Unless something has changed, there are gonna be soul bound items. Maybe not using that exact term.
EDIT: After looking it up, there aren’t soul bound items. Never mind. Game is probably going to be okay.
I would assume that if its allowed, we’ll see some sort of standard commoditization of gold to dollars settle. I imagine a couple months after the game launches we’ll see some sort of fairly stable one way exchange rate appear. That is of course if gold is allowed to be auctioned on the cash auction house. In that scenario I could imagine a situation where gold prices for items in comparison to its appropriate exchange rate are close to identical and someone simply chooses to turnhe m in their time for currency or their real currency for virtual currency. I don’t agree with your commentary that gold is necessarily dead. If anything a scenario appears where markets emerge that favor gold purchases over dollar purchases for some reason (maybe someone wants an immediate in game reward for their auctioned item for example) you might intentionally choose to purchase gold with currency in the money auction house for the better exchange in the gold auction house. Currency markets are fickle things and the emergence of a more versatile currency doesn’t invalidate other forms of currency, they just settle into equilibria that will fluctuate over time in response to the prices of items for sale in each currency.
Well now that I realize that soulbound/BoE doesn’t exist, how do they plan to make gold worth a damn? By simply adding the AH?
Gold will have its own value via exchange rate. It will take some time but eventually as the game grows and we obtain more information about what’s available and the masses choose in aggregate what they’re willing to pay we’ll come up with fairly standardized prices for items and settle on a gold / dollar exchange rate. Just read my post above yours 
If anything, if its allowed in the AH, gold will be a dual transferable currency. Let’s say something you want in the money auction house costs ten dollars but you only have dollars but 1 million gold. Well lets say 200,000 gold = 1 dollar. You go to the money auction house, put up 1 million gold for 5 dollars, someone pays you, you now have 10 dollars to buy your item in the money AH and you win. Gold is a dually transferable currency in this model able to purchase from both auction houses, one directly and one indirectly just like actual money. Likewise, lets say what you want costs 1 million gold but you only have 200K but you have four dollars. Well you take your 4 dollars buy 800K gold and now you have your million. In a dual currency environment exchange rates emerge. It’s natural. The only question is a question of friction towards the velocity of money as it changes from one form to another and there could be currency transition costs but that doesn’t impact the eventual exchange rate.
Gold has a ton of uses in the game, and they’ve kinda gone out of their way to deal with this. I’ve read numerous things about it being used for lower end transactions in the AH, as well as the different modding and buying items that exists (and isn’t the same as using D2 stores, which were for the most part useless).
I’m wondering more if trading will still exist, or if AH’s will be the norm. And if there will be a standard item that others will seek to be equivalent to (similar to how everything was worth a certain amount of SoJ’s in the last game)
I hope trading is still a big part and not overshadowed by the AH.
This actually raises an intersting point and makes gold an even more valuable currency and may actually tilt friction costs in favor of more gold use. Real world currency only works in the auction house and must be transfered into gold before it can be used for other uses, such as purchasing items from other in game vendors, repairing items, etc.
Trading should still exist. I mean in our world we have multiple ways to transfer currency however there are times where what you want isn’t currency but something far more specific. In D2 speak, I don’t want 1 million gold maybe but I want a windforce and one isn’t currently available in the auction house and the owner of the item doesn’t want to auction it because there’s somethign he’s looking for that’s not on the auction house, well you can both still be active in a mutually beneficial exchange without the swapping of currency, whatever he has that you want in exchange for what he has that you want but certainly the auction house will reduce friction costs associated with the purchase of items but I would feel confident that some sort of trading exchange will still be available.
Was there a trading window like D2’s in the D3 beta?
