Diablo II, in celebration for Diablo III! [Archive]

u-gotNOgame

2011-07-07, 01:16 PM

factotum

2011-07-07, 02:47 PM

I finished Hell mode several times with different characters...haven't played the game in ages, though.

ObadiahtheSlim

2011-07-07, 02:59 PM

Necro with lots of skeletons and his golem. Corpse explosion is your friend for all those darn rezzing types.

Starsign

2011-07-07, 03:35 PM

There was a long running group here on GitP for Diablo II. Unfortunately it went away some time ago. I still occasionally but only on hardcore mode as softcore has lost a lot of luster. I've yet to restart on this ladder, but in my eyes going with a lightning javazon then respecing into a "fishyzon" (Lightning fury + cold bow skills) is probably not only the safest build I've ever played, but also the fastest; even on hardcore where it pays to be a little more cautious.
Summoners of both the Druidic and Necronic are fun to play even a pure passive Amazon can be great. The most fun I've ever had was probably my Angel ( Vengence paladin that uses salvation instead of conviction). I've had a Hammerdin every ladder, but since their nerf they seem to have gone out of style. If you're playing on Non-ladder I probably have some softcore gear holdovers I can gift onto you. Let me know on here and once I get my new wireless mouse for my laptop I can hop on and maybe play a bit.

-UGNG
A "fishyzon"? Could you go more in detail on how it works please?

And I'd be up for playing with you, however I don't think I'll need special equipment, at least not yet. :smallwink:

Necro with lots of skeletons and his golem. Corpse explosion is your friend for all those darn rezzing types.
Classic isn't it? :smalltongue:

...I should play a barbarian sometime, I don't think I've ever touched one that's gone past Act 1.

Shpadoinkle

2011-07-07, 05:06 PM

Barbarians always seemed like kind of a lackluster class to me, but I enjoyed them more than I enjoyed amazons or sorceresses. Mostly though, I played necromancers, druids, and paladins, with necromancers as my favorite. Not enough games let you be an evil overlord yourself.

I played mostly online due to the problems summoners had in a lot of areas before synergies were introduced (Act 2 was nightmarish).

The biggest problem I have with the game's community is that 99% of the guides and advice and such assume you're rushing everything, only doing the required quests, and have access to every piece of equipment in the game at all levels. The fact that spambots were everywhere helped me make my decision to stop playing. I've still got the disks around somewhere but I haven't felt like reinstalling it in some time. On the rare occasions I was able to find a group that didn't want to just instantly rush the act boss and get to Hell so they can level grind I really enjoyed the game. Those were pretty rare occasions, though...

u-gotNOgame

2011-07-07, 05:47 PM

Corpse Explosion can become sort of a crutch... The skeletons don't really matter after the first kill, and to me it becomes less fun.

As for the fishyzon (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=464188), heres the thing the first guide I saw that I'm following a bit. It's really just a lightning fury zon that dips into frozen arrow for lightning immunes and added safety. She runs great and I've never really had any close calls at all on Hardcore.

Barbarians are great party charecters but I've not experimented with them as soloers. I built a singer (http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=58462) that was tons of fun, but nothing past that.

If you're reading guides on places like GameFAQs or d2jsp that's your first problem. I would recommend the amazon basin as a place to get not only interesting but very applicable builds. The main thing I would say is that regardless of whether you have high end gear or not a good build is a good build and with some patience you can make it work.

-UGNG

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-07, 05:55 PM

There were a couple of builds I really enjoyed...

Paladin Avenger (vengeance/conviction), although I needed to Zeal a lot to keep myself healthy, rather than using vengeance. Used an Insight Prayer Merc for extra healing and mana regen, since Vengeance is a very (and probably the ONLY) mana-intensive build for a paladin.

The other was a Necromancer Minionmancer. The skeletons were icing on the cake, although they got pretty darn nasty. The golem was a passable meat shield, even at higher levels. But the level 30 minion ability was the nasty one, since their stats went up as the difficulty went up. Sure, they're temporary, but they didn't need to be forever, as long as I kept killing stuff.

Minionmancer has a problem with a lack of damage output. He needs to be paired up with someone to truly shine. A Paladin of any sort that has an aura out makes him 10x nastier. And with the Life Steal curse, you act as a viable healer for your other player as well.

Paladin/Necro combo was what me and my friend used to take down Hell with ease. I stood up and beat down and buffed his minions. He kept me going and swung nerf bats at opponents. It worked out surprisingly well.

nooblade

2011-07-07, 06:13 PM

I'd rather just play D2 for the sake of playing D2, if at all. Diablo in particular always seemed like the "graphical slaughterfest with a side of story" implementation of really cool Roguelike ideas that have been around for much longer. But I like the surprise that sometimes comes with the cynical attitude toward these things.

The biggest problem I have with the game's community is that 99% of the guides and advice and such assume you're rushing everything, only doing the required quests, and have access to every piece of equipment in the game at all levels. The fact that spambots were everywhere helped me make my decision to stop playing. I've still got the disks around somewhere but I haven't felt like reinstalling it in some time. On the rare occasions I was able to find a group that didn't want to just instantly rush the act boss and get to Hell so they can level grind I really enjoyed the game. Those were pretty rare occasions, though...

Actually some D2 communities are prone to giving away a lot of stuff for free to anyone who knows where to go to ask. Yeah, the lack of anything to do with mid-grade loot you don't need leads to silly charity, and then explodes into some pretty wild begging on battle.net. I've met some really hot-headed, seedy-mannered beggars, hehe. But you don't even need tweaking equipment to play the game fast anymore, the re-specialization system in later patches allows you to handle the early game quite easily now with one or two builds per class that will get you into Nightmare close enough to ASAP.

Nevertheless, I've met a dozen or so people who like all stages of the game and aren't afraid to slow down. Even, I think, people who want to obsessively explore the unnecessary areas in Normal like Stony Tomb or Swampy Pit.

My favorite class... The toxic/Lightning Fury Javazon was fun. UGNG's Fishyzon is nice, but zons only really need one point in freezing arrow and a bow stuffed with Perfect Sapphires for really good freezing even in hell, so it doesn't feel like I'm losing anything there. But I like all the other classes for their fun features. Leaper Barbarians were probably my favorite, the Barbarian crying and leaping are really comical to me. I have a tendency to like using skills for damage and fun rather than going for itamz.

I never did do much PvP, but eh. Organizing a low-loot group or getting into dupes or farming for enough equipment never seemed worth it to me, nor did going in as an underdog. And the PvP game worlds and the pvpers were usually on the absurd side. But if I ever play again, I think I'd want to try the low-gear, underdog PvP approach. That or an end-of-the-ladder hardcore slaughter competition would be fun too, but I'm guessing it would be sparsely populated.

Starsign

2011-07-07, 06:17 PM

u-gotNOgame

2011-07-07, 08:15 PM

Oh wow, you went through Hardcore on all three difficulties with that build? :smalleek: Is there a build for a Druid that focuses on Hurricane/Tornado and summons?

...Actually would that be called Winsummruid? :smalltongue:

Both of them actually. Never had any problems on the Zon since I ran her with max block and a nice T-gods that I found using the singer. The singer has problems with act bosses since his DPS is based around hitting lots of targets at once and stun locking them and you don't do either against bosses. One point in berserk and a huge weapon on switch + Merc saw those engagements go in my favor though.

I've mostly seen those kinds of Druids called hybrid druids since they use a bit of two drastically separate tree's.

-UGNG

nooblade

2011-07-07, 08:26 PM

Oh! Another good build is the Shockbear Summoner (http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=78403). If you don't think that sounds awesome, you have no soul. Plus it's pretty darn fun to stun the things that your minions are attacking rather than the more indirect approach taken by the necromancer. In the stunning-department it's a little bit like UGNG's Singer barbarian, but it doesn't do damage that way.

Windy druids will often get a summoned grizzly, I believe, but it's more of a tank. AFAIK. Who wants to spend points on wolfy damage when you have a setup for windy spam? Or vice-versa. IMHO, it doesn't combine as well. I think the hybrid builds are usually a Kodiak (http://www.theamazonbasin.com/d2/forums/index.php?showtopic=65948) variant, you have a lot of leftover skillpoints to work with when you pursue the bearmash fighting route.

Starsign

2011-07-07, 08:28 PM

Both of them actually. Never had any problems on the Zon since I ran her with max block and a nice T-gods that I found using the singer. The singer has problems with act bosses since his DPS is based around hitting lots of targets at once and stun locking them and you don't do either against bosses. One point in berserk and a huge weapon on switch + Merc saw those engagements go in my favor though.

I've mostly seen those kinds of Druids called hybrid druids since they use a bit of two drastically separate tree's.

-UGNG

Ah, right then. Might you be able to find a guide for a hybrid Druid that focuses on Hurricane and summons for me please? I'm not very extensive on the good Diablo II forums :smallredface:

Winthur

2011-07-08, 07:41 AM

I kind of wanted to play an untwinked softcore werebear, but I don't know where do you guys play and whether will you want to play with other startup characters.

nooblade

2011-07-08, 11:47 AM

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-08, 04:13 PM

Ahh, I remember my favourite build being a necromancer minionmancer, though after replaying through Diablo I as a rogue(and I just played through DI:The Hell as a mage, so I've had my share of casters for now) a while ago, I've got a hankering for some bowazon goodness.

Count me in. Will we organise times to log on ahead of time, what server, and we have a channel, apparantly? Those are details. We need those.

Starsign

2011-07-08, 04:20 PM

Well I'd be up as well. I'm probably one of the few in a million who actually likes using the Druid the most :smalltongue: Though if we'll be playing as a team I'm unsure if a Wind Summonruid would be good around hell difficulty...

BTW, are we using voice chat or not for it? I'd rather not as I'm a little sensitive of my voice... :smalleek:

Starwulf

2011-07-08, 07:17 PM

I guess I'll play too. A few hours a week can't hurt, right? I dunno at what times though. I'm open on Fridays for sure and also the weekends.

I'm not quite sure what I want to play yet, but I'll probably want to try something new. Maybe a kicker or spearazon.

Oh, and I found something sad while browsing the AB forums. It turns out that the hunger skill usually cuts attack speed in half! So the Kodiak is diminished, drat. That was one of the builds I dropped off after getting to level 30 or so and never resumed it.

Edit: Usually, we meet in the op Gitp channel, my account name is *nooblade, I'm currently on USEast, and am I forgetting anything?

Wow. It must be nice to be able to say there are builds you still haven't tried in Diablo 2. I miss those days, lol. I guess that's what happens when you spent the first 4 years of the games life playing 6-8 hours a day, every day, and then playing off and on ever since(just picked it up and put it back down about 8 months ago or so). I was always partial to a Bone Necro, I remember being a Spear/Spirit Necro back in the days before it was buffed(ie: Spear was like 2-300 damage or less, spirit was around 4-600 damage). I always felt like a unique little snowflake, Necros were few, and the other ones were always summon necros, or corpse exploders.

Sorcs are always fun for me ^^ I was one of the original Hydra-Sorcs as well(Hydra Sorc and Bone Necro being my two primary characters), back before Hydras were buffed as well. God it took forever trying to kill major creatures, but it was so much fun hanging around the bottom of the screen and just throwing up Hydras, then when they got near, teleporting near my hydras and letting them spew fire at the enemy all over again.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-08, 09:56 PM

Yea, Hydra/Orb sorceress was a hell of a lot of fun, although Hell difficulty swung a pretty hefty nerf bat at it when you run across fire/ice immunes.

Then again, that's why my Avenger paladin is so well liked... immunities? You don't need no stinkin' immunities.

EternalMelon

2011-07-08, 10:06 PM

I used to play a lot on my Tesla din, but got stuck on nightmare Durial. Durial is by far the hardest boss in the game, and I don't feel like grinding my way up to his level. But I do occasionally do Baal runs on /Players 8 now and again(I play singleplayer, can't connect to b-net) Its gotten to the point where I click and hold my left mouse button on Baal (fake Baal isn't targeted by holding the mouse, and he can't blink.) and then reading a book while checking on my full health, a potion or two to kill him is all I need.

I stoped playing because my Pally, like I said, was stuck in act II, and playing a Tesladin spoiled mobs for me, Its not fun to play a class that can't kill all the minions on the screen at once without clicking.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-08, 10:18 PM

EternalMelon

2011-07-08, 10:20 PM

Until you run into Lightning Immune mobs and suddenly get turned into a greasy stain...

Lightning/Physical/Ice/Fire Immunes you mean. Vengence/Zeal is fun. :smallbiggrin:

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-08, 11:10 PM

Lightning/Physical/Ice/Fire Immunes you mean. Vengence/Zeal is fun. :smallbiggrin:

Haven't run into anything with all four immunities up. Vengeance and Zeal are both combat abilities, you can't use both at the same time. Now Vengeance and Conviction on the other hand... because Conviction busts immunities, you're guaranteed to do damage. But you can't have Conviction up at the same time as Holy Shock.

It's the one downside of Tesladins, 90% of their damage is from Holy Shock. Against lightning immune, they have to switch to something else. Generally, the backup is Zeal + Conviction, so that they can even bust through physical immunities. But their damage output is severely nerfed compared to their normal damage output.

EternalMelon

2011-07-08, 11:20 PM

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-09, 12:02 AM

Zeal is used get as many hits in as possible, more tesla hits= more damage. A single point in vengeance is my counter vs immunes, since it scales well with salvation, (I think that's what it's called... Lvl 30 all resistance aura.) because of synergys. And my main draw isn't damage, my zeal-adin was better at that, it's the fact that EVERYTHING dies on the screen from you being there. The damage output of 5 hit crushing blow and 4K lightning damage per hit doesn't hurt.

I think we have a slight confusion here...

Zeal + Holy Shock = Tesladin.

Vengance + Conviction = Avenger.

Salvation grants a piddling 2% to each of the three elements. Unless you go Conviction, you still have the problem of your opponents being Lightning Immune (a bigger and bigger problem as you advance through Nightmare and into Hell).

By the time you get to Hell, you're now running into random mooks with random immunities, random 'named' have at least two immunities, and 'bosses' can occasionally have three. Any named also gives their immunities to their Minions. Meaning if you have a Lightning Immune named, all the minions are also immune to your pulsing. Which means you just got shut down.

The only way to counter this is to switch to something other than Holy Shock for your right click ability. Which generally means an Aura of some kind. So you either want Fanaticism to go with your Zeal for even more melee damage output (assuming opponents aren't also Physical Immune), or Salvation if opponents are largely Undead, or Conviction (to bust through immunities, and drop defense values).

However, a Tesladin with a single point in Vengance isn't going to be doing *NEAR* the damage that an Avenger with 3/4 of his points put into the three elemental resists and Vengance is going to do. And avengers are not noted for their raw damage output, although they are respected for putting at least *SOME* damage on ANYTHING they meet (due to conviction busting immunities).

So I stand by my statement that your damage output significantly drops against lightning immune mobs, which become more and more prevalent as you get into Hell.

Granted, Tesladins make Normal seem like a joke (well, you start off as a Scorchadin, then a Frostadin, then when you hit level 16, you become an official Tesladin), and even most of the way through Nightmare they pretty much do what you describe: everything on the screen simply falls over by virtue of you being on the screen. But when you get to Hell... it's a *VERY* different ballgame.

EternalMelon

2011-07-09, 12:20 AM

Aha, no. Your wrong. But not in an argumental ame war inducing way. I do know the difference between an avenger and a tesladin. Vengeance was a backup plan. Also, like I said, im stuck in nightmare, maybe my poor build kept me there, but it had one large shining pro: it was fun. I understand that tesladins are not viable in hell, I never said they were, and I certainly agree that they are problematic in hell. (but is the immune minions thing true? I thought hey only had heightened resistances) but as a gamer, I build for windy it I want, fun, and fun now. I commemorate and praise you for getting to hell (something I've done only once) and having your builds based around beating it. In fact, you and every one else who has gotten there are a far suppurior player then me. And I'm no trying to change your mind, just posting an opinion I hope others share: tesladins are fun and hilarios to play in normal and nightmare. Maybe this cleared some things up.

Sorry for my attrocious grammar and spelling, it's 1 am and I typed this with my thumbs on a mobile.

nosignal

2011-07-09, 12:58 AM

Tesladins are decent in Hell if you stack up on Crushing Blow items(on yourself or A2 merc) and pump your remaining skill points into Zeal and its synergy for physical damage. Depends a bit on the items you have access too as well, as some of the end-game Runewords trivialize Hell. Infinity, in particular, is a game breaker for lightning-based characters.

Prince Gimli

2011-07-09, 09:26 AM

Single Player musings:
I have made the run through Hell with a Frozen Orb/Fireball Sorceress in Single Player. A few NM Baal runs and a few lucky drops and gambles (Wizardspike from some random monster in the Black Marsh of A1 Hell, +2 Sorc slvl and +19 res all rare circlet after only a few gambling attempts) helped a lot.

For those who like something different from laddering I suggest taking a look at
the Diablo incgamers Single Player Forum (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3).

