Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Joystiq‘s crystal ball lit up earlier today with notification of a blog post by Runic bosslord Travis Baldree in which the man from Runic states that “a game of this scope up to the quality and polish level we want to achieve is going to take a little longer,” and also: “We’ve probably had 18 months of full development time on it so far – not excessively long yet, as far as that goes. The amount of time we need to take it the rest of the way is relatively small.” Basically, it’s not going to hit in 2011 as expected.

“Besides, you’re all playing Skyrim right now anyway, aren’t you?” observes the astute Mr Baldree. Why yes, I am. I just saw a giant totally bat a wolf up the side of a mountain! Awesome.

An announcement on the Torchlight II site confirms that the game will ship for $20. Here’s the kind of statement that you would think more company bosses releasing PC games would include in their press release: “It’s always been our goal to provide exceptional value for the price,” says Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic Games. “Everyone who wants to play Torchlight II will be able to comfortably afford to do so, and they’ll be able to play with their friend online or via a LAN, or play single player offline, all with no further purchases.” Ha.

The Embermage page (the final class to be revealed and inevitable ranged spellcaster) is here.

A million is a big number. For instance, if you put a million hairbrushes in a pile end to end it would reach Pluto. That’s not true, but it serves as a useful illustration for a million being a big number. Still not got it? Well, imagine a tennis ball. Now imagine a million of them. See, that’s a lot of tennis balls! Also, Torchlight has sold a million copies.

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Torchlight II is due in July. That’s only ten minutes from now! Quickly, we must read as much as we can about the creation of its randomized worlds! Oh God, if only there was something to hand… but maybe there is, because Runic have published this piece on the creation of Torchlight II’s world, and this Q&A on level design. It contains gems such as this: “We do have random events! A few examples of these are, maybe you run into a injured person on the road with a broken down wagon that asks you to do something for him/her in the immediate area. Or you could be out exploring and find a campfire with bandits that have tied up hostages that you can rescue for a reward. We are still working on these, and coming up with new ideas to keep them exciting for players.” Cor!

The sequel to shimmeringly competent action RPG Torchlight is going to take a little longer than expected to achieve its predecessor’s blinding polish, Runic CEO Max Schaefer has told Digital Spy. Rather than arriving in May or June it’s now scheduled for July, and do you know what? It’s none other than the fiendish console toyboxes that are to blame.
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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.

Runic want to stress something to you: Torchlight II has co-op play in it. No, it really does. You might say it doesn’t and hold your breath until you turn blue, but it still does. Here’s a trailer to prove it. Oh and the game is out early next year. Before Diablo III, anyway.
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Fantastic news. Runic have just announced that a sequel to their popular dungeon-crawl action-RPG will be coming in early 2011 via direct download. The site’s just gone live, which promises a few big changes. Most notable of this is peer-to-peer co-op, including matchmaking abilities so you can locate people with similar level of (er) levels. Also, outdoor areas – complete with weather – and four character classes. Are they all new or the originals plus a new one? We don’t know yet. We just don’t know. More details on the site. The biggest question is that what does this mean for the planned Torchlight MMO? We’ll try to find out via – er – journalism. Or at least sending e-mails and asking politely.

EDIT: And news leaks out in a hefty interview with PCG. Basically, it’s a different thing and a chance for Runic to wrestle with Multiplayer a little before progressing to the MMO.