View Full Version : Jay Wilson on Trading and Currency
DarkGoat
28-08-2008, 10:35
In a new interview Jay Wilson talks about their plans for trading and currency in D3.
Diablo, at its core is basically a trader's game. If you look at other types of progression based RPG games, World of Warcraft is a great example. In World of Warcraft the best items are you know, held by the raiders. In Diablo the best items are really held by the traders. You know those people that are really good at trading with other people. We have no intention of destroying that design or that group of players. That being said a bartering system is actually a very exclusionary trading system; it essentially favors a very small group of elite people and it's not just that those people have entry into it. It's that anyone who wants to gain entry to that system, anybody who wants to just trade items with people, they have this huge barrier to entry, they just can't get into because they don't the value of items, they don't know what's worth what, they don't know what they need. So an elite trader would probably say, ‘Oh well, I like that I have this exclusive knowledge,' but he's actually denying himself customers essentially because there's no common language. A currency really provides a common language: that's the point of a currency. So we do want to support some kind of currency, we don't want to do some of the stuff that Diablo 2 did where they kind of actively devalued gold. We really do want to make gold, or potentially another currency – it may not have to be gold – a valuable commodity that players can use to be able to trade items. That being said it doesn't really prohibit item trading like people can use items as a currency. We have no intention of adding a Bind on Pickup or Bind on Equip, if we did it would probably be for like quest items not for actual functional, like items which people use to hack down monsters and stuff. There's nothing that's stopping bartering in that system but it does give people at least some kind of language you know if you've got two items and ones like a little bit more valuable, you can pad it with currency as well.
There's a few things here that I don't agree with. A beginning player should NOT know the value of items in terms of some fixed currency. That should be something that one learns from talking with others, or experience using them etc. A beginning player should not have any reason to want to trade with elite players, nor should they be in a position to do so. One must learn the value of various attributes and various items by playing the game, and not just be told what everything is worth. The currency must not be determined by the game itself. A natural economy is always an economy that evolves, and is determined by the society of players, like in Diablo 2. A fixed economy is not fun.
What are you talking about? Diablo 2's economy is by far and large, the worst I ever experienced; and I am *not* even starting to talk about dupes. Do you have any idea how many people get scammed entirely because this is a bartering system with no reliable way to check value in-game?
Also, how is having a gold currency magically create a fixed economy? Players still determine the price by supply and demand. They just do it in a way that isn't utterly obnoxious for new players to learn about and enter.
One must learn the value of various attributes and various items by playing the game, and not just be told what everything is worth. The currency must not be determined by the game itself.
True but the economy in diablo 2 isn't remotely intuitive. If I travelled back in time and told my past self that I'd end up trading for items with Pgems I probably wouldn't believe myself. A fixed currency makes perfect sense but it's still up to the players to determine how much item X or Y is worth.
WoW already has databases of items found. The same stuff can be applied to Diablo 3.
It could be as simple as:
Gold on Realm: 3 Million
Item A Equipped on Realm: 500
Estimated Value of Item A: 6,000 Gold
The more an item is being used, the less value it has. Which means that my Wimpy Cracked Dagger of Sloth is worth 3 Million or so. I'm rich!
Tashohnie
29-08-2008, 11:38
I like a gold economy. I really do. I played a game years ago and money was so valuable it was the main resource of trading. It gives additional things to farm, items, gold. I like the idea
DarkGoat
29-08-2008, 12:05
True but the economy in diablo 2 isn't remotely intuitive. If I travelled back in time and told my past self that I'd end up trading for items with Pgems I probably wouldn't believe myself. A fixed currency makes perfect sense but it's still up to the players to determine how much item X or Y is worth.
Why exactly would you need to know what the currency will be in the far future?
Sein Schatten
29-08-2008, 14:07
WoW already has databases of items found. The same stuff can be applied to Diablo 3.
It could be as simple as:
Gold on Realm: 3 Million
Item A Equipped on Realm: 500
Estimated Value of Item A: 6,000 Gold
The more an item is being used, the less value it has. Which means that my Wimpy Cracked Dagger of Sloth is worth 3 Million or so. I'm rich!
D3 doesn't support mods and will (probably) have no armory. So, no, this isn't possible in D3. ;)
strongdwarvenale
29-08-2008, 15:36
I'm against a fixed currency. If you play with friends you can simply trade items without having to go by what it's worth, but by who needs what more. If you trade in bnet or in forums, items' values will develop over time. There's always going to be web pages with price guides, going by drop rates etc. There you can find an estimated value of whatever item you wish to trade. Then you can go see if there's many people buying and/or selling that item and then you can make a reasonable estimate on what the thing is worth.
An ingame currency would only work, if you could spend it on really good items. Gold is mostly useless in D2. Gold in masses is only good for gambling and that's not exactly an exciting form of treasure hunting. If they were to introduce a currency in D3, there would have to be merchants with stuff that's really valuable, but at the same time not as good as the best unique/rare/magical items or other ways to spend it wisely. That'd be cool, but difficult to balance out.
PG's as lowest currency is fine for me:)
Sigh. Gold gold gold...great in the real world but bad for the gaming world. In D2 people traded down and up all the time. MANY times I would trade something that drops fairly often for something that does not. Why? Because that person wanted it. If this gold currency thing starts, no one is going to do this. Why trade these boot for 100 gold when the game and websites say its worth 150 gold? I know it sort of the same, but its different in game and affects the economy entirely.
I think what the guy ment is that the currency won't have to be GOLD. But they're trying to figure out another tradeable currency similiar to runes and gems. And I really enjoyed the system that diablo always had... 'Till a certain point, where it was impossible to get a legit soj from a trade. Time will tell.
sirwhere
21-09-2008, 02:10
there's an easy way to make gold valuable.
have items being made by smiths at towns, for a gold fee. with a couple milions you could have your custom-made cruel sword. Now double the gold for an extra 1% in enhanced damage and gold suddently becomes VERY valuable.
this, or something like it.
if gold becomes currency, then that would really mean gold will be dropped LESS often by monsters. like what... 1piece per monster? how the hell are we going to buy items from vendors?1
pastrychef
29-09-2008, 23:05
I support this idea of using new fixed currency such as gold or something else (like perfect gems) other than duped high runes as the new currency in D3. I don't really like the idea of buying duped runes for forum gold (and forum gold is bought using real life money...). Seriously, no one should use their hard earned money for forum gold so that they can buy a pixelated glyph written on a pixelated piece of rock. It's a shame that the gold in diablo 2 is obsolete.
One example of an MMORPG game that uses gold and has a balanced economy is Runescape. They have this system called Grand Exchange where the prices of every single item in the game is shown, and it greatly helps new players that have no concept of trading or bartaring. Even before the introduction of the Grand Exchange, players still used gold to trade. This is just an example of an MMORPG game that uses in-game gold. I'm pretty sure WoW also uses in-game gold to trade for items, I've never played it myself but according to my friend that plays it gold is the dominant currency.
Anyway, this is just my opinion, I might be wrong about the whole concept of trading in diablo.
stillman
30-09-2008, 02:32
there's an easy way to make gold valuable.
have items being made by smiths at towns, for a gold fee. with a couple milions you could have your custom-made cruel sword. Now double the gold for an extra 1% in enhanced damage and gold suddently becomes VERY valuable.
this, or something like it.
