Originally posted by Istavaan

diablo 3 is all about acquiring the best items, if you can buy the best items for real money then that is pw2. there is no disputing that fact.

In your mind, but what you won?  It gives you no advantage over any other player, all it would do is make you finish the game and have nothing else to achieve.  Diablo is about dungeon crawling and having those items drop and winning the lottery that is the addiction.  Buying the items only hurts yourself, but if some player across the country spends $800 to deck his char out and ruins the game for himself he still hasn't won anything, done anything better than me, and really has almost no way to show it.

Also the most glory will likely come from HC, HC PvP if chars port straight over, etc. where the RMAH is not accessible.  If Blizz was greedy and didn't care about their game RMAH would be in HC and that is where it would likely get used more as items are actually removed from the world constantly.

Again though if all you are arguing is that D3 RMAH is P2W in Softcore by your definition of P2W then ok you win I have nothing for you accept that there is nothing to win...

Originally posted by ProfRed

Originally posted by Istavaan

diablo 3 is all about acquiring the best items, if you can buy the best items for real money then that is pw2. there is no disputing that fact.

In your mind, but what you won?  It gives you no advantage over any other player, all it would do is make you finish the game and have nothing else to achieve.  Diablo is about dungeon crawling and having those items drop and winning the lottery that is the addiction.  Buying the items only hurts yourself, but if some player across the country spends $800 to deck his char out and ruins the game for himself he still hasn't won anything, done anything better than me, and really has almost no way to show it.

Also the most glory will likely come from HC, HC PvP if chars port straight over, etc. where the RMAH is not accessible.  If Blizz was greedy and didn't care about their game RMAH would be in HC and that is where it would likely get used more as items are actually removed from the world constantly.

Again though if all you are arguing is that D3 RMAH is P2W in Softcore by your definition of P2W then ok you win I have nothing for you accept that there is nothing to win...

well they are going to have pvp arenas in the future are you telling me you can't win at that either? and battle-net is just one big peacock show, so for some people thats also winning.

Originally posted by RelytDnegel

Originally posted by Catberty18

Sigh you really aren't reading what I'm saying. If you are then you just attempting to troll me. Really no point trying to reason with you, I will continue to discuss with the rest though!

Yea I like to say that when someone proves me wrong and I have nothing else to say too!

For further proof of what I'm saying:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/how-to

 

I will quote the section I'm refering too here:

 

"If you’re auctioning your item in the real-money auction house, use the drop-down to choose how to receive the proceeds of your auction if it succeeds. Choosing Battle.net Balance will send the proceeds to Battle.net Balance on your Battle.net account, to be used on future real-money auction house purchases or select Blizzard Entertainment digital products on Battle.net. In certain regions, if a PayPal™ account is linked to your Battle.net account and you’ve enabled Mobile Alerts on your Battle.net account (see below), you can have the proceeds sent to your PayPal account (a 15% transfer fee applies if you choose this method, calculated based on the amount being transferred)."

 

"Before you post your auction, you’ll see any fees that apply to your listing displayed in the center section of the Sell tab. These fees will only be charged if your auction successfully sells, and will automatically be deducted from the item’s final selling price."
                                      

So you can post items while having a ZERO balance... and you can slowly build your balance through selling items... which then you can use to eather buy items with the POINTS YOU HAVE EARNED or other blizzard products...

 

this system is no different than the gold auction house... case closed

I have never said anything about selling items making the game p2w it's obviously the buying. No matter what you say the more money you spend the better the items you will have. To me that is p2w and if you don't agree with me that's fine it's just my view. 

what I don't understand is that real cash never has to be used if you don't want to use real money... that is where you are losing me.

EDIT: NEVERMIND... I'm an idiot... I see what you are saying now... Disreguard!

Originally posted by Istavaan

Originally posted by ProfRed
blah blah

well they are going to have pvp arenas in the future are you telling me you can't win at that either.

Yeah that is a definite possibility, but I don't know how they will work so I can't comment.  It could be where you have instant level 60's for all I know, or it could be like GW2's eternal battlegrounds where you are leveled to 60 with all skills, but you retain your gear, or it could be a straight port of chars.

Still they have said that it won't be meant for eSports, balanced, or made to be this competitive entity with constant balance like WoW arenas (could laught at this) so if there are no ladders/etc. I guess you may win a fight, but would still have very little to show for it.

