I got into the beta (not through any special access or anything; I opted in on my Battle.net account and got into it via that method with the last round of invites.) I've played every character up to level 10 now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me and I'll try to answer.

Why am I not in the beta? :(

Does the female Monk have a strange standing/running animation or is it just me?

if you wanna play coop this weekend. let me know via PM.

Does it click real good?

If you never played a Diablo-style game before, does the beta have or hint at good tutorials, etc. to ease new players into the game.

I really don't think it's cool that House was bumped because of the stupid Tigers game... 
 
Oh sorry, this isn't Screened. The Witch Doctor is hot shit, eh? I've already seen an obscene amount of Beta footage- can't fuckin' wait.

Have you found any of the runes that are used to customize your abilities? How rare are they? Also how does character customization feel in general? It seems very limited on the surface but with the rune system it seems like it could be cool. And last but not least, thanks for the answers

Not sure if you have any special information, but do you have any idea if they plan to release extra content for the beta? Also is the level to skill unlock ratio going to be the same at retail? Seems odd that you unlock them so fast - but I suppose you can hit the end of a tree at level 30 in Diablo 2 so it's not that surprising I guess.

@Heti: Runes are not in the beta.

Does it seem like a video game that people would perhaps enjoy playing when it finally arrives on shelves and digital distribution?

Yo is there swords?

How many "Stay a while and listen"s have you heard?

@Havox said:

Does the female Monk have a strange standing/running animation or is it just me?

Looks fine to me, but then I'm normally killing shit rather than looking at my character.

@LiK said:

if you wanna play coop this weekend. let me know via PM.

Oddly enough, co-op feels kind of irrelevant at this point. Everything's so easy it just slows me down when the monsters get tougher.

@TooWalrus said:

I really don't think it's cool that House was bumped because of the stupid Tigers game... Oh sorry, this isn't Screened. The Witch Doctor is hot shit, eh? I've already seen an obscene amount of Beta footage- can't fuckin' wait.

It's a pretty neat class, although the most powerful skill in the beta is probably plague of frogs, which is hard to direct.

@mikewilm said:

How many "Stay a while and listen"s have you heard?

zero.

@L33tfella_H said:

Does it seem like a video game that people would perhaps enjoy playing when it finally arrives on shelves and digital distribution?

Yep!

@Wunder_ said:

Not sure if you have any special information, but do you have any idea if they plan to release extra content for the beta? Also is the level to skill unlock ratio going to be the same at retail? Seems odd that you unlock them so fast - but I suppose you can hit the end of a tree at level 30 in Diablo 2 so it's not that surprising I guess.

I hope they put the rest of Act I in there, at least, but I'm not sure what their plans are. Right now I can get through the entire experience on a given character in less than an hour. I suppose they're more interested in server loads and trying out the Auction House, though.

@yami4ct said:

If you never played a Diablo-style game before, does the beta have or hint at good tutorials, etc. to ease new players into the game.

If you can click a mouse, you can play Diablo III. They've eliminated a lot of the ways in which you could screw up a character in Diablo II, so you can't make any permanently bad choices here. EZ mode!

@Rorie said:

@LiK said:

if you wanna play coop this weekend. let me know via PM.

Oddly enough, co-op feels kind of irrelevant at this point. Everything's so easy it just slows me down when the monsters get tougher.

then we shall play coop in the final game in Hell mode. ;)

there is no cow level?

If you keep pressing numpad 6, does it say "Time to die"

This is important information

My favorite part of D2 was just the speed and chaos that could occur, especially in later difficulties and levels. Compared to D2, how fast is it or how hectic do you think it may get up to?

Have you died at all? What was the most difficult character to play?

@Ravenlight said:

Have you died at all? What was the most difficult character to play?

The monk early on is pretty weak and takes a bunch of damage. I think I've died once or twice, usually because of lightning enchanted enemies. But when you get to level six or seven, you can breeze through the rest of the beta without any problems.

None of the characters are all that difficult to use, I would say. They all get pretty rad by level 10 or so.

@Rongaryen said:

My favorite part of D2 was just the speed and chaos that could occur, especially in later difficulties and levels. Compared to D2, how fast is it or how hectic do you think it may get up to?

Well, the 3D monsters definitely limit the amount of stuff that can be on the screen at one time. Granted, it's early, but it doesn't look like there'll be dozens of enemies swarming you at once, at least not without some framerate hits. It's hard to judge the chaos factor so early on, though. There is a moment where you face off against four skeleton generators right before the Skeleton King that gets pretty hairy. The removal of sprinting definitely seems to have slowed down character movement, though.

Are there any classes that feel over/underpowered to you?

Can a "2011 13-inch MacBook Pro" run Diablo 3?

Do you think the removal of skill points in favor of the more player-friendly rune system is a good or a bad idea?

Does the Barbarian still have a sick warcry and the jumping capabilities of superman?

I haven't looked much into the specifics of this game's mechanics. I poked into the talent calculators a tiny bit, but didn't actually do anything with them. So, with my lack of knowledge, how's the character progression system looking?

Is gold going to be a meaningful resource or the same as it was in D2?

How's the loot so far?(appearance, upgrade frequency, anything else that I can't think of)

Followup question: which class has the best swirly "mana" orb?

Do you, by any chance, happen to love puppies?

Do you plan on playing hardcore?

Which class is your favorite based on your current experiences?

