Runic Studios has announced Torchlight 2 to be released Spring 2011. Torchlight 1 might be considered a modern remake of Diablo 1 on steroids. Torchlight 2 will be more like Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction on steroids! While Torchlight was purely a dungeon crawl, TL2 will have an overworld and greatly enhanced quests. Existing features will be enhanced and reworked with many new features as well. New game engine. And, yes, new classes.
Reviews of Torchlight have been good both from professional reviewers and gamers; executive summary being that until there is Diablo 3, this is as close as you will get!
The MMO version is still coming eventually but Torchlight 2 is a necessary step along the way. Torchlight 2 will be multiplayer coop via LAN and via Internet. And offline solo too, of course. Price will be slightly higher than Torchlight 1, but the first digit of the price is still 2! System requirements will remain light as well. Immortal Machines Interview with Runic Podcast summary:
TorchEd 2 is coming as well. The many excellent mods for this game have always enhanced the fun. Torchlight has always had that "just one more dungeon" attraction for me. I think with all the input from the Torchlight players and modders Torchlight 2 is going to be even better.
Sounds like they're planning to address most of the shortcomings of the first game. The first game was just a bit too simple, and I found little reason to replay it after beating it once.
I don't get the MMO thing though. It is absolutely futile to make a fantasy MMO as long as WoW exists. The only modern MMOs that met some success were City of Heroes and Eve Online, both of which had a totally different setting and theme from WoW. I can't possibly see a Torchlight MMO will go anywhere.
Pah, its not futile to make a fantasy MMO while WoW is alive.
You just have to not expect much succsess...
Lets look at TERA, really sexy looking Castanics and the High Elfs are okay. Err, what? oh its a game? With a subscription? I might try it for a month but Im not going to get past level 3 (since its probably just another asia grinder).
Torchlight MMO is a seperate thing from WoW. Let me give you an example.
I LOVE WoW its the best Co-op game I've ever found. Even though Im going to spend hundreds of hours with friends in WoW we are still REALLY looking forward to Diablo 3.
Now clearly Torchlight can't possibly beat Diablo, lol, and thier MMO will be subpar but it COULD work, technically.
I am a veteran WoW player. Started playing I think a week after it went live. Still play a bit now and then. Love WoW, I will not knock WoW, love that game.
I played some EVE too, about five months way back there. Good game, even worse time suck than WoW, though.
Now GW is not really a MMO even though it sort of feels like one. I have 7 classes full up over there, all three chapters and Eye of the North. GW has been very successful, enough so that GW2 is coming with some absolutely stunning gameplay innovations. How did GW survive and prosper in the shadow of WoW? No monthly fee is how!
Clearly Diablo III is going to be an instant classic, fully as much as Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction. I've played a lot of D2 LoD and I really and truly suck at it! But it is fun. Torchlight is not nearly so nasty, and even much more fun!
Oh, by the way, PlugY is now released for the latest D2 patch 1.13c. Just tested it, smooth as silk!
Most humorous post on Diablo III I've seen lately was that with Blizzard completely focused on StarCraft 2 and getting Cataclysm out and stabilized, "the guys working on Diablo 3 are both very depressed."
This might sound silly, but one thing i liked about Torchlight was how colorful it was. Normally I am not as keen on cartoony games, but the color of games like Trine and Torchlight just set a certain mood for me. I did think it was lacking though which is why i never actually purchased it, just demo'd it.
Yes, Nesrie, they did a very good job with the graphics, the lighting, and the textures. You are right that the game itself was lacking. After the demise of Flagship Studios, they founded Runic Studios and got the game out in one year! It is a very good game considering they did all that in one year. Their financing comes from Perfect World of Beijing, People's Republic of China. Interesting, eh what?
Perfect World is also a MMO that lives in the shadow of WoW. It is the Chinese version of WoW in some ways, but not a rip by any means. Not only does PW not have a monthly fee, it is free to download. How do they make money? From the company store! Rich folk buy cool stuff from the company store. The game economy is such that cool stuff from the company store gets sold to poor players in the Auction House who grind a lot for in-game gold. So with a bit of grind you never need to buy anything from the company store. And I never did.
PW has a very strange user interface, really a pain to use; but you get used to it. Graphics are lower than WoW but quite attractive in their own way, not hard on the eyes at all. I played the Untamed faction with the fox girl, the Venomancer, and the tiger dude, the Barbarian up to the early 30s level. Then it got too grindy to be fun anymore. But hey! It was free! Can't beat that! The commies didn't mind because they make so much from their overpriced company store that the more players the merrier. If any of you are ever totally bored, give it a shot. The English version is a good translation. The music is good except you often feel you are in a Chinese restaurant!
http://www.fileplanet.com/fileblog/archives/2010/08/entry_3741.shtml brief review of five major Torchlight mods that work with the current version. Look better, whole bunch new classes, etc but this just scratches the surface. There are a very lot of excellent mods. I have one that just came out, turns the Cat into a Tiger including sound effects. Not just a skin, the Tiger is the hit man you always wanted, but in a balanced way that does not remove the challenge.
I can't wait to start modding Elemental War of Magic. After I learn to play that is; which may take some time for a bear of very small brain such as I'm. But just imagine what expert modders are going to do with that editor!
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