I think this is a great idea, regardless of wether gold is the currency or not. They could also have Smiths making customized armor with each def point costing exponentially more gold after a point.
The main thing I care about is this: I just don't want to see gold or stamina or anything else become a useless joke like it is i d2. It makes Blizzard's designers look bad, putting stuff in the game that is nearly useless. Sheesh.
Jumped Up Pantry Boy
05-10-2008, 18:10
I think pgems and runes are a great currency, they fit all the requirements.
They're attainable through work, they're available to everyone, they're useful for many things and the main part - they're consumable.
Any alternate currency must tick all those boxes or it will just be like gold is in D2.
The thing that is so good with a gold-economy is that it is much easyer tog et what you want. Example how it is in diablo 2:
I have a Sword that i want to trade for this hat ive been looking for. Now i must find a player that have my hat, and also want my sword. This could takes weeks if its rare items involved.
how i want it to be:
I have this sword worth 1000 gold and want a hat worth 1000 gold. Now i just have to find a buyer who wants my sword. get payed in gold. And instead of needing to find someone who have the hat AND wasnt my sword, i can pay him in gold so that he later can get what he wants.
I have this sword worth 1000 gold and want a hat worth 1000 gold. Now i just have to find a buyer who wants my sword. get payed in gold. And instead of needing to find someone who have the hat AND wasnt my sword, i can pay him in gold so that he later can get what he wants.
Isnt that , in a nutshell , how it works nowadays on Bnet ? Trade your sword for runes , use aforementioned runes to purchase shiny new hat ?
To remain on topic, I am against a gold based currency . Diablo 2 is what it is today BECAUSE of the user based economy . Being able to accumulate wealth from a multitude of sources and methods really keeps this game alive , imo . Jumped Up Pantry Boy made an excellent point id like to quote
I think pgems and runes are a great currency, they fit all the requirements.
They're attainable through work, they're available to everyone, they're useful for many things and the main part - they're consumable.
Any alternate currency must tick all those boxes or it will just be like gold is in D2.
Also trading will get easier when you can offer gold and not some weird rare item that the guy is looking for. So if you happen to not have the specific item that the trader is looking for he can always accept gold and try to get the item with that gold from someone else.
Isnt that , in a nutshell , how it works nowadays on Bnet ? Trade your sword for runes , use aforementioned runes to purchase shiny new hat ?
No it is not, because gold makes everything so much more simple, its easyer to understand, runes are not since there is no way to know how much a rune is worth when you can only meet its worth in other runes. It is also harder to do business because every item has an exact value in other items, you can for example buy a hat for 213 gold coins, and then you are in luck and find someone who is willing to pay some more for it, you just made a good deal. But since an IST rune for example is so much worth, you will only find that item for one ist rune because charging 2 ist runes for it will double it so you cant raise the price.
Of course you can say you want Ist um pul for that hat but most players will not buy it because they have no idea how much those runes are worth.
Im just speaking bull**** here because im tired and my own text confuses me.. Anyway.
Rob.
patriach owen
13-10-2008, 23:43
Im with Jay all the way. (No rhyme intended :D)
seriously... I think that the WoW economy is stronger than Englands... he knows what hes talking about. :P
To get gold to be useful in any game you have to understand the currency's "lifespan". It must have a birth, mid-life, & death, and those 3 phases must be balanced against each other. I probably sound like a lunatic right now so let me try to clarify.
The birth of gold is where the game creates it, i.e. 'it drops'. This introduces gold into the player-based economy.
It's mid-life is all the hands it passes through, getting traded from player to player. It remains in the player-based economy and is the lifeblood of a currency based economy.
The death is when the gold is consumed, i.e. spent at NPC's. This removes the gold from the player-based economy.
ALL three of these need to be balanced to make a currency valuable. DII handled #1 & #3 (though probably not as well as it could have). Monsters dropped gold -> currency introduced to economy. Gambling, runeword/charges repair costs, etc -> goldsink to remove currency from economy. There is nothing in DII that promotes #2. DII's gold model is like filling a bucket with a hole in the bottom; lots of currency moving in & out of the economy but you still end up with an empty bucket.
I think for it to work as a currency based economy, you need to promote the changing of hands of that currency. It has to get circulated amongst a large number of the player base. The problem is coming up with something that makes people want to pass their money to other players. WoW did it by forcing you to use their currency. There's no trading, except by friends that trust each other enough to send items by mail, or again forcing the use of currency with the COD mail.
Anyway I don't really have an answer without forcing a currency (with auction houses or similar). Just though I'd throw out my thoughts. DII just doesn't give you a reason to give the gold to someone ELSE.
fatalend
16-10-2008, 03:35
You need different types of goldsinks in a game in order to make gold effective. First of all you need "necessary" ones, that force everyone that plays Diablo 3 to spend gold. This can include repairing items, or resurrecting your merc, things like that. These aren't necessarily "fun" goldsinks but they are ones to guarantee that gold is moving out of the economy and it doesn't build up much.
Now there are some goldsinks in the category I just mentioned that are too extreme, and should not be in the game, or perhaps in the game to a lesser extent. The best example I can think of is from Diablo 2... losing thousands upon THOUSANDS of gold everytime you die. This discourages players from trading gold because death is so easy to come by in Diablo 2. You can lose gold when dying, but not to orders of that magnitude. You don't lose your runes when you die, therefore people traded runes. Makes perfect sense, I won't trade for gold which I could lose in the next 3 minutes. Also the maximum gold cap needs to be COMPLETELY removed.
In addition to these above sinks which aren't considered "fun", you do need to add ways to spend gold that get the player involved and having fun, such as respeccing skills, enhancing items, crafting, adding sockets to items, etc. all for a payment of gold. Don't just allow socketing and enhancing items once per difficulty level as in Diablo 2. Allow players to do these fun things, but have to pay for them.
The "fun" goldsinks need to be things that ALOT of people will get involved in. In Diablo 2, there was gambling. The chance of gambling and getting a worthwhile item was SO low that most players never gambled. Therefore it wasn't an effective goldsink, think about these things blizzard. Gambling is fine, but you need more.
Auction houses help to a large extent, because it allows for easy interaction and trade of items and money. It's simply convenient. However, the diablo 3 devs have to be careful with this because unfortunately it ruins the player interaction of trading which is a staple of the Diablo series.
Now there are some goldsinks in the category I just mentioned that are too extreme, and should not be in the game, or perhaps in the game to a lesser extent. The best example I can think of is from Diablo 2... losing thousands upon THOUSANDS of gold everytime you die. This discourages players from trading gold because death is so easy to come by in Diablo 2. You can lose gold when dying, but not to orders of that magnitude. You don't lose your runes when you die, therefore people traded runes. Makes perfect sense, I won't trade for gold which I could lose in the next 3 minutes. Also the maximum gold cap needs to be COMPLETELY removed.
This wouldn't have prevented gold from being valuable in HC. Gold will not have less value because of this reason, but only more since the scarcity is greater. If a necessary ingredient to play the game becomes more scarce its value increases.
On top of that, losing something valuable on death should be an encouragement to get killed less. The point of SC should not be to die as much as you want without penalty; you can actually play this game without dieing (a lot).
