They are the ones who want us to buy they product, they definitely owns us more than we do.

Of course I understand what you are saying. My standpoint was already stated in another post, I said that I don't like this system and I explained why. On the other hand, Blizzard has delivered me quality entertainment for 15 years or something. It's rare that they've let me down, so as already stated, I don't like what I am reading, but I'll give them the benefit of doubt. I don't see the point of going on a witch hunt.

What most people seem to be disregarding is the fact that there will not be one, but TWO auction houses. One for ingame currency, one for real money. Now it is absolutely vital that they get the balance between the two right, because if the 'real money' market becomes the only viable place where you can buy your gear then... well fuck... I won't be playing since I don't ever intend to actually use hard currency to buy something in this game. On the other hand, whether you like Blizzard's games or not, they have always delivered a quality product. I don't see them implementing this system without giving it A LOT of careful thought.

Perfectly fine for most I'd agree. Everyone, most definitely not, no.

... and I don't see me paying full-price for such a system without giving it A LOT of careful thought.
Anyone intending to accepting this from Blizzard, should keep his / her mouth shut about DRM (including Ubisoft), companies controling / datamining.

It sounds like Diablo 3 is shaping up to be a lot more like an MMO than an action RPG. I suppose it makes sense, WoW has gotten Blizzard more money than all of their other titles combined. Starcraft 2 didn't earn them as many billions as they wanted, so it seems they won't bother with a single-player game ever again. Pity.

People will still buy the product, Blizzard will get away with it and be stinking rich as usual. Why should they care if they hurt your feelings? If you pay them for it, this is just the shit you sign up for. The only thing that will stop them is if people don't buy it. I was already going to do that before today.

I too have been a loyal fan of Blizzard since the beginning having purchased multiple copies of every game release. The problem, as I see it, is that the Blizzard of today is nothing like the Blizzard of old. It is obvious that there has been a major change and I believe this is what generates most of the negativity towards the "new" Blizzard.

We all want more great games like ones we love from the past. The direction and attitude Blizzard is displaying guarantees that those days are long past. I have turned in my Blizzard fanboy card. Difficult to do since they were the only publisher that I regularly hyped. . . =)

And ? just because peoples will buy the product no matter what, it doesn't mean that those who don't like it should stay quiet and accept it.

Not buying it is fine, but not buying it without telling them why you didn't bought it is mostly useless.

Meh, I don't really see the difference. Granted, I am not a fanboy. The past 15 years with Blizzard has been a bumpy ride. Whenever they please me, I praise them, but I also give them a lot of flak for certain design choices that I don't agree with.

Like I've already said many times, I don't like this idea. However, ultimately no-one's forcing me to use the item shop. As long as the regular ingame auction house with the ingame currency is perfectly viable and competitive, I really won't give a shit. If it's not, well the game's fucked.

Think about Diablo II for example. The reason why I can still replay that game so many times is because I've been selling shit on forums for a decade for forum gold (at d2jsp), so whenever I feel like picking the game up again, I can immediately deck myself out with a decent character. The idea of starting from the bottom again after your characters expire is nauseating. Diablo II could thus have benefited from having some kind of 'legit' item shop, which would ease the path back into a game that is as brutal and harsh as D2.

In any case, I really don't see why Blizzard is getting so much flak. Diablo II is a decade old, yet Blizzard still has battle.net running. Blizzard is still patching the game and adding new content. The forums are still being read and blue posters are responding to queries. How many other developers do that?

Blizzard proved that they actually are horrible at game security with Diablo 2. They also refused to support it after release, WOW didn't used to get that much support at times and it had ongoing payments to fund it!

I'm not surprised they see this as the easiest way to avoid the issue (I'm sure they'll reuse The Warden or whatever).

They already killed LAN play, what they're saying is:
1) Only official modding
2) No local saves, even if they can never play online
3) Biggest cash grab ever

I've been saying for awhile that D3 would be bad. The videos are gorgeous (as always with Blizzard) and clearly they have people who know how to write a story (and then leads that fail to get the story into the game in any meaningful way beyond sporadic cut scenes), their hype machine is top notch (again, as always), the fanbase is at a fever pitch, but the game won't be good. The classes are mix and match from the previous games, the ways we used to play D2 at LANs are gone, you will ONLY be able to play at latest patch level, even if they screwed up your Corpse Explosion Necromancer beyond playability, ah screw it, if you can't list 10 more yourself you really don't care and will buy it anyway.

I'd like to see a Blizzard financial failure just once, they are so arrogant. It was known there'd be no local saves back then? Are you sure you're not conflating the lack of LAN play with no offline mode/local saves?
Well, you can always say "If it's ever for sale in my area I'll buy it." As you say it's only for rent just now:)
They could have DQed those accounts from ladder play without taking away their legally purchased games. Even if they had good reasons (which is debatable) doesn't mean their method of fixing it was okay, I might have reason to punish my dog from peeing on the rug but beating him half to death would not be an acceptable solution.

You're free to ignite the righteous fires of indignation all you want. Blizzard is free not to give a shit. They're not idiots, they know exactly what they are doing with this. They are playing the capitalism game in all fairness and they see people like you as acceptable losses.

Umm, prison wardens have their inmates farming gold for them. It literally is slave labor. Of course we do that here in the US too, we nominally pay them like 7 cents an hour or something, no they probably don't have much of a choice. There's lists of companies that do this around if you'd like to avoid them.
I don't think rape is any less of a crime just because murder exists... You're logic has a short circuit, maybe reflect on it a bit.

And I've never seen any proof whatsoever for the "exploited gold farmers are better off than most Chinese" argument. I know it makes people feel better but with no proof it's pretty much hot air designed to assuage one's conscience.

I sent an email to Blizzard Customer Service (not WoW service) after a late Friday hotfix broke half of my skills. The hotfix was a disproportionate knee-jerk reaction to some Arena exploit. I told them that it was extremely worrying that some random dev could implement a game-changing fix with no notice and then just leave it there all weekend without anybody even looking at it (which is what happened). That sort of behavior was dangerously close to losing lots of customers, not just me.

On Monday, I got a personalized (and rather long) email back from them apologizing and saying all the normal corporate-speak, but it was obvious that they actually cared what I thought, and didn't want to lose me as a customer. (The hotfix was reverted, too.) I was just one of the hundreds of players who surely complained, but they actually LISTENED.

Companies need to listen. They HAVE to listen. If you give players everything that they want, you'll end up spoiling your games. (This is what has happened to WoW in recent years.) But if you don't listen to them at all, bad stuff happens. Hopefully the "new" Blizz won't continue down the path of the Dark Side like they have been, but it looks like they're pretty unrepentant about it.

You won't be able to play with non Europeans.
Nope.

Actually due to insane laws they'll own a large part of our iconic gaming culture probably until after my death. I argue they do indeed owe me something for this grant in perpetuity (it was supposed to be for a limited time).