Diablo III: Not Just a Vitality Race!

[Starwulf]

Wow, lot going on since I went to bed.

Fan: While I appreciate the thoughtfulness(you can always tell the people who spent a considerable amount of time on 26.4k dial-up connections, we stick together ^^), I am personally 100% against any form of hacking, including hacked servers, even if they are trying to help people like me. I'm also a huge fan of Blizzards, and couldn't ever imagine not giving them proper credit for their work(ie: paying for Diablo 3).

Beyond that, I actually remember the lawsuit of Blizzard against Garena back in the day, that was...quite a while ago wasn't it? Unless there has been more then one lawsuit from Blizzard against people creating hacked servers, it's definitely been a whlie, like, before I was even married(so at least 8 1/2 years ago). I was a bit more callow and not as developed in my principles back then, and I remember cheering for Garena, lol.

[Fan]

Wow, lot going on since I went to bed.

Fan: While I appreciate the thoughtfulness(you can always tell the people who spent a considerable amount of time on 26.4k dial-up connections, we stick together ^^), I am personally 100% against any form of hacking, including hacked servers, even if they are trying to help people like me. I'm also a huge fan of Blizzards, and couldn't ever imagine not giving them proper credit for their work(ie: paying for Diablo 3).

Beyond that, I actually remember the lawsuit of Blizzard against Garena back in the day, that was...quite a while ago wasn't it? Unless there has been more then one lawsuit from Blizzard against people creating hacked servers, it's definitely been a whlie, like, before I was even married(so at least 8 1/2 years ago). I was a bit more callow and not as developed in my principles back then, and I remember cheering for Garena, lol.

Oh no, you'd still have to buy a legitimate copy of the game.. if that was ever conveyed.. no, no, no.

While I may not approve of their.. pricing policies (Starcraft 2. Only going on sale 2 years after it comes out.. AAAARGH.), I do support that developers should get their fairly priced dividends out of it.

Garena IS unfortunately used by pirates, but it is also used by people who want to play things like Starcraft 2, and Left4Dead (and other Steam DRM'd games. Steam offline being what it is... you need the archietecture for custom maps...) when their connections are either unstable, or non existant (when travelling for instance.).

I never have, and never will, advocate piracy. I was merely presenting the offline option.

[Karoht]

Starcraft 2. Only going on sale 2 years after it comes out.. AAAARGH

Umadbro?
It released on July 27, 2010, barely a year and a half ago. Also there will likely be a battle chest type thing once the third part comes out.
Yes, how dare they put it on sale a year and a half later. Shucks.

[Fan]

Umadbro?
It released on July 27, 2010, barely a year and a half ago. Also there will likely be a battle chest type thing once the third part comes out.
Yes, how dare they put it on sale a year and a half later. Shucks.

I was talking about the complete lack of price drops for it.. It's still 59.99 after this sale ends, and I would've bought copies for other people *cough*Winterwind*Cough* if the year and a half had given it even a SLIGHT price drop. As the 59.99 on digital distribution (Which has no cost aside from the server.) price is kind absurd to begin with (I'm not asking for free, just something like 49.99. Still plenty of profit considering they don't have to make a disc, add an instruction manual, and they only ever have to upload the data once and from then on can just leave it lay since patches don't come pre packaged even with the digital edition, so no cost of distribution beyond initial investment.)

So no, I am not being unreasonable when I ask for it to be slightly lower priced on a more regular basis.

The 59.99 price is a PREMIUM, in order to have the game as it hits the shelves and the ensuing 6 months. Not a permanent price there to gouge the buyers of their hard earned money. Starcraft II is good, yes, but it is already beginning to age as far as graphics and interface goes. It's not drastic, but it is definitely starting to show for those of us who are used to operating on the cutting edge of hardware.

I am not "hating", I am not "Trolling" when I say this, I am stating a genuine disdain for a process which is charging what is largely accepted in the marketing world as a premium price for new hardware. The cost of production has been paid for, IF, Blizzard was so keen on giving it's players the heightened enjoyment of the product, and allowing more and more access to it's things (As a battle chest deal would.), then they wouldn't be selling something which has it's SEQUEL coming out in less than a year at full price.

