After some delay, the real-money auction house in Diablo 3 has finally gone live in the Americas game region. The Europe based auction house will be up and running this upcoming Friday. The purpose of the real-money auction houses is to obtain, buy and sell Diablo loot which you can find in the game in order to gear up your character whichever way you would like to.
The auction houses use actual currency through an approved third-party payment or using the Battle.net services that they provide. You are able to purchase any items using the U.S. dollar, the Australian dollar or the Mexican peso. Other American currencies and the European currencies information will be available at a later date according to Blizzard.
“We are rolling out the elements of the real-money auction house separately to ensure all of our players have the smoothest possible experience. We’ll have more information on the availability of the European real-money auction house and the remaining Americas currencies soon”, Blizzard had said in a post today.
In a nut-shell, accessing the real-money auctions is fairly simple and straightforward. You click on the “Auction House” button on the left-hand side of the campaign screen and from there another button showing your region’s currency is in the upper right-hand hard of the interface. If you want more detailed information on how to operate the auction houses, Blizzard offers an Auction House how-to.
There has been some talk about whether or not this type of feature is right for Diablo 3 and should be allowed. Players have felt that it’d ruin the experience that the player’s get from the game because they are now buying items rather than earning them. Of course, there is nothing saying a player has to use the Auction House, so if one feels that they do not want to be a part of it, they do not have to be. Either way, with the auction houses being up, we shall find out whether or not this will actually work within the Diablo universe.