Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Interview
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Online safety - the protection of our data - is more important than ever. The most high-profile game-related security breach came in April 2011 with the great PlayStation Network hack, but in truth online game account compromises have been par for the course pretty much since online gaming became a thing. It's not even a new thing for Blizzard, which launched the first iteration of Battle.net in November 1996 with Diablo 1.
That didn't stop the account hacks flooding in when Diablo 3 launched. I have a degree of sympathy for Blizzard here: high-profile games with millions of players suffer more than others on account of their popularity. Blizzard's situation apes EA Sports', whose hugely popular and lucrative FIFA Ultimate Team attracts nefarious internet goers. But any excuse will be scant consolation to those who've lost hard-fought items and gold because of an account hack.
"In the territories where we do not have an Auction House the number of account compromises is completely out of whack with the rest of the world," Mosqueira says, to my surprise. "So the Auction House is serving that intended purpose of providing a safe environment for players in which to trade."
But at what cost? Diablo 3's Auction House at best saves time, but at worst it renders extended gameplay somewhat redundant. Why bother slaving away for hours on end and smashing a never ending stream of monsters in the face if all you're going to get for your trouble is a pile of useless tat and, perhaps, an item that at first glance looks like it might be useful but upon closer inspection just doesn't quite cut it? And in any case, whatever you find out in the dangerous world of Sanctuary, the Auction House is bound to have a better piece of equipment just a click away.
It's reassuring, then, to hear both Josh and Kevin acknowledge this problem, and it's exciting to hear them suggest a solution: Loot 2.0.
"We acknowledged early on the Auction House did have an impact on the moment to moment gameplay," Mosqueira says. "The whole motivation behind Loot 2.0 is to make sure playing the game was the most fun, the most rewarding and the most satisfying way to get items. That resulted in the philosophy of dropping fewer but better and more epic items. We want players to be in the game and playing.
"Ultimately the Auction House will still be out there, but we don't want players to feel they need to go to the Auction House. If they want to, that's their own choice. But we don't want them to feel they need to go to the Auction House."
