latest rally started with Diablo3 open beta opening

[Zotia]

I am someone who has actually bought and sold items in Diablo II.


First, I want to say that the numbers I am about to give are approximate and can vary wildly based upon realm, ladder vs non-ladder, and classic vs expack.


-SC is significantly more popular than HC (about 5:1).

-The quantity of posts about SC trading is significantly larger than for HC (about 5:1).

-Useful but easy to get items are worthless in SC, but can sell for some pocket change in HC.  While the items are easy to get, they are destroyed when a character dies in HC.  In SC, the supply of these items will keep rising until demand is exceeded, but in HC some of these items remain valuable because people die faster than the items can be replaced.


-Items that are very hard to find are significantly more valuable in HC than in SC (about 5:1) since the supply of them is so low.


-Items that are absurdly hard to find are more valued similarly SC and HC.  This is because most people are not willing to spend 100 USD  (or more) on a single item.   In SC, the number of players is greater and so the number of these kind of people is also greater.  In addition, SC players get to keep the item forever, while HC players risk loosing the item.


-Both SC and HC have PvP communities.   People who like to PvP are more likey to buy gear.  HC PvP isn't as common, but HC PvPers have to rebuild their character when they die so they will spend a lot more time and money in total than SC players.


-HC seems to have more "traders" than SC.  What I mean by this is that in SC, there are a lot of people who will buy items for money, but never sell items for money.  This is because finding items that are worth money is harder in SC than in HC.  In HC, seems to have larger number of people who both buy and sell items.  This is because when you spend a long time without dying you will gain a lot of items that are valuable, and when you die you will suddenly have an increased need for items.




IMO, having low transaction fees (such as with BTC) would really be a good thing for D2/D3 HC.  Unfortunately, I don't see why BTC would take off for D3 when D2JSP has such a monopoly on D2 trading.  It seems that people would need a very good reason to switch a way from D2JSP when D3 comes out.

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[adamstgBit]

...


IMO, having low transaction fees (such as with BTC) would really be a good thing for D2/D3 HC.  Unfortunately, I don't see why BTC would take off for D3 when D2JSP has such a monopoly on D2 trading.  It seems that people would need a very good reason to switch a way from D2JSP when D3 comes out.

D2JSP uses some kind of forum gold?

[Zotia]

...


IMO, having low transaction fees (such as with BTC) would really be a good thing for D2/D3 HC.  Unfortunately, I don't see why BTC would take off for D3 when D2JSP has such a monopoly on D2 trading.  It seems that people would need a very good reason to switch a way from D2JSP when D3 comes out.

D2JSP uses some kind of forum gold?

Yes.   Because it uses forum gold instead of actual money, it makes it harder to switch to another site due to the network effect.

[notme]

...


IMO, having low transaction fees (such as with BTC) would really be a good thing for D2/D3 HC.  Unfortunately, I don't see why BTC would take off for D3 when D2JSP has such a monopoly on D2 trading.  It seems that people would need a very good reason to switch a way from D2JSP when D3 comes out.

D2JSP uses some kind of forum gold?

Yes.   Because it uses forum gold instead of actual money, it makes it harder to switch to another site due to the network effect.

We just need to convince the community not to entrust the operators with monetary supply control, and then Bitcoin can be the solution to operators need for their new community issue.  And by we, I mean you guys, because I've never played Diablo.

[adamstgBit]

...


IMO, having low transaction fees (such as with BTC) would really be a good thing for D2/D3 HC.  Unfortunately, I don't see why BTC would take off for D3 when D2JSP has such a monopoly on D2 trading.  It seems that people would need a very good reason to switch a way from D2JSP when D3 comes out.

D2JSP uses some kind of forum gold?

Yes.   Because it uses forum gold instead of actual money, it makes it harder to switch to another site due to the network effect.

We just need to convince the community not to entrust the operators with monetary supply control, and then Bitcoin can be the solution to operators need for their new community issue.  And by we, I mean you guys, because I've never played Diablo.

