Diablo 3 - More Coverage

Diablo 3 is the big news on the 'net today, so here's another group of previews, video footage and commentary.

GameSpot has a preview:

The presentation began with an overview of all the different character classes in Diablo III. No matter which character you choose, they will each have six slots for active skills and three for passive skills. Your first two active skill slots will be free, with additional slots opening at levels 6, 12, 18, and 24. Passive skill slots open at levels 10, 20, and 30. Each of your active skills also comes with a rune slot that lets you customize its effects. To help demonstrate the drastic changes runes can make, Jay Wilson, the game's lead designer, took us through his version of a battle mage--a wizard built for melee combat.

IGN has spammed multiple articles - here's their preview:

The core gameplay is still very similar – hit a bunch of stuff with magic and weapons to make it spill loot all over the ground – but the way classes are upgraded and modified is vastly different. There are no attribute or skill points in Diablo III. As you level, new skills unlock and your class' core attributes increase automatically. To power up skills, you don't dump in points like in Diablo II. Instead, some aspects will automatically increase upon leveling, but a lot of the customization has to do with Runestones.

Then, IGN has When is Diablo III Coming Out (answer: when it's ready), Get Rich Playing Diablo III, Is Diablo III an eSports Title? and Diablo III to Require Constant Internet Connection.

Gamasutra has an opinion piece on these revelations:

As for the poor player who wants to play the game while flying coast to coast? Well the response from Blizzard is: "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that." Which is basically a nice way of saying tough.

Getting back to the actual game, VG247 has 7 minutes of gameplay footage from the beta.