Customers electing to purchase Diablo III through Blizzard's online store will now be able to progress past Act I and level 13 without having to wait through the whole 72-hour verification process, the developer has confirmed.

The "unintended" restriction - which does not affect buyers of boxed copies - was previously put in place so that Blizzard could run a series of security checks on new customers, likely to ensure that they weren't attempting to ruin the game's economy after the launch of the game's controversial real-money auction house.

This has now been fixed with patch 1.0.3.a, allowing new players to frolic over to all subsequent acts as quickly as their pointer finger can carry them.

However, as noted by the Blizzard forums, some restrictions still apply:

• No public game access for unverified digital purchasers
• No auction house access (real-money or gold) for unverified digital purchasers
• Unverified digital purchasers cannot trade items or drop items for other players to receive
• Unverified digital purchasers are not able to chat in any public or game channels
• Unverified digital purchasers cannot attach a custom message to friend requests, but they can send/accept friend requests, and play with their friends
• Global Play is not available for unverified digital purchasers