I’d love trading to still exist, but realistically, low level items will be the only ones people will trade. Oh, I got a Barb specific rare to drop, here I will trade it to you for the Monk item you got. Fair enough, but that will only work at low levels. Once people get to Hell or Nightmare, and start getting the REAL drops, that shit will be auction house exclusively. WF…sell for $65 or trade it to this dick clown? Hrmmmm…
whatever you needed, you will likely still be able to buy with the leftover funds you have.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. That would depend on how rare rare drops are. If truly rare amazing drops are supremely rare that could create market sustainability issues where rather than risk being woefully underpaid in the AH (for something truly unique) you try to offload it directly via trade for something very specific. If rare drops like you describe are not so rare that commonly agreed upon prices can emerge than effectively all that has happened that trading has gone from a face to face / item for item exchange to a market based transaction with your choice of currency. Maybe there is some social gaming added value from a face to face transaction that I’m not accounting for, but to me it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
In response to your specific example. I have something that’s worth 65 dollars, and what I want normally costs 60 but isn’t available but I can trade it to this guy who has it and wants what I have. He gets the item he wants, you get what you want, maybe you had to pay a little extra but you paid it so you didn’t have to wait on one becoming available in the auction house, I fail to see in your example why the situation you described is bad.
Because people are cheap stupid fucks. You’ll occasionally see trades between players for shit they need, but you better believe if something drops for more than 20 bucks a vast majority of people will throw that shit up on the AH and just wait it out
Not to mention the fact that if chinese gold farmers and botters start taking over, there will NEVER be a lack of an item on the auction house
Trading will still exist at high levels because of the $$ cut that Blizz takes (and paypal if you use that for withdraw). Also Gold can be sold for $$.
edit: If something drops and its worth 5$, im auctioning it… that shit adds up quick
Okay… if people are as stupid as you suggest, then you should be able to game the system in your favor and you should be EXTREMELY happy.
Also, if something eventually comes to be worth 20 dollars or more (and we will see if that actually happens) then if they choose to AH it and wait it out fine. No loss there. Also, if gold farmers and botters start taking over then prices on items will be forcibly lower because there will be a higher supply of all the items you’re worried about ensuring that only the rarest of the rare items could ever possibly hit the monetary threshold you’re talking about. Either Supply is a problem in which case trading is viable or its not and the AH won’t have super high prices to worry about. Either way I think it’ll turn out okay.
Also, I’m still waiting to hear about the benefit of trading in person through a trade window over the trading of a person with currency through an auction house. Assuming there’s no extra transaction cost (which I’m not sure I really see being a significant issue) substantially there’s no difference.
Like the communist said, at high levels, it will probably be exclusive AH.
Because it will be literally greed over need.
People are gonna sell their high level shit to get real money, not to deck out their characters.
Okay… but sellers alone don’t make up the entire system. Presumably if you’re going to sell an item, there has to be someone who will buy it specifically for the reason that they DO want to deck out their character and in order to get the highest level items consistently you’ll have to be a pretty big badass presumably so you’re going to have to deck our your character as well. What is greed for you is need for another and hence, Adam Smith is right again. If anything the biggest problem is that you could see a real arms race amongst top players for very limited scarce resources as they start to obtain real value in selling items and they create their own microeconomy for the very best stuff and are constantly trying to outbid each other to make themselves that much better so they can get more of the top items to sell. But even that is unlikely to be a sustainable problem forever.
What the fuck is up with pulling Adam Smith in here?
The only Invisible Hand at work is going to be lag or dropped connections fucking you out of those Inferno drops.
You have to be realistic about these things.
I don’t see why the economy is such a big deal though?
You never really have to trade with anyone or buy anything if you don’t want to.
I’m more excited about the boss runs ad nauseum.
You mean pack runs, theoretically with a way to jump to the boss fast.
But, more importantly, what are you running first?
Methinks the optimal team will be 1 Barb for BO, 2 Monks for damage + healing, and an AOE/DPS damage dealer.
You have to be realistic about these things.
I’ll worry about that bridge when I cross it.
Right now, I’ll just play with whomever is online.
That’ll be me, most of my freetime.
Barring 3 hours in the gym every day, lol.
You have to be realistic about these things.