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Torchlight 2 comparisons to Torchlight 1

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Started 12 years ago by Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Size Matters: Travis Talks About Scale

July 20th, 2012

Continuing from his previous forum post on the state of the game, Travis takes a look at the scale of Torchlight II compared with its predecessor. No time to read? Then don't miss our infographic that captures the difference in a nutshell.

Howdy again. It's time for this week's promised Not-A-Blog, so here we go!

Last week I talked at some length about what we're working on right now, what that actually means, and the process we go through to kick this out the door.

This week I want to talk a bit about some of the stuff that was accomplished over the week, because I know people want to hear it - but I also want to talk about scale, and I'm going to use Torchlight as a comparison. The numbers are pretty fun.

So, first things first - this week -

I spent most of my time working on Act 2 monsters (the second half of the Act). I polished 13 different monsters, and added 12 new skills for them. I set up or revised spawnclasses for 6 different regions. I worked on destructible elements for a sewer area. I made several particle systems to supplement these things. I fixed some multiplayer boss battle issues in a previous area's boss battle, and various other bugs as they arose. I partially completed polish on one boss battle. For Act 2, I have about 4-6 more monsters to finish polish on, 4 or 5 more regions to spawnclass, and 3 boss battles left to touch. I also have various champion packs left to add.

Similar things are happening throughout the company. Marsh is churning through Act 3. He worked on 4 sidequests, completed work on 5 monsters (2 of them champs), set up 7 new skills for those monsters, and added two new major special events. He also added proximity based health and mana steal effects and damage reductions, and completed several region spawnclasses. Polish continues on every front - it's very satisfying to see the march to completion.

So, I said I wanted to talk a little bit about scale. To satisfy my curiosity, I dug back through Torchlight 1's assets to get some statistics. We are often asked what the size difference between the two games is, and usually end up talking a bit about how the Act 1 content compares to Torchlight 1. I knew that Torchlight II was much bigger than Torchlight 1 - that's obvious - but I was still surprised at what I came away with. Here's a sample.
Torchlight 1 has:

7 Unique areas (not counting secret areas or Phase Beast areas, or random maps )
52 Unique monster variants ( this does not count champion variants )
47 total monster abilities ( this does not count boss abilities - this is for the rank and file )
9 bosses/boss battles
About 33 unique wardrobe sets
About 230 unique weapon models
About 60 unique player skills ( not counting spells )
About 330 room layouts for assembling levels ( these are subrandomized as well )
About 730 item affixes
About 3080 items ( although this includes the goofy 'replicated' elite items that we used to stretch out the content - so a more accurate number is probably about 2000 )
15 music tracks
About 83 monster models ( not counting bosses or NPCs - there are more models than unique monsters because this includes player pets, summons, variants, and a few other odds and ends )
1860 room pieces ( the raw props used to build levels )
1612 animation files
2778 texture files

Torchlight II has:

44 Unique areas (not counting secret areas or Phase Beast areas, or random maps )
183 Unique monster variants ( this does not count champion variants, of which there are MANY more than Torchlight 1 )
148 total monster abilities ( this does not count boss abilities or champion abilities - this is for the rank and file )
27 bosses/boss battles
About 85 unique wardrobe sets
About 395 unique weapon models
About 120 unique player skills ( not counting spells)
About 1200 room layouts for assembling levels (these are subrandomized as well)
About 1344 item affixes
About 5773 items (no goofy item replication!)
62 music tracks
About 300 monster models - not counting bosses or NPCs (There are often visual variants to a single monster type, for spice, or champion variants)
5665 room pieces (the raw props used to build levels)
5329 animation files
5444 texture files

Scale - Torchlight vs. Torchlight II
To highlight these number differences, we put together a quick little side-by-side infographic, take a look!

