Who else besides me is excited about this game? Can I see a raise of hands? All of you? Rock on. I agree. The original Borderlands was awesome. It was a lot of fun. I still never got a pearlescent weapon to drop off the crab guy. But still, it was a blast. Looks like the game is set to launch during Take-Twi's fiscal year 2013 beginning on April 1, 2012. Borderlands 2 includes all-new characters, skills, environments, enemies, weapons, and equipment.
Also players will be returning to Pandora, the setting of the first game. What I hope for is new areas of Pandora. Hoping that you won't go to the same areas as the first game.
I whole new story as well. Not the same stuff. It should be fun and exciting. Maybe they will have a melee class that uses swords and such. Without a doubt, I would be that class. Slice and Dice for sure.
That's all for today.
-j-
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Diablo III... Getting Real Money for Virtual Items
Well if some of you guys are pumped for Diablo III like I am.. I'm sure that you have seen that you can make real US dollars outta of Auction House in Diablo III. Which I think is insanely.. AWESOME! Now we won't know until the game comes out and all that stuff if you can actually make a decent profit off of items in D3, so perhaps you wouldn't have to work as much maybe? If the profit is actually worth the time spent farming for items. Time will tell on that one, so we'll have to wait and see. What I really want to know about D3 is the specs. How nice of a computer will you need to play D3? I have no idea yet, and hopefully they have it where people with slower CPU's can play the game. Otherwise, you better start saving up for a new computer.
There still isn't a beta yet for Diablo III, which is a total bummer. I really really want to try this game out. But alas, there isn't even a date set for the beta. You know how Blizzard is.. They want everything to be perfect in the game before they release anything. I will do everything I can to get into that beta. I can't wait to play the game.
I'm guessing that the game will be released.. Sometime in 2012. I highly doubt it'll be this year. You never know, but I'm pretty sure it won't be this year. So you have some time to save up for that new computer that you want.
There is some info that I will share with you guys about the game, little tidbits that I think are cool. Lets take a peek at somethings
The online Auction House to be implemented through Battle.net for Diablo III will allow you to put in game items up for sale for real money. You set the price, other players bid or buy out, you make the profit.
That means when you're in a dungeon, slay a boss and get a super rare item, it's exciting not only because it'll help you kill stuff more effectively, but also because you could potentially profit from it in real life. The Battle.net Auction Houses will be separated based on region. While there won't be one single Auction House for the global player base, all players within a region will have access to the same one. Eventually Blizzard may allow players to check auction houses in other regions using different currencies, but at launch that won't be the case.
Auction Houses will be split into in-game currency versions and real money versions. If you don't want to deal with using real funds to buy items (or virtual), you don't have to. Most of everything you find in Diablo III, from skill-enhancing runestones to rare items to in-game gold can be put up for auction. The system is Blizzard's way of taking ownership over the black markets that tend to pop up around item-based games.
It's also Blizzard's way of making more money. There'll be a "nominal" flat fee charged by Blizzard for every item you post on the Auction House, as well as a transaction fee when the item is sold. It's important to note that this is a fixed fee, so it does not scale depending on the rarity of what you're selling or the associated price. For those who might cry foul at this, Diablo III executive producer Rob Pardo points out, "We could have chosen to do a model of 'we're just going to sell rare items on our website for X amount of money'. We just didn't feel like that was the right decision for us." The reason Blizzard says the listing fee exists is to guard against players spamming the Auction House with junk. It's likely at launch you will get a handful of free listings per week to try it out.
Is Blizzard expecting the Auction House to serve as the primary source of revenue for Diablo III? "We're still sticking to our box model for Diablo," says Pardo. "When you look at the Auction House, it's a really big unknown. I think it has potential. I think it's really conducive to the design of Diablo." In case you're not aware, enemies in Diablo III drop random items. Unlike something like World of Warcraft where loot tables for bosses are well known, nothing in the world of Diablo will spill out items with any sort of reliability, and very few items you acquire in Diablo will be soulbound (permanently tied to your in-game character).
