By Jim Rossignol on January 7th, 2011 at 9:24 pm.
VG247 have been having a good old chinwag with the man from Runic, Max Schaefer, and he’s spilled a few beans from the Torchlight II jar. Most interesting is that they’ve yet to set the limit for co-op party sizes: “The sweet spot, just from playing in the office, is 1-4 players… It’s an ongoing debate right now where we set the maximum number of players in the game. It’ll probably be between four and eight.” He also boasts that the game contains a lot more content, including “multiple hub cities”, and PvP. Interesting stuff. The game is due later this year… presumably before Diablo III.
07/01/2011 at 21:29 MultiVaC says:
Yes! I can’t wait. Sounds like everything I wanted from the Torchlight sequel that I thought would never happen because their next game was allegedly going to be an MMO.
07/01/2011 at 23:11 karry says:
And nothing i wanted. Good quest generator ? Promise to have less critical failure bugs ? Loot generator that works ? Interesting and balanced skills ? Gameplay features that will keep the game interesting beyond a couple of days ? What is this “content” he speaks of ? Retexturing of everything and more particle effects ?
Or what, will it be again “modders will do everything for us and for free” ? *spit*
08/01/2011 at 00:08 Wulf says:
I’ve been a modder, and currently I’m a mod list maintainer for New Vegas. What people like myself do, we do out of a passion for the game we love. What you’ve said there really just insults every community of modders that’s ever existed, really.
Nice to know that the passion and spirit of a modder is worth about the spittle of a stranger, though.
As it stands, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Torchlight. A lot of the mods didn’t ‘fix’ anything. In fact, I can’t actually recall even one ‘fix’ mod for Torchlight. What the mods did, instead, was take the game in new and interesting directions. And I was a part of that modding community from day one up until it pretty much died off.
Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion, but I don’t think that anyone is entitled to ignorance. Clearly you have issues with Torchlight, but you could actually make real complaints about it. There was nothing wrong with the quests or the loot in all the time I played it, and if they were so ‘broken’ then perhaps you can elucidate on what was wrong with them, and even the mods that supposedly fixed them. :P
08/01/2011 at 00:21 shitflap says:
Well, I believe that Karry means “Let’s not pay our own employees to produce as much content or character skins &/or mechanics as possible, we can’t be arsed. I know, it’ll be easier to get modders to do all this stuff for free due to love and excitement for the framework we made. Let’s make it look like we’re throwing them a bone by releasing the tools as soon as possible.
As for my opinion, the modders “fixed” the irritating inability to respec a screwed character by creating the talent potion, Stop overreacting to everything. ;P xx
08/01/2011 at 00:52 Danarchist says:
I <3 modders!
I currently have over a gig of new vegas mods installed lol
08/01/2011 at 04:13 Coins says:
Aah, man. I really should get the New Vegas construction set. I’m curious what they improved over the Fallout 3 one. And yes, modding is great. Three cheers for modders!
08/01/2011 at 04:37 bleeters says:
I’d generally regard the “let’s make it so Dark Zealots don’t one-shot players through walls, or from off screen” mod as a fix-mod, myself.
Bloody Dark Zealots :(
08/01/2011 at 08:07 drewski says:
Dark Zealots are arseholes.
08/01/2011 at 10:51 noom says:
Torchlight was fun! My only issue is the difficulty really. Breezed through on hardest setting right until sometime after the end boss where I started getting instakilled with alarming frequency. That may be in part to playing an alchemist specced for close range combat but with very low defense -.-’
09/01/2011 at 10:29 Matt says:
@shitflap: Actually, the respec potion was the first mod released by the *developers*.
09/01/2011 at 14:29 jalf says:
@Wulf: read what he said. His beef is with developers *relying* on modders to “fix their games so the developers don’t have to”. He’s not in any way criticizing modders themselves, just a perceived attitude among game developers that “it’s ok to release a shitty game, because the modders will save our asses”
Cool down.
07/01/2011 at 21:36 Miker says:
Excellent. Runic Games are really saying all the right things. If Torchlight 2 is still $20 on launch, I’ll be picking it up immediately.
07/01/2011 at 21:59 leeder krenon says:
i’m gonna wait til it’s 2p in a steam sale.
08/01/2011 at 00:10 Wulf says:
You’ve built a time machine and you plan to visit 2057?
07/01/2011 at 21:37 mcnubbins says:
I’m goint to smash you in the face and take all your loot. Co-operatively.
07/01/2011 at 21:37 Aemony says:
Jar… Does this mean the game is being built in Java?! YUCK!
07/01/2011 at 21:46 PleasingFungus says:
Probably not.
I wanted to enjoy Torchlight, and played more than a few hours of it, but eventually stopped when it began to feel a touch too soulless. Hopefully the second one will improve things in that dimension!
07/01/2011 at 22:04 LukeAllstar says:
No not jar like in “Java Archive”
jar like a container, or a pot
it probably will be made with the same engine as the first one (ogre engine with their custom torchlight editor)
07/01/2011 at 22:12 BooleanBob says:
The problem with dungeon crawlers is when you realise that what you were doing in the first hour of the game is what you’ll be doing in the 60th, only the numbers will be higher.
This applies to all sorts of games, of course, but this is the genre where that stark fact never fails to gall me (be it Diablo, Fate, or even, yes, Recettear) after a few (fiendishly compelling) hours.
