Torchlight 2, My Impressions...

W

warcrow

Regular
10/04/12

I'm back with a new interview with Max Schaefer. As some of you'll recall I interviewed Max back at E3 and we talked about bunch lot of cool things, including his time at Blizzard working on Diablo 3 many moons ago.

Well I sat down with Max again a few days after Torchlight 2 launched and we discussed: Torchlight 2 sales, how powerful the mod tools really are, will TL2 on the Mac make 2012, player cheating, working on Diablo 3, open-multiplayer vs secure-multiplayer, Claptrap and Minecraft cameos in TL2, PvP, Torchlight 3, Torchlight 2 on next gen consoles, Sci-Fi ARPGs and if he'll ever make that Torchlight/Minecraft hybrid he told me about at E3 this year.

http://eat-games.tumblr.com/post/32824468588/max-schaefer-torchlight2-launch-interview

Hope you guys enjoy, I'm proud of this one! :)

Cheers,
-Mark




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I got invited into the beta last night and only had time to play for about 3 hours, but I thought I'd share my impressions and notes with you fine folks.

Here is what my Outlander looked like after those first 3 hours: https://twitter.com/#!/heymarkd/status/200220939705790465/photo/1



Visuals - Playing Torchlight 2 at 2560x1440 with all effects turned on and maxed out shows just how GOREGEOUS this game can look! But beyond it's technical capabilities, the actual art, assents, models, level design and animations have also come along splendidly. So far I think the thing that has stood out the most is the environmental designs. They're just spectacular and really just far beyond the sort of banal cave-after-cave we played through in T1. One cave had a pirate theme, and within were the animated skeletal remains of pirates, ghosts and other seaworthy nefarious creatures. Another dungeon was completely different in that it looked like a Gothic library, sort of like the one found in the Diablo 3 beta. :)

The game still has a more World of Warcraft aesthetic to it than a Diablo one. I love the look of it all.


Classes - I decided to go with the Outlander, mainly because ranged attacks coupled with a pet sounded like a blast, and you know what? It's a freak'n good time! Dual-pistols coupled with a Glave and I was mowing through mobs quickly. Oh and when creating a character you now have the option of 6 different pets. Pets still sell things for you, learn spells, can equip a collar and now have a shipping list to purchase things like identity scrolls or health potions.


- The GUI is unobtrusive, clean, responsive and does exactly what it should--stays out of our way!

- The loot, oh god the loot, THE LOOT!

- The world is more explorable, at least so far. As it opens up when you leave town and there are things to encounter. Like dungeons and NPCs. NPCs seem to guide you to various dungeons to kill someone who did something bad. The dungeons now have a level marker on this so you know if you're capable of handling the opposition. Its nice to see because it essentially means the world is your oyster.


There is more, but this is all I can think of off the top of my head.Feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them, just keep in mind I've only played the game for a few hours and it's only the MP portion not the SP.
 
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I was a huge fan of the first Torchlight, and I've been keeping my eye on the sequel. However, after having played Diablo 3 and anticipating it's arrival next week, I can't see myself even bothering with another dungeon crawler until I've thoroughly exhausted D3, which could be a while. I kinda wish Torchlight 2's production didn't take nearly as long as it did, it would have been perfect if it released before D3. I still find myself tinkering with the original, occasionally. The endless dungeon, after completing the game is actually pretty fun, for those who are obsessed with getting better and better gear. And the initial videos of T2 made the world look a lot larger, which is great because the first had a feeling of confinement. I know at some point I'll grab it, 20 bucks is a steal, and if it's anything like the first, it'll be worth every penny.
 
TL2 looks awesome from the one single movie I've seen of it (deliberately to not spoil myself), with way more advanced graphics. I just hope it won't kill my little Macbook dead, the original game runs quite well on SNB integrated graphics at the laptop's native resolution. I'm really looking forwards to this game, I hope it will be great.
 
Final Beta Impresssions


After spending about 5-6 hours with the beta--which is most of Act 1--I'm left completely impressed. Runic has managed to expand, improve, refine and polish just about every single system, machanic and technology from Torchlight 1.

First off I've got to mention how impressed I am with the level of polish--it's astounding. I experienced nary a hitch, glitch, hiccup or crash. The only thing I can even think of mentioning, and this is digging, is the fact that every time I fired up the game I had to reset the resolution. Again that's nitpicking though.

Ok, so, T2 looks Fantastic! Thanks to the much (MUCH!) more varied aesthetics and enviroments, I was treated to a very rich, lush and colorful pallate that seem to run the full spectrum. It's a game the REALLY pops on the screen, and yes it seems to have reached a point where it's more World of Warcraft (again, in aesthetic) that World of Warcraft. That's a compliment, and I love the sort of chariature design of it all.

The dungeon designs are light years beyond the ones from T1 where it seemed like we eere constantly running through had the same, mundane caves we experienced in T1. Just in the beta I ran through a Pirate themed cave that was crawling skeletons wearing eye patches and bandanas, with a boss called One Eyed Wily. Another had me running through a frostbitten cavern, filled with yeti's and ice...panthers, or something. My person favorite was the a bandit warehouse that was consumed in flames, and watching it crumble above me dropping embers and scafolding all around as I set some people free.

Again I played as an Outlander, and the combination of dual-pistols, the Glave and the pet really rocketed me through the action. It was very fast and furious filled with mountains of glorious loot. I'd probably recommend people who are interested in even a slight challenge to play on Vetertan difficulty because I didnt die once throughout the whole 5-6 hours. That doesnt mean I wasn't running away from boss or mobs, but some additional challenge would be recommended.

