Torchlight 2 Release Date: 20 September 61
Cheeze ball writes "Due to the level of support provided by their forums community, Runic Games has released the Torchlight 2 release date early. Torchlight 2 will be available on 20 September 2012. The 'official' announcement is tomorrow at PAX, where the game is available for play. The forums have been very supportive of the dev team, primarily because of the team's responsiveness in posting weekly updates and the way the beta test was conducted. This support prompted Runic to inform its forum community first."
If you're curious how the game is shaping up, Eurogamer has a thorough preview from a few months ago.
And on time (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that's the generally accepted colloquial meaning of summer. Oh, you don't say? Most people don't believe that?
Well I think the fault is entirely on the vast majority of buyers for making up their majority understanding of the term "summer".
Surely, Steam and Runic intended to convey and release within the astronomical definition of summer all along, being very certain to indicate the steam announcement through June 20 were not on the cards. This is the most likely explanation.
I'll give it a go. (Score:3)
Torchlight was fun, though not groundbreaking. I'll definitely be giving Torchlight 2 a go.
Re: (Score:2)
Torchlight was fun, though not groundbreaking.
I'm with you. Lately it seems that any time a game is (or claims to be) "groundbreaking," they forget to make it fun (I'm looking at you, ArenaNet...)
Damn, three weeks...
Re: (Score:2)
What's wrong with Guild Wars 2? I'm having a blast with it. Is this more of an issue that you don't enjoy MMOs anymore?
Re: (Score:2)
I think the issue is that I never really enjoyed "MMOs." I enjoyed "Guild Wars." Unfortunately, all GW2 seems to have in common with the first one is the name. They left everything behind that made GW different from FOTM MMOs.
That's not to say they did nothing right. They've addressed some of the oldest dynamics issues that make me wonder why they weren't done sooner in other games. Things like instanced resource nodes (everyone can hit it), shared kills outside of your party to cut down loot stealing, and
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It was, absolutely. But I did that after I'd literally done everything else (non-PVP) in the game. It was optional, as was filling my HoM.
In Guild Wars 2, it's not optional. The pacing for the "Personal Story" isn't good enough that you can just go straight from mission to mission all the way to the end, like you could in the first one. I cleared all 3 games (at least in normal mode) on every single character class in GW. In GW2, you HAVE to go out and look for events and do those stupid heart grinds, bec
Re: (Score:2)
What is with all the GW2 hate... You might not like PvP much, but that's what the game was really built for
I didn't say anything about PvP, but I think you're mistaking GW2 for the original launch of Guild Wars. That was their original plan: Have the PvE game be prep for the PvP. When they realized that the people interested in PvP were a small subset of the player base, they changed that up right quick.
It might be the center of YOUR interest in the game, and I'll admit they've managed to come up with the first PvP match that I've enjoyed in... well, ever (Keg Brawl is awesome), but claiming "that's what the gam
Re:I'll give it a go. (Score:5, Insightful)
They get extra credit for being an "indie" game. Sort of like a participation trophy, I guess.
It was a good game, and just about worth the price. That's a lot more than you can say about most AAA titles these days.
Re:I'll give it a go. (Score:5, Informative)
They get extra credit for being the next Diablo like game from the actual Diablo creators [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I personally didn't care about them being indie or not. They did get the pricing just right, though. And the game was precisely this kind of mindless click-them-to-death design that is perfect for the genre. Certainly not groundbreaking, but I don't expect all my entertainment to be that - I'm perfectly willing to pay for a quality effort on a theme that I already know well, and know that I enjoy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For me it's not about the WoW expansion, but Borderlands 2 releases two days before it.
Re:Bad time (Score:5, Funny)
Damn. Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, and Guild Wars 2.