Sorry, but it's just not a reasonable (however profitable it may be, Blizzard isn't hurting for money that much is for sure.) thing to expect people to continue paying full release price for a game that has been out as long as that has.

[Karoht]

So anyone catch that video of a Monk killing the Skeleton King in 1 attack? Pretty rad.
For anyone not in the know, the Skeleton King is the boss at the end of the D3 Beta and has about 2000 health. The beta is still capped at level 13.

[Chen]

So anyone catch that video of a Monk killing the Skeleton King in 1 attack? Pretty rad.
For anyone not in the know, the Skeleton King is the boss at the end of the D3 Beta and has about 2000 health. The beta is still capped at level 13.

There were videos of Barbarians killing it in one shot with a thrown axe as well. Though that was before the nerf to the throwing skill's damage.

[Karoht]

We've officially hit the 'bored with the beta' stage and people are theorycrafting some pretty amazing stuff. We'll be hearing about stuff like this after release as well, I'm sure. Someone will invariably one shot [insert name of end boss] on Inferno, I'm sure of it.

I think this is a good thing. The community is engaged in theorycrafting, the game does have some of the broken elements that made it famous, yet still require work and an intrepid mind to come up with. These were hallmarks of Diablo 2 which made the game famous. This feels... healthy?

I still hope we see things like Runestones in Beta soon, but I kind of don't want to see them at the same time. More fun if they're a surprise.
(Yes, I already know what they do thanks to the website, but seeing them in action in game is different)

[Psyren]

As to the RMAH being a major factor leading to online-only, I find that claim pretty ludicrous. For one, it portrays Blizzard as money-grubbing greedy jerks who want to take all of your money, which is blatantly false. If they were, then they wouldn't still be running the architecture to allow people to play Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3, both vanilla and expansion each, more than 10 years after those games came out. That's a major drain on resources with no returns whatsoever, and the only reason they keep it going is because they genuinely want players to have fun.

If they really wanted to make tons of money off of D3, they wouldn't have done so with an RMAH, where they only get a small part of every transaction. Instead, they would have sold those items directly to the players, and taken all of the profits for themselves.

Wow.

First off, your position is waaaaaay too extreme. Nobody - certainly not me - called them "money-grubbing greedy jerks," nor do they want to "take all your money." But they do want to make a profit, like any other business. And the trouble with ongoing patches, DLC etc. is that those add to the price tag. Skimming a commission off the top of the RMAH does not.

Second, I couldn't disagree more with everything you wrote above. There is simply no way they could sell gameplay items directly to players without turning it into the absolute worst free-to-play MMO on the planet. It has nothing to do with them caring more about your fun than making money, and everything to do with that being a godawful business model. Once you legitimize selling power, the long-term in-game economy is ruined; players go from wanting to drop a few extra dollars on the AH, to feeling like they have to, which removes any notion of fairness from the game. You then lose entire demographics of players (including the crucial 14-18 group that simply don't make the kind of money to be blowing on digital items, yet who have the time to put in to theorycrafting builds/updating wikis/making how-to gameplay videos etc.) Furthermore, players lose the ability to make money themselves from being successful at the AH. If everyone can buy X item directly from blizzard, that is effectively a price ceiling - nobody is going to pay more for X from a 3rd-party when Blizzard's supply is infinite. Restricting markets in this way serves no purpose except to create a deadweight loss.


Making a commission off the player-run economy is far more sustainable and will make them a ton more money in the long run. I'm not saying that Blizzard doesn't care about supporting the base, I'm saying that they are savvy enough to know that the long-term dollar is far more attractive than the short-term one. If you for a moment think that selling items directly is more financially feasible than simply getting a commission, your knowledge of e-commerce (and commerce in general) needs a lot of work.

