Perhaps the most important law of game design is to stay true to the fundamental nature of the game you are designing. Games violate this principal at great risk, and usually end up being utter fail when they do so. There are a number of ways this concept can be violated. One way is for the fundamental nature of the game to not be clear to the designers. This happens either when the game designer doesn't have a clear vision for the game, when a game is passed from studio to studio in the development process (looking at you Duke), or when many people have their hands in the design process and they all have a different understanding of the nature of the game. The next most common is when design decisions are made that are in complete opposition to the nature of the game. These things usually happen out of fear that the game will be "broken" without the change, but as often as not that very decision breaks the game far more than the original fear that sparked the decision. One other thing that sometimes happens is that developers think they are changing the nature of a game on purpose but in fact they are not changing it enough and so their decision ends up with a game that is split between two opposing natures.
What proponents of BoE are doing is advocating breaking (or very severely bending at the least) the core of Diabo 3 in order to make a secondary aspect slightly better. Their approach is logical. It all makes sense. There are going to be economic issues in D3 because item inflation and BoE would help more with these concerns than Salvage. But the solution they propose is in diametric opposition to the core nature of the game and so their "cure" is worse than the problem itself.
There are three possible states for any design decision:
1.) Directly strengthen and support the core nature of the game.
2.) Be effectively neutral to the nature of the game providing a useful or necessary game mechanic.
3.) Directly contradict and weaken the nature of the game, effectively changing it into a slightly or entirely different kind of game.
When one looks at BoE it is quite clear that it qualifies as part of group 3. It contradicts the inherent item collection and free trading aspect of the game in favor of a slightly better economic model. If Diablo 3 was an economic simulation game as well as an item collection game (typical MMORPG for instance) then BoE would be a 1. If item collection and free trading of items wasn't fundamental to Diablo then BoE would be a 2. But because BoE is in diametric opposition to the core of the game it can ultimately only detract from the game and make it worse.
So from a games development stand point BoE is just a bad idea in D3.
TL;DR:
BoE is in direct opposition to the fundamental nature of D3, making arguments about its economic benefits irrelevant.|||Quote:
TL;DR:
BoE is in direct opposition to the fundamental nature of D3, making arguments about its economic benefits irrelevant.
Hardly. It has a direct impact on market inflation and item value within the game. Also, you didn't consider that characters themselves will be sold on the RMAH or AH, and those characters may be equipped in BOE items that have been bound to that character, reducing the impact of BOE in general. It's simply one small way to keep inflation down, and it does not go against the fundamental nature of D3.|||Quote:
So from a games development stand point BoE is just a bad idea in D3.
TL;DR:
BoE is in direct opposition to the fundamental nature of D3, making arguments about its economic benefits irrelevant.
Erm... there are not going to be any BoE items anyway, so whats the point of this thread ?|||Imo, bind to account on equip (BtAoE? lol) would be a nice compromise, but only if they can't think of something better to combat inflation.
There are a few problems with this approach though. First, if you can 'bypass' the mechanic by selling equipped chars, I'm not sure how useful it'll be. I guess it depends on how easy rushing and leveling a new char will be. (Blizz have stated that rushing will be possible.)
There's also the issue that if I find an item which will net me $100 on the RMAH non-equipped and $10 if I choose to equip it and sell the char, even if it is extremely useful from a gameplay pov, I will simply sell it unequipped.|||The central thesis of your post is that item binding runs counter to the core design principles of Diablo 3, despite that you never define the core design principles of Diablo 3.
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with your post, but for your argument to be cogent, there must at least be an assumption of the nature of the core design principles.|||OP makes a good point as far as game design goes. As a rule, once a proven working system of higher priority is established, changing the fundamentals of that system to promote one of lesser priority is rarely a good idea. It's a matter of what Blizzard considers a higher priority: Traditional trading game mechanic, or possible improvement to a new game mechanic.
Would bound items help to decrease the inflation of phat loot? Probably. Is it the best way to do it? I really can't say...lol
Personally I was thinking about something along the lines of "sale charges", where, every item would have a small number of charges on it, and a charge is used when an item is sold. When the item reaches zero, it can no longer be sold until the item recharges a charge (like weeks or a month, or maybe not at all?).
The reason this could work is because it prevents the repeated sale of high quality items by placing a limiter on them. It would also create a very important distinction between top quality items of the same make, ie: two legendary 1h swords on the AH with near identical stats, except one has 3 sale charges and the other one has none. So one item has resale value, while the other is a, "you buy it you keep it" deal. This would also inadvertently show you if a player bought some of their loot or earned it themselves. It's kind of like selling used cars...lol It might actually decrease the rate at which some people use the AH, which is obviously not ideal for Blizzard : /
Obviously this wouldn't remove items from the game as quickly or in as great a quantity as a bind system would, but it also doesn't mess with the established fundamental of core of Diablo's item system. It would certainly encourage flat out trades more, but it should also serve to cut a decent chunk of phat loot from the AH in general. This also prevents people from repeatedly "playing" the AH, so you have fewer arbitrary listings to chose from(though possibly at the expense of losing some of the better deals that the "players" of the AH can get you
) It's interesting at least, but the idea popped in my head WHILE typing my initial response to this post, so I haven't considered it much.|||I just graduated with a degree in economics, hoping to put it to good use in the rmah roflIn all seriousness it's scary how applicable the theory will be to d3 markets 8)|||Quote:
Hardly. It has a direct impact on market inflation and item value within the game. Also, you didn't consider that characters themselves will be sold on the RMAH or AH, and those characters may be equipped in BOE items that have been bound to that character, reducing the impact of BOE in general. It's simply one small way to keep inflation down, and it does not go against the fundamental nature of D3.
*facepalm*
Yes, it does have a direct impact on market inflation. My entire point is that farking the basic game concept of free trade in order to fix a non-core concept like the economy is bad game design so they shouldn't do it regardless of the economic impact.|||Quote:
The central thesis of your post is that item binding runs counter to the core design principles of Diablo 3, despite that you never define the core design principles of Diablo 3.
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with your post, but for your argument to be cogent, there must at least be an assumption of the nature of the core design principles.
I didn't define all the core principles, but I did define the relevant one.|||Quote:
I didn't define all the core principles, but I did define the relevant one.
Yes, yes you did. Sorry, I missed it at the bottom, my mistake. Carry on then
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