DiabloFans

Diablo III: $59.99
Diablo II: $14.75
Diablo II LoD: $16.75
Average 4GB Flash Drive: $2.00-5.00
Average 24-Song CD: $12.99
Average Blizzard Art Book: $15.99
Average 2 Disc Blu Ray Extras: $14.99
Average Flash Drive Dock: $9.99

Excluding the in-game items, as well as how amazing all of the physical products will look, that already adds up to $148.45. You could even exclude both Diablo II games and it would be worth it, financially speaking.

However, if you don't like music or art or seeing how things are made, don't buy it. Simple.

Fans,
With the countless streams and videos of beta content, new information is slowing to a trickle, and I feel as though the community needs an uplift. As you probably know by now, I enjoy looking through the Beta MPQs for audio files that reveal anything. On my latest dive through the OGGs, I came across a massive amount of dialog that reveals to us how Act 1 will play out when Release hits, as opposed to the way it is constructed in the Beta. In addition, several features that have not yet been implemented can be heard through specific shouts.


First off, I would like to try and ease the spirits of the PvP community: There are recordings of each hero shouting to focus on "an objective." The folder containing these clips is entitled "D_Hero_PvP_Objective" and has each class and each gender yelling either "Take the objective!" or "Test your strength on that objective." From this, we can confirm that there will be more than just deathmatch when it comes to PvP.

It seems Followers will be more useful than just slaying beasts providing buffs. Audio clips contain each of the three followers shouting quest progress, including an exclamation that time is running low, or counting down the number remaining of a particular objective (ranging from "a few," "five," "four," "three," "two," or "one" remaining). They will also point out treasure chests to players, the phrases matching with each follower's personality in a heroic or humorous way. Finally, the Followers, while idle in town, will talk amongst each other, providing precious insight to their origins alongside current lore.

We've known for a long time that the Beta content has been significantly cut to reduce spoilers for testers, but the degree to which it has been changed was a mystery. Based on audio files, it seems one of the first quests beyond fighting at the gate involves gaining the Mystic as an ally. The Mystic will identify items, for a price. She befriends the hero before the Blacksmith has any mention, and offers her insight upon his situation when the quest to obtain him does arise. Both of these artisans are at the hero's disposal before the rescue of Cain begins, and the Mystic is all too upset when the hero explains that Cain will identify items free of charge. Whether the Jeweler is obtained prior to Cain's rescue is still unknown. I will refrain from going into further detail about the specific quests in Act 1, but there are a great deal of them and they all sound very interesting. However, I will provide this one detail: The black mushrooms make a comeback.

Although there are journal entries for each creature encountered in the Beta, there are a great deal more available than we have seen. I'll provide the transcripts of each journal entry in the following spoiler:



I'll leave you with this one thought-provoking audio clip, stated by Brother Malachi, entitled "D_tristram_PriestProphecy3"

What was once one shall become four. Though the three shall become one, never again will the four be whole.

It's been speculated that the new Diablo is a hybrid of the three Prime Evils, and this quote serves to reinforce that theory. What do you think it means? What about the one that becomes four?


I hope this post sates your thirst for some news, and I wish all of you the best of luck for your Beta Keys!

We've gotten countless confirmations that Belial is the Act 2 boss.

Countless meaning like 2 or 3.

I have an MPQ Editor open and I'm currently listening to the music files in the Diablo 3 Beta. Again, these are not the same ambient tracks that have already been uploaded to YouTube that were datamined recently.

Listen in 1080p!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEweyzNROr0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lKdkYc3pBs
What we've all been waiting for!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHZubouzCgs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnMu1959Xvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyDnMn0yKTo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNhmNAR_3mQ

The reason auto-attack is no longer visible is because Blizzard opted to remove the hot-swap from the visible UI. If I remember correctly, however, the "basic attack" icon (whether it be a fat ax, a bow, or a wand for Wizards) is red with a sword on it, and maybe something else. I'm sure left-click is still map-able to a skill.

