Torchlight II Announced For 2011 85
Runic Games has announced a sequel to the popular action RPG Torchlight, planned for release in Spring 2011. One notable improvement from the first game is Torchlight II's inclusion of online co-op play, with LAN support and a matchmaking system. "The sequel will feature an updated version of the Torchlight editor, randomized overworld areas complete with weather effects, random dungeons, a selection of pets, fishing, limitless loot, and a retirement system which will allow users to retire an older character and bestow some benefits of it to a newly created character." An MMO set in the Torchlight world is still in development.
Built with Ogre3D (Score:5, Informative)
Ogre3D is written in C++ and is compatible with PC, Linux, Mac, iPhone, Android and other platforms. If you're into programming 3D games or simulations, you should definitely check it out. www.ogre3d.org
(I'm a long time user of Ogre3D but otherwise unaffiliated)
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Well, since they only supplied an update to the editor & the game engine (as opposed to a rewrite from scratch), it'd be crazy to switch the engine at that point.
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Too bad they couldn't be bothered to release a Linux version. It would've done well.
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People keep saying that, but when have Linux games ever actually done well commercially?
Re:Built with Ogre3D (Score:5, Informative)
It worked for 2D Boy's World of Goo [2dboy.com].
Quotes: :)"
"It’s only been 2 days since the release of the Linux version and it already accounts for 4.6% of the full downloads from our website."
"More copies of the game were sold via our website on the day the Linux version released than any other day. This day beat the previous record by 40%. There is a market for Linux games after all
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no. There is a market for THAT game. Plus the numbers sighted are opretty meaningless without actual data behind them.
How many Linux games did they sell? How much money7 compared to windows? wii?
Of course there is a market, but is it profitable enough to account for the additional development?
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Does it HAVE to compare? They made money on it...lots of money.
It's like saying that a MMO is a failure because it doesn't make the sales of WOW, even if it did net 20 million in profits. Sometimes a comparison to the market leader doesn't really mean much.
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Here you go [wolfire.com]
A few examples (Score:1)
Here [blogspot.com] is another. The percentages here are much more impressive, with Linux share at just about 25%.
Here [hemispheregames.com] is a blog post by Hemisphere games about the viability of supporting Linux.
I'd say it's worth it. I may be a little biased, of course (I don't have any windows machines)...but whenever I hear about an upcoming game with Linux support I preorder it immediately.
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Not to worry, it works really well in Wine. I've almost finished the game under Linux. Hopefully Torchlight II will also work in Wine.
Timing (Score:5, Insightful)
Torchlight 1 was excellent for scratching the Diablo itch except that it painfully lacked multiplayer/coop -> that was what made the Diablo series really really fun and was very sorely missed. All in all that was my only Torchlight gripe, and was why I stopped playing it after a while. Collecting randomized bling ain't as fun if you can't show 'em off and trade 'em with others.
If this comes out at roughly the same time as Diablo III, it'll not only be a problem of gaining wallets+mindshare, but also the big one of timeshare.
People playing other games means less time playing your game, and with multi-player games, critical mass of players is very very important. It's really frustrating at how there aren't enough players to play with who have decent pings if you're in Asia, like with Streetfighter IV on PC and Borderlands.
If there aren't enough players online to play with, it'll make the game a little less attractive.
Anyway, Runic did a good job with Torchlight. The modest system requirements were a big plus too as it allowed you to run it on netbooks with less horsepower. Hope they're able to push the sequel out the window in time to avoid being slaughtered by Diablo III.
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Torchlight was fun, but I quickly lost interest in it because there was no real driving force. When you talk about Diablo, you have a pretty interesting story and story related quests that drive your interest. Torchlight didn't have that. I really do think that multiplayer could have fixed this issue for me, and I suppose I'll get the chance to see with the sequel. I do hope that this time around, Netbook Mode actually means that it'll run on a netbook.
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Proof of this is the ridiculous slew and success of MMORPGs coming from Asia that have zero story and are all about level grinding and looting: I'm looking at you MU Online and Perfect World! (the parent company of which bought Runic and will be funding the Torchlight MMO).
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Add to this: god damn it, what the fuck is with trying to bolt on meaningless multiplayer into every fucking game these days?