It's going to be Wallet Massacre 2 - the first being the steam summer sale.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's coming out at the end of September, so play that during November and pick the other two up for like a dollar during the Christmas sale in December. Take it from me: if you time things right you can afford all sorts of games that you'll never have time to actually play.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't that a bad thing though? Why buy stuff you won't have time to play? To be fair, I used to do this as well, but then I noticed that given the backlog of games I was becoming impatient when playing certain games if they were taking longer than expected to finish. So I'd rush them, or simply abandon them for the next unplayed game. This doesn't sit well with me, as it seems like a wast
Re: (Score:2)
If you're the kind of person who is into always online multiplayer games, you're probably going to be playing Diablo 3 anyway. For those of us who like single player, or LAN games, the release of anything WoW related is irrelevant.
Re: (Score:3)
less then a week before WoW 's X-pac hits.. that not exactly a great idea.
Hey, give Blizzard a break. They still think that "Wrath of the Kung Fu Pandas" is a wonderful idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Perfect timing IMO. Meaning that all the drooling WoW-tards will be elsewhere shortly after release.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Price drop? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm hoping the price for TL1 will drop. I don't mind being a gen behind, especially if I can get it at a great price.
If you pre-order TL2 on Steam, you get TL1 for free. Unless of course, this was some short-term deal when I pre-ordered. I'm not at home now so I can't check.
Re: (Score:2)
Woah... (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure what that weird tech demo was that Blizzard released a few months ago though...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Woah... (Score:4, Funny)
One of the best comments on the 1.04 preview posts was "It's good to hear the beta feedback is going so well, when's D3 going to launch?"
Official Release Date (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Two days ago?
Re: (Score:2)
Meh... it's all about Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition... on the iPad :D
Re: (Score:2)
As another PoE beta-tester, I can assure you, the online-only component is the only strike against it. The only thing you can buy with micro-transactions that could theoretically give you an advantage is more stash space ... of which they are already VERY generous with in the first place. The things you can buy are purely cosmetic -- items that alter how your skills look so you can have a custom visual style, or items that cause enemies to explode with excessive amounts of gore.
To save anyone else the trouble... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I've always thought it was odd we call any game set in a fantasy environment an RPG....a Role Playing Game.
To me Diablo, Titan's Quest, Torchlight....they're all the same as Gauntlet.....they're dungeon crawlers.
Re: (Score:2)
And Dungeon Siege 1, Legends of Aranna and DS2.
DS3 is a pile of shit.
Re: (Score:2)
RPGs are games with stats that are improved through accumulation of experience points. Diablo & Torchlight have this, Gauntlet does not. This is also why we call games like Fallout or Xenosaga RPGs, while fantasy themed games like Zelda are not.
Re: (Score:2)
Gauntlet DOES have progression. IIRC there were several items that permenantly boosted your stats (speed, armor etc potions), and your HP increased after the accumulation of sufficient gold. I do not recall if there were specific stats that also leveled up with you, but there may have been.
Re: (Score:2)
Item based power ups are not experience points.
Re: (Score:2)
He may be thinking of the later (PS1 onward) incarnations which were surprisingly not bad -- at least until Seven Sorrows shat all over it and turned it from a gauntlet game to a generic hacky-slashy borefest [0] -- in which you actually did gain levels.
[0] There really IS a difference between the two. It's subtle, but important. SS just didn't play like a gauntlet game.
Re: (Score:2)
No...a RPG is a Role Playing Game. The classification outdates its use in PC gaming and the liberal application used from that point. There is little to no "role playing" in most of the PC games classified in this genre. It's a dungeon crawl with an interesting storyline in the background. Just because it's a 3D isometric game with evolving statistics doesn't make it an RPG. The early RPG games were SSI gold box games using the AD&D label...and since AD&D was an actual role playing game, the cl
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing is quite the same as Gauntlet. That game was brutal in a way that games simply dont have the heart to be these days.
I recall slogging through the first two realms years ago, then watching as my brother zipped through to realm 5, only to get stuck in some awful kind of loop around room 80. As the legend goes (never having made it to the final room), if you havent completed all of those awful "optional" questionmark rooms by the end, you simply die when you enter it.
Anyone who thinks theyre a guru g
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's an RPG.
Not in the classic sense however.
This is more ADHD whack-a-mole style RPG rather than the kind where it takes you 20 minutes to decide if your Wizard should use Tiltowait or Katino on the first roll.
Re: (Score:2)
It's an aRPG.