The one and only cause for gold not being valuable is that there is nothing you can do with gold that requires large amounts of it except gambling. But gambling requires such large amounts of gold that it is not very appealing to most, and the gold cap is hindering it a lot.
What is the value of money? The only value money has is the value that people give it. That said as people have already stated, the way to make gold an effective currency, is to give the player useful and worthwhile things to do with it.
Some ideas (some already suggested):
Gold to increase defense/attack value of an item (price to upgrade the item increases exponentially)
Gold to add sockets (price increases exponentially)
Gold to buy runes and gems (extremely expensive)
Gold to "enchant" the item adding magical effects to it (turns into blue item; expensive)
Gold to "imbue" the item (Turns it into a rare item; extremely expensive)
-------
If some or all of these ideas were implemented, gold would suddenly have value. If it had value it would be sought after and used.
What is the value of money? The only value money has is the value that people give it. That said as people have already stated, the way to make gold an effective currency, is to give the player useful and worthwhile things to do with it.
Some ideas (some already suggested):
Gold to increase defense/attack value of an item (price to upgrade the item increases exponentially)
Gold to add sockets (price increases exponentially)
Gold to buy runes and gems (extremely expensive)
Gold to "enchant" the item adding magical effects to it (turns into blue item; expensive)
Gold to "imbue" the item (Turns it into a rare item; extremely expensive)
-------
If some or all of these ideas were implemented, gold would suddenly have value. If it had value it would be sought after and used.
pretty good ideas. but it's also highly dependent on how much gold drops and how easy it is to find it.
you gotta remember that d2 had a somewhat similar money sink in gambling. it was a nice way to sink a few million gold into the economy and a semi-fun diversion, but that was about it. you still never saw anybody trading anything of real value for gold.
Well the above suggestions would increase demand. Assume the supply was held at a constant rate. The end result? An increase in value.
whiteboi
18-10-2008, 02:00
A gold currency like wow works very well because it take a lot of currency and makes it look like its not very much. Meaning gold is derived from silver and then derived from copper and so on. This means 1 gold is really 100 silver is really 100000 copper and so on. Mianly it makes it much more MANAGEABLE. However, i do not want this system in diablo 3 because I want diablo 3 to have its own unique system.
I am all for blizzard creating something different than a gold economy and also different than a bartering economy. What it could be I do not know!
And what about gold to buy quests?
Just like Uber Diablo with sojs, but instead of sojs, gold.
But instead of making quests permanent, make then to have a lifespan of 2 months, so you can have the feeling of exclusiviness in participating in such quests and get rewarded by TRUE unique items.
You need different types of goldsinks in a game in order to make gold effective. First of all you need "necessary" ones, that force everyone that plays Diablo 3 to spend gold. This can include repairing items, or resurrecting your merc, things like that. These aren't necessarily "fun" goldsinks but they are ones to guarantee that gold is moving out of the economy and it doesn't build up much.
Now there are some goldsinks in the category I just mentioned that are too extreme, and should not be in the game, or perhaps in the game to a lesser extent. The best example I can think of is from Diablo 2... losing thousands upon THOUSANDS of gold everytime you die. This discourages players from trading gold because death is so easy to come by in Diablo 2. You can lose gold when dying, but not to orders of that magnitude. You don't lose your runes when you die, therefore people traded runes. Makes perfect sense, I won't trade for gold which I could lose in the next 3 minutes. Also the maximum gold cap needs to be COMPLETELY removed.
In addition to these above sinks which aren't considered "fun", you do need to add ways to spend gold that get the player involved and having fun, such as respeccing skills, enhancing items, crafting, adding sockets to items, etc. all for a payment of gold. Don't just allow socketing and enhancing items once per difficulty level as in Diablo 2. Allow players to do these fun things, but have to pay for them.
The "fun" goldsinks need to be things that ALOT of people will get involved in. In Diablo 2, there was gambling. The chance of gambling and getting a worthwhile item was SO low that most players never gambled. Therefore it wasn't an effective goldsink, think about these things blizzard. Gambling is fine, but you need more.
Auction houses help to a large extent, because it allows for easy interaction and trade of items and money. It's simply convenient. However, the diablo 3 devs have to be careful with this because unfortunately it ruins the player interaction of trading which is a staple of the Diablo series.
I agree with everything you said, Fatalend.
In a D3-style auction house system, I think it would work if players could post sales and offers in the form of a "package" of items AND/OR gold. The seller could review all the various offered packages and click an "Accept" for the one he liked the best.
I would discourage Blizzard from having a built-in gold buyout price, thus requiring personal attention from each player to drive the auction system forward.
Allow a 255 character "Seller Looking For:" comment (editable at any time) to be attached with each sale. This would allow buyers to create offers they think are valuable to the seller.
All packages should have a deposit fee so that players carefully consider their actions. This fee should be based on an arbitrary percentage of the package's cumulative repair cost and gold amount contained therein. This fee is returned to buyers but NOT sellers when the auction expires. All packages should be rescind-able at any time, at the cost of the deposit fee.
Doing all this would require some type of temporary storage for failed auction packages.
Hakarrod
29-10-2008, 18:43
A good way to add value to gold by making it worth more to players would be to require it as a kind of admission fee. People will run bosses and areas countless times for items, runes, keys and whatever else. They go to the most profitable areas for a specific type of treasure over and over again ( talking about in D2, as well as most any other rpg that has drop tables and %'s). What if aside from the normal game there was a place you could go for a price that dropped zero gold and only items, ranging from worthless to awesome. The only way you could get to one of these places would be through an npc who charges only in gold.
Maybe like an arena or something. The better the potential treasure, the more expensive the admission for that particular run/room/arena/area whatever you wanna call it.
The best examples I could think of would be to change the cow level and pandemonium event (uber tristram) ingredients from organs, keys and prosthetics to a fee in gold. There could be numerous "pay to kill areas" with all kinds of rewards and competitions that would require a fee per player in gold to access. Nothing too steep but definitely an amount that would require a bit of adventuring to accumulate. Maybe one such gold-pay-area is ideal for a group of wizards and barbarians and thus players who aren't of either of those to classes would have to find some friends or hire the services of such characters.
Of course you wouldn't find any gold in these areas. Which would bring up the questions about selling items found there. Well if the items only sold for a fraction of what they were worth then it might give incentive to sell to other players since the items might be quite valuable and otherwise hard to find.
We all remember that first day, before we were uber. When every gold piece was cherished. Then, we found that after a day or so of playing, we were suddenly in our 20's and had plenty of gold for what we needed (Repairs). They introduced gambling in D2 simply because there wasn't anything to do with gold after a while. Leveling happened too fast (and totally stalled by lvl 90 or so) but the first thing that you grew out of was the need for gold.
As I mentioned in another post, everyone seems to cringe whenever a comparison is made between D3 and WoW, but WoW has a fantastic system in place. The biggest parts of this system is professions (which require mats) and the Auction house. Jay Wilson mentioned that they have no intention on making things BOP (Bind on Pickup), but why? If you have a BOP item, it means you earned the damn thing! Whats wrong with that? As we saw in D2, anyone can take $10 and get the Ancient Sword of Uberness. It took no skill whatsoever. IMO, the elite items should be BOP.