Hey fans,
I was just watching the B-Roll video (again, hurr) only this time it was from the downloaded version of the Press Kit, and I was watching it closely.
Not sure if anyone has pointed this out, but I recall a thread from a while back pertaining to offhand items (i.e. shrunken heads). It looks like Blizzard has gotten a bit more creative with this idea.

At 0:56 we see the Witch Doctor toting around a snake by the neck, the physics engine doing a nice job of swinging it all over the place. Whether or not this snake is living is hard to tell from the video itself.

Starting from 1:32, a shrunken head can be seen dangling by its hair within the Witch Doctor's hand, akin to the Necromancer-specific offhands in Diablo II.

Following up is the Wizard, seen at 1:47 with three floating rocks rotating in her offhand, which faintly glow with floaty energy.

And finally, in the final encounter of the video beginning at 6:59, the Wizard (wielding an arcane sword, I might add) is carrying some kind of floating clear orb.


It appears that all offhand items in this video temporarily vanish while casting. Whether that is intentional will remain to be seen. Also, based on the themes behind the items shown, one can assume they are class-specific, but what do you think? Do you think these will be the primary additions to skill damage, apart from Runes and leveling? How many types and tiers of offhand item graphics do you expect or hope to see?

Additionally, feel free to post any cool ideas for offhand item graphics that you would like your D3 main to wield.

Quote from Caniroth

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://bbs.game.163.com/thread-168215658-1-1.html

All Barbarian skills + Passives. Funny translations inbound

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://bbs.game.163.com/thread-168215660-1-1.html

All Witchdoctor skills + Passives

Call out a huge X-rated zombies follow you.
a huge X-rated zombies follow you
huge X-rated zombies

Changed my mind, I'm going to play Witch Doctor.

Thank you for trying to settle some of the rage, Phrozen. +1 to you.

Honestly, I think everyone is mostly just worried about being able to instantly gear out a character with a credit card and no skill, but they need to remember that somebody has to find this item and decide that selling it for cash is more beneficial than salvaging, selling for gold, saving it for another character, or giving it to a friend.


Chinese Farmers may be able to farm gold fairly easily, but if they have limited Magic Find as well as it seems, they are not going to be able to get Legendaries left and right like in D2, and they have severely limited the teleport functions of every class.

Man.



I hate Flux.

I have three friends who are about as obsessed with Blizzard as myself, so we are working on building an effective full team of four. One friend has been infatuated with the Necromancer since day 1 of Diablo 2, so he is going the closest route by choosing the . I've shown every video and summarized the articles on DiabloFans to another friend, and he has his heart set upon the and his/her awesome runestone effects thus far. The third (my brother) ends up playing some kind of magic user or support in most games, and he is considering going a different build of the , or perhaps the .

Given this, I am more than content on playing the remaining two classes, my Number One choice being the (too many years as a healer, it's time to get mad), with the following closely behind (mostly because I just finished playing Diablo 1 again, playing as the Rogue class).

Hopefully the team will be rounded enough to rub 's face in the dirt.

Quote from Depress

Monks don't use weapons that's like complaining Hunters in WoW should be able to throw their melee weapons, don't like it just don't play the class.

Ragdoll physics make the feeling of killing monsters rewarding and you won't know until you actually play. Only the weak monsters will be knocked back when you kill them, but let me tell you how fucking cool you feel when you bash a zombie in a house so hard that it looks like he flies back into a wall and dies on impact. They got this exactly right and again unless you play the game personally you will not understand, don't worry about it.

Epic Structures? What the fuck are you talking about? The first thing you do in D2 is walk outside of the rouge encampment and enter the Blood Moor which is a HUGE VAST open field, as is all of Acts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Did you only play the fucking maggot lair in some cheap D2 demo you got at blockbuster as a kid and not it's your biggest gripe?

Don't be dumb

Quote from Depress

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3278808594?page=6#111

I hate this site

The door is that way. 9 posts and you're already a douche. Please.

