Did Blizzard just found out that the week have a Sunday in it?

        What happened yesterday on Diablo 3 European servers is kinda hard to understand.Their first explanation of why the servers went down was the fact that there were too many logins and the servers could not handle it.The second one was an “unknown” issue, but they working hard on the matter.

       I, personally, cannot understand why they lie about what happened yesterday.I don’t think it was something unexpected that required a server maintanance.No “unknown” issue at all.Their first explanation is the most probable one : there weren’t enough servers to handle the huge number of players.Or, which i hope is not, their servers/technicians are crap.

      Anyway, since we all know what people usually do in a Sunday, was crystal clear that the servers will overload, because, duh…MOST people are playing on Sunday.So, why did they not prepped for this? Why not rent/buy more servers? Or better servers? I mean, seriously, did they just found out that the week have a Sunday in it?

      Even if I believe that it was something else, some tech issue…the thing is, it took to long to be solved.They should have know about Murphy’s Laws.In their case was like this : “If something bad will happened, will happened in a Sunday”.They should have no work free days at Blizzard until Diablo 3 can run smoothly.It is so hard to raise the payment for tech dept. like 15% for 2 weeks ? Because it is not too much, not for them anyway.

      Maybe that they don’t care much about players, but they should care about their money.With things like that, is no wonder that the Activision shares dropped like a rock in last 5 days.They NEED to sort out this.Have Diablo 3 personal on stand-by like in emergency hospitals.Something “unknown” rises? Call in more people to get the things fixed.

      It really doesn’t matter what it was, server overload or a tech issue, one answer is clear : they were NOT prepared for this.And if they are usually prepared for this kind of issues (god, they have so much experience gaming) they were clearly NOT prepared last Sunday.

      Until Diablo 3 is going to run smoothly, and the GAH will be fixed and working while RMAH will be implemented (as soon as possible tbh) and work smoothly, there should be NO Sunday for Blizzard.

Peace,

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

Diablo 3 – first three days

        Up until now, the game is more than ok.Graphics are good, dialogues are interesting, the lore is much better compared to Diablo 2 and the actual gaming is exceptional.There are still some glitches, like half a second “deja-vu” a la Matrix and yesterday, in the middle of a quest, i got the WHOLE area restarted.Well, these are things that can be fixed and I bet they will.

        The normal difficulty cannot be called “difficulty”, tho, if you think you can handle 40 mobs instead your usual 30…better be sure you have an “exit strategy”.While I soloed Diablo and killed it in first attempt (took me almost 11 minutes tho – played with a 5,500 HP barb and kite it A LOT) I got killed 6 times at Belial before can kill him.

        In Nightmare, i got killed like 6 times on first Elite pack and only managed to kill them because I was revived at full health and the Elites were lower and lower.The Skeleton king was easy, just took longer than in Normal.I believe that the most deaths from Nightmare and up will be when encountering packs of elites + a rare mob and probably at Diablo.

       What i realized is that a high survivability gear is not always the best idea unless you are used to this.I play 1h + shield Barbarian most of the time, with Vitality gear and some +damage and +str gear.Less and less i have the guts to go full damage gear and a big 2 hander or 2 x 1 handers, but sometimes I have to mix vitality gear with couple pieces of damage gear because it is better.

       As for the Skills…they are avesome.I have changed my skills A LOT and the runes much more than a lot.This is why I love how the Skills are in Diablo 3.You can easily change them, even mid fight (like the gear) in order to pas a difficult encounter.

       The followers are awesome also, and while i used al 3 at start, after lvl 22 I mostly used the Templar.Even tho he is a low damage follower and I skilled him fully for survivability while my Barb is also low damage and also skilled for survivability, he is like a cargo train.It moves slow but crashes everything in his path.Slow but almost unstoppable.Takes 5 min to kill a pack ? Well, I am quite sure that after those 5 min I will get the loot and won’t have died.A dps spec with a dps follower could do them in 2 minutes, but the death rate will be also higher.All it takes is one death and it is 4 minutes.I prefer the slower but safer way.

       I cannot tell much about Auction House, because while i sold some crap pieces of gear, it is not the time yet.Only 1-2 weeks AFTER the RMAH is live I will talk about both AH.Atm, all i can say related to Gold and prices, is that the Gold drop rates, repairs, artisans and crafting, are perfect (up until now) to make possible to have a very good control on Inflation.Gold in Diablo 3 will be WORTHY.No mistakes about it.