In terms of scale, Torchlight II is close to 4x the scale of Torchlight 1 as far as assets go, and probably close to that as far as playtime. Ideally, the multiplayer that everyone has asked for will further increase the longevity of the game (we certainly hope so!) These are all new assets as well ( some monsters and weapons return from Torchlight, but they have all been recreated, or in the case of some individual weapons and shields, updated and repainted )

At any rate, wow. That's a lot of stuff. It makes me tired just looking at it, seeing how far we've come - and makes the last push seem that much less daunting.

So, for anyone who has wanted some more-or-less hard numbers indicating the scale of the game, and what you can expect to get for your 20 bucks, hopefully this is interesting info.

Cheers!
Travis

Please feel free to respond to this post on our forums.

article with graph comparisons

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Yes, an announcement for an announcement but I know a lot of readers are watching Torchlight II. From their latest Friday update:

Happy Friday! We'll get right to it - we have some news for you:
We will announce our release date on Friday, August 31st.

August 31 kicks off of our favorite con, PAX Prime, and we'll be there to show Torchlight II and tell everyone the official Torchlight II launch date!

Head over for more if you are going to PAX.

blurb from rpgwatch

Posted 12 years ago #
Pixiey
Member

So we STILL don't know the date it is coming out on?! I am sad!! LOL

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Lights, Camera, ARPG: Torchlight II Out Sept 20th

By Adam Smith on August 31st, 2012 at 11:30 am.
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Torchlight II will be out on 20th September of this very year and that’s pretty much all there is to say. Does anyone remember when it seemed like there’d be a collision between Diablo III and the indie charmer? For a moment back before summer failed to begin, I imagined a pileup of ARPGs, all rushing down the internet pipes, erupting in an +4 burning damage fireball and fusing into a mangled mess of stats and potions. It’s strange to think that Torchlight II won’t be something to look forward to for very much longer but hopefully actually being able to play it will make up for that. And there’s always Grim Dawn to take its place in the future-time anticispace. I’m hoping for some jolly multiplayer shenanigans from this one.

via rockpapershotgun

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Torchlight 2 Interviews: Max Schaefer Interview & Hands On
During PAX Prime on Friday, we had the opportunity to check out Torchlight II, the upcoming ARPG from Runic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment. We had the pleasure to talk with Max Shaefer and to get a bit of hands on time with TL2. Read on!
By William Murphy on September 01, 2012

*Suzie looks around and realizes that Bill's not here yet and grins*

TORCHLIGHT 2 WILL BE RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 20th!

Since I got here first, I got to announce that. Perfect World Entertainment and Runic Games announced that Torchlight II would be arriving on September 20th during yesterday's PAX Prime. We were on hand to chat up the team about the exciting development and got our hands on the new and improved Act 2 of the game.

As with the first Torchlight, the game has what I call a "WoW feel" to it. By this I mean that its graphics are less "realistic" (if such a thing can be said about a video game in the first place) and are more cartoon-like. It's a compliment in my book to say this for the record. The style works for Torchlight II. It's easy on the eyes with bright colors and larger-than-life weapons, monsters, buidings, etc. The environments are cool too. In short, the look of Torchlight II is terrific.

I rolled an Engineer to check out Act II, a location where players are sent out on quests into the desert environments. The Engineer is a fun class to play, definitely the DPS tank of the game. Engineers combine sheer strength with technology to deliver a devestating 1-2 punch to monsters. My girl was swinging a hammer with such astonishing speed and power that I literally mowed through the mobs I encountered. The Engineer also comes with the ability to keep herself healed with a turret that follows the player. In addition, she can summon minions to help out.

Monsters, as with Torchlight I, come fast and in big numbers. Players will need to be prepared for fights with tons of action. Having skills ready to deploy will be a strategic necessity.

The skill effects are really beautiful as well. When that big hammer strikes, it does so with a colorful abandon. The devestating attack she unleashed after charging it up was amazing with bad guys being hurled through the air or just flattened where they stood.

Runic has made a lot of nice improvements since Torchlight I. The game plays smoothly and it looks great. It's a lot of fun and is a game that will likely satisfy disappointed or bored Diablo 3 players. It's definitely a game for people to keep an eye on and is a must-have for fans of the action RPG genre. In short? I loved it. You won't see me much on September 20th.