The BBFC has rated the Cutscenes of Diablo 3 with a rating of 15(Appropriate for ages 15 and over\Contains moderate bloody violence.) Another thing to note is the fact that 32 minutes of cutscenes were submitted. That a pretty significant chunk of time, and I'm excited to see what will be covered in these.

Any speculation on what the cutscenes will include?

Speculation: Other games receiving BBFC ratings have released 3-4 months out. We also know that Blizz prior till now was shooting for an pre 2012 release date, so this may not come as a surprise. Hopefully though this means that Early 2012, will truly mean EARLY 2012.

Information can be found here.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ADM283384/

1. Execises religiously
2. Massively narcissistic
3. Careful attention to other males
4. Posting online about possible encounter with man
5. Not gay?

Because Canada produces 95% of the asbestos products manufactured in the world and the economic job loss would have been too great, so they lobbied and fought us banning it. The EPA banned it in 89, but that was overturned in 5th circuit court. OSHA was tagging with banning it back in the late 70s and never did squat.

anyway.....


Alex Jones is a fear mongering Demagogue. Whats worse is, most demagogues are at least funny/entertaining to watch if you don't take them serious, he is just annoying.

Sorry, spouting off baseless accusations like a shotgun blast trying to throw something up on the wall and making money off of playing on other peoples fears is not something I respect. Doing more is educating yourself with the facts, not charging people money to hear you throw around theories that have no actual basis in fact, other then you can construe the facts in some random way that makes people think their is a connection.

Because of course, the government is always out to get you..........

BTW, back on topic, I personally wish that the 1st responders were invited, but I would put a higher priority on the victims families being there. Also, I don't have a list of politicians who will be there, all I know is that Obama will be there(sitting president makes complete sense to be there) and Bush will be there(president at the time of 911 has to be there) I would assume Bloomberg and Giuliani will be there. Not sure who else, but I seriuosly doubt it is a large enough number that they are the reason the responders aren't invited. If they were going to invite everyone who was involved and needed to be invited, they would have to have the thing at Yankee Stadium or something.

And again, this is a memorial service, which means it is honoring those who died that day, that is where the importance needs to be. They have had one of these every year for the last 10 years, and the 1st responders have never been invited.

So while passing the time.. I tried somthing kind of fun while playing TorchLight. (Im sure its been done before)

In TL, there are 3 skill trees for each class. There are 5 "active skills" in each tree for each class. That makes 15 active skills per class.

What I just did was level up a Vanquisher to level 30.

I Saved up points to put a new point into each skill when it became available. There are generaly 3 new skills ( 1 in each tree) to grab every 5 levels. In all, there are 15 active skills ( about 8 less than D3 will have per class )

By level 30ish go for somthing like this:
I put 5 points in each of the level one skills (15 total)
4 in each of the level five skills (12 total)
3 in each of the level 10 skills(9 points)
2 in the level 15 and 20 skills (12 points)
and 1 in each of the level 25 points (3 points) TOTAL (51 points)

**Important: make sure you have enough points (at least 3) going into each 5th level. So at level 5, make sure to have 3 unspent points, at level 10 make sure to have 3 unspent points (so you can get all 3 of the new skills). In between, use your fame points to keep the lower level skills viable. Play the game on Hard (instead of very hard) so that the lower level skills stay viable.

Basically I ignored the passives, and it kind of simulated the way the skills will unlock in Diablo 3.
By the time I had all the skills unlocked I started expirimenting trying to find fun combinations and "limited" myself to 6 skills (left, right Mouse Buttons and 1-4).

So really not a brilliant idea or anything, but it was alot of fun. I found quite a few fun combinations of skills that made the Vanq play totally differently.

So doing this was a blast, even with just 15 skills to chose from, its alot of fun swaping them in and out. Now, when you think D3 has 23 active skills (instead of 15) and 5 rune changes for each skill.. the same thing that is really interesting / fun in TorchLight is going to be insane in D3. Can't wait.

