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New Details on Diablo III Auction House Revealed; Global Play Detailed
May 1st, 2012 by Steve Perry
Blizzard has sent out new information about the real-money Auction House feature coming in Diablo III, which is scheduled for release on May 15th. Starting with their new Auction House Guide, Blizzard explains how players can earn money playing the game through the sale of gold, gear and craftable materials.
Most importantly, the guide clarifies the cut that Blizzard will take from all real-money transactions on the D3 Auction House. For equipment like weapons, armor, accessories and other unique items, there will be a $1.00 USD transaction fee per item. For commodities such as gems, materials, dyes, pages, recipes and other non-unique items, the fee is 15% of the final sale price. In addition to these costs, Blizzard will also charge 15% to transfer any money earned to a PayPal or similar account. So if your plans aren’t to bank cash to pay for your WoW subscription, more D3 items or upcoming Battle.net Shop items, you may be hit pretty hard by the Blizzard tax man.
The company also clarified the new Global Play feature that they are rolling out with Diablo III. This feature allows players from all over the globe to play with individuals in other regions. While the real-money Auction House is locked to your home region, you can play in any of the three major regions at will.
These regions include The Americas (US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia), Europe (European Union, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa and the Middle East) and Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau). While you will generally create characters and play in your home region, you can swap this region at will from the in-game options.
The catch? Well, characters, items, and friends lists are all locked to your region, so players will need to create specific characters for each specific region only.
This feature, if successful, could also be a highly valuable feature for the company’s StarCraft title, as many high-level and competitive players often need to purchase alternate copies of StarCraft 2 just to play in different regions.