Speaking of the bosses, their fights were always made with grand entrances. They were fun, over-the-top and always the most challenging thing in the game. Each one always left me with a sense of accomplishment. It's also worth mentioning that there is a good variety in the enemies, and in the way they attack. They're not all just charging at you, some shift through things, some teleport, some spit goop, some charge, and some summon snot (or something). The point is, you will have to vary some of your strategies.

So there it is. At a full sprint I smashed my teeth into a stone wall called the level cap. Next I did the only sensible thing--started over.
 
There is interest here. I am just waiting for something more concrete than "Summer" as a release date!
 
warcrow said:
Man, is there no interest for this game?
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Maybe if you'd posted in the console forum people would have taken notice...! ;)

Ok, seriously, I think Torchlight is feeling the pressure from the imminent release of Blizzard's 3000-ton titanic gorilla title Diablo3, which may dampen enthusiasm for this game to some extent, and also the nebulous release date as Dave suggests. T2 was due out by the end of last year after all, and when this did not happen - and the game may be 6+ months delayed - some people may have become put off.
 
Dave Baumann said:
There is interest here. I am just waiting for something more concrete than "Summer" as a release date!
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I remember reading from one of the devs on their forums that they were releasing a month after D3, so that makes it mid-June

Grall said:
Ok, seriously, I think Torchlight is feeling the pressure from the imminent release of Blizzard's 3000-ton titanic gorilla title Diablo3, which may dampen enthusiasm for this game to some extent, and also the nebulous release date as Dave suggests. T2 was due out by the end of last year after all, and when this did not happen - and the game may be 6+ months delayed - some people may have become put off.
Click to expand...


Runic also seem to be the only people who think that releasing after D3 isn't a problem, claiming they are different types of games, people will buy both, etc. Fact is that every game released around this summer is going to have problems pulling people away from a long awaited time-sink like D3, let alone a game like T2 that is pretty much in the same genre.

The low price will help, but is there really anyone who doesn't think that releasing such a game a month before D3 has to be a much better idea than a month after D3 comes and eats everyone's lunch?
 
I'm definitely interested in it. The original was a real diamond in the rough and I'm willing to bet the second will be as well, a place which it reserves, unfortunately, because it's overshadowed by the release of the titan of the hack-n-slash series. I think both games are great for different reasons, I just think it's awful timing for T2. The lack of any definitive release date doesn't help. D3 already kept us in limbo for like twelve years, depending on how long you actually anticipated another game.
 
I'm definitely interested in this, but when it comes on a different platform.
 
Ok you will be smited by the Gaming gods for that remark....

ps: my review of Torchlight 1 click on enemy's ooh I'm playing missile command.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
I'm pretty sure I remember reading from one of the devs on their forums that they were releasing a month after D3, so that makes it mid-June
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That would pretty much mirror the launch of Diablo 2, except a much bigger and more well-known game in the same genre did NOT launch in May 2000... ;)

Runic also seem to be the only people who think that releasing after D3 isn't a problem
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Seriously though, what else are they supposed to say? :D Business is like politics, you play down your competitors as well as your own weaknesses to try to make things look better. Often it ends up looking silly however, but still, what other choice do they have?

They gotta try and make things look good for them. Astroturf the landscape, you know? :) Anything else would be self-defeatist.

claiming they are different types of games, people will buy both, etc.
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I have in fact bought both. :D Well, I haven't actually bought D3 yet as Amazon hasn't shipped it yet, nor charged me (they now claim estimated shipping date monday 14th... :p), but my pre-order for T2 is in on Steam at least.

I'm hoping Runic didn't start pre-ordering because they were running out of money.

Fact is that every game released around this summer is going to have problems pulling people away from a long awaited time-sink like D3, let alone a game like T2 that is pretty much in the same genre.
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Aye! You can only play one game at a time after all. Still, it seems Runic did feel their game wasn't finished back in december, so I guess it wasn't finished. They gotta be kicking themselves though over there at Runic now that they've ended up launching post-D3 launch, I'm sure.
 
I think one of the things that drove me away from Torchlight 1 was its low-end visuals profile, where one of its main selling points was the ability to play on Atom netbooks.
Is this still true, overall?
(it's not like I'm alergic to games with low-end visuals.. but there are so many "beautiful" things out there to play and I tend to prioritize them..)


Since Diablo III changed its art design for cartoonish, I was hoping that Torchlight 2 would take the opportunity to head into a more diablo-esque design and trump D3 with it, but I see it hasn't. Comparisons to D3 will be inevitable, so does it have the assets to have people preferring Torchlight 2 over D3 (besides the draconian DRM thing)?
 
Errr, have you actually played D3? It's not cartoonish...at all. It's very gruesome and gross, blood and gore smeared all over the ground and exploding from dying monsters, dead mutilated bodies strewn about, gutted monstrous carcasses hung from chains on walls, stuff like that.

Torchlight 2 looks more detailed than the first game - probably because the first game was developed rather quickly - and spell effects are certainly buffed up majorly (you can check out videos from the game on the web if ya like, but it still maintains a WoW-like/cartoonish flavor.
 
Grall said:
Errr, have you actually played D3? It's not cartoonish...at all. It's very gruesome and gross, blood and gore smeared all over the ground and exploding from dying monsters, dead mutilated bodies strewn about, gutted monstrous carcasses hung from chains on walls, stuff like that.
Click to expand...

Diablo 3 is rather painterly than cartoonish IMO.
All that you mentioned is in the game, but it's nothing like say Alien, which impressed me a lot when I saw it. (Well nothing shocked me in Diablo 3, it felt "for teen", even if ESRB gave it a M)

Torchlight 2 looks a bit too cartoon to me, but I got to see it in motion.
(I still remember hating Wind Waker's screenshots and loving the game in motion.)
 
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