Doing this from last night till this morning some how (didn't think it was possible) hyped me up even more for D3.

Yeah torchlight 2 was just the devs looking at the D3 videos and copying them.

Torchlight 1 was a piece of shit ugly snore-o-thon, taking a step backward from D2 even. Torchlight 2 is them trying to rip of Diablo 3 and failing. The abilities look boring as shit, the graphical style is awful (WoW graphics without any sense of unity or purpose), and frankly, it's quite obvious why Blizzard fired all these people.



But if you're into that sort of thing, to each their own!

The August 1st Reveal

Sixen's News Post - The Press Event

Diablo Cast XX - Force, Sixen and Tempest Discuss all the August 1st Info


The Auction House

The Press Kit Screen Shots of the Auction House


PhrozenDragon's News Post Explaining the Auction House

Force's Auction House Announcemnet Video

Diablo Cast Live 8/3 - Good Discusion About the Auction House

Official Blizzard Overview of the Auction House
Official Blizzard FAQ on the Auction House

Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Auction House
Q u o t e:
but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun
Q u o t e:
we feel that players can find ample equipment and money for their characters within the game through their own adventuring and questing.
Q u o t e:
Yes - but why oh why the 180?
I always thought that Blizzard games were the last bastion of 'no ingame advantage can be bought for real money'.
Bashiok, I am a big fan of yours and generally agree with what you say. But I cannot express my dislike for this new development strongly enough.
Q u o t e:
Okay...I see your point Bashy. But don't you see why so many people are worried?
The introduction of real money into the system means people wanting top tier stuff will pay a fair chunk of RL money.
When the first guy pays 500$ for an item, things start to inflate. Suddenly, casual players or those not willing to buy with their real money are locked out of it. And the inflation will continue.
If there was some way to strictly limit how much an item can be sold for and curb this effect...then maybe. But I can predict that this is going to go all kinds of pear shaped.

Q u o t e:
I love how Bashiok comes in here and cherrypicks some random post in which he'll have an answer to, but doesn't really address the RMAH uproar that has divided the community.


Skill System Changes / No More Skill Points

Force and Sixen - First Reaction

Force's Video - Jay Wilson explains the skill change

Magistrate's News Post on the Removal of Skill Points

Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Removal of Skill Points

Q u o t e:
After a lot of thought about all the new systems I'm pretty happy with them, but I have one issue....
From what I've read it seems as though you unlock all of your skill / passive slots by level 30 so what do you gain leveling from there to 60 besides auto-stats and new loot?
It seems likes there is a whole zone where nothing really happens to your character.
Am I missing something here?
Q u o t e:
How dumb do you think the average Diablo 3 player will be? I'm posting here on the internet; my fingers are magically finding the keys and forming words which turn into coherent sentences. Did I just blow past the expectations you have set for me?
Q u o t e:
The current iteration of the skill system will work just fine. My only concern is the limiteless ability to change skills (either out in the field, or in town) with no cost. I know you said you are taking a "wait and see" approach.
What I am wondering is if you, personally, can say how you feel while out in the world being able to change skills on the fly. Do you come upon a particularly nasty group that this other skill would just be perfect for, so you hang back, grab that skill, then destroy the group?
Maybe my concern with this is unfounded, but I just like the idea of a character build having more permanence.. so a "Whirlwind/Ancient Spear Barbarian" actually means something, instead of what you feel like playing that day. I understand the need to experiment early.. but can't there be a comprimise in that late game build changing could be more restrictive?

Always Online???