Damnatorius
09-11-2008, 17:16
Really the cap of how much gold you could store was the main reason for it being useless. I play single player, so I have ATMA, making it real easy to store gold. This way I save every bit of gold and once I save up about 25 mil or so, I go on a gambling spree and end up with 1 or 2 uniques and quite a few decent rares.
The million or so you can store on a char just isn't worth the effort to trade with, while 100s of millions would be. Then again it shouldn't be so that you'd lose a couple of million on dying :P
Even with more money sinks, if you can't trade decent amounts of gold at a time, it won't be worth the trouble.
Welp ive played them both. For a number of years. D2 its about tradeing for what you want. You trade up and down depending on what you need.
Thing about d2 was once everyone figured out what the "currency" item was a dupe would happen. Or contrary to popular believe, single player items was pushed into closed realm, yet that was taken care of in 1.10. But you still had dupes galore.
With wow it was the fact we pay to play. Gives blizzard the backing to hire people to patrol the realms, fix stuff, stop hacks. Ban people.
In wow, every toon i had was a gatherer. Every toon had skinning and either mining or herbs. Up until last month when i finally quit, I was makeing 45k a week off each toon i had. My bank alts, I would lvl up to 35 just to get to the 300 cap for enchanting so i could nuke lvl 60 or so items. Mining uses 3 proffs, herbs now has two. skinning has one same with tailoring. With an auction house, you make a ton of gold. But in wow this is pointless. The best uber items are drops that are BoP. And yes its a sense of bliss when you get one.
Yet if your not a hardcore raider or pvper, you settle for crafted or 5 man instance loot.
Thing with wow is you need the gold. Upgrades off the AH, buying spells, mounts.. etc.
In diablo, it was pointless. 2k drop here and there. You bought .. oh wait everything you need actually drops off mobs.. meh... you had to rez a merc here and there and fix/repair items.
There is no way i can see gold as a currency in d3 unless they limit how much drops.
then again we cant look at d3 like we look at d2.
The idea that 4 people from germany and the two from russia would hold sway on the currency in the game yet again would bother me somewhat.
Then again people are stupid.. they will believe anything told to them if presented to them in a way that seems right.. or they want to believe something so much that the slightest mention of it sends them off on a crusade.
time will tell where it goes.
my only point im trying to make is thus. There isnt an "elite" trader class. The game isnt out, we havent played it. there are no "uber" drops to call forth the "elite" traders yet. WE make OUR own tradeing class.. they evolve outta our need for items.
pimpsanater
20-11-2008, 05:15
Personally I loved the Diablo 2 barter system. I liked it because you had to be experienced and skilled in trading and in the game. Making some fixed currency of course eliminates trading items for items, more based on need and less on set value. I just like trading items for items, and while I agree that set currency is easier for begginers, I think have the fun is becoming an expert. I have also played wow, where gold is very valued and I suppose its ok, although Ive NEVER traded an item for an item in that game. Basically Ill deal with the economy in whatever direction they go with it, but I think learning the economy when its more complex and less predictable is much more fun.
Synchrotron
20-11-2008, 07:09
I really don't know what is the best currency for Diablo 3, all i know is that the economy of Diablo 2 is terrible.
For example, you would never be sucessfull in trading 100 jalals for one Jah rune.
Diablo 3 needs a system that allows you to sell all your jalals for a currency that is at least 0.1% the value of the Jah and not 0%.
GoBigRed
20-11-2008, 18:03
I'd like to see some sort of set currency to an extent, but still make it to where trading item for item wasn't completely worthless to do. I personally didn't like the d2 trading that much, without using a website, it would take ages to find someone to trade with, yet alone actually make a fair trade.
I really don't know what is the best currency for Diablo 3, all i know is that the economy of Diablo 2 is terrible.
For example, you would never be sucessfull in trading 100 jalals for one Jah rune.
Diablo 3 needs a system that allows you to sell all your jalals for a currency that is at least 0.1% the value of the Jah and not 0%.
That doesn't make sense. That's like saying the real life economy sucks because you can't buy 100 lollypops ($0,25 each) with a $100,- bill (just a stupid example). You can use lower value currency (don't know the best term for that), like one dollar bills (pgems) or ten dollar bills (Lem/Pul/Um-ish runes) or something like that.
Keighvin
20-11-2008, 21:02
Well, actually your example really doesn't work, since 100 $0.25 priced lollipops is $25. So you would indeed be able to buy them, and would simply get a lot of change back. Unless the store had a policy of not accepting bills over $20 or something.
Synchrotron stated it would be impossible to get 100 Jalal's (lollypops) for 1 Jah ($100,- bill) and that therefore the economy is flawed. Of course you won't be able to make that trade when you can trade more practically with Lem/Pul/Um ($1,-/$5,-/$10,- dollar bills). Why would Jah runes be the lowest value you can trade with?
To get back at the lollypop example: whether or not a store accepts $100,- bills, why would you want to pay like that, when simple $10,- bills exist (aside from the situation when you simply only have $100,- bills)?
Also, even if he would trade like that (Jah for 100 Jalal's), why wouldn't he be able to get his 'change' (in the form of whatever kind of items)?
When this all still doesn't make sense, consider that trying to trade 100 Jalal's for a Jah rune doesn't make quite a lot of sense either. ^^
keep in mind that the trading system in D2 changed radically after and during each patch. remember when CHIPPED gems were valuable cuz everyone found out that u could xmute them with an executioner sword and have a chance at getting a really high dmg sword? remember when asking for 40sojs wasnt that insane of a request? :coffee: all im saying is, if D3's economy is based on currency, at least we have a standard unit of measurement to consider regardless of what the hot new item is. wouldnt you like to have those 40sojs you traded for some bull**** back in .08? i know i would. Thats 120 HRs NOW!!!!
Synchrotron
21-11-2008, 05:02
Ok, maybe my example was **** but what I mean is that we need a currency that is way cheaper than Sojs/High Runes. Like in real life, we have a lot of diferent bills to help with the exchange, from one cent coins to 100 dolar bills.
Ok, maybe my example was **** but what I mean is that we need a currency that is way cheaper than Sojs/High Runes. Like in real life, we have a lot of diferent bills to help with the exchange, from one cent coins to 100 dolar bills.
But, what happened to trading with perfect gems? Or at least in the time I played on battle.net (around 2006 I think), they where very often used as currency. The prices back then were something like:
Pul rune: pgems 30-35 pgems
Gul-Zod: 4 Pul runes (when I started playing. probably halfway Ladder 3) to 2 Pul runes (nearing the end of Ladder 3)
But, where are my manners? Welcome to the forum, man!
Synchrotron
21-11-2008, 14:24
Even with pgems its still hard to get runes IMO, you have to spend many hours trying to get a worthless pul for all your pgems and after that you still have to get more puls to finally trade them for a higher and usefull rune (in non ladder of course). If you play ladder you have to double the difficult of the trade.
Diablo 3 needs a currency cheaper than pgems imo. Another problem that I see with items as currency is that the inventory is limited so you cant pay 160 pgems por a HR for example.
I know many people dont like gold as currency and i respect that but for me gold is way better as currency.
DarkGoat
21-11-2008, 15:40
Ok, maybe my example was **** but what I mean is that we need a currency that is way cheaper than Sojs/High Runes. Like in real life, we have a lot of diferent bills to help with the exchange, from one cent coins to 100 dolar bills.
Diablo is set in the ancient world, not in the 21st century.
