Lost all interest in D3 after hearing about the real-money AH. Also, last I heard there will be no hardcore mode (death is permanent) in the game. As someone who exclusively played HC mode this is a game-breaker for me as it made diablo 2 a completely different game.

The recent gameplay changes are worrisome, and the departure of key people who were working on the game suggests there wasn't a unified vision for the final product over at Blizzard.

The AH will encourage gold-farmers of epic proportions as the potential to make real money will be too great for people. I guarantee you will have people who don't even play the game, but rather just play the AH like some kind of day-trading abomination. That will mean vast market inflation which I could definitely see resulting in the equivalent of a pay-to-win dynamic, especially on the PVP side of things.

A gear/loot game that allows you to buy gear/loot with real money? No thanks.

Diablo 3 will have a hardcore mode (last I heard) and, IIRC, the hardcore mode will not have a real-money AH.

It was confirmed at BlizzCon that there will be a hardcore mode.

One thing I've always had a problem with in Diabloesques (or whatever) is that melee classes inevitably end up in a very poor position as their damage-dealing position is far from ideal at higher levels. My time in Titan Quest was mostly spent just running in circles, trying to avoid getting hit more than once as I tried to chop something back. It became rather frustrating after a while.

As I recall, I ran into the same issue in Diablo 2, and possibly in Diablo (although I only played that for a few hours years ago). I hope characters are a bit more resilient in D3 - hack-and-slash stops being very fun when you spend all your time kiting as a melee class.

So edit it out. Don't want someone to chance upon it and not notice your later retraction.

You won't have to use the AH... but anyways, don't know about that part, http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/ check out the link for more.
Same thing with Dungeon Siege 2. Your melee char was best at the beginning, but then once the game got a bit more serious (higher levels) major damage dealers were the mages.

What on earth game did you guys play that you're calling Diablo II? You could only map and easily access like 2 skills in the Diablo II I played.

All character builds concentrated on one or two skills, WW Barb, Charged Boltress, Hydra Sorc, Frozen Orb Sorc, CE Necro, Hammerdin, Zealot, etc. Hell some classes depended not only on one active skill but a specific piece of gear as well (I'm looking at you, Zons).

You can play the game like that, just like you can play a modern FPS while turning and aiming with your keyboard.
First of all, you can remap your controls.

For my Wind Druid, I had:
1-4 potions
5 Battle Command
6 Battle Orders
Q - Cyclone Armor
W - Tornado
E - Hurricane
R - Teleport
T - Town Portal
A - Ravens
S - Poison Creeper
D - Spirit of the Oak
F - Spirit Wolves
G - Grizzly
X - Swtich weapons
Y - Throw (in slot 1)
Z - Unsummon
` - Show belt

For my Hammerdin, I think I had something like:
1-4 potions
5 Battle Command
6 Battle Orders
Q - Concentration Aura
W - Blessed Hammer
E - Holy Shield
R - Teleport
T - Town Portal
A - Salvation
S - Redemption
D - Vigor
F - Cleansing

I've probably forgotten a few, but I used a similar arsenal of keybinds for also my Bone Nec, Fire Sorc, Lightning Sorc, Trapsin, etc. My brother played a Barb and I think he needed even more binds than me.

You can get reasonably far in the game by only using two skills (and bitch that it's hard), or you can make use of the full arsenal of skills of every character and really have a smashing experience.

Okay, that's great, but most people do not play a modern FPS by keyboard turning, but most people did play D2 exactly the way I described, 1-2 skills, and I assure you on launch Necros soloed Hell in 8 player games with just CE. Yes, that got nerfed, but no matter how much they nerfed D2 it still played that way (and, no, no one thought it was hard) by most people.

If you're saying TQ was 2 skill game when it actually had way more skills and combos than D2 ever could have hoped to have had, I just don't get it. Why weren't you willing to do your crazy key-bind/eek out 10% more power thing with TQ? It actually works better there.

It doesn't matter what 'most' do. I also started out as 'most', after a few years I no longer played it like that. That's the beauty of Diablo II, the depth and the possibility. I wouldn't have played it for 8 years to just press two buttons, I played it because the game offered me an in-depth experience. It's great that there are games out there that actually have multiple life cycles and consistent evolution. People play that game because they can things like this. Diablo II still has an active community and Blizzard released another (albeit small) content patch either last year or in 2010. How many 'AAA' companies look after a decade old game?

re TQ2, like I said that was simply my observation and I didn't play the game much, so I'm not one whose opinion should be given the highest regard. Likewise with you and Diablo II.

This was my experience with both games too. I enjoyed the different play experience between the classes in Diablo 2 far more than in Titan Quest. I ended up finishing Titan Quest/ Immortal throne with a rogue/hunter because it was almost as fun as a Diablo 2 Trapsin. Just less interesting to watch.

Maybe some classes could get by with two binds In Diablo 2 but many where at their best with proper binds. Clawsins, multiple element trapsins, Even whirlwind barbs benefitted from a shout or two as well as leap. The only class I played that could solo hell with two binds was a skelemancer... Once your minions where up you could live on corpse explosion (even nerfed) and teleport (amulet) to focus your minions. Lightning javazons could get by on one bind, but how boring to play one.

I haven't seen too many Diablo 3 videos but the one I did see had the Tiered armor reveal, which I thought Looked great. Diablo 2 ran out of graphics for weapons and armor pretty quickly. You'd reach the end and it would just loop back to leather once more, with a different name.

You know, the game changed a lot with 1.10!
It was made about 10x harder and they added synergies to compensate. It is a lot harder now but if you build your character right and grind the right gear - my god is it fun.

I tried looking for some videos but unfortunately the vast majority are by noobs. This one's not bad though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMqBRkUaHtQ
However it's on single player so I doubt it's legit, he probably just added himself all the gear with item editor.

edit: ah voila - someone in the comments pointed out that you cannot get Spirit in single player so it's not legit. You can mod in ladder runewords, but there is no way that this guy could get that gear without trading. So yeah, this guy's not legit, but the gameplay is nevertheless very representative!

Blizzard have given some fansites more beta keys... more info after the jump:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4062848557

Latest skill and rune changes:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4475014/Skill_and_Rune_Changes-2_15_2012

Jay's Chili recipe has been posted here: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3388889881

:)