Diablo 3 devs want to "refocus players away from farming the Auction House"

Diablo 3

The auction house has been the most consistently-criticized element of Diablo 3. Many players feel the hack-and-slasher has been balanced around throwing you a bunch of gear you don't need or want, so you'll sell it to players who do and hand-pick your upgrades from a spreadsheet. This process isn't as fun as getting the gear you want from the half-exploded corpse of a demon. Blizzard agrees that this is an issue, stating in a massive community Q&A on the official forums that it's something they're addressing.

"Something we discuss frequently is how the Auction House has impacted the game and how we can refocus players away from farming the Auction House and onto farming monsters," Game Designer Travis Day wrote. Working toward that goal, today's 1.0.7 patch introduces a new crafting system that utilizes a new resource: Demonic Essence. The DE craftables will be account-bound, removing them from the auction house economy.

"Demonic Essence was made account bound to encourage players who wish to create the new items to play the game instead of simply going to the Auction House and buying all the mats necessary to mass produce the items," Day continues. "For that same reason we wanted the product of the recipes to be account bound as well. We want players to not only find or produce their own items more often but also diminish the impact the Auction House has on the game, and we felt like this was a good opportunity to take our first steps in that direction."

The full Q&A goes in-depth into a variety of topics from PvP rewards to class changes.

Contributor

Len Hafer is a freelancer and lifelong PC gamer with a specialty in strategy, RPGs, horror, and survival games. A chance encounter with Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness changed her life forever. Today, her favorites include the grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis, and thought-provoking, story-rich RPGs like Persona 5 and Disco Elysium. She also loves history, hiking in the mountains of Colorado, and heavy metal music.

Latest in RPG
Atelier Yumia screenshot
Help, I can't move forward in this chill crafting RPG because I'm too wrapped up in building bases and making sick tools
Avowed Kai holding out his hand toward camera while explaining something to the player.
Avowed's new patch just gave you 6 more talent points to muck around with, along with a heap of fixes and improvements
Olivia, a hunter from Monster Hunter Wilds, looks perplexed in an icy blue environment.
Monster Hunter Wilds players wonder if frenzied monsters are a little undercooked, as one slaps a sickly bird into a fine paste in just 25 seconds
Sans, from the hit 2015 RPG undertale, folds his arms in a dashing suit as stonks rise in the background.
You can grab Undertale for less than $1, as the genre-defining indie RPG beats its all-time player peak for the first time in 10 years
KOTOR remake returns for annual tradition of reminding you it's still alive, but no you can't hear anything more about it until it comes back next year to say it again
Alligator skull with glowing eyes on human body and cords coming out sitting at piano with "The Norwood Etudes" ready to play
My new most anticipated RPG let me be a kleptomaniac gourmand set loose in a noir city on a quest to make 'the perfect sandwich'
Latest in News
Three sheep with big guns in Palworld.
It was 'super popular to hate Palworld' after launch, says community manager: 'A lot of companies might crumble under the threats, under the pressure'
Palworld Ancient Civilization Parts - Grizzbolt with a minigun
'It was a very depressing day': Palworld community manager reveals studio's reaction to Nintendo lawsuit
CS 1.6 remade in CS: Legacy.
A gorgeous ground-up remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 is on its way to Steam, and one of the game's original creators says 'it really gives me old vibes'
Portal P3 pinball table
There's a new Portal game and it costs $12,500
MrBeast posing in front of a stack of cashing, promoting Beast Games season 2
Beast Games opens casting for season 2: MrBeast lost a ton of money on season 1 but apparently not enough that he won't do it again
Image for
Rise of the Ronin's PC troubles continue as players report disappearing saves on Steam