If you buy an item online, you're free to do whatever you want with it. You can use it, trade it to a friend in-game, or wait for a 24-hour cooldown and put it right back up for sale with the hope of selling it for more than the original purchase price. The money you make on the Diablo III auction house can be filtered to a Blizzard account, where it can be used to buy other Blizzard products, or filtered through a as of yet unnamed third-party service into an external account, in which case it's your money to use however you see fit. There will be a percentage fee for exporting the money beyond the bounds of Blizzard's system, though, so you'll take a hit on your total revenue.
If you do decide to keep the money in Blizzard's system, you can't export it afterwards. "If we have a balance that you can at any point turn into cash," said Pardo, "we get treated like a bank. That suddenly brings in a whole lot more regulations and things we do and oversight we have to have. It just made so much more sense for us to partner with someone that does all that." The decision about whether to filter profits to the third-party account or the Blizzard one therefore becomes all the more important.
Blizzard maintains it has no interest in posting items for sale within the Auction House. The idea is for the whole system to be player-run, with Blizzard's oversight meant to serve as a guarantee that you will receive the items that you buy and receive the money earned for a successful sale. As of now Blizzard has no plans to separate players online between those using the in-game currency Auction House and those actively utilizing real-money transactions.
As part of Blizzard's plan to provide a secure trading environment, Diablo III will require a constant online connection whether you're playing alone, with friends or competing in player-versus-player matches. Your characters will all be stored on Blizzard's servers to ensure there isn't any hacking going on, ideally maintaining a safe, secure environment.
Now I'm going to chat about something that I think is a good and bad thing about D3. It's good because.. Well you will see. But it's bad because it means you could lose out on items that you could have gotten.
In many loot games, ninja looting, or greedily snatching up powerful items so others can't collect them, is frequently an issue. The issue of ninja looting is bypassed entirely in Diablo III. When playing with another, the loot you see onscreen is unique to you. That includes money and gear. You still fight the same monsters, interact with the same NPCs and travel through the same spaces, but the drops are visible and accessible only to you. So even if someone really, really wanted to snatch up gear before you get a chance while playing co-op, they couldn't.
Sellers on the Auction House will be anonymous anyway, so even if you know a particular player is a jerk, you won't be able to identify what he or she is selling. You will see the name of the player with the highest bid, but that's it, along with the item and potential buyout price. You can then set your account to bid up to auto-bid up to a certain limit on an item, meaning you don't have to hang around for an auction's duration.
What you won't be able to do, at least at launch, is preview the item's look on your character model. You also won't initially be able to access the Auction House through external websites or mobile devices, though this could change as well. Characters from your account, which will be capped at 10 on Battle.net, could potentially be sold at a later date, but it won't be possible whenever Diablo III is first pushed live.
So honestly I am very hyped for this game, and it should be a blast. Lots of little changes from Diablo 2, and some down the same path. The game will be phenomenal. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
That's all for today.
-j-
There still isn't a beta yet for Diablo III, which is a total bummer. I really really want to try this game out. But alas, there isn't even a date set for the beta. You know how Blizzard is.. They want everything to be perfect in the game before they release anything. I will do everything I can to get into that beta. I can't wait to play the game.
I'm guessing that the game will be released.. Sometime in 2012. I highly doubt it'll be this year. You never know, but I'm pretty sure it won't be this year. So you have some time to save up for that new computer that you want.
There is some info that I will share with you guys about the game, little tidbits that I think are cool. Lets take a peek at somethings
The online Auction House to be implemented through Battle.net for Diablo III will allow you to put in game items up for sale for real money. You set the price, other players bid or buy out, you make the profit.
That means when you're in a dungeon, slay a boss and get a super rare item, it's exciting not only because it'll help you kill stuff more effectively, but also because you could potentially profit from it in real life. The Battle.net Auction Houses will be separated based on region. While there won't be one single Auction House for the global player base, all players within a region will have access to the same one. Eventually Blizzard may allow players to check auction houses in other regions using different currencies, but at launch that won't be the case.
Auction Houses will be split into in-game currency versions and real money versions. If you don't want to deal with using real funds to buy items (or virtual), you don't have to. Most of everything you find in Diablo III, from skill-enhancing runestones to rare items to in-game gold can be put up for auction. The system is Blizzard's way of taking ownership over the black markets that tend to pop up around item-based games.
