During this morning’s investor conference Rob Pardo gave a presentation on the Real Money Auction House highlighting some of the main features. Along with explaining how the stash and buyout systems will work and pointing out the problems with Diablo 2 trading. An interesting comment was made regarding looking for the best deals. Rob stated that it was unlikely players would move between auction houses to hunt down the best deals. Unlike World of Warcraft which had many,many auction house instances, Diablo 3 will only have around ten auction houses so he doesn’t think players will be bothered to hop around to look for deals and really play the market.

Rob also explained the RMAH fee system again as some players have been concerned about the multiple fees. The reason Blizzard are adding a flat fee for placing the item is so player won’t simply add all their inventory at the end of their play session which will keep valuable items only in the RMAH.

The flat sale fee is so when Blizzard make balance changes it will allow the devs to make the changes to the game that may be needed, whether it be on items or game balancing. Rob says that this flat fee system and not a percentage are so they are not accused of manipulating the market when they have to make changes to item stats for balancing reasons.

The only time a percentage comes into play is to the third party payment company which we already know.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be quite a few Diablo 3 players who will play the Diablo 3 market as best they can and really scour the AH for the best deals and keep a very close eye on the value of specific commodities and also gold.

Read on for a paraphrased transcript on this courtesy of Sentarius…