Jay Wilson: Auction House really hurt Diablo 3

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http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/diablo-3-director-jay-wilson-auction-houses-really-hurt-game

Former Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson admitted during a talk at GDC 2013 in San Francisco that both of Diablo 3's Auction Houses (both the real-money and the in-game gold item auction house) "really hurt the game." Wilson said that before Blizzard launched the game, the company had a few assumptions about how the Auction Houses would work: He thought they would help reduce fraud, that they'd provide a wanted service to players, that only a small percentage of players would use it and that the price of items would limit how many were listed and sold.

But he said that once the game went live, Blizzard realized it was completely wrong about those last two points. It turns out that nearly every one of the game's players (of which there are still about 1 million per day, and about 3 million per month, according to Wilson) made use of either house, and that over 50 percent of players used it regularly. That, said Wilson, made money a much higher motivator than the game's original motivation to simply kill Diablo, and "damaged item rewards" in the game. While a lot of the buzz around the game attacked the real money Auction House, "gold does much more damage than the other one does," according to Wilson, because more players use it and prices fluctuate much more.

"I think we would turn it off if we could," Wilson said during his talk. But the problem is "not as easy as that;" with all of Blizzard's current players, he says the company "has no idea" how many players like the system or hate it. Blizzard, Wilson said, doesn't want to remove a feature that lots of players will be unhappy to see go. But he did say that the team is working on a viable solution, without giving any other details about what that would be like.
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captain-obvious.jpg
 
Account bound recipes, items and the itemization changes are the "fixes", and already talked about on D3's dev blogs.

So hmm, a bit late with that interview there Joystiq
 
Well he finally admits it. About the only thing he really did right.
 
Why the hell would the AH reduce fraud with so little end-game content and no PVP?

"Huh, I beat the servers and duped this crazy ring with seven attributes. I will now use it to play through the story and won't try to make money."
 
singe_101 said:
Why the hell would the AH reduce fraud with so little end-game content and no PVP?

"Huh, I beat the servers and duped this crazy ring with seven attributes. I will now use it to play through the story and won't try to make money."
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the fraud comment was with people selling items on external sites and then getting ripped off by someone.
 
Big problem with the AH was the fact that it showed people what perfect rolls were for item stats, to where you wouldn't be satisfied by the less than perfect crap that was dropping for you in game.
 
Guys a dumb ass, he knows about the incredible amount of shit he stirred up. He likely got death threats knowing how stupid some people are.

Getting compared to Simcity and being the first person to actually ruin an IP from Blizzard is difficult.

The project he went too was hopefully keeping the hallways moped and the janitor closet nice and orderly. He has no business at any company other than Activision or possibly EA.
 
Revdarian said:
Account bound recipes, items and the itemization changes are the "fixes", and already talked about on D3's dev blogs.

So hmm, a bit late with that interview there Joystiq
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Yeah no joke, I made this really nice amulet the other day and hoped to sell it to another player, low and behold it was account bound. Pretty lame.


cageymaru said:
Well he finally admits it. About the only thing he really did right.
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Yep.
 
How did Blizzard not see this when it was extremely evident to PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY before the game launch?

Here's a general rule of thumb. If you leave something in the game that people can exploit, people will exploit. And if you promote said exploit, more people will exploit it, and the people who want to avoid it will typically cave to keep up with everyone else.
 
Such bullshit. I'm leaning towards Blizz/Acti knowingly releasing the game unfinished, but with several game-fixing patches lined up (such as legendaries actually having good stats) to allow for surges of RMAH activity. The dedicated players from day one will have bought almost completely new gear 3-4x over to stay with the pace of changes.

And what's worse is that despite him admitting the RMAH was a problem, we are almost guaranteed to see a version of it in the Titan MMO, which I have no doubt he is leading up the microtransaction portion of it.
 
Playing the same Diablo 3 maps over and over again reminds me of...