Gameplanet Interview - Jay Wilson Talks About Always Online


Possible Rune System Changes

Force's Video - Jay Wilson on Possible Rune Changes

Kickin_It's News Post on the Possible Rune Changes

Notable Blizzard Quotes on the Possilbe Rune Changes

Q u o t e:
Yeah, but it makes it harder for me to see everything that could potentially be on my rune. I won't know what "perfect" is without digging into the game and even then, what are the chances of me getting the rune I want.
I don't like the random aspect of this part, I feel like randomizing my skills isn't a great way to go :(.
Q u o t e:
Ya, I suppose that's definitely true. But you also have to take into account that it'll be randomizing the type of rune as well, correct? So I only have a 20% chance of getting the rune I want, regardless of whatever affix is added.
Maybe if each rune type dropped instead of "unattuned" runes, then I'd at least be able to get the rune I want and hope I get a good affix on it.
Q u o t e:
I'm confused as to why this was put into place... I have the idea, but it seemed like the 'faced' rune system was better, since we got to know what it was.

The 'defaced' system feels kinda sketchy, and it would seem that some people might not understand that
New player: "oh hey a rank 1 rune"
*socket*
New Player: "neat. does this now"
*kills stuff, finds another rune*
New Player: "oh rank 2? I'll upgrade it then"
*sockets rank 2 rune into previously socketed skill*
New Player: "Hey, how come it's not doing the same thing? now it's doing something totally different? Is it the rank? What is this "multi-shot" thing? It gave me bonuses? Now this rank 2 rune gives a different bonus, and does a different effect?"

*goes into general global channel*
New Player: "HOW DO RUNES WORK!?!?! Someone help! I've found all these runes but it keeps changing my skill around!"


B.net Features / Banners / Class Crests / Interviews

Force's Video - Battle.net Features Overview

Gametrailers Rob Pardo Interview - Battle.net Features

Doomscream's Post - Comprehenesive List of Blizzard Interviews / QAs

CherubDown-DiabloDaily's Breakdown of the Press Kit Photos

Press Kit Screen Shots - Banners, Battle.net Features



Force's Video - Class Crests

Press Kit Screen Shots - Class Crests




Near Full List of All Skills and Passives

Doomscream's Post - The Ultimate List of Passive and Active Skills - With Pictures


PvP / Arena Changes

Force's Video - Jay Wilson Explains Diablo 3's Direction for PvP

Winged's News Post - PvP in Diablo 3 - Lots of Blue Quotes


10 Character Limit?

Notable Blizzard Quote on the 10 Character Limit
Q u o t e:
Basically you dont ever have to level a new character.


Beta Info

Magistrate's Beta News Post - The Purpose of the Beta

ScyberDragon's News Post - UPDATE YOUR BETA PROFILE

Force's Video - Beta Gameplay

Force's Video - Beta Screenshots

Blizzard's Official Overview of the Beta
Blizzard's Official FAQ about the Beta


Let me know if I have missed somthing or if you feel somthing should be added / taken away in the comments below. Thank you!

-Added DiabloDaily's breakdown of the Battle.net screenshots
-Added Doomscream's comprehensive list of interviews
-Added Doomscream's Ultimate list of Skills and Passives / with pictures
-Added Diablo Cast XX - Discussion of all the topics
-Added Winged's news post on PvP in Diablo 3

I read your first sentence and said "troll"

The recent flood of information we had has left many of you shocked. Skill points removed, traits reworked, new pvp mechanics, banners, shared stashes etc. etc. But many of you are probably most interested, or hesitant, regarding the auction house (abbreviated AH) system that will allow players to trade their items in exchange for real money.

Actually, I'll go out on a limb here and say that many of you are really pissed at Blizzard right now. But before you condemnd Blizzard of sacrilege, we should take a closer look at what this system will really mean for the players.

The Basics First
Buying
Selling
Example
You can use the cash AH without spending a dime
It doesn't matter which AH you end up using anyway
Added bonus: It eliminates third-party selling
I don't want this crap in Diablo
Potential Hazards
Farmers
Hacking
Conclusion

The Basics First
Blizzard has revealed that there will be two auction houses available to players through the Battle.net interface: one which uses in-game gold as a currency (just as the WoW auction house does) and one which uses real world money such as dollars, euros or similar depending on which region you play in.