Seriously. Bolted-on multiplayer IS NOT A HELP. If you're going to design a multiplayer game, do so. But if you're designing a single-player game, then you need to spend your resources designing an honest, full, rich experience.
Too many goddamn times I've been hosed picking up a game only to find out that the single-player game takes all of maybe 6 hours to play through before you're
Re:Timing (Score:4, Funny)
First thing, you need to go back on the meds. I know they make you feel like a slug during the day, but it makes all of us feel safer to be around you. Especially when you are cleaning your guns. God, I almost killed Frank when he mentioned that Fallout3 should have had at least token multiplayer while you were at the target range. I thought we were all dead.
Second thing ... instead of paying sixty dollars for a full price game, maybe you should wait until the games are cheaper so you won't feel so ripped from the lack of single player content. Um, don't get up. It was just a simple suggestion. You know ... let the early adopters take the hit and then you can get it used and not feel so ripped off.
Thirdly ... calm down, I'm almost done ... if playing multiplayer makes you so upset, maybe you should avoid it. Or play with only vetted friends. ... what's that? you want to play with me? well, i'm busy these days ... no, of course I'm your friend. Why would you think otherwise?
And just remember, it's just a video game. okay? you feeling better? There's no reason to load that gun now. Can we please talk? Did I mention I hate multiplayer just as-
Re:Timing (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. Certain games do not benefit from multiplayer. A basic hack-n-slash dungeon crawl like Torchlight is practically begging for it though. With as little story as there is in the game, playing with friends is the only thing that would really keep me interested. The game's mechanics are there and fun, but the driving force of interest isn't quite.
I thought that I'd have fun playing the original Torchlight in little chunks while I was on the go with my netbook (Toshiba Mini NB305). Unfortunately, I found that the proclaimed "Netbook Mode" coupled with the lowest settings possible still made the game unbearably choppy during combat with more than two or three opponents. So I play Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on my netbook instead. :P
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If only more of the (sensible) netbooks had a Trackpoint, so as to be really portable - even from the short time I played with it on a Thinkpad of a buddy, I can say it's almost as good as a mouse for FPPs or Diablo II: LoD. Really portable would be important especially for the latter - I have this dream of playing it in a cathedral during some organ concert; or in a train with nuns nearby; or in the middle of 1-2 XI night [wikimedia.org] in a cemetery ;p
With touchpad it's not exactly the same... (well, doable with necro,
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And yet graphics was not one of the attractive aspects of Torchlight. They did manage to turn it to their advantage by intentionally going for a cartoonish style of both the world and the characters - which requires fewer polygons and special effects - and it ended up adding to the charm of the game. But it's definitely not a universal solution for any game project out there.
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The look of their game has everything to do with art and marketing, and basically nothing to do with any limitation on Ogre's part. They could have used ultra complex geometry, normal maps and subsurface scattering, and Ogre would have happily provided it.
A welcome trend. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A welcome trend. (Score:5, Informative)
Runic is comprised primarily of developers previously from Flagship Studios (Hellgate London) previously from Blizzard North (Diablo 1 & 2). So they're not exactly 'newcomers', despite the age of the studio itself.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/08/05/0422232/Torchlight-II-Announced-For-2011#
Re:A welcome trend. (Score:4, Informative)
The other half of Runic comes from wildtangent. And the last half is in fact new, or at least according to their mobygames profiles.
And because Runic has 3 halfs their games are 50% more fun that the closest alternative.
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Whoosh!
I played through Torchlight last weekend (Score:1)
Brilliant little RPG, though one of my main issues with the game was the lack of multiplayer - it's perfectly suited for it. Given the planned MMO, and now Torchlight II's co-op, it looks like this will be a must-have game indeed.
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It's a great game, but I grow weary of the recent trend where every franchise must have an annual release.
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Valve time at work.
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Valve seems to be releasing Left 4 Dead annually. Best they stay away from that trend, as it's a rip off for players. :P
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There is such a trend? I thought it was the opposite. Ever raising bars for triple-A games making them push out new game no more often than every three years or so, not counting minor expansion sets.
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Ever raising bars for triple-A games
Well that is a different problem..
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Well, considering I toyed with Torchlight in December 2009, we can at least agree a 2011 release is _not_ annual.
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It's a great game, but I grow weary of the recent trend where every franchise must have an annual release.
I know! I got sick of buying a new version of DNF year in and year out, and that's why I bought a console...