It is HC PvP with straight character ports where you can really show off and advance your char and I am praying this is how it will be.  Having that char in HC PvP with epic armor and stuff showing you can handle Inferno and never die once and that you earned it will be great.

In SC PvP I would expect everyone to get to a pretty level playing field, but here the game could definitely take shape as a mini P2W game and that could be a negative for many people for sure.  It will be hard to say until we see a bunch of people at 60 with a good gear differential and see how much skill vs paper/rock/scissors (loadout) vs gear effects everything.

edit..  but also if we are arguing the negativity of the RMAH wouldn't it be better to have everything built into the game and on accessible than having those thousands who use a 3rd party site and roll people.  I mean in the end I think you will have the same result only the economy will still be in good shape, and everyone still has a chance whether from selling items on the RMAH and then using that to pick up more items, or straight up buying.  I still think this is the lesser of two evils.

Rather see Blizzard controlling the RMHA then some chinese RMT scam-company. And why bother if other ppl P2W? You can avoid them.

Originally posted by ProfRed

See OP, so much good argument around it. 

Guess we will all have to wait and see how it turns out and how players feel about it a year down the road.  It is interesting for sure. 

I would love to see an analysis on this compared to standard original P2W Cash Shops, Tera's RMT, GW2 RMT, and EVE's RMT.

It seems like almost everyone is jumping on board with this, and they have to because we all know what 3rd parties do to these games.  Something has to be done.  Eventually maybe we will get to a industry standard that is widely acceptable, but I still think D3's method is the best I have seen, and it does not have an associated cash shop with +XP scrolls and revive potions and crap like that.

Most of the arguments have been on P2W, no one is really debating the RMAH. Though I just did a quick skim across the thread.

Everyone knows what the RMAH is by now, you either love it, hate it or just don't care.

Originally posted by Clerigo

This is true for all forms of Pve and PvP. When u look at the "W" in P2W, wich stands for "win", it stands for:

Paying to level up faster, paying to have access to beter gear that other non-paying players can never have or not that early in the game or need to grind extensively to have, paying to have access to certain game areas that can be lock/in large cooldown times/etc, etc, etc, both PvE and PvP.

So, and i read some user saying that "it is not paying to win because theres nothing to win...its paying to advance", well Mr., paying to be able to advance faster in a game is the very definition of the P2W concept.

I think that what that user (post #47 in this thread by RelytDnegel you mean I think) meant, is that when you finish Infero mode, you've "won" the game. But as far as I know, there isn't a ladder system in Diablo 3. No real way to compete with other players, other then PvP. So unless you are the kind of (in my very humble opinion here) shallow player that wants to reach the top of the mountain first, by buying equipment from other players, then yes, Diablo 3 is pay-to-win

The idea that you might have bought an item from me on the (RM)AH only makes the (RM)AH more intriguing for me, but not pay-to-win. The way I see it, is that the (RM)AH opens up another venue for players that don't have the time/drive to "grind" the gold for the traditional AH. Secondly, some brought forth the argument that people will still use the 3rd party site to sell items, because Blizzard takes:

• 15% of the prize you bought the item for (for example, 15% of the 10 dollars you paid for the item goes to Blizzard instead of the seller)
• 15% when you want to convert the Blizzard coins (or whatever the name is) in real money.

Well, the auction house of Blizzard seems way safer to me and to be honest, I don't believe those 3rd party sites don't take a slice of the delicious money pie. The traditional trading forums will still be around I think, because I don't see how (or why) Blizzard would limit players that just add eachother to their friendslist and make/join a game to trade items with eachother.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

You do realize there's a difference between violating a corporation's terms of service and illegal, right? Actiblizz is not a governmental body. It doesn't become illegal until a Government passes a law.

There are laws against violations of Terms of Service, and ActiBlizz's Legal Dept. know this, when they write the terms up. 

Third party RMAH existed under Diablo 1 & 2, as well as all other successful games.  If a scam happened, Blizzard was turned to for restitution.  This was an impossible spot for Blizzard to be in.  This time around they saw their solution to this problem was to take control of the RMAH from third parties.  This will not prevent third party RMT but should limit their potential customer base.  And put Blizzard in a better position to monitor and track RMT to prevent scams.

If anyone has a problem with RMT, then point the finger at your fellow players for buying and selling.  Listen if you have a problem with RMAH, don't use it.  If you think some has an unfair advantage because they use a RMAH, don't play with them.  If we don't use the RMAH then sellers will make no money and it will dry up.  If we don't interact with people who use the RMAH they will get bored and go away.  it is that simple.  But DO I really think it will work?  No.