Bill's Turn

Now that Suzie's had her fun, let's talk about some of the things Max and I chatted over while Suzie slaughtered tons of baddies in TL2. I first asked Max what the team had left to work on. He got very specific: "Two more boss battles tweakings, a room at the end of the game, and final tweaks to our 'New Game Plus' mode." I asked him how good it felt to be able to say definitively that they have three last tasks to shore up before 9/20, and he grinned. "It's all about polish now." For those not familiar, the New Game Plus is what's replacing "Retirement" from the last game. You'll essentially start over at the beginning of Torchlight 2, all your gear, levels, and skills in tact, and play through the game again at higher and higher difficulty.

Max also told me that their user-content system will be ready shortly after launch. Called "GUTS", it'll allow players to create and share their own TL2 maps and modes across Steam, the Runic forums, fansites, and more. As a fan of TL1, I can already get stoked about the sorts of things players were able to do with the last set of modding tools, and Max promises that GUTS is even more robust.

Torchlight 2 has only been in "real development" now for 18 months or so, and in that time, the staff at Runic have created a game that is 3-4x as big in terms of content, and 2x as big in terms of story, and also infinitely more balanced and deep in terms of itemization. In short, Max says, they've gotten really good at this. The only thing that's stayed the same from TL1 to TL2 is the price: $20.

I did ask Max about the decision to allow players to respec this time around, as opposed to making mods or expensive potions as they did in TL1, and he said that while he's still personally against respecs, the community essentially demanded it. It'll be free to level 10, and thereafter it'll cost more and more gold. His thought is that folks who don't want to respec will avoid it, like he himself will, and those who like that versatility and ability to mess around with skills without fear of re-rolling will be able to.

Lastly, I asked Max about future plans for the studio, and he did tell me that they have some ideas bouncing around the office for new non-Torchlight games, but there's nothing concrete. They're also going to be working on more content for TL2, possibly expansions, of course free stuff, and more well beyond the game's launch. He also wanted me to tell you all to be on the lookout for some surprise guest appearances from other games' characters tucked away in the land of Torchlight like little easter eggs waiting to be stumbled upon.

Get ready folks... in three short weeks, the wait is over.

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Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Torchlight 2 launch trailer released
Diablo-killer
Words: Andrew Groen on September 1, 2012
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The developer behind Torchlight and its sequel, Runic Games, has just released the official launch trailer for Torchlight 2, the highly anticipated hack-n-slash Diablo-alike.

It's a bit early for a "launch" trailer as Torchlight 2 is currently on track for a September 20 release, but maybe Runic Games just wanted to get in on all the PAX Prime festivities.

The anticipation for Torchlight 2 has risen substantially since the release of Diablo 3, which some hardcore fans saw as disappointing. Over the past few years, speculation had always been that Torchlight was some sort of steward to the throne of Diablo, but now it seems likely that Torchlight 2 could gain popularity to rival its Blizzard rival.

blurb plus trailer

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

CEO of Runic Games Max Schaefer gives G4tv a look at Torchlight 2 from PAX Prime 2012. Learn about the storyline, multiplayer mode, and the different classes behind Torchlight 2

Torchlight 2 PAX Prime 2012 Gameplay Preview

video

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

PC
Torchlight 2 Review
Torchlight 2
Release Date: September 20th, 2012
Genre(s): Action-RPG
Publisher(s): Runic Games
Developer: Runic Games
multiplayer: None
Co-op: 2-6 Player Online
Our Score
10.0
User Score:
30 votes
8.9
ReviewPreviewsNewsImagesVideos
Torchlight 2 Review
Posted by Peter Carpenter | 18 Sep 2012 |
A complete experience.

