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[Andir]

As an even better example, all of those posts were complaining about totally different things before blindly stumbling into "therefore RMAH."

You did read: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/131615-diablo-3-the-blizzard-sweatshop

Correct?  It touches on exactly what you said none of them do.  RMAH places real value on items.  It's an official value... not contrived based on a black market most people never took part in.  It's now a supported and encouraged part of the game.  Whether you give that item to a friend or you sell it on the AH for it's price.  In D2, if I found an awesome item for an Amazon, I'd hold on to it for my friend.  In D3 you have to decide if your friend is worth $n.nn plus all the other loot you've given them.  Maybe I just don't tell them I found that sweet item.  The listings are all anonymous... Hell, it could even be Blizzard even though they said they don't list items... at this time.  But you will never really know.  They could be placing items up on the AH and "buying" them out to give people the false sense that real money can be made and that "this item sold for way more... this price is reasonable."  Maybe I encourage them to sell the item on the AH instead of breaking it down.  Peer pressure (positive and negative) will FORCE people to use the RMAH whether you guys think it's optional or not.  If you spend any appreciable time with the game you too will start to think about the actual cost of items because, "hey, I could be making side cash... I just need to buy this one item to help me out."

[Darkmere]

Lack of personal willpower does not equal forcing you to use a service. Sorry, it just doesn't.

[Leatra]

As an even better example, all of those posts were complaining about totally different things before blindly stumbling into "therefore RMAH."

You did read: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/131615-diablo-3-the-blizzard-sweatshop

Well, that's what everyone on the official forums are saying. Nothing new compared to the rage posts really.

I have found this interesting though: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Blizzard-Faces-Legal-Indictments-From-France-Germany-Over-Diablo-3-43626.html

Take a look at the comments too.

[Rez]

FYI: when you develop and release a game, all under your own title and name ... it's generally your responsibility if there are problems with it.

However, it's really quite silly the number of people who bought the game and only figured out that they didn't like it after release, considering this was one of the most highly publicized games ever and it even had a demo beta for people who pre-ordered it.   RMAH and always-online were known maybe a year before release.  Gameplay and aesthetic issues were foreseen by people who saw that the D3 staff was the WoW staff.

[fenrif]

The observed lack of recent complaints about server stability implies to me that the servers are stable and playable for customers. I do consider functional service as implied to be acceptable. The terms of service directly state that 100% uptime of the service is not guaranteed. Further, I do not expect the same infrastructure as WoW's server clusters to be implemented for running Diablo 3, as there is no fee associated with maintenance of said servers. The RMAH is not a fee; I am not forced to use it and I do not see it as justification for demanding a certain level of hardware infrastructure comparable to a game that specifically uses monthly subscriptions.

Does that clear things up?

That's all I wanted, I was just curious why you thought that was an acceptable thing. Personally I think when they design a game around a feature that noone wanted to legitimize a practice noone liked then they should probobly actually have the infrastructure in place to support it. But that's just me I guess.

And maybe I (and my 3 friends two of whom had never played D2 before) all just suck hard at video games, but D2's normal mode is not a complete joke dude, it can get pretty damn difficult.

[sambojin]

This isn't a post to call anyone a troll, or a fanboy, but this seems like a weirdly long argument over nothing. If you like the game, then good, I'm happy for you. If you don't, then play something else, play D2 even, it's quite fun. Try and get a refund for D3 if you can; but don't tell me if you can't, I don't care. If you've got reservations about purchasing the game, for whatever reason, then don't buy it. Again, don't feel it necessary to tell me about it or why.

Pretty simple huh?

There's perfectly good Blizzard forums that work perfectly for fanboys, trolls, whingers, lovers and every other completely subjective view of the game that will take pages of back and forth rambling to get no where. General discussion forum seems to be the favourite for this. Then you can even post the same topic again if you want to, or just post in one that's exactly the same as your last one, and do it all again. Actually, check out the class specific forums while you're on there. They're actually quite good, and give a far more balanced view of the game and it's good and bad points, but from an actual game-play perspective

[Rez]

I don't think a suggestion to not discuss another game in an other games forum is particularly pertinent. 

