Did RoTW ruin trading in D2R ? (yes imo) .

Dreez wrote: 23 hours ago

Some of us really hate blizztard for what they've both done and become in the past years - imo a steady decline in both gamequality and connection to fans - and me personally refuse to spend 30€ on a dlc with a single class and no new real extra content , i think it's a moneygrab .
And now i've seen that the market as been split in two, the D2R and the RoTW playerbase, and the D2R trades has reduced SEVERELY compared to how it was in previous seasons pre-rotw , and it's now almost impossible to find anything to trade .... can't even find White items listed .

Imo they need to fix this so that D2R and RoTW can trade and share games, eventho D2R owners can't play the warlock.
We still share 99.9% of the same game, there's no new content .

I totally understand that you don't want to pay 25 Euro, which is insanely overpriced.

Just compare it to Diablo 4, so the same studio:
They

Charge 40 Euro for 2!! new chars and a complete new act.

So several times the content for 40 bucks vs 25 bucks.

And on top of that, with Diablo 4 the Quality of Life improvements will be avaiable for everybody for free, even if you don't but the AddOn.

So guys, PLEASE stop claiming that 25 bucks is cheap and that it can#t be done differently.
Blizzard themselves are doing it differently with Diablo 4.


My personal Diablo 2 history is an on and off - I played a lot when it was released back in the days.
Then I stopped for many many years, until D2:R was released.
Played a lot again.
Then I made a pause for 2 more years and resumed playing a little.
Made another pause.
Resumed a few month ago and played again.

Now, with RotW I'll just stop playing once again.

If it is on sale for 10 bucks someday I'll buy it and play again a little.

I suggest you do the same. There are tons of other games that are a lot of fun to play, just avoid AAA games.
If you are interested I'll gladly give you some recommendations, depending on what kind of games you are interested in.

Each to their own - everybody has their own "fun". Some people like to play different games all the time, some can play the same game for hundreds, if not thousands of hours - so the subjective value is also different for every single person. Everybody is free to vote with their wallet, and there's really no bad answer.

Like, recently I've played a few hours of GoW: Ragnarok and Expedition 33, and put them back on the shelf. However, in games like D2, Factorio or Stardew Valley I can spend hundreds of hours - so I don't mind spending 25 bucks on them once in a blue moon. Are there games with better value for money? Probably, definitely. But they're not value for me.

One thing I can add is, you don't see a river of

Baal Runs rooms anymore, made out of boredom. Right now everybody has something to do, something to pursuit. This alone is kinda amazing, thinking of a game 20+ years old.

I am more than happy to pay full price to the enhancement this DLC brought to the game. I am having fun, and I am sure everybody I know is having too.

Totally understand that changes are difficult to accept sometimes, specially thinking of 20+ gaming years, and you don't have to agree with other people's opinions.

IMO its clear that Blizzard is interested in keep upgrading the game - If they receive money for it - and I want to be part of it, I don't want to lose the opportunity of upgrading my character's items.

In regard of making D2R more D3, I can't agree with that. RotW uses the same essence of the core game, and it's fun to play and test and discover things. And right now we have more to do, more options to play.

In regard of Warlock being crazy powerful, I see it as a strategy - If Blizzard develop a weak character, why bother to play? They probably did that with the purpose of making people play with it, and have fun.

TL;DR: Do what brings joy to your life.

imo it kind of ruined the whole game. Not for all the issues it introduced, but now if you dont own that expansion; the game is pretty darn empty. It was empty as is before, but now? holy sh-t... We dont play with the expansion players at all, cant see them anywhere, cant drop their loots etc.
There are very few games around because everybody plays warlock

My D2 experience was started 25 years ago with the original game, but without online play (it was a pain in the * with dial up internet and came with horror phone bills). After that LOD came and played that as well. Then just lost the original CD's and after few years I did a few years pause.
About 7-8-10 years ago (don't remember exactly) I bought the game again for a few bucks (it was 3000HUF, about 15$ then with LOD). Ofc it was a massive gain to play it on battle.net, could reach lvl97 with my necro, but did not play any other classes back then. After that, another few years of pause.
Then came the battle.net application and my surprise that even if I have the original copy, I can not use it in the current version and all my stuff is lost (not merged to the new battle.net). Then I played with the D3 as well, which was very boring to me. Can not explain why, but it was.
Oh, and I bought D2R to let me play the game with the then current content. So I already bought the game 4x and I am just a casual player.

However I am thinking to buy the RotW, but...

