Diablo 3 players will be able to team up with their fellow adventurers from across the globe — but with a few restrictions, Blizzard announced today.
Characters and items in Diablo 3 will be bound to one of three server regions: The Americas, which includes the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia; Europe, which encompasses European nations as well as Africa and the Middle East; and Asia, which includes South Korea, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong.
Though you can't move characters between these three regions, players will have access to "Global Play," which lets them create new characters in territories other than their "home" region. They'll be allowed to play with other players on those servers with only one restriction: They can't bid in the real-money Auction House in any other region but their own.
Speaking of, Blizzard also announced that the real-money Auction House won't launch until "approximately one week" after Diablo 3's May 15 launch. Blizzard posted a comprehensive FAQ on the controversial auction system on the game's official site, clearing up a few points of interest for its prospective users.
For instance, folks hoping to turn the game into a business opportunity will be discouraged to learn that Blizzard will take $1 off the top of every piece of equipment sold (and 15 percent off of everything else), and charges a 15 percent transfer fee to move money through a third party like PayPal. To avoid that surcharge (as well as PayPal's own transfer fee), players can choose to move funds to their Battle.net account, where they can use their money to pay for games, subscriptions or more in-game items. Of course, once they do that, that money cannot be refunded back into real-life cash.
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