Yesterday, I touched on the Shared Stash changes and how it could be used as a business opportunity to monetize slot size upgrades and many other in-game "services".

For example, if Blizzard were to make the gold-collecting pets an extremely rare drop, they would then be sold on the RMAH. Those pets are extremely useful in-game and would be highly sought after. In essence, you're paying for a gold collection service using real cash.

I liked the idea so much, that I've decided to expand upon it.

Here are a collection of virtual items that could have low drop rates, forcing them to be sold on the Real Money Auction House:

• Items or Scrolls that magically increased your Stash, Shared Stash, and Bag Space slots. For example, a "Scroll of Minor Bag Space" that increases your slots by 3.
• Rare summon scrolls for those gold collecting pets.
• Even more rare summoning scrolls that summon pets that gain +10% gold. Just like the Daeity pet. (Blizzard, hint hint.)
• Vendor potions that increase your selling or buying prices for a fixed time or fixed number of items.
• Salvaging potions that improve salvage results for a fixed time or fixed number of items. Same for better enchants, gems, etc.
• Remove Experience Shrines, and instead have rare "+15% XP Gain" potions.
• Rare potions of Magic Find and Gold Find that complement your gear. These would be time based spells (e.g. 30 minutes.)
• Collecting multiple rare potions that can be mixed together to create new and improved effects.
• Selling "normal" Paid Services but as virtual items instead. Like Paid Name Changes, but using the RMAH instead.
• A portal scroll (like in Torchlight) where the player is transported to a small zone with above average loot and/or a guaranteed rare spawn. Because players might be paying $1-5 for something like this, it's sort of their version of DLC since it's an area inaccessible to most players unless they purchase it.
• The return of the Nephalem Cube and the Cauldron of Jordan, except that they're rare drops, they're tiered, and they require rare "upgrades". For example, you can only break down level 10 items when you get the initial item. You purchase pieces or upgrades to the item on the RMAH, and then you can break down up-to level 20 items, etc. Sort of like a cash sink vs gold sink.
• Mailbox upgrade items. Several items that allow you to upgrade your personal mailbox and it's appearance. Allows you to send more items at once and lowers postage fees.

If you have any other clever ideas for a paid in-game "service" (like experience gain, more cash, or faster travel), let me know and I might add it. :)

These items are so useful, especially for farmers and hardcore RMAH users, that Blizzard doesn't even have to restrict the items or try to force users to sell them on the RMAH. They'll be so rare and useful that they'll ALWAYS end up on the RMAH.

Other than "services", the Diablo 3 developer team has also been working through multiple iterations of the rune system. Skills could easily be bought from vendors, learned, or be personalized, but I think their intention is to make Runes sellable on the RMAH. The highest tiered runes will only be available on the RMAH, unless you're really lucky. This forces users to pay (in cash) to get new skills. I think this was the main reason why they have been having so many rune problems.. they've been forced to monetize the skill system, which significantly limits their creativity.

* UPDATE:

On February 7, 2012 Bashiok was posed the question about the removal of items (like scrolls) from the game, and if Blizzard planned on monetizing them in any way.

His response was:

@WilliamCairns1 We didn’t remove them so we could charge people for them later, if that’s your question.

So, this is the Blizzard Promise™. The Cauldron, Cube, ID scrolls, summoning scrolls, etc. will NOT be item drops when they return, players will get them for free (they won't cost gold or cash), and they will be "soulbound" (cannot be traded in any way.)

Shared Stash Changes

One of our readers asked me to comment on the reduction of the shared-stash size from 5 pages down to 3. Rather than leaving a comment, I'll just make a post about it (because it might get a little long.)

First, I want to address what Bashiok told his customers was the "reason" for this change.

found it necessary to ensure we could handle what we anticipate will be a large amount of data very quickly after release.

We obviously have room to grow if our projections are incorrect, or we just find that we eventually have the space.

He is giving users the impression that they don't have the server performance or infrastructure to handle the MASSIVE number of items that players will collect.

This is total bullshit and couldn't be farther from the truth. They've used this excuse in the past (the most immediate one to come to mind is the justification of the upcoming WoW Item Squish.)

Apparently, their databases are significantly limited and cannot scale. So I guess each character database entry can contain 500,000 fields, but 500,500 is just way too much for their databases to handle? I wish they would just be more open with their real reasons, rather than assuming their customers are idiots. (Sadly, most will believe him.)

In World of Warcraft, I had 15 guild banks with full bank tabs available on all of them. Even that wasn't enough for the number of items I had collected. And they weren't just hoarded items, either.. I was constantly selling these items and using the guild banks for crafting purposes or temporary storage of valuable AH items. In many cases, I was using them for long term storage for hundreds of Ruby Glasses (on different realms) to be sold when the prices increased.