       All in all, as a general conclusion, the game is GREAT.While i have my doubts about Blizzard, I would lie if i tell otherwise.The game is really up to his name and the years of work “depleted” by Blizzard’s Diablo team.

Peace,

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

Diablo 3 RMAH regulations

        Not everyone can buy or sell on the RMAH.

        Both buyers and sellers have limits.The buyer must spend at least 1$ when purchasing Gold from RMAH.There is no maximum limit.The seller have minimum limits when listing gold.The most sure one is that he sells for as minimum as 1$ / auction of gold.In Beta, there is also a limit of 0.01$ for 1,000 Gold.Most likely this minimum limit for 1,000 gold won’t make it live, mainly because once the Gold price drops to 100,000 Gold = 1$ (1,000 Gold = 0.01$) he will have to stay there or go only up from there…and this is quite meh, because Blizzard will fail with RMAH if they impose minimum or maximum limits for Gold.

        Both Buyers and sellers need to have either 18 years old either someone (like a parent) to help them with Battle.net Balance, PayPal or bank account.One cannot buy from RMAH if his Battle.net Balance have no money in it, and in order to put money in it, one needs a debit / credit card or a bank account or a PayPal account.Same to the seller, once he had a succesful sale, the money must go into the  Battle.net account, bank account or PayPal account.

        For selling Items in RMAH, there is a minimum limit price of 1,5$ / item and a maximum limit price of 250$.This maximum limit is understandable, because it matches the Battle.net Balance cap.There is absolutely no problem about this maximum limit, because once implemented, Blizzard will make it so that the drops that potentially could go above this limit, will drop a bit more often,  enough to make the price drop under this limit.This move have no negative effects on the economy (like a Gold maximum limit will) but only positive effects.The simplest one to understood is the fact the item economy will be balanced between those limits while keeping the possibility to buy Gold in UNLIMITED amounts.

        Another “kinda must” to have for a seller is a mobile phone.This will be needed to receive text messages from Blizzard upon “unusual activities”, mainly for checking that the REAL person that wants to send his money from RMAH succesful sales is then same person as the account owner.Almost ANY mobile phone works, and there will be no issues for most US and EU zone players and most of the Asia zone players.As long as your phone number (prepaid works too) belongs to a known company (like AT&T, Orange, Vodafone, etc) there should be no problems.This measure, along the waiting time of up to 72 hours to receive money from RMAH sales are ment to prevent as much as possible the hacking and botting.

       While this sounds like a lot of “limits” or “barriers”, worry not, things will be fine and will not be negatively influenced by these measures.The only thing that can go wrong with RMAH is an unbalanced drop rate of gold and items and the gold sinks.If the gold sinks aren’t synched with drop rate for gold and items, RMAH will fail.But this is entirely up to Blizzard.I am quite sure they will know, have the power and the desire to make it work.In the end, it is about money, THEIR money in first place.

       So, if you plan to buy or sell in RMAH, be sure you have access to a credit/debit card or bank account or PayPal account (the PayPal account must have a correspondent bank account or card) and a registered  mobile phone number (prepaid are good also) to a known company.Outside the above, if you plan to send you money to Battle.net Balance, watch you cap balance.Also, there is an expiration time limit for your Battle.net balance money.

Peace,

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

Be aware of Diablo 3 Gold or Money Making Guides !

        With the implementation of a Real Money AH in Diablo 3, there is a hype among players about the opportunity to make some money playing a game.

        There are enough people out there that will try (and some will achieve) to sell Diablo 3 guides.It realy doesn’t matter if those guides are ALREADY available (even tho nobody knows what the game will be – Beta info are NOT reliable info for a guide) or will be available LATER (when all info will be known).

        The only true guides guides about Diablo 3 will be the ones EXCLUSIVELY based on character creation, class, talents, abilities and quests.ALL Diablo 3 guides that are Gold making or Real Money making guides are a scam.

        The difference between a WoW Gold Guide and a Diablo 3 Gold (or Real Money) Guide is huge.For instance, i sell a WoW Gold Making Guide that have all of my personal tactics and strategies.But i will NEVER sell a Diablo 3 Gold or Real Money making Guide ! WoW guides are bought by players that are spreaded over 220 servers.Even if there will be buyers on my server, they stand no chance against me and will not make me lose anything.

