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Quote from ComMcNeil

Quote from Stanium7007

If there is a lot of interaction between skills this system is great.

I think this is a really difficult point.

Think about the following: Skill synergies in Diablo 2 sounded awesome at first. But if you think about it, when you wanted to use Frozen Orb for example, you HAD TO put 40 to 60 points in 2 or 3 synergy skills, otherwise the build/skill was not useable in endgame.

If you now have interaction between specific skills in Diablo 3, you kind of enforce the same mindset. If you for example have a skill that freezes the enemy and another skill that exploits this, then you basically say the player "If you take the freezing skill, take THIS skill as well" (or vice versa)
I dont think this will be good for diversity.
On the other hand, if there is no interaction between skills, we have to see if there is then a need for "builds" in the traditional sense anyway.

I think this is something which needs iteration by the testers at blizzard...a lot of it

I don't necessarily mean skills that are designed to be used together and only that way, I mean skills that just happen to compliment each other. If they want to use the term "Build" at all there needs to be complimentary skills (I'm forced to not use the term synergy) otherwise they might as well call it "set of skills I happen to find interesting at the time"

Quote from Akuma_Gin

I have absolutely no problem with the skill points removal, I am all for this and to me it seems like a nice idea, but, please, Blizzard, please increase the player limit to 20-30, please... That's all I'm asking...

Do you mean the number of players partying together in a game? A 500% difference is a pretty huge change and they said it would make combat very chaotic.

The skill point system now reminds me a lot of Guild Wars. This is amusing because Guild Wars was made by a lot of the developers from Blizzard North.

If there is a lot of interaction between skills this system is great.

There's a lot of stuff to consider regarding the auction house.

First of all, most video games make the stance that all digital objects (items) are property of the developer. This auction house means that Blizzard effectively makes in game items property with a monetary value. To me this means Blizzard can't take a "too bad" approach to lost items.

Additionally, I anticipate botting to be a reality upon the release of a game. Starcraft 2 was released vulnerable to map hacks, and based on this interview, Blizzard assigns a higher value to its "e-sports" games than to its casual games so I don't expect D3 to be 100% secure. Couple that with the auction house and it's a recipe for heavy botting.

Further, you should anticipate issues with locked accounts. Realistically I can see individuals trying to filter stolen credit card usage through D3 and attempting to wash it out as money (assuming you can convert it to cash). I expect Blizzard will try to follow the digital trail but thieves usually can be clever going about this.

Finally, I don't doubt that the gold auction house will be used, assuming gold is auctioned off at the money house. It's easy to calculate the conversion costs for real money value->gold value.

Gold Value = Real Money Value * Gold/Dollar Value per gold (based on money auction house).