We just need to start trading diablo3 items for bitcoin amongst our self's and others will follow


@Zotia  will you trade diablo3 items using bitcoin?

[Spekulatius]

TARGET THE NEW PLAYERS!

Those playing diablo online for the first time are not bound to any network yet, so they can start using BTC in ogrr. D3 will gather alot of new players, they are free to choose and can grow a significant community that uses BTC.

[Zotia]

We just need to start trading diablo3 items for bitcoin amongst our self's and others will follow

That's a good point.

One problem in D2 is that there are eight ways to play (classic or expack, ladder or non-ladder, SC or HC... 2*2*2=8) and there are 6 realms (east, west, euro, asia1, asia2 and asia3) for a total of 48 places you can make your character.  With D3, it looks like there will be only SC/HC and 6 realms, for a total of 12 places you can make your character.

That should make it somewhat easier to start a new community since you won't need as many people before the network effect starts to take effect.

@Zotia  will you trade diablo3 items using bitcoin?

If there is a bitcoin trading site that has enough buyers and sellers then yes.

For example, on Ogrr.com on the USEast classic forum, there are only 5 threads. https://ogrr.com/forum.php?f=122
-4 are SCCL (Softcore classic ladder)
-1 is SCCNL (Softcore classic non-ladder)
-0 are HCCL (Hardcore classic ladder)
-0 are HCCNL (Hardcore classic non-ladder)

As you can imagine, it wouldn't work very well to trade with such few people.

[adamstgBit]

We just need to start trading diablo3 items for bitcoin amongst our self's and others will follow

That's a good point.

One problem in D2 is that there are eight ways to play (classic or expack, ladder or non-ladder, SC or HC... 2*2*2=8) and there are 6 realms (east, west, euro, asia1, asia2 and asia3) for a total of 48 places you can make your character.  With D3, it looks like there will be only SC/HC and 6 realms, for a total of 12 places you can make your character.

That should make it somewhat easier to start a new community since you won't need as many people before the network effect starts to take effect.

@Zotia  will you trade diablo3 items using bitcoin?

If there is a bitcoin trading site that has enough buyers and sellers then yes.

For example, on Ogrr.com on the USEast classic forum, there are only 5 threads. https://ogrr.com/forum.php?f=122
-4 are SCCL (Softcore classic ladder)
-1 is SCCNL (Softcore classic non-ladder)
-0 are HCCL (Hardcore classic ladder)
-0 are HCCNL (Hardcore classic non-ladder)

As you can imagine, it wouldn't work very well to trade with such few people.

for sure their will be more people to trade with
I put up a poll a month ago and about 50 people from these forums will be using bitcoin to trade items.
I'll be one of them... I'll be selling all non-Wizard gear i find, and looking to buy Wizard gear
I'm making a Female Wizard called MissBitcoin!    HC - EAST 

[Maged]

I don't really get the point of the whole hardcore discussion.

Because Hardcore won't have a RMAH.

(as a quick reminder, I'm a Blizzard MVP, so if you have anything that you want the CMs to answer, I can pass it along)

[Technomage]

Ogrr.com seems to have a very healthy growth rate (based on the amount of registered users). Diablo 3 isn't out yet so checking the amount of D3 posts right now is sort of non-indicative. Fact is there has been a good amount of D2 related trade which is a semi-dead game at this point. I see massive potential at least for the gamers who play hardcore mode. It needs some network effects though so keep forwarding any D3 HC players to that forum.

[BadBear]

Ogrr.com seems to have a very healthy growth rate (based on the amount of registered users).

IIRC they were giving out btc for registering so I wouldn't read too much into that.

[N12]

Ogrr.com seems to have a very healthy growth rate (based on the amount of registered users).

IIRC they were giving out btc for registering so I wouldn't read too much into that.

Dude, they solved the chicken and egg problem and are growing exponentially. To the moon!



This is what Bitcoiners really believe. Now if the hypers would activate their brains, they will notice that the growth has severely flattened even with the very low amount of users they currently have.

Also, see how many registered users are currently active on ogrr? TWO!

