Activision Blizzard on Monday provided new details about its upcoming Diablo III, including an in-game auction house and the beta test.
The auction house system is intended to thwart what Blizzard called inconvenient and unsafe methods for acquiring game gear. If players wanted to trade or purchase items in previous versions of Diablo, they had to either advertise via Battle.net or purchase them on third-party trading sites.
"With Diablo III, we’re introducing a powerful auction house system that will provide a safe, fun, and easy-to-use way for players to buy and sell the loot they find in the game, such as weapons, armor, and runes," Blizzard said. "Two different versions of the auction house will be available in Diablo III: one based on in-game gold, which players acquire through their adventures, and one based on real-world currency."
Prior transactions have resulted in a "poor player experience and countless customer-service issues involving scams and item/account theft, to name a few," Blizzard said. The auction house, therefore, will be "a convenient, powerful, and fully integrated tool to meet the demand of players who wished to purchase or sell items for real-world currency, and who would likely have turned to a less-secure third-party service for this convenience."
Players can choose which payment to use on a per-transaction basis. The auction house can be accessed from any point in the game and items can be sold via a shared stash or from someone's individual character inventory. If an item fails to sell, it will be returned to the seller's stash, though Blizzard will take a small transaction fee.
That fee will vary by region, and more details will be released at a later date. Users, however, will have to pay a listing fee and a fixed charge if the item sells. Listing fees, however, will be waived for a limited number of transactions per account. If a player transfers the proceeds to a third-party payment service instead of a Battle.net account, meanwhile, Blizzard will also collect a "cash-out" fee. The company said it has no plans to sell anything directly through the auction house at this point.
The beta test of Diablo III, meanwhile, will be open to a lucky few selected by Blizzard. To throw your hat in the ring, make sure you have a Battle.net account and then opt-in to the beta via "Beta Profile Account Management" in Battle.net account management. This won't guarantee you a spot; Blizzard will send out emails with invites, at which point you can download the beta client.
"We plan on inviting players in waves, so if you do not receive an invitation in the beginning of the testing period, there’s a chance you might receive one in a later wave," Blizzard said. "Beta testers are chosen according to their system specs and other factors, including luck. Our goal is to have a good variety of system types to best test compatibility."
The first wave will begin with users in North America, including the 1,000 people who were promised beta keys at BlizzCon. Blizzard declined to say exactly how many people will be invited to the beta; "the number of players we invite will be based on our testing needs," the company said. An end-date for the beta has also not yet been determined, nor has a Diablo III release date, for that matter.
Those who do get into the beta will be able to test out all five character classes and play from the start of the game until the Skeleton Key encounter. "You’ll be able to interact with new and returning characters in New Tristram and fight the reawakened evils emanating from the cursed Tristram Cathedral," Blizzard said. "You’ll also experience the randomized elements of Diablo III as well many of the new system designs that take many of the core Diablo design elements to a whole new level."
The auction house will also be live within the beta; progress made in the beta will not carry over after the official game launch, however.
According to IGN, meanwhile, beta testers will be required to have a constant Internet connection when playing because characters will be stored on Blizzard's servers.