Comment Re:Diablo2 (Score 1) 268
I think Bliz has done a good job of handling this so far. Their game design has a few features to make things easier on the casual gamer.
1. Quest rewards cannot be traded as they are automatically bound to the player turning in the quest. And many of the quest rewards are quite good. Real hard-core gamers might want to grind/pay for better items, but these are a real option and they can't be used to flood the economy.
2. Many higher level drops are bind-on-pickup when they are looted. A farmer can turn this into gold, but they can't sell the item to anyone else.
3. Instanced dungeons prevent some higher-level content from being camped. If you have your own private place to quest, no one can keep you away.
4. Quest items are also soul bound. When you are sent to collect x of y to gain some reward, in most cases you can't trade/sell/give them away. So the only way to gain that reward is to finish the quest yourself.
5. Most items have level requirements. So you can't give a level 1 character the Rod of Ultimate Buttkicking and allow them to instantly kill everything they attack. Someone could trade/sell/give a lower level character an uber item, but theu wouldn't be able to use it until they hit the minimum level.
Of course, the one thing Blizzard can't stop is the accumulation and sale of gold. But even a person with unlimited in-game gold can only buy things of their level and wouldn't be able to buy their way through most quests.
I've only run into 1 or 2 farmers at this point and I can't say it's ruined my experience. But if/when every 3rd player is there just to sell gold for real cash, I don't know.
1. Quest rewards cannot be traded as they are automatically bound to the player turning in the quest. And many of the quest rewards are quite good. Real hard-core gamers might want to grind/pay for better items, but these are a real option and they can't be used to flood the economy.
2. Many higher level drops are bind-on-pickup when they are looted. A farmer can turn this into gold, but they can't sell the item to anyone else.
3. Instanced dungeons prevent some higher-level content from being camped. If you have your own private place to quest, no one can keep you away.
4. Quest items are also soul bound. When you are sent to collect x of y to gain some reward, in most cases you can't trade/sell/give them away. So the only way to gain that reward is to finish the quest yourself.
5. Most items have level requirements. So you can't give a level 1 character the Rod of Ultimate Buttkicking and allow them to instantly kill everything they attack. Someone could trade/sell/give a lower level character an uber item, but theu wouldn't be able to use it until they hit the minimum level.
Of course, the one thing Blizzard can't stop is the accumulation and sale of gold. But even a person with unlimited in-game gold can only buy things of their level and wouldn't be able to buy their way through most quests.
I've only run into 1 or 2 farmers at this point and I can't say it's ruined my experience. But if/when every 3rd player is there just to sell gold for real cash, I don't know.