I vastly prefer playing the entire game from A to Z over rushing and then grinding endless Baal/Pit/Meph runs. I do a few Mephisto runs with sorceress on ocassion for those characters which I play twinked. I use ATMA to mule between characters. It gives an endless stash and the ability to transfer items between characters without needing to connect two computers over TCP/IP. Also, it works much easier than muling between B.net realm characters.

In my opinion, Multiplayer has the large advantage of single-element builds being viable, for one pretty much needs to either find a way to break immunities (amplify damage/decrepify from items for physical for example) or deal damage of two different elements to be able to deal with immunes at a reasonable pace.
Another advantage is that playing with friends is simply fun :smallsmile: .

So if there is going to be a new Gitp group I'm up for it. Have we decided on a realm yet? If not, I suggest US East, the realm where Gitp resided in the good ol' days.

Starsign

2011-07-09, 09:58 AM

Ah wow, a number of people here like using Hydra for the Sorceress. How is it actually? I prefer sticking with Fireball, Lightning Storm, and Frozen Orb. If I want to use a big-hitting ice attack I'll use the Druid's Hurricane :smalltongue:

US East is what I always use for my online D2 experience. Never got past Normal difficulty with a multiplayer character :smallredface:

nooblade

2011-07-09, 11:36 AM

US East is what I always use for my online D2 experience. Never got past Normal difficulty with a multiplayer character :smallredface:

We need account names too. Otherwise we can't contact you. But I guess I could try the same account as the forum name.

USEast is the standard, I think. Geographically, I should use West, but what's the fun in region locking?

I got to play with Winth a bit last night, that was fun. The best part of Diablo is the other people. I started a Spearazon (named Zhakara), but I guess it won't hurt to use javelins for a while just for convenience.

I think my favorite paladin is the build that goes for Vengeance + synergies, and wears Salvation as his aura. Conviction is nice, but +60-80 resistances is nice for your gear, and for your party. Breaking immunities with Conviction isn't very effective (the -resistance is reduced if the creature had 100% or more) unless you're heavily invested in that damage element (lightning sorcs, lightning zons, etc). But the Avenger is better than the Angel against solid all-around resistance monsters like Urdar.

EternalMelon

2011-07-09, 12:21 PM

Hey! Battle net works now! And all it took was completely wiping my Diablo II history... all my characters and l33t equips gone, but I can play online now... yay?

*sniff* I'll miss you NocternalMelon /cry

Account Name is EternalMelon, US Canada East. Starting up the meteorb sorc I've always wanted.

Starsign

2011-07-09, 12:48 PM

We need account names too. Otherwise we can't contact you. But I guess I could try the same account as the forum name.

USEast is the standard, I think. Geographically, I should use West, but what's the fun in region locking?

I got to play with Winth a bit last night, that was fun. The best part of Diablo is the other people. I started a Spearazon (named Zhakara), but I guess it won't hurt to use javelins for a while just for convenience.

I think my favorite paladin is the build that goes for Vengeance + synergies, and wears Salvation as his aura. Conviction is nice, but +60-80 resistances is nice for your gear, and for your party. Breaking immunities with Conviction isn't very effective (the -resistance is reduced if the creature had 100% or more) unless you're heavily invested in that damage element (lightning sorcs, lightning zons, etc). But the Avenger is better than the Angel against solid all-around resistance monsters like Urdar.
Apparently Vengeance seems to be the most popular move among the Paladin. Had it been buffed since the recent version?

Hey! Battle net works now! And all it took was completely wiping my Diablo II history... all my characters and l33t equips gone, but I can play online now... yay?

*sniff* I'll miss you NocternalMelon /cry

Account Name is EternalMelon, US Canada East. Starting up the meteorb sorc I've always wanted.
Oh hey I use Canada East too :smalltongue: I think I need a new account though, haven't played in forever.

I'll probably use summons and Hurricane. Now would it be better if I make my summons more focused on attack with Heart of Wolverine or defense with Oak Sage?

EternalMelon

2011-07-09, 12:52 PM

Help! I can't understand the /help for chat, how does one reply to messages?

nooblade

2011-07-09, 12:55 PM

I can see EternalMelon on my friend list, but that Canadian won't respond to me. It might not be the case for this time, but I wonder if we need to go over bnet commands again. It seems like everytime there's someone who needs a refresher or something. Particularly because Diablo 2 has a difference between character names and account names.

Say you're chilling with me. Type "/whois Zhakara" or "/whois *nooblade" to get the same thing, "Zhakara (*nooblade) is sitting alone in channel op gitp". Or something

Add a friend using "/f add nooblade". Talk to me using "/f m [chat]", or "/m Zhakara [chat]", or "/m *nooblade [chat]". Right? The first one only works for your friends list, and everyone on your friends list. Where "nooblade" is my account name, "Zhakara" is my current character name. Because we needed an extra layer of confusion.

Oh, another one. Type "/join op gitp" to make me less lonely.

EternalMelon

2011-07-09, 12:58 PM

Prince Gimli

2011-07-09, 02:04 PM

Ah yes, account names could be handy :).

On Battle.net (US East) I am known as Malderon

nooblade

2011-07-09, 02:52 PM

It figures that bnet resumes working right after someone leaves because bnet is not working. Haha.

But I think I've had enough d2 for one day. Probably.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-09, 05:35 PM

We need account names too. Otherwise we can't contact you. But I guess I could try the same account as the forum name.

USEast is the standard, I think. Geographically, I should use West, but what's the fun in region locking?

I got to play with Winth a bit last night, that was fun. The best part of Diablo is the other people. I started a Spearazon (named Zhakara), but I guess it won't hurt to use javelins for a while just for convenience.

I think my favorite paladin is the build that goes for Vengeance + synergies, and wears Salvation as his aura. Conviction is nice, but +60-80 resistances is nice for your gear, and for your party. Breaking immunities with Conviction isn't very effective (the -resistance is reduced if the creature had 100% or more) unless you're heavily invested in that damage element (lightning sorcs, lightning zons, etc). But the Avenger is better than the Angel against solid all-around resistance monsters like Urdar.

Capping resists, at least on Normal and Nightmare, is fairly easy to do *without* using Salvation. If your resists are capped, Salvation is of absolutely NO use to you.

Salvation, at least until Hell difficulty, is a trap. Then, it becomes situationally useful, although you have to weigh the cost vs drawback carefully. Conviction lets you bust immunities, and even 10% of 10k damage is 1k a hit. Sure, it's not the *best*, but it WILL get the job done (literally) infinitely faster than if you did not bust immunities, who will otherwise simply take no damage until you die.

So the question becomes: Does Salvation mitigate more damage coming at me than Conviction allows me to deal? Very rarely is the answer 'yes', unless you're dealing with Gloams and don't have LR capped (in which case, simply pull up your LR aura).

EternalMelon

2011-07-10, 10:14 AM

{table=head]Forum Name|Game Name|Server
EternalMelon|EternalMelon|Canada East
nooblade|nooblade|US East
Penthar|Malderon|US East
Winthur|Winth|US East
Miscast_Mage|Miscast_Mage|US East
[/table]

Wewt! My first table!
Could the my table be put into the op, preferably with more names on it. Just Pm me or post in the tread please.

Winthur

2011-07-10, 10:17 AM

My acc on USEast is Winth and I want to play my upstart Werebear with you guys. <3

EternalMelon

2011-07-10, 10:19 AM

My acc on USEast is Winth and I want to play my upstart Werebear with you guys. <3

Noted :smallsmile:

nooblade

2011-07-10, 10:53 AM

Capping resists, at least on Normal and Nightmare, is fairly easy to do *without* using Salvation. If your resists are capped, Salvation is of absolutely NO use to you.

Salvation, at least until Hell difficulty, is a trap. Then, it becomes situationally useful, although you have to weigh the cost vs drawback carefully. Conviction lets you bust immunities, and even 10% of 10k damage is 1k a hit. Sure, it's not the *best*, but it WILL get the job done (literally) infinitely faster than if you did not bust immunities, who will otherwise simply take no damage until you die.

So the question becomes: Does Salvation mitigate more damage coming at me than Conviction allows me to deal? Very rarely is the answer 'yes', unless you're dealing with Gloams and don't have LR capped (in which case, simply pull up your LR aura).

In all my pubby games, it was rare for people to have an easy time getting equipment quickly. They're mostly uninterested in trying to get free items (that's not the real D2!), reluctant to try trading, and crafting is unlikely to give them a really good item with a small number of attempts. Most people appear to end up doing lots of magic find runs. I personally prefer shopping to fill up on resistances and maybe find a cruel weapon, but even shopping is limited by what level and where you're doing it. But the key to magic find runs and shopping both is that later in the game is better. If something (salvation) gets you all the way into Hell and you have those equipment sources available (loot and shops), it's going to be much more profitable to spend your time looking for stuff.

So, for people starting off without much stuff yet, new ladder, or just playing no twink in general, salvation is pretty good. Basiners argue that freeing up equipment slots is no slouch either, but I dunno about theoretical maximum damage much.

Edit: It's looking like sometime on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays are open as an established playing time. For one, I'd really like to have a full house day. Keeping separate characters for anyone who shows up will be just a little bit more tedium than necessary, I think.

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-10, 01:30 PM

Starwulf

2011-07-10, 01:46 PM

In all my pubby games, it was rare for people to have an easy time getting equipment quickly. They're mostly uninterested in trying to get free items (that's not the real D2!), reluctant to try trading, and crafting is unlikely to give them a really good item with a small number of attempts. Most people appear to end up doing lots of magic find runs. I personally prefer shopping to fill up on resistances and maybe find a cruel weapon, but even shopping is limited by what level and where you're doing it. But the key to magic find runs and shopping both is that later in the game is better. If something (salvation) gets you all the way into Hell and you have those equipment sources available (loot and shops), it's going to be much more profitable to spend your time looking for stuff.

So, for people starting off without much stuff yet, new ladder, or just playing no twink in general, salvation is pretty good. Basiners argue that freeing up equipment slots is no slouch either, but I dunno about theoretical maximum damage much.

Edit: It's looking like sometime on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays are open as an established playing time. For one, I'd really like to have a full house day. Keeping separate characters for anyone who shows up will be just a little bit more tedium than necessary, I think.

Awww, but Trading's the best part about Diablo 2! Man, I remember back in the hey-days, I'd pull off some crazy freaking trades. I kept just about any set item and unique on mules, and most rares that had interesting skills on them, never knew when someone would be looking for something that no-one else had and would be willing to trade bukos for it since they know no-one else is going to have one!

I also remember the days when 6 P-Skulls were worth 1 soj. Now THOSE were the days :) Course, it took almost as long to find/transmute 6 P-skulls as it did to probably find an SOJ back then(only 3 unique rings at the time, bound to find one sooner or later!).

nooblade

2011-07-10, 03:44 PM

Right, my account is Miscast_Mage on USEast, and my newly created bowazon is ready and waiting!:smallbiggrin:

Also, something I'm concerned about; should we put a password on our games to keep spam-bots out? We could keep a password here for all gitpers to use. I just remember trying open public games was half-ruined by spam-bots. :smallmad:

Oh, and ladder vs non-ladder? Which should I make my character, and why?(And yes, I'm smart enough to stay the hells away from hardcore mode. :smalltongue:)

This is another good reason for having a set d2 time. It would be pretty insane to play D2 for the entirety of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday every week. This makes like six people who want to play d2, and I've met them (well, I didn't meet miscast_mage) all at different times. So far everyone's said that most times are okay, except the GMT + 1 people. Would Sundays around the time of this post (or some number of hours before or after) work? I think this is GMT 8:45 PM (I am at GMT - 7). Remember that we have people on two sides of the world, so use GMT times.

Usually we play on ladder and our game names are gitp (with gitp as the password too). Most of the people I used to play with preferred hardcore, and I'd personally lean toward that kind of playing, but it looks like there is a lot more softcore interest at the moment, so I'll join you there.

I already died once. :smalleek:

EternalMelon

2011-07-10, 09:22 PM

Right, my account is Miscast_Mage on USEast, and my newly created bowazon is ready and waiting!:smallbiggrin:

Oh, and ladder vs non-ladder? Which should I make my character, and why?(And yes, I'm smart enough to stay the hells away from hardcore mode. :smalltongue:)

Noted, and I'm pretty sure we're on ladder.

I already died once. :smalleek:

And nearly died a second time.

Starsign

2011-07-10, 09:29 PM

EternalMelon

2011-07-10, 09:51 PM

I never really bother with ladder. I was never a competitive person (so I never bother with PvP either).

And I don't bother with Hardcore, I'm lucky to make it to the second act of Normal difficulty without dying. :smalleek: I always thought Anderial was the most difficult alongside Mephisto to beat...

Anderials the easiest Act Boss to beet, other than Baal. Duriels Frost Aura alone is 1.5 Anderials, plus the High attack speed, no running, high damage, and not being able to interrupt.

Oh, and a lvl 12 Sorc can solo normal Anderial without being hit.

Starsign

2011-07-10, 10:08 PM

Anderials the easiest Act Boss to beet, other than Baal. Duriels Frost Aura alone is 1.5 Anderials, plus the High attack speed, no running, high damage, and not being able to interrupt.

Oh, and a lvl 12 Sorc can solo normal Anderial without being hit.

Ah... Maybe I just have a poor memory, I remember struggling a lot with Anderial's poison effect and how much damage she does. Might be because of how I have little optimization at that point. And I don't remember Duriel being a nightmare past my first playthough like Anderial is. Perhaps it's because he got nerfed a lot in patches. :smallconfused:

I only remember Mephisto being a jerk and almost a cheater with how difficult he is to hit. Diablo I remember being able to attack him at a proper range and not worrying that much on getting hit. Baal... I completely forget. perhaps I should use a mod to make him more difficult (Singleplayer of course :smallredface:)

nooblade

2011-07-11, 08:35 AM

I think that playing on ladder will be for the best. We might be able to get a nice ladder-only runeword (spirit, insight) or so before a reset where the characters get dumped back into nonladder. No difference other than that.

I still remember my first time playing d2. I made a single player sorceress who put a point in every skill and took a lot of stat points into energy. She was such a nightmare.

ObadiahtheSlim

2011-07-12, 10:08 AM

I think everyone does that with their first few toons.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-07-12, 11:16 PM

At least you get a free retrain every difficulty level now... that makes things significantly easier to grind through, for example, Normal on a build which is great there but sucks at higher difficulties (such as Tesladin), then switch over to something more viable for higher level play.

Starsign

2011-07-13, 09:40 PM

Derjuin

2011-07-13, 09:44 PM

You know, I don't think anyone here has mentioned the assassin yet. Has anyone viably used her though multiple difficulties? A number of my playthroughs end before the end of Normal Act 1 because I lost interest (I've gotten rather tired of seeing green areas like that :smalltongue:)

I've made it through *most of* Hell mode Hardcore with a traps assassin. She focused on Death Sentry, Shadow Master and lots and lots of Mind Blast. Cloak of Shadows is amazing against archers, and, well, anything with a ranged attack. Act 3 was the hardest, though - I nearly died because of stygian bone dolls, EVERYTHING being immune to lightning (almost), and had to practice hitting esc -> exit+save a bit before doing the entire Durance so I could escape if I saw anything faster than me with Fire Enchanted.

EDIT2: Turns out, I only made it to Baal before dying :smallfrown:; I just checked the character's ghost and she still has the title Conqueror. Currently working on another one though - she's in Act 2 (hell) right now.

It was a very nerve-wracking experience, but it was a fun one. Ever since, though, I've found it REALLY hard to play any character but an assassin - Cloak of Shadows is just SO tasty. Though, I play mostly Hardcore anymore, so...I tend to value survivability over most other things. :smalltongue:

Regarding other things in Diablo 2, I've never had the pleasure of having a character that could actually beat the Annihilus-dropping Diablo, or any of the Uber-Tristram bosses (though I'm led to believe Uber Tristram is a thing you should only do in a party).

Edit: I'm also on USEast, account name Mindfang.

Science Officer

2011-07-13, 10:12 PM

Ever since, though, I've found it REALLY hard to play any character but an assassin - Cloak of Shadows is just SO tasty.

The Necromancer curse Dim Vision has a similar capability....

My last experience with Diablo II was this (http://modsbylaz.hugelaser.com/)mod, which was rather entertaining.
Melee Necro is rather fun :smallcool:

My favourite character type has always been Minionmancer, but I always run into the same problem. I make my way to act 4 and... Diablo kills all my minions. Instantly. Just a few puffs off that fire nova, and... they're all gone. Have never taken a necro past act 4 normal :smallfrown:

Derjuin

2011-07-13, 10:17 PM

The Necromancer curse Dim Vision has a similar capability....

My favourite character type has always been Minionmancer, but I always run into the same problem. I make my way to act 4 and... Diablo kills all my minions. Instantly. Just a few puffs off that fire nova, and... they're all gone. Have never taken a necro past act 4 normal :smallfrown:

Unfortunately, in the newest couple of patches (i think? maybe it's always been this way...), act-end bosses were buffed to deal significantly more damage to minions. We're talking somewhere around 700% extra damage, which extinguishes even the best merc/minion quickly :smallfrown:

Starsign

2011-07-13, 10:30 PM

My last experience with Diablo II was this (http://modsbylaz.hugelaser.com/)mod, which was rather entertaining.
Melee Necro is rather fun :smallcool:

Oh wow, there was a mod for Diablo II that extensive? What can you tell me of your experiences with it?