Definitely looks like a sequel (Score:4, Informative)
I've been playing Torchlight a lot lately since I got it on the Steam Summer Sale not too long ago. It was fun for a while, but then got to be really repetitive. Playing through as the mage, I ended up getting spells that healed me, pushed enemies backwards, and dropped massive fireballs on their heads. Because many of the enemies only had melee attacks, I could just put my cursor over them and hold down "3" until they died. Or I would get to a section of the map where enemies were physically obstructed by a geographical feature and drop fireballs on them until they died; they couldn't avoid the attacks because they wanted to attack me, but once the enemies are out of your viewport, they vanish, which means that they don't move until you run over to where they last were seen.
The gem system was a bit tedious for no seriously noticeable gain, too. You can get gems that give you different abilities once you slot them into a piece of your equipment, such as the Fire Ember, which will make you hit enemies with fire damage if you slot it into a weapon, or will grant you some degree of fire resistance if you put it into your armor or an accessory item. These items can be refined if you have two or more matching types. For example, if you have two Cracked Fire Embers, you can have someone in town make those into a stronger Dull Ember. Two of those make a Discolored Ember. Two of those make a Fire Ember, and those make a Cut Fire Ember, and so on. One problem is that these aren't easy to come across. You can buy weak gems from two merchants in the game, one of which appears randomly in the dungeons. These merchants always have randomized inventories, too, so there's no guarantee that you'll get something you're looking for. You can also find gems in dungeons, but those are often limited to secret areas of the map, and again, those are uncommon there as well.
Finally, the boss battles were all ridiculously easy. Even the final boss, which could summon hordes of fire-breathing dragons and fast skeletons to attack you, was really easy. It's not because they had simple attack patterns, either (which they did). It was that they were often physically weak with really strong defenses. Most of the battles with these bosses consist of holding down the left mouse button until they die (unless they had a really strong melee attack and you're better off using magic, in which case you can hold down the right mouse button until they die).
Maybe it's my fault for playing on a Medium difficulty setting, but really, there were only a few enemies that ever posed a serious threat throughout the whole dungeon crawl experience.
That said, I did enjoy the game. The levels were visually detailed and very interesting. The environmental interactivity was better than in a lot of games I've played (you can blow horns in the molten fire prison levels to make bridges spin to uncover secret areas, go fishing in ponds for fish that grant you special powers, run over booby traps that you can time to hurt your enemies instead, and so on). The enemies were imaginative and had their own personalities; rarely would you see two enemies with the same special powers, and unless they were the same type of monster, they do not look alike. It was also very helpful to be able to give your inventory items to your pet and have them run to town, selling them for you, so you don't have to stop fighting through the dungeon.
After looking at the video linked in the article, it's hard to tell for sure if anything I didn't enjoy was fixed. However, it looks a lot like the first one with an increased level of detail; the player in the video has a light around him to more clearly indicate his field of view, the HUD is simplified and easier to understand, and the gameplay tips are off to the side rather than popping up right in the middle of the screen. Meanwhile, the gameplay itself looks identical to the first. Even some of the sound effects are the same. This seems like a good indication that they just took what they already had and refined the entire experience.
Torchlight II may not be on the top of my To-Buy list, but it's in there. I'm interested to see just what else the developers can offer with this dungeon crawler.
Re: (Score:3)
They've revamped gems for the sequel. Refinement is gone (removing the urge to "hoard" gems until you get 'just one more' to refine it to the next level up... repeat until your stash is completely full of gems...) and they drop more frequently.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's not the kind of game for which you take a several-day vacation and drape your windows to enjoy it unmolested, then wake up at the end of the week with sore eyes. It's not meant to be.
Rather, it's a kind of game that you can immediately continue playing, even on your netbook somewhere in the airport, when you have fifteen or more minutes to waste. And then immediately break when you need to do something else, and forget all about it until next time. So kinda like Tetris, only more fun.
What, no boxes? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You could have preordered from Perfect World for a non-Steam version of the game. 'Don't know if you still can. You will be able to buy a non-Steam version of the game directly from the developer, Runic Games, upon release.