===Proposed Changes to Rune Functionality===

The following portion is still theory for the development team, revealed on August 1st, 2011, after a press event.

Jay Wilson described a slightly changed rune system from what fans are accustomed to.

However, the "color" system of the runes would be dropped in favor of runes that are "Unattuned". The player would "attune" the rune by socketing it into a skill. Whatever effect the rune would have on the skill would not be known beforehand, making runes sort of similar to [[Jewel]]s in Diablo II.

In addition to this, each rune, once attuned (or identified to follow Diablo parlance) would also have another passive benefit on it, such as an increase to [[Attack]] or another [[stat]]. This is perhaps an attempt by the development team to add in more customisation after the loss of [[Charms]] and the [[Talisman]]. Once the rune is socketed and attuned, it would then be permanently fixed, unless they chose to add in a crafting recipe to "wipe" the rune back to a blank slate.