The real-money auction house has been up and running for three weeks now. In that time we’ve seen the Horadric Hamburger plummet in value, before clawing back some market confidence to settle at the more respectable average buyout of £23.53. But amid all the burger-drama, Blizzard still aren’t allowing Diablo 3 players to purchase gold and certain commodities for real cash. Until now! While gold will remain off limits, commodities like gems and crafting materials are about to become tradeable goods.
Community manage Kaivax revealed the real-money auction house update earlier this week, listing the items that will become available -gems, dyes, crafting materials, blacksmithing plans, jeweler designs and pages of training.
The stafferadds: “The ability to trade gold as a commodity won’t be included in this initial update, but we hope to enable it in the near future” Trading in-game gold for real cash is a slightly contentious issue that requires some careful regulation on Blizzard’s part, given that it skirts so closely to the maligned (and now illegal in South Korea) practice of automated gold-farming for profit.
Expect cash-4-gold functionality to be implemented as soon as Blizzard are confident it won’t be utterly abused by crooks.