Someone posed a question regarding Adventure Mode in the vanilla version of the game sans the expansion. Following is my response:
The information about how each act is unlocked isn’t related to the availability of Adventure Mode in vanilla D3; it’s related to how access to it is unlocked via playing through of Story/Campaign Mode (originally, it required completing all acts by one character of the entire campaign to unlock Adventure mode account wide, but they are now making each act of Adventure mode accessible account wide once that act is completed by one character in Story mode.
The whole Adventure Mode feature including loot runs (Nephalem Rifts) and trials (which will not be shipping with RoS) was supposed to be part of the free pre-expansion system changes (original comments made by Grimiku after GamesCon).
We want to implement a lot of the new systems and features in a pre-expansion patch for free. That should include Paragon 2.0, Loot 2.0, Loot Runs, and Nephalem Trials. For now, you’ll need to purchase the expansion to play as the Crusader, explore Act V, unlock the Mystic, and level up to 70. These details may change as development moves along, but we want some of the core gameplay improvements to be available for everyone.
Based on a now (several weeks) outdated datamined client, it requires the expansion to be unlocked.
- AdventureModeDetails
- Explore the world of Sanctuary and complete Bounties and Random Dungeons to earn awesome loot!
- Reaper of Souls Required
Since the above datamined string isn’t considered official though, the last real official statement was the one quoted above that had been mentioned back in August. But as mentioned, the details may change, and have indeed changed.
So if a CM doesn’t make a clarification about this, then one can construe they are in the process of making a decision that hasn’t been finalized yet.
However, based on the Adventure Mode first look article, it seems to imply that it will be only available via the expansion. So unless they make Reaper of Souls free (highly unlikely unless they are actually crazy enough to try a different model with this by only charging for limited/CE versions of it), then it seems like it won’t be free.