        In Diablo 3 Gold = Real Money.In Diablo 3, one can only list 10 auction / account in same time.To list a 11th auction, a second account will be needed OR sell one of the previous 10 auctions listed.This LIMITS the capability of price manipulation (In WoW there are NO restrictions).In Diablo 3, an item bought from AH cannot be sold for 24 hours.This also LIMITS the capability to manipulate prices.

        EVEN IF one use 20 accounts, so he can have up 200 auctions all the time, STILL is not enough to manipulate prices.200 auctions vs 1,000,000 of other players.EVEN IF a cartel of 10 players using each 20 accounts cannot manipulate prices.What means 2,000 auctions in a pool of 1 million ? Nothing.

       Why would ANYONE who makes 2,000 euros or 2,000 $ a month sell a Guide that learn the same thing ? So there will be 10,000 players doing the SAME thing as them and potentially earning the SAME ? Well, this is NOT going to happen, because the buying power is LIMITED, so those 2,000 $ /month will become 200 $ / month, because the money will be splitted between MORE people, affecting the income of the GUIDE SELLER.

      Assuming a Diablo 3 Guide that sells for 50 $ that is bought by 10,000 people…this is 500,000 $ and there will be 10 guide sellers, each earning 50,000 $.If the seller would make 2,000 $ / month, he would need 25 months (2 years) to make the 50,000 $.WIll the game die in 2 year? If it will, again, the Guide is a scam.

     The question is now this : if a guy KNOW how to make 2,000 $ / month he will know how to make 3,000 $ or 4,000 $ a month.In 25 months, he could make 100,000 $ WITHOUT selling a guide that will make his earning drop to 200 $ / month.

     If he KNOWS that he will NOT make even 500 $ / month, and sell a guide that promise to help anyone make 2,000 $ / month…that Guide is a SCAM.

     Have you EVER know someone who gave away his SECRETS to make money in stock market ? Or commodities market ? Or banking ? There were some, but those were proved as SCAMS.

     So, anyone who claim that his Diablo 3 Guide can help you make MONEY it is a SCAM.The one who knows how to make money in Diablo 3 RMAH (one being me ) will NEVER sell his secrets and tactics.If such a Guide will be for sale (even if for lousy prices like 5 $ ) that guide will sell LIES.

     If I PERSONALY will ever sell a Diablo 3 Gold or Real Money Guide, that will be a SCAM.I can make a Diablo 3 Money Making Guide in 2 weeks after the game is released.But i will NEVER make such a guide, because I will either lose money or i will tell a bunch of LIES in that Guide.

     DO NOT BUY DIABLO 3 GOLD OR REAL MONEY MAKING GUIDES !     

     REGARDLESS WHO IS SELLING THEM ! REGARDLESS THE PRICE !

Peace,

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.

Diablo 3 – May 15th 2012, the REVOLUTION begins

        This is a LONG post, but I think is worth reading it.

        I am not playing with words here.The launch of Diablo 3 will be the beginning  of the Revolution…in game industry ofc :D.I am talking about RMAH.

        How would this Revolutions will end ? With “regime change and victory” (RMAH will be a success and the other game companies will follow suit) or will end with a “bloodshed” (the other way lol, RMAH being a disaster) ?

        My bet is that RMAH will be a success…not only a succes, but a BIG one.So big, that will actually REVOLUTIONIZE the gaming industry.And I am willing to bet everything on that.

         My reasons why RMAH will be a success and why will bring Blizzard an income that will prompt them to keep improving their games, to create new ones or better ones and to keep the Real Money Auction House as feature in their future games and, maybe, implement it in current games.

         First, and the most powerful reason is that Blizzard decided (willingly or not…) to protect against illegal RMT and practically destroying out of game RMT (for Diablo 3 only…atm).The World Bank estimated that in 2011, the RMT with in-game items, currency, powerleveling, etc. was at…hang on your chairs…3,000,000,000 $ http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/world-bank-says-online-gaming-industry-is-a-boon-to-asia-economy/2011/04/05/AF1cebrC_story.html

        Hawt shit, isn’t it ? 3 BILLION $ in 2011, and Blizz can’t get a piece of those transactions ? I think that a hefty part of those 3 billion $ are from WoW and Diablo games.How much ? I can only estimate on this, but most likely between 8-10%, if not more.But it is still a 300 million $…and this with UNSECURE transactions (scams, hacks, BOTS, DUPING).I use the last 2 in capitals, because those 2 are LOWERING the price transactions.