Thiyr

2011-07-14, 01:17 AM

Ah, medianXL. A fairly fun mod. Some strangeness in it, but a decent overhaul. I like what it did to the skill trees, and I like the unlockable skills as an idea. I don't like how I could never manage to keep interest in a character long enough to get to that point, or the sometimes sudden difficulty jumps out of nowhere, or the kinda really hard relearning curve of it at times. Overall, though, I enjoyed it.

Starwulf

2011-07-14, 01:24 AM

Sigh, I've got to stop reading this damn thread, It's making me want to dig out my old D2 Discs and install and start playing again. A Bowazon, a Trapsin(How I love Death Sentry, especially for baal runs), My usual Hydra Sorc, or maybe even a Hammerdin.

Derjuin

2011-07-14, 02:22 AM

Starwulf

2011-07-14, 02:40 AM

Duriel told me a funny joke earlier. It goes something like this:

"Hey, wanna see just how horrible my drop table is?"

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc273/xilobucket/DURIELWHAT.png

:annoyed: I knew he dropped crappy stuff, but...this is just surprising. I was sincerely dumbstruck when I saw this...

lmao, Wow, that's kinda funny, truly. That was in hell Difficulty? Geez, I've seen drops like that in Normal and even NIghtmare, but Hell usually drops at least like a magical piece of armor! That's just sad.

Drasius

2011-07-14, 06:00 AM

Nothing but TP scrolls on a hell quest kill? That's harsh.

I have played many, many characters through D2, I can't even begin to imagine the amount of hours I have sunk into this game, easily, easily in the thousands though. Never really liked the druid or assassin much, there just seemed to be something missing from both of them.

Favourite builds are probably a 'Zerker, Boner, Blizz/Light Sorc, FoHadin and FA/LF zon to pick one of each class. Not the most powerful by any means, but all great fun to play.

I also suspect I might be one of only a very few people to have got an impaler to Guardian. Dear god that sucked so hard.

Winthur

2011-07-14, 06:24 AM

Boner

Do you still have one on your account? :smalltongue:

Obvious jokes aside, I don't think we have set up any times, and I don't know if I should even touch my character before we set up some time so we can play together.

Science Officer

2011-07-14, 09:12 AM

Oh wow, there was a mod for Diablo II that extensive? What can you tell me of your experiences with it?

Ah, medianXL. A fairly fun mod. Some strangeness in it, but a decent overhaul. I like what it did to the skill trees, and I like the unlockable skills as an idea. I don't like how I could never manage to keep interest in a character long enough to get to that point, or the sometimes sudden difficulty jumps out of nowhere, or the kinda really hard relearning curve of it at times. Overall, though, I enjoyed it.

Pretty much the same as Thiyr's.

The balance is also kind of wonky. Some of the skills are kind of hard to wrap one's head around, and overall while there a lot of new skills there aren't a lot of new builds you can do with them. Or so it seemed.

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-14, 10:34 AM

Right, so, a couple questions here:

Any one still willing to start from level 1 and there abouts, or should I just start grinding my bowazon on her own to get her to the high levels?
Who set up the moderator bot or whatever it was, and how do you use the commands for it?:smallconfused: Even with the link here (http://mithrandir.qc-net.com/gitp/bot.htm) I'm lost.
Are we going to play only on the weekends, or are people playing during the weekdays as well? I'm tired of leaving diablo running to stay in the gitp op if there's absolutely no chance of anyone being on during the week.

I'm sure there's something I'm forgeting to ask there, but I'm sure I'll remember it sooner or later if it's important.

Pre-post edit: I can see Mindfang(Derjuin here) online and I couldn't directly send her a message; I had to use the /f m to reach her. Anyone any clue what that's about?:smallconfused:
Never mind, problem solved. :smallredface:

Oh, and now I remember what was bugging me; Why is it every build I see for types like the minionmancer or meteorb sorceress leaves energy at base value? Can you really compensate for that purely with gear?:smallconfused:

Winterwind

2011-07-14, 10:58 AM

Who set up the moderator bot or whatever it was, and how do you use the commands for it?:smallconfused: Even with the link Leper_Kahn (who doesn't post on these forums anymore) and Cynan Machae (who now runs it on his own). It was set up primarily for the SC1/WC3 groups that we've had running for the last three-and-a-half years; that it's a D2 account is just because Leper_Kahn had a D2 key to spare. Which of course doesn't mean that it's not there for you to use, too. :smallcool:

Commands are given to it by typing the command with a dot in front of it; for instance, the probably most useful feature is
.fl
which will tell you of everyone who has been in the channel and is still online.

.afklist
will tell you if anyone who is in the channel has been inactive for a while, for how long, and displays their afk-message, if they set one.

.afk <MESSAGE>
will tell the bot that you are afk, and display whatever you type in in place of <MESSAGE> to anyone who inquires about your afk-status.

.s <MESSAGE>
makes the bot say whatever you put in there.

.mail <USER> <MESSAGE>
sends a message to a user (even one that is currently offline). They will be informed that they have mail the next time they enter the channel, and can retrieve it by
.getmail

There's more, but the above should be the most useful.
All as far as I remember, been a while since I used its commands, so my syntax may be off in places. :smallredface:

Pre-post edit: I can see Mindfang(Derjuin here) online and I couldn't directly send him a message; I had to use the /f m to reach him. Anyone any clue what that's about?:smallconfused:Were you whispering to his character, or his account? If the latter, did you remember to use the asterisk? Remember that when you would message me, and my BNet account name was Winterwind, and I was playing a Paladin named WintersPally, you could use
/w WintersPally <MESSAGE>
or
/w *Winterwind <MESSAGE>

EDIT:

Never mind, problem solved. :smallredface:Ah, ninja'd. :smallredface:

Oh, and now I remember what was bugging me; Why is it every build I see for types like the minionmancer or meteorb sorceress leaves energy at base value? Can you really compensate for that purely with gear?:smallconfused:Yes, you can. It is more inconvenient in the early game, but later on, you will have enough mana with gear alone (plus, you will be able to buy Super Mana Potions and have 16 belt slots). And since these points could instead be used for Vitality to enhance your survivability, well... :smallwink:

Starsign

2011-07-14, 12:14 PM

Derjuin

2011-07-14, 12:17 PM

Hold on, um... Are you all in a group or a game for these things? :smalleek: Also how far is everyone? I haven't exactly started yet... Are we using voice chat? (wait is that even possible... :smalltongue:)

I'm just playing a character I had from before; the chat channel for USEast is Op Gitp.

EternalMelon

2011-07-14, 12:18 PM

Hold on, um... Are you all in a group or a game for these things? :smalleek: Also how far is everyone? I haven't exactly started yet... Are we using voice chat? (wait is that even possible... :smalltongue:)

We would know whereevery one is if they gave me their info, and the table was in the op.
Oh, and Yes. (http://mumble.sourceforge.net/)

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-14, 02:36 PM

We would know whereevery one is if they gave me their info, and the table was in the op.

Hint hint, nudge nudge, Starsign. の‿‿の

Oh, and do we a time to play yet, or is it just a general Fri/Sat/Sun thing, or just plain whenever?

nooblade

2011-07-14, 10:39 PM

I've asked several people and they've all said anytime Friday or Saturday or Sunday. However, I've yet to see more than one other person online at a time (sounds like this changed recently). I personally don't want to spend my whole weekends on D2, so it would be really nice to fix a time.

If someone has a limit or preference on their time, speak it now.

I do not want to stay up past, say, midnight, with myself at GMT - 7, which should be very easy to do because there are GMT + 1 people interested in joining. Between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I think I would prefer playing on Saturday.

I don't have any characters past level 10 at the moment and I would be happy to start at level 1 with anyone, but I don't want to start at level 1 one time for each of you.

I'm not really interested in using mumble, the game's chat suits me fine, but if any of you do, I might download it to listen.

Science Officer

2011-07-15, 10:53 AM

for a while i was thinking of re-installing, but I think I'll just start Titan Quest instead. Oh well.

Have fun everyone. :smallsmile:

Dhavaer

2011-07-16, 04:37 AM

Grr. I've just reinstalled D2, with the expansion, but it's refusing to run. As soon as I start it it throws up 'unhandled exception: access violation c0000005'. Apparently that's an extremely common error message, but most of the issues I found by googling involved multiplayer or sudden crashes. I'm using Windows 7 and I've tried the recommened compatability options, as well as just disabling evrything, but it doesn't seem to work. Has anyone else had this version of the problem?

LansXero

2011-07-16, 05:06 AM

Which version are you running? if its just the expansion you could try patching before running it, its worked for some people I know. Aside from turning on compatibility/run as administrator/windowed mode/disable desktop stuff, you could also try killing the windows explorer on your task manager before running Diablo 2. Some have said thats helped.

I just got from a LAN meet up with a couple of friends running diablo II on their laptop / desktop using w7; it wouldnt run when it was 1.07, but 1.11b ran fine.

Dhavaer

2011-07-16, 05:16 AM

1.13. I'll try the windows explorer thing.

Edit: Tried the windows explorer thing. Made it very difficult to open Diablo 2 and didn't work.

nooblade

2011-07-16, 10:43 AM

So are we playing today? I should've specified a time to start. But sitting in the lobby for some time today will reveal that, I think.

Visit me in channel op gitp!

Edit:

Err, Miscast Mage has gone. I feel satisfied with the amount of D2 played today, although noone else was around.

We played for the last few hours. Are there any schedule conflict with that time? I don't think I'm going to stick around to see if more people show up, though.

Edit2: In response to following post: Sure.

{table=head]Gitp name|Diablo name|Character name|Class|Level|Build
nooblade|nooblade|Zhakara|Amazon|6|Fearazon (Spearie)
||Buoyant_Armiger|Paladin|11|Zealer or Angel
||Trowchun|Assassin|22|Martial Art Sin or Kicker
||Oroduun|Necromancer|25|Summoner, Invincigolem[/table]

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-17, 10:45 AM

Hey, just wondering, is it worth making out a table with everyone's character details, just to have handy? Like so? It'd be useful to have a table with everyones info to compare.

{table=head]Gitp name|Diablo name|Character name|Class|Level|Build
Miscast_Mage|Miscast_Mage|Mirriana|Amazon|22|Bowaz on
||Vashlanna|Sorceress|24|Enchantress/Other
||Mardias|Paladin|17|Zealot
||Sylanda|Assassin|3|Vampire[/table]

Winthur

2011-07-17, 03:10 PM

{table=head]Gitp name|Diablo name|Character name|Class|Level|Build
Winthur|Winth|ShizuBearwajima|Druid|6|Werebear[/table]

Amazing table for just one guy :smalltongue:

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-17, 03:58 PM

@Winthur: Altitis, my friend.

Right, so, that's three of us so far. I'll compile everything in a single table to have handy, if you folks don't mind bugging me when you level a character.:smalltongue: Right, scratch that.

Aaand because I didn't consider it before, devil that I am, and it might make things a teensy bit more convinient for people, here's the table template, simple as it is.:smallredface:
{table=head]Gitp name|Diablo name|Character name|Class|Level|Build|Hardcore|Ladder
a|b|c|d|e|f|g|h[/table]

Derjuin

2011-07-17, 04:30 PM

Here's mine, in case anyone wants to do any nonladder/hardcore stuff. I'll have to make a 3rd account, or delete stuff on the second account, before I can make anymore nonhardcore ladder characters though :smallredface:

{table=head]Gitp name|Diablo name|Character name|Class|Level|Build|Hardcore|Ladder
Derjuin|Mindfang|Vriska_Serket|Assassin|84|DeathTr apsin|Yes|Yes
||John_Egbert|Druid|63|Furywolf|Yes|Yes
||Nepeta_Leijon|Assassin|24|Trapsin|No|Yes
|phoenix_lol*|Vsedin|Barbarian|81|IK WW/Conc/Zerk|No|No
||Tanabee|Amazon|73|LightningFuryZon|No|No
||Stagaz|Necromancer|65|Karmamancer|No|No
||Temaisa|Sorceress|64|Meteorb Sorc|Yes|No
[/table]

*if anyone actually remembers that account name, it doesn't belong to its original owner anymore; he gave it to me when he quit a while ago.

afroakuma

2011-07-17, 04:37 PM

I'm just going to drop in a plug here for Median XL, the Diablo II mod even the Diablo III developers love. Far more difficult, skill trees are less... tree-y... but hot blazes is it ever fun.

Starsign

2011-07-17, 11:05 PM

Um, right. Sorry for the delay everyone but... I can't find the install disc to Diablo 2 :smalleek: I might be a little delayed for the time being :smallfrown:

How different is Median XL specifically? I saw the site but I was wondering what it was like from your experiences in case I might like to try it.

Shpadoinkle

2011-07-18, 06:01 AM

Which realm are we playing on? I've managed to dig up my disks but I haven't reinstalled the game yet. Also, what's the channel name? OotS, GitP, something else?

nooblade

2011-07-18, 09:23 AM

If you have keys but not disks, you could just download Diablo 2 directly from Blizzard using one of their store accounts. Like this? (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080709183808AAKc4JJ) I know a couple of other people have done it with only the CD keys for D2 and LoD, it didn't sound like a terrible hassle (if you have a good connection).

The channel is "op gitp", and so far we're on USEast. Most of us are Softcore Ladder. When I use it anyway, I think I'll return on Friday.

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-19, 05:49 AM

The thing about Median XL is, though, how does it work with regards to multiplayer?:smallconfused: Plus, personally, I don't think I want to start over with new characters juuust yet.:smalltongue:

And joooin ussss, shpadoinkle. JOIN USSSSS~:smallbiggrin:

Shpadoinkle

2011-07-19, 06:26 AM

Well, I looked around and managed to track down my Diablo 2 CDs... but I can't find my LoD CD or CD key anywhere. So... I guess I'm out.

paperstsoapco

2011-07-19, 11:11 AM

Would a shameless lurker be welcomed to play with you guys? I've been feeling the D2 itch for a while now and would love some generally cool people to play with. If it's cool, I'll update once I re-install/make a character.

Miscast_Mage

2011-07-19, 12:01 PM

@shpadoinkle: Aww, that sucks.:smallfrown: You could see about buying an cd-key from here (http://www.mmo1st.com/cd-key-2/)(for $5.45, apparantly), then downloading the game from the blizzard website, but I don't know if that works.

@paperstsoapco: Ah, but of course!:smallbiggrin: The more the merrier, plus I've still got a low level character ready(assassin - Vampire build) to play with.

paperstsoapco

2011-07-20, 10:22 PM

{table=head]Gitp name|Diablo name|Character name|Class|Level|Build
PaperStSoapCo|paperstsoapco|Yrvoj|Barbarian|9|Fren zyyyyy[/table]

Feel free to add me in. I won't be around for a couple weeks as I'm going on vacation, but after that I'd love to game with you guys.

u-gotNOgame

2011-07-21, 01:26 AM

I'm back from a little vacation and if anyone wants to play Hardcore with me we can set something up. Sorry for all you softies but that just doesn't do it for me anymore.

-UGNG

nooblade

2011-07-22, 11:37 AM

I don't think I'll show up this week. I have something to write up and very little idea how to start it.

afroakuma

2011-07-23, 01:09 PM

How different is Median XL specifically? I saw the site but I was wondering what it was like from your experiences in case I might like to try it.

Tremendously so. There's a huge difficulty spike (you will thank your gods or begin following one when you finally get Cain and no longer need to carefully conserve those Scrolls of Identify) and crowds of enemies everywhere. Classes are strongly retooled: there are now five "trees" (each of which is a straight line) that can be combined in various ways depending on the class in question, abilities are all quite interesting and customization is huge huge huge.

Case in point: the Sorceress has her "Mana" skills and four elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Poison). She selects two elements and is locked out of the other two, and can also use the mana set. Paladin, meanwhile, has a Neutral tree, two Evil trees and two Good trees, and takes either both Evil (plus Neutral) or both Good (plus Neutral). Amazon, meanwhile, chooses one of three weapon styles, then has two general trees to work with regardless of weapon. So there's a lot of differentiation.

Starsign

2011-07-23, 01:17 PM

Tremendously so. There's a huge difficulty spike (you will thank your gods or begin following one when you finally get Cain and no longer need to carefully conserve those Scrolls of Identify) and crowds of enemies everywhere. Classes are strongly retooled: there are now five "trees" (each of which is a straight line) that can be combined in various ways depending on the class in question, abilities are all quite interesting and customization is huge huge huge.

Case in point: the Sorceress has her "Mana" skills and four elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Poison). She selects two elements and is locked out of the other two, and can also use the mana set. Paladin, meanwhile, has a Neutral tree, two Evil trees and two Good trees, and takes either both Evil (plus Neutral) or both Good (plus Neutral). Amazon, meanwhile, chooses one of three weapon styles, then has two general trees to work with regardless of weapon. So there's a lot of differentiation.

