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Post by caseagainstfaith on Aug 1, 2011 10:07:52 GMT -5
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Post by Rime on Aug 1, 2011 12:24:40 GMT -5
Define win. I'm not sure where you're setting your bar, but just because you can pay real money for pixels doesn't make you a winner. Especially since the service itself will be considered free. Personally, if someone brags about paying real money for virtual items, I'll be listening to Beck* with a foolish big grin on my face. Well, if I was actually going to play Diablo 3. Besides, if you have been on Battle.net any time within the last five years, you might have noticed automated players that obscure your screen with "BUY ENIGMA $0.95!!! ANNIHILUS $0.50!!! ETH 1699 DEF EXILE VORTEX SHIELD!!! LEVELING SERVICE AND LIVE CHAT AVAILABLE! WE ARE TEH BESTEST, BUY FROM US, KK?" While the vast majority of people are completely edified to never make a purchase from an item site because the line from informing to harassment has been shamelessly crossed, there are some who do because they're completely bent on having their enigmashakomarasarachs as soon as possible thinking that someone will be impressed. * No, not Glenn Beck
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Post by wurdulac on Aug 1, 2011 13:59:36 GMT -5
If they do PVP anything like how they did it in Diablo II, then yeah, it's pay to "win". "Win" in this case meaning "be an annoying douchecake because I'm a closet sadist with daddy issues."
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Post by caseagainstfaith on Aug 1, 2011 14:14:07 GMT -5
If they do PVP anything like how they did it in Diablo II, then yeah, it's pay to "win". "Win" in this case meaning "be an annoying douchecake because I'm a closet sadist with daddy issues." Or I/parents have more money than brains.
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Post by RavynousHunter on Aug 1, 2011 16:29:29 GMT -5
Fuck, DDO does something similar with the DDO Store. You can spend the money on Turbine Points (which can also be earned thru gameplay), and you -can- spend those points on things like storage bags, armor, weapons, and other shit. But, with the exception of things like Loot Boosting Gems and portable rest shrines, you can get all that shit in-game, especially in the in-game Auction House.
Of course, these Points can also be used to get things like Adventure Packs, extra Races, Classes, character slots, etc. Do people buy these Points? All the fucking time. Do they buy items that can be acquired from normal loot with them? All the fucking time. Is the game shit because of it? Hardly.
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Post by caseagainstfaith on Aug 1, 2011 16:45:26 GMT -5
Fuck, DDO does something similar with the DDO Store. You can spend the money on Turbine Points (which can also be earned thru gameplay), and you -can- spend those points on things like storage bags, armor, weapons, and other shit. But, with the exception of things like Loot Boosting Gems and portable rest shrines, you can get all that shit in-game, especially in the in-game Auction House. Of course, these Points can also be used to get things like Adventure Packs, extra Races, Classes, character slots, etc. Do people buy these Points? All the fucking time. Do they buy items that can be acquired from normal loot with them? All the fucking time. Is the game shit because of it? Hardly. So instead of using coercion to discourage the trading of items using money, and rewarding players who report these acts, you simply give up altogether? Similarly, hacking is also impossible to stop, and it rewards players for putting in little to no effort for using them. However one must make every effort to prevent it because of the unfair advantage. You're doing the exact same thing with the cash transactions - giving an unfair advantage to those who don't earn it. Yet your mentality with this is that, "It's ok."
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Post by RavynousHunter on Aug 1, 2011 16:48:50 GMT -5
Its the developers' decision. If you don't like it, don't play it. Its that simple.
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Post by caseagainstfaith on Aug 1, 2011 16:50:40 GMT -5
Its the developers' decision. If you don't like it, don't play it. Its that simple. Developers can change their minds if the communities revolt - see WoW's RealIDs. It's just a matter of rallying enough support for them to listen, which is thus the spreading of the information of what they plan on doing before it is solidly implemented
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Post by RavynousHunter on Aug 1, 2011 16:56:15 GMT -5
Exactly, checks and balances. Buncha people don't like it? Show it. Tell em, and if they give a shit, they might change it. Sooo...my advice here is to go over to Blizzard's forums and bug them, instead of making a hyperbolically-titled thread here, where they won't even so much as glance at it.
