twesterm said:
I haven't gotten to play the game as nearly as much as I wanted to, but I'm actually not all that impressed with it and it's almost solely due to the auction house.
I think the auction house is a fantastic idea, they just made it too good. On my character I've spent a ridiculous amount of money getting my black smith leveled and I've been breaking down item after item to get crafting materials. When I finally make an item, it's pathetic compared to what I could get for 500 gold at the auction house.
Between leveling up my black smith and breaking down magic items, I've probably spent about 15-20,000 gold (I'm still pretty low level). I spent a lot of time completely going through every dungeon making sure I get everything I possibly can. I equip magic items that increase my chance of finding magic items so I have to break down and I equip items that give me more gold. I've put a lot of time and effort into leveling my black smith.
Looking at the items he makes for me and the items I can buy out for 500-1,000, the difference is insane. All that effort was completely wasted because I can't craft or find anything near the quality I can easily buy for cheap on the auction house.
So if I have no motivation to go and find loot, what am I left with? The base gameplay isn't the most compelling thing ever and does little to hold my attention. I'm playing on normal and the game is pretty simple. I died only once because I ran into the middle of a battle with a lot of tough guys and was just being stupid. Other than, everything has been pretty easy. Even fighting the skeleton king my health barely dropped (since I had awesome items from the auction house).
So yeah, the auction house is too good or crafting is too bad. They can't really put a lot of control on the auction house because that would defeat the purpose of the player run action house. They can't make crafting suddenly better because then that would drive auction house prices even lower.
-edit-
Oh, and not being able to play my single player game because of server maintenance sucks. Guess I'll be able to play tomorrow.
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The coming patch is supposed to adjust Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting making them less expensive.
I've personally avoided the Auction House since the game launched precisely because I like to get my own items (either by crafting or a drop from a monster). Buying high end gear for cheap doesn't appeal to me at all (at least for my first character).
About the gameplay, from what I gather you're still in Act I so it's normal that the gameplay seems simple, once all the skills slots are open the strategic aspect of the game is greatly improved. It gets even better once you get to Nightmare and you have to reconfigure your skills/runes/gear to adjust to much stronger Champions and Uniques.
