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Pay 2 win becoming legitimate? Have we really lost our way this much?
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The players' characters and are their possesions are persistent and stored in a shared environment. I mean, I agree it's not an MMORPG, but it was clearly influenced by MMORPG concepts. Auction house? Come on.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
So you are saying that you'd rather lose for 6 months to the guy that got the lucky drop the first time instead? Seriously...the drop rates don't go UP for farmers. They legitimately earned the weapon, and sold it. Your odds of seeing this weapon used against you are exactly the same either way. Also, either way, you will have no ideal HOW THEY GOT THE BLOODY THING. The RMT does not affect you, at all. You will still lose to better geared players....whether they are luckier than you or wealthier than you is highly irrelevant. Now stop being a baby about it.
I'm guessing that playing the game with someone who dropped 20 bucks on a full set of gear is quite a bit different from playing D2 with someone who geared up on only what they themselves found. Basically if you prefer to experience any modicum of challenge you'd rather play with the legitimate gamer and not Mr. Candrop20$. That's just my take on the situation but basically goes back to the old adage that the journey in these games is more fun than the destination or as another gamer on this site put it, "Finding the ultimate weapon is more fun than one shotting everything with it."
The problem with your philosphy is that I would realize the change to scrabble. You will have no ideal who is buying gear and who is not. For all intents and purposes...it will appear the same as it always has. RMT affects the buyer...not you. Well, THIS RMT does, anyway. THe other kind of RMT is destroying gameplay for a number of reasons I don't have the energy to explain. Bottom line....it won't push you out, because it will not affect you in any way at all.
One problem with that is: Farming gear isn't a "journey" it's a year long farmfest if you do it yourself. Kill the same boss...minute in, and minute out, for weeks on end.
I'm not sure if I could play Diablo 3 and getting a cool item drop without thinking: "Hmm I wonder how much I could sell this for?" This in itself would ruin the game for me. I'd have to choose between what I could put on my character and what I'd rather sell... I don't know, I'm not a fan.
I'm the opposite of you. My gambling eyes would light up and I'd be like, "Bam, $20 item!" Sounds like a potentially really fun system to me. Not that I'll be spending my time playing it.
Seems like you really didn't think this through much... You yourself stated that possibly no one will know who has or has not bought items using RMT. The way Diablo 2 item drops worked was that you either had to be insanely lucky or alot higher lvl to get the good lower lvl items. Only certain nameds/bosses in certain modes (normal/nightmare/hell) were coded to drop specific item lvls. There was a bit of a challenge for those first few heroes who tackled Diablo without the benefit of any higher lvls going ahead of them and farming all the good items then trading them off making the next group/solo individual who played through to have a much more lenient experience.
So lets say I wanna group up to down a boss in this game but prefer not to do it with people who purchased items... How do I know who has and hasn't? This could possibly effect my game play unless I can content myself with only solo play.
Also, with the implementation of D3's RMT auction house on day one said gold farmers will be grinding furiously to be the first to obtain the Legendary Sword of Facemelting so they can sell it first earning bonus profit due to the perceived rarity. I'm sure shortly the auction house will be flooded with gear and any real challenge the game might have held can be easily surpassed by whipping out your CC. It all comes down to whether I'm willing to shell out my money for a game which seems to cater to the laziest, least scrupulous gamers in existence.
RMT affects the entire structure of the playerbase. Because of this, it affects me.
Believe it or not, I can tell the difference between an RMT MMO and a non-RMT MMO simply by the type and style of play of the people I end up playing with for a brief interval of time. It's a multiplayer game. I played Diablo 2 online extensively, while I only played Diablo I online once or twice.
Why?
Because the people playing Diablo I were hacking their pants off. While RMT doesn't provide that same level of silliness in gameplay, it's enough to make many people less interested in playing.
The difference between me and you is that you are only looking from the isolated consumer point-of-view. As a software developer, I'm trying to look at the whole picture. The multiplayer dynamic is much more complex than the single-player games of yesterday.
There is NO WAY AT ALL that Blizzard is hurting for cash ><! So please just take that argument and throw it out the window... As for the gamers without enough time to properly enjoy the game without paying for advantages, is this really such a large demographic as to make Blizzard feel the need to go out of their way to make easier avenues of progression? Not likely imho. Blizzard wants as much of your money as they can grab hand over fist and that's the truth.
