DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

[Icemage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Blizzard is removing the Auction House March 18, 2014

Diablo® III Auction House Update - Diablo III

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.
We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Soulsâ„¢ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.

We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.

Josh Mosqueira and I wanted to provide everyone with a little more information behind this decision, so please have a look at the video, and stay tuned to this site for further updates in the months ahead.

Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

o_O holy shit, so both PC and Console won't have an AH...

[Icemage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

o_O holy shit, so both PC and Console won't have an AH...

Yup. They finally understand what those of us who played the older Diablo games have been telling them since the feature was announced... the AH sucks and it makes the game suck.


Icemage

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Well there goes the biggest reason I had for boycotting the game. Although by now it's been so long that I can't remember what the other reasons were, but it's also been so long that I don't really care about the game anymore.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

The absurd difficulty of Inferno Mode (patched ages ago), ridiculous mob affixes (somewhat eased, still a pain in certain combinations), 90% of the skill runes being utter junk, crafting being totally worthless....


Hoping that in light of this they tweak some of the crafting costs. Without the AH, there's really no need for gems to cost so much goddamn gold to merge.

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Oh right, it's just an inferior version of Diablo II. That's what it was.

Ok, back to not giving a fuck about anything Blizzard is working on.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Well, it's still inferior in terms of plot, but the combat is honestly a fair deal better overall compared to D2.


At least in D3, mobs aren't outright immune to multiple damage types.

[Icemage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Well, it's still inferior in terms of plot, but the combat is honestly a fair deal better overall compared to D2.

At least in D3, mobs aren't outright immune to multiple damage types.

Monsters in D2 weren't immune until Lord of Destruction (which I know I'm on the record here as stating I despise).

D3 on PC has been a train wreck from day 1. The console version has cleaned up two of the major gameplay issues: the auction house and its horrid effect on itemization, as well as giving you an evasion option instead of damage sponging or running away from everything to keep distance for ranged attackers. They still need to fix skill/rune balancing and some of the more egregious elite monster pack combinations.


Icemage

[jenova_9]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Are they considering removing the online requirement for PC? That was another issue, mew.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Monsters in D2 weren't immune until Lord of Destruction (which I know I'm on the record here as stating I despise).

D3 on PC has been a train wreck from day 1. The console version has cleaned up two of the major gameplay issues: the auction house and its horrid effect on itemization, as well as giving you an evasion option instead of damage sponging or running away from everything to keep distance for ranged attackers. They still need to fix skill/rune balancing and some of the more egregious elite monster pack combinations.


Icemage

I actually still prefer the PC version having played both now (only the demo on 360 - I was considering buying PS4 version but I like PC better).

And doesn't matter if it's the expansion, it still counts. I still loved LoD overall, especially the plot and the new classes not to mention synergy was awesome. But they just broke the game beyond repair with all the end game monster tweaks, to say nothing of how needlessly complex runes made everything. The horadric cube, while novel, was already enough of a cluster **** without Runes added to the mix (damn you Zod rune...)


The overall pace and handling of combat IS undeniably better in D3 though. Auto-pick up of gold, individualized loot, health globes and easy to manage skill sets all helped streamline combat into a much more enjoyable experience over D2. The problem is while they improved on the mechanics of the series, they lost its soul in the process - what made Diablo, Diablo.

I'm glad they're getting their act together, but I can't help but think it'll be too little too late once Destiny rolls out.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I was going to post that I got an email about this from Blizzard this morning, but it looks like I'm two days late. At any rate, they're making a point of letting all their customers know.

I couldn't care less at this point, honestly. D3 had its chance, I got my pound of entertainment out of it, and ARR has laid claim to the next 5 years of my life or so.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

^ likewise.

I may still get Reaper of Souls, just to see how the plot goes because at heart I'm sucker for D3's Lore - LOVE IT!

But long-term interest? Nah. Between ARR and eventually Destiny, I just don't see myself getting back into D3 seriously - unless folks on my stream want it, but that's a whole other animal.

[jenova_9]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

There are testing being done of the expansion, mew.

Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls Now in F&F Beta - Streams available [no NDA] - NeoGAF