It's also Blizzard's way of making more money. There'll be a "nominal" flat fee charged by Blizzard for every item you post on the Auction House, as well as a transaction fee when the item is sold. It's important to note that this is a fixed fee, so it does not scale depending on the rarity of what you're selling or the associated price. For those who might cry foul at this, Diablo III executive producer Rob Pardo points out, "We could have chosen to do a model of 'we're just going to sell rare items on our website for X amount of money'. We just didn't feel like that was the right decision for us." The reason Blizzard says the listing fee exists is to guard against players spamming the Auction House with junk. It's likely at launch you will get a handful of free listings per week to try it out.
Is Blizzard expecting the Auction House to serve as the primary source of revenue for Diablo III? "We're still sticking to our box model for Diablo," says Pardo. "When you look at the Auction House, it's a really big unknown. I think it has potential. I think it's really conducive to the design of Diablo." In case you're not aware, enemies in Diablo III drop random items. Unlike something like World of Warcraft where loot tables for bosses are well known, nothing in the world of Diablo will spill out items with any sort of reliability, and very few items you acquire in Diablo will be soulbound (permanently tied to your in-game character).
If you buy an item online, you're free to do whatever you want with it. You can use it, trade it to a friend in-game, or wait for a 24-hour cooldown and put it right back up for sale with the hope of selling it for more than the original purchase price. The money you make on the Diablo III auction house can be filtered to a Blizzard account, where it can be used to buy other Blizzard products, or filtered through a as of yet unnamed third-party service into an external account, in which case it's your money to use however you see fit. There will be a percentage fee for exporting the money beyond the bounds of Blizzard's system, though, so you'll take a hit on your total revenue.
If you do decide to keep the money in Blizzard's system, you can't export it afterwards. "If we have a balance that you can at any point turn into cash," said Pardo, "we get treated like a bank. That suddenly brings in a whole lot more regulations and things we do and oversight we have to have. It just made so much more sense for us to partner with someone that does all that." The decision about whether to filter profits to the third-party account or the Blizzard one therefore becomes all the more important.
Blizzard maintains it has no interest in posting items for sale within the Auction House. The idea is for the whole system to be player-run, with Blizzard's oversight meant to serve as a guarantee that you will receive the items that you buy and receive the money earned for a successful sale. As of now Blizzard has no plans to separate players online between those using the in-game currency Auction House and those actively utilizing real-money transactions.
As part of Blizzard's plan to provide a secure trading environment, Diablo III will require a constant online connection whether you're playing alone, with friends or competing in player-versus-player matches. Your characters will all be stored on Blizzard's servers to ensure there isn't any hacking going on, ideally maintaining a safe, secure environment.
Now I'm going to chat about something that I think is a good and bad thing about D3. It's good because.. Well you will see. But it's bad because it means you could lose out on items that you could have gotten.
In many loot games, ninja looting, or greedily snatching up powerful items so others can't collect them, is frequently an issue. The issue of ninja looting is bypassed entirely in Diablo III. When playing with another, the loot you see onscreen is unique to you. That includes money and gear. You still fight the same monsters, interact with the same NPCs and travel through the same spaces, but the drops are visible and accessible only to you. So even if someone really, really wanted to snatch up gear before you get a chance while playing co-op, they couldn't.
Sellers on the Auction House will be anonymous anyway, so even if you know a particular player is a jerk, you won't be able to identify what he or she is selling. You will see the name of the player with the highest bid, but that's it, along with the item and potential buyout price. You can then set your account to bid up to auto-bid up to a certain limit on an item, meaning you don't have to hang around for an auction's duration.
What you won't be able to do, at least at launch, is preview the item's look on your character model. You also won't initially be able to access the Auction House through external websites or mobile devices, though this could change as well. Characters from your account, which will be capped at 10 on Battle.net, could potentially be sold at a later date, but it won't be possible whenever Diablo III is first pushed live.
So honestly I am very hyped for this game, and it should be a blast. Lots of little changes from Diablo 2, and some down the same path. The game will be phenomenal. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
That's all for today.
-j-
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