The more I browse this thread the more I'm realizing the RMAH sits in such a gray area... people here are making some really good points about why this is pay to win AND why it isn't.

I mean its Pay-2-Win in the sense that yes... at some point real money has to be used to purchase a virtual item.

At the same time its not Pay-2-Win because if you ONLY sell items to build your Blizzard Balance and then use the Balance you built STRICTLY through selling items.... its no different then raiding every week collecting conquest points and going to the vendor to buy that best in slot piece you've been wanting.

So its really a mix between a points system and a cash shop... Super gray area with no real... IT IS PAY TO WIN... or IT ISN'T PAY TO WIN... its both at the same time.

Without RMT, items represent an achievement and status in the game. Whether you found it yourself or found other items of enough value to trade for it, it represents effort put into the game in order acquire it. With the RMAH there's no status in having good gear since it represents a swipe of the creditcard. Thats what I dislike about the RMAH, it takes away from the achievement of acquiring awesome gear which to me is the main goal in a game like Diablo.

Much of the multiplayer aspect of the game is ruined by an RMAH imo. Comparing your gear to other players gear is a big part of the multiplayer experience and that's exactly why the RMAH will make alot of money for Blizzard, the status gear gives you is so tempting that people will pay hard earned money for those pixels. RMT in a singleplayer game wouldn't do well at all but in a multiplayer game where you pay to get ahead of others in performance, looks or whatever it does really well.

This is my opinion on the RMAH, I'm against all forms of RMT in games.

Originally posted by Foncl

Without RMT, items represent an achievement and status in the game. Whether you found it yourself or found other items of enough value to trade for it, it represents effort put into the game in order acquire it. With the RMAH there's no status in having good gear since it represents a swipe of the creditcard. Thats what I dislike about the RMAH, it takes away from the achievement of acquiring awesome gear which to me is the main goal in a game like Diablo.

 

Much of the multiplayer aspect of the game is ruined by an RMAH imo. Comparing your gear to other players gear is a big part of the multiplayer experience and that's exactly why the RMAH will make alot of money for Blizzard, the status gear gives you is so tempting that people will pay hard earned money for those pixels. RMT in a singleplayer game wouldn't do well at all but in a multiplayer game where you pay to get ahead of others in performance, looks or whatever it does really well.

 

This is my opinion on the RMAH, I'm against all forms of RMT in games.

 

 

 

Yeah I see where you are coming from, but what would you rather have.  A form of RMAH like we have, or D2 where 2 days after a ladder reset the chat is just scrolling bots selling items, buying up cheap items taking them out of the economy and marking them up, and totally destroying the game?

I mean it is like a necessary evil, and at least it isn't a cash shop where players can sell the items and roll that money into other items.  If you never put money into your balance or withdraw it, but use the currency it isn't so bad.  I do see the negatives of such a system, but I believe they are 1/50th of the negatives that are present in D2 or FFXI, or games without a system in place to put the economy in the players hands.

Originally posted by Catberty18

Originally posted by RelytDnegel

Originally posted by Catberty18

Sigh you really aren't reading what I'm saying. If you are then you just attempting to troll me. Really no point trying to reason with you, I will continue to discuss with the rest though!

Yea I like to say that when someone proves me wrong and I have nothing else to say too!

For further proof of what I'm saying:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/how-to

 

I will quote the section I'm refering too here:

 

"If you’re auctioning your item in the real-money auction house, use the drop-down to choose how to receive the proceeds of your auction if it succeeds. Choosing Battle.net Balance will send the proceeds to Battle.net Balance on your Battle.net account, to be used on future real-money auction house purchases or select Blizzard Entertainment digital products on Battle.net. In certain regions, if a PayPal™ account is linked to your Battle.net account and you’ve enabled Mobile Alerts on your Battle.net account (see below), you can have the proceeds sent to your PayPal account (a 15% transfer fee applies if you choose this method, calculated based on the amount being transferred)."

 

"Before you post your auction, you’ll see any fees that apply to your listing displayed in the center section of the Sell tab. These fees will only be charged if your auction successfully sells, and will automatically be deducted from the item’s final selling price."
                                      

So you can post items while having a ZERO balance... and you can slowly build your balance through selling items... which then you can use to eather buy items with the POINTS YOU HAVE EARNED or other blizzard products...

