Blizzard announces Diablo 3 Global Play functionality

Using Battle.net's new Global Play functionality, announced today, upcoming RPG Diablo 3 will allow you to play on game servers in regions outside of your own.

As detailed by Blizzard, Diablo 3's global game servers will be grouped into three game regions: the Americas (encompassing US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia), Europe (EU, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa and the Middle East) and Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau).

You will initially create characters and play in their "home" region, determined by where they you (registered to your Battle.net account).  Global Play will then give you the chance to switch to any other game region via the in-game options menu.

There are a few restrictions, however. Characters, items, and friends lists will not transfer across regions.  You will need to create characters and friends lists specifically for the region you are transferring to, and you'll be accessing the gold-based auction house for that region.

In addition, you will only have access to the real-money auction house when playing in your "home" game region which means for characters outside of that region, items cannot be bought or sold in any real-money auction house.

The primary focus of Global Play is to give you the ability to play Diablo 3 with your friends in any region.  For more details, see the Global Play FAQ.