[nenjin]

We may disagree here, but at least I still feel like this is discourse. The thing we won't get over at the Blizzard forums.

Put it another way. If you don't like this discussion, you could go get all your "I like this game" discussion at the Diablo forums, no?

Oh right. You don't go there for a reason too.

[Rez]

You get discourse there too, I'm sure.  Civil discourse, perhaps not.  I don't think bay12 has the trolls or the reactionary admins that other game forums have.

[Andir]

We may disagree here, but at least I still feel like this is discourse. The thing we won't get over at the Blizzard forums.

Put it another way. If you don't like this discussion, you could go get all your "I like this game" discussion at the Diablo forums, no?

Oh right. You don't go there for a reason too.

I've found that reddit seems to be a good place to go if you only ever want to hear good news about something or be in total agreement with everyone.  (IE: /r/diablo is nothing but praise and any dissent is quicky hidden.)  The way they segregate the community in subreddits seems to scratch the inclusiveness itch some people are looking for.  Controversial topics get shoved off in a tab nobody looks at so if you speak ill of something it's a good chance it'll be buried.

[Darkmere]

I don't think bay12 has the trolls or the reactionary admins that other game forums have.

Agreed. It's nice during this whole back-and-forth that I can still get replies that are full sentences. And spelled correctly. It also helps that I assume most people here have played DF, so we can all bond over cat murder, or something.

Re: D2's difficulty, I guess it comes from playing it too much. Apart from Duriel, there's a weakness for the act bosses. Antidote pots, merc-tanking mephisto a bit, kiting D. Duriel's weakness is lots of health pots and knowing roughly when you outgear him, at least on normal. Granted, I haven't played vanilla D2 in 5 or 6 years, so I'll admit my memories could be faulty.

[sambojin]

Fair enough. I guess it's just my fairly jaded view after reading on the blizzard forums for a couple of hours. The last page or so of this thread seemed like it would fit right in there. Although, admittedly, the last few posts were a lot better written then the normal "OMG! This is suxxors.",  "No it's not. U B n00bs!!!" stuff from general discussion.

So, by all means, carry on..........

I'm actually looking at D3 as a lot like D2 non-LOD right now.  It's pretty fun in a casual gameplay sort of way, but it's probably best to not play it as a grinder. Even though the game is designed around this. Fire it up, do whatever runs you can, as soon as you get bored or annoyed, stop playing for a bit. As has been mentioned, there's other good games out there. It might take me a few months, but I'll get my $89 worth of enjoyment out of it eventually, and not too much frustration. In theory, the game will get better and better as the time rolls by. I don't mind if I have to go back in difficulty due to gearing. I find it quite theraputic to pop lower level mobs for no good reason.

In a strange way, I'm viewing D3 as the most expensive alpha-pre-buy I'll ever throw my money at. It's pretty fun, it's a functional game, but the dev's really could afford to add some cool new features. The itemization isn't what I assumed it would be, but I hope that'll be added in soon.

As a strange fact of the game, D3 seems to follow the D2 model almost to the letter. Act 2 normal has a difficulty spike due to lack of gearing (depending on skills and character), the rest sort of flies by, Act 1 inferno has another big spike, same with Act 2 (for the same reasons as in normal, enemy dynamics and gearing), the then it's a grind to the home straight. It seems like that from reading a lot of posts anyway.

[IronyOwl]

As an even better example, all of those posts were complaining about totally different things before blindly stumbling into "therefore RMAH."

You did read: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/131615-diablo-3-the-blizzard-sweatshop

Correct?

Didn't see that linked anywhere, but I have now.

It touches on exactly what you said none of them do.  RMAH places real value on items.  It's an official value... not contrived based on a black market most people never took part in.  It's now a supported and encouraged part of the game.

Ah, no. First of all, it explains how it's beneficial to Blizzard, not how that had any impact whatsoever on any design decisions Blizzard made. Secondly, that value only comes into play if people are actually willing to pay it- there is no Real Money Trash Vendor.