 

this system is no different than the gold auction house... case closed

I have never said anything about selling items making the game p2w it's obviously the buying. No matter what you say the more money you spend the better the items you will have. To me that is p2w and if you don't agree with me that's fine it's just my view. 

what I don't understand is that real cash never has to be used if you don't want to use real money... that is where you are losing me.

 

EDIT: NEVERMIND... I'm an idiot... I see what you are saying now... Disreguard!

xD good to hear! It really just depends on peoples views of what p2w is and as you can see in this thread it's different for a lot of people! Glad that you see what I'm getting at now though and this thread is becoming less of a raging argument which is probly for the best!

Originally posted by Foncl

Without RMT, items represent an achievement and status in the game. Whether you found it yourself or found other items of enough value to trade for it, it represents effort put into the game in order acquire it. With the RMAH there's no status in having good gear since it represents a swipe of the creditcard. Thats what I dislike about the RMAH, it takes away from the achievement of acquiring awesome gear which to me is the main goal in a game like Diablo.

 

Much of the multiplayer aspect of the game is ruined by an RMAH imo. Comparing your gear to other players gear is a big part of the multiplayer experience and that's exactly why the RMAH will make alot of money for Blizzard, the status gear gives you is so tempting that people will pay hard earned money for those pixels. RMT in a singleplayer game wouldn't do well at all but in a multiplayer game where you pay to get ahead of others in performance, looks or whatever it does really well.

 

This is my opinion on the RMAH, I'm against all forms of RMT in games.

I know what you mean. The problem is that without the Blizzard (RM)AH, people will still trade it through 3rd party sites. The problem isn't going away, sadly. One positive thing though, is that when a rare item drops in Diablo 3, people will perhaps think:"Wow! Lucky me, this item nets me $10". There is a possibility that the (RM)AH will put some more, how to say, "physical" worth on items.

Riot recently implemented a list where players can see what they bought in League of Legends and if they did it with Riot Points (their "cash" currency) or Influence Points (earned with playing). Diablo 3 could also implement something like that, so that people can see if someone bought something or not. If this concerns privacy, consider an achievement if you make it through Inferno without trading or something.

wont be pay 2 win.. will be pLay to win, and here win means a lot more.. means you can actually win some coin out of your spare gaming time.

isnt this the dream most players been having for years, playing games and legally earning their cash doign what they like to do?

as a poster has said before.. this will open a huge door, a next step for online gaming and gaming in general.

Originally posted by ProfRed

Originally posted by Foncl

Without RMT, items represent an achievement and status in the game. Whether you found it yourself or found other items of enough value to trade for it, it represents effort put into the game in order acquire it. With the RMAH there's no status in having good gear since it represents a swipe of the creditcard. Thats what I dislike about the RMAH, it takes away from the achievement of acquiring awesome gear which to me is the main goal in a game like Diablo.

 

Much of the multiplayer aspect of the game is ruined by an RMAH imo. Comparing your gear to other players gear is a big part of the multiplayer experience and that's exactly why the RMAH will make alot of money for Blizzard, the status gear gives you is so tempting that people will pay hard earned money for those pixels. RMT in a singleplayer game wouldn't do well at all but in a multiplayer game where you pay to get ahead of others in performance, looks or whatever it does really well.

 

This is my opinion on the RMAH, I'm against all forms of RMT in games.

 

 

 

Yeah I see where you are coming from, but what would you rather have.  A form of RMAH like we have, or D2 where 2 days after a ladder reset the chat is just scrolling bots selling items, buying up cheap items taking them out of the economy and marking them up, and totally destroying the game?

I mean it is like a necessary evil, and at least it isn't a cash shop where players can sell the items and roll that money into other items.  If you never put money into your balance or withdraw it, but use the currency it isn't so bad.  I do see the negatives of such a system, but I believe they are 1/50th of the negatives that are present in D2 or FFXI, or games without a system in place to put the economy in the players hands.

I would rather have a game where the developers policy is that RMT isn't allowed and they're actively fighting against it. Blizzard may get rid of bots and farmers spamming chat in the game if they are content with selling their items on the RMAH and paying Blizzard a cut, since they no longer need to advertise where they sell their items. The RMAH does nothing to get rid of farming bots and players, it just presents them with another option of where to sell their items.

Originally posted by Foncl

Originally posted by ProfRed

Originally posted by Foncl

I would rather have a game where the developers policy is that RMT isn't allowed and they're actively fighting against it. Blizzard may get rid of bots and farmers spamming chat in the game if they are content with selling their items on the RMAH and paying Blizzard a cut, since they no longer need to advertise where they sell their items. The RMAH does nothing to get rid of farming bots and players, it just presents them with another option of where to sell their items.