Its hard to take you seriously when you say things that make no sense. You say you played D2...but...RMT was a REAL thing there. A reallllly real thing. Apparently you have no ideal about half the things you say...because nearly a third (or more) of the playerbase online in Diablo 2 either USED the RMT or played with someone who DID. You played with plenty, you just didn't realize it. Why? They didn't announce the fact they were RMT users because it was an offense in that game. They hid it.
Much the same, you will not know now. You have no clue about what the multiplayer dynamic even is, or what it means to you, because the dynamic of the game will be unchanged for anyone NOT entrenched in the RMT. You will log on and see the exact same kinds of gear and players using it as you always would.
Well, one could always check ones tin foil hat for leaks... The orbital mind control lasers can be rather bad. ^^ In the grand scheme of things, I suspect influence of a gaming web site falls rather low on the priority list... ^^
I'm sure that there won't be a problem with bots, or multiboxing, or hacks, or account theft, or anything else. I mean, you don't see things like that in the MMO's of today, so why would any of them cause an issue. I'm also sure that there won't be a lower end of society playing the game as a job, trying to compete with asian gold farmers.
I think it's great that all these people are happy about the opportunity to export our capitol in exchange for diablo III virtual items. People in poorer nations are happy to work for a few dollars a day, so it makes sense for them to bust their humps playing Diablo III (or whatever RMT game). Then they can undercut anybody to get the sale, and keep the prices at the lowest viable amount. So while you're having dreams of making money selling stuff, just remember who you're competing against.
And don't cry too loud when your account is hacked after you visit some fansite, it's going to just be part of the reality of it. After all, once you've dug your own grave, you might as well lay down.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Since it was a bannable offense in D2, how do you know what the number of people using the RMT would be? It seems to me that very few people would admit to such.
Once they're on your friends list they'll tell you. Almost every high level paladin that I met paid for their gear.
<! --="" a="" and="" argument="" as="" avenues="" blizzard="" can="" demographic="" easier="" enjoy="" enough="" feel="" fist="" for="" game="" gamers="" go="" grab="" hand="" imho.="" is="" it="" just="" large="" likely="" make="" money="" much="" need="" not="" of="" out="" over="" p--="" paying="" please="" porperly="" properly="" really="" s="" so="" such="" take="" that="" the="" their="" they="" this="" throw="" time="" to="" wants="" way="" window...="" without="" your="">They aren't really being very coy about it anymore, are they? It isn't just Blizzard, either. Almost all of the MMO development companies and even websites like this (mmorpg.com) are becoming blatantly focused on money-grabbing. The part that is hilarious, however, is that they have no idea how much money they could really be making if they simply developed (or fostered the development of) a solid massively multiplayer game.
WoW is not churning in the cash because of it's current game design and cartoonish graphics. It is churning in the cash because it popped onto the market at exactly the right time, combined with a loyal following from its previous games.
It now seems to be bleeding players (apparently down to 11.1 million according to the latest mmorpg.com news).
The F2P RMT wave is having repercussions that the business people who don't really understand MMOs are never going to predict. They don't realize that when you make it so that a game like Scrabble is no longer appealing to adults, that lack of appeal may swing around and your 5-year-olds may stop caring about it, too.
Items in a game that doesn't hold any esteem with the right people will not be very valuable.
And neither will the game.
</!>I'm not trying to argue here. I pretty much agree with you and respect your passion for gaming and your desire for a particular ideal/style to be maintained. I also think RMT sucks, but I guess I've just accepted it. Gaming is supposed to be fun and if I worry about all the cheats and botters and hackers and gold buyers too much I'll probably get a stomach ulcer and die.
Still, I have no axe to grind with the game companies. For me the blame lies with the thousands of cheaters who do want to play with the cheat-mode active all the time, which then screws up the game world without the developers getting a penny. Unfortunately in modern MMOs, no matter how hard we want it we will never escape the gold sellers, period.