Furthermore, it's not the value that's set, it's the exchange rate. It dictates that gold is worth in relation to real money, not how much of either anything is worth.

Whether you give that item to a friend or you sell it on the AH for it's price.  In D2, if I found an awesome item for an Amazon, I'd hold on to it for my friend.  In D3 you have to decide if your friend is worth $n.nn plus all the other loot you've given them.  Maybe I just don't tell them I found that sweet item.

Your issues with friends, trust, and money are your own. I doubt I'm going to be overly torn with handing someone my precious $0.60 minus the pain of transferring it assuming it sells at all, and I certainly don't think I'd feel the need to lie about it. I also doubt my response to finding something more valuable would be to lament having options or finding something valuable in the first place.

The listings are all anonymous... Hell, it could even be Blizzard even though they said they don't list items... at this time.  But you will never really know.  They could be placing items up on the AH and "buying" them out to give people the false sense that real money can be made and that "this item sold for way more... this price is reasonable."  Maybe I encourage them to sell the item on the AH instead of breaking it down.

Aaaaand here we go into baseless speculation and not very well-thought-out arguments. Unless you have some reason to believe Blizz is or might be listing items, I don't see why you'd bother to bring it up at all. The latter part is obviously poorly thought out, because I don't think you actually considered how listing and then buying a few items is supposed to actually buoy the economy to the point where it's noticeably more profitable for them. Unless you mean some sort of persistent, automated routine targeted at certain item parameters, which gets even further into baseless conspiracy theory.

Peer pressure (positive and negative) will FORCE people to use the RMAH whether you guys think it's optional or not.  If you spend any appreciable time with the game you too will start to think about the actual cost of items because, "hey, I could be making side cash... I just need to buy this one item to help me out."

Your issues with peer pressure are also your own, as are any further money vs entertainment issues. I don't doubt SOME people will feel obliged to buy items with real money for one reason or another, but to be honest I'm not sure how many of them aren't already doing so in any of the innumerable free browser games or Korean MMOs out there, nor do I see why this would be any worse if so.

As for the second part, I really doubt it. Mainly for the reasons given above, but also because buying items in order to get strong enough to sell items sounds like a ridiculous proposition for most people.

[SalmonGod]

As I've said before in this thread, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to complain about this game.  It's not just that it's a bad game.  If people were just complaining that the game is bad, I would echo the "so don't play it" sentiment.

Rather, this is a major major MAJOR AAA highly anticipated title from the most successful game studio in the world, which makes this important.  It's not because of failed expectations, either, though they did hit me pretty hard.  It's because this is the type of release that sets precedents.  An entity with tons of clout is using their most revered franchise to push the boundaries on just how anti-consumer they can behave and still make their millions.  The ripple effects from this are going to be felt whether we choose to play this specific game or not.  Other businesses are going to look at this and say "Hey... I think we should also modify our EULAs to make modding illegal, so that custom user content doesn't compete with our future productions.  If our franchise is loved enough, we might also get away with putting out unfinished (as in major features unavailable for months after release) single player/lan-centric games, make them only playable on our servers, and then provide the cheapest possible network infrastructure just to give the damn pirates a more satisfying challenge!"

It doesn't get much more concrete vote-with-your-dollars than this.  Of course, most of those that are going to buy the game already have, and I'd say Blizzard won.... but I do not like to hear the "if you don't like it, then don't play it" rhetoric in this case.

[Zangi]

Well, lets just say... that I am still playing it despite flaws... take that as you will of opinion.

Current build...
Facetank: Yes (May not work on certain elite/boss set-ups)
Control of battle flow: Yes (May not work on certain elite/boss set-ups)
MobilityCan run away: Yes
Fill the screen with tornadoes: Yes
Multiplayer friendly: Yes

Required:
Life on Hit: +200
Crit Chance: +25% (More is better...)
Crit Damage: +?%(More is better...)
Resists/Armor/Vitality: Whatever you need to not explode when elites/boss look at you funny.