The 5 slots in the Diablo 3 beta were not nearly enough for my needs. Even for a casual player, it was pretty limited considering that Diablo 3 is a loot centric game and Blizzard has kept pushing the loot quantity aspects of the game and reminding us of just how important massive storage will be.

Blizzard claims that they don't want players to mule, but this is exactly what was going to happen even before these changes. With the new limitation, there are going to be even more mule characters.. but aren't we limited to 10 characters per region? It's going to be brutal.

The real reason for this change has nothing to do with infrastructure or technology limitations, but rather they want players constantly "doing something" with the items. Eventually, when you don't have space for it, you'll either break it down (into gold or crafting mats) or you'll sell it. Even if you break it down into gold, eventually the gold sinks won't be enough, and you'll want to sell it. Whatever the case may be, Blizzard wants to you SELL IT and it will directly or indirectly end up on the RMAH.

Gold can only be sold on the Real Money Auction House. And it doesn't matter if you only sell items on the Gold Auction House, because someone will buy it and re-sell it on the RMAH anyways. These are all things they've learned from Diablo II.. when players run out of space, they sell it for gold, mule it (and then eventually sell it), trade it, or sell for cash on the blackmarket.

The reason for this change is simply to push RMAH use.

.. And These Changes Allow For Other Forms of Monetization

Bashiok claims that this is just temporary, so players should fully expect Blizzard to increase the number of slots shortly after their "testing" is completed. But I think that's a lie to cover up their intention to leave it as three. I think the extra slots will be made available at some point in the future. Wouldn't it be terrible and incomprehensible if Blizzard were to somehow monetize the slot size upgrades?

From a business and gaming perspective, you can disguise this activity by creating special "runes" or "item upgrades" that drop with extremely low drop chances. When you use these rare items, they will increase your bag or stash size. Because they are so valuable, players will sell these items on the RMAH. :)

Blizzard might also do this with gold-collecting pets when they make a return. Originally, Blizzard just gave these support pets to players for virtually nothing.. but when they make a return, they might be rare drops. When this happens, players lucky enough to get them will sell them on the RMAH.

In essence, you'll be spending cash to obtain an in-game service (the pets help you collect more gold.)

The beauty of this is that there will be guaranteed buyers for both the pets and "Stash-Size Increasing Runes". Hardcore RMAH users will especially be interested in purchasing all of these services or upgrades.

So, Blizzard.. if you haven't already considered this, but end up doing it, please make sure you name one of the Stash/Bag Size Upgrade items after me. :) Some players might not like it, but it's a great approach to monetizing services and upgrades within the game and very clever from a business perspective. If not, just be boring as usual and increase the shared stash pages in your next expansion pack. Too much monetization of the game can ruin your image, and most players will just be very happy to see the 5 slots back in the game.

Diablo 3 Item Duping Is Un-Possible

Over this past week, there have been Battle.net forum posts about item duping in the Diablo 3 beta. Truth is, it's actually been around for a while now in the beta but not too many users knew about it until recently.

Previously, hacking and duping was thought to be impossible in Diablo 3. Forum users, fanboys, and even gaming sites or blogs have frequently stated (sometimes as "a fact") that duping would be impossible in Diablo 3. Blizzard has said it would be impossible due to the game being online only, but it's mostly the users on the official forums who say it's impossible.. and they're never corrected.

Back in August, I had wrote all about this.

The Diablo 3 Retail will absolutely still have cheating, speed hacking, botting, and item duping tricks. Most of the item duplication you won't even know about. It will take years to finally close all of the gaps, the economy won't be anywhere where it should be (you'll never even know it though), and even then after years of patches, certain groups will still be duping items without Blizzard's knowledge. It still even happens in WoW, you just don't know about it since the "hacks" aren't shared publicly.

Two days ago, I had said to expect a new Battle.net Terms of Use to roll out soon, and once the new contract was live, users (who even signed the older one) would be presented with a new TOU that contains D3 / PayPal / RMAH related revisions.

It just went live earlier this morning.

The new Battle.net Terms of Use are actually dated "Last Revised December 10, 2011", however the official US link to the TOU (as of today) is still showing the old May 25, 2010 contract.

Interestingly, this TOU was updated on December 10, but it has only gone live just recently for others to see. It wasn't posted online for a good month and apparently Blizzard has been sitting on this new contract since December 10. On December 9, by the way, Blizzard first revealed the "Battle.net Balance" system and stated that it would be rolled out within a few weeks (it's been over 8 weeks now.)

