Well since there is going to be PvP at a later point then you can just buy an overpowered item with real money and win i.e. buying power. This will also effect how far in the game you can get - someone can get an overpowered item and be able to beat the game on the hardest setting - not because they are a good player but because they have enough money whereas better players with less money may not be able to make it. This gives some players bragging-rights that they didn't "earn". Lastly I fear that Blizzard will balance the game and items around this AH to make the most money possible they can by making sure people spend as much money on the real-money AH as possible. So it does effect PvP and bragging-rights when there is real money involved.

I know this sound harsh but.........then don't play the pvp thats the only way to not get killed by lvl 1 players with overpowered equipment

No interest in this whatsoever now. That 20 minute gameplay video that was put out when the game was announced looked good, but it's simply not worth Blizzard's bullshit. Not even close.

(disclaimer - I have never played any form of PvP in any game, nor intend to so ever)

Still, the same argument can be said about the AH using in-game currency? A bad player can just grind some gold a buy a good item?

Also all items for sale in the AH is sold by other players (Blizzard takes a cut, yes), it is not Blizzard selling items to players. Does not the self-contained nature change it? There will not be any over powered items there unless a player decides to sell it.

True, but the player still needs to do the grinding for in-game money i.e. do the work whereas with real-money AH someone like Paris Hilton could come in and dominate Diablo 3 just because she has a ton of money but no brain to come up with viable character builds. Also D3 is not a self-contained marked since Blizzard decides what items to make - they control supply and demand and can create more items if they want. It just rubs me the wrong way that you can buy power in a game with real money and that the company will make a shitload of money from it by taking a cut of each sold item through fees.

I'm not really interested. Maybe I'd take a look at offline only option, but as it stands, I don't like them apples.

Maybe... you may have a point... However I have always found that there is never been enough advantage in gear if the player do not know his class and character. (Bring the player, not the gear). When playing WoW it was easy to spot people who have bought their way up (and this was in PvE only, I expect it was even easier in PvP...), the best example was meeting a level 58 rouge (this was before Burning Crusade) who did not know he could stealth... So if Paris Hilton decides to buy some epic gear, I am not worried.

edit: Ohhh - and I forgott. It is an equalizer for people who may actually be quite good, but do not have the time to grind for gear. (work, studies etc). The game should not be balanced in favour of those who can spend 24/7 grinding either.

What you're saying projects the idea that Blizzard is MAKING the real money item market.
That is incorrect. Item selling was and still is immensely commonplace in other games, Diablo II being a case in point.

Hence, status quo really.

Except that since the item had to have dropped somewhere anyway to end up on the auction house, there's nothing keeping that item from dropping for the 'better' player so that s/he doesn't have to buy it. Also, if s/he really is a better player, s/he can probably get away with less powerful gear than the player who bought their gear off of the RMAH.

Also, buying items for real money is nothing new; if you boot up D2 right now and make a public Bnet game, I guarantee you'll have a bot coming in and advertising items and leveling within 15 minutes of the game starting. All the RMAH really does is ensure that anyone actually willing to spend RM on in-game items isn't going to get ripped off or have their account stolen.

The bottom line for me is that there is no point at which the RMAH is required to make your character viable - if you don't like the RMAH, don't use it. The only way I'll be touching it is if I get an awesome item that I have no intention of using; I've got better things to spend my cash on.

I agree with this statement. I played the Diablo series and was looking foreword to 3, but not under these terms. Buying and playing 3 will send a message to all developers that players will tolerate this sillyness, and many of them will adopt this stratagy for their future games.

There seems to be some rumbling that that's a possibility. Telling Runic you'd prefer to buy it on GOG (even pre-order) might make them think about releasing it that way. GOG doesn't offer demos which is the main reason they use activation in their own shop (they want people to be able to convert from demo to game without a huge download - I'm not arguing there's not a better way to solve that btw, that's just how they chose to solve it).
"Posting lots of topics" isn't the behavior in question here.
The gold only AH actually does make me not want to play. It's an admission that the itemization and drop rates in the game will be at least as stingy as D2, probably more so, and that the core game play will still be item hunting. At least in WOW the item hunting for extremely rare and marginally more powerful items leads to progression in end game raiding (I can see why some might not be any more interested in that, but at least it's a purpose), what the hell does the itemization do here? Allow elite pvp? Allow you to grind for more exceptionally rare items a tiny bit faster?

Blizzard recognized a problem in D2 and WOW, that they had a side economy buying and selling items and gold that led to duping and was out of their control. They have promptly treated the symptom rather than the disease in D3. Fuck that.

To OP:

Maybe after I've finished World of Warcraft.

Not me. I do not appreciate DRM in my games, especially the kind that either kills my hardware, or has me chained to an internet connection. I think that I will go for Grim Dawn, Sacred 3*, or Torhlight II.

*Sacred II is also saddled with stupidity, in that only UK regions are supposed to get the expansion. Skipping that one.

As annoying as the always online requirement is, if the game can keep my wife away from Facebook games for at least a while, then I think it's worth putting up with.