[Karoht]

@Psyren
Everything you said is true. However, I think you mis-interpreted one part of Agentpaper's statement.
"If they really wanted to make tons of money off of D3, they wouldn't have done so with an RMAH, where they only get a small part of every transaction. Instead, they would have sold those items directly to the players, and taken all of the profits for themselves. "

Just how I interpret this, but this is not and advocation that Blizzard should do it this way to make more money. Rather this is a semi-sarcastic remark saying 'If Blizzard were a bunch of money grubbers more interested in x rather than y, they would have done z.'
Again, just how I'm interpreting it.


Mind you, you make an excellent point about what would happen IF Blizzard did that, and why the aren't likely to ever go down that road, all precidents (of other companies and Blizzards) aside.


As for online only.
Yes, it supports RMAH. This can't be ignored.
It also supports keeping the game as it was intended. D2 got pretty far off the rails as a direct result of open play. Sure, the people who only played single player in offline mode and never ever played with people were not impacted nor did they cause one. But the single player offline mode types who eventually did play online certainly were.
Rather than create two groups of players, they keep it to one. Yes, this might cost them sales, but this comes at the expense of a playerbase who are essentially all on the same page. I think this is better for the playerbase overall, though I still agree there are ways the SPO (Single Player Offline) could work in such a manner that it would not affect the rest. Cases could be made, ideas could be pitched, who knows, maybe Blizzard will see the so-called error of their ways and add it back in.


A bit of tinfoil, not quite enough for a hat, more like a headband.

Spoiler

Show

On the other hand I constantly wonder what is going to happen when cloud gaming becomes more of a reality. Seeing as quite a bit of stuff is being handled server-side rather than client-side in D3 (this is from data miners, I've heard rumors as high as 60%, but realistic estimates peg it between 20% and 30%) one could also consider this a step towards a cloud-streamed game. In the future I would expect that Blizzard will likely have at least one fully cloud-streamed game, or at the very least, cloud-streaming as an option for access VS full client install as we see now.
Before anyone knee-jerks this statement, no I am not saying people are going to be pushed out by 'the wave of the future' but one can not deny that the landscape is definately changed since D2, and is likely to change sharply again in the next 5-10 years.

And the biggest advantage of cloud gaming is, you only need the specs to run the streaming client, and you can run the game. IE-Onlive only requires me to have a PC capable of running the client, and I can play Xbox/PS3 games.
Meaning req specs to run a game become stable for a longer period of time, without requiring constant upgrades which do drive away some potential customers or long term customers.

[Psyren]

@ Cloud gaming:
We already have pretty major releases being played exactly that way. (See also Onlive). So it's not a big surprise that Blizzard would be heading in that direction for other releases besides MMOs.

Incidentally, the Onlive founder claims to have found a way to overcome the hard cap on wireless data transfer. Naturally, this has huge implications for gaming in general, and cloud gaming in particular, but anyway.

Anyway, in a pretty large sense we're already cloud gaming. Not just with MMOs in general, but WoW's recent shift towards updating the game while you play pretty much mandates some of that game data being taken from the cloud in real time.


@Offline play:
Segregating "Open" and "closed" battle.net did a good job of keeping the hackers offline, but it didn't prevent many other exploits - chief among which was duping. Duping was made possible entirely due to the communications lag between the client and server of the game. Everyone figured this out in D1 with the belt trick, and applying it to D2 was only a matter of figuring out how the client and server communicated differently in that title.

So they would drop an item while tricking the server into thinking they still had it. (Belt, hand, wherever.) The server then thought the item was also on the ground, since they'd dropped it. The player scoops up the item, and bam - they have two.

I'm not saying this online-only move will 100% keep people from doing that; but the less record-keeping is required between a "client" and a server, the less likely tricks like that are going to be, and I'm all for that.


My only point in the end is that I agree with the EC guys; security is a valid concern for Blizzard but not the main draw here. The gains to be made by exposing all their players to the RMAH are by far the shiniest apple on the bough. That there are other potential benefits for us as players is icing on the cake. And I believe that it will be worth the unfortunate inconveniencing of a portion of the base to achieve it.

[GungHo]

Of Blizzard winning the lawsuit? Or Garena?