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The promise of a follow-up release with multiplayer if the single-player version sells well has been there even before Torchlight was released.
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I seem to recall the intention was that they were going to use the funds raised from Torchlight to make a Torchlight MMO.
If this comes out in December of 2011, that's far enough apart, perhaps. But anything less definitely risks "too soon". I'd rather they invest more time in polishing it and not worry about getting it out the door.
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I kinda miss the story and variability aspects of Diablo 2 in Tochlight... There is a story, but between every tiny bit of progress in it, you have to play some hours, and all of the dungeons look pretty much the same.
It's very similar to those mega-grindfests of the Korean MMOs.
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I'd have said it's more like Diablo 1 in those respects.
Which is a game I loved, but the state of the art really moved past it. I was excited about Torchlight but got bored of it pretty fast.
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Torchlight didn't have, as far as I know of, a compendium site that listed every possible drop you could get. I've recently come to the realization that that is one of the major differences between Diablo (2) and it. Having a list of what you could get gives you goals that keep you playing.
Instead I played through the main "story" of Torchlight and stopped right after. Random dungeons with unknown loot was not a good enough reason to keep playing.
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I love it because it is a casual game for people who generally hate casual games. Its like Diablo II lite, DiabloII required a decent time commitment, and was pretty hard to just play for a couple minutes while your waiting for something else to happen, Diablo II also required spreadsheets for even causal play. Torchlight can be played for 10 minutes and quickly forgotten.
Its lack of a story doesn't hurt it too much, there is enough of one to make it somewhat interesting, but not enough to make it compell
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Diablo II also required spreadsheets for even causal play
I'm not sure we have the same definition of casual play...
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As an earlier poster mentioned, it's made by some of the guys who made Diablo 1 & 2.
Either way, fans of the genre will probably get both.
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I'm a fan of the genre - I played through D1 and D2 several times - but Torchlight just didn't cut it for me. It was literally Diablo with different graphics. I got bored after a few dungeon levels. If Torchlight had advanced the genre in any way my opinion might be different. Unfortunately I didn't feel like playing the same game I played five years ago.
I know that many other games are repeats of previous ones with different graphics, mechanics, or story. Somehow those games do a better job of hiding their
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I had the same experience. I quit when I got bored of playing alone.
Co-op for torchlight 2 gives it much higher potential for me.
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It looks like they're trying to get the MMO out at the time Diablo 3 is released. Since Blizzard takes like forever to finish it, they have plenty of time.
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Right now it's officially sometime in 2011, but it's usual to extend that once or twice, which they haven't done yet.
Torchlight with 3D Vision rocks! (Score:2)
Torchlight is very fun to play using Nvidia's 3D Vision. Game looks great, and very few things get in the way of the 3D experience.
One of the games I enjoy with mine. Titan's Quest is another similar game that looks great in 3D also.
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Nice! (Score:1)
"LAN support"
*Cha-ching* There's a sale for me. To hell with Diablo 3. Hell I may even buy a new laptop and buy two copies. One for home and on the go.
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Random aside, but if you already have it installed on a laptop why not just plug that into a monitor and keyboard when you get home? Or were you going to buy a fairly low spec laptop?
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Most laptops still have just Intel graphics, which are complete shit at 3D gaming. I can't imagine someone would want to move their gaming entirely to a laptop in most cases. I've got an ASUS laptop with Nvidia mobile stuff, but it's still not going to hold a candle to my main gaming box.
Now the AC comment about Steam is an excellent point. Using the same license that way would be an option.
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I was actually considering it.
I have always built gaming desktops in the past, but I don't even have a desk at the moment. I sit on the sofa and either use my PS3 or netbook depending on what I want to do. So a nice big laptop could be good for gaming on the sofa - either that or a desktop + wireless mouse and keyboard hooked up to the TV, but I like the idea of the system being easily portable.
I also doubt I'd want to play many of the latest games when it comes to PC gaming - I'm happy with my PS3 for the
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Most laptops still have just Intel graphics, which are complete shit at 3D gaming.
This. Their GMA chipset is colloquially known as 'Graphics My Ass'...
However, buyer beware, both Nvidia and AMD release the same crappy type of chips. Your best friend is notebookcheck.com...