Even with pgems its still hard to get runes IMO, you have to spend many hours trying to get a worthless pul for all your pgems and after that you still have to get more puls to finally trade them for a higher and usefull rune (in non ladder of course). If you play ladder you have to double the difficult of the trade.
Diablo 3 needs a currency cheaper than pgems imo. Another problem that I see with items as currency is that the inventory is limited so you cant pay 160 pgems por a HR for example.
I know many people dont like gold as currency and i respect that but for me gold is way better as currency.
absolutely. the AH and bronze/silver/gold system of WoW is an impeccable example of this sort of economy: even brand new players could post up their low level gathered items or instance drops and they would have a really good chance to sell.
but that gets into something beyond just currency. it has to do with the fact that 1) trade games would be eliminated, making room for questing/running games. 2) you did not have to be online to make some dough. 3) you could name your own price and if youre lucky, youd get more from a bidding war.
albeit the idea of an AH in d3 has not been officially discussed (maybe i recall a video interview with Jay where he was asked about it, but dismissed it as too early to tell) to my knowledge, you cant deny that it would help the third-world economy of diablo as it stands in d2. in d2, unless you have the most in-demand items and runes, you can rest assured youll probably stay poor until you 1)meet a generous rich person, or 2) get lucky and find something of value.
its things like that which make trading in d2 less than desireable and i would be very pleased to see the system fixed in d3. as far as d3 being too "WoWish" and an AH just adding to that, its effin retarded to ignore a potentially great economy/trading system just because someone else uses it already. it could only improve the gameplay of d3. BAM!
edit: what am i talking about, this whole thread involves jay wilsons consideration of currency and an AH. so yea, it has been and still is being, im sure, officially discussed.
Even with pgems its still hard to get runes IMO, you have to spend many hours trying to get a worthless pul for all your pgems and after that you still have to get more puls to finally trade them for a higher and usefull rune (in non ladder of course). If you play ladder you have to double the difficult of the trade.
Diablo 3 needs a currency cheaper than pgems imo. Another problem that I see with items as currency is that the inventory is limited so you cant pay 160 pgems por a HR for example.
I know many people dont like gold as currency and i respect that but for me gold is way better as currency.
Problem here is that Puls and pgems are NOT universal currency, they are simply just something that is more popular with a select number of players, especially here. But the fact remains that there are still a high number of players that will NOT accept them. I distinctly remember last ladder trying to get my first Hoz, and I could not find anyone who would accept a combination of Puls and pgems.
Point of a currency in any economy whether real or virtual is it allows entry into the market for both buyers and sellers. As much as I hate D2Jsp and the people there, I do acknowledge that the system itself is almost flawless. Using a virtual currency that is common and accepted by all allows anyone to enter that market. You do not NEED 10 Puls to or 400 Pgems to get a cherished item. You can sell a few pgems, Puls, and misc other items.
superjayson
25-12-2008, 18:18
diablo 3 badly needs a proper currency and trading system. d2 was a complete wreck.
yeah for those who duped you loved it, for those who didnt but turned a blind eye to the fact all your items were duped or bought with items that were duped (there are alot of you out there) you just didn't care.
an economy based on incredibly rare, duped items, is stupid. its not really an economy at all. its more like gambling. trying to trade your duped crap off fast before it dissappears. And all for what ? another duped item that runs the risk of dissappearing too. an economy like this only favours the select chosen few, which Jay Wilson seems to realize.
d2 needs an economy where anyone can come in and achieve success in a short period of time, but to truely dominate still need to spend a respectable amount of time to accomplish what they need to do.
we need currency anyone can easily get, but still need alot of in order to get the truely elite stuff that will be in d3. I want to be able to save my gold to buy something good for my future character. i want to be able to do item for item trades.
Jay wilson needs to remove that barrier that the gamers have created for them selves and in turn limited the economy in so many ways.
Count me among those who hated the D2 system of trading. Being someone who has played the game for years, but not one who had much time to spend trying to network with people, or even browse forums to find trading partners or figure out how much something was worth, I had virtually no access to more powerful items.
On the rare occasion when I did find a powerful item, but one which was of no use to my character, I tried my hand at trading blindly. I only found out months or even years after the fact that I had been completely ripped off.
After that, I felt compelled to do some research, and ended up trying rune/pgem trading for some decent items. As someone else mentioned here, I too could not find one single person willing to trade for any pgems or runes.
Please let there be some kind of universal and simple way to trade. I have never played WoW, but I tried Age of Conan for a very short time. In AoC, there was a setup where you name a price for an item and it sits in limbo until someone is willing to pay for it, then the trade is made. Does anyone see a problem with this method?
I admit that I skipped from page two to page five and then replied, so pardon me if this has already been discussed.
phyloxerra
06-01-2009, 00:05
I miss 4 x Pskulls = 1 SOJ = Treads = Twitch. Can we go back to that? :wink:
raveharu
10-01-2009, 10:43
There are no traders in D2.
People just constantly refresh to look for noob games like "COA for lem" or something like that. Then the fastest person to join the game and click on the noob gets the deal.
I hope they do something to resolve this.
Albedro, that shounds like a good idea, but I'm worried. I don't think there should be a regimented trade system. I still think they should be player organized and player run. If we have an Auction House or Consignment House system, then everyone would dump their items on it and you could just buy anything you wanted. The alternative would be making good drops so exceedingly rare that only 1 in every 1000 players would see it. Blizz said they were thinking of hosting their own forum for trades.
Doctor Salvador
12-01-2009, 03:51
Having a consistant, common currency would force tears of joy out of my all too often dry eyes. Especially since, as many have already stated, Diablo II's economy was disgusting.
I would love to see Auction Houses to make trading itself that much easier.
As for making gold valuable, smiths could be set up in each act (Or even a certain demon-infested area only accessable by way of slaughter) where you could trade your precious gold for:
1. Straight up new gear
2. Imbuing stats upon your gear ***
3. Improving stats upon your gear
4. Crafting new pieces of gear (Maybe with recipes as others have noted)
5. Maybe Gems/Runes/Whatever
***I wanted to note Imbuing stats on your gear, because this could help deal with the new auto-stat system. If you could imbue wanted stats on your gear, you can essentially gain control over what stats get the real special attention.
If we want a gold based economy we have the problem that there is constantly pouring new gold in the economy from drops and items sold to merchants. So the prices of the items will inflate and gold will be worth less. One way to slow this down is to decrease the amount of overall gold put into the game.
But the only way to stop massive devaluation of gold is to put in massive goldsinks into the game(coloring items, gambling, something like short time boost for experience via scrolls,...).
Now some of this is allready in diablo 2, so why don't we have a gold based economy?
I think it's mostly because of the gold poofing on death and the low max amount you can cary. Also the very high amount of gold that gets dropped in later stages of the game further makes trading with gold difficult, any halfway decent item would be worth millions of millions of gold. So if these problems can be tackled i see no problem with D3 developing a gold based economy.
Now another thing is in what way gamefeatures should help trading in d3. From what I have experienced in other games, a gold based economy doesn't hinder the fun part of trading, buying cheap and selling expensive per se. Now centralized auction houses would take the human interaction out of these trades, but also help reduces scams and the overall time spend looking for a specific item.
