'd picked up on my way to lvl 60.

I'm glad I did this early into the real money auction house, as I can't see
how the whole econ won't crash due to the fact that there is constant growth
of the amount of gold and items in the system.

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aparadja
I wonder if arbitrage trading is anywhere as feasible with the real-money
auction house as with the play-money one. So far, I have probably spent more
time in the auction house than in the game itself, buying low and selling
high.

Currently, you need to find a way to bypass the auction search result caching
and have a reaction time of about 5 seconds to grab the really good deals.

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mathgladiator
I wonder how well this will do considering myself and all the people I know
that were playing have basically stopped as we got bored in Hell.

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1123581321
Only inferno-level items will have value as anything else is too common.
Player use of it will have a similar curve to online poker in that it's a
zero-sum game at high levels fed by a low-level casual group of players that
is incapable of making money and occasionally makes purchases.

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bobbles
Does blizzard have a way of increasing the drop rate of items around those
players who they can see are more likely to use the real money auction house?

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1123581321
If anything they would decrease the drop rate. They do not need to encourage
sellers.

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sudonim
Why not fix the typo in the original article's headline?

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anigbrowl
'Action house'? sounds exciting!

