All weekend people have been drooling and anticipating the new and significant Patch 13 changes. Mostly the ones that revolve around the gold based auction house and real money auction houses. All together these changes include:

• The addition of a public chat rooms (Class Chat, General Chat, Trade Chat, etc
• New Interfaces: Skill & Rune UI, Quest Selection UI and Character Profile UI
• A massive effort to balance classes by adjusting skill details
• The method of obtaining ‘Rune Skills’ has been completely changed

Auction House Changes:

• All listing fees have been removed.
• The transaction fee has been increased to 1.25 Beta Bucks and is incurred when a sale is made.
• A limit of 10 auctions per auction house has been set.

The most important changes, to us, are the ones at the end. But first, take a look at the new rune skill system which finally removes the countless Runestones that were in the game, and also the Rune Dust that was listed in battle.net’s game guide. With those gone and the Mystic long removed, the Diablo III economy starts to take shape. With all these changes and consolidations taking place it makes me wonder if we’ll soon see an axe to the current gem system which I outlined earlier this month.

What we don’t know.

I’m sure you’ve already read about all the auction house changes and what everyone thinks about them. To some, it’s the end of the world. To others, it’s the beginning of a new tomorrow. To me, I’m not impressed. Blizzard is working hard and reshaping the game left and right. They removed huge aspects of the game and redesigned what was left in the last 30 days alone. They are as much as 6 months behind their original schedule and they are still releasing unexpected changes every few weeks. We have no sign of a release date and no hopes of an announcement anytime soon. Everything short of the character models are still likely to be refaced between now and release date.

While a 10 auction limit per auction house seems absurd and limiting, we have no idea what Blizzard is going to set this at in the end. Some people have suggested that a Beta Buck will equate to a U.S. Dollar in the live real-money auction house so the auction sale fee will be $1.25. We have no idea though. We have no idea what fees are going to look like, will they be pennies or dollars? We have no idea how we will be charged for selling or how we will trade in trade chat. We have no idea how the random crafting system will work or how abundant gems will be. We have no idea what will receive Blizzard’s axe next.

Given all that, it doesn’t mean we can’t speculate, but once in awhile we have to acknowledge how volatile the beta really is. Regardless, I will be testing, testing and testing some more the in game auction house systems and reporting everything I learn here. Thanks for being a part of this learning experience, if you haven’t already please subscribe to this blog and stick around for the release of Diablo 3.

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