DiabloFans

Although I don't think having one random chest show up somewhere within an act constitutes an addition to the "end game," I do think that this is a cool idea. One thing that I've always felt is lacking in D3 is the excitement of opening chests; it would be neat if there were more to open, and if they were better-stocked. I'd even settle for more resplendent chests, to be honest, though I think the idea of ONE random excellent chest hidden somewhere in a given act is a really cool idea, especially if it's well-guarded.

You nailed it: what you really OWN is the CD and box. However, that's not all you NEED to use the "service"; you also need an internet connection, a valid battle.net account, and a CD key. So you can give away or sell your CD and box all you want, but that doesn't mean whoever gets it next will be able to use the service.

Believe me, I agree with you: you bought the game and if you want to give it someone else when you're done with it, you should be able to. Unfortunately, that's not the way most digitally-purchasable goods work these days. For example, if I buy a movie off of, say, iTunes and watch it, I can't "gift" it to someone else after that; I'm stuck with it, it's mine forever, like it or not.

I agree that the base value for one's pickup radius is a little small; it's super annoying to have to run RIGHT over gold and health orbs when you need them. However, I like the fact that it's an itemized stat in the game; it's cool to have these "non-essential" stats that enable you to tweak minor parts of gameplay. Also, some character classes have skills that rely on increased pickup radius to become more effective, like the WD's Grave Injustice, so I doubt Blizz will be changing anything.

Coolest part of this thread, IMO, is that all of these are viable options. Way to go, DHs!

Beer.

I call him by his first name, Walter. We go way back, so I can get away with it. I wouldn't suggest any of you guys calling him that, though. He is really sensitive about it.

"If" there gets to be the point where there are bots, there will be many. There is zero chance you would be able to buy all of the items unless you are real wealthy. Fact is, Bots are bad, they ruin the economy and the entire community as a whole when you can buy great items for 2-3 dollars. There are no postive spins to bots as a whole, they will ruin the game and people will leave if they exist even remotely like they are in D2.

I want it to say "Not even death can save you from me!" whenever I click play.

I got into the beta back in patch 13, and the first thing I did was sit my girlfriend down to play while I quietly watched and took notes. As a bit of background, she has played a bit of D2 with me, but has never made it past act 3 on normal difficulty. She does play a few other games on her iPad, but mostly of the take-care-of-a-pretty-horse variety. Also, she is not a native English speaker.

She chose the female monk and went to it. The first thing she mentioned was how much easier it was to know where she was going, and what she was supposed to do. She liked having the map on the screen and having the quest prompts ticking off as she completed them.

As soon as she got a few skills going (especially Lashing Tail Kick) she started loving smashing monsters. I was interested to find her saying phrases that were exactly in line with Jay Wilson's statements early on in development. At one point she said, "Ooooh, I'm strong!" She also mentioned at one point that she would play the game even if I wasn't there. My favorite quote though was when she encountered the little demon imps and in her sweet little voice said, "Come here babies so I can kill you."

Afterwards, I talked to her about how it felt and especially how it compared to Diablo 2. One of the first things she said was that she felt "powerful" in game. She also expressed that in D2, she never really knew what was going on, why she was doing what she was doing, and where she was supposed to go, but that in D3, she always understood what she was doing. We also talked about stat and skill allocation differences, and that really helped me to understand many of the D3 development decisions. She was able to pick up the game and play it without spending a lot of time reading or feeling confused.
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Now a few notes from my perspective.

After I played the game for myself, I became considerably less concerned about some of the things that I found annoying while watching her play. As a spectator, I found the on-screen quest information to be a bit obtrusive, and I was very distracted by the pop-up "massive blow" kill counters. However, as a player, I found both of these to be far less problematic, though I would still very much like to be able to turn the latter off.

Due to a surprising (and somewhat disheartening) number of technical hurdles and bugs (who wrote that launcher, yikes!), and to my pretty busy schedule, I haven't played as much as I would like. I can say though that both melee characters a lot of fun to play. I expected the Barbarian to be fun to play, and he did not disappoint. I was hopeful about the Monk beforehand, and after having played him, I would say that he will definitely be one of my favorite characters to play. I found his pacing, style and skills to be very entertaining. I don't think that either my girlfriend or I will ever get tired of Lashing Tail Kicking our enemies faces off.
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tldr:
-the developers were spot on in achieving their goals for bringing in new players, even to the point of getting my girlfriend to use the same phrases to describe the game that the devs have previously used
-barbs and monks are sweet