September is a great time to be an Action-RPG fan with Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 and Realms of Ancient War all being released this week. The first one we got our hands on is the sequel to Runic Games 2009 smash hit, Torchlight, which is still one of our favorite games to ever be released on the Xbox Live Arcade. With Torchlight 2, Runic Games went back to where it all began and are releasing the sequel only on PC, so Xbox 360 owners are going to need to dust off their mouse and keyboard if they want to get in on the loot this time. I didn’t care what platform I had to play it on, I was more than ready to slap on some armor and hack and slash my way to that sweet, sweet loot all over again.
Single Player

If you didn’t play the original Torchlight yet and plan on doing so before playing the sequel you may want to skip the next paragraph as there are going to be some story spoilers first.

Torchlight 2 continues the story from the original, with the Alchemist harnessing the power of Ordrak, he destroys the town of Torchlight and starts on a quest to corrupt the ancient Guardians. The other heroes from the original, the Destroyer and Commander Vale, are seriously injured following the opening fight and now it’s up to our new heroes to stop his evil plan. Through a series of quests, the story is split across four Acts as you work to save the Guardians and the rest of the world from suffering the same fate that Torchlight did. I’m not usually overly concerned with the story in hack and slash games, but Torchlight 2′s was much better than I was expecting, which is always nice.

When you start a new game you will pick between four character classes to play as: the Embermage, Engineer, Berserker and the Outlander. Each have their own unique skills to learn and upgrade, and while each character can use any type of weapon, their unique skill sets make them more proficient with different ones. I used the Berserker in my main play through, but I did start a new campaign with each one to get a feel for them and all of them bring something fun and different to the table. My second favorite character was the Engineer, mostly due to the awesome Bots that he can summon from his Construction skill set.

Who needs a sword when you have an Ice Wolf Ghost.

Whether you want to use more magic as the Embermage, use guns and kill from a distance as the Outlander, get in close with melee weapons as the Berserker or go Steampunk and use bots and heavy weapons as the Engineer, there’s something for everyone in Torchlight 2. You can still grab a sword, gun, bow or staff to engage in combat with and your trusty pet still has your back, but the real power comes from your skills. Each character has three unique sets of skills to learn, with both Active and Passive skills available. Each time your character levels up, all the way to level 100, you can increase your stats and upgrade your skills. Once I had upgraded both Frost Breath and Wolf Shade a few levels, I could almost put my Sword and Pistol away and just use those two skills in most fights.

Click to enlarge.
The first thing you’ll notice after starting a game is that the environments are much larger, more detailed and more alive than before. There are over six times as many areas with 44 of them and almost three times as many room pieces with over 5664 that make up the 1200 different room layouts that you may see. Each area and dungeon are randomized every time you load your game so you’re not going to be exploring the same layout very often. Size and scope is the name of the game in Torchlight 2 with everything from the number of areas and dungeons to enemies and weapons increasing substantially. It’s a lot easier to look at the picture on the left which compares the numbers between the two games to really get a sense of just how much bigger this game is. All for the same price too, which is the icing on the cake.

I’m not saying that other developers don’t play games, but Torchlight 2 has so many awesome little features that you can tell Runic play a lot of games and wanted to include as many things that they’ve wanted in games as they could. Some of my favorite examples of this are how you can send your pet to town to sell your unwanted items just like in the original, but now they can also bring back items such as Health Potions and Identity Scrolls. How awesome is that? I also really liked the one button sorting of your inventory and one button to open and close all of your panels, instead of multiple buttons for each one. Torchlight 2 is a very accessible game and Runic must have been just as tired as these trivial tasks in games as we are and aimed to make this a much more user-friendly experience. Also improving the experience is a brand new user interface which is divided into two panels with tabs on each for your Pet, Stats, Skills, Inventory and Character progression. It’s so much easier to use compared to the clunky interface in Torchlight and it’s another example of Runic listening to feedback and making changes that the fans wanted.

New and improved!

