Wednesday, August 4, 2010

News Filter: Torchlight II Announced, Not An MMO

  • Discovered via Kotaku, we get the awesome news that Runic Games is releasing a new game, Torchlight II. I'm having trouble deciding if this is good news or the best news. I wouldn't even care if this launched the same day as Diablo III. I'd still buy it.

  • I played the heck out of Torchlight when it came out, getting all the way through to the end. But after a harddrive wipe destroyed my save game (long before Steam Cloud support went in), I've only dabbled in the game when the mood strikes. Nevertheless, I loved the look and feel of the game. I enjoyed shooting dudes and taking their loot. And the loot was a lot of fun. I admit to enjoying playing dress up with my vanquisher.

  • From reading about the game, it sounds like TL2 will do the same thing for Torchlight as Diablo II did for its predecessor. They're adding cooperative play, new character classes, an open world to explore, and a lot more. It all sounds like what they were holding over for the MMO but now released in a standalone product.

  • That leaves the question open as: what about the MMO? TL2 looks like an extra iterative step toward that product. And I feel exceptionally lucky that they're using that work to release another game.

  • PC Gamer already has an interview and some concept art up that are worth a look.


© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

5 comments:

  1. I have next to zero excitement about D3. I generally prefer pure askii Rogue-likes such as Moria, Angband, Mangband, Sangband, and Nethack to begin with.

    Among graphical Rogue-likes , DI was one of my favorite of all time. Others way up there are Phantasy Star Online, Borderlands, and Baldur's gate I and II (in roughly that order). DII doesn't even make my top ten. My major gripe was talent trees where 90% of the toons you could make were complete gimps.

    DIII looks to be roughly just like DII. Blizzard claims that every talent will be awesome this time around, but I find that nearly impossible to believe.

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  2. Oh man, D3 is going to be awesome! Well, at least I hope it will be.

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  3. @ Yeebo - Most Roguelikes are pretty intimidating to me. Which is one of the reason I enjoyed the first Diablo and various ARPGs that followed. I'm just glad Blizzard has some competition in the field. They alway do good work, but I want them to strive for it.

    @ Jayedub - I'm hoping so too. It's nice to have so many games to look forward to.

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  4. Aye, it looks like Torchlight 2 is layering on more mechanics that could eventually lead to an MMO. It's canny that they are monetizing each step and milking them for buzz.

    It's a very different way to build an MMO; piece by piece, making sure each piece is fun by releasing it into the wild commercial market.

    I really like Torchlight, and T2 is nearly infinitely more interesting to me than Diablo anything. Beyond liking to play it, though, it's interesting to see their business plans.

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  5. @ Tesh - Very true. We always read about how Blizzard builds prototypes and tweaks them endlessly until they get the game they want. I love the fact that a Runic can do something similar by releasing games that asymptotically approach the game they actually want to make.

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