Anyway - Blizzard's math is interesting: in my world 25USD != 25EUR (it is about 21EUR now).


Back to the question in the thread. Did it ruin the trading? Yes it did, but only if you did not buy the RotW yet. People often don't care the color of that small icon in your trade listings (maybe too small?). My last few deals was storno because of that.

We should accept it, this is the new thing, everybody, who already changed, is enjoying it.

Side note still : some traders have kept some mules in D2R (that's my case) to be able to trade on both sides.

Filtering on d2.

Io does not allow (yet?) to declare that you can trade both in LoD and RotW but you may still have a market on LoD with people in LoD and in both sides

As for RotW : I share Schnorki's view, bringing a decent addition to the game is a very good surprise, could have been so much worse (I swear, as I play d4 and sometimes it's cool and sometimes it's...ugh, as at the few items reset they made). As for the pricing, I guess it depends really on your own personal situation and expectations.

WedgeAntilles wrote: 11 hours ago

So guys, PLEASE stop claiming that 25 bucks is cheap and that it can#t be done differently.
Blizzard themselves are doing it differently with Diablo 4.

Well, I think there might be a crucial point you overlook and which @ShadowHeart has pointed out now several times: D2 players are mostly NOT D4 players and there might be a not too small amount of players who explicitely do not want the DLC stuff - including the QoL features! (there is a reason why there is already the Classic Mode in D2R). To respect the wish of those long term players not to touch the game, the only way to do something new is to "fork" a new branch. Now, all "conservative players" can stay in D2R while the "progressives" can move to RotW Funnily, in RL I am a staunch conservative person but overall I like what they did and therefore decided to switch and hope for further improvements and optimization.

As for the price: I can either take my family out to dinner at a restaurant or buy each of them RotW. Now my wife and daughter will have one lovely dinner, while the boys and I will gather in the basement countless times.

Necrarch wrote: 10 hours ago

Side note still : some traders have kept some mules in D2R (that's my case) to be able to trade on both sides.

I also still have everything from the old world in the old world, including nearly all mid to high runes. It is more time-consuming but you never know what happens...

oOKIWIOo wrote: 9 hours ago

[..]
As for the price: I can either take my family out to dinner at a restaurant or buy each of them RotW. Now my wife and daughter will have one lovely dinner, while the boys and I will gather in the basement countless times.
[..]

That's probably really the thing though.
For you, that's "dinner per person".
For some, it actually is quite a lot.
For me, similar to you, the cost of RotW is less than ordering a pizza (which is f'in depressing actually..ordering food got way too expensive and bad since the delivery apps took over) and I've already gotten far more out of it than I would've out of a single luke-warm pizza.

I would gladly dished out another 20-30 bucks for more content ( acts, classes, etc) and QOL changes.

Because of the Warlock league i came back to D2r. Otherwise, there simply is no motivation or appeal to play a game that i've explored inside out for decades.

The QOL changes brought it closer and maybe on-par with other competing titles in the ARPG market.

so screw the salty broke bois whiners and bring em DLC comin' boys!

Remember the saying "ok boomer" from several years ago?

Keep playing legacy if you want. It's the same thing when a new game comes out and everyone jumps ship. Hell, you can keep using a flip phone if you really want.

For the "blizzard bad" piece, the last thing I've bought from them is RotW. Then D2R. Then LoD. Literally nothing else. I support D2 and not a company.

I guess to actually answer the question, no I don't think RotW ruined trading. It makes it harder for legacy D2R and that's it.

Idk man. If you don't like it you don't have to play it. It's the genius about gating LOD from classic, and rotw from both.

$25 is cheap for a game. I'm eyeballing re9 for $70 bucks and i'll get 1/100th of the playtime out of it that i get from d2r

$25 may not be cheap for you, but for a game in today's market it's incredibly cheap. If you want attention paid to your game, updates, balance changes, etc - then you need to support the devs by buying the game.

If you don't - then don't and that's fine. The price tag is definitely in line with, if not below, market value for the amount of content it added.

oOKIWIOo wrote: 9 hours ago

Well, I think there might be a crucial point you overlook and which @ShadowHeart has pointed out now several times: D2 players are mostly NOT D4 players and there might be a not too small amount of players who explicitely do not want the DLC stuff - including the QoL features! (there is a reason why there is already the Classic Mode in D2R). To respect the wish of those long term players not to touch the game, the only way to do something new is to "fork" a new branch. Now, all "conservative players" can stay in D2R while the "progressives" can move to RotW Funnily, in RL I am a staunch conservative person but overall I like what they did and therefore decided to switch and hope for further improvements and optimization.