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Post by Rime on Aug 1, 2011 17:29:20 GMT -5
I think the whole purpose behind this has to do with someone called NJaguar and his website: D2jsp. There has been a long standing currency called "Forum Gold" which can be used legitimately to trade for items. However when the ladder resets, those who have hoarded thousands can simply offer obscene amounts of this stuff after the contest resets and bot their way to the top of the ladder. (Although it behooves me as to why I should be impressed.) Rather than let NJaguar and item sites make real money because it can be bought with real cash, I think Blizz is trying to set it up to make it attractive to players to spend their money with them rather than third party sites who will express their thanks by flooding your screen with hundreds of lines of text every minute. There are questions to be asked, because with the present state of Battle.net, it is damn near unplayable for ten minutes if you're playing in a public game. Banning CD keys doesn't seem to work, or they haven't tried are just a few examples. On the other hand, Ravynous has an excellent suggestion in that you should post it on the lair of rabid Diablo 3 fans. EDIT: those first two words.
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Post by caseagainstfaith on Aug 1, 2011 18:04:16 GMT -5
The whole purpose behind this has to do with someone called NJaguar and his website: D2jsp. There has been a long standing currency called "Forum Gold" which can be used legitimately to trade for items. However when the ladder resets, those who have hoarded thousands can simply offer obscene amounts of this stuff after the contest resets and bot their way to the top of the ladder. (Although it behooves me as to why I should be impressed.) Rather than let NJaguar and item sites make real money because it can be bought with real cash, I think Blizz is trying to set it up to make it attractive to players to spend their money with them rather than third party sites who will express their thanks by flooding your screen with hundreds of lines of text every minute. There are questions to be asked, because with the present state of Battle.net, it is damn near unplayable for ten minutes if you're playing in a public game. Banning CD keys doesn't seem to work, or they haven't tried are just a few examples. On the other hand, Ravynous has an excellent suggestion in that you should post it on the lair of rabid Diablo 3 fans. Ya I know about D2JSP, I have also read over at the battle.net diablo 3 and been watching the antics flow over there, but if I remember right there are quite a few Diablo fans/players on FSTDT and was wondering their view just the same. Now back to D2JSP, I believe the problem with Diablo2 was the fact that there was no AH period. Would of D2JSP been as successful if there was a economy in D2 to give you a option of buying armor and weapons from other people using the games gold system? It probably would of deterred it. I also think that you have to remember D2 is what, almost 10+ years old, a lot can be done instead of implementing a RMT AH, such as going the way of WoW of BoP and BoE armor. If you notice on WoW, while WoW does have gold farmers, you don't see so much in the way of selling Items in exchange for real money because there just isn't a market for it. I believe there is better alternatives that could have been considered before essentially just giving in to the gold farmers.
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Post by Rime on Aug 2, 2011 10:38:12 GMT -5
Personally, the Auction House stink doesn't matter to me because I don't let others dictate how I should enjoy playing the game. You think I'm a n00b because I'm walking Act 3? /f r *iamadipshit. You want to rush a sorceress for me so I can start botting and complain about how many shakos, arachs and high runes I have. You'll even give me a free Tal Rasha's set AND an eth Infinity Colossus Volgue? /f r *idiot. The most fun I'm having right now is killing Diablo Clone with characters wearing trash, selling the charm to Charsi and capping the video so people on YouTube can laugh at me and tell me I need dracsenigmashakomaras. And I'm pleasantly surprised that no one has. I'll add that it would be an issue if there are plans to have a contest like a PvP leaderboard or a ladder. I which case, this solution is in need of redevelopment.
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Post by erictheblue on Aug 2, 2011 10:50:58 GMT -5
If they do PVP anything like how they did it in Diablo II, then yeah, it's pay to "win". "Win" in this case meaning "be an annoying douchecake because I'm a closet sadist with daddy issues." Or I/parents have more money than brains. This is my concern. Some commenters on IGN put it better than I could, so I am quoting them...
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Aug 2, 2011 12:51:52 GMT -5
I was expecting the game to have gone vaporware.
This, however, isn't what I was expecting.
Quite frankly, it's a far more effective, far more lucrative way to combat people who sell items for real cash.
