When Tom talked to Blizzard at Gamescom, he was told that Diablo 3 expansion Reaper of Souls ' new loot system was designed to "cut the legs out" from the controversial real-money auction house. But, with the game's console version recently releasing without an always-online requirement, is there any chance that the ARPG will one day allow for offline on PC? Can you guess the answer? You can probably guess the answer. Because it's no.

"Something Kevin [Martens, lead content designer] says all the time is: Diablo plays best when you're playing with other people," says Josh Mosqueira, game director for Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls in an interview with Eurogamer . "Because not a lot of people connect their consoles to the internet, that's where the whole idea of having to get four people on the same couch playing together. That's how we get that social aspect.

"But on PC, we really want players to feel they're part of the bigger Blizzard and Diablo community. It's a choice of platform and opportunity for our players to benefit from. There's a more secure item trading environment, but also a more social environment."

"We developed this as a co-op game from day one," Martens says. "We didn't add co-op in. It's not a value added feature. It is the ideal.

"It's not something we want to force upon people, but the idea it's always available - the whole drop-in, drop-out thing - has been of value since the very beginning of the project. We tried to make the game with that in mind.

"As we add new things, as we look to the future, we're still trying to enrich that. We still are doing a lot to make online matter. Improved matchmaking, new social systems and extra rewards for playing together."

Thanks, PCGamesN .