Ok well apparently my framerate issue is something specific to OSX. I installed Diablo 3 in bootcamp and the game runs as smooth as silk with all the options turned on high.

I've died quite a few times due to lag (my diamond armor not being casted right in the moment when I needed it) which forced me to play a lot more carefully than necessary at times.

Outside of certain times (people coming home from work, logging in) the game usually ran smooth though and lags were not a problem and I think/hope that's how things are going to be after the first two weeks or so until the battle.net problems are ironed out.

I will read all dialogues and watch the cut-scenes on the first play-through but like in any Diablo game before, that stuff is mainly just fluff and after that it'll be just good old fashioned, hack'n'slash or rather kill'n'loot \o/.

Has anyone used the auction house yet?
It already seems to be flooded with low quality (albeit yellow so called 'rare') items. On the second day I could still make a few thousand gold pieces by selling equipment with magic find values between 6 and 8 but now these don't seem to sell so well anymore.

I also bought some equipment from it (magic find stuff of course, so I could find more stuff to sell and then bring it back there... with the flood of items, it would seem that everyone is doing the same ).

I keep dying trying to slay Diablo with my level 32 wizard on normal difficulty (tried about 10 times already) which is why I have decided to go back and grind up a few more levels before tackling him again.

He would be easy if the cooldown for the health potions wasn't so damn long.

It has great replay value though due to different character classes and all that randomized content. I've read somewhere that the dungeons/outside worlds are not as random as in Diablo II but since I haven't started a second play-through yet I can't tell whether that's true.

Diablo III has a greater variety of mini-quests though which are randomly sprinkled across the world and you don't have all of them in a single run through the game.

append:
I did beat him now after leveling up to 33 and using different skills and passive abilities. It was still a long and tough fight and I was close to death again several times during the battle.

WARNING MAJOR SPOILER:

I already knew D was a woman because of the trailers I've seen. Though, if it is that easy I'm not sure I am interested enough to buy it unless it is drastically changed. I like challenging games and that sounds like it is rather simple for some classes.

I just tried a wizard, much harder to play indeed. Battles are over much quicker than with the monk since the wizard does about 10 times as much damage. Like, I just right click those yellow elites giving me long-drawn fights with the monk and they drop dead. But one small mistake and she's dead herself. Level 3 now and she died like 4 or 5 times The monk on the other hand died for the first time at level 12 and probably died no more than 10 times in the whole game.

The more I read about it the less it "blows my skirt up". Sounds like it goes from too easy to way too hard too drastically.

You would understand if you wanted to play on the beach but had no mobile connection And I can't play hardcode here since I lose internet connection quite often which for some reason counts as death...

Like a MUD?

I've beaten Diablo III Twice now using a Wizard and Monk. Currently I'm in achievment whore mode. I'm also trying to get the Staff of Herding made (so far I have 3 of the required materials).

Probably to allow someone else to log in instead :p

My battle.net email is battle.net@allefant.com btw. in case someone wants to add me (can't remember the number part of the battle tag but email also works I think). I probably won't play in multi player though, don't even see how that would work with everyone at different levels.

As long as you join a team that's making the same (or lower) main quest than you, any progress made applies to your character.

Note that it only matters the quest, the sub-quest may be different (they may be doing a more advanced sub-quest of the same main quest). For example, you join a group that's doing "Rumford to the gates" ^[1] (the second sub-quest of Act I.1: The Fallen Star), but you're still in "Beginning the Quest", which is the first sub-quest of the same main quest (I.1). If you finish with that group "The Fallen Star" it will also count for you.

I hope you can make some sense of my explanation .

I hear that for all settings that one part is easy then the next is ridiculously hard. Made me hold off on buying it any time soon. I'll eventually get it, though don't know when as Blizzard's games have really failed to impress me in the past years. I played SC2 for a short while and saved the female scientist that joins you and not played it since. Have some of their old games (Diablo 1 and 2 w/ LOD, SC w/ Brood War, W3) and not had the interest to play them. Something about Blizzard games seem great for a few weeks then just suddenly lose all interest.

This is true, but I still prefer to craft my own gems because that counts towards a nifty crafting achievement. In Act I on Nightmare I'll usually pick up around ~3-5k gold in a single run (i.e until my inventory gets full) and maybe have to spend 500 on repairs ... if I die which is kind of rare. That usually leaves me with enough gold to 'upgrade' whatever gems I've found and still come out ahead. I currently have almost 130k gold on hand.