You should see this information hit fan sites and the larger blogs later today or tomorrow.

As I had said in the earlier post, the sudden appearance of the old Terms of Use was just a prelude to a new TOU for users to sign.

Omega, Blizzard's Forum MVP, however stated that this was not the case at all. He reassured users that this was actually just an old feature, and the recent appearance was nothing more than Blizzard simply resetting the "has already read" checkbox to remind some users to review it again...

Daeity 1, Omega 0. :)

New Knowledge Base Articles Too

Some users are reporting that they were able to visit their eBalance Purchase page briefly, but that feature has now been removed and disabled. (Original US link, EU link.)

There are also new Support articles live that contain a wealth of new information. These are the US links, but EU users can search for Battle.net Balance or PayPal to see the new KB articles.

One was last updated January 20, with the others just yesterday afternoon ("Updated: 1/30/12 2:37 PM".)

Battle.net Balance Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Syncing PayPal with Battle.net

Adding Funds to Battle.net Balance

Changes to the Terms of Use

Here's what a cursory glance revealed. If I missed anything important, please let me know and I'll add it.

• A brand new section all about the new PayPal/RMAH system:
  

  6. Storing Value on the Account.
  
  A. The Account can be loaded with funds that can only be used to purchase goods and services on Battle.net. The Account is not a credit line, overdraft protection or deposit account. Unless otherwise required by law or permitted by this Agreement, all balances on the Account are non-refundable and may not be redeemed for cash. The Account does not expire, and you will not be charged fees for any reason. Funds which are loaded onto an Account do not accrue interest, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
  
  B. To load value onto the Account, go to https://us.battle.net/account/management/ebalance-purchase.html and follow the instructions provided to you on the page. All Account transactions are governed by the Terms of Sale, which can be viewed at https://us.battle.net/account/management/transaction-history.html. The minimum amount that can be loaded to an Account is $1.00, and the maximum daily Account balance is limited to $200.00. Blizzard reserves the right to change the maximum and minimum amounts at any time. You may load different currencies onto the Account (e.g., US Dollars, Mexican Pesos, Chilean Pesos, Argentinian Dollars) in order to engage in transactions on the Diablo III Real Money Auction Houses that use those currencies. The value loaded onto the Account shall be determined by converting the value of each of the various currencies that you have loaded onto the Account to US Dollars using the currency conversion formulas posted on http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-forex.html. All amounts loaded onto the Account are held and denominated in U.S. currency. Blizzard will not send you a statement of itemized transactions on the Account. In order to check the balance loaded on the Account, or review recent transactions on the Account, to go https://us.battle.net/account/management/transaction-history.html and follow the instructions on the page.
  
  C. Funds loaded onto the Account are used like cash for purchases on Battle.net, and you are responsible for all transactions made by someone using the Account. If you suspect that the Account has been compromised, you should contact Blizzard Customer Service at http://www.battle.net/support. The balance on the Account will only be protected from the point that Blizzard issues a message to you indicating that Blizzard has received your notice that the Account may have been compromised. From that point forward, Blizzard will take actions to freeze the remaining balance on the Account, and will unfreeze the Account once Blizzard has returned the control of the Account back to you.
  
  D. If Blizzard believes that the Account contains funds acquired illegally, either by means of compromising other Accounts or otherwise, Blizzard may remove those funds, suspend your access to the Diablo III Real Money Auction House, terminate the Account, and/or exercise any additional legal remedies available.
  
  E. If you agree to purchase goods or services from Blizzard and thereafter default upon your obligation to pay for such a purchase, you hereby agree that Blizzard shall have the right to freeze any funds currently loaded onto the Account and/or to remove and use those funds to fulfill your payment obligations in full or in part.

• The "9. Ownership" section has been expanded to include the RMAH:
  

  C. Virtual Items. Blizzard owns, has licensed, or otherwise has rights to all of the content that appears in the Service or the Games. You agree that you have no right or title in or to any such content, including without limitation the virtual goods or currency appearing or originating in any Game, or any other attributes associated with the Account or stored on the Service. Blizzard does not recognize any purported transfers of virtual property executed outside of a Game, or the purported sale, gift or trade in the "real world" of anything that appears or originates in a Game, unless such transfer is made using a marketplace administered by Blizzard, including without limitation the Diablo III Real Money Auction Houses.

• The whole section "7. The Blizzard Online Store" has been cut out of the TOU.

• The "Account Suspension/Cancelation" section has been expanded to include "a Game-specific Terms of Use", rather than just the Battle.net TOU and other agreements.