...Wow :smalleek: How different is the Druid? Can you describe him for me please on how his skill trees work and your own opinion on him?

afroakuma

2011-07-23, 08:39 PM

...Wow :smalleek: How different is the Druid? Can you describe him for me please on how his skill trees work and your own opinion on him?

Druid's now really weak in melee; his trees are Bow, Charm I, Charm II, Elemental (Fire & Ice) and Poison. Charm I focuses on blunt weapons and includes the ability to turn yourself into a big bludgeony treant; Charm II focuses on the dagger and lets you turn into a quill rat. Werewolf & Werebear are gone entirely. Unlike some of the others there's no forced specialization or tree locking, but you'll still probably pick a weapon/combat style and throw the rest into offensive spells. Prooooobably.

I haven't played it seriously, but from all I've read the Druid is the king of passive buffing, so you can power up to throw a ton of Elemental and Poison spells out.

Starsign

2011-07-23, 09:41 PM

Druid's now really weak in melee; his trees are Bow, Charm I, Charm II, Elemental (Fire & Ice) and Poison. Charm I focuses on blunt weapons and includes the ability to turn yourself into a big bludgeony treant; Charm II focuses on the dagger and lets you turn into a quill rat. Werewolf & Werebear are gone entirely. Unlike some of the others there's no forced specialization or tree locking, but you'll still probably pick a weapon/combat style and throw the rest into offensive spells. Prooooobably.

I haven't played it seriously, but from all I've read the Druid is the king of passive buffing, so you can power up to throw a ton of Elemental and Poison spells out.
...Druids weren't weak in melee in the first place? :smalltongue:

On another note, if they suck in melee I don't see how their Charm trees could be useful (and even a treant and quill rat don't sound intimidating). Now how do people prefer using their trees? Do they focus on one, two, or all of them?

afroakuma

2011-07-23, 10:43 PM

...Druids weren't weak in melee in the first place? :smalltongue:

I mean as in weaker than sorceress.

On another note, if they suck in melee

As humans.

I don't see how their Charm trees could be useful (and even a treant

Other treant abilities include area-of-effect stun fists (at 6th level), regaining life whenever you kill an enemy in tree-form (at 12th), sending forth explosive wildfire...

and quill rat don't sound intimidating).

...except that the basic quill rat - the one encountered immediately outside the Encampment - is now called the Kill Rat, shoots poison quills, explodes into a ring of quills on death and is quite fast. This one streams a jet of spikes at the enemy (6th), mine the battlefield with exploding eggs (12th) and can eventually create spike barriers.

Now how do people prefer using their trees? Do they focus on one, two, or all of them?

I think people still focus on two, maximum three for your average build; Sorceress, Amazon and Paladin literally force the issue, but the others are more loose. The biggest theme I see in druid build listings is Poison.

nooblade

2011-07-29, 11:41 AM

Is anyone still playing?

If not, maybe I'll give median another shot with some spare time of mine.

Erloas

2011-08-01, 04:10 PM

So apparently there was a Diablo 3 event last week... which probably means most of the info was already leaked even though it was under a NDA until today.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Diablo-3-Rob-Pardo-Auction-House-DRM-Battle.net,13154.html

No offline mode, have to be connected to battle.net at all times. I know a lot of people will be mad about that, but I don't actually care that much because I'm almost never without internet and still able to play the game anyway.

No mods. I'm not really a fan of most mods anyway, but I could see this being a huge blow to a lot of people.

And an Auction House system that allows players to sell items for real money with Activision taking their cut. I hate auction house systems in general and cash for in-game items is even worse. Their justification is "well if we don't do it someone else will, we may as well take a cut."

I haven't followed the development of the game other then very casually. So far it hasn't seemed great. I liked 2 but I never thought it was the holy grail a lot of people claimed it to be. Doesn't seem like a must have game to me at this point.

Starwulf

2011-08-01, 05:37 PM

Erloas

2011-08-01, 06:04 PM

They say there is a single player mode, as in no other players are there with you, but you will still be connecting to the battle.net servers and your characters will still be saved there.

nooblade

2011-08-01, 06:22 PM

Blizzard isn't getting any of my money if they're going to be like that. These days, tinkering with a game through either modding or open source is approximately half of the fun. For me at least.

The item purchasing thing sounds kinda smart. I wonder if they're going to restrict free trading, too, or if just the in-game thing would be enough to shut down your usual item farming service junk.

I liked reading the Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36292/Opinion_Diablo_3_And_Keeping_Players_At_Bay.php) article about community building. Which is kinda funny because I think it's supposed to be a game with more non-community options. But whatever.

Starwulf

2011-08-01, 06:42 PM

They say there is a single player mode, as in no other players are there with you, but you will still be connecting to the battle.net servers and your characters will still be saved there.

That's still to much of a restriction for me. My internet influences my choices A LOT, since I'm on dial-up. if I have to be connected to Battle.net it's going to slow my game down, even by myself. Lag in a single player game as long as the system is powerful enough for it, is COMPLETELY unacceptable.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-08-01, 08:10 PM

In-game items for Real-World Cash? Violation of certain gambling laws aside (playing games for cash), that's just plain terribad. No offline also screws over anyone who gets internet connection dropping. At least SC2 had offline content, even if it didn't 'count'.

If this is true, as opposed to hearsay and rumor blowing out of proportion, then count me out. I spent hundreds of hours playing D1, hundreds more with D2... and I suppose it will end there. Because I sure as anything am not going to be playing a game with these features.

Thiyr

2011-08-01, 09:32 PM

Wait..what? There is NO single player mode? Yeah, **** that bull****. D3 just went off my list of most anticipated games, and I might not even ****ing buy it now >< I'm on a goddamn 26.4k Dial-up connection. Trying to play solely on B.Net is bull**** ><

No offline doesn't mean no singleplayer. This is an important distinction. It's actually kinda in line with what they've been doing anyway. They did the same thing with starcraft. even to play the single player, you have to log in online. It does come with its own set of benefits (saves online, achieves, etc), and if you're playing single player mode, I don't know if it requires you to remain on the entire time, but server lag doesn't affect single player play for me, so I doubt that's the case. Even outside of that, there's a guest mode, where you don't need to get on Bnet. If they do it much differently, I'll be surprised.

As far as no mods, that again seems somewhat in line with blizzard's general policy here. It seems mostly like a pre-emptive strike against things like maphack and various other hacks that people used. I get the feeling they viewed it as a grey area and just blanket-banned it. That's just my guess though.

ingame cash for items, as well, doesn't bother me. They're taking something that happens anyway and legitimizing it, and the fact that they're not doing the selling means the items still need to be farmed. Hopefully this means it can be a bit better regulated, and while i can see issues, it's likely just them capitalizing on something that was gonna happen anyway, while providing a way to prevent players from getting scammed by being stupid by giving an obvious option. Not happy with it, but I can see reasons

nooblade

2011-08-01, 10:23 PM

I'm sure diablo 3 will still have maphack. And dupes. And probably worse things too, like TPPK. See a simple google search: starcraft 2 maphack (http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=starcraft+2+maphack&oq=starcraft+2+maphack&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=102l2476l0l2766l18l14l0l5l5l0l198l1223l2.7l 9).

Achievements can bugger off. That's not a feature anymore, it's the annoying industry standard.

Erloas

2011-08-01, 11:11 PM

The item purchasing thing sounds kinda smart. I wonder if they're going to restrict free trading, too, or if just the in-game thing would be enough to shut down your usual item farming service junk.
I don't think its going to hurt item farming at all, its going to encourage it. Now when someone farms the game for days they don't have to worry about the off chance that they are caught and have their accounts banned. Buyers don't have to worry about being banned or items taken away. There is now no downside to farming items and selling them. You don't even have to pay for banner ads on web sites any more, you don't have to have some 3rd party site to take people's money.

Of course they did say something about the money going into your Battle.net account, so you might not actually be able to use it for anything but buying Activision games and products. I'm not sure if that was the default option or the only option though.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-08-01, 11:25 PM

sn't bother me. They're taking something that happens anyway and legitimizing it, and the fact that they're not doing the selling means the items still need to be farmed. Hopefully this means it can be a bit better regulated, and while i can see issues, it's likely just them capitalizing on something that was gonna happen anyway, while providing a way to prevent players from getting scammed by being stupid by giving an obvious option. Not happy with it, but I can see reasons

No, it's going to take gold farming to a whole new level. Now you are giving them a legitimate, tangible, expressed-with-a-dollar-sign reward for being jerks to everyone else and ninja-looting, ganking, and all the rest.

And the current gold farmers are the ones who will capitalize this. They already have the business set up and running illegitimately. Now all you've done is given the mafia godfather the key to the city and let him run for mayor. Rather than cutting their power, they can now quickly establish a monopoly and maintain it through price pressure. Since they're a large business, they can afford to undercut someone else (or, if the price is lower than their costs, buy and re-sell it) to run them out of business.

I wasn't the best at it, but give me a week on WoW, and I can easily turn 100 gold into 10k, just by playing the AH, buying low and selling high, and in general, being a leech on the economy.

Now imagine people doing that for real money? It's gonna be a feeding frenzy.

Zocelot

2011-08-01, 11:55 PM

Thiyr

2011-08-02, 12:04 AM

Shneek:Thing is, as you said, people are going to do it anyway. Thing is, this is gonna come with two big differences. 1) You can bet bliz is probably gonna take a cut of their own from it. 2) if people will do it anyway, legitimizing it takes out the risk of getting phished via scam sites offering the same service. If you have to do it in-game, there's at least a bit more security. It's still nothing I'm particularly happy to see, but it's an interesting idea, and it's at least addressing that market in some way aside from saying "IT'S BAD DON'T DO EET".

noo:As far as maphack, etc, yea, it's gonna happen. Someone will come up with a way. Thing is, it's still pretty much an extension of the whole "has to be online" thing. Same thing as modding an MMO. If it requires you to be online, modding by default is gonna take a hit, as it will lack compatibility, or will be an unfair advantage.

And as for your opinion on achievements, well, nice to know you don't care for them. But it's something that's brought to the table, its something some people enjoy, and it's something that gets added via it being online. All of this to me just ties back into how it's online via battlenet in its current iteration. They're keeping to the standards they've been using for the rest of their games, and this is the consequence of that when it comes to d3.

Chen

2011-08-02, 10:24 AM

I don't care about the economy of the game. What I might care about is if there is a definitive "best" item or set for my class, it drops once every three years and so most players resort to buying it, driving the cost way up. However, if the rarity of the best items is no higher than it was in D2, I can't see prices going over a couple of bucks. So, I'm hoping to god that nothing is too rare.

Even if things ARE extremely rare, this system just gives you a CHANCE at getting them. You can always farm items/gold and then sell said items and gold so you can buy rare sword X or whatever. A real money AH will almost certainly mean that gold itself retains value since it will be the way you trade between the two AHs. If there's something on the gold AH, buy it with gold. If its on the real money AH and you dont want to spend real money, sell your gold THEN buy it.

And best of all, since there is not supposed to be competitive PvP or even PvE (its a grind game remember?), you don't have to do ANY of it if you don't want to.

Karoht

2011-08-02, 02:59 PM

No offline mode, have to be connected to battle.net at all times.I really don't get why anyone cares about that so much these days. This is the age of the internet.

No mods. I'm not really a fan of most mods anyway, but I could see this being a huge blow to a lot of people.Banning them outright seems odd, but given the history with D1 and D2, I'm not too surprised.
Also, interface options can change, and Blizzard has been pretty good about adding in new interface options when the current system just doesn't meet demand. They might be slow about it, but they will do something if it's a big enough issue.

And an Auction House system that allows players to sell items for real money with Activision taking their cut. I hate auction house systems in general and cash for in-game items is even worse. Their justification is "well if we don't do it someone else will, we may as well take a cut."Back in the D2 days, eBay was rife with items and accounts for sale. Craigslist and Kajiji would likely be rife with trade/sell offers if D2 were released today. I agree that the game needed an auction house, but the cash part is the sticking point. Then again, you don't need to pay cash, you can just wait until you have the gold to buy it from someone who is selling it for gold.

The fact you can sell gold for cash and vice versa, that seems iffy to me.
I agree they had to do something, and I have no issue with Blizzard making money (they are a business, not a charity) from the transactions. The biggest thing fans can do if they dislike this is to not participate (at all) in the AH, and urge others to do the same.

I haven't followed the development of the game other then very casually. So far it hasn't seemed great. I liked 2 but I never thought it was the holy grail a lot of people claimed it to be. Doesn't seem like a must have game to me at this point.I'm probably going to zoom through the story and any other content they have, and then stop playing unless there is really something left to hook me. Maybe visit from time to time. Thats about it.

Also, I believe it was stated that the game will have a battle arena, and PvP will only happen there, but I could also have been mis-reading that. This was back last Blizzcon.

EDIT:
The show Extra Credit on theescapist.com covers off monetization or microtransactions in these games really well. The big phrase they used repeatedly was "Do. Not. Sell. Power."
In theory, they're letting the players do that, which they already did before and are currently doing in other games. Not sure if that is any better, but there it is.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-08-02, 04:25 PM

Shneek:Thing is, as you said, people are going to do it anyway. Thing is, this is gonna come with two big differences. 1) You can bet bliz is probably gonna take a cut of their own from it. 2) if people will do it anyway, legitimizing it takes out the risk of getting phished via scam sites offering the same service. If you have to do it in-game, there's at least a bit more security. It's still nothing I'm particularly happy to see, but it's an interesting idea, and it's at least addressing that market in some way aside from saying "IT'S BAD DON'T DO EET". People are going to kill anyways, does that mean we should license it?

Some things should not be, in any way, condoned. You are flat out telling players to go grief others, ninja loot, and be jerks. And giving them a cash reward for doing so.

Gold farming is bad, mmmkay? Blizzard should be putting an end to it (it would be pathetically easy to make a bot that swanns for 'D3 gold' and automatically report the posting on any eBay/Craig'sList site, or at least refer it to someone who does nothing but report diablo 3 gold-farmer sales), not condoning it.

Winterwind

2011-08-02, 07:17 PM

Starwulf

2011-08-03, 12:15 AM

I really don't get why anyone cares about that so much these days. This is the age of the internet.

It's not "The Age of the Internet" until a large majority(at least 85%) of the world has access to High Speed Internet. Until then, forcing people to play games online, ESPECIALLY when past iterations of the game did not force you to do so, is both a bit cruel, and highly annoying/irritating and also likely to cost them customers(like myself, though I am still debating, as I spent years playing Diablo 2, and I've looked forward to Diablo 3 forever). There is absolutely no reason to completely alienate a fairly decent percentage of your consumer base by forcing them to have a good internet connection just to play.

factotum

2011-08-03, 01:34 AM

Speaking personally, this might well put the seal on me *not* buying Diablo 3. I wonder when Torchlight 2 is coming out...?

Maxymiuk

2011-08-03, 06:45 AM

Chen

2011-08-03, 08:07 AM

Some things should not be, in any way, condoned. You are flat out telling players to go grief others, ninja loot, and be jerks. And giving them a cash reward for doing so.

I presumed looting would work similarly to any MMO where you're assigned loot rather than D2 where it was a free for all grab.

Gold farming is bad, mmmkay? Blizzard should be putting an end to it (it would be pathetically easy to make a bot that swanns for 'D3 gold' and automatically report the posting on any eBay/Craig'sList site, or at least refer it to someone who does nothing but report diablo 3 gold-farmer sales), not condoning it.

While it increases the price of commodities when trading with other people (basically via inflation), this seems to be far less of an issue in a non-MMO game. Unless it gets to the point where you CANNOT beat Hell level Diablo without resorting to bought gear (or massive farming) I don't think it'll be a problem. D2 it was pretty trivial to "finish" the game. After that you just killed things and grinded out new items for your char. That was the whole point of the game. Unlike an MMO there doesn't appear to be any limited resources here. If I can't find any Frost Lotus lying around in WoW because its all been farmed, well the AH is the only option. In D2 (and presumably D3) its not like Stone's of Jordan will just stop dropping if someone overfarms them. I can always just play the game to get the items I want. Unless its a "Keeping up with the Joneses" mentality, how other people are geared is going to be fairly irrelevant.

Domochevsky

2011-08-03, 08:21 AM

Speaking personally, this might well put the seal on me *not* buying Diablo 3. I wonder when Torchlight 2 is coming out...?

According to their website "September or October of 2011", so there's a pretty solid chance it will actually happen before D3. Looking forward to it more than ever. :smallsmile:

Psyren

2011-08-03, 09:10 AM

Isn't Diablo III supposed to have some system to prevent ninja'ing loot and that whole "click on it first, it's yours"-business? I might be wrong, haven't been following the news about it very closely, but I thought it did...

It has to, as not fixing that would be a massive design oversight.

