Quote Originally Posted by Y View Post
That's completely untrue because, as the developers stated, they tested without the auction house active. That's the reason they were surprised by people bitching about legendaries and whatnot - because they didn't have access to ideal equipment for their level via the auction house, legendaries were more useful while leveling.
Normal, Nightmare, and even perhaps Hell difficulties, this is true. This breaks down at Inferno. They tested Inferno difficulty for lvl 61 mobs which appear in act 1. Indeed, you can beat act 1 pretty handily with only gear you find. This becomes way harder for the beyond the first, act 2 in particular, in which mobs of lvl 62-64 appear. If I remember correctly, they did NOT test for lvl 62-64 mobs.