I honestly don't know if it would be more fun with them put in or not. Maybe somebody could comment how it works out in games with them built in(I think WoW?).
raveharu
30-01-2009, 23:20
We can't really deduce much as most of your posts are just mere speculations.
If we want a gold based economy we have the problem that there is constantly pouring new gold in the economy from drops and items sold to merchants. So the prices of the items will inflate and gold will be worth less.
This can be solved easily.
Reduce the amount of gold one gets from selling items to NPCs.
Example,
A decent bow sold to any NPC in game = 100 gold.
Buying the same bow from NPC = 1 million gold.
This forces players NOT to NPC items away, like in D2 but to buy/sell with other players.
Then again D3 will be a single player game as well, so unless this applies only to multiplayer...
I duno, its kinda hard to balance a single and multiplayer game:scratchhead:
But definitely, multiplayer will get more features compared to single player, whether you like it or not :whistling:
But the only way to stop massive devaluation of gold is to put in massive goldsinks into the game(coloring items, gambling, something like short time boost for experience via scrolls,...).
I agree with this, but only the gambling part.
I like it, because you will never know what you will get.
Certain MMO requires one to spend RL money to obtain certain rare and power items in the game, gambling style.
Why not implement this and the gambling system (leaving out the spend RL money part) into D3 too?
Only that it will cost a BOMB in gold (say in millions) to gamble one item, and of course the chance of getting a junk item > godly item. It's all about the taking the risk :D
ReservoirDog
05-03-2009, 10:58
If we want a gold based economy we have the problem that there is constantly pouring new gold in the economy from drops and items sold to merchants. So the prices of the items will inflate and gold will be worth less. One way to slow this down is to decrease the amount of overall gold put into the game.
But the only way to stop massive devaluation of gold is to put in massive goldsinks into the game(coloring items, gambling, something like short time boost for experience via scrolls,...).
Now some of this is allready in diablo 2, so why don't we have a gold based economy?
I think it's mostly because of the gold poofing on death and the low max amount you can cary. Also the very high amount of gold that gets dropped in later stages of the game further makes trading with gold difficult, any halfway decent item would be worth millions of millions of gold. So if these problems can be tackled i see no problem with D3 developing a gold based economy.
Now another thing is in what way gamefeatures should help trading in d3. From what I have experienced in other games, a gold based economy doesn't hinder the fun part of trading, buying cheap and selling expensive per se. Now centralized auction houses would take the human interaction out of these trades, but also help reduces scams and the overall time spend looking for a specific item.
.
This is exactly right. The only issue Blizzard would have is how to control or at least slow down the inflation? Players will ultimately decide what items are valuable and where they rank on the pecking order. Uncap how much gold you can carry and let the market decide the price of items.
Diablo is set in the ancient world, not in the 21st century.
Your point? Tiered currency existed back then aswell.
The secret to a good economy is a steady supply of funds and a reliable way to spend them. Blizzard just needs to make things in the game worth buying.
I play a browser game called Kingdom of Loathing. There was an event in the past few years called Black Sunday, where not one but FOUR money bugs were discovered. Every began bringing in meat by the BILLIONS. (Meat is the currency.) That caused some ridiculous inflation in the player economy. So the Admins made ways for players to spend all their bugged meat (after killing the bugs, that is.) Such places included a Raffle House, extremely expensive and rare items, and fund raisers like Saving the Yetis and rebuilding Hagnk's Ancestral Mini-storage. Thus they drained the vast supply of meat players had made during Black Sunday.
Blizzard did something similar with World of Warcraft. There is always some expensive item to save for like a super mount or giant bag, and thus gold remains important at all times.
A strong economy is money in and money out. Players earn lots of Gold, and the gold has to be inherently valuable by giving players places to spend that gold for other tangible rewards.
I think a good way to prevent the chaotic economy could be utilities like crafted items, slotted weapons or armors —or enchanted weapons—, upgrades, and so on. And would be amazing if items have a % of break when receive upgrades or enchants too. And in the Long Term, the higher the costs, the better the Economy.
If they like also to make the gold desirable then I think the respec system would help a bit.
I'm not for the respec system —I don't like respecs at all if I'm complete sincere— but if they will exist then they would help here.
Killafornia
15-03-2009, 06:42
Sorry deleted for a new topic.
evilswitchkix
20-03-2009, 04:42
there's an easy way to make gold valuable.
have items being made by smiths at towns, for a gold fee. with a couple milions you could have your custom-made cruel sword. Now double the gold for an extra 1% in enhanced damage and gold suddently becomes VERY valuable.
this, or something like it.
There would need to be a cap on the upgrades, otherwise you'd have people spending the next 5 years saving up gold until their sword had 10,000% ED:crazyeyes:
Normally, long-term traders do not trade during new events and they exit and enter at times when the market is quiet. This helps them to get a price that is in the lower range of the variable spread. But at the same time, though the trader enters the market during off-peak times with a variable spread, he would save money. But it is not clear where the price will be placed or headed next. Prices are invariably widened to the upper part of their ranges when the market is active and swift. But during off-peak times, trading becomes dull as the opening positions become expensive. Check: www.ISMARKETS.com for more professional advice.
here's my 2¢ as well as my first post here.
Horadric Cube:
Pretty cool concept, neat for quests, but overall it really isn't necessary. with this is included gems, runes, recipes. although i am not a WoW fan, i like the way they handle the economy. removal of these items helps remove the clans of players raiding 50+ games per night to amass a fortune in runes and gems. think about it.
Recipes:
again, not a fan of WoW, but there are dozens of working concepts... make crafting require just that much more. don't make it a guessing game, and don't make it impossible to come by. with this, they need to work on dupes. dupes have ruined Diablo and Diablo 2. [along with hacks...]
in the end, i won't care how the economy works or if they re-used some WoW concepts... i will buy at least 2 copies of D3 and play it until my fingers fall off. same with StarCraft 2. they just need to make it FUN and EFFECTIVE, something the economy in WoW is.
let me stress again... i am NOT a WoW fanboy. quite the opposite. i just see that some things work.
-- off topic -- wtf is up with the health globes? this is not God Of War.
raveharu
14-04-2009, 01:31
-- off topic -- wtf is up with the health globes? this is not God Of War.
This is so contradicting :coffee:
this is how i see see it, the reson playes have desided what is currency is because of the difficulty of getting it and the usefullnes of having it after owning it.
back in the day when SOJs was the currency. it was hard to find (legitly) the item was small as possible and useful in other way than to be currency.
currently the HR system is what is being used, anf beside as currency they are used to make powerful equipment, which also stabalizes the amount of runes circulating at a time.
to make Gold a currency for us to use, they will need to find a way to make us want gold and limiting on how we get it. other wise it will be the same thing as D2, and gold is worthless other than repair and tp fair.
hmmmm, there seems to be a general concensous that gold should be important, as there are flaws with a rune/soj based economy. But then there will be flaws with a gold based one aswell so its hard to say which is better. Gold allows for the "auction house" thing. but to some extent this exists in d2, people go afk and just talk to the best offer after 2 hours or so. What it seems everyone is after more so than anything is a stable economy, screw what its made of, it doesn't relly matter, just as long as it works.
d2's doesn't work properly because of dupes, so this should be there primary concern, and the worth of things will just be, and they will let the market settle on its own standard rather than trying to force one on it.
p.s. my first evar post
PsychoPath
12-06-2009, 19:56
I strongly agree with the gold economy as well. Remove %gold find enhancements, add in new uses for gold, and everything works. I played some free MMO (can't even remember the name) but the gold system worked. I bought off some user a high end sword with all the money I had plus a little borrowed from someone in my guild (of whom I payed back) and the gold was valuable to the person I bought the sword from because of the things stored in the game and materials people had gotten that the user could buy (materials to upgrade weapons that drop from monsters, etc).