Concerning the Real Money AH: I'm all for it. I find crazy-valuable BoEs all the time in WoW and I hate equipping them on myself when I can make do just fine with a serviceable blue and get a tidy profit instead. The fact that I'll be able to turn them around for real dough now (legally) is just fantastic.

Though Blizzard should understand that they're not actually going to stop the black market with this, only put a price floor on it.

Karoht

2011-08-03, 09:26 AM

It's not "The Age of the Internet" until a large majority(at least 85%) of the world has access to High Speed Internet. Until then, forcing people to play games online, ESPECIALLY when past iterations of the game did not force you to do so, is both a bit cruel, and highly annoying/irritating and also likely to cost them customers(like myself, though I am still debating, as I spent years playing Diablo 2, and I've looked forward to Diablo 3 forever). There is absolutely no reason to completely alienate a fairly decent percentage of your consumer base by forcing them to have a good internet connection just to play.

...so the game requires a PC. And expecting players who already own a PC that can run the game (I'll assume it will run on a similar graphics standard to SC2) is acceptable, but an internet connection suddenly dives into the unacceptable? I'm sorry, is internet THAT expensive these days? There's free internet at just about every coffee shop worth going to, your smartphone can act as a very good internet connection, typically also for free, and home based internet capable of running most if not all online applications well is 20 bucks a month or less on average.

Funny how this complaint typically only comes up with games that used to not require an internet connection, like Starcraft. Because apparently there are people who think that lugging their computer over to their friends place is somehow fun.

========

While it increases the price of commodities when trading with other people (basically via inflation), this seems to be far less of an issue in a non-MMO game. Unless it gets to the point where you CANNOT beat Hell level Diablo without resorting to bought gear (or massive farming) I don't think it'll be a problem. D2 it was pretty trivial to "finish" the game. After that you just killed things and grinded out new items for your char. That was the whole point of the game. Unlike an MMO there doesn't appear to be any limited resources here. If I can't find any Frost Lotus lying around in WoW because its all been farmed, well the AH is the only option. In D2 (and presumably D3) its not like Stone's of Jordan will just stop dropping if someone overfarms them. I can always just play the game to get the items I want. Unless its a "Keeping up with the Joneses" mentality, how other people are geared is going to be fairly irrelevant.Indeed. Trading gear was largely unnecessary to beat the game, or play competatively. All my characters worked on what drops they had because I had the worst luck. And I won't brag, but my Amazon was pretty darned geared, just from what poor luck I had. Would an AH to buy a specific piece of gear helped? Totally. Would I have spent cash then? Nope. Do I have to spend cash now? Nope. Am I bothered? Not at all.

Also, loot in Diablo does not imply work. It implies luck. Everything you kill is a loot slot machine. In regards to the part I bolded, I honestly anticipate people complaining about the grind in about 3 months after launch.

Though Blizzard should understand that they're not actually going to stop the black market with this, only put a price floor on it.They could impliment a price ceiling rather easily. Cap all cash prices at $5. Even a ceiling of $10 would be decent.

And one more time, participation in the AH is voluntary. If people don't like it, trade with your friends, trade with people, learn how to haggle. I do it all the time in WoW, there's no reason it can not be done in D3. Heck, we can be trading items here on this website in theory (they trade stuff in the TF2/Steam thread already) and do things ourselves rather than pay. And it isn't even really any extra work or inconvenience.

Erloas

2011-08-03, 10:20 AM

It's not "The Age of the Internet" until a large majority(at least 85%) of the world has access to High Speed Internet. Until then, forcing people to play games online, ESPECIALLY when past iterations of the game did not force you to do so, is both a bit cruel, and highly annoying/irritating and also likely to cost them customers
When you consider that the previous game is about 10 years old and the number of changes that has happened in the industry since then, its not really that surprising. Along the same lines the hardware requirements for the game has changed drastically too, a 10 year old computer that could play D2 is not going to be playing D3. And "most of the world" has nothing to do with it, as "most of the world" is no where near their target demographic. And at 85% that means only 15% without... I bet more then 15% of the world population doesn't own a car, does that mean we haven't reached the age of the automobile?
tangent:
The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest percentages of households without automobiles, according to data from the 2000 Census. The Census measured the percentage of households that did not own or otherwise have access to an automobile, as opposed to households that had 1, 2, 3, or more automobiles.

1. New York City, New York 55.7%
2. Newark, New Jersey 44.17%
3. Jersey City, New Jersey 40.67%
4. Washington, D.C. 36.93%
5. Hartford, Connecticut 36.14%
6. Baltimore, Maryland 35.89%
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 35.74%
8. Boston, Massachusetts 34.91%
9. Buffalo, New York 31.42%
10. New Haven, Connecticut 29.74%
11. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 29.45%
12. Paterson, New Jersey 29.32%
13. Chicago, Illinois 28.85%
14. San Francisco, California 28.56%
15. Cambridge, Massachusetts 27.72%
16. New Orleans, Louisiana 27.32%
17. Yonkers, New York 27.05%
18. Miami, Florida 26.71%
19. Syracuse, New York 26.56%
20. Rochester, New York 25.32%
21. Elizabeth, New Jersey 25.21%
22. St. Louis, Missouri 25.17%
23. Cleveland, Ohio 24.57%
24. Bridgeport, Connecticut 23.77%
25. Atlanta, Georgia 23.58%
26. Cincinnati, Ohio 23.37%
27. Providence, Rhode Island 22.92%
28. Springfield, Massachusetts 22.52%
29. Detroit, Michigan 21.9%
30. Richmond, Virginia 21.63%
31. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 21.36%
32. East Los Angeles, California 21.24%
33. Louisville, Kentucky 20.47%
34. Dayton, Ohio 19.97%
35. Minneapolis, Minnesota 19.7%
36. Oakland, California 19.62%
37. Waterbury, Connecticut 19.46%
38. Gary, Indiana 19.37
39. Honolulu, Hawaii 19.36%
40. Allentown, Pennsylvania 18.84%
41. Erie, Pennsylvania 18.2%
42. Worcester, Massachusetts 18.11%
43. Savannah, Georgia 17.64%
44. Lowell, Massachusetts 17.05%
45. Berkeley, California 17.01%
46. Norfolk, Virginia 17.01%
47. St. Paul, Minnesota 16.83%
48. Birmingham, Alabama 16.77%
49. Los Angeles, California 16.53%
50. Seattle, Washington 16.32%

And thats just the US, not counting all those 3rd world and developing countries.
Then you have to look at "target audience." The target audience of games, PC games especially, are developed countries and with disposable income. They are after all luxury products, no where near a required part of life. There is also nothing saying you need "high speed" to play online. If you are playing single player it might only require a file integrity check and the occasional character save which isn't going to be bandwidth intensive.

And yes, any change might loose them customers, but its a choice you have to make because anything you do may or may not loose customers. People were complaining about changing the color palette around, they will always find something to complain about. Change a class and you might loose customers, don't change a class and you might loose customers.

There's free internet at just about every coffee shop worth going to, your smartphone can act as a very good internet connection, typically also for free, and home based internet capable of running most if not all online applications well is 20 bucks a month or less on average.I don't know where you live but I can't get internet anywhere near that cost. Dial-up might only run $10 a month but it would require me to have a $30+ home phone line that I wouldn't use for anything else. DSL is a minimum of $35 a month here as is cable, but both of those require more secondary costs to even get it at that cost. Most smartphones don't allow tethering for free, not to mention they are bandwidth capped in most areas, and those phone plans start at about $80 a month. And I don't really want to do all my gaming at a coffee shop or McDonalds, not to mention that many places like that are putting purchase or time limits on their internet specifically to prevent people from camping out there for hours using their internet.

Although I do agree that expecting internet isn't that outrageous for anything any more, especially a computer game.

Karoht

2011-08-03, 10:44 AM

Then you have to look at "target audience."Indeed. Target audience are the people who own a computer, and probably another gaming console with internet capability, such as the Xbox/PS3/Wii.

If you are playing single player it might only require a file integrity check and the occasional character save which isn't going to be bandwidth intensive.Even multiplayer isn't going to be doing a heck of a lot. I expect most of the work will be client side, not server side, as it isn't a persistant world, so there is largely no point in a lot of server side processing. Meaning bandwidth will be non-astronomical. Just like Starcraft 2.

I don't know where you live but I can't get internet anywhere near that cost. Dial-up might only run $10 a month but it would require me to have a $30+ home phone line that I wouldn't use for anything else. DSL is a minimum of $35 a month here as is cable, but both of those require more secondary costs to even get it at that cost.Cable and DSL is 25 where I am at. Also, the cable line installation is free, and they'll usually try and upsell you some cable TV at the same time. $50 bucks gets you some decent cable + internet with a decent connection. The cable modem is an upfront at around $60 bucks now.
Also, it's the internet. It's not like the only purpose it can serve is the game. Just pointing that out.

Most smartphones don't allow tethering for free, not to mention they are bandwidth capped in most areas, and those phone plans start at about $80 a month.I have a friend with an iPhone, his data plan is around $60, and he uses the phone for viewing youtube videos while at work and playing World of Warcraft. He never goes over his bandwidth cap of 2 gigs.

And I don't really want to do all my gaming at a coffee shop or McDonalds, not to mention that many places like that are putting purchase or time limits on their internet specifically to prevent people from camping out there for hours using their internet.I was merely stating it as an option. I rather like playing down at a coffee shop from time to time. Back in the D2 days, that was my weekly vice. Head down to coffee shop, plug my cell phone directly into my laptop (yes, it was dial-up), order up a mochachino, play to my heart's content. And with free wireless hotspots all over the place, it isn't a bad way to spend an hour or two of an afternoon.

Anecdotally, there is also a mall not far from my house. They have free wireless 24/7, and they have two tower PC's that they also allow unlimited time on. It's a place with a fairly decent community vibe, so I doubt it gets abused, hence the lack of restriction. I do know people who go down there and play WoW and Starcraft every day after work, usually for about 2-4 hours with no issues.

I should be clear, again, these are suggestions/options of course.

Although I do agree that expecting internet isn't that outrageous for anything any more, especially a computer game.If you already have a PC capable of running the game, it's a head scratcher why someone would not have internet. I mean, if you already shelled out 1000 bucks for a good computer (yes, I know you can get them cheaper), why quibble over 25-50 bucks a month.

nyarlathotep

2011-08-03, 12:42 PM

When you consider that the previous game is about 10 years old and the number of changes that has happened in the industry since then, its not really that surprising. Along the same lines the hardware requirements for the game has changed drastically too, a 10 year old computer that could play D2 is not going to be playing D3. And "most of the world" has nothing to do with it, as "most of the world" is no where near their target demographic. And at 85% that means only 15% without... I bet more then 15% of the world population doesn't own a car, does that mean we haven't reached the age of the automobile?
tangent:
The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest percentages of households without automobiles, according to data from the 2000 Census. The Census measured the percentage of households that did not own or otherwise have access to an automobile, as opposed to households that had 1, 2, 3, or more automobiles.

1. New York City, New York 55.7%
2. Newark, New Jersey 44.17%
3. Jersey City, New Jersey 40.67%
4. Washington, D.C. 36.93%
5. Hartford, Connecticut 36.14%
6. Baltimore, Maryland 35.89%
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 35.74%
8. Boston, Massachusetts 34.91%
9. Buffalo, New York 31.42%
10. New Haven, Connecticut 29.74%
11. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 29.45%
12. Paterson, New Jersey 29.32%
13. Chicago, Illinois 28.85%
14. San Francisco, California 28.56%
15. Cambridge, Massachusetts 27.72%
16. New Orleans, Louisiana 27.32%
17. Yonkers, New York 27.05%
18. Miami, Florida 26.71%
19. Syracuse, New York 26.56%
20. Rochester, New York 25.32%
21. Elizabeth, New Jersey 25.21%
22. St. Louis, Missouri 25.17%
23. Cleveland, Ohio 24.57%
24. Bridgeport, Connecticut 23.77%
25. Atlanta, Georgia 23.58%
26. Cincinnati, Ohio 23.37%
27. Providence, Rhode Island 22.92%
28. Springfield, Massachusetts 22.52%
29. Detroit, Michigan 21.9%
30. Richmond, Virginia 21.63%
31. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 21.36%
32. East Los Angeles, California 21.24%
33. Louisville, Kentucky 20.47%
34. Dayton, Ohio 19.97%
35. Minneapolis, Minnesota 19.7%
36. Oakland, California 19.62%
37. Waterbury, Connecticut 19.46%
38. Gary, Indiana 19.37
39. Honolulu, Hawaii 19.36%
40. Allentown, Pennsylvania 18.84%
41. Erie, Pennsylvania 18.2%
42. Worcester, Massachusetts 18.11%
43. Savannah, Georgia 17.64%
44. Lowell, Massachusetts 17.05%
45. Berkeley, California 17.01%
46. Norfolk, Virginia 17.01%
47. St. Paul, Minnesota 16.83%
48. Birmingham, Alabama 16.77%
49. Los Angeles, California 16.53%
50. Seattle, Washington 16.32%

And thats just the US, not counting all those 3rd world and developing countries.

Um to be fair several of those have good reason not to have cars. For instance in New York public transportation is available everywhere and so that would be comparable to someone not having internet because their city or apartment provides free wifi.

Karoht

2011-08-03, 12:49 PM

For instance in New York public transportation is available everywhere and so that would be comparable to someone not having internet because their city or apartment provides free wifi.Not to nitpick, but I would consider free wifi as internet. Just pointing that out.

Starwulf

2011-08-03, 02:16 PM

...so the game requires a PC. And expecting players who already own a PC that can run the game (I'll assume it will run on a similar graphics standard to SC2) is acceptable, but an internet connection suddenly dives into the unacceptable? I'm sorry, is internet THAT expensive these days? There's free internet at just about every coffee shop worth going to, your smartphone can act as a very good internet connection, typically also for free, and home based internet capable of running most if not all online applications well is 20 bucks a month or less on average.

To bad I don't live in an area where there is no internet beyond Dial-up, and the nearest "coffee-shop" is..oh, I don't know, 45 minutes away? OH, and, it's not a computer cafe either ^^ Which was kind of my point, not everyone has access to a reliable internet connection, hence why this is NOT "The Age of the Internet" as you called it earlier in the thread. There is a large difference between alienating people who don't have computers, and people who don't have reliable internet, especially when it deals with a game that, until now, has never before required an internet connection to play. It's a stupid business move to suddenly piss off your consumer base by making single player unplayable unless you're connected to the internet, which(since we don't know yet) may or may not cause lag even while you play single player. Hell, I'll play multiplayer, a hell of a lot, but my first playthrough IS ALWAYS in single player, and not being able to do that is going to make me angry enough to not want to buy the game ><

And yes, any change might loose them customers, but its a choice you have to make because anything you do may or may not loose customers. People were complaining about changing the color palette around, they will always find something to complain about. Change a class and you might loose customers, don't change a class and you might loose customers.

Ok, so, you argued the whole point that it IS the age of the internet, congratulations. The real question is WHY are they forcing people to log online with their game(which, as another poster mentioned, basically equates to us not even OWNING the game, it's more like we are renting it)? What is the point? What economic purpose does it serve beyond pissing off their consumer base? I know for a fact that I'm not the only person that's mad about this, I've seen a fair amount of outrage on other forums as well. So, tell me, why? Because as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no reason for them to have decided that WE MUST BE LOGGED ONLINE to play single player. It almost seems completely arbitrary, and even if it's not, whatever reason they have, is almost certainly flimsy(I'm sure it has something to do with hacking and what not, but ya know what? No matter what they do, sooner or later it's gonna be hacked. Take other precautions, but don't force us to log online just to play single player)

Thiyr

2011-08-03, 02:17 PM

Yeah, not buying it, because apparently I'm not allowed to buy it - only rent it.

So, Activision joins Ubisoft in the "not getting my money" crowd, and EA is heading that way too with their Origin shenanigans.

Man, at this rate all I'll have left will be indie titles.

Actually, if that's your criterea, you've only ever really had indie titles. Find the EULA for just about any game by a major developer. Just to double check with myself, I pulled up one for rockstar, as well as the one for diablo 2. The -very first thing in it- is that you are licensing the game from them (read: given permission to install and use the software), but they still own all of it. in fact, most every piece of software does that.

Heck, looking at the diablo 2 EULA,

A. Subject to the Grant of License hereinabove, you may not, in whole or in part, copy, photocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer, derive source code, modify, disassemble, decompile, create derivative works based on the Program, or remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Program without the prior consent, in writing, of Blizzard.

which is literally the third paragraph of the EULA. So Diablo 2 wasn't supposed to be modded either.

so much getting worked up about stuff that's already been the case >_>;

And Wulf, as to the "why make us connect to the internet to play your game"? It's DRM, pure and simple. But doing it in the way they are, which I -garuntee- will work similarly to how starcraft 2 did (what with it being the same company and all), is at least giving the user some benefits for having to put up with it. And that's absolutely nothing new at all. That's kinda exactly how Steam's been working since 2003, for single player games as well. I never intended to play HL2 multiplayer, but I still need to log onto steam to play it. They get an added level of security, and then they're trying to get even more security by adding features they think people will want, so that people don't WANT to hack it as much. As far as lag, I'm gonna go onto SC2, go onto single player, start a game, and -take out my ethernet cord- to see if that effects my gameplay. My money is that it won't. This will give us a reasonable assumption to place on the effect of the internet connection outside of that original login. But honestly, I get the feeling this is all a bunch of outrage that's coming 8 years late.