Fans of the original will also be happy to know that everything they loved about it such as fishing holes, socketable items, enchanting, earning Fame to get extra skill points and looting are all back in Torchlight 2. Looting is one of my favorite things in all of video games and Torchlight 2 might have the most loot in any game besides maybe Borderlands. Everywhere you go there’s loot. Enemies drop tons of it and chests are full of it. It seems like every time I turn around I’m sending my pet back to town to sell off as much of it as he could hold, almost to the point where it got annoying but in the end I’ll never argue with more loot. If that doesn’t sound like much fun then you can actually control what types of loot to show on the ground so you are only seeing items that you want, which is another really cool feature.

Runic have previously announced that Torchlight 2 will launch with Steamworks support, to let us create our own mods and content for everyone to enjoy. They will be releasing some of their own modded content early on and will then provide us with more tools to make it ourselves. Of course this can’t factor into the review since it’s not live yet, but whenever a developer includes Steamworks and mods, it’s never a bad thing.

My main complaint with Torchlight 2 is the with the controls, and the fact that it doesn’t support using a controller. Now this is a PC game and the majority of gamers are probably not going to mind this, but I played the original Torchlight on the Xbox 360 so it was a little disappointing to see the sequel not support it. I don’t mind using the keyboard and mouse, but I would hands down prefer to use a controller. You can use third-party programs to enable this, but it’s not nearly as smooth as if Runic had built it controller support. I know it’s not much of a complaint but I had a really hard time finding anything that I didn’t like about this one.

Explosion, man.

There is easily enough content that Runic could have charged full retail price for Torchlight 2, so getting it for $20 is a steal. Even if you were to rush through the main story line, not do any side quests or replay any dungeons, you’re still going to be at least 15 hours in before you’re done. If you do all of the optional quests and dungeons and explore every inch of the game then you’re looking at well over 50 hours. That doesn’t even include playing as another character, the New Game+ option after you beat it, Nightmare mode where death is permanent or jumping online with some friends, which could easily put you over the 100 hour mark.
Multiplayer

The worst part about the first Torchlight, in my opinion anyway, was that it was a single player only game. Loot filled, dungeon crawling Action-RPG’s are definitely best when played with some friends, so you can only imagine how excited we were when Runic announced that Torchlight 2 would support up to six player online co-op throughout the entire campaign. It appears I wasn’t alone in my disappointment of the lack of co-op and Runic have heard our cries.

At any point during the Campaign you can choose to play your game online in either a public or private session and invite up to 5 other players to join you. Each player can bring their single player character and all progress will be carried back to their game when they leave. One of the things that I love about the co-op is that whenever loot is dropped, whether it’s from a fallen enemy, a boss or a treasure chest, all players see their own loot, so there is no sharing required. I’m a bit of a loot whore so this feature is great and now Adam and Scott can’t get mad at me for stealing everything in sight.

Take it all, no one is going to mind.

I’ve talked a lot about how accessible Torchlight 2 is and it doesn’t stop with the co-op. Things like having a Shared and Private Stash in each town so that you can store items, regardless of who you’re playing with and how at each Portal you can choose to teleport right to your friends if you’ve gotten separated from them. They may not sound that great on paper, but once you’re playing, all of these little things come together to create a seamless co-op experience.
Closing Comments

When it comes to Action-RPG’s, Torchlight 2 is as good as it gets, with its massive amount of content, online co-op, new skill system, new and easy to use interface, beautifully created areas to explore and four great character classes to mold. Runic were on to something special with the original Torchlight and have managed to update what was so great about it and create a truly complete experience with so few flaws that it’s as close to perfect as you can get in my opinion. The best part of all is that you only have to pay $20 to experience it.
Score: 10/10

Price: $19.99
Available On: Steam

article

Posted 12 years ago #
graylox
Moderator

Found your last post in the spam bin - I relieved it :)

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Thanks Graylox. I'v e noticed that if I reply to a post that is over 2 weeks old,the new post goes to la-la land or perhaps to the spam filter. Especially if I do a search and reply to the topic from the search.