07/01/2011 at 22:45 zergrush says:
@BooleanBob
The difference is that with Torchlight it took me two hours to realize that, while Diablo II lasted for a couple of years.
Maybe it’s because I was a thirteen year old with nothing better to do when I played Diablo, but I doubt it a bit since I managed to enjoy Titan Quest and the first Sacred relatively recently.
08/01/2011 at 02:30 Archonsod says:
I’m not sure how that’s a problem. If I buy a dungeon crawler, it’s cuz I want to crawl dungeons. In that respect, the only reason I’d not be doing in the sixtieth hour what I was doing in the first is because you screwed up the game so much I didn’t play past the first hour. If I wanted to do something that wasn’t dungeon crawling in the sixtieth hour, I’d be playing something else.
08/01/2011 at 04:58 MadTinkerer says:
There are good games built in Java, though. Like MINECRAFT, for example.
Java is also a really great first language to learn, as it’s a properly “curly-brace” language, but also it’s got a ton of training wheel-style features that let you learn some advanced techniques without suffering through compiler errors that are too confusing for a beginner to understand. Afterwards, one should learn proper C++ in a Comp Sci class or two if they’re being serious, but Java is one of the best first languages there is.
Meanwhile, I too am looking forward to Torchlight II.
09/01/2011 at 14:41 jalf says:
@MadTinkerer: what you say would be true if we assumed that only three programming languages existed. Yes, Java is a better beginners language than C and C++. But it’s still a deeply awful language for beginners, teaching all sorts of bad habits to budding programmers.
If you want a nice beginners language, go with Python, or SML or Scheme, perhaps.
And now, back on topic. Torchlight 2, yay!
07/01/2011 at 21:47 Bfox says:
Sounds great, hope to see more interesting classes to be honest.
I’m giving my vote for introducing the “Scottish Ned” class.
08/01/2011 at 12:05 Urael says:
Modern GFX cards can’t handle that much Burberry on screen at once. Nor should they be asked to, no matter how amusing it would be to see your character using “buckie” (Buckfast) as a health tonic.
07/01/2011 at 23:43 dethtoll says:
Just thinking about the war Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 are going to spark by coming out this year is giving me like a half-chub.
07/01/2011 at 23:57 ScubaMonster says:
Torchlight 2 better beat Diablo 3 to market by a healthy margin, otherwise it’s game over. It will still carve it’s own niche, but I think right now the Diablo 3 hype got people back in the mood for these games and it’s filling that void for now. I wager most people will jump ship and never pick up a Torchlight game ever again once Diablo 3 is released. Not saying Torchlight 2 will be bad, but I really doubt it’s going to be anything that can compete with a juggernaut of a game like Diablo 3.
08/01/2011 at 00:13 Wulf says:
Well, some might have already been turned off Diablo III a bit already by the screenshots, such as myself. I absolutely love colour, and I love Torchlight’s art direction. But something about the way Blizzard handles art direction just rubs me the wrong way, with a cheese grater. I’d not be able to enjoy a game that I think looks appalling (and I’m talking purely art direction here, as graphics whoring tends to lead to poor art direction too), whereas Torchlight II looks as pretty as ever.
/shrug
08/01/2011 at 02:32 Archonsod says:
Funnily enough, I never got into the Diablo series but have happily wasted hours in everything from Sacred to Konung.
So in my case, I’m not buying DIII because the Diablo games are the worst Diablo clones I’ve ever played.
08/01/2011 at 12:46 Robert says:
While that may be true for the 2 of you, it doesn’t change the statement. Torchlight will be drowned by Diablo if they come out together. No matter you two unique snowflakes.
09/01/2011 at 09:42 Warth0g says:
Wulf, I’m struggling to understand that. Torchlight looks great, I agree but its art style is entirely derived from Warcraft – unsurprisingly as Runic are (partially) ex-Blizzard employees…
08/01/2011 at 00:26 laddyman says:
I recently discovered Torchlight in the Steam sale, and I have played the living daylights out of that poor thing. You could say I have a dungeon crawler problem.
08/01/2011 at 00:42 Stephen Roberts says:
I did that. I bin dere. If WoW was my heroin, Torchlight was my methodone. For a bit. But it was like a example of a engine that was working, fighting fit and just waiting for some content to be added. After a very brief 8 hours it became apparent that the scene would not be changing (I was wondering when I’d leave the first town and explore the world map).
It would still be hilarious fun with co-op. And I’m looking forward to Torchlight 2 quite a bit. Maybe more than Diablo 3 purely for the underdog vote. Be really nice if gear progression made a lick of sense too. I got dressed at the start and never changed. Nothing bettered my early items. What?
08/01/2011 at 08:10 drewski says:
You mustn’t have played for long enough. Once you start getting your first magic items you sometimes hit a bit of a brick wall of good loot drops, but as you get higher up in level the good stuff starts coming again.
It’s never exactly a flood, mind.
08/01/2011 at 00:50 Danarchist says:
Ya know, I completely forgot diablo 3 was coming out? I think thats the worst part about companies trying to build “buzz” too early, the excitement for the game wore off before it released so im ALLOT less likely to run to the store and buy it on release day. It makes it quite a bit easier to wait for other gamers to give me the skinny on it before I waste my own money, and if it sucks thats gonna cost blizzard money.
08/01/2011 at 16:08 mcnubbins says:
Wow! Can you really make me feel like a warm autumn?
09/01/2011 at 09:11 GameKey says:
Nice graphics.