Threads about AH and DRM are already in full swing:

http://www.giantbomb.com/diablo-iii/61-20803/diablo-iii-to-require-always-on-internet-connection-at-all-times/35-508809/#49

http://www.giantbomb.com/diablo-iii/61-20803/real-money-auction-house-rumor/35-508799/#11

Well I just thought I'd collect the info in one place.

I don't care for the online part since I'm always online when I'm playing games anyhow and I was barely even aware of the fact that you could use mods for Diablo 2 so no loss there either. I'm not sure what to think about monetizing loot via AH though. As I see it people will just ninja stuff because of the real world profit and the one with cash will be able to buy himself to the top. Not cool.

I am not liking what I see here.

So skills and attributes are gone and the only character customization is done through runestones drops.
At the same time you can buy and sell drops and Vivendi takes a cut.
 
I bet those decisions had nothing to do with each other!

Diablo's one of my favourite games of all time. Been following D3's development fanatically since 2006(pathetic I know).
 
Still trying to digest the new information. Seems like everytime they release new information I cringe and fear more and more for my beloved horned friend.
Good interviews with Jay Wilson on their reasoning behind some of these decisions found here:
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/26249-diablo-3-press-event-visit/
 
It's from a dedicated site, so they actually know their stuff, unlike many mainstream gaming sites.

Daaaaaamn. I already heard about the skill point system and the real money AH last night, but constant online DRM and absolutely no mod support? Bummer.

Hey guys, we live in an age where if you're not connected to the internet at all times, you're probably homeless or living in Wyoming. Let's not act like this is a big deal. Sensationalism.

ACTIVISION AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

So, is this the point where everyone starts playing Torchlight 2 instead of Diablo 3?

Sort of reminds me of the time they announced SC2 would be 3 separate games and it would have no LAN support. People lose their shit and thought it was the worst thing in the world and look how well that turned out. This seems like the same thing all over again. People raging now only to completely forget about all of this once the game actually comes out...

@PrimeSynergy:

You're probably right. I am still planning on getting the game. I guess I just have to come at it from a completely different angle now. Seems more World of Warcraft than it is Diablo. That's just a huge change for those of us who loved Diablo/Diablo II.

I don't really see the big deal about the Auction House, there is one that uses real money and one that uses in game currency. There is nothing that is forcing you to use either of them.

Selling items in a loot based game still sounds fucking stupid however you look at it.

I'm curious to see how the "cash bar" auction house will work.  Blizzard is taking a percentage so I can't see anyone getting rich off their finds, but who's to say what the virtual market will look like a year from now?  Perhaps some rare drop will be worth $50 bucks or more.  The question I have is if you found a cool item, would you sell it for real-world cash or in-game currency?  If you'd rather sell it for dollars or Euros, wouldn't that create a tiered auction system where "good" items are only sold for real money and crap items are sold for virtual currency?  I'm not sure if that's fair especially with the addition of PVP.

Three really funny things to consider:

1) To prevent Real-World-Trading, they were going have items bind to characters, yet somehow this real-money AH system seemed like a better idea

2) Mods would be perfectly ok in a single-player setting

3) Everyone will still get away with map-hack. The only way to stop it is to make the entirety of the map data rest in the server, which would cause terrible latency (Though maybe Blizzard is ok with lag now?)

Some changes are great and some arent.