Pretty sure he means Blizzard. He's saying that Garena would have to go steal proprietary code off of Blizzard's servers to make the game work. If that's true, they might have to worry about more than just a lawsuit. It's not like Blizzard is Bank of America and would try to hush up a breach to shore up its reputation. There's a good chance they'd turn people over for prosecution.

[Karoht]

@ Cloud gaming:
We already have pretty major releases being played exactly that way. (See also Onlive). So it's not a big surprise that Blizzard would be heading in that direction for other releases besides MMOs.

Incidentally, the Onlive founder claims to have found a way to overcome the hard cap on wireless data transfer. Naturally, this has huge implications for gaming in general, and cloud gaming in particular, but anyway.

Anyway, in a pretty large sense we're already cloud gaming. Not just with MMOs in general, but WoW's recent shift towards updating the game while you play pretty much mandates some of that game data being taken from the cloud in real time.

Yeah, the whole cloud computing thing is something I've been following carefully. Onlive is a service I may yet take advantage of, once their game library expands a bit more. Being able to offer many games to players at a lowered cost, and removing many of the barriers to entry (IE-Having to purchase a $300 system which can only play one group of games), very much strikes me as a good thing.

@Offline play:
My only point in the end is that I agree with the EC guys; security is a valid concern for Blizzard but not the main draw here. The gains to be made by exposing all their players to the RMAH are by far the shiniest apple on the bough. That there are other potential benefits for us as players is icing on the cake. And I believe that it will be worth the unfortunate inconveniencing of a portion of the base to achieve it.

I still don't understand why such a broad portion of the PC gaming market seems to somehow have a PC but not the internet.
Luckily, I did some research on the weekend.
I loaded my laptop up with the beta and went to a Starshmucks.
D3 very handily ran on their internet, albeit this was one laptop running D3, not a roomfull of people running D3 or playing youtube videos. For comparison I also played some SC2, it also ran fine.
I also tested it on my friends iPhone. He turned it into a wifi hotspot. Ran just fine. And data plans for smartphones are almost cheaper than internet connections. I have great faith that D3 might even be able to run on an iPad.

Just saying.

[GungHo]

I have seen both sides of it. I live in a very large metro area where the internet is everywhere. I can also drive 300 miles "thatway" and end up in the parts of the world where they don't actually have ubiqutious internet, not even at McDonalds (and, no, they don't have Starbucks either), because they are in a place that is rural. If you go far enough into East, Central, or West Texas, you can even find places that time hasn't discovered, much less wifi. Now, how they know that those people in the screen aren't captured spirits when they actually turn on their computers, I don't know. But, while you can say "I can just go to McDonalds", they may not be able to do so, because wifi McDonalds are 40 miles+ away, next to the nearest cell tower, which may or may not carry a 3G signal, because their cell tower is really just some guy standing on a church steeple with a mirror, flashing signals in morse code.

Granted, there's not a lot of people who are in that situation. After all, it's rural, which tells you exactly the population density you're dealing with. If I was Blizzard and was as crazy about content control as they are, I'd probably make the same decision and cut out a small fraction of my userbase and concentrate on pleasing the remainder. But being parocial with that small fraction and saying "but it works just fine on my computer" doesn't really speed the conversation along. Just saying.

[Karoht]

If I was Blizzard and was as crazy about content control as they are, I'd probably make the same decision and cut out a small fraction of my userbase and concentrate on pleasing the remainder. But being parocial with that small fraction and saying "but it works just fine on my computer" doesn't really speed the conversation along. Just saying.

Right, but denying that there are options to other groups of people (who live in busy metropolis yet somehow don't have/can't afford internet access and live within walking distance of no less than 10 starbucks, 11 mcdonalds, and 20 other places with free wifi) doesn't move the conversation along either. Neither does denying a test with a common stock laptop (currently retails at less than 500 bucks) in a commonly encountered wifi network and internet connection.

If someone who does live within a short walk to a Starbucks can't be bothered, I'm curious how they managed to get their hands on a computer and/or a copy of the game in the first place.

