Bro seth, I think you misinterpret what 3ternal was trying to say.
For D3 not only you must have an active internet connection, but you must also be connected with blizzard battlenet server to actually start playing the game at all times.
This is also a must even for a single player gameplay. Heck you can even get lag in an SP game in Diablo 3 if your internet is messed up from what i read in there thread.

Now what 3ternal was trying to say that even if your internet is down, you can still play your PS3 games, but in certain PC games which imposes must be online to play, means if your internet is down you cant play the game at all even if it's only a single player game, in fact certain games if you lose your internet connection it will kick you out of the game.

To be exact the reason people hate the Real Money Auction House aka RMAH is because of this it becomes in a way pay to win situation where you have to buy godly gears. Super awesome gears are harder to get because the drop rate are low and then the rolls to get good stats are tougher to get unlike in the console version, super good legendaries are easier to get.

Is the always online to play D3 the same in console?

Ah that is great. That is another point which PC gamers were complaining about earlier when the game was still early. Having lag while playing single player is kind of silly. Not so much of a problem now though, lag is still there but not as bad. But lag is really really bad to those who played hardcore though, DC or lag usually means instadeath to hardcore toons. So basically what console gamers are playing right now kind of what the PC community were asking for "an offline D3 experience with no RMAH involvement".

You are looking to play on PC or console? You can replay your PC D3 to see the changes done since the closure of AH/RMAH

Something I quote from post #10

"The game is being changed fundamentally no matter what version you play. Vanilla will get all the same mechanics changes as RoS. The only thing RoS currently has that Vanilla does not is the additional content (Crusader, Act V, lvl 61-70, Adventure Mode with Rifts and Bounties, Torment Difficulty 1-6).
Everyone gets Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0, Class mechanic changes, fight mechanic changes, graphics changes, crafting changes, etc. "

This post has been edited by soul_fly9900: Aug 20 2014, 01:43 PM

I played D3 casually on PC, I can assure you tons of changes . Best thing now as you are considering to restart a character, you need to complete the game once on one character to have access to all difficulty levels and game modes ie a 2nd character can play on highest difficulty from the start once you complete the game 1 time. You remember how much of a chore to replay every single thing to unlock things for a new character .

Loots are easier to get now, but to get the high end gear still needs tons of grinding but the drop rate are definitely better now. Oh and on the downside since there's no AH anymore on the PC, loots are account bound on drop unless you play in a party there will be a time limit on trading items with your current party member (the ones that are playing with you at the same time the loot drops). Dont know how loots were previously handle in console.

But as I said earlier, you always fire back you vanilla Diablo 3 account to get a taste of the changes minus some game modes and no crusader and chapter V.

If you still have your account you can try it out. Most of the changes are there in vanilla D3 except for new class, new game modes, new difficulty and also no chapter V of course.