Diablo III Auction Houses getting shut down!

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The Auction Houses have been a huge point of contention within the Diablo III community since the games’ release. Some have argued that their benefit outweigh the downfalls, while others argue the opposite. Blizzards original intention was to mitigate the interference from potentially dangerous middle man or black market websites selling in game items to those willing to pay. The effects of the Auction Houses weren’t exactly as positive as the team had hoped for. The primary issue being that good, high level loot was incredibly rare. Many players claim spending days, or weeks, grinding away at the hordes of enemies to be rewarded with mountains of useless trash loot. In essence many players felt that the best way to play the game was to effectively play the Auction House, which is not exactly fun.
 
Well, it’s taken a bit of time, but Blizzard is showing us that they’re really listening. First they announced a whole load of new content with the Reaper of Souls expansion. The expansion will be adding a new hero, 10 new player levels(and skills to go with those levels), and a whole new act. Sounds cool right? Sure, but what else? Well, they’re adding the Loot 2.0 system into the game once Reaper of Souls launches. Loot 2.0 lowers trash drops, and adds smart loot. Smart loot adds a chance for loot to take on stat properties important to the player the item drops for. Loot 2.0 also increases the odds of Legendary items dropping by allowing all Legendary items to scale up or down based on when they drop. Of course they’re also adding new Legendary items.
 
There are only 2 things left to fix Diablo 3 in the eyes of the players at this point: Drop the Auction House, and remove the Always Online restriction. Guess what? Auction Houses are being dropped! As of March 18, 2014 the Auction Houses, both gold and RMAH, will be shut down! Bad ass right? Well think about this one: The only reason there was an Always Online restriction was to regulate the access to the Auction Houses. In the video below Josh Mosqueira, current director of Diablo III, says to expect more exciting information at BlizzCon. I suspect we’ll be hearing about an Offline mode and, most importantly, a release date for Reaper of Souls that should be very close to, or on, March 18, 2014.
 
Check out the video below, and the official statement over at the Diablo III blog. Of course, don’t forget to tell us how pumped you are for all the changes coming to Diablo III in the very near future in the comments section below!
 

Eric is not a boss. You can Email Eric or follow Eric on Twitter @EricSweeten or Facebook

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