Edit: Just did that test. Had to downgrade automatically before starting the mission. Then it loaded up, i started, unplugged my internet, and kept playing for a good few minutes before i got bored and quit. At that point i was logged out due to the downgrade...at which point it says "you don't have an internet connection. Do you want to play offline?" I chose yes. It showed up with my account (last one logged on), said i can't get achievements or play multiplayer without the internet, logged on, and it gave me access to single player. that's about as close to proof on the matter as you can get without getting a copy of the game to play.

Karoht

2011-08-03, 02:46 PM

To bad I don't live in an area where there is no internet beyond Dial-up, and the nearest "coffee-shop" is..oh, I don't know, 45 minutes away? OH, and, it's not a computer cafe either ^^ Which was kind of my point, not everyone has access to a reliable internet connection, hence why this is NOT "The Age of the Internet" as you called it earlier in the thread.Do you have cable TV? Congratulations, it's being streamed via the internet. You have a phone? Is your provider using IP protocols? Well, thats the internet too. Do people in our town own smartphones? Internet. So don't jump so much to conclusions, there is probably more internet around you than you know. You probably interact with the internet more than you do any other communication medium.
Not focusing too much on your personal situation, do you have cable TV access where you are? If they can stream cable to you, they can provide internet. It's the same wires just different data now.

There is a large difference between alienating people who don't have computers, and people who don't have reliable internet, especially when it deals with a game that, until now, has never before required an internet connection to play. It's a stupid business move to suddenly piss off your consumer base by making single player unplayable unless you're connected to the internet, which(since we don't know yet) may or may not cause lag even while you play single player. Hell, I'll play multiplayer, a hell of a lot, but my first playthrough IS ALWAYS in single player, and not being able to do that is going to make me angry enough to not want to buy the game ><

Wow, hackles up much?
Also, am I misremembering, or have you posted in the SC2 thread once or twice? Not relevant, just asking.

"It's a stupid business move to suddenly piss off your consumer base by making single player unplayable unless you're connected to the internet"
One could also make the arguement that it's a stupid business move to make a product that doesn't use the latest technology. Or adopts an outdated model strictly due to nostalgia.
Fact: Open Play became a breeding ground of hackers.
Fact: They can't prevent hacking without having you connect to the internet.
One could even make the arguement that the D2 model was a poorly thought out approach, but still managed to be a success in spite of itself.

12 million wow players, I think somewhere around 10 million Starcraft players, both of which probably take up a sizeable chunk of Blizzards demographic. I think the customer base thus far is demonstratably in favor of online play, rather than not.

"especially when it deals with a game that, until now, has never before required an internet connection to play."
Cloud Gaming is coming, and it is coming because MORE people want to utilize the internet for applications and gaming. Not less. But ignoring that, the industry trend has been towards online play for the last decade or so. Blizzard is at fault for following an industry trend? Well shucks.

"may or may not cause lag even while you play single player"
Blizzard has been at this whole online gaming thing for quite a while. Yeah, the SC2 servers and D2 are probably not the best examples, but nowadays even a trace of lag in online play is usually not tolerated, hence I wouldn't expect it in a Blizzard title at this stage of the game.

========
But, I will acknowledge that you should have access. Gaming has been made a successful industry because of it's increased accessability, not the lack thereof. I still have to empathize with Blizzards position, because hacking due to the Single Player no internet of D1 and D2 really did take the game down some dark roads, as did the buying and selling of items outside the game. The integrity of the game seems rather important to me. Perhaps you don't value it the same way, and you are entitled to that opinion. Sadly, we can't have it both ways. The technology simply isn't there where we can provide integrity AND not have the game require access the internet. It is a shame that the industry as a whole has not yet found a better way.

Maxymiuk

2011-08-03, 04:05 PM

so much getting worked up about stuff that's already been the case >_>;

Also, it was almost impossible to enforce, and most publishers didn't even try, as they've realized mods is what extends a game's "lifetime" for years above what it otherwise would. Some companies - like Bethesda - embraced the modding community surrounding their games.

But that's not the point.

My point is, my studies, and - currently - my work, frequently take me to different parts of the coutry, or even the continent. And while I can take my laptop with me, and I can take a box of game disks, I can't take my internet along for the ride, and I'm not always guaranteed a connection at my destination.

My point is, I'm not going to buy a game that I won't be able to play whenever I want. That's the long and short of it.

Starwulf

2011-08-03, 04:31 PM

Do you have cable TV? Congratulations, it's being streamed via the internet. You have a phone? Is your provider using IP protocols? Well, thats the internet too. Do people in our town own smartphones? Internet. So don't jump so much to conclusions, there is probably more internet around you than you know. You probably interact with the internet more than you do any other communication medium.
Not focusing too much on your personal situation, do you have cable TV access where you are? If they can stream cable to you, they can provide internet. It's the same wires just different data now.

I live on top of a mountain, I don't live in a town. No smartphones work up here. I can't get satellite internet due too to many trees in the way. Half the time my Satellite doesn't work when I'm watching TV, and they are already in the only spot that's not completely obscured by trees. I do have dial-up internet, but that is THE ONLY internet that is available to me out here. Nothing else, not cable, not DSL, not a smart phone, no cell-phone internets, nothing like that works out here.

edit: Also, no, I've never posted in the SC2 thread, I don't own SC2 because of the whole "having to connect to the internet" bit just to play even in offline mode. Plus, I just don't have the money to afford it, especially given there are other games I'd rather buy, SINGLE PLAYER ones that don't force you to jump on the internet just to play even in offline mode.

Yeah, my hackles are raised over the issue, I live in the middle of nowhere(by choice, because I like isolation, and I love the view of the mountain I live on top of), and until just the last 2 years or so, I've never had to connect to the internet just to play a game that I bought. Maybe enter an activation key, which I have no problem with, but that's it. I disagree with the new DRM crap that is going around, and it is my choice and my prerogative as a consumer, to protest it by not spending what little money I have for "extras" like gaming, on games like SC2 and D3, and the like. Hell, I may not even be buying Skyrim if it requires you to download and activate and play through Steam, because I don't have steam, and steam is NOTORIOUS for not being able to play in offline mode if it detects an internet setting, and I"ll be damned if I'm going to disconnect my internet by unplugging my modem every time I want to play a game in offline mode.

Karoht

2011-08-03, 04:39 PM

I live on top of a mountain, I don't live in a town. No smartphones work up here. I can't get satellite internet due too to many trees in the way. Half the time my Satellite doesn't work when I'm watching TV, and they are already in the only spot that's not completely obscured by trees. I do have dial-up internet, but that is THE ONLY internet that is available to me out here. Nothing else, not cable, not DSL, not a smart phone, no cell-phone internets, nothing like that works out here.With all due respect, WOW, how the hell do you live without good internet.
But I will point out that you have put yourself in this situation by choice, by your own admission.

Starwulf

2011-08-03, 04:50 PM

With all due respect, WOW, how the hell do you live without good internet.
But I will point out that you have put yourself in this situation by choice, by your own admission.

While that's true, I shouldn't necessarily be punished for living where I do by being unable to play games that I've looked forward to forever and a day. People shouldn't be forced to play games online when they don't want to. Not everyone enjoys online gaming(which, actually, I do, I played FFXI from 2003 until Jan of this year, I played Starcraft and diablo and diablo 2 for years and years and years), especially when it's forced on them(which is my entire complaint). I believe I have the right to be able to play a game that I spend my extra cash on at any point in time that I wish, whether or not I have a valid internet connection or not. There is absolutely no reason that that should not be an option.

Also, yeah it sucks not having good internet. Supposedly in the next year or two they are going to expand the infrastructure here in Western Maryland(specifically where I live) to encompass a much wider stretch of the mountainous areas that don't have anything other then dial-up or satellite, since they got a 100million or so grant last year specifically for that purpose. So hopefully in a few years, I won't even have to complain about stuff like this, except in the defense of people who still don't have a decent internet connection(just because I might have a good one, doesn't mean I shouldn't think about others.)

Thiyr

2011-08-04, 01:14 AM

edit: Also, no, I've never posted in the SC2 thread, I don't own SC2 because of the whole "having to connect to the internet" bit just to play even in offline mode. Plus, I just don't have the money to afford it, especially given there are other games I'd rather buy, SINGLE PLAYER ones that don't force you to jump on the internet just to play even in offline mode.

Yeah, my hackles are raised over the issue, I live in the middle of nowhere(by choice, because I like isolation, and I love the view of the mountain I live on top of), and until just the last 2 years or so, I've never had to connect to the internet just to play a game that I bought. Maybe enter an activation key, which I have no problem with, but that's it. I disagree with the new DRM crap that is going around, and it is my choice and my prerogative as a consumer, to protest it by not spending what little money I have for "extras" like gaming, on games like SC2 and D3, and the like. Hell, I may not even be buying Skyrim if it requires you to download and activate and play through Steam, because I don't have steam, and steam is NOTORIOUS for not being able to play in offline mode if it detects an internet setting, and I"ll be damned if I'm going to disconnect my internet by unplugging my modem every time I want to play a game in offline mode.

Gonna repeat what I said before after my little test for you.

Edit: Just did that test. Had to downgrade automatically before starting the mission. Then it loaded up, i started, unplugged my internet, and kept playing for a good few minutes before i got bored and quit. At that point i was logged out due to the downgrade...at which point it says "you don't have an internet connection. Do you want to play offline?" I chose yes. It showed up with my account (last one logged on), said i can't get achievements or play multiplayer without the internet, logged on, and it gave me access to single player. that's about as close to proof on the matter as you can get without getting a copy of the game to play.

Additionally, as I just checked now, you can just log in as a guest, which won't let you use battlenet for multiplayer or achievements, but should still let you use single player. That's for SC2, admittedly, but if Blizzard doesn't implement something similar for d3, I'd be...well, shocked, really. You have to have the internet to have all the features, but those features you lose access to are internet-dependent in the first place, so it makes sense. I think that everything saying it's going to "require" being online is most likely going to be a bit misleading if it works this way as well.

Starwulf

2011-08-04, 01:38 AM

Gonna repeat what I said before after my little test for you.

Additionally, as I just checked now, you can just log in as a guest, which won't let you use battlenet for multiplayer or achievements, but should still let you use single player. That's for SC2, admittedly, but if Blizzard doesn't implement something similar for d3, I'd be...well, shocked, really. You have to have the internet to have all the features, but those features you lose access to are internet-dependent in the first place, so it makes sense. I think that everything saying it's going to "require" being online is most likely going to be a bit misleading if it works this way as well.

If that is truly the case, then I will be happiest person in the world. I just want my single player play-through before I go online and spend the next 4-6 years there anyways. LOL(yeah, I'm contradictory, wanna fight about it?(cookie to those who get the reference!). I appreciate the testing, and I must have missed your previous post referencing that fact ^^ Now, if I only had the money to buy one part of a 3 part series of the same game(ala SC2) :).

Elm11

2011-08-04, 05:15 AM

Winterwind

2011-08-04, 05:17 AM

Eh, I'm with the crowd that says "Why care?". It's not like they can force me to buy anything with cash, nor like that it would be mandatory to do so to complete the game.

faceroll

2011-08-04, 07:36 AM

It's definitely going to encourage bot farming, that's for sure. Boot up scripts, start D3, make money.

I live on top of a mountain

Last I checked, the consumer base for videogames lived in cities with the rest of the industrialized world, not on top of a mountain.

Karoht

2011-08-04, 09:19 AM

I actually didn't realise it was possible to lose so much interest in a game that quickly. I am dissapointed.

Admittedly, I can see why Blizzard made the decision to create an official cash for gold system, as much as it annoys me.

If they don't have a real world gold trading system (RWGTS), then illegal systems will turn up a'la World of Warcraft, and then they'll have to spend a large amount of money combating and suppressing the black market.
On the other hand, if they implement their own, official RWGTS, then they'll not only effectively kill any illegal opposition, but they also take the money themselves, making a tidy profit.

Of course, this is a catch 22. The first option results in frustration for Blizzard staff and a significant defecit, while the second option is bound to attract scorn and displeasure from the colossal blizzard fanbase, as you are about to see.

FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
:smallmad:

Here is my question, both to you and to the rest of the thread.

How will the RWGTS affect you personally in Diablo 3?

EDIT: For the purposes of this hypothetical, please assume that one would play Diablo 3 in the first place. INB4 the "I'm not going to play it so it won't affect me" responses.

It's definitely going to encourage bot farming, that's for sure. Boot up scripts, start D3, make money.Actually, playing the AH would probably be faster. And make direct cash rather than just gold. Saves a step and all that.

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-08-04, 10:04 AM

Here is my question, both to you and to the rest of the thread.

How will the RWGTS affect you personally in Diablo 3?First, it dramatically increases the demand for gear or gear pieces. In D3, a large portion of your character's abilities come from the type of gear he has, since every member of the class has the same skills as any other. They've also gone out and said that it's not going to be easy to get higher-end gear, because you need to work your merchants up. Want uber armor? Gonna have to work really hard at working up your smith. And it's entirely likely that, like in the SC2 research, you can't have it all.

But you will want it all. Which means there is an unmet demand.

That's bad enough. But now, you can have characters actually make you real dollars? Suddenly, everyone's second cousin's DOG is going to be wanting those mats/gear/etc... which is going to dramatically affect group dynamics, and how players treat and trust one another.

Wheras in D2, you might not have cared much because it's just a game, and not worth anything... in D3, you might be able to sell that gear for real dollars. It doesn't matter if it'll only sell for $1, it's real cash in your real pocket. Now that gives you the strong encouragement to try to get the gear, if for no other reason than you can get some money out of it.

This complicates 'need before greed', because people will see real money as a need more powerful than anything 'in game' (which I can certainly understand), and so you'll have 'ringers' who deliberately under-gear themselves to win good gear drops which they then turn around and sell for money on another character.

The entire loot dynamic is dramatically altered whenever you give people the chance to win real money. Hell, look at all the game shows where people will utterly humiliate themselves for a fistful of dollars. Now give them the anonymity of the internet, and see what happens...

Actually, playing the AH would probably be faster. And make direct cash rather than just gold. Saves a step and all that.

Sure, and there's going to be quite a few AH speculators, I have no doubt. However, that gear has to get there from somewhere. And that somewhere is going to be hotly contested. AH speculators are also going to artificially inflate AH prices, and keep them higher longer. But that's minor compared to all the hell people are going to put each other through getting loot.

Oh, and let's have some pity on the poor GM's as well. This is *REAL MONEY* we're talking about. Suddenly, you have people MUCH more vitriolic, because you are 'stealing money out of my pocket', and petitions about ninja looting and other gear distribution faux pas will be much harder to settle down. It doesn't matter if they could actually GET the money or not, the mere fact that they *MIGHT* is enough to send them into a frothing rage that makes any example of NERDRAGE seem pale by comparison.

Winterwind

2011-08-04, 10:13 AM

ShneekeyTheLost, by my understanding the Diablo III item drop system works on the basis of dropping items specific to particular players. As in, a monster is killed, and it drops an item you and only you can pick up, and another some other player and only that other player in the same game can pick up. Other people can't even see what that monster dropped for you, and they most definitely can't ninja it from you. There is no Greed/Need system; it's just player-specific item drops.

At least, unless I'm misunderstanding what I read about it, or my info is outdated. That's pretty much what Blizzard said about it, though.

The Succubus

2011-08-04, 10:14 AM

Karoht

2011-08-04, 10:43 AM

First, it dramatically increases the demand for gear or gear pieces. In D3, a large portion of your character's abilities come from the type of gear he has, since every member of the class has the same skills as any other. They've also gone out and said that it's not going to be easy to get higher-end gear, because you need to work your merchants up. Want uber armor? Gonna have to work really hard at working up your smith. And it's entirely likely that, like in the SC2 research, you can't have it all.

But you will want it all. Which means there is an unmet demand.I guarantee you that there will be unmet demand. Mostly because loot drops are entirely luck based.

That's bad enough. But now, you can have characters actually make you real dollars? Suddenly, everyone's second cousin's DOG is going to be wanting those mats/gear/etc... which is going to dramatically affect group dynamics, and how players treat and trust one another. Play with your friends and guildies. If those people are jerks then find people to play with who are not jerks. The same arguement applies in WoW, and it isn't hard to find a good play group if you actually bother to look. Nothing forces you to play with strangers who you don't know or don't trust. You will be able to solo the entire game.

Wheras in D2, you might not have cared much because it's just a game, and not worth anything...eBay and craigslist strongly disagree with you. Some items went for as much as $100. Accounts went for $300 to $1000. The community didn't devolve into what you are describing.