       So, Blizzard probably estimates that a LEGIT and SECURE RMAH in Diablo 3 will bring them ALOT of money.How much is this alot?If out of the above estimate of 300 million $, WoW gets 70% and Diablo 2 gets 30%, means about 90 million $ in 2011 were coming from illegal RMT with Diablo 2 items (HEAVILY botted and duped).

      My sincere estimate (and probably Blizzard’s one), is that Diablo 3 will have a volume of RMAH sales close to 500 million $ / year. Hmm, why do you think that Bozzor? Well, let me light up a ciggar…BRB.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

      Back.I don’t really know if Diablo 2 had RMT’s worth 90 million $, but WoW is HUGE and it is quite safe to say that WoW could had 7% of the total RMT’s world-wide and D2 only 3%.I am going to cut this figure, to 1,5% for D2 and 3,5% for WoW.Even so, the illegal RMT’s in D2 (again, heavily botted and duped) could have seen a 45 million $ volume.

      Now, Diablo 3 is estimated to have 5 million copies sold in first year.Even if RMAH is a possible source of income, i think that not many already bought 2 or more copies of the game, so i will assume 5 million players.Once RMAH will prove viable (and will prove so or not in 3-4 weeks max) a number of players will buy more copies (especially because of the 10 auctions limit / account in same time).But for now I will agree with the estimates and will stick on 5 million players.

      This is half of the current WoW player base.Now, this is where I stop comparing WoW with D3.A LEGIT and SECURE place for RMT’s (the RMAH) will DRASTICALLY increase the number of those who will spend money AND the amount they will spend.In WoW, out of 10 players willing to buy gold for money, only 1 or 2 would also RISK doing it.And they will RISK small amounts, 10-20 $ / transaction.If the WoW gold selling would have been legit, 7 or 8 would buy gold, and, because would have been SECURE (like D3 RMAH will be), they will NOT limit to 10-20 $ / transaction.

      So, the number of buyers will quadruple (7-8 compared with 1-2) and the amount of money will, probably double.This, OFC, if Blizzard would have kept the WoW gold inflation under control (will be heavily controlled in D3).So…4 times more buyers x 2 times more money.That means 8 times more the money volume…which means 45 million x 8 = 360 million $ / year.

      Is this much? Well, let’s crunch some numbers.

1.  360,000,000 $ / year = 30,000,000 $ / month = 1,000,000 $ / day.

2.  1,000,000 $ / day / 5,000,000 players = 0.20 $ / day /player.

      Would this be about right ? Each of the players will spend 0.20 $ / day ? Nope, it is not correct.First, not all player will spend money in RMAH.But then, how much will? Well, i have no idea, BUT 30,000,000 $ / month, assuming that a player will be able to spend 10 $ / month for something that he needs, means that 3 million player will have to spend this amount of money every month…highly unlikely.

      Now what ? Now we need to come down to reallity.Players estimates that between 20% and 40% of the players will spend some money in RMAH.Even those estimates are high from my point of view.In another post, I estimated that 4% of the players will spend money in RMAH, and I also thought that the amount will be like 100 $ or euros / year, bringing the RMT’s volume to 20 million $ / year in Diablo 3.

      With 15% RMAH fee (assuming only gold will be sold in RMAH), Blizzard will get only like 3 million $ / year.This could be upped a bit with the listing fee of items in RMAH, but not much, probably to 3,1 – 3,2 million $.Is that ALL Blizzard expects to get ? Dunno, compare those 3 millions / year with WoW 1 billion / year.I agree, Diablo 3 is not a MMO…but hell, it will have 5 MILLIONS players, and this in first year.While not being an MMO, it is surely very close.

      Blizzard cannot expect half of WoW money , which means 500 millions from RMAH cut of 15%…which, god, means Diablo 3 to see RMT’s values of 6-7 BILLION $ / year.Not going to happen.