I suspect some developers are more comfortable with the RMT model than others, but developers that would avoid it due to design choices are to some extent forced to adapt in order to to stream revenue from a model pretty much determined by greedy players. From my personal experience it is other gamers rather than corporate snakes that are steering this current change.
Same kinds of players? No. No. and No.
Especially with company backing, the structure of the playerbase will be entirely different. I've been playing online games for nearly 30 years (holy cow, I kinda just shocked myself). I've seen the changes in structure to online playerbases. I've seen the switchover from roleplaying MMOs to metagaming MMOs. Yes, I played Diablo 2 extensively back when the playerbase was different. I would not bother, now. I haven't played it in years.
The bottom line is that your assertion that the playerbase is just a static conglomeration of single-player-mode consumers is completely false. It's easy enough to deduce from simple observations that other players have an impact on retention for a given player in any multiplayer game, and that the nature of those other players is dependent on the type of gameplay supported.
While I totally agree with your (the OP's) cheat code analogy, I'd like to point out one difference: At least you can start over in a single-player game once you realize how much that cheat code screws it up.
Anyhow, my MMO of choice has become Pay2Win. The problem with P2W is that you have people coming in, playing the same bit of content for a few days spending a few hundred dollars, hitting max level, spending a few thousand for the most uber gear, then complaining that PvP is sucky because everyone who "matters" in PvP is geared EXACTLY the same (meaning whoever gets first hit wins) and that the game's content sucks (because all games suck at end-game content and lower-level content isn't really available anymore at max level).
Of course, whilst this is probably providing a huge shot in the arm right now for the company, it's not sustainable. The P2Wers stay around for quite literally a matter of weeks. Due to the repurcussions of the P2Wers, it influences the gameplay of everyone else. Everyone's got dollar signs in their eyes, so you can't find parties to do anything aside from mooch money off the P2Wers. And, of course, if you do, it's probably a P2Wer who hit their charge limit for the day, so they're trying to explore the rest of the game, but they don't really know how to play and they're undergeared. Nevermind the roller coaster of an economy which results...
The net effect is that long-time players, both pure-F2P and those who have dumped at least some money into the game, are leaving. This creates a nice scenario where you start having the blind leading the blind, which then further accelerates the newer P2Wers' leaving, as they can't even pay for semi-competent "help" to powerlevel using cash shop items.
I reckon it's only a matter of time before the game implodes, which is really very sad. I quite like the game in spite of its many "quirks" and the publisher's less-than-great communication with its playerbase. The saddest part is that the downfall of the game was due to the introduction of only a handful of items into the cash shop (any one of which probably would be quite fine on its own, but combined [and especially combined with exploiting game glitches...], they're an extremely potent cocktail...). Too bad there's no easy way to undo the damage.
There appears to be a strong correlation of the company practically pushing P2W and their consistently decreasing stock price. (It's their flagship game.) So, hopefully that can be taken to mean that P2W isn't yet legitimate.
As for the RMAH, having seen the real effects of P2W, I can't say I'm terribly worried about that being P2W yet.
Thank you. You just saved me tons of time. I'm glad I waited 5 minutes and did something else before posting. Bless you.
The playerbase of the newly released Diablo 3 cannot be construed from the decade-old playerbase of Diablo 2. And while my solitary game time in Diablo 3 will not be affected by RMT, this thread is appearing in the Pub of mmorpg.com, where topics of conversation are often focused on multiplayer aspects of games.
Perhaps I should have qualified all my statements so that everyone knew I was referring to the multiplayer aspect of Diablo 3. I rather enjoyed the multiplayer aspect of the previous Diablo games, so I think there is incredible potential there. Yes, if you are willing to throw that potential away then RMT will not impact a solitary player much (unless they want it to).
As for your claim of voicing an unsupported and uninformed opinion, I recognize your name because your thousands of posts have jumped out at me in basically every thread I've read here on mmorpg.com. Your opinion in this case is a sincere form of flattery to me. Much appreciated.
dont know if your solo playing will be uneventfull in this online only game(diablo3)but i wish you good luck!
Congratulations, you now know what the main draw of the Diablo series is after beating the last boss.
To many people, (anyone who played online for starters) this was indeed a journey, nay THE journey, and arguably what the whole game was about to them.