The argument that is made is: A dev needs to earn money, so they HAVE to price RotW the way they did. It is impossible to do anything else. Asking for free stuff is impossible.

I attacked this argument and proofed it wrong, by pointing to the simple fact that the same dev is handling stuff completly different in a another game.

That people seriously claim that "Blizzard is so awesome, it is protecting its players" with the way they handle RotW is probably one of the funniest things I have heard in the last 12 month.
As if people would complain when their gems stack up in the inventory instead of taking one slot at a team. Ridicilous.

It is done out of greed, pure and simple. And because they know they can get away with it.
Like I already said once - I am seriously disappointed that Blizz didn't

Charge 70 bucks for RotW. They would have gotten away with this as well.
Let's hope they learn something and make the next DLC 70 bucks+.

bro if you're upset that rotw wasn't free then the only thing I can say is just don't buy it and keep playing LoD. there's nothing wrong with that.

the fact that they kept a layer between D2R and RotW is a GOOD thing, it kept the legacy of d2r in tact while giving others a cheap option to upgrade to more modern qol updates and new things for the game.

If you think $25 for the DLC is a greed move then, i just disagree.

Spectie wrote: 1 hour ago

bro if you're upset that rotw wasn't free then the only thing I can say is just don't buy it and keep playing LoD. there's nothing wrong with that.

the fact that they kept a layer between D2R and RotW is a GOOD thing, it kept the legacy of d2r in tact while giving others a cheap option to upgrade to more modern qol updates and new things for the game.

If you think $25 for the DLC is a greed move then, i just disagree.

I think you need a target to compare.

Hades II . best game of 2025.

Charge for 30 USD.

leox wrote: 1 hour ago

Spectie wrote: 1 hour ago

bro if you're upset that rotw wasn't free then the only thing I can say is just don't buy it and keep playing LoD. there's nothing wrong with that.

the fact that they kept a layer between D2R and RotW is a GOOD thing, it kept the legacy of d2r in tact while giving others a cheap option to upgrade to more modern qol updates and new things for the game.

If you think $25 for the DLC is a greed move then, i just disagree.

I think you need a target to compare.

Hades II . best game of 2025.

Charge for 30 USD.

exp 33 was the best game of 2025 and it was $49 I have over 100 hours in exp 33. I have over 1000 hours in d2r and i've spent $40 ($15 for d2r and $25 for rotw)

Dispatch was $30 for an 8 hour game and it's incredible

most games releasing now are $69 and $20 extra just for the "deluxe" edition with additional costumes

WedgeAntilles wrote: 2 hours ago

That people seriously claim that "Blizzard is so awesome, it is protecting its players" with the way they handle RotW is probably one of the funniest things I have heard in the last 12 month.
As if people would complain when their gems stack up in the inventory instead of taking one slot at a team. Ridicilous.

I for my part do not claim to know what Blizz is thinking or not thinking (therefore the "might" in my first sentence). But when the same company treats its own games differently there might(!) be a reason why they are acting as they do. And yes, of course in the end they need and want to make a profit. But since I neither know their short-, mid- or even long term-strategy, all we have are some educated guesses. It seems, at least to me, reasonable to assume that the D2 and D4 player base is significantly different and therefore in accordance the games are treated differently (and yes, some have already said they do not buy RotW because it will make the tetris with their mules obsolete - believe it or not).

Spectie wrote: 58 minutes ago

leox wrote: 1 hour ago

Spectie wrote: 1 hour ago

bro if you're upset that rotw wasn't free then the only thing I can say is just don't buy it and keep playing LoD. there's nothing wrong with that.

the fact that they kept a layer between D2R and RotW is a GOOD thing, it kept the legacy of d2r in tact while giving others a cheap option to upgrade to more modern qol updates and new things for the game.

If you think $25 for the DLC is a greed move then, i just disagree.

I think you need a target to compare.

Hades II . best game of 2025.

Charge for 30 USD.

exp 33 was the best game of 2025 and it was $49 I have over 100 hours in exp 33. I have over 1000 hours in d2r and i've spent $40 ($15 for d2r and $25 for rotw)

Dispatch was $30 for an 8 hour game and it's incredible

most games releasing now are $69 and $20 extra just for the "deluxe" edition with additional costumes

well thanks, I will definitely try exp 33/ hades II before I buy into RotW.

Just saying that I prefer to buy something fun and enough interest for me.