      I think that my 4% estimate was wrong, i a way that was the most conservative figure.Also, 40% or 20% are the most optimistic figures.The truth must be somewhere in the middle of 20% and 4%, so 12%…but closer to my 4%, probably around 10%.With 10%, my 20,000,000 $ / year volume estimated couple weeks ago, will become 2,5 times larger, reaching 50,000,000 $ / year.

      Even so, Blizzard would get only 2,5 x 3 million $, so 7,500,000 $ / year.It is NOT worth it for them.I can increase the money spent from 100 to 200 $ or euros / year.This would mean 16,6 $ spent per month.Not a very large amount of money for such a great game.I think it is entirely possible that 10% of the players will spend 16-17 $ / month, and this will become the conservative estimate.Why conservative ? Again, I need to smoke…BRB.

      Back.

      The second reason why I think RMAH will be a success and will also increase the RMT’s volume, is what I call “Blizzard Market Regulations” for Diablo 3 RMAH.Firstly, there is minimum limit to sell something in RMAH, which is 1,5 $.Not extremely much, but enough to keep a min pricing.Secondly, the limit of 10 auctions open / account in same time.This will, along with the fixed fee to list auctions (there will be a limited number of  free listings), prevent useless listing of millions of worthless auctions, making that the prices will rise or drop based only on demand-supply rule, and NOT manipulating huge volumes of gold or items.Third, the GOLD inflation will be limited due to a number of gold sinks.The biggest gold sink will be Crafting.ALOT of gold will die there.Another sink will be repairs, tho not as big as crafting, will be quite costly at lvl 60 in Inferno.The fourth reason is the access to ALL Gold AH’s in the world BUT the locked RMAH for your zone.Another way to keep GOLD prices under control, since GOLD will be, most likely, the most sold in RMAH (tho, might not have the biggest slice).

      Blizzard said that they intend to have a balance between drops and crafting, in quality and volume also.This means that Blizzard will control the drop rate and the crafting drop rate for items similar in power.I think Blizzard will make the drop rate low enough to KEEP players both into crafting (gold sink) and into farming best items (that drop in Inferno – another gold sink due to repairs upon death…and will be many deaths ).

      So, far so good…but how will this increase the spending? Most of the players will have LIMITED time to play, i think about 60% to 70% to be in this category.Limited time to play meaning like 2-3 hours on weekend days, like 4-6 hours / week.Maybe more, but this really doesn’t matter…because the low drop rate and Inferno difficulty will make most players with limited time unable to get the desired items in fairly short time (1 week or less).Also, due to his limited play time, he CANNOT hope to save as much gold as needed to buy a shiny he wants / need unless spending weeks upon weeks of farming.He will have to buy the item EITHER from RMAH, either buy the gold from RMAH to buy the item from GAH.

      70% of the players will be in this situation.Some of them will CHOOSE to level the artisans in order to avoid paying much for best items and hoping to be “lucky” to get good items.But they will hit the GOLD wall.Not only the leveling of Artisans will be high enough, but a lvl 60 item require 150-170 k gold in fees alone, not to mention the materials needed.Craft 5 of those, spend 1 million gold (like 25 hours of farming, with 40,000 gold / hour – which means, for the casual, 4 weeks in real-time…) and get nothing but shit.

      So, 10% of player base to spend 17 $ / month in RMAH ? Think again…with the controlled drop rate (both crafts and boss/champion/elite drops), crafting expenses and repairs alone, it is safe to say that gold will be very needed by more than 10% of the players and the expenses will surpass 17 $ / month.

      This is the last sentence.I believe that about 20% of the players (probably about 8 million in 1-2 months) will spend about 20-25 $ / month in RMAH, on gold and/or items.So, 2 million players will spend a total of 40-50 million $ / month in Diablo 3, bringing the yearly volume to 480-600 million $.This will bring Blizzard a profit between 72 and 90 million $ / year from fees.Compared to 1 billion from WoW in same time frame, it is like 12 times smaller.But the expenses to run WoW 200+ servers and HUGE amount of data (being an MMO) it is also like 12-15 times higher.

     I lied.This is the last sentence .Only time (and not much, less than couple months) will prove if i was wrong about this.You think I was wrong about 20% of the player base as buyers in RMAH, the 8 million D3 players or the 20-25$ spend on monthly basis ? And if you think I am wrong, where and how much I am wrong?

Peace,

Bozzor, Gold Multimillionaire.