Posted 12 years ago #
graylox
Moderator

That shouldn't be so - but to be honest, I don't know how the filter "is thinking".
Long posts, and posts with several links are in danger. And all posts mentioning DVD converters.

Since some months ago the amount of spam is exploded - luckily most of them go directly to the bin; unluckily sometimes even a regular post.
If you are missing something - shout !

Posted 12 years ago #
BentlyTCow
Member

Already on sale, if anyone was waiting for it - £14.99 via Gamefly and it installs through Steam.

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Wot I Think: Torchlight 2

By John Walker on September 20th, 2012 at 5:07 pm.
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I’ve played Torchlight 2 for 20 hours, killed 8339 monsters (1352 of them exploded), gathered 179,463 gold pieces, died 115 times, and completely pointlessly smashed 1,368 bits of scenery. Which I believe makes me ready to tell you Wot I Think.

Edit: Sorry, I completely forgot to stress that I was playing this single-player, as it was pre-launch. We’ll definitely take a look at the co-op soon.

It’s not a competition. There’s a reason we don’t put scores at the end of reviews, and it’s because games shouldn’t be ranked on some giant graph – it’s stupid and arbitrary. We can say which is our most favourite, of course, and we do. But I am not willing to get into a pie-fight between Torchlight 2 and Diablo III. Saying that, Torchlight 2 is WAY better than Diablo III.

Perhaps more importantly, Torchlight 2 is also much better than Torchlight. The lovely, minimalist approach to a dungeon crawler with its linear descent and ridiculous amount of charm managed to woo us despite its limits. Torchlight 2 removes those limits, keeps the charm, and manages to be a vastly superior sequel to an already fantastic game. What it doesn’t do, however, is move the genre forward in any meaningful direction.

So gone is the single surface village and ever-descending dungeon. Instead there’s a far more traditional setup for a Diablo-clone: one town per act, multiple areas all around, portals linking them all together, and a bunch more story trying to justify the click-click-click.

Like almost every aspect of the game, there’s nothing strikingly original about the locations. Deserts, forests, ruins, etc – it’s exactly what you’d expect to see. But like almost every aspect of the game, they’re fantastically well realised. Vibrant, gorgeous scenes, bursting with character, an amazing variety of enemies, lovely features to discover, and packed with secrets and extras. While it would be sheer madness to suggest this – or any other game in the genre – isn’t repetitive, the locations vary enormously, even within themselves, and the enemy mix demands a fierce focus on your skills to stay alive.

There are no limits on difficulty levels here. If you want to start on Veteran or Nightmare, you can. And I did. Veteran that is – I’m not mad. Normal is recommended for players new to Torchlight, and I can assure you that Vet is the one to pick for the familiar. The challenge has been absolutely pitch perfect throughout, the dungeons exactly matching my level as I reach them, the battles always on the limit of what I can do. And I’ve died. A lot. 115 times according to the game, in my first 20 hours. And almost every time it’s been my stupid fault. (Death isn’t a big deal. If you want to return to the beginning of your current area, it’ll cost you a tenth of your gold. Otherwise you go back to town for free. And if you’ve made judicious use of portals, you can be back where you were in just a few seconds. But it still feels like failure – bitter failure – when it happens.)

I played as a Beserker, and I’m thrilled with the choice. The class is superbly structured, the game constantly enticing me to string one fight into the next, not pausing but continuing my rage, going back for loot later. The skill trees are very interesting – three pages with ten skills each, but each with 15 stages to them. So realistically you’re not going to use most of them, if you want any of them to be well powered. You makes your choices, and your play style comes with it.

So for me, Shadow Burst – the first skill available on the Shadow page – is essential. It’s smart – it causes you to dash forward, transformed into a spectral wolf for about half a second, rushing through enemies and hurting them as you go. But more importantly, you’re also draining health from them. The more you swoop through, the bigger the life boost you gain. It means that to get healthier, you have to get deeper into the fight. Then there’s my other favourite, the Wolf Shade. He’s a temporary buddy wolf who brings a mean fight, especially now he’s rank 9, but again siphoning health to you as he bites. The emphasis on combat as healing, combined with your Beserker charge bar (beefed up with Frenzy Mastery and Rampage skills), entices hefty, meaty battles, strung together as closely as possible.

