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If it's balanced perfectly it'd be 50/50. I don't know, ranged does have a damage advantage just because ... its ranged. A melee oriented class like the monk has to close the gap to do any damage, but luckily the monk has a few options to close the gap. The monk is going to be beefier though with more defense and vitality over the wizard, ideally that'd negate any extra damage the wizard is able to pull off before getting pommeled. There isn't a right answer, though. It comes down to skill selection, gear, and the players. Everything being equal it comes down to balance, and that should be equal as well if we do our jobs right, and if we don't you can expect some hotfixes or patches to try to make it that way.

Diablo III levels are intended to pace the content, 1-30 in Normal, 30-50 in Nightmare, and 50-60 in Hell. It would stand to reason that were we to release an expansion we'd want additional levels to pace the additional content. There will absolutely be newer and better items introduced at some point as well, potentially even in patches.

When we first announced the follower feature we revealed that these unique characters would accompany your hero on an adventure to save Sanctuary, but that they would only be able to survive in Normal difficulty. The amount of positive support the follower feature received, as well as the number of players who wanted to be able to keep these companions throughout the game -- even into the toughest difficulties -- left us wondering if it would be possible.

At BlizzCon we announced that we had taken that player feedback and were indeed working to make the single-player followers (templar, scoundrel, and enchantress) viable in the later difficulty levels.

We want to share some of the details surrounding this change and what it will mean for the single-player experience.

A lot of us wanted to see followers become viable throughout the game too, and agree they really add something to the experience as a whole. One of our main driving forces in making this decision was the benefits of the co-op experience, and the disadvantage of playing alone in the Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulties. Followers won’t follow you into co-op games because you’ll already have the superior firepower of your friends to help you, but playing alone you’re going to want to take advantage of their benefits. We’ve made the later difficulties of the game brutally difficult, and we realize that for those attempting to tackle these later difficulties alone, they’re really going to actually want some additional support in the form of the followers.

Some players didn’t like their experience with mercenaries in Diablo II. We took feedback regarding mercenaries very seriously when designing Diablo III followers, and they differ from mercenaries in a few key ways that we think set them apart and resolve many issues. First of all, there is no resurrection or cost to your followers’ deaths, which makes their upkeep far less intrusive. When a follower takes enough damage to “die”, they simply take a knee, catch their breath, and after a few moments are back in the fight. That downtime could potentially have an effect on your own survival, but it’s unlikely to create a situation where you’re worrying about them or constantly working to keep them alive. We don’t want to turn what could be a fun benefit into a punishment by making players pay for their followers’ poor combat choices.

Secondly, when you die, so does your follower. These aren’t characters that can hope to compete or continue on without you. While some players prefer to be the lone wolf taking on the forces of evil, our intent isn’t to dilute the hero aspects by adding more wolves to your wolf pack. We want followers to be an extension of your bad-assery, not a liability. The followers could almost be considered automated buffs/damage skills, but of course with quite a bit more flavor and customization options.

We still have some tweaking to do with the followers, including their skills and end-game balancing. We continue to discover cool little ways to improve how each follower performs and the complements the different heroes. Our intent is to ensure players who take followers along find them to be helpful additions to their single-player experiences.

In the meantime, we’re interested to hear what you think of followers at end game and what your intent will be. Will you ever play alone, considering the benefits of co-op (personal loot drops, increased killing speed)? If you do play single player will you bring a follower? Or do you intend to challenge yourself by not bringing one?
(Blue Tracker / US Official Forums / EU Official Forums)

A real-time clock
We're already working on implementing an in-game clock, and the current design is to have it associated with the mini-map (but that of course may change before release). Since it's not a critical feature, though, it may or may not be added to the beta. (Blue Tracker / Official Foums)

Salvaging and Chat spam
We're looking into a few different chat issues at the moment, and the impact that salvaging has on the chat window is something we feel could be improved. We're considering a variety of solutions for this, but don't have any plans to share just yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Foums)

On screen text display and variations
Great feedback! We'll look into better defining the different types of messages that appear in the chat window through color. (Blue Tracker / Official Foums)