In D3, you might be able to sell that gear for real dollars. It doesn't matter if it'll only sell for $1, it's real cash in your real pocket. Now that gives you the strong encouragement to try to get the gear, if for no other reason than you can get some money out of it.And again the same arguement applies in WoW. Sure it is against the ToS, but any item I find in WoW that is not soulbound I could theoretically sell for real money, or gold, or sell my gold for real money. Ninja looters aren't that big an issue in WoW.

This complicates 'need before greed', because people will see real money as a need more powerful than anything 'in game' (which I can certainly understand), and so you'll have 'ringers' who deliberately under-gear themselves to win good gear drops which they then turn around and sell for money on another character. That arguement might apply if someone is using loot council to decide loot.

The entire loot dynamic is dramatically altered whenever you give people the chance to win real money. Hell, look at all the game shows where people will utterly humiliate themselves for a fistful of dollars. Now give them the anonymity of the internet, and see what happens...Huh. And yet when Blizzard tried to remove that anonymity on the forums, people complained. Figures.
Yes, money will make people do crazy things.
Do you trust your friends? Honestly and truly, would you still play with your friend if you knew he fooled you into giving him an item for money?

Sure, and there's going to be quite a few AH speculators, I have no doubt. However, that gear has to get there from somewhere. And that somewhere is going to be hotly contested.Um, how exactly? It's an instanced game, one you don't even have to play with other people. How would the source of gear be contested when people can go farm Bael 6 times an hour?

AH speculators are also going to artificially inflate AH prices, and keep them higher longer.See WoW. Prices flux within reason. Prices fall when demand dips. Prices rise when demand rises.

But that's minor compared to all the hell people are going to put each other through getting loot.WoW worked it out pretty good. And if what Winterwind says is true, I don't see it being a massive issue.

Oh, and let's have some pity on the poor GM's as well. This is *REAL MONEY* we're talking about. Suddenly, you have people MUCH more vitriolic, because you are 'stealing money out of my pocket', and petitions about ninja looting and other gear distribution faux pas will be much harder to settle down. It doesn't matter if they could actually GET the money or not, the mere fact that they *MIGHT* is enough to send them into a frothing rage that makes any example of NERDRAGE seem pale by comparison.To which I hope the GM's ignore such responses as much as is reasonably possible. It's a game, stuff happens. Any idea how many times I've been ninja looted in WoW? Did I send in a ticket and demand my item or gold equivilent in return? No.

Honestly, if the D3 community turns into what you are painting it as, then god help the gaming community after that. If gamers prove themselves to be jerks to that degree, then I don't know what else to say about those people without violating forum rules. Really. If people are that crumby, particularly gamers, then we are already doomed. And I pity the society that reared them.

Xapi

2011-08-04, 10:49 AM

They could impliment a price ceiling rather easily. Cap all cash prices at $5. Even a ceiling of $10 would be decent.

Problem with this is, if you put a cap price, the higher end gear might not sell at that price, so you'd get a new black market (wich is what you were trying to avoid in the first place).

Karoht

2011-08-04, 11:23 AM

Problem with this is, if you put a cap price, the higher end gear might not sell at that price, so you'd get a new black market (which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place).True, but in theory, sellers could still avoid the in-game system and go to ebay/Kajiji/Craigslist anyway, no matter what the ceiling is. The scammers will probably still try to sell items this way.

Erloas

2011-08-04, 12:11 PM

And again the same arguement applies in WoW. Sure it is against the ToS, but any item I find in WoW that is not soulbound I could theoretically sell for real money, or gold, or sell my gold for real money. Ninja looters aren't that big an issue in WoW.
The difference is in the difficult to do so. Yes, gold can be sold for real money in WoW, but only the professional farmers have a system set up to find the buyers, and to easily get money from them.

As for how its going to effect me? I'm never going to spend real money on in-game items. Which will probably mean there is almost nothing I can buy in the game. Why sell your nice drop to someone for gold when you can get real money for it? And with real money being tied to gold, even if its secondarily through items, then gold inflation is going to be so high that even a moderately good item is going to take huge amounts of gold farming to afford. So I can't likely even use the AH unless I'm willing to farm.

The rest kind of depends on how much of a difference gear makes. If its anything like WoW thats going to mean gear makes up about 80% of what a character can do, which means if anyone I want to play with, be it a friend or just some random people, decide to farm or buy from the inflated AHs then they will be a lot more powerful then me. And if a lot of people do it and they start adjusting existing encounters or even just new things added by expansions to that new purchased/farmed items power levels then I'm not going to be able to do it at all without also spending my own money at the AH or farming constantly.

And given Blizzards track record with WoW, that is exactly whats going to happen. Without buying items or devoting my life to farming then theres going to be a good portion of the game that I'm simply not going to have access to.

Starwulf

2011-08-04, 12:30 PM

Last I checked, the consumer base for videogames lived in cities with the rest of the industrialized world, not on top of a mountain.

lmao, I know a lot of people that play video games that live on the mountain. I just happen to literally live at the Summit of it, that's all. Really, only 8 miles away from the nearest town, unfortunately DSL ends at the town(hell, they just got it a few years ago iirc). Still plenty civilized up here, not THAT much of Redneck Hillbillies ^^. I'm not one at all(think "typical teenage rebellion" that just happened to stick with me permanently. I do love my fishing though, but I hate nascar, I don't think my sisters are hot, and I don't drink, at all).

Karoht

2011-08-04, 12:51 PM

The difference is in the difficult to do so. Yes, gold can be sold for real money in WoW, but only the professional farmers have a system set up to find the buyers, and to easily get money from them.

As for how its going to effect me? I'm never going to spend real money on in-game items. Which will probably mean there is almost nothing I can buy in the game. Why sell your nice drop to someone for gold when you can get real money for it? And with real money being tied to gold, even if its secondarily through items, then gold inflation is going to be so high that even a moderately good item is going to take huge amounts of gold farming to afford. So I can't likely even use the AH unless I'm willing to farm.

The rest kind of depends on how much of a difference gear makes. If its anything like WoW thats going to mean gear makes up about 80% of what a character can do, which means if anyone I want to play with, be it a friend or just some random people, decide to farm or buy from the inflated AHs then they will be a lot more powerful then me. And if a lot of people do it and they start adjusting existing encounters or even just new things added by expansions to that new purchased/farmed items power levels then I'm not going to be able to do it at all without also spending my own money at the AH or farming constantly.

And given Blizzards track record with WoW, that is exactly whats going to happen. Without buying items or devoting my life to farming then theres going to be a good portion of the game that I'm simply not going to have access to.

Spending cash on items-I will, but not out of pocket. At worst, I'll sell some other items to make cash and then buy the item with cash. Or whatever gear -> gold -> cash -> desired item transmutation process is required. But I will probably never actually pay for an item out of pocket. It would take a lot for me to spend $10 or even $5 on some pixels.
Thats actually why I have no issue with the cash for pets and cash for mounts in WoW. It doesn't affect me because I don't feel a need to buy them. Though I have bought a few and gifted them to friends and guildies and other cool people (and money went to charity anyway), but that was about all.

Gear Check-There were no real gear checks in D2. Duriel could have been called a Gear Check for the melee classes, but Skill Points (damage optimization) and player skill played a much larger role in surviving that fight than your gear. Armor didn't do much for you, and on normal mode the amount of stats you got on items didn't do very much for you either. Poison resist was helpful but definately not critical.

A character could be sitting in blues (the wow equivilent of greens) and full clear the game. It would be hard, but there it was. Once I discovered the /players 8 trick, I solo'd everything at that difficulty. And I will point out once again that I had the WORST luck with gear drops. I killed Mephisto about 8 times before I saw a Rare drop off him.
A character could be in full blues next to someone in full uniques, and still contribute meaningfully (resistances/immunities notwithstanding). Hell, I had friends tag along with me on Hell Difficulty Bael runs, when they were 20 levels below me and had JUST downed Bael on Nightmare. Heck, the guy saved my ass by tanking with his Paladin for a moment or two long enough for me to get away and med up. Same with Diablo himself before the expansion.

There really is no reason for Blizzard to deviate from this model in D3. Combo that with the fact that Blizzard has stated they want to make D3 a bit more skill focused, and a bit less grindy-so in theory less gear focused. So again, I have no doubt that gear will NOT be as important as everyone is making it out to be, hence purchasing equipment from the AH won't be as important as everyone thinks it will be. I have more fear that it will turn the player base into rabid monkeys clamoring at every piece of gear because they might be able to make a nickel on it, and even then it isn't a serious fear.

Funny story. When I started playing WoW, people complained it wasn't enough like D2. Now looking forward to D3, everyone is compairing it to WoW, in the worst ways, just like they did to WoW with D2. When in fact they really are fundamentally different games. The more things change the more they stay the same I guess.

Xapi

2011-08-04, 01:26 PM

True, but in theory, sellers could still avoid the in-game system and go to ebay/Kajiji/Craigslist anyway, no matter what the ceiling is. The scammers will probably still try to sell items this way.

Yeah, but if you've got a legit way of selling your MACE OF UBER AWESOMENESS or you can sell it on the black market for a bit more (avoiding Blizzard's cut), most people would go the legit way.

If, however, your MOUA sells for the $5 cap at the legit store, and $20 in the black market, that's a different story...

Karoht

2011-08-04, 01:31 PM

Yeah, but if you've got a legit way of selling your MACE OF UBER AWESOMENESS or you can sell it on the black market for a bit more (avoiding Blizzard's cut), most people would go the legit way.

If, however, your MOUA sells for the $5 cap at the legit store, and $20 in the black market, that's a different story...
Which does beg the question, why would someone spend the $20 AND risk their account security/system integrity, when they can just pay the $5?

Personally speaking, I like to pay less, not more, and I usually am not in the mood to go through the account recovery process should something go wrong (or in the event that people don't have the Authenticator). I'm
curious if there is a logic as to why someone WOULD want to pay more AND jeopardize themselves. From the seller's point of view it does indeed make sense, but not from the perspective of the buyer.

Xapi

2011-08-04, 02:10 PM

Which does beg the question, why would someone spend the $20 AND risk their account security/system integrity, when they can just pay the $5?

Personally speaking, I like to pay less, not more, and I usually am not in the mood to go through the account recovery process should something go wrong (or in the event that people don't have the Authenticator). I'm
curious if there is a logic as to why someone WOULD want to pay more AND jeopardize themselves. From the seller's point of view it does indeed make sense, but not from the perspective of the buyer.

The fact that there's a cap doesn't mean that you're FORCED to sell something at that price.

If 5 bucks buy a lumpy mace of flacidness, the seller will not sell his Mace of Uber Awesomeness for the same price. So he will either keep it, trade it for something else of equal worth, or sell it in the black market.

Basically, it takes two to tango. If demand is high enough, there won't be anyone selling the high end gear for the capped price, so the buyer CAN'T buy for the cap, he can either go to the black market or not get his item.

Alternatively, a player could trade his MOUA for 4 or five lumpy maces of flacidness, sell each for $5 and the end result is the same. So, capping the prices won't work as intended.

If, however, a complete pricing system would be introduced, that might work. But a hard cap is no good.

Karoht

2011-08-04, 02:30 PM

The fact that there's a cap doesn't mean that you're FORCED to sell something at that price.

If 5 bucks buy a lumpy mace of flacidness, the seller will not sell his Mace of Uber Awesomeness for the same price. So he will either keep it, trade it for something else of equal worth, or sell it in the black market.

Basically, it takes two to tango. If demand is high enough, there won't be anyone selling the high end gear for the capped price, so the buyer CAN'T buy for the cap, he can either go to the black market or not get his item.

Alternatively, a player could trade his MOUA for 4 or five lumpy maces of flacidness, sell each for $5 and the end result is the same. So, capping the prices won't work as intended.

If, however, a complete pricing system would be introduced, that might work. But a hard cap is no good.

You're right, it does take 2 to tango. You forgot that just because there is a lumpy mace on sale for $5 doesn't mean that someone will buy it. You also didn't explain why the buyer would accept the risk of compromizing their account along with paying more than the market price cap on a third-party site. If the buyer is conditioned (via the cap) that nothing is worth more than $5, they aren't going to be too keen on paying more than $5. Subsequently, if there is zero MOUA on the AH, perhaps the player might accept the fact that purchasing that item is not available at that time, and move on.

I'm sorry, but I can't empathize with the notion that the majority of buyers will be morons who will pay any sum of money and undergo any risk to get the item they want because they are that impatient or dumb. I'll gladly stand corrected if players prove me wrong (and I'll also stand rather smugly I'll add). I also don't see players being willing to buy an item for anything beyond a reasonable sum. And while the notion of a reasonable sum varies from player to player and wallet size to wallet size, seriously, who honestly wants to pay more than $20 for some pixels with stats? Heck, people gripe about spending $1 on stat pixels as it is. Are people going to sell something for $100 and actually find someone with more dollars than cents to figure out why this is a bad transation and actually pay the $100? Or on a third party site with additional risk? I really don't believe people are that thick.

My honest opinion is that the best equipment in the game (IE-Uniques and the like) should not be purchasable/sellable. Those items should be Bind on Pickup. But then again, the 'Endgame' of D3 might not be compairable to D2, and is likely to also not be compairable to WoW either. So the 'best' gear and acquiring it might not be able to come from the AH, or maybe it will. Hard to say.

Xapi

2011-08-04, 02:43 PM

You're right, it does take 2 to tango. You forgot that just because there is a lumpy mace on sale for $5 doesn't mean that someone will buy it. You also didn't explain why the buyer would accept the risk of compromizing their account along with paying more than the market price cap on a third-party site. If the buyer is conditioned (via the cap) that nothing is worth more than $5, they aren't going to be too keen on paying more than $5. Subsequently, if there is zero MOUA on the AH, perhaps the player might accept the fact that purchasing that item is not available at that time, and move on.

Of course people won't just buy the lumpy mace because it's for sale. What I'm saying is that demand and offer will meet, and a given price will be set for the items because of it. So, if the price set by demand and offer (I feel a little dirty explaining this, I hate capitalism) for any given non-tier 1 item is $5, then the tier 1 items will not be sold through the AH. That's my point.

I'm sorry, but I can't empathize with the notion that the majority of buyers will be morons who will pay any sum of money and undergo any risk to get the item they want because they are that impatient or dumb. I'll gladly stand corrected if players prove me wrong (and I'll also stand rather smugly I'll add).

I wouldn't call them morons, but I would ask you to do a search on what tier 1 items are being sold for in games of the popularity that D3 is expected to have.

I also don't see players being willing to buy an item for anything beyond a reasonable sum. And while the notion of a reasonable sum varies from player to player and wallet size to wallet size, seriously, who honestly wants to pay more than $20 for some pixels with stats?

I don't know, who would pay around 5 bucks for their avatars (if they choose a given champion) to look a bit different than the regular one?

I wouldn't, yet Riot Games makes a business model out of selling "skins" for League of Legends (and other things too, before someone comes at my throat, but they wouldn't have over 200 skins available if they didn't turn a profit)

Heck, people gripe about spending $1 on stat pixels as it is. Are people going to sell something for $100 and actually find someone with more dollars than cents to figure out why this is a bad transation and actually pay the $100? Or on a third party site with additional risk? I really don't believe people are that thick.

I don't know about $100 (specially because there's likely to be someone willing to sell any item on any game for less than that), but I believe reality is really saying that people are willing to pay what you or I would call unreasonable sums for in-game items, and there's people willing to sell at those prices too (and sometimes, not lower).

My honest opinion is that the best equipment in the game (IE-Uniques and the like) should not be purchasable/sellable. Those items should be Bind on Pickup. But then again, the 'Endgame' of D3 might not be compairable to D2, and is likely to also not be compairable to WoW either. So the 'best' gear and acquiring it might not be able to come from the AH, or maybe it will. Hard to say.

Yeah, too early to call on much of this. I have only argued against a price cap though, nothing else.

Karoht

2011-08-04, 03:01 PM

Yeah, too early to call on much of this. I have only argued against a price cap though, nothing else.
I also just realized that a cap would sort of defeat the notion of an auction. Can't get a bidding war going if there is a cap.

As for the $5 item arguement, my point may have been misunderstood.
If we have two items for $5, one bad one good, the comparison is easy, you buy the good one. The bad one 'sits on the shelf' until either the price is changed, or there is nothing left of the good one. Doesn't matter if we're talking about maces or lawnmowers. The price of a lawnmower doesn't affect the price of a computer and vice versa. So the $5 bad mace doesn't affect the price at all really of the $5 good mace. What is affected is what people are willing to spend $5 to get. If they're unwilling to spend it on the good mace, they aren't going to spend it on the bad one either. They might be willing to spend it on the good mace but not the bad.

A price cap would however mean that most people would first of all shop by price. Second, that good items listed below cap would be snatched up very quickly, and likely resold at the cap.
A cap does however, prevent the buy and relist sort of behavior that we see in games like WoW. One day the price of material X is 5g, with some flux in price. The next day, people have relisted everything cheaper in order to move the product. The day after that, someone buys it all on the cheap and relists at a higher price, and so on. A cap would mostly curb this sort of behavior, which is said to be damaging to any ingame economy.

nooblade

2011-08-04, 03:24 PM

High-end items are the perfect candidates for something to sell--they're not necessary to win and they unlock different styles of playing. Like the "enigma" armor that lets anyone teleport in D2.