Beyond this, you know the score. A million loots (no inventory tetris here, sadly) a pet to load it onto and send back to town when you want to sell on the move, enchanters for weapons, gems to socket into weapons and armour to boost their states, and the constant chase to find a weapon, hat or necklace that’s those precious few points better than the one you’re currently using. There’s the main storyline (which we’ll get to), and a bundle of sidequests along the way, which all mostly involve hacking your way across country to the next dungeon entrance, then killing everything inside.

But there is some variety here too. Perhaps a bit too rarely, but within the format there are some nice surprises. Moments where just exploring wins you something new to do – perhaps you light a lantern by a river, and a ghostly fisherman appears, opening a portal to a new dungeon. Or there are the Phase Beasts, spectral creatures that take a good deal of killing, but once dead leave behind a portal to a challenge area. They’re most, as ever, just killing lots of stuff, but they’re specific – perhaps an arena with spectators – with abundant gold and loot for victory.

Later, toward the end of the second act, there were some even more inventive moments, a series of challenges from a character that offered a different experience. But all of it is about the click-click-click.

However, in Torchlight 2, more than in any other ARPG I’ve played, I felt like there was more going on. No doubt my being terrible at Diablo II, and not having the patience to play enough Diablo III (and I played a lot) just to be allowed to play it on a fun difficulty level, is a factor here. But where I’ve more usually just worn out my left mouse button while occasionally tapping the right, I realised as I played this that a single moment’s loss of concentration meant death.

I was doing far more than just tapping, instead watching my rapidly fluctuating health gauge as I fired off skills set to a bunch of number keys alongside my house, all at the same time keeping an eye on my pet’s health, healing her when necessary, and checking timers on the Wolf Shade’s next available experience. And doing all of this in the most extraordinarily frantic fights I’ve seen in the genre. Ludicrously busy combat is packed with maybe five or six different enemy types at once, each needing a specific approach to kill. Making sure to take out the spawning roach mages before worrying about the skeletal swordsmen, while deliberately keeping the super-tough Champion beast on the far side of the fight until I was ready.

It’s a beautifully colourful game, visually reminding me of those glorious screen-painting fights you’d get in City Of Heroes, and eschews all of the tedious grumpy-dark that people so ridiculously want from the genre. With such vibrant frenzy, the only serious issue I ever had was losing the dull gold mouse cursor in the panic.

So there is a story. And it’s awful. I think. I’ve really no idea. The game ridiculously expects you to remember the narrative from the original, which I think had something to do with amber or something? You’re in pursuit of the nefarious Alchemist, who is draining the energies of some giant beasties called Guardians, and trying to do something to do with something or other. It’s garbled, horribly introduced, and of course absolutely unrelated to anything you actually do in the game. So ultimately it doesn’t matter, and it certainly doesn’t make anything any less fun. But it could have course made things even more fun had it been more carefully delivered. As it is, it’s: there’s a bad man – hit stuff until he’s stopped.

This puts Torchlight 2 in an interesting position. It’s pretty much perfect. And I don’t say that lightly. The design choices are exquisite throughout, with everything where you’d want it, designed how you need it, and smartly presented. But for one, every menu, option, inventory comparison, pet screen, skill description, quest description, short-cut, and tool-tip is spot on. While I would have liked a second row of skill buttons, that’s not too important. The only possible issue is the lack of a world map, a nice, clear screen to take everything in. The minimap pops out to become an opaque overlay on the screen, and you can put it in three different places, but it’s always too big to leave there without obscuring, and it’s never big enough to properly appreciate. It’s a minor niggle, but in a game that has gone so far to make everything as user-friendly and intuitive as this one, it’s an odd oversight. A proper map screen, that lets you look at the whole world, and specific regions, would have been lovely.

