1) Without BoE, tier 1 items go into circulation as they are found. Some items go out of circulation, due to players quitting the game or hording, but there is still a strong positive inflation occurring all the time. This means that the longer the game goes on, the easier it gets to acquire tier 1 items via trading...and the more worthless everything BUT tier 1 items becomes. The economic values of items will therefore be constantly shifting as time goes on, and trading is an essential part of the game if you want to be competitive.

2) With BoE, that inflation is mostly nullified because 90% of players will either equip the item, or trade it to someone directly who equips the item. Because most items will be soulbound not long after being found, you can't count on as many being available through trading, so they cannot get away with astronomically low drop rates as in D2. Therefore they will need to increase drop rates to make it possible to acquire these items. As a result, one expects the economy to become more stable, for item values to remain mostly constant over time, and for trading to be a non-essential part of the game because you can always find an item for yourself if you play enough.

3) ....or at least, that is the naive prediction. Here's what will actually happen. Because drop rates are increased, it's much easier to find items. Most items aren't useful to the person who finds them...and people know that each item is their ticket to trading for an item they DO need. As a result, people horde BoE items and then trade them away. These horded BoE items will contribute to inflation. Because they are easier to find, the inflation will occur even faster than without BoE.

End result: trading is not essential, because item rarities are common enough to be found, but trading is still extremely useful, because the best items quickly flood the trading market.

The net result is that everyone ends up getting the tier 1 items they need without much trouble. Lame.

Cue conjecture.

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Q u o t e:
2) With BoE, that inflation is mostly nullified because 90% of players will either equip the item, or trade it to someone directly who equips the item. Because most items will be soulbound not long after being found, you can't count on as many being available through trading, so they cannot get away with astronomically low drop rates as in D2.

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You said 90% will equip it or trade it to someone who will immediately equip it. But say that because of them being being traded and then equipped immediately that not as many will be available through trade? People will trade them, but it doesn't count as trading because they'll be equipped soon after? How does that work? Either the items are in the trading economy or they aren't.

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Q u o t e:
Therefore they will need to increase drop rates to make it possible to acquire these items. As a result, one expects the economy to become more stable, for item values to remain mostly constant over time, and for trading to be a non-essential part of the game because you can always find an item for yourself if you play enough.

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Define "play enough". That's a lot of guess work on drop rates to say that because items are removed from the economy through BoE that drop rates are increased to a degree where trading is completely killed because all items are dropping like candy.

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Q u o t e:
3) ....or at least, that is the naive prediction. Here's what will actually happen. Because drop rates are increased, it's much easier to find items. Most items aren't useful to the person who finds them...and people know that each item is their ticket to trading for an item they DO need. As a result, people horde BoE items and then trade them away. These horded BoE items will contribute to inflation. Because they are easier to find, the inflation will occur even faster than without BoE.

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Define "much easier". And again you have some notion of drop rates being out of control that's completely without foundation. I think in general, you're right, because items are removed from the economy through BoE their drop rates have to be adjusted to some degree differently than items that - once they exist they exist - and can move freely through the game forever. But jumping the chasm of reasonable amounts and going straight to "You'll be able to find any item you want " is extreme to say the least.

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Q u o t e:
End result: trading is not essential, because item rarities are common enough to be found, but trading is still extremely useful, because the best items quickly flood the trading market.

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That's... wuh?

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Q u o t e:
BoE gear is stupid and pointless. The only thing it prevents is a high level character from trading in the gear he has for his Wizard for high level gear for his new Monk.

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Awesome! I love adjacent contradictions.

"Seatbelts are stupid and pointless. All they do is prevent injury and death in mild to moderate car accidents."

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Q u o t e:
Again, its a stupid idea and just shows how out of tune the developers are with the diablo franchise

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I want so bad to come up with a name for this stuff. How about "Diablo Truth Movement"? DTruthers? That kind of has a ring to it.

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Q u o t e:
oh joy, bashed by bashiok ..

So the only reason youre putting in BoE gear is so players can't trade it in for equal gear?

wow, thats great. what a wonderful and interesting reason.

not to mention that i would assume someone of your stature would understand what that statement meant. Obviously the 'contradiction' was not something i figured would ever be put into this game.

Its almost as if you want a player to choose one character as a MAIN. Or perhaps this is just a cheap attempt at creating replay value since you realize gold as a currency will kill the game in a few months.

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Alright, alright. Permanently banned. I just don't want to read your posts any more. They hurt the part of my brain where the smarts be.

Also, Goldbar... BAD GOLDBAR! BAD! (but you also win today)

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Q u o t e:
Meh, i think the real issue people take with BoE is an inherent fear of change. For a lot of people, myself included, the joy of d2 was in acquiring the nicest equipment and that equipment had a sort of equity to it. If i got sick of my sorc i could trade my occy, skulders, shako and whatever else for other objects of my desire. BoE outright limits if not destroys most of your equity in that character. I think that is what most people would find distasteful about any BoE/BoP system.

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Sure, it's a valid point that by making items BoE you can't break a character down to trade directly for similarly rare items for a different character. But that's also what helps create a stable economy.

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Q u o t e:
Personally i prefer a trading econ over a system like say WoW's where gold is virtually worthless at a point, and a very easily obtainable point i might add.

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The trading economy in WoW is still based on a gold standard, and while it has inflated substantially in the 5 year life of the game, it's still relatively stable. There have been spikes to be sure *coughOgri'lacough*, and probably not enough there to regularly siphon gold out of the economy *lolmountslol*. But some of that is likely by design. It hasn't been a completely linear incline I'm sure, but to say it's worthless because there's been inflation is missing the fact that it works in WoW, has worked in countless games, and continues to work. But Diablo III is not an MMO, and you can only really make some superficial comparisons.

