If you have the means and web development experience, I would recommend that you start working on a simple replacement for Diablo 3 Trade Chat as soon as possible and start promoting it. (I'll help if it's a good webapp.)

Bashiok has recently confirmed that D3 will only have private chat, and there won't be any open or public channels. The reason for this change is to prevent player trading and linking of items, forcing them to use the Auction Houses (ideally, the Real Money Auction House.)

They're in there right now. Unless people are expecting general open channels? We've consistently said we won't have those.

Blizzard has consistently stated that they won't have general chat?

It was said once. By Bashiok. 6 MONTHS AGO. And he said Chat Channels were working and that it would be like Diablo II IRC style.

Chat channels are in, and working. They're more like the Diablo II IRC style than the individual chat windows like StarCraft II has.

Having ways for friends and acquaintances to create social groups has been in the long term plans of the new Battle.net for some time. Whether they're called clans or not is a smaller detail. It's just getting the time to work on adding in those types of want-to-have features. Almost assuredly not for the launch of the game, but hopefully at some point in the future.

This change is another method, just like the recent stash size changes, to force use of the RMAH. Even if the RMAH isn't used directly, it's still used indirectly in many cases since pro users will be purchasing Gold Auction House items, converting to gold, and then selling it for cash.

Players will still want to trade items and engage in private sales, though, to avoid costly Auction House expenses. Or maybe they just don't want to take the risk of selling a valuable item on the RMAH, and would rather trade for it.

So, grab yourself a good name (like D3XCHANGE.COM, which is currently available) and give the players something they need: a very user-friendly website where players can simply select a region to join a Trade Chat IRC-like interface. No sign-in or registration required, posts require Captcha to prevent spam, and just make it really easy for players to come and go from.

This can't be a forum, IRC, or any other kind of overcomplicated process or something requiring an third-party application. It has to be something simple and easy, just like IMGUR.COM.

It's too bad item linking isn't possible (due to Blizzard's strict no mod policy), but eventually a item DB feature could be added for easier linking.

* UPDATE (02/08/2012):

I already talked about this in the comments below, but decided to add it to the post since they're often skipped.

The thing you have to remember is that spam is not an issue these days. It's not 1998 anymore and spam is easily preventable. If you work for a large business, you've probably seen their standard spam filters at work. Even if you own a GMail account, their spam system is incredible. Out of hundreds of thousands of spam messages, 1 might make it through and even then it's flagged as spam.

Within online games, there are many ways to prevent spam. Rift, for example, locks out general chat until the player reaches a certain (low) level. Spam is hardly ever an issue, because their support team addresses it so quickly, players are banned, and the spammers need to purchase a brand new $60 game. It's not worth their time spending $60 each time.. not only does it take a lot of time to setup, they might only be able to target a few individuals before they get banned. Spammers gave up because it wasn't worth the time and investments.

And that's just one simple method. There are also player reporting thresholds if you're limited on support staff (if enough unique players report someone specifically, they can be silenced until an investigation takes place), timer restrictions or flood protection, keyword detection, player preferences (they need to manually join the channels, or they can squelch channels), chat can be unlocked using non-scripted processes (leveling, doing a quick puzzle in-game, etc.), or even captchas are available.

Spamming existing in Diablo 2 because Blizzard never really tried to prevent spamming (it was possibly a technology limitation). In D2, key generators existed where spammers could create as many CD-Keys as they wanted without any cost. Even if they were banned, it didn't matter.. they didn't need to purchase a new CD-Key and had thousands more available. Spamming was (is) fairly easy in WoW due to Blizzard's very limited support staff, trial accounts, and they fully support modding. Their only preventative spam measures were 20-year old basic flood protection algorithms. It's gotten a lot better now than how it was.

Diablo 3 is a completely different beast, though. It's smaller, easier to support, and easier to patch or upgrade with new changes. Most importantly, though, Diablo 3 does not permit mods, and Warden will be actively searching for any third-party applications that interact with the game. Automation is detected and users are banned quickly (spam being extremely easy to detect compared to character botting.) And every time they're banned, a replacement spambot will cost $60. It's absolutely not worth the spammers time or money. And even then, this is without a rudimentary spam chat filter. If they were to employ a simple level restriction (and prevent D3 demos from public communication), it would pretty much end spam.

You might think to yourself; "Well, if Blizzard allows spamming, then they could make money from these spammers since every time they get banned, they have to pay another $60." But spammers aren't idiots, they're not even going to be spamming within Diablo 3 in the first place due to the high cost of replacement involved.

Simply put, there's not going to be any spamming in the first place, so there's no need for spam protection!

So, Blizzard is removing an essential communication feature for either two purposes. It either forces trading to happen within the Auction Houses, or it's used to prevent annoying spam and improve the customer experience.

But.. there's not going to be any spam in the first place! That just leaves forced AH use.

* UPDATE (02/08/2012):

So, either we had a Real ID incident where the public outcry finally forced Blizzard to change their stance on Public Chat within Diablo 3, or Bashiok wasn't reading the forums for almost 4 days and he just now realized he made a mistake.

Blizzard is now implementing public chat within Diablo 3.

It was always there, of course, since JW already confirmed it was part of the game. Question is.. did they intend on actually turning it on, or did they wait to see what the community thought first?

If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend that you check out the following video:



I was laughing my ass off throughout the whole thing (well, except for the silly last 10 seconds). It was created by the writer of Chronicle, and it has a few celebrity cameo appearances too. Normally I don't re-post stuff like this (the video will be growing in popularity), but it's something I couldn't resist sharing.

I haven't watched Chronicle yet, but I was planning on seeing it tomorrow.

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.)