Buying
In order to buy items, all you have to do is transfer over money to your B.net account from your credit card, which will convert it into e-balance. You can then go right ahead and bid on items with your e-balance. If you win the auction, your bid is automatically subtracted from your e-balance and you get the item. If you bid on an item but someone else outbids you, it will cost you nothing. This is true for both the gold and cash AH systems, the only difference between them is that in one you will use actual money.

Selling
In order to sell items, it's a little more tricky. If you want to put up an item for sale, you have to pay a fee. This fee will be subtracted from your money whether you succeed in selling it or not and given to Blizzard. In the gold AH, this fee is a gold sum (again exactly like WoW), and in the cash AH it's your e-balance. This fee is set at a fixed nominal value (the exact amount we do not know at this time). If you don't manage to sell the item, it will remain in your stash and you can try to sell it again, but the fee will already have been removed from your e-balance. If you do sell it however, an additional selling fee is also applied and given to Blizzard, and afterwards one of two things can happen.
By default, money that people buy items for will be added to the sellers e-balance (or gold total, if they sell in gold). However, it will also be possible to set up your account so that it will be added your credit card. This will require adding a third party payment service to the account to handle the actual transaction. Blizzard is currently negotiating with potential companies at this point in regards to who will handle this service, so at this point we don't know who it will be or in what regions they will operate. However, it will be possible to make money selling items in Diablo III. What will not be possible, however, is to convert your e-balance back into cash. So if you sell an item and haven't set up your account to give you cash, it will increase your e-balance instead. That e-balance cannot later be withdrawn as cash, but it can be used to buy other items and anything in the Blizzard store, including games and WoW subscription time.

Blizzard has also stated that every player gets a number of auctions which allows them to put up cash auctions without paying the nominal fee. It's unclear whether this is a fixed amount for each account (x free auctions in a lifetime), a fixed amount concurrently (x free auctions at any one time) or a recharging value (x free auctions every week), but Bashiok has hinted we might be talking about a set number each week. In any case, using such a free waiver will provide you with the possibility of making money without risking a single cent. We'll get back to that further down.

Example
(NOTE: CONTAINS ENTIRELY FICTIONAL NUMBERS I MADE UP FOR THIS EXAMPLE.)

Here we have three people: Sixen, Scyber and Nektu.

Sixen has put up a leather cap for auction for 10$. In order to do this, he had to pay a nominal listing fee of $1 to Blizzard. Scyber sees this leather cap and decides to bid $10 on it. A couple of minutes later, Nektu sees the same item. He thinks it's worth more than $10, and bids $12. Scyber thinks anything over $10 is too expensive, and does not bid any more. The auction runs out a few hours later with no bids more bids being placed, and Nektu wins the item.

At this point, $12 are subtracted from Nektu's e-balance while nothing happens to Scyber's e-balance. The selling fee, in this example also $1, is subtracted from Sixen's $12, which means he has made $10 total on his auction (-$1 listing fee, -$1 selling fee)

Under normal circumstances this would be added to his e-balance, but if Sixen has also set up his account to forward him cash, the third party payment service will at this point extract a fee from those $11, say $1, in order to administer the transaction and give Sixen the rest, in this case a total of $9.

So Nektu pays $12, Scyber pays nothing, Sixen gets $9, Blizzard gets $2 and the third party gets $1.

You can use the cash AH without spending a dime
Using the cash AH is entirely optional. Players aren't forced by Blizzard to use it to trade for items. However, many of you fear that having a cash AH will make it so all the best items only sell for real money, thus in reality forcing people to spend money in order to get the best stuff. And while that's appears to be true on the surface, it isn't really. Here's why:
If you sell an item using one of your free weekly waivers, you can put up an item in the cash AH, sell it, and generate a positive e-balance without spending a single $. With that e-balance, you can then continue to put up items for sale and, using your initial e-balance, pay for the listing fees. Once you accumulate enough e-balance, you can then buy items for real money without having put in a single cent yourself. So you sell that legendary axe and legendary armor you found and use the generated e-balance to buy an awesome staff instead. The system doesn't lock anyone outside of acquiring the best items, what it does is allow people to spend money to get items faster. But it's still perfectly possible for anyone to use the cash AH.

