drop the online single player blizz and we can put down the pitchforks , also price drop , no way the game is worth 60$ specially when your items dont net you money back

Not sure how much of this has to do with people botting in the game, farming gold and selling the gold on the RMAH, thus bringing the gold price down to massive levels.

Good move on their part. It might be worth playing again in March.

Yes, definitely. But like i said, this is a different matter. As a DRM method only there's no way to deny that Blizzard's always-online was very effective. Whether it was good or bad for sales is a different issue.
It's still available in all the big game stores here too, like next to new releases. D3 could still sell more than it's predecessor in the long run.

It could be, even though i doubt we can get concrete data to confirm that.

Hey wait, does SC2 have always-online now? Last time i played it (a few years ago) there wasn't any kind of always-online DRM. Not that i remember.

Depends what you define the purpose of DRM to be. If you say that the purpose of DRM is decreasing piracy then yes, it was effective. However, I'd make the argument that this is assigning the wrong purpose to DRM, and that the effect that should be considered when deciding whether or not DRM is effective is whether or not sales are increased. And by this metric the always-online DRM would likely be regarded as a failure.

But that's pure speculation. There is no way to know for sure if sales were higher or lower with always-online DRM. The things that we do know is that it sold 12 million copies (which is quite a lot for a PC exclusive) and that pirated copies don't work.

And nothing of actual value was lost?

Except a whole load of time, serious investment by some people, and a bunch of money never to be returned to people who have no intention of getting the expansion to fix the damn game.

"core play killing monsters blaa blaa blaa..."

So what is the real reason they suddenly want to get rid of the auction house? I don't think they'd make that big(?) change just to change the "core gameplay", as if selling and buying stuff is obligatory if the auction house exists? Is it so that currently you can't play the game without selling or buying stuff in the auction house?

Was the auction house being misused, do they bring it down so that the console version buyers will not start demanding for an auction house of their own, etc. etc. etc.?

Can't speak for the expansion/Zerg disk, but my recollection of 'Wings of Liberty' was as (effectively) an always on-line experience. Blizzard said there was an off-line mode, but I could never get it to work, no matter what I tried. In the end, I cracked the crap out of it so I could play the single player campaign I had been waiting 13 years for.

Although that issue didn't affect everyone, it affected enough people for there to be a sizeable thread on the SC2 forums about it. Of course, when you pointed out that pirates ultimately had the better experience because of the idiotic DRM, the mods told you not to promote piracy, missing the point entirely...

Anyway... yeah. Technically (and speaking only for 'Wings of Liberty'), it wasn't an always on-line experience. But in practice it was for quite a few people. Suffice it to say, Blizzard has gotten none of my money since then, and probably won't ever again.

As for the auction house news... BAHAHAHAHA!

Blizzard knew what they were doing, the game was specifically designed with the auction house in mind, that's why the loot drops are so bad and why the base classes are terrible on their own (without items/gear). They designed the game so it would be very annoying and difficult to play without using the auction house for gear/items, because they get real money out of the auction house.

Sure they knew eventually it would start ruining the actual core game, but they made sure they got millions of dollars out it before closing it down.

Anyone with a brain knows that Blizzard hasn't made "games" for a while now, they make monetization schemes. And still their moron fans keep getting fleeced and coming back for more like a beaten housewife. Some people just get what they deserve

The RMAH might not have been as much of a moneymaker as they thought. As far as I've seen, the activity on RMAH is fairly low. I've managed to sell a few good items in the $5-$10 price range. Most people are greedy and heavily overprice their auctions, leading to a jungle of $100-$250 items that really are worth maybe $3-$5. The gold auction house works much better in this regard. Sure, the very top weapons and set items can sell on RMAH for $100+, but those are also very rare. I bet they're not making the big piles of cash they expected when overhead is taken into account.

Ok, that sounds logical.

That and the fact that the end game is on life support. The monster power system works, but doesn't add much besides the kind of challenge where the monsters hit harder and have more hit points, and the paragon system is just dull as all hell with the current state of the loot. Sure, you can level to Paragon 100 and get spammed with more crap drops or stuff you've got to try to hawk on the auction house.

Really, everybody who plays D3 complains about something related to this. Most everybody is tired of the loot system and the complete lack of end game progression sans a tacked on paragon system that does little but annoy you with more loot. Seriously, loot becomes annoying in a Diablo game. I don't know if you play, but most Inferno players these days don't even pick up rares anymore unless they're rings or amulets, and then just maybe. Legendaries and set items get a quick ID and are usually thrown on the ground, or salvaged, because they still suck, even after they "fixed" legendaries.

It's the correct thing to do of Blizzard to listen to the fans here and implement a proper loot system and proper end game progression for the expansion.

The reason is an installed base of 12 million. With the changes they're doing they hope that a good chunk of that base will at least try the game again and hopefully buy the expansion. So, in short, the reason is money. D3 Reaper of your monies! mwhahahahaha ha.

Also, the AH has been hated upon but looks to me like the main issues is being avoided. The AH was supposed to be the money maker for Blizz but the worst problem with it was that drops were so very very bad for the sole purpose of being pushed into using the AH to find stuff. That is how I see it , at least. There was no reason, none, for class specific items to have as main stat something like STR when you're a wizard or witch doctor and yet it happened almost all of the time. I also found that in all my playthoughs I was being showered with items that could be used on another class. Am I a Barbarian? Cool, I get a shit ton of DEX and INT items. Playing as a WD I get plenty of STR ones.

This BS is supposed to be corrected by new loot system (loot 2.0). So the main issue with the game gets cured so the AH (the gold one) would just be a convenient way to trade items. Why are they removing the AH? Big splash marketing campaign.