General gaming

General gaming

Diablo 3 Will Let You Auction Your Loot For Real Money

Posted: 01 Aug 2011 12:01 AM PDT

In detailing the list of improvements and changes that Diablo 3 brings to Battle.net (persistent friends list, cross-game chat, PVP matchmaking, etc.), the ability to auction off items for real-world money stands out the most. Essentially, Blizzard has taken the seedy world of third-party gold and items or characters for money trading, and institutionalized the practice.

Executive vice president of game design Rob Pardo describes the currency-based auction house as a solution to a multitude of economy-related problems from previous Diablo installments. People used to have to drop items on the floor and click with blind faith that they were getting what they expected. Websites that were basically nothing but fronts for scammers would prop up to capitalize on the exploitable (through duplication and manipulation of client-side characters) economy. Even trying to make the transaction was annoying, as you'd have to put up with players constantly spamming the chat channels with item listings.

Diablo 3 Will Require Players to be Online When Playing

Posted: 01 Aug 2011 12:01 AM PDT

Remember when you first heard stuff like how either Steam or StarCraft 2 require you to be online for authentication purposes? That the process to play or utilize either service offline can be a bit circuitous, but at least it's still possible to be offline. But, Diablo 3 differs in that you must be online to play at all -- not just for authentication.

Executive vice president of game design Rob Pardo notes that the wealth of improvements and features Diablo 3 brings to Battle.net necessitate the always-online requirement. Specific additions that he refers to include:

Diablo 3 1UP Community FAQ: We Answer Your Questions

Posted: 01 Aug 2011 12:01 AM PDT

Let me get this out of the way first: there is no news about the Diablo 3 beta. Sure, I've played most of the beta's content (basically, the first half of Act One, up until the player defeats the Skeleton King who, for lorehounds, is the resurrected King Leoric from Diablo), so I know it exists in some form. But beyond letting us play it, and talking about some other announcements, Blizzard personnel wouldn't discuss the timeframe for the playable beta.

Still, the developers provided a very detailed presentation for each of the playable character classes, in addition to the auction house and our own beta playthrough. Before leaving, I took note of a bunch of questions from the 1UP Community Q&A Thread, and can now answer them through either directly asking Blizzard on some, and from my own experience. If there are any major lingering concerns, you can either ask in the comments or a new blog I posted here. Also, I mostly play as a Demon Hunter, since ranged classes are my thing; but I also dig the Witch Doctor, if only because he can fill a screen with frogs.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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