And you won't even have to exchange legendaries for legandaries. If Blizzard has done its job properly and accomplished what was intended, which is to make gold a valuable resource, then people will want huge amounts of gold for their crafting, repair and vendor needs even if they only use the cash AH. And since gold can be traded on the AH, anyone will be able to sell gold for cash. Of course, the exchange rate between gold and cash is impossible to predict as of now, but in theory anyone will be able to make e-balance without spending any money. Provided there are some individuals out there who actually do put money into the system, some original e-balance has to be generated with actual money. But they will not have to be a majority.

In fact, the cash system will establish an exchange rate between gold and real money. The exchange rate will be an approximation since there won't be any mods available to track all auctions, but the market will probably reach a rough value. At that point, every piece of gold you make in the game will be worth an amount of $ equal to the exchange rate. This money cannot be taken from your e-balance (can't make e-balance into cash) but it can be used to buy items and blizzard products.

It doesn't matter which AH you end up using anyway
What did you say? Each piece of gold dropped will be worth a certain amount of real money? Not only does this mean that you are tecnically making money as you play, it also means that whether you use the gold AH or the cash AH will be irrelevant. The concept is called Arbitrage, and for those of you not accustomed to economics I'll explain how it works.
Let's say that I find a legendary axe that I don't need and thus want to sell. I can either sell it for gold or e-balance. Looking in the AH, I see that there are incidentally ten axes, five in each AH, currently up for sale: five go for 2000g and the other five for $20. But I decide to see what gold sells for, and I quickly see that 200g costs $1 in the cash AH. Afterwards I proceed to sell my legendary axe for $19, which the sold for gold will be 19*200=3,800g

That's arbitrage, the possibility to profit due to price imbalances in different markets. Even if I didn't want cash, it's still a better option for me to use the cash AH under these circumstances, since it gives me more gold. The next thing I do is naturaly to buy the other five legendary axes for 2,000g each, sell them for $19 again, essentially giving me 5*(3,800-2,000)=9,000g profit without having killed a single monster.

This will of course not last, since eventually other people will figure out that the legendary axe is underpriced in the gold AH and correctly adjust their prices. I probably couldn't even have sold those five axes for $19 again, since I essentially bombed the market by doubling the supply of those axes. But that is exactly the point. This kind of equilization will happen continuously across all different items for sale in the two markets, and will work to create a stable exchange rate between gold and $. And when that has happened, it won't really matter which of them you decide to trade in. Even if you consider yourself a purist and never so much as look at the cash AH, the prices you see for items there should be same as those seen in the cash AH.

Perfect equilibrium is generally upset by various factors such as transportation costs, taxes, varying legislations between markets, expiration dates on products etc. In the future Diablo economy many of these are removed: the the flat fees applied to purchases are a transaction cost and will generate some imbalances between the markets, but that's about it. In the end, it will matter little which one you actually use.

Added bonus: It eliminates third-party selling
But that's not everything the AH will accomplish. The purpose of the AH is to eliminate third-party selling of items and the inherent uncertainty that follows from using such sites. I will quote Don here:

Quote from "Don_guillotine" »

Well in D2 the market essentially worked just the way this real money AH will. Every serious player used D2JSP for trading because of the sheer effectiveness of it. And you could either buy forum gold for real money or sell items for forum gold. There was no way to convert forum gold back to real currency however.

D2JSP was really easy to scam in (since you had to do the trade in-game and giving the currency in the forums) if you weren't careful. The site was also corrupt (they gave gold to their friends who didn't pay for them) and so forth.