[Sholos]

Right, but denying that there are options to other groups of people (who live in busy metropolis yet somehow don't have/can't afford internet access and live within walking distance of no less than 10 starbucks, 11 mcdonalds, and 20 other places with free wifi) doesn't move the conversation along either. Neither does denying a test with a common stock laptop (currently retails at less than 500 bucks) in a commonly encountered wifi network and internet connection.

If someone who does live within a short walk to a Starbucks can't be bothered, I'm curious how they managed to get their hands on a computer and/or a copy of the game in the first place.

Because, believe it or not, there are people who do not want to play games in the middle of a Starbucks, or McDonald's, or wherever. It's not that they can't be bothered, it's that they don't like playing games in a public setting. Actually, I think that covers the majority of people. You don't really see too many people randomly gaming in public (outside of handhelds).

Oh, and while wifi might be free, most places will take exception if you just walk in and don't buy anything, or buy one thing and then sit there for 5 hours (extreme, maybe, but the point remains). This all adds up to your gaming schedule being set at the whim of someone else, and most people like doing leisure activities on their own schedule, not another's.

[Karoht]

Because, believe it or not, there are people who do not want to play games in the middle of a Starbucks, or McDonald's, or wherever. It's not that they can't be bothered, it's that they don't like playing games in a public setting. Actually, I think that covers the majority of people. You don't really see too many people randomly gaming in public (outside of handhelds).

Oh, and while wifi might be free, most places will take exception if you just walk in and don't buy anything, or buy one thing and then sit there for 5 hours (extreme, maybe, but the point remains). This all adds up to your gaming schedule being set at the whim of someone else, and most people like doing leisure activities on their own schedule, not another's.

Funny how everyone complains of a lack of usable internet access to the point where they will even deny that it works for other people.

And counter to your point, there are people who enjoy playing in public places. Internet cafe's are kind of a big deal. My early days of playing Diablo 2 were in a mom and pops coffee shop. They had a lan cable sticking out of the wall that they had no idea what it was for. I plugged in my laptop one day and got internet. I asked permission, I was able to hang out there so long as I was a customer. And I had some great fun, gaming in marathon sessions, ordering up a moccachino when the mood took me. Back when I played Xwing VS TIE Fighter, people would come and watch and cheer as I blasted other people. It was a good time to be had.

In the more modern context, IE-Starbucks, there is usually seating where staff likely won't notice you. If one does in fact purchase something (you are going to get hungry or thirsty, you are a human being) they really aren't likely to bother you. In fact, one day I sat in a Starbucks for over 9 hours and bounced between watching MLG and youtube videos between meeting with some clients and associates. The staff never bothered me once, probably because I didn't make any major disturbance.

Yes, there are those who dislike being in public places and gaming. Fine. There are those who don't. Fine. It's still an option. Those who won't use it do not invalidate it's existance for those who would.

Mind you, quite a few people seem to be very adamant in proving that the internet doesn't exist for a majority rather than a minority. That might the be the topic of another thread, despite it's semi-relevance in this one. Just saying.

[Psyren]

Because, believe it or not, there are people who do not want to play games in the middle of a Starbucks, or McDonald's, or wherever. It's not that they can't be bothered, it's that they don't like playing games in a public setting. Actually, I think that covers the majority of people. You don't really see too many people randomly gaming in public (outside of handhelds).

That's fine, but the number of people that would play D3, yet don't game online at home and aren't willing to leave the house to do it either are definitely a minority; certainly they aren't worth specifically targeting, not when the projected return on their investment is so much lower than a gamer who is willing and able to do these things.

Oh, and while wifi might be free, most places will take exception if you just walk in and don't buy anything, or buy one thing and then sit there for 5 hours (extreme, maybe, but the point remains). This all adds up to your gaming schedule being set at the whim of someone else, and most people like doing leisure activities on their own schedule, not another's.

Those people are well-advised to purchase their own internet connection. Not having it at home pretty much mandates that their internet use is on someone else's schedule, so for them to take issue with it is more than a little bit silly.