"The thing is, okay... He was right. And then I started seeing: everywhere I looked, everywhere I looked, all these fucking pricks, everywhere I looked, doing the exact same fucking thing... over and over and over and over again thinking: "This time, it's gonna be different; no, no, no, no, no, please... This time it's gonna be different."
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TheMadHatterXxX said:
Playing the same Diablo 3 maps over and over again reminds me of...
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That was the single worst thing about it. The lag was bad, but not unplayable, I never used the RMAH (and couldn't either as I was playing "out of region") and had a bunch of good items (and barely ever trade for anything.. or sell anything in any games, just use what is found).. But the repetitive maps and playing the same game over and over with no real changes was pretty terrible...a random map/creature maker/more variation would have been much more fun! :D
 
DeathPrincess said:
That was the single worst thing about it. The lag was bad, but not unplayable, I never used the RMAH (and couldn't either as I was playing "out of region") and had a bunch of good items (and barely ever trade for anything.. or sell anything in any games, just use what is found).. But the repetitive maps and playing the same game over and over with no real changes was pretty terrible...a random map/creature maker/more variation would have been much more fun! :D
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^^ You failed to appreciate the use of my quote. :p
 
He couldn't see that people will amass gold faster than get gear in the original Inferno difficulty, and would turn to the auction house? And wouldn't he find out that a majority of playtesters will want to beat the game as soon as possible and thus turn to the auction house if they can't find what they need quickly?

F*** that loser.
 
is that pos still around?

look you asshole all you wanted was a way to make money on items.
and letting your dumb ass mess with the game was the worst thing that buzzard could have done.
you f'd it up so that no one wanted to play it and made a mess of the design and I could go on and on.

but it was all about money, that is all you knew and know now.

F the franchise and F the customer.

yep you made a mess and completly ruined the franchise.
BUT you made money and thats all that counts

QUIT LYING
 
Worst game I ever played. It was very un-Diablo and more like WoWablo. The game was made for WoW players and not the huge player base whom supported d2 for years.

The only reason people keep playing it is because they have hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars invested into their accounts. People are addicted just like they are addicted to WoW, except it is a lot more boring and there is very little to do in the game.
 
Nytegard said:
How did Blizzard not see this when it was extremely evident to PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY before the game launch?

Here's a general rule of thumb. If you leave something in the game that people can exploit, people will exploit. And if you promote said exploit, more people will exploit it, and the people who want to avoid it will typically cave to keep up with everyone else.
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Cause they had $$$$$$ in their minds.
 
cageymaru said:
Well he finally admits it. About the only thing he really did right.
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Not even. It wasn't just the fact that the auction house sucked. They also seemed to have lower drop rates to encourage usage of the system so they can get money off you.So even in admitting it, he's not doing it right neither.
 
If they took out the auction house, I would buy the game...


...for $20 or less. :cool:
 
Also, the bit about "we thought only a small percentage of users would use it" is total, unadulterated bullshit. Any idiot can see the drop rates were tailored to AH usage, and given that Blizzard gets a cut of every transaction, they made it with the intention that only a "small percentage" would use it? Yeah, because Blizzard clearly hates money...give me a fucking break.
 
I quit in ACT 2 Inferno when I realized that items prices were increasing faster than I could earn money; I refused to play several hours a day. I felt like a little dog chasing a car, so I quit.
 
That's BS. They wanted to make more money with the fees on the RMAH.

All they had to do was make a decent game and then provide DLC or additional features for money (like PVP or additional quests?). I bought the game and have never been so frustrated by a game in my life. I haven't played Simcity 5 yet so I'm sure there are more frustrating games but still.

As far as I can tell, DLC is a proven concept. As long as the original game isn't under developed to leave room for more DLC then I have no problem with it.
 
I wanna say.... so many things I wanna say...
but, I'm just gonna laugh....

HAHAHahahahhahAHAHahA!

Fuck that loser.
 
I put like 60 hours into D3, and I made my RL money back on the AH.

Having said that, you couldn't pay me to play an item-focused online multiplayer game which doesn't provide a built-in way to trade items with players.