Most Diablo II veterans are familiar with D2JSP and the immense use it had in facilitating trade in Diablo II. It wasn't perfect, but it was much better than what Diablo II offered and allowed buyers and sellers to find and trade with each other using a (relatively) stable currency.

With Blizzard now running a cash AH, they've established a low-risk market. Blizzard will in this case act as the insurance of every transaction: if you sell an item and the buyer for some reason has no money, you will still get your money and Blizzard takes that financial hit. All transactions will be guaranteed by Blizzard, which will facilitate a safe and secure trading environment. In addition to that, since Blizzard will not be selling any items and since the exchange rate between gold and $ will be determined solely by the players in a region, Blizzard will have no way to influence it and purposefully generate a corrupt environment. In addition, the cash AH is a much more convenient method of trade, meaning any competing sites will have a hart time, well, competing.

I don't want this crap in Diablo
So far I've explained why you won't be left out of the system and why you won't have to spend real money. But these are all technical arguments. A fundamentally different argument people raise is that bigger wallet = better character. Most comments seem to counter this with "dis would happuned aniway, deal with eet" but that's not entirely true. Yes some people would have bought items for money, but you could at least feel that Blizzard did not support such actions and that an environment where no monetary benefits in RL would ever affect your own gaming experience existed. But "legalizing" it so to speak will with certainly cause a larger percentage of the total gaming population to at least consider engaging in these activities.

And to that, there's really nothing I can say. Because it is true that this will happen and that it will most likely affect how you view the game. Perhaps try to ignore other people's items? Kick their ass in PvP regardless? Secretly gloat that they're giving you money for your items? I don't know. Every change to a game is bound to be unappealing to some players unfortunately.

Potential Hazards
Finally we have the issue of the various kinds of potential risks this system faces: "chinese" farmers and hacks (particularly bots).

Farmers
The first fear is that loosing the restraints of the system will invite countless gold farmers in China and similar to pour into Diablo now that this is allowed. And at face value, we can say that there's no reason for such farmers to reduce in number because of this system, and there's also no reason Blizzard can ban them for. After all, all they've done is buy the game and play it according to the rules (working conditions and such aside, but there's no way for Blizzard to control that).
How will this affect Diablo III? Well, under normal circumstances such farmers operate in a black market outside of the general trade system. They are competing against each other in this environment, but still away from the main body of trade occuring in the general game.

Now however, every Diablo player will become a potential customer, and since the AH will be anonymous it will be impossible for you to tell whether you're buying items from a Chinese farmer or not. Of course, whatever items they generate will have to compete with the prices of every single item that every single player puts up, and the people who previously had to go to them for gold or items can now instead trade with the real players, thus hopefully pushing down prices and making it less profitable for them. Still, it will probably lead to a greater amount of items being generated, but so long as the problem of duping doesn't reappear, it shouldn't be a problem.

Bots
Botting is a second potential problem, one that doesn't really involve any running labor cost other than your electrical bill. Unlike farming however, this is actively prevented by Blizzard and we can only hope that their experience dealing with botting in WoW and SC2 has paid off and will allow them to contain this potential problem well enough. Has this cash AH given botters a bigger incentive? Undoubtedly. Do I think Blizzard can handle it? Yes, otherwise they've done some really terrible estimates prior to announcing this system.

Conclusion
Will this new cash AH force you to spend real money? No.
Is it certain to work/flop? No, neither is certain.

No one has done this before, and so it seems unlikely anyone can guarantee an outcome here. Individual future situations are not that easily prognosticated. But I don't think the outset is all that bad either. What it will do is to hopefully lead all trades to be handled through Battle.net, which will generate a more stable economy, a larger economy of more buyers and sellers, a more liquid market and an opportunity for people who want to spend money on items to do so freely while at the same time allowing people who do not want to spend money to still generate a net profit, and more importantly, still interact with the entire trading community regardless of financial situation. The problem will be accepting that people with more money can buy better gear, but if you can do that you should not be worried about what this system can bring.