Gold is the best economy as well because it doesn't take up a bunch of inventory slots that could be used for charms or loot. I do like the idea of being able to spend gold upgrading items to some extent (limited amount of upgrades) and if they do upgrades I like the idea of different types of upgrades would drop from monsters (upgrades that add str, agi, etc, or +attack/armor or % chance of casting spell, etc, kinda like runes/jewels, but single stats and without using up socket space)
Also as other people have said, no gold loss from deaths (other than maybe to repair dmged equipment)
Economy will balance much better if the players can choose whats the currency... rat furs, sojs, whatever, does it matter? It is quite unique way of trading in gaming world, why destroy by forcing gold into currency? That kind of trading was used 3000 years ago maybe later, who knows? but it's perfectly realistic
Trading in D2 was quite timeconsuming so maybe the trade mechanics could be improved.
Jedouard
13-06-2009, 13:21
I completely disagree with the OP about having to work to find out the value of item, making the knowledge itself an elite item. Something as simple as a central auction house would give you an idea of what items are available and what they are worth (either in terms of equivalent barter items or in terms of currency value). Just because new players possess this no-longer-elite knowledge does not mean they will have the resources (equivalent barter items/currency reserves) to get them: be it Godly Plate of the Whale or a billion goal, at level 1 with your first character, you won't (legitimately) have it. So why should we care if they know? The only reason I can come up with is that it makes it harder for elite players to rip off noobs. For that matter, why is the currency - items or actual money or monetized items - that important? The only thing currency allows for is convenience in avoiding making multiple trades/transactions to get one item, i.e., trade "A" for "B", trade "B" to get what you want.
What if a character could only trade with players that are on the same difficulty as oneself? I think this would help new players because the gear they find on Normal or Nightmare wouldn't be trying to compete with those characters on Hell.
renegaade
18-06-2009, 07:18
I remember in what must of been Grade 6 that I started playing Diablo II. Having nothing when I began, and many players that were much richer than I was, it was quite a feat that I eventually built my way up to an empire. Literally. I had mules with Arkane Valors, harlequin crests, windforces, at the time where I could have sold my entire account for hundreds of dollars and nearly did! Originally when I began playing for the first time, I was given Chance Guards by some kind person which was the best thing that ever could have happened. I would come home after school (I was naturally an Honours student) and sit in the trading rooms, trading items back and forth. The trick was, since many players did not know the TRUE value of the item ( andI did, because I was constantly watching market pyschology whether I knew it or not in the trading rooms) they were trading, I was able to trade with people in a mutual agreement that really left me better off.I didn't trade because I needed the item, I traded because advantagous trades would lead to excess wealth which would exponentially grow in respective trades. I was, without conciously knowing it, engaging in behaviour that many top traders on Wall Street engage in. I didn't let emotions effect me, even on a bad trade because I'd sit in that trading room KNOWING that eventually someone would be along eventually to reverse a bad decision I'd made. My success in Diablo II is one of the biggest sources of confidence I draw from because it *truly* is a microchasm of the real world (if you don't agree with this you don't understand the economics and politics of the world we live in). That being said, I believe the introduction of a currency would destroy that aspect of the game for myself, and a lot of other players. A fixed exchange rate would create no possibilities for arbitrage (that is, situations which can be exploited). At least, not at all easilly available. I agree that scamming needs to be stopped, but like in the real world, one item can have MANY different prices depending on the vendor, time of delivery, etc. A fixed exchange rate will be extremely destructive to the economy and prevent many traders, like myself, from participating at all. If the currency was equivilent to the old SOJ system (esentially a floating rate exchange) then I would be all for it. I'd go as far as saying a fixed currency would create real world results, that is, low economic growth. The only variable in the game which makes it different to our real lives is that because monsters drop items, we are esentially all running small businesses from the get go. The more items we find the more our business expands and the best part about it is that the only overhead required is time. If you consider your time money, then perhaps there is a tangible cost involved. This aspect of the game, however, that is everyone running their own business creates a cycle of constant inflation. One unique item found over and over again makes the original unique item found ....not so unique anymore. So to combat this constant inflation (which is kept quite low from low dropping rate by monsters), it really is integral to have a floating rate exchange where traders can profit in an enviornment that they can operate in almost outside of the "go and find the item yourself and trade it" route. But other than the economics, that trading enviornment was in my opinion the most enjoyable part of the game. Capitalism in its finest form, rags to riches, and I did it. Don't ruin it for me this time 'round!
renegaade
18-06-2009, 07:41
(continued from my first post on the previous page)
I completely disagree with the OP about having to work to find out the value of item, making the knowledge itself an elite item. Something as simple as a central auction house would give you an idea of what items are available and what they are worth (either in terms of equivalent barter items or in terms of currency value). Just because new players possess this no-longer-elite knowledge does not mean they will have the resources (equivalent barter items/currency reserves) to get them: be it Godly Plate of the Whale or a billion goal, at level 1 with your first character, you won't (legitimately) have it. So why should we care if they know? The only reason I can come up with is that it makes it harder for elite players to rip off noobs. For that matter, why is the currency - items or actual money or monetized items - that important? The only thing currency allows for is convenience in avoiding making multiple trades/transactions to get one item, i.e., trade "A" for "B", trade "B" to get what you want.
Our services as labourers in the real world (whether physically or in the service field) are a form of bartering. Money fluctuates depending on the position, but more importantly the location of the position. One firm may offer x while another offers z, where z is significantly higher than x and only a little further to travel. This is esentially trading A for B, where B is currency and the largest ammount you can recieve for A, and then B for C. This is, in practice, a floating exchange because your payment for your profession isn't fixed by some central regulatory authority. Yes, fast food jobs have a range in which they pay, but it's still a range which creates possible opportunities for labourers and even more opportunity for employers. Now, you might say that you cannot compare items to a persons experience and abilities, but remeber these items that are being traded are in most cases rare. One day someone might be willing to trade, and the next there are none available. It's not like Best Buy with a constant stream of the same good at a given price. It really is, at the most fundamental level, a bartering system and needs to remain that way otherwise many people will be unmotivated to work (find items for trading purposes) and the entire economy will suffer. There's no debating this, it's simple economics.
Im new to this game and i hate the current trading system.
Its a nightmare when you dont know what things are worth, and the extreme pain with storing items(mules) makes it worse. Add to that the amount of effort and difficulty finding someone to trade with.
A currency would help in many different ways:
Storage would not be that much of an issue, since u can get rid of items quickly and get whatever currency is used instead.
You could have some sort of auction or market in-game, since it would be easy to measure the highest bid.
Blizzard should hire some sort of economy consultant to help them create a good currency, since diablo is so heavily based on trading.
In fact, too me, better trading/economy is the number 1 concern with D3.
Also, some people seems to be concerned that a "currency" would remove the potential of making money from trading, since it would be too easy.