[Technomage]

IIRC they were giving out btc for registering so I wouldn't read too much into that.

I'm aware of that but the campaign is long over. Their userbase is still growing at a fast rate. It's obvious that the growth has declined from the bounty days but it hasn't died, far from it.

Blitz is trolling this particular subject, I for one have never claimed anything like that. Ogrr has a lot of potential but it's not the ticket to the moon. It's all about network effects, considering the opportunities there just hasn't been much to tap to. Diablo 2 is not a big deal anymore and many games have other ways to trade or trading just isn't a big deal. For D3 hardcore there just isn't any established trading communities and this is why it's actually plausible for a Bitcoin based site such as Ogrr, that has had moderate success, to gain a large userbase.

We don't know if it works out or not but I guess it's totally up to Ogrr management and userbase. They need to market the forum like there is no tomorrow once D3 comes out. There is a clear market there, the amount of D3 gamers will be absolutely huge, possibly more than any other game ever, which means that even for the hardcore mode alone there will be a lot of potential.

[N12]

See, it’s difficult enough to establish a new community. Now when you try it with an unestablished currency, unfortunately it can be doubly as hard.

I think ogrr is a great idea and gamers might indeed embrace it for the ability to trade with a currency they can actually cash out and that cannot be frozen, but the reaction or expectations I’ve seen towards it from Bitcoiners are completely ridiculous, especially with regards to its growth.

I remember the days of when Silk Road was small in February to April, and back then they published the user and sales data. Gawker boosted them in May, and ever since then they are huge.

It’s going to take a long time.

[adamstgBit]

See, it’s difficult enough to establish a new community. Now when you try it with an unestablished currency, unfortunately it can be doubly as hard.

I think ogrr is a great idea and gamers might indeed embrace it for the ability to trade with a currency they can actually cash out and that cannot be frozen, but the reaction or expectations I’ve seen towards it from Bitcoiners are completely ridiculous, especially with regards to its growth.

I remember the days of when Silk Road was small in February to April, and back then they published the user and sales data. Gawker boosted them in May, and ever since then they are huge.

It’s going to take a long time.

I for one can't wait to play and trade

I think we have a reasonably good change at getting gamers to trade with bitcoin, but like you said its not like the entire diablo community will start using bitcoins over night.... but bitcoin is really cool and easy to trade with (especially if you dont have to go to an exchange to get them), i would imagine many gamers will embrace bitcoin simply because they like the idea. lets not forget if you go in a game and you say bitcoin theirs a good chance no one knows wtf your talking about.

[tonto]

I'm hoping people ignore/migrate from forum gold.. it seems to be the "standard currency" by which items are now valued.  I'm hoping bitcoin overtakes that instead, and instead becomes a mix value of dollars/bitcoins (as maybe valued on the auction house).
 
That said I had registered at ogrr, and it seems like they have a pretty good system for transferring money (for trades) covered here:
 
 https://ogrr.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1299

All-in-all, I'm excited because I hated forum gold, and refused to partake in it due to the reasons of the owner basically being a dick and controlling everything (a sort of mini-paypal or mini-ebay type philosophy of screw the users, take their money).
 
Long live ogrr.  


There will probably be stragglers trying to buy/sell forum gold, so I have no doubts that it will still exist for some time as people look to get away from it, maybe buying/selling on the side, but the only one will win that fight is njaguar.
 

[BadBear]

Dude, they solved the chicken and egg problem and are growing exponentially. To the moon!

LOL, I remember that thread now. Good times.

There will probably be stragglers trying to buy/sell forum gold, so I have no doubts that it will still exist for some time as people look to get away from it, maybe buying/selling on the side, but the only one will win that fight is njaguar.
 

Njaguar is a dick, a few friends of mine were banned and had their fg locked just for mentioning a competing site in private messages. Not that private after all. Bitcoin is infinitely more useful fo trading since it's actually useful for something else besides Diablo. 

[tonto]

Maybe someone should make some fake accounts and post about oggr and/or bitcoin at various times of the day... he can't be on 24/7 can he?