One more thing about the battlefields is that from what I heard before the game came out it sounded like some totally randomly generated world with cool loot and monsters but what it really seems to be (now keep in mind, I've only been to the Act I battlefields so far, so maybe it changes later) is just a static area, but with a lot lower quality level than the rest of the game. The only "randomness" maybe is the actual dungeon walls (not sure) and which merchant gives out which quest. The above-ground world is static, each player will find the same thing at the bottom of the dungeons (just maybe in a different dungeon), and the monsters don't respawn. So, essentially, instead of fulfilling the promise of some randomly generated limitless world, the battlefields are--more or less--another static part of the game, just with a lot lower quality bar than the rest of the game. They seem like just an excuse to crank out low quality maps with nothing interesting on them. Calling them the "battlefields" means you can tell players they don't have to do them, but in reality, any serious player is going to want all the exp/equipment they can get, so they are forced to go through them.