Theyre wrong, from spending some time playing wow i learned that buying/selling the right things at the right time in the auction house you could make a very juicy profit.
I think pgems and runes are a great currency, they fit all the requirements.
They're attainable through work, they're available to everyone, they're useful for many things and the main part - they're consumable.
Pgems, yes. Runes, definitely not. The only method of obtaining high runes in D2 that's even remotely worth bothering with is getting rushed to your forge over and over again, and even then you could get screwed with a Hel rune or some nonsense. Add to that the fact that the seven highest runes won't even drop from forge, then compound it all with the understanding that there's no method of improving a high rune drop rate that's quite literally one in millions, and you start to understand why a good 98% of hrs in circulation on any realm are duped. Duping is the only reason high runes are considered a form of currency. If all the dupes and rune words made with dupes were to disappear at this moment, high runes would become so astronomically valuable that having just one would give you a ton of bartering power, and having those high level rune words would be almost unheard of.
I think the fact that D2's entire economy is founded on cheating is a good enough reason to explore alternative methods. D2 is the closest thing to an MMO I've ever played and probably ever will play, so I'm notfamiliar with other forms of managing a large scale e-conomy, but I'm interested to see what Blizzard will cook up.
raveharu
27-06-2009, 22:13
Im new to this game and i hate the current trading system.
Its a nightmare when you dont know what things are worth, and the extreme pain with storing items(mules) makes it worse. Add to that the amount of effort and difficulty finding someone to trade with.
A currency would help in many different ways:
Storage would not be that much of an issue, since u can get rid of items quickly and get whatever currency is used instead.
You could have some sort of auction or market in-game, since it would be easy to measure the highest bid.
Blizzard should hire some sort of economy consultant to help them create a good currency, since diablo is so heavily based on trading.
In fact, too me, better trading/economy is the number 1 concern with D3.
Also, some people seems to be concerned that a "currency" would remove the potential of making money from trading, since it would be too easy.
Theyre wrong, from spending some time playing wow i learned that buying/selling the right things at the right time in the auction house you could make a very juicy profit.
Hello, this is Blizzard that you are talking about.
You are speaking as if Diablo 3 is the first game, D2 is 8 years old, which explains the plenty of flaws and which Blizzard knows, of course. That's the reason we will be getting a test server for v1.13, they are planning to change everything. I am more than happy they even bothered to recreate and improve D2.
(continued from my first post on the previous page)
Our services as labourers in the real world (whether physically or in the service field) are a form of bartering. Money fluctuates depending on the position, but more importantly the location of the position. One firm may offer x while another offers z, where z is significantly higher than x and only a little further to travel. This is esentially trading A for B, where B is currency and the largest ammount you can recieve for A, and then B for C. This is, in practice, a floating exchange because your payment for your profession isn't fixed by some central regulatory authority. Yes, fast food jobs have a range in which they pay, but it's still a range which creates possible opportunities for labourers and even more opportunity for employers. Now, you might say that you cannot compare items to a persons experience and abilities, but remeber these items that are being traded are in most cases rare. One day someone might be willing to trade, and the next there are none available. It's not like Best Buy with a constant stream of the same good at a given price. It really is, at the most fundamental level, a bartering system and needs to remain that way otherwise many people will be unmotivated to work (find items for trading purposes) and the entire economy will suffer. There's no debating this, it's simple economics.
Thank you for explaining it in a way that I think even idiots can understand because i try to tell them all this.
Thank you for explaining it in a way that I think even idiots can understand because i try to tell them all this.
Stop being insulting towards people... or you won't post here anymore.
LittleOldLady
02-07-2009, 14:59
The biggest problems with gold as currency in D2 was how easy it was to get, how little you could hold, and how little there was to spend it on. Hence things which were a bit more rare (gambled SoJs in old D2, PGems) were better to trade than gold, since you couldn't carry enough gold to be worth any decent item.
Some sort of scaled currency (copper, silver, gold) [please no anti-WoW arguments, I've never even played; I could equally have said knuts, sickles and galleons] could stop "prices" being astronomically stupid looking (1,000,000,000,000,000 gold for...). If they allow bartering also, then it would allow people to do either.
In any case, some decent gold sinks would be required: there should be a decision between hording to trade for a better item, or spending it to improve your character in some other way:
e.g. an ability to upgrade the properties on an item, for an increasing cost (and dependent on the item), but not past the maximum: if an item can have 10-15 Str, then one with 10 could be upgraded to 11, etc. but never past 15. This could even be varied (server-side) depending on how "good" an item is seen to be as a dynamic management of cash.
hostileeffect
13-07-2009, 03:00
How about not so much *only* gold, silver, copper, etc, but rings, amulets, runes, gems and ancient insignias from the heavens or hells? All could hold their own values and uses, transmutes, item enhancement, etc. NPCs may accept some quality level of gems as payment for repairs instead of gold. Ancient rings and magic amulets would serve well to dump their magic into item crafting, or stripped for metal value.
No one is saying that there won't be some sort of consumables which will have intrinsic worth (such as potions, elixirs, craftables, runes) But that gold will in everything but name, ALSO become a consumable. It just so happens that this particular consumable is dropped in small amounts by near every monster in the game, is required for most any transaction, and can be carried more efficiently then any other consumable. tell me, if you only had 40 spaces for items, would you rather have all 40 spaces used up holding valuable consumables, or have it's equivalence in gold to hold in your gold stash?
I for one hope Blizzard can fix a good balanced auction hall type system with a functioning currency.
We are basically using this system already, but through 3rd parties (Forums such as the Diii.net trading forums)
Fun and involved economics are a key aspect to an items based game, obviously.
I'll end with the 10th Rule of Aquisition: Greed is eternal.
LongScar
24-07-2009, 19:50
So much confusion in this thread, if High Runes and Perfect Gems were such a loved currency, why would it be wrong to have gold, that isn't such a pain to store and mule as the new currency. The problem in D2 is gold has no real value, where thanks to runewords, high runes do.
I don't see anywhere that prices will be set, yet that is mentioned here. It's still going to be supply and demand with an Auction House, it's just that you have a larger market so it takes out some of the peaks. You can still buy cheap and sell high, I've played in many online games where prices varied by time of day, and I used that to my advantage to make good profit, having an auction house does not change that.
I would hope they don't remove the ability to do a one on one trade, but having an auction house does not mean that one to one trades will go away.
I can't imagine why the game would be so much less fun if I could go play in the auction house in a few minutes, instead of watching a screen full of abbreviated game names, hoping to find what I need, and hoping I have what they want, not everyone even accepts HR's. Imagine being able to actually buy a mid level item because it made it to an auction, instead of sold to charsi since it's not worth the space in inventory on hopes of a low level trade.
It should be like a real auction, where it costs money to put up an item for sale, even if it doesn't make the minimum bid, that will keep people from overpricing every little item.
It has to be done right, but it won't stop an economy from developing, in fact it should foster one, and foster one that has some level of logic to it. Trading item A to get Item B to trade for Item C doesn't always work, because you never know what you might need to get what you want right now, thats all gold or cash or any currency is, it's something of a set value that is comparable. Just because the gold has a set value, doesn't mean the value of items in relationship to it don't fluctuate.
vBulletin® v3.8.4, Copyright ©2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.