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Hell I may even buy a new laptop and buy two copies. One for home and on the go.
If it's on Steam, you could just buy the one copy and log in on both machines. :)
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Steam games can be played offline.
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As can SC2, though you need net to install it.
Great game, kinda... (Score:2)
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I was disappointed to find out there was no multiplayer, which seemed like a very big oversight.
My understanding was that it wasn't so much oversight as:
- Multiplayer would be one of the hardest single pieces of such a game, in terms of development time and getting it right, and
- The previous project for most of these guys was Hellgate: London, a game where they basically had more ideas about what they wanted to do with the game that they could get done before running out of money / publisher patience forc
Why have I never heard of Torchlight? (Score:1, Troll)
Why have I never heard of Torchlight, and why is there no link to it in the summary? Why is the Torchlight II logo a bad ripoff of the Warcraft logo?
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Why is that a great job? I've already Played Diablo I and II. Torchlight is the same game, which makes it BORING.
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So Diablo 1 and 2 were boring? Well then, I guess this genre of game isn't your thing.
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'Torchlight == Diablo' as 'WoW == Everquest' as 'Warcraft == Starcraft' as 'Doom == Quake'.
Genres happen.
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You played Diablo II even though you had already played the first one?
Same thing.
Troll? Please. (Score:2)
I downloaded Torchlight, and so far my observation WRT it being a Diablo clone is that Diablo runs under Wine. My Windows machine is busy playing Netflix on the TV and I cannot regain control of it at this time.
DRM (Score:2, Informative)
At first I was hesitant about Torchlight. But, it ['s boxed version] having no DRM swayed me to get it. I've had a lot of fun with it since. It's not the greatest "Diablo clone", but it's still good fun. LAN multiplayer, however, will breathe a LOT of life into it for me and, quite possibly, cause it to replace Diablo II as the game I play most with my roommates.
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It's similar for me. The game just didn't have much depth. I didn't need to force myself to finish the main quest with my first character, but I got tired of it a few levels into the main dungeon. Maybe some day I'll try it with a different class, for at the moment there are too many other games vying for my time.
The graphics are very pleasing though, wish more games looked like that. Except for all the explosions/spell effects which make it really hard to see where you need to click....
What about Fate? (Score:1)
Torchlight has come up in many conversations I've had in varied groups of gamer friends. But not once has anyone ever tied it to Fate. Am I the only one who remembers that little game? Diablo-esque in a way, but Torchlight is WAY more of a knock-off of that than of Diablo. Weapons, upgrades, the PET. There was no pet in Diablo that I recall. There was in Fate. And guess what, you could fish for special fish you could feed your pet to change him into other creatures to help you fight. Sound familiar?
Re:What about Fate? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a good reason for that. Travis Baldree, the lead developer of Torchlight, also designed Fate.
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Well then. Yes, that's a good reason indeed, heh. Thank you for that nugget of knowledge, I didn't know that.
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I had Fate, too, and I think Torchlight was a pretty worthy upgrade to Fate.
I never did figure out whether Fate really had a story or not, spent too much time trying to line up the quests so I could get the maximum quests per dungeon floor in order to load up on money and use the money to enchant gear and eventually got bored around floor 30 or so without meeting anything approaching a plot (other than the original quest to kill a dragon for some reason). At least Torchlight fixed the enchantment system so
Hated the control scheme (Score:2)
I've played Torchlight a bit, and it was interesting, but I thought the control scheme was awful. Then again, I'd say the same of almost every PC RPG or action-RPG: you have a cursor, click on the ground to have your character walk there, and click an enemy to attack it. FUCK THIS SHIT! It makes me feel I'm not really in control. I want direct, cursor-less control. Like pretty much any console action-RPG, such as - obvious example here - the Zelda series, the very definition of the damn genre!
I've commented
LOVE IT (Score:1)
Hey Runic, Please Fix Enchanting (Score:2)
They need to fix enchanting, it was fun but poorly balanced. You could find level 0 items, give them 50 enchants for the price of 3 on a unique, and then blaze through the entire game.
Also, the possibility of having your item randomly destroyed while enchanting needs to go. One of my favorite items broke while enchanting it, I was so pissed I googled a cheat mod to fix this 'feature', but the mod was overpowered in other ways so I lost interest and stopped playing.
Overall I really liked TL, I just hope TL