• A new entry in the "General" section has been added to let you know Blizzard will be collecting a bunch of information from your PC:
  

  E. Collection of Non-Personal Data. Blizzard shall have the right to obtain data that cannot be used to identify you from your connection to the Service without any further notice to you. Certain Games playable on the Service include a tool that will allow your computer system to forward information to Blizzard in the event that the Game crashes. This tool will collect system and driver data from your computer system during the crash, and forward a report containing that data to Blizzard.

• The "Massive Inc" in-game advertisements section, that was originally created for Starcraft 2, has been completely removed and replaced with a more general "expect there to be advertising in the game."
  

  16. DISCLOSURES; THIRD PARTY FEATURES.
  
  A. Advertising. Blizzard’s Games and the Service may incorporate third party technology that enables advertising on Battle.net and/or in certain Games playable on Battle.net, which may be downloaded temporarily to your personal computer and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Blizzard and/or its authorized third party advertisers may collect standard information that is sent when your personal computer connects to the Internet including your Internet protocol (IP) address.

The Interesting Bits From All Of This

• Blizzard and it's third party advertisers may collect "standard information" from your computer system. They were very ambiguous about this.. they did not specifically state "non-personally identifying information" like Warden and they stated that their advertisers may collect information from your PC when it's connected to the Internet. This could pretty much mean anything at all and at any time, including personally identifying details.


• Users worldwide will soon be able to use PayPal to purchase anything you want from the Blizzard Store, and it's no longer just limited to WOW Subscriptions.


• There seems to be a PayPal / Battle.net location check, like what I was predicting months ago.


• The Battle.net Balance maximum limit is $500.00 USD.


• You can add funds in increments of $10.00, $20.00, $50.00 or $100.00. Or, users can select "Other Amount". According to the Terms of Use, a minimum amount of $1.00 must be loaded and there is a maximum daily balance of $200.00 permitted.
  


• If Blizzard suspects that you cheated in any way to acquire your Battle.net Balance funds, they can remove all of your Battle.net Balance and suspend your access to D3 or your Battle.net account. There are a few other sections that also discuss the non-refundable conditions for your Battle.net Balance credits.


• If a prepaid credit card is declined, there's a $1.00 temporary hold of funds for each transaction attempt.


• Regional stuff: ".. you will be able to add value to your Battle.net Balance using your local currency (in EU, for example, players will be able to use Euros, GBP, and RUB). In certain regions where game realms and servers are shared by players in multiple countries, you will be given the option to choose one single currency. However, please note that Battle.net Balances for different currencies are tracked separately and cannot be used interchangeably. For example, you cannot use Battle.net Balance purchased using U.S. dollars in a non-USD-based auction house, and you are not able to transfer Battle.net Balance purchased in one currency to or from Battle.net Balance purchased with a different currency."


• Right now, you can't transfer B.Net Balance as a gift to others, but they plan on adding that feature in the future.


• Battle.net Balance cannot be used as an automated payment method for recurring WOW subscriptions.


• This TOU was revised specifically for Diablo 3, but you can expect another revision to happen as the SC2 Marketplace gets closer to completion.


• If you're a regular reader here, you'll know that I had been anticipating these changes this week since they were needed as a precursor to the release date announcement. Once the announcement is made (Monday, Feb 6 being the most probable at this time), the Battle.net Balance system will be fully implemented with the D3 Digital Pre-Download being made available sometime afterwords. After this is done, it will also be followed by new posts and official announcements about the PayPal and B.Net Balance system with instructions on how players can setup their accounts and start using it right away. All that remains now is if the actual release date will be 2 months from the announcement (traditions), or a condensed timeframe (which has been discussed in the past.)

On a final note.. boo-yah.

* UPDATE:

The "Battle.net Balance" and "PayPal Syncing" Knowledge Base Articles have just been removed by Blizzard. :)

I'm not sure if this is just temporary, or if they weren't supposed to reveal these Knowledge Base articles until the announcement (or later this week). If you didn't catch them earlier, you can still see their Google cache.

Go to Google.com and type:

"cache:http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/syncing-paypal-with-battlenet"
or
"cache:http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/adding-funds-to-battlenet-balance-3100032"

* UPDATE:

The "Syncing PayPal with Battle.Net" article is back up, and it's now showing an "Updated: Jan 31, 2012".

The "Battle.net Balance" article has been down for several hours now. It's possible that the Battle.net Balance article wasn't supposed to be put up until another announcement (front page post) took place first. Obviously, right now players can't even add money to their Battle.net Balance accounts so the support article is useless.