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Q u o t e:
Am I missing another reason why you actually might want to force people to have bound equipment other than you want everyone to find their own stuff which deminishes the trading economy and inflates prices beyond belief to the point where people feel almost forced to buy gold in order to afford the few rare items that actually are tradeable? (WoW AH memories, yuck)

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You seem to be confusing BoE (Bind on Equip), with BoP (Bind on Pickup). We do not have Bind on Pickup items. Except for quest items and things like that obviously.

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Q u o t e:
BoE also allows drop rates to be higher without flooding the economy.

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I want to downplay or even kill this notion now. We do NOT need to drop items more frequently because of Bind on Equip. Let's not kid ourselves here - the economy in Diablo II is broken. The "fix" for this broken economy is to, every so often, wipe it clean. All characters and items are swept into the trash bin that is non-ladder and we have a pristine economy ready to welcome trading with open arms... until it turns to crap and the whole cycle begins again. This wonderful dystopia also comes with incentives to play there (rankings/unique items/etc.) and it all works to help create a somewhat stable economy. For a little while.

We could have drop rates in Diablo III with the exact same frequency as Diablo II, and by making the highest items BoE, create a far more stable economy. But just adding in BoE items obviously isn't going to totally fix things all by itself. It's important to note that BoE items are not the one stop fix for all economic issues. It's going to take a lot of different attacks from a lot of different angles to ensure we have a nice stable economy. Bind on Equip items are just one of those attacks.

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Q u o t e:
An item based trading economy is much more dynamic than one based on gold.

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This is a very nice way of saying it's completely unmanageable.

The solution for Diablo II was wiping everything with ladder resets. We think there are better solutions, and they'll take time and effort to develop all of them.

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Q u o t e:
Whole thread is silly either way, honestly.
Bind on Equip/Pickup is a very large change to the game but, more importantly, it's something that has to be looked at holistically. We just don't have enough information to even put out some theorycraft either way.

Before we can even guess what impact this would have, we would need to know about:
1. Crafting system if there is one.
2. Any improvements to the trading system which, let's be honest, any change at all is going to be an improvement.
3. Upgrading system for items if it exists, and what it consists of.
4. Usage of items beyond selling to a merchant or another player, or using that item yourself.

Kinda the bare minimum of information needed before an actual judgment can even be thought about. :p

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Oh RR... you and your logic.

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Q u o t e:
I think Bashiok makes some valid points and I understand the logic.

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Thanks

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Q u o t e:
But if things end up going this direction I can tell you I and many others won't be happy. What happens to BoE?

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I was just going to... bbbuuuuuwaaaAAAHHHH!?

;)

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Q u o t e:
Lets take some mid level gear in WoW for instance like the staff of jordan or the fiery war axe. These are fantastic weapons for their levels. The prices for these items became instantly overinflated compared to other weapons because of their power. Now keep in mind it's a mid level item. I saw them going for an average of like 800-1200 gold depending on who was selling it. First off anyone who levels straight through the game and gets to lvl 50-60 has nowhere near that amount of money, so immediately you can assume new players can't afford it. Now it's become pretty much a twink only item for people who have hi level characters because of the lack of availability of the weapons because of their BoE distinction. In fact I saw a fiery war axe on the AH once for 450 gold, I instantaneously bought it.. knowing my character could have definitely used it I instead knew it was more valuable to re-sell it rather than equip it, outlevel it, then disenchant it. So i reposted it up for 800 gold and it was sold off. Is this what the defining moment of BoE is supposed to do? Personally I would have found it a lot more enjoyable to use the axe for 5 or 6 days, outlevel it, then sell it off. But that wasn't one of my options.

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We don't plan on making any items BoE except for those of a high "end-game" level, so that sort of invalidates your point of creating an issue for lowbies.

Also, what you're describing there is a result of there being an enormous gap in World of Warcraft between what a new player can earn while leveling normally and what a level-capped player can amass; not an inherent issue of having items Bind on Equip. The prices are high because people are willing to pay them, and they're willing to pay them because they have a lot to spend. The reason they have a lot to spend would logically stem from there not being enough systems or features designed to remove it from the economy as fast or as near as fast as someone can earn it. So the difference between what new players can afford and what high end players are able to spend becomes this huge unmanageable gap.

It's an economic issue to be sure, but not one created by BoE.

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Q u o t e:
What does BoE do? Inflation! It doesn't promote community or trading at all. After a while only the wealthy and rich can afford any of the good gear and new players will be able to do nothing but drool at items they will never be able to obtain unless by chance they are very very VERY lucky and find one. Not to mention they are going to outlevel these items in 10-20 levels and find something better.

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See above.

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Q u o t e:
What would have happened if there was no BoE? More players would have been trading these items after they outlevelled them and an increase in market flow = lower costs = competition = more community involved in trading of items of this kind of power. Sounds good and positive to me so far.

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What happens is that items continually amass toward infinity until they're worth nothing.

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Q u o t e:
The only place I can actually see BoE affecting things the way you are promoting it is if it is applied to endgame items only.

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lol. I must have read over this part and spent all this time writing stuff for nothing... well ... there it is. I'M NOT JUST THROWING IT AWAY!

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Q u o t e:
Even then I am still not happy about it cause what if you find something better than what you have equipped? Wouldn't it be great to give some hand-me-downs to your buddies rather than having to just sell it to a vendor, or trading it off for a piece of equipment you are missing? I think so at least.

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I think there are other questions you're missing.