[Sholos]

I think my point got lost somewhere in translation. My point was that you can't tell every single person who objects to the online only portion because they don't have a good internet connection that they can just go to Starbucks. I never said that no one enjoys it, just that some people don't, which is what you seemed to be completely ignoring.

And, while it wouldn't do to specifically target the portion of people who don't have a good internet connection but are unwilling to play in public (for whatever reason), there's no advantage to excluding them either, except that being forced to be online increases exposure to the RMAH (and adds a bit of security, I guess?), where Blizzard stands to make more money.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the move from a strictly business and pragmatic standpoint, but don't say that it doesn't suck for the people who would have loved to play Diablo 3 but won't be able to.

[Psyren]

Of course it sucks for those people. But just think of the added incentive they now have to aid the internet's inevitable spread to the far reaches of the wilderness.

(Or move out of a place with crappy internet. That works too.)

[Avilan the Grey]

Personally I don't see why it is "Evil" of a company to have Internet as a mandatory requirement for their program to work, as long as they are up front about it.

It's their product, they are the ones that has decided to cut a profit margin by blocking some people from using it (and therefore buying it).

Also, it is a matter of progress. If everyone only catered to the lowest common denominator, no progress would be made. REASONABLE system demands is good for business, to demand that everyone buys a new PC every year to play the latest games almost killed the PC gaming industry a few years back, but lowest common denominators are bad.

[Karoht]

I think my point got lost somewhere in translation. My point was that you can't tell every single person who objects to the online only portion because they don't have a good internet connection that they can just go to Starbucks.

I think my point got lost, namely that it is an option. It's an option just like any other option, from tap dancing with penguins to finding another internet provider. All I did was test the option, and state that it was a viable option for those who wish to take advantage of it.

I never said that no one enjoys it, just that some people don't, which is what you seemed to be completely ignoring.

I never said everyone had to enjoy it. Merely that it was a viable option. Which is what you seem to be ignoring.

Oh well. Lets move on shall we?

New professions, the Jeweller and the Mystic were posted the other day. It looks like everything is a percentage bonus to things like offensive or defensive stats. I didn't see anything about resistances, but I didn't look too hard either. Also, it is strongly suggested by the data miners that the Mystic or Jeweller (I forget which) has something to do with Runestones, so maybe they aren't just drops? The crafter may yet be a secondary option, or may in fact be the primary option with drops as the secondary. Thoughts?

[Psyren]

Are their tiers of runestone, or is there one flat power level?


If some are weaker than others, they could do it the D2 way - i.e. the most powerful runestones/socketables can (very, very rarely) drop, or you can "cube up" to them via turning in weaker one of the crafters.

Where I see this possibly being handy is stimulating the economy for weaker crafting items. In D2, even chipped gems had value because they were used in several recipes (or simply to cube all the way up to Pgems in Classic.)

If Runestones don't work that way, apply the above to sockets/enchants as appropriate, assuming the game will have these things. (I haven't gone in-depth on the mechanics.)

[Karoht]

Are their tiers of runestone, or is there one flat power level?

If you check out the Runestones on the Skills Calculator on the website (Runes get attached to abilities, I'm pretty sure they don't go in items, at least not for now), there doesn't appear to be different power levels. However, there will still be some that are more sought after than others, meaning you're probably right about the economic impact either way.

If some are weaker than others, they could do it the D2 way - i.e. the most powerful runestones/socketables can (very, very rarely) drop, or you can "cube up" to them via turning in weaker one of the crafters.

I could see them being transmutable in some way, I just don't see where. Maybe Jeweller makes them, Mystic transmutes them in some fashion?

[Chen]

Got a beta invite and tried out the wizard. Worked pretty well and definitely felt like Diablo, right down to some elites being so much stronger than others. Seems the RMAH is up and running with everyone having 50 fake blizzard dollars to use. Seems there's a $0.15 posting fee and another $0.50 transaction fee once something sells. This is interesting since it puts a lower bound on items unless you use your free transactions/week on cheap things.

At first the game seemed laggy as hell but apparently there were some issues last night. Once they fixed those it played nice and smoothly. Definitely has the same addictive feel as Diablo 2 did.

