I can’t help but feel that there is something more to it. Does it irk Blizz that players would farm and receive capital gains from their ip? If so, I don’t see any actual harm outside of their pride being hurt. If someone pay real currency for a specific item it doesn’t harm me either. I would never pay x amounts of dollars for an in game item, so I would freely align myself with Blizz philosophy without it being imposed on me. But if some is willing to pay hundreds even thousands of dollars for loot, then more power to them. I my even benefit from said individuals purchase if I find myself in a pub game with them and be thankful for their assist with their OP purchased loot.
Bottom line, I don’t understand the hoopla.
Edit: And come to think of it, Blizz didn’t have a problem either with receiving financial gains when they incorporated the AH. An issue arose when the player base realized how much of a disadvantage they were at with the dismal drop rate. And then no other option but to shut it down. Oh well.
Sorry DieHarder, I have to part ways on you on this one. There are a number of issues with AH.
kids play this game and are susceptible to be conned. I remember a Duped Amulet that was selling for 1K of real cash in AH. Not all grown ups with their own money bought that amulet. I suspect some kids that didn’t know better used their parents credit card. I for one, if I got a bill for $1K for a play item that my kid bought, you best know there would be an attorney calling blizzard. So that’s my legal argument
Then there is the IRS issue of people selling items and not claiming proceeds on their taxes. That falls on Blizzard also.
Then of course the game itself. Even MORE Botters will take over this game. Remember the Chinese farmers? The guys that spent endless hours botting and farming gold to sell on AH?
And lastly, I believe the game will inevitably lose out. For players to compete they would have to buy items. Farming alone will not be sufficient to keep them competing in the game.
Look, I sold and bought stuff at AH back in the day. Sold 100M gold for 100 dollars. That’s right. Right before they closed AH everyone went on a frenzy to buy gold. I hate to think some kid spend all his money to buy something that a day later was worthless.
Personally I don’t think they should bring AH back. The game is better without it.
You make some great points. I’m not advocating for the return of the AH, but rather Blizz stance on trading and the apparent inconsistencies. All the points you brought up are valid and they were valid before Blizz decided to go forward with the AH & yet they did, which calls even more attention to the driving force behind their decision to introduce the AH (presumably the pocket book).
Blizzard should be interested in creating the best gameplay experience for people. Allowing them to buy loot is not a good gameplay experience.
Contrary, it is also not a good gameplay experience to be matched up with players who are cheating. No matter if it is through RMT, or by hacking the game.
Getting carried is not fun. Getting carried by cheaters even less so. You become a cheater by association then, which kinda ruins the game tbh.
No, it doesn’t affect you, but it affects the players who do it. They are hurting their own game experience by skipping most of the game.
You can choose not to care about others hurting their own game experience. But Blizzard, as the developer of a game, who presumably want to sell that game, should very much care.
The problem I have with this is it screams “I know better than you what is fun for you” which although developers are responsible in part for our gameplay experience it all just feels pretty arrogant and not conducive to making the best game possible.
There is a point where the player is also responsible for their own enjoyment of the game. If they find that doing something makes them enjoy the game less, they should avoid doing that thing.
Now you can argue that trading vs non-trading creates a disparity in gear progression which can make the game feel not fun for non-traders if it’s balanced around trading, but that’s why separate modes is the best option here.
If an optional gameplay feature is hurting your gameplay experience the solution shouldn’t be to remove that feature. The solution should be that you stop using it.
I hope game designers believe they know better.
They obviously might not, but if you dont design a game based on you believing you have the right idea, then why even bother.
Sure. But even if they had a trade mode they should still hunt down and ban RMT, botters etc.
There’s a difference between believing you have a good idea and believing you know better than your own players what your own players think is fun.
The WoW devs had that attitude and it was disastrous. It led to them ignoring most of the feedback of the playerbase because they were so convinced of their own rightness(thankfully, the D4 devs don’t seem to be acting this way).
It’s pretty clear that a not insignificant percentage of the playerbase is telling them that they find trading fun.
I would hope the devs response to that isn’t “Sorry but you’re wrong about your opinion. We’re right”.
Yeah, they should always crack down on cheating.
and if they don’t, we’re gonna have a lot more problems than just some people using a credit card to get top tier items anyway.
If they believe it, I certainly hope they do.
I am not saying they shouldnt listen to feedback. I mean, if I thought that, I would not be here… But they should stick to their vision. If feedback influences that vision, either by adding more stuff that support it, or make them realize ways to improve their vision, fine, but doing stuff just because your players claim they want it, meh, I cant see that ever leading anywhere positive. Most good games out there were made without the players having a chance to influence the development.
And this topic is about RMT/cheating, not trading.
I would also hope they’re not so blind that they think they straight up know better than the players about what the players want, and it’s not like trading is some out of left field insane feature that people are asking for either. It’s been part of the series.
I would argue a lot of the best games are made with player influence over development. Either directly during development or, more commonly, the developers responding to criticisms about a game while making that game’s sequel.
Fair enough, though as a general rule I’m not a fan of the whole “this hurts the gameplayer experience of the player doing it so it shouldn’t be there” argument.
Cheating, including RMT, should be cracked down on because it affects everybody negatively regardless of if you actually engage in it or not.
If I could eyeroll any better, I would.