DiabloFans

We’re certainly aware of how we’re handling our skill animation sets, as well as your feedback regarding the monk specifically. While working on any piece of the game we have to make production calls on what has the biggest benefit for the time we’re spending on it, because time is quite simply a very precious commodity. We made some choices, some that you may not agree with, to ensure a solid level of animations throughout the game. To make a call on not displaying a weapon during a skill may allow us to animate a multitude of spell casts for a demon, a higher priority animation for another character, or unique animation to ensure an in-game cutscene feels epic. Making the tough calls on when and where the game and players as a whole will benefit most is one of the most difficult things the producers, designers and artists have to do.

It’s worth noting that in addition to making those tough calls we take a logical approach to skill animations, and there are some where we purposely do not show a weapon. This is mostly for summoning or buff abilities where a weapon doesn’t play into the skill, such as mantras, or Inner Sanctuary. There are other skills where we purposely do not show a weapon because the concept of the skill is not connected to a weapon, such as Seven-Sided Strike and Lashing Tail Kick. In addition there are skills that purposely do not show a weapon because the skill is conceptually about the monk using his fists or hands, such as Way of the Hundred Fists or Exploding Palm.

There are skills though that don’t fall into any of those, and just should have been showing weapons. When you gave us that feedback we absolutely heard your requests for additional animations, and we added a full animation suite to the three skills where we felt the impact would be the greatest; Dashing Strike, Crippling Wave, and Deadly Reach. For us that was not only a great use of our resources to get it done, but we thought it was a very visible way to relate to you that we’ve been listening.

So, all of that background and info said, we still have plans to make even more changes and improvements in patches released fairly shortly after release. In a patch we plan to change Exploding Palm, Way of the Hundred Fists, and Fists of Thunder so they don’t hide fist weapons. Since the idea is that these skills are about the monk using their fists, it just makes sense to allow fist weapons to continue to show. In addition, as we continued to refine the monk class and our design philosophies for itemization, our ideas about what weapons make sense for the monk have changed over time. To see that philosophy shift through we’re looking at simply giving monks the ability to wield more types of weapons, complete with full animation support for their skills.

Hopefully that explains some of our intent with skill animations, and not just with the monk, all of the same thought and care (if not more) has gone into crafting the animations for each class and their skills. We're of course looking forward to getting the game into your hands in a couple weeks, and seeing how everyone enjoys the class they choose, and the skills they wield.

Does this mean we're likely to see the usable weapons for classes increase past release day? Or would all of this be finalized for a day 1 patch? Otherwise I might have to keep a sweet two-handed mace in my stash just in case my wizard can use it someday...
The additional weapon types are specific to monks. The original monk design was very different, and very weapon dependent. As that design changed the number of usable weapons didn't really keep up to match, and so we're working to correct that.

That's not to say it's impossible for other classes to see additional weapon types, but we have no plans at this time.

Question. You mentioned patches. In these patches do you plan on buffing skills or nerfing skills. Or are all D3 patches mostly for bugs, glitches, animations, or system problems?
Kind of off-topic, but yes, we intend to correct issues and make balance changes through patches. Did anyone think we wouldn't?

Please tell me you've given Monks the ability to use 2 handed maces! PLEASE!
The work isn't complete so I really can't comment on which weapon types because I don't want you coming after me if for whatever reason we can't deliver ... but I think you'll be happy.

Diablo II Ladder Reset Finished
Diablo II ladder reset is nearly complete. We're going to be marking the realms live right at 2:00 p.m. PDT. (which is in about 33 minutes) (Source)

RMAH Information
As others have pointed out there's a $1 transaction for any item such as armor, weapons, etc. which is only taken if the item sells. So that's the flat $1 fee for those types of items, and honestly I would personally expect most people to be interested in both selling and buying these types of character improvements.

Separately, there is a 15% transaction fee for any commodities (again, only if they sell), which are items that stack such as gems and gold. We take a percentage due to the way commodity sales work. You can put up 50,000 gold for sale, and because people can buy portions of commodity auctions, one person may buy 10,000, another may buy 30,000 and maybe nobody buys the remaining 10,000. Instead of charging $1 per transaction, which certainly wouldn't be fair to the seller in the case of commodities as they have no control over how many different people may buy from their auction, we go with a percentage. If that original 50,000 goes up for say $5, there would be a $0.45 fee on the 30,000, and a $0.15 fee for the 10,000, totaling a $0.60 fee for the sales that occurred.

Just to be triply clear, these fees only happen if the item sells. Putting an item or stack of items up to see if it/they will sell doesn't have any inherent risks, and is a good way to get some Battle.net Balance built up. You can sell items you don't want, and then get something to spend on something you do want. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PayPal Fees
PayPal will not charge any fees for transfers to them. You'll pay a 15% transfer fee to move any funds to your PayPal account, and then whatever you do with the money after that is between you and them. But the transfer to PayPal is 15%, and that's it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Selling Characters on RMAH
So, can we sell characters on RMAH or not? It's not clear from the FAQ. Thanks
The auction house doesn't have the ability for you to sell characters yet, no, but it's something we're looking to add. (Source)

The 6th Bubble
It was suggested a while back that it was a wildcard bubble, for anyone who missed out on one of the class unlocks to go back and get it before release
This is accurate. As the ability to get these sigils disappears completely after May 18, we wanted to ensure if someone missed a week they had some 'makeup' time. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Servers
Could we get a decisive answer from a blue: Is there a SEA server?
Sure,
Diablo III's global game servers are grouped into three distinct game regions:
The Americas - For players in the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.
Europe - For players in the European Union, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and Middle Eastern countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Asia - For players in South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Further details can be found in the blog post here. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)