Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Disappointed devil

I've been waiting almost a decade for the third installment of an awesome video game, and now its here.  Excitement ensues? Well ya, but there is a bitter aftertaste to this dessert.
Diablo 3 has announced a new feature by which players will have the ability to choose between two different auction houses, one that strictly uses the gold currency of Sanctuary the fantasy world, and one that uses your USD ($).  I do not agree with this concept entirely. I say, a great idea but there is a grave error that will create a rift between players who will pay more for the best and those who cannot pay and will never get the best. Have a scenario to chew over:
This is you profiting in $AH
{Well lets say you find item X, and this item is fucking awesome sauce but you cant use it. so the thing to do is sell it. now you have to decide, do you sell it for gold or RL monies? HELL YA you want the real deal. Now, little me comes along and I would very much like to have that item but i have not been lucky enough to find it on my own. so the thing to do is buy it. now i have to decide: gold or money? well, I cant really be spending my hard earned paycheck on fantasy items (i can only work so many corners to cover the rent ya know), so I go to the gold AH. low and behold... the gold AH does not have the item.
Now, Mr. Richy Rich (a fictitious 3rd person to this scenario) also wants that fracking awesome item X. He has plenty of his over-supportive (and live-in) parents' USDs in his paypal acct. So he goes straight to RL money AH and buys item X, no sweat. You profit, he wins, and I lose.}
Bad internet people are bad; never assume that they will do something charitable, like putting item X on the game-gold AH (no benefit to themselves in RL).
I dont have the ability to free myself of my monetary restrictions, therefore I am only allowed access to the shit people put on the goldAH. all the shit they dont care as much about.
My solution is simple and wouldn't really bother too many people. Separate these options to their own servers/realms.  Those who choose to use real money can have their own world to play and profit. Those of us who cannot use the real money function can be left in our own world and left to our own market system without the overpowered weight of real money.
I don't trust the other people out there and I sure as hell don't trust them with my real money. Hell I don't even trust Blizzard or especially PayPal when it comes to using my cash.  We asked for diablo, well folks, we got it and he's here to rape us, steal from us, and kick us while we're down; I hope you paid the right price for that body armor.

On another note, I seemed to have thought it was a good idea to run for the president of CGI for the next school year.  Video game club, are you ready for this Femme Fetale?