Pay to win? No, not really. I hate that term, anyways, because it's often applied where it shouldn't be.
EDIT: Also, IGN is often full of shit, depending on the review writer, so honestly, I don't agree with them. Skill > equipment.
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Post by wurdulac on Aug 2, 2011 14:06:35 GMT -5
What irritates me is that people often conflate an ability to buy the things you need with a lack of skill. Just because you can (and do) buy some better gear, that doesn't mean you're unskilled; which, of course, becomes problematic (in pvp, mainly) when a decent player buys the best gear he can and roflstomps better players with worse gear (yes, yes, "skill>gear", but do you really think the best player in the world could beat even a mediocre player if the best player is wearing nothing while the mediocre player is wearing the best gear?).
Now, again, this comes down to how they're doing PVP. In Diablo II, if you'll recall (because you played it. If you didn't, this is for your benefit), there were instances of the game world you logged into, typically a different one each time. Now, multi-player played much the same as single player, just with more people, up to five (if memory serves) at a time; the problem was that PVP was very much up to only one person.
All a player had to do was stand in town, open up the correct menu (don't remember what it was called, atm), click a button next to a player's name, and they've activated PVP with that player. Meaning, if they encounter that player outside of town, they can attack them, and the other player has no say-so. This got to be "fun" when, on a whim, some random asshole would enter a less-than-full low-level instance (say, a normal game, with characters ranging from level 1 to 25 or so, with them of course being level 60+. If you're going to be a dick, go all out, I guess) and select every other player as a PVP target. Fortunately, of course, you'd receive a notice when another player entered PVP with you. Unfortunately, you only had two options when someone who was 30+ levels higher than you did this: 1) Quit that particular instance, abandoning any progress you may have made so far, wasting hours of your time, or 2) Continue as normal, hoping like hell the jerkass doesn't find you; if you are found, just accept your death, stay in town, and hope he gets bored and wanders off, wasting hours of your time.
How is this relevant? Well, in D2, when a new player logged into your instance, a message popped up telling you his character name, alias, and *level*. That way, when the level 65 Paladin named N00bK1lLaR pops up in your Act 2 instance (levels 10-18 or so), you'd know to port back to town and berate him for being such a useless prick.
Assuming they enact a similar system for PVP in D3 (which I highly doubt they will, but just in case) when the level 18 Monk ports into your Act 2 instance and enters PVP with you, you won't know whether to laugh at him, or run from him because he's bought the best gear he can and intends to use it. Obviously he's having a blast murdering the shit out of you, but being on the kill-ee side of the equation tends to get old, fast. Especially if it keeps happening. Again, this all depends on how they run PVP, in-game deaths (in D2 you lost a percentage of your gold (I think), and access to your gear until you retrieved your body), and multi-player in general.
Now, this doesn't matter at all for single player, because you're the only person whose enjoyment needs to be considered. If buying your gear lets you enjoy the game more, go for it; if you prefer a challenge, go through Hell difficulty with only Normal gear for all I care.
Cooperative multi-player, however, becomes trickier. For some people, being the MVP, the person doing the most damage, the baddest mother fucker on the block, that is what brings them joy. For others, aiding their team, or exploring the world, or many other things, these are all more important. The problem comes when people with wildly different gear levels are in the same instance; the people who've bought their gear will be able to do more than those who're simply picking it up as they go. If the variance is too wide, the people with less gear will not be able to do anything before the people with more gear have already done it (e.g. killed monsters, opened gates, gotten treasure, etc.) because the people with gear will not have to fear the monsters as much as those without; they'll be able to wander more freely, and kill more easily. What would take, let's say, 5-6 swings for an un-geared person could be accomplished in 1-2. If an un-geared person could withstand 20 hits from a monster, a well-geared person would probably be able to take 40, 50, 60 or more hits from that same monster. This confers a huge advantage, and would make the game far less enjoyable for those who don't buy their gear. Which, honestly, is a profitable business model, if somewhat unethical (by my standards).
Again, though, this all depends on how they're doing multi-player and PVP. It'll probably be instanced runs with other people, same as Diablo II, though I highly doubt they'll go the same route for PVP. They might institute an item level cap per instance, assigned by the instance creator; that would solve a huge part of the problem.
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