Torchlight - digital download Diablo clone by Diablo devs

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UncannyGarlic

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
So I just came across an ad for Torchlight which is lead by the designer of Fate, two of the codesigners of Diablo 1&2, and the team that made Mythos (apparently the Seattle devision of Flagship Studios). Just wondering if anyone has played it or the demo for it yet and what the reactions were. I remember playing the demo for Fate years ago and didn't think much of it (I compare Diablo clones with Diablo II).

I can't say that I'm too impressed by what I've read so far (which is not much) and the DRM is apparently giving people trouble but I thought I'd throw it out there to find out what anyone who bought it thinks.
 
I've played it. It's quite good.

They've pretty much taken all the polish and features of Diablo II and added some new mechanics such as the pet along with the new visuals. Even the music and sounds resemble DII and plenty of elements are reused such as identify/town portal and keyboard controls.

If you're looking for an extremely polished Diablo clone with a unique visual style, it's a solid title. I do have some quarrels, however.

Normal mode is way too easy - I probably should have guessed from the casual visual style of the game, but I've gained too levels to warrant a restart.

After my Alchemist hit level 15, I obtained a skill that made the rest of my skillset obsolete. My playstyle afterwards involved holding down the right mouse button until the room was cleared, so I've stopped using it. Makes me think that there might be more balance issues in the game.

Still, I certainly feel like I'm getting my $20 worth.
 
i "aquired" this game and i have to say, its hella better than fate.

fate i had problems staying motivated to play...

this is like more interesting than FO3 so far...

just a few things so far i dont like, mostly about the sensitivity tile-wise. im playing the archer char and im finding its much easier to use traps than bow...
 
Been playing the demo, and my impressions so far...

Seems okay.

I very much like the music, very reminiscent of the original Diablo. In fact, I'd be surprised if Mr. Uelman himself didn't do the music. I'll have to look that up.

The graphics aren't bad, but the cartoon-ish style doesn't really seem to serve any purpose considering the game seems to be going for a dark, bloody tone. Maybe I'm missing something.

The skill sets of the characters are totally uninteresting. I've only leveled my Vanquisher so far, but I found myself not spending any points in any skills until level 7, and then it was just to do something with them. Admittedly, I've yet to do much with the spell system except learn to summon a few skeletons.

The fact that it's only $20 is a nice plus in its favor though.
 
i see these games as written for people 8-16, not the adult crowd...

they are very simplistic in design. plus the "pet" is a very cutesy thing and... well... i dont see these as games for adults, more of a kids game.
 
Kyuu said:
The skill sets of the characters are totally uninteresting. I've only leveled my Vanquisher so far, but I found myself not spending any points in any skills until level 7, and then it was just to do something with them. Admittedly, I've yet to do much with the spell system except learn to summon a few skeletons.

The fact that it's only $20 is a nice plus in its favor though.
Click to expand...
Skill sets are always something that I worry about and I figure if the game is close to on the level with Diablo II (obviously minus the class variety) it might be worth the $20. If it had multiplayer I'd be much more willing to try it out (I could easily get some buddies to play it) but that's not a feature.

TheWesDude said:
i see these games as written for people 8-16, not the adult crowd...

they are very simplistic in design. plus the "pet" is a very cutesy thing and... well... i dont see these as games for adults, more of a kids game.
Click to expand...
Pets are most recently from MMOs but they were in Dungeon Siege and other older Rougelikes (like NetHack) before that.
 
the whole no-multiplayer and the cutesy pets are why i say its for kids.

and the graphics that are cartoonish in the same vein as most kids games..

and i dont really consider WoW or D2 or D3 graphics cartoonish.
 
So I downloaded the demo and have been playing it a bit. I'm surprised, it's pretty good, maybe even better than Diablo 2 (though with less character variety and no multiplayer :(). I'll know more as I get higher level. I'm hoping that they will release an expansion that will add multiplayer and double the number of classes because if they do, I'll buy it and get my friends to buy it as a replacement to D2 (which I have difficulty playing anymore).

The town music is basically a remixed Tristram, though not nearly as good as the song it's based on. I hate fishing because it's an uninteresting "minigame" which is bound to become frustrating but I like what you get from it (generally pet buffing items). The graphics are inoffensive and in the vein of Warcraft 3 (as they are a little less vibrant than WoW). Skills worry me, I'm not sure how interesting they'll end up being (I'm a Ro-I mean Vanquisher) but I do like the addition of spells on top of them. The voice acting is mediocre at best but not so poor as to hurt your ears and it's unfortunate that the entire game isn't voice acted.

All in all the game can be shortly summed up as a merger of Diablo and Diablo 2.

TheWesDude said:
the whole no-multiplayer and the cutesy pets are why i say its for kids.

and the graphics that are cartoonish in the same vein as most kids games..

and i dont really consider WoW or D2 or D3 graphics cartoonish.
Click to