Much to the dismay of hardcore LAN partiers everywhere, Diablo 3 will require an active internet connection to play. However, looking on the bright side of things, it seems Blizzard has totally revamped the party/social experience of the “waiting lobby” in Battle.net. You now have a visually appealing friends list, which gives you an at-a-glance overview of your friends online status. It also seems you will be able to form parties outside of games, while you are still in the Battle.net lobby. Your Diablo 3 character selection screen will also have visual indications of your characters status and difficulty completion, these “tokens” can be a pile of bloody skulls (hardcore) to new icons on your class tabard; it’s overwhelming how sexy they make statistics about your character.

Shortly after the Diablo 3 announcement sent the gaming world into a frenzy, Blizzard made attempts to calm the masses, and released a screenshot package showing some key points of the game so far.

Screenshots capture images of the male and female versions of the Barbarian class, some of the new moves featured by both the Barbarian and Witch Doctor classes, and tons of new evil baddies to slay!