IncGamers’ Jeff Hollis was at PAX recently, and got the time to talk to Bashiok, who was unusually happy to share Diablo III information, including the far ahead planned Diablo 3 expansion, details about weapon drops and exclusive information on health/mana leach in the new game. IncGamers published Jeff’s article about it, and here is a snip:

He gave us an example, which he indicated isn’t commonly known: “We’re iterating a lot on the health orb system. The way it looks right now, orbs will just drop. It may end up a lot more like a ‘health up’ from a platformer, and not like the way it worked in Diablo II. You step into one, and you heal yourself.”
He also added that the health orbs may also aid people in your group, possibly according to need and range: “We’re also looking at a system where you step into it, and you’ll heal a party member.” He indicated that none of this, of course, is confirmed, and much testing and implementation has yet to be done.

Read the interview.