The presence of the real-money AH indicates that they've embraced this kind of thing, IMHO. What else would they sell? Leveling gear? Like someone said, it would be stupid to buy mid-rate stuff. Making some interesting decisions inaccessible is most of the point.

To expand on this:

D2 was full of gear that unlocked different styles of play, not just with 'nigmas. One mid-grade (leaning toward valuable) item had a chance to cast life tap on things (Dracul's Grasp), which made the game much easier (possible?) for characters and allowed them to "leech" back life and mana from undead enemies. Another item, a polearm runeword with rather low requirements actually, let you leech back mana. The Insight stick was usually a non-choice, it was so good and cheap enough that you always wanted to get it or make it, and put it on a mercenary who had a selection of other useful auras already.

I remember quite well that the cheapest choice for a melee Barbarian is a shopped cruel weapon of alacrity--you had to run in and out of town searching vendors until the right weapon for an hour or three until something with the right mods can spawn. That amount of time probably isn't worth it, it's more of a no-trade option. Runewords that did much better if you can get a hold of some duped runes (they're only cheap as they are because they're duped).

Regardless of what Blizzard says about making the game based on the skills you pick, there's too much precedent and profit for them to do funny business with items. Why make one sword so much better than another otherwise? It makes their AH system actually useful and adds the layers of complexity that players expect. Just like how players expect achievements. The thing with skill runes might expand another part of the game, but I'm sure the items will still be there in force. And I bet the skill runes can be traded with the AH, too.

You'll still be able to play the game without twinking, of course. Completely naked builds are possible in D2, but its so limited that hardly anyone goes into it for the fun. I don't expect it in D3, but I dunno, if they're really interested in satisfying someone like me then they might.

I don't think that's all necessarily bad, but I'm not interested in doing it again even if they add lots of candy and icing.

Xapi

2011-08-04, 03:32 PM

I also just realized that a cap would sort of defeat the notion of an auction. Can't get a bidding war going if there is a cap.

Yep, that too.

As for the $5 item arguement, my point may have been misunderstood.
If we have two items for $5, one bad one good, the comparison is easy, you buy the good one. The bad one 'sits on the shelf' until either the price is changed, or there is nothing left of the good one. Doesn't matter if we're talking about maces or lawnmowers. The price of a lawnmower doesn't affect the price of a computer and vice versa. So the $5 bad mace doesn't affect the price at all really of the $5 good mace. What is affected is what people are willing to spend $5 to get. If they're unwilling to spend it on the good mace, they aren't going to spend it on the bad one either. They might be willing to spend it on the good mace but not the bad.

But let's assume I'm willing to spend $5 on the bad mace, and $10 on the good one. And again, let's assume that there's plenty of people like me willing to spend around $5 on the bad mace, and more than that on the good one.

Now, you have a good mace, but your favourite character is an amazon, so you need a bow. You should, then, sell your mace and buy a bow of comparable worth.

However, with the price cap, you can only sell your mace for the same value that you would sell a less valuable mace. So I would gladly buy your mace for $5 (Hell, I was going to buy a worst one for the same price).

So when you go out into the market with your $5 to buy a bow, you're in the same position than if you had sold a lumpy mace.

You'd probably end up buying a lumpy bow, unless you're lucky enough to land another sucker like you who sold his high end gear at the price of a medium.

After that, next time you land a MOUA, you're going to either direct trade it, or sell it out of the system (and buy a bow out of the syste, or keep the money).

A price cap would however mean that most people would first of all shop by price. Second, that good items listed below cap would be snatched up very quickly, and likely resold at the cap.

What would they shop by without the cap?

Why would someone list lower than the cap for a good item?

A cap does however, prevent the buy and relist sort of behavior that we see in games like WoW. One day the price of material X is 5g, with some flux in price. The next day, people have relisted everything cheaper in order to move the product. The day after that, someone buys it all on the cheap and relists at a higher price, and so on. A cap would mostly curb this sort of behavior, which is said to be damaging to any ingame economy.

I believe a more delicate approach should be set towards directing the in-game economy (wich I agree should be done).

Karoht

2011-08-04, 03:36 PM

High-end items are the perfect candidates for something to sell--they're not necessary to win and they unlock different styles of playing. Like the "enigma" armor that lets anyone teleport in D2.

Regardless of what Blizzard says about making the game based on the skills you pick, there's too much precedent and profit for them to do funny business with items. Why make one sword so much better than another otherwise? It makes their AH system actually useful and adds the layers of complexity that players expect.Totally forgot that arguement.
And your right, there will most likely be 'style changing' gear around, stuff that makes certain builds more viable, certain play styles more viable, etc.

Great post BTW.

Yep, that too.Hokay, I'm starting to see why a cap would make very little sense.
On the other hand, the day an item reaches $20 I am going to point to it as an absurdity none the less.

I believe a more delicate approach should be set towards directing the in-game economy (wich I agree should be done).Such as? Gold sinks? Cash sinks (which in theory can be paid with gold -> cash)? Stimulus packages? How can they possibly direct the in-game economy without a direct heavy hand?

Erloas

2011-08-04, 05:58 PM

Which does beg the question, why would someone spend the $20 AND risk their account security/system integrity, when they can just pay the $5?

Personally speaking, I like to pay less, not more, and I usually am not in the mood to go through the account recovery process should something go wrong (or in the event that people don't have the Authenticator). I'm
curious if there is a logic as to why someone WOULD want to pay more AND jeopardize themselves. From the seller's point of view it does indeed make sense, but not from the perspective of the buyer.
Well, not that I've even considered buying items for a game, it was my understanding that you gave them a character name, server, and money and then they mailed or traded you the money with a mule account. The only time you would give someone your account information is if you were paying for some of the power leveling services.

But as for the question of who would pay that much money for in-game items? I think question has been answered many times. Just look at SecondLife, or the fact that Facebook games make any money at all when the majority of what you can buy you can also earn in the game with time. Or look at the many, entirely too many, stories of the stuff people have done on WoW. The classic Mount for a Mount story where a girl traded her "virtue" for an epic level mount in the game.
Which is proof enough that even without a way in game people will find a way. But I'm still of the opinion that just because some people will do it anyway doesn't mean that you should make it easier.

Starwulf

2011-08-04, 06:10 PM

Hokay, I'm starting to see why a cap would make very little sense.
On the other hand, the day an item reaches $20 I am going to point to it as an absurdity none the less.

Ok, absolutely no offense meant here, but I'm guessing you've never played an MMO? Or if you have, not for a very long period of time? Hell, Diablo 2 still has items that sell for around 20 bucks. In FFXI, there was a point in time when my account was worth 1500 bucks, and I know people who spent 3k on a single decked out account with a ton of Gil(money) and top notch equipment and multiple jobs leveled to the level cap. I know FFXI isn't just an oddity, as I've seen other accounts for other games that have sold for similar prices. So, if accounts will go for that, obviously, the best of the best items will sell for between 50-200 bucks(ie: Kraken Club from FFXI. Back in the day, that thing used to sell for between 50-100million gil. Comparatively, 10mil gil at one point cost around 30 bucks(It has fluctuated wildly, I've seen upwards of 60 bucks per 10million, all the way down to 10, so for this example, we will use 30), so, 150 dollars for a single item, at it's lowest price when it was highly popular and still worth a lot of money).

20 bucks for a single top notch item? That's not only reasonable, that's a complete steal for those who are willing to buy accounts and items.

The Succubus

2011-08-05, 06:46 AM

There is a very strong precident for purchasing in game items for cash in a AAA MMO - EVE.

When a capital ships runs into billions and a fully fitted Titan can cost hundreds of billions of ISK, these ships have "real world" value approaching several thousand dollars. Some of the tournament ships, like the Imperial Navy Apocalypse, surpass even that - do a google search for "Guiding Hand Social Club" and you'll see the real picture.

$20 is peanuts in comparison but I fully agree that cash should be cosmetic only, not for competititve advantage.

factotum

2011-08-05, 07:00 AM

There is a very strong precident for purchasing in game items for cash in a AAA MMO - EVE.

When a capital ships runs into billions and a fully fitted Titan can cost hundreds of billions of ISK, these ships have "real world" value approaching several thousand dollars.

And this is a game where buying a purely cosmetic eyepiece for your in-game character would cost something like $60 if you used purely real money for it. It's not really a very good advertisement for the effects of using real money to buy in-game goods, is it?

Xapi

2011-08-05, 09:30 AM

Such as? Gold sinks? Cash sinks (which in theory can be paid with gold -> cash)? Stimulus packages? How can they possibly direct the in-game economy without a direct heavy hand?

I don't advocate against a direct heavy hand, I'm just pointing out that a hard cap is a bad idea and contrary to their porpuse.

Things that could be done if/when things get out of hand, off the top of my head:

Injecting items into the market, buying items by the admins (not likely, since it would cost them money), altering the drop chances of certain items.

Karoht

2011-08-05, 09:36 AM

Ok, absolutely no offense meant here, but I'm guessing you've never played an MMO?That sure is funny coming from a guy who lives on a mountain top with minimally functional internet. :smallwink:
No offence taken and none intended by my above remark, obviously.
Actually, I've been playing WoW since the orginal Beta. Trust me when I say I've dealt with gold farmers, scams, and the issue of selling items or characters, or runs through a raid, etc, for quite a while.
I also have played City of Heroes, Aion, Rhyzome, and a handful of free MMO's, not that it matters much.

Or if you have, not for a very long period of time? Hell, Diablo 2 still has items that sell for around 20 bucks.Was I not the person pointing out that a character trade would go from $300 to $1000?

In FFXINope, never played it. Was not my cup of tea.

20 bucks for a single top notch item? That's not only reasonable, that's a complete steal for those who are willing to buy accounts and items.In an environment where doing so is not common place, sure. In an environment where there are other items available for less, the $20 item had better be pretty darned good compaired to the $5 item.

On that note the show Legendary on Gamebreaker.tv covers some interesting ground with this whole RWAH issue. Just some good perspectives on the matter IMO. Check out their latest episode, entitled WoW:MoP. It is normally a WoW show but they cover this in great detail, and go into the implications in a couple of other games, not just Blizzard titles.

EDIT: Sorry Xapi I didn't see your reply. You really want to watch that episode of Legendary, as they discuss exactly those methods.

Psyren

2011-08-05, 11:18 AM

Ok, absolutely no offense meant here, but I'm guessing you've never played an MMO? Or if you have, not for a very long period of time?

Karoht, link to your armory, I need a good laugh today.

Karoht

2011-08-05, 11:33 AM

Karoht, link to your armory, I need a good laugh today.I'm sporting some new Firelands Heroic gear.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/area-52/karoht/advanced
Cheers.

PS-I'm only linking it due to request.
PPS-Come to think of it, my experience with MMO's really wasn't relevant anyway. Oh well.

Psyren

2011-08-05, 12:45 PM

I'm sporting some new Firelands Heroic gear.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/area-52/karoht/advanced
Cheers.

*reads Starwulf's post again*
*Holds sides, shaking*

Karoht

2011-08-05, 01:19 PM

*reads Starwulf's post again*
*Holds sides, shaking*In all fairness, it's not like you'd know by meeting me or anything. Though again, coming from a fellow who lives on a rock (not quite under it), it was a pretty bold assumption. Which does serve to make it more funny.

@Starwulf-It's all good.

Starwulf

2011-08-05, 01:57 PM

In all fairness, it's not like you'd know by meeting me or anything. Though again, coming from a fellow who lives on a rock (not quite under it), it was a pretty bold assumption. Which does serve to make it more funny.

@Starwulf-It's all good.

lmao, it just struck me as odd that you would think $20 was an unreasonable price for a piece of gear. Also, I didn't notice you were the one talking about 300-1k for a Diablo 2 account. So if you realize that 300-1k for a game that's a decade old is reasonable, why would you think $20 for a top notch item in a game that will be brand new is unreasonable? I have no doubt that we'll see items go for much, MUCH more then that.

Also, I have no idea about anything in WoW. I'm an FFXIer, which means I am, by nature, your mortal enemy ^^ LOL(Well, back in the day anyways, I remember FFXIers and WoWers always argued and picked on each other). So I have no idea if your profile signifies you've spent a lot of time there or not :). I know I have(had) an actual 200 days of time spent in-game in FFXI(ie: 4800 hours).

Also, just because it's minimally functionable, doesn't mean I can't play MMO's. Again, my entire argument this thread isn't that I can't do it, just that I shouldn't have to, and that others shouldn't have to, because we might have subpar internets ^^ But yeah, it was a funny statement coming from me and I realized it the moment I typed it, but said screw it anyways ^^

Karoht

2011-08-05, 02:52 PM

lmao, it just struck me as odd that you would think $20 was an unreasonable price for a piece of gear. Also, I didn't notice you were the one talking about 300-1k for a Diablo 2 account. So if you realize that 300-1k for a game that's a decade old is reasonable, why would you think $20 for a top notch item in a game that will be brand new is unreasonable? I have no doubt that we'll see items go for much, MUCH more then that.Yeah, but I'm cheap. Most of my friends are cheaper than me. While that is anecdotal now, in an environment where items can be freely bought and sold with no risk, I would expect things to be cheaper.
It's academic anyway, I don't plan on spending cash out of pocket to buy anything, and even with earned cash I would spend a lot of time trying to justify a $20 purchase.

So I have no idea if your profile signifies you've spent a lot of time there or not :). I know I have(had) an actual 200 days of time spent in-game in FFXI(ie: 4800 hours).Most of the achievements in the game are completed, I'm well geared from the highest tier of content, I'm in a top 10 guild on my server, I've been playing for more than 7 years, and I think my /played time has just ticked over 300 days of in-game time. *cough*sponsored*cough*
But again, I think my MMO experience isn't all that relevant to the issues brought up so far with Diablo 3. Then again, I'm of the mind that compairing D3 to any other MMO is an apples and oranges discussion. Kind of like trying to compair FFXI with WoW for example.

Also, just because it's minimally functionable, doesn't mean I can't play MMO's.While I don't want to bring up that arguement again, this is a bit of a contradictory statement. You have the bandwidth to play something as bandwidth hogging as an MMO, but you don't have the bandwidth to play something less hoggy as Diablo 3 is expected to be. Pardon me while I scratch my head at that, but I'll take your word on it all.

Again, my entire argument this thread isn't that I can't do it, just that I shouldn't have to, and that others shouldn't have to, because we might have subpar internetsReason why I'm empathizing with you.

But yeah, it was a funny statement coming from me and I realized it the moment I typed it, but said screw it anyways ^^Excellent, we all got the joke.

Spartacus

2011-08-05, 03:50 PM

While I don't want to bring up that arguement again, this is a bit of a contradictory statement. You have the bandwidth to play something as bandwidth hogging as an MMO, but you don't have the bandwidth to play something less hoggy as Diablo 3 is expected to be. Pardon me while I scratch my head at that, but I'll take your word on it all.

It could be a problem with a constant and consistent connection, not bandwidth. Note I say this having read only that post and the one you quoted, so if I am wrong, disregard.

Starwulf

2011-08-05, 04:38 PM

Well, I guess a bit of an explanation is in order: FFXI was originally created for the PS2, and was designed around modem use, not DSL. So even though I have a very LOUSY internet connection, playing FFXI wasn't so bad since the servers and send/receive were designed around connections like that, hence less lag over-all. Now, obviously if you play using a DSL connection, it's still going to be faster, just not as much of a difference as it would on a game that wasn't designed around the use of a dial-up modem(believe me, I know, my buddy had DSL, and there were only certain spots were he lagged considerably less then I did, such as Besieged).

Regardless of the above, my entire argument this entire thread about Diablo 3 forcing us to have an internet connection solely to play single player, revolved around that simple fact: That we couldn't play single player without an internet connection(and this has since been resolved, since someone else on the thread responded and said that Starcraft 2 allows you to play the game without being actively connected to the internet, either by disconnecting once you log on, or just by logging on as a guest). It was just the simple fact that it felt like they were penalizing people who didn't have an internet connection. Diablo and Diablo 2 were both highly playable offline, and still quite fun games(hell, I spent more time playing single player in the original then I did multiplayer), and it didn't make sense to me that Diablo 3 wasn't going to allow that same thing. I've actually said a few times that I just want to play through the game once in single player first before I have to connect to the net, and then I"ll probably spend ALL of my time for the next few years playing in multi-player. Basically, it's one of those "principle of the things" arguments.

Still, as far as the lag thing goes, I probably will lag more in D3 then I ever did for FFXI, since again, FFXI was designed around dial-up, and obviously D3 won't be, but I'm sure I"ll make do.

Oh, and one last thing: I won't be buying items either ^^ I was just pointing out that I didn't see 20 bucks as that much for a top notch item, based on my experience with FFXI. I'd rather spend hours upon hours farming up items ^^ Much more fun :)