@Largo6661 said:

Are there any classes that feel over/underpowered to you?

They all feel overpowered for the content, but then it's the very beginning of the game and Blizzard's betas generally start out in "everything is a cakewalk because we're more interested in testing out graphics and systems than difficulty" mode. Cataclysm was ridiculously easy when that beta opened up.

@Sjupp said:

Do you, by any chance, happen to love puppies?

Do you plan on playing hardcore?

Which class is your favorite based on your current experiences?

I've never played hardcore and I don't intend to here. Never seen the appeal of losing hours of gameplay because of a lag spike.

I like the Demon Hunter best at the moment, just because I've always been an archer/ranged weapon person in these games.

I played Diablo 2 in the online hardcore mode. The ability to hit the escape button and then quit out in less than a second was what kept my guys alive when things got really hairy. Do you think this will be how hardcore players cheat death in Diablo 3 as well?

@Rorie: Can test the beta out on a 13 inch Macbook Pro 2011 model?

@Rorie said:

I've always been an archer/ranged weapon person in these games.

You are now my favorite whiskey media person. AMAZON FOR LIFE!

@ArbitraryWater said:

Do you think the removal of skill points in favor of the more player-friendly rune system is a good or a bad idea?

I think the removal of skill points is a great idea, honestly, especially in the absence of respecs. The rune system seems like it'll enforce a penalty to changing your character around (since you can't regain the runes that you embed, as far as I know), but it'll still let you try all of the skills that are available to your class before you solidify your playstyle, which is great. Anyone who's played D2 always wondered if the grass was greener as a bowazon or javazon, for example: now you can actually try them both without too many penalties. That's great.

@Bunnyman said:

I played Diablo 2 in the online hardcore mode. The ability to hit the escape button and then quit out in less than a second was what kept my guys alive when things got really hairy. Do you think this will be how hardcore players cheat death in Diablo 3 as well?

There's a ten-second delay on leaving the game in the beta, unless you're in town. It's basically the same thing as WoW, which keeps you in-game for 20 seconds after you "log out," to prevent people from doing stuff like alt-f4ing when they were about to get PVPed to death.

@YI_Orange said:

Does the Barbarian still have a sick warcry and the jumping capabilities of superman?

I haven't looked much into the specifics of this game's mechanics. I poked into the talent calculators a tiny bit, but didn't actually do anything with them. So, with my lack of knowledge, how's the character progression system looking?

Is gold going to be a meaningful resource or the same as it was in D2?

How's the loot so far?(appearance, upgrade frequency, anything else that I can't think of)

Yep and Yep on the Barbarian. The warcrys have a fairly short duration, though.

You'd probably have to be more specific regarding the character progression for me to answer that. It's effectively an entirely new system compared to Diablo II, with too many changes to sum up succinctly. Effectively, though, you earn skills much more rapidly (one a level between 1 and 30, I think), but you can only use a few of them at a time. You get them all for free without having to invest skill points, though, which is nice.

Gold thus far seems like it's easy to pick up and use. You have a disenchanting system where you break down your gear into parts, and use those parts to craft items at vendors, so those will likely be the dominant resource. Luckily you have a shared stash between all your characters, which will make it easy to move gear around.

Loot seems nice, although I've only found a few rare items in a good seven or eight hours of gameplay, and no uniques or set items or anything else. Not all the drops are in the game, though, I don't think, so I'm sure it'll all be adjusted before the game comes out.

not to get into spoiler territory but does it explain what's going on at the beginning of the game, like how Diablo comes back or what happened to Tyrael etc etc.

@Marz said:

not to get into spoiler territory but does it explain what's going on at the beginning of the game, like how Diablo comes back or what happened to Tyrael etc etc.

Not in the beta. There's no intro cinematic here, for instance, and no concrete mention of either Diablo or Tyrael from what I've seen. It looks like some kind of meteor hits Leoric's tomb, near the ruins of Old Tristram, and that re-awakens all the undead inside of it, and presumably from there you head off into the larger world after cleaning it out. There's really not much to the story in the beta.

Do ranged weapons require ammo? Thank you.

@cuirass said:

Do ranged weapons require ammo? Thank you.

Not anymore, thankfully! Both crossbows and bows are now ammo-free. If you have a two-handed ranged weapon, though, you can equip a quiver in your off-hnd slot (these might be Demon Hunter exclusive, though) to give yourself some nice passive buffs. They don't hold any ammo, though, and they don't show up on your character.

What classes do you feel work well together? & Who has the best mobility/get out of jail free cards?

Edit - Thanks for the answer.

@Adamsons said:

What classes do you feel work well together? & Who has the best mobility/get out of jail free cards?

Well, obviously you want a mixture of buffs and pure damage. The Monk has an ability that lets everyone take a 30% bonus to their chance to dodge, which seems huge, while the Demon Hunter can mark a target to make it take 20% more damage for a while (effectively Hunter's Mark from WoW). Barbarian has some nice buffs as well. Haven't seen any big buffs from the Witch Doctor or Wizard, but the WD has some nice utilities and the Wizard is likely going to be the best at dealing pure damage.

As far as mobility, I'd say that the Demon Hunter is probably the best, as she has a Tumble ability that can let her flip backwards, as well as an attack that automatically has her jump away from enemies that get too close. Barbarian has Leap still, though, and the Wizard has Teleport (although it has a cooldown now of 8 or 10 seconds, so you can't spam it anymore).