Gold Sinks Should be Exciting
We frequently discuss the Diablo economy, as we want players to feel that gold is a valuable commodity, useful in ways beyond just the auction house. We don't want out of control inflation, but we also don’t think that taxing players is the proper approach. Ultimately, we want to provide players with things that they are excited to spend their hard-earned gold on.
The most concrete example of how we're supporting this philosophy would be the crafting recipes we introduced in patch 1.0.7. While they aren’t meant to be the silver bullet for all economic concerns, they provide more avenues for people to spend their gold to receive something they can be happy about—in this case, potential upgrades for their character or alts.
Other avenues we want to explore include providing players with vanity options or potential ways to differentiate themselves from their friends or other characters (i.e. character customization options in terms of gear). We are also exploring ways to make crafting more exciting by adding not just more ways to make appealing items, but also introducing ways to modify existing items.