But that interesting position. It’s pretty much perfect at being something we already know. It really makes no efforts to take the genre anywhere new. That was enormously disappointing when Diablo III did it, while also strangling itself in moronic DRM, bugs and issues. With a game in such a fantastic state as Torchlight 2, it’s instead just a bit of a shame. There was a chance to innovate a lot more here, and while I don’t think for a moment that anyone buying this would be the least bit disappointed in any of it, it would still have been nice to see a significant step forward here.

But you can’t take much away from “pretty much perfect”. Torchlight 2 is a stunning game, as engrossing and evening-eating as you could hope, all so wonderfully presented. It’s smart, witty, and pretty, and it stands as a shining example of the genre.

Torchlight 2 is out on Steam at 6pm Queen’s Time.

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Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
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Box Art
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Torchlight II - Patch 1.12
by Dhruin, 23:15

A second patch has been released for Torchlight II - the notes are a bit long, so here's a taste:

Patch 1.12.X.7 Notes

This patch increments the save version, and we restructured some of the boss rooms, so random levels will clear and repopulate their monsters and events.

FUNCTIONAL
*Shared stash now creates a backup of itself
*You can no longer 'steal' items from your buyback tab by closing the window with Spacebar
*Can’t drag merchant items onto the buyback tab
*Gambler does not show 'can't equip' X
*CTRL-M will instantly toggle map visibility
*Pet equipment cannot get sockets from enchantment
*Fixed rare crash related to Charming a monster
*Multiplayer logging is reduced, and can be disabled with the NEVERLOG commandline argument (may improve performance for some clients)
*Creating a player in a difficulty other than Normal, directly joining a game, and then exiting, won't revert your stored difficulty to Normal.
*Confirmation box added for quitting without saving
*Fixed a few rare hardware related crashes
*Particle update optimizations
*Various rendering optimizations

via rpgWatch

I am currently in Mapworks on my first map. Level 54 on normal. Best $20 value
in a long time.

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Torchlight dev 'eager to break that mold,' try something new
by John Keefer, Oct 04, 2012 4:30pm PDT
Related Topics – Torchlight II, PC, Mac, Runic Games, Torchlight Series

Still basking in the glow of the successful launch of Torchlight 2, Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer is already thinking ahead. The company may be planning on taking a short break, but Schaefer said the company plans on following up the game with a "twist."

In an in-depth interview with Shacker Mark "warcrow" DeSanto, when asked if there will be a Torchlight 3, Schaefer responded:

"Yes. However, I don't know if it will expressly be a Torchlight game but with more, in the sense that Torchlight 2 was the same as Torchlight 1 but with more. I would imagine the next iteration in the Torchlight universe would involve a twist, and I don't know what that would be just yet. Our team has made the Diablos, Mythos, now we've worked on the Torchlights and they’ve all been action RPGs. We're eager to break that mold a little bit."

Obviously, that game is still far off, as Runic is still planning on fully supporting Torchlight 2 with free updates and more end-game content, and Schafer said the company still plans to release mod tools for the game.

via shacknews

Posted 12 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Torchlight 2 adds new pets, bug fixes
by Steve Watts, Nov 16, 2012 4:15pm PST
Related Topics – Torchlight II, PC, Runic Games, Torchlight Series

Torchlight 2 has been outfitted with a new patch that, among its various bug fixes and tweaks to current game systems, adds a couple more pets. Now you can have an owl or a badger following you around and doing your busywork for you.

Other additions from the patch notes include Russian and Polish language options, balance adjustments and fixes to the Engineer, Berserker, and Embermage, and pathing and collision fixes. Zombies also only strike once per explosion, and the game won't crash when wearing gear that requires a requirement reduction spell.

Probably most importantly to affected players, the game was apparently keeping some of them stuck without being able to advance their quests. That should be fixed now. But hey, owls!

via shacknews

Posted 12 years ago #

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