[Meta]

Last I checked there were 4 levels of runestones. It was originally 6-7 I believe

[Karoht]

Got a beta invite and tried out the wizard. Worked pretty well and definitely felt like Diablo, right down to some elites being so much stronger than others. Seems the RMAH is up and running with everyone having 50 fake blizzard dollars to use. Seems there's a $0.15 posting fee and another $0.50 transaction fee once something sells. This is interesting since it puts a lower bound on items unless you use your free transactions/week on cheap things.

At first the game seemed laggy as hell but apparently there were some issues last night. Once they fixed those it played nice and smoothly. Definitely has the same addictive feel as Diablo 2 did.

Blizzard has also stated that you do get a set number of free trades per month, tracked by your Battle.net Account. But, I haven't heard anything about that since the original announcement of the RMAH. I think they said it would be 10-15 free trades per month.


Something I plan on doing via my WoW Guild website is basically listing what items I have for my friends. Namely, if I can't find a home for it on myself or my fiance, anyone on my friends list can have it for free. If none of them want it, I may consider selling it via the RMAH depending on the item quality. Since this would eliminate most of my RMAH contact, I don't expect to go over that free trades amount per month, ever.

[Chen]

Blizzard has also stated that you do get a set number of free trades per month, tracked by your Battle.net Account. But, I haven't heard anything about that since the original announcement of the RMAH. I think they said it would be 10-15 free trades per month.


Something I plan on doing via my WoW Guild website is basically listing what items I have for my friends. Namely, if I can't find a home for it on myself or my fiance, anyone on my friends list can have it for free. If none of them want it, I may consider selling it via the RMAH depending on the item quality. Since this would eliminate most of my RMAH contact, I don't expect to go over that free trades amount per month, ever.

You can also use the gold AH to deal with small, less valuable transactions and then do one big gold to money transaction if need be. This is an excellent incentive to keep both AHs working so I think its a good thing.

[Karoht]

You can also use the gold AH to deal with small, less valuable transactions and then do one big gold to money transaction if need be. This is an excellent incentive to keep both AHs working so I think its a good thing.

Agreed, though so far as I see it, gold isn't really all that valuable. Yet. Mind you we are still dealing with the Beta so it isn't a safe bet that gold will remain valueless.
Cheap stuff like your more common crafting mats and low end training pages for crafters will probably remain in the realm of the gold economy, while expensive and less commonly crafted items (and possibly patterns, if patterns do indeed drop as separate items) are likely to be a big deal in the RM economy.

[Chen]

Agreed, though so far as I see it, gold isn't really all that valuable. Yet. Mind you we are still dealing with the Beta so it isn't a safe bet that gold will remain valueless.
Cheap stuff like your more common crafting mats and low end training pages for crafters will probably remain in the realm of the gold economy, while expensive and less commonly crafted items (and possibly patterns, if patterns do indeed drop as separate items) are likely to be a big deal in the RM economy.

I think gold will start to take on value mainly for crafting. The high level crafting recipes looks quite expensive. In addition I imagine repair costs will come into play a bit too. As long as Blizz is smart with gold sinks (even if its for novelty items ala pets/mounts in WoW) gold will keep its value. In D2 you could do barely anything with gold and you had an absurdly low gold cap anyways.

[Karoht]

Pretty much. In WoW it is much the same. Gold has limited application at best. The good news is, RMAH has limited application as well, which is why I feel that the two running side by side will actually be a good thing for the game. Not Chaotic Good, more like Neutral Good. Basically, there are just some objects which will never sell on the RMAH, but will have prime market in the Gold AH.

On another topic, I started to realize that with 6 Active skills + potions, D3 could work rather nicely with a game pad. I might as such look into picking up a USB controller as a result. Preferably one compatible with a PS3, just in case they go console with it (which I very much doubt they will do, but I'd like to be prepared). Anyone else in the Beta think that they might enjoy using a controller VS keyboard and mouse?

In no way am I making an arguement for the optimization of either, merely a question of playstyle and comfort.