Silverghost said:
I quit in ACT 2 Inferno when I realized that items prices were increasing faster than I could earn money; I refused to play several hours a day. I felt like a little dog chasing a car, so I quit.
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Now you only have to play like 15 minutes to buy the gear needed to kill Diablo.
 
somebody suggested a ladder mode where the AH is disabled.

if thats implemented I would play again as well.
 
Personally, I loved the AH. I wouldn't ever want to play without it again. That's one the major reasons I gave up on Path of Exile.
 
No what really hurt d3 is:

1. There is more gold being produced by gold farming bots than real people.

2. It was designed completely different from d2. D2 could be played for years without getting stale. D3 got stale after a few months. Why? Couldn't give you the exact reason, but d2 was a lot deeper and a lot more iconic.
 
Three things that killed D3.

1. Terrible writing / Storytelling
2. Auction House
3. Bobby Kotick (aka The Lord of Greed)
 
In concept, I thought the AH would be a decent idea. No more spamming chat for trading, etc. But making item trading so easy just hyperinflated the market, and caused them to make drop rates (and rolls on those drops) really, really low. It just made it not fun at all. And they basically completely removed the randomly generated maps. Leveling up past 60 isn't any fun at all. They made a lot of core decisions that really brought the game down.

That being said, it sounds like they are learning; not saying it as an excuse, but the game IS fixable if they keep working at it. I'm not sure how far they're willing to mess with core mechanics, however.
 
complete Bull Shit.

The auction house is literally the best thing about the game.


The thing that hurt the game the most was poorly designed skills and a poorly designed items.


I still play from time to time its a great game despite its core being fundamentally flawed.
 
stevedave said:
complete Bull Shit.

The auction house is literally the best thing about the game.


The thing that hurt the game the most was poorly designed skills and a poorly designed items.


I still play from time to time its a great game despite its core being fundamentally flawed.
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what? how is the AH not broken dude? oh shit i cant beat this part its hard. hold up. pause, buy 900 dps weapon ( 400 dps upgrade ) roflcopter the monsters with no skill.


thats hella broken. and it also leaves no enjoyment when finding items. you know how many items i found myself that i used in inferno? oh yeah.. none. BROKEN AS FUCK



skills were fucking tight. and skill trees are fail.. anybody still fighting that should go hard on path of exile
 
dremic said:
what? how is the AH not broken dude? oh shit i cant beat this part its hard. hold up. pause, buy 900 dps weapon ( 400 dps upgrade ) roflcopter the monsters with no skill.


thats hella broken. and it also leaves no enjoyment when finding items. you know how many items i found myself that i used in inferno? oh yeah.. none. BROKEN AS FUCK



skills were fucking tight. and skill trees are fail.. anybody still fighting that should go hard on path of exile
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O shit I can't beat this part better go to "insert Chinese item farmers site here" and buy a weapon....yep that's what they did in D2.

It adds enjoyment to finding Items. I Found this great Item that I happen to not need let me sell it. As apposed to D2 I found this great Item but have not use for so I drop it.

I beat the entire game without using the auction house before the damage nerfs....just because you can buy something to make the game easier doesn't mean you have to. I also know someone who has limited time he was able to pass the game on inferno without wasting his time grinding.

a small few skills are tight. Most are useless and poorly designed and useless. They don't have a skill tree as its an Action/Item hunt game not an RPG like D2 was.

The item design is what caused the majority of problems included the auction house inflation. With better Item design the auction house wouldn't of hyper inflated nearly as bad.......You can pass the game with 20k DPS and get your character above 300k so everyone assumes if they don't have 100k + damage they are doing it wrong.....Major design flaw this gap mixed with the rarity of perfect roles is what causes the Auction house inflation and instability.
 
How one employee has nearly ruined Blizzard games for me : By Jay Wilson.

Thanks for taking a huge dump all over D3 and basically ruining any long term worth in that game for me.

I'm sure Jay will do a great job shitting all over the next franchise Blizzard plans to launch.

RMAH , worst idea ever.
 
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