Devs can't stop RMT.  It is naive to even think this is possible.  The only way would be to remove any form of player trading.

By putting it in game it does a number of things.  It creats a controlled environment with a ceiling of $250, it creates a limit to the number of posts that can be made a week, it forces a valid SMS cell phone which attaches accredibility, it seperates the RMAH accessibility per region seperating out regions, it provides a very accessible method to sell everything in the game so players don't have to go to 3rd party sites, and does a number of other things to provide checks and balances in the system.

Believe me I was where you are, and hated anything with a cash shop or any pay method but over time I have seen what it has done to games, and as a developer I have contemplated how to stop it.  Blizzard is on the right track imo.  There is still a ways to go, and it will be a long battle but this is a great step in the right direction in my opinion. 

Originally posted by MikkelB

Originally posted by Clerigo

This is true for all forms of Pve and PvP. When u look at the "W" in P2W, wich stands for "win", it stands for:

Paying to level up faster, paying to have access to beter gear that other non-paying players can never have or not that early in the game or need to grind extensively to have, paying to have access to certain game areas that can be lock/in large cooldown times/etc, etc, etc, both PvE and PvP.

So, and i read some user saying that "it is not paying to win because theres nothing to win...its paying to advance", well Mr., paying to be able to advance faster in a game is the very definition of the P2W concept.

I think that what that user (post #47 in this thread by RelytDnegel you mean I think) meant, is that when you finish Infero mode, you've "won" the game. But as far as I know, there isn't a ladder system in Diablo 3. No real way to compete with other players, other then PvP. So unless you are the kind of (in my very humble opinion here) shallow player that wants to reach the top of the mountain first, by buying equipment from other players, then yes, Diablo 3 is pay-to-win

The idea that you might have bought an item from me on the (RM)AH only makes the (RM)AH more intriguing for me, but not pay-to-win. The way I see it, is that the (RM)AH opens up another venue for players that don't have the time/drive to "grind" the gold for the traditional AH. Secondly, some brought forth the argument that people will still use the 3rd party site to sell items, because Blizzard takes:

• 15% of the prize you bought the item for (for example, 15% of the 10 dollars you paid for the item goes to Blizzard instead of the seller)
• 15% when you want to convert the Blizzard coins (or whatever the name is) in real money.

Well, the auction house of Blizzard seems way safer to me and to be honest, I don't believe those 3rd party sites don't take a slice of the delicious money pie. The traditional trading forums will still be around I think, because I don't see how (or why) Blizzard would limit players that just add eachother to their friendslist and make/join a game to trade items with eachother.

Hey thank you for taking the time to clarify it for me

As i stated before i know not much of D3. I was only explaining what P2W means.

And yes, if a game has a ladder system, then the p2w system becomes more "notorious" , but the definition of it still maintains same core idea: any item bought for real money that causes game unbalance is a p2w item. Maybe in D3 that wont impact PvE that much, but it will impact PvP for sure.

Anyway, i think only time will tell. We will know after some couple of months past the game launch.

Originally posted by ProfRed

Devs can't stop RMT.  It is naive to even think this is possible.  The only way would be to remove any form of player trading.

By putting it in game it does a number of things.  It creats a controlled environment with a ceiling of $250, it creates a limit to the number of posts that can be made a week, it forces a valid SMS cell phone which attaches accredibility, it seperates the RMAH accessibility per region seperating out regions, it provides a very accessible method to sell everything in the game so players don't have to go to 3rd party sites, and does a number of other things to provide checks and balances in the system.

Believe me I was where you are, and hated anything with a cash shop or any pay method but over time I have seen what it has done to games, and as a developer I have contemplated how to stop it.  Blizzard is on the right track imo.  There is still a ways to go, and it will be a long battle but this is a great step in the right direction in my opinion. 

My view is that RMT is bad no matter who is the seller and who is the buyer. I don't think Devs can stop RMT in the foreseeable future but they can do their best to limit it, which is the exact opposite of what Blizzard are doing with the RMAH.

The funniest part of all this?

The consumers.

They will still buy the items. We are a minority that cannot change the industry. The masses, idiots, ignorant scum; that populates the rest of this planet, they are the reason why these cash shops exists.

Blizzard could completely remove the rmah and people would still be spending their mothers welfare check on ist runes.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."