Diablo III AH experiment for WoW?

#1 - Aug. 2, 2011, 2:28 p.m.

I am skeptical about allowing two currencies in the market in the DIII. That just seems unstable economically. Of course, I'm not on the one with a degree in economical infrastructure.

However, the one thing I am deeply interested in is how this will play over in WoW. Both games have several cross-overs already (with some of the WoW ingame spells and ideas based on various spells and characters in Sanctuary, and the fact that DII uses a talent system extremely similar to the Wrath model.)

I am eager for a chance at closed beat testing for DIII since I wasn't invited for Cata beta =(. I'll find out how the market fleshes out then. Legally trading items for real-world money in a Blizzard game seems very interesting to say the least. Should the DIII experiment work I would not say it's unreasonable for WoW not to have some sort of US dollar AH in the near future.

edit: Considering the amount of data mining on mmo-champion that gets misconstrued on these boards, causing Zarhym to go off and say something along the lines of 'data mining is 100% accurate. No exceptions.' I would assume that more people would be concerned/interested/rampaging/excited on these boards. Afterall, this is legal gold trading sanctioned by Blizzard in every way except that you are buying existing items and not creating new products/currency.

Nethaera

Community Manager

#2 - Aug. 2, 2011, 2:31 p.m.

Please read the FAQ on this topic here- http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/events/diablo3-announcement/#auction:auction-faq

Perhaps the most relevant point for you to take from this is the following:

Does the currency-based auction house signify a shift in Blizzard’s business and revenue model?
We’ve always tailored our business models to match what we’ve felt would be most appropriate and effective for each game and in each region, and that’s the case with Diablo III as well. The item-based nature of Diablo gameplay has always lent itself to an active trade-based ecosystem, and a significant part of this trade has been conducted through unsecure third-party organizations. This has led to numerous customer-service and game-experience issues that we’ve needed to account for. Our primary goal with the Diablo III auction house system is for it to serve as the foundation for a player-driven economy that’s safe, fun, and accessible for everyone.

For further Diablo related discussion, please visit the Game forum or the Diablo forums. Please do not post further such threads in the World of Warcraft general discussion forum.