D3 to introduce micro transactions

[IskatuMesk]

(e: for whatever reason that photobucket image is gone, but there's plenty of others floating around. Anyways, here's a video.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ir6zrHXuO0&feature=player_embedded#at=212

I am still not 100% convinced it's real but it looks genuine so far.

Commence the loling.

Also note the big, puffy, casual/console-friendly buttons.

[Theia_Loki]

They should've just limited it to in-game currency. Sounds alright and legit, but we'll wait and see anyways. It's not even specific about whether characters can be sold, which is a big no in my books.

[IskatuMesk]

I'm pretty sure it's legit now. I'm seeing info from NDA-released Q&A's pop up all over. On side notes, they circumsized the skill system and the graphics have not changed since they announced it. It's basically Mythos now.

[DrumsofWar]

It's not a bad idea. Blizzard learned the hard way you can't stop the gaming black market so they decided to make money off it.

[IskatuMesk]

Oh, no, don't get me wrong. It's a very smart business move. Don't bother fighting the chinese gold farmers, just make money off of them. It makes perfect logical sense. Of course, the metagame and economy will be a total wreck but Blizzard has never given two fucks about that to begin with so why now?

[Ricky_Honejasi]

With this (that even includes characters to sell) on top of enforcing online play (can't play offline at all in D3, not even with occasional online checkups like SC2), I am afraid it's ridiculously clear that Blizzard sold themselves out. Their auction house is too open and blatant to abuse (Chinese gold farmers will rule the AH) even if we forget their cash cow hunger.

Also, it seems their upcoming D3 beta is in reality a D3 DEMO beta that just lasts a single hour or so as well. The only thing they can potentially test is hardware compatibility and pretty much nothing else.

[Falchion]

As you predicted, Mesk. Blizzard fucked up the last straw of decent gaming Diablo was.

Coming soon, Summer 2012: IskatuMesk and the Diablo III ranting- I mean, review.

Battle.Net 2.0 becomes Money_Bloodsucking_Tick_Master.Net 2.0.

[Lavarinth]

Makes sense to me, just because I only play Hardcore.

[DrumsofWar]

Oh, no, don't get me wrong. It's a very smart business move. Don't bother fighting the chinese gold farmers, just make money off of them. It makes perfect logical sense. Of course, the metagame and economy will be a total wreck but Blizzard has never given two fucks about that to begin with so why now?

Well, Blizzard seems to be foisting off everything on their players - file hosting bandwidth, game footage publicity, gameplay wiki documentation, content creation. Maybe if they let the players set prices, it won't be as horrible.

[IskatuMesk]

Seeing as how bad the economies are in their existing games, and the presence of not one but two auction houses (One gold and one moneys), I expect a total clusterfuck, especially when the botters and gold farmers get a hold of it.

Also, Blizzard attaches flat fees to everything, so basically no matter which way the economy flails around they'll still be cashing in. It's pretty much win-win for them.

[UntamedLoli]

Yeah, Blizzard and the 3rd party is making money on every transaction that runs through it. Websites that go around this will still be very popular simply because they can cut out the middleman. It's been stated in their FAQ that if there wasn't limitations to making their RMT AH global because of laws they wouldn't have a gold based AH. Can't wait for the government to catch on and tax everything.

All those bots running around D2 will jump on D3 and break it as much as they did they D2 because of the shit drop system. Extreme rarity of upper end items pushes people into botting that want to be able to compete in PVP or simply have the best.

Modding also got the final nail in its coffin, D3 will essentially be an MMO client meaning even if you could mod it you would need a custom server to do anything.

[Krazy]

Just wait til they take a feather from the hat of edgebee.com and make you pay to pick up the loot of the monster you just killed.

[DrumsofWar]

Yeah, Blizzard and the 3rd party is making money on every transaction that runs through it. Websites that go around this will still be very popular simply because they can cut out the middleman. It's been stated in their FAQ that if there wasn't limitations to making their RMT AH global because of laws they wouldn't have a gold based AH. Can't wait for the government to catch on and tax everything.

All those bots running around D2 will jump on D3 and break it as much as they did they D2 because of the shit drop system. Extreme rarity of upper end items pushes people into botting that want to be able to compete in PVP or simply have the best.

Modding also got the final nail in its coffin, D3 will essentially be an MMO client meaning even if you could mod it you would need a custom server to do anything.

Well, it was almost a foregone conclusion D3 was going to be WoW Lite. Blizzard's not going to spend 4 years working on a game they can't continually make money off of for the next 4 years.

If they were half smart though, they'd just turn D3 into some horrible MMO DotA clone and drop micropayment perks everywhere; gamers now are going to be a lot less patient grinding for stuff in a self-contained game than they were when Diablo II came out.

[UntamedLoli]

Gamers are not getting more impatient, that's a pile of bullshit. They keep trying to design them around non-gamers and makes it worse for everyone because they try to fit everyone togther.

[IskatuMesk]

If they were half smart though, they'd just turn D3 into some horrible MMO DotA clone and drop micropayment perks everywhere; gamers now are going to be a lot less patient grinding for stuff in a self-contained game than they were when Diablo II came out.

wat?

People are not getting impatient, it's just that blizzard has seen a minority community in d2 dealing with forum money that has real world value and wants all that money going through them instead (D2JSP). D2's drop rates were bullshit but WoW completely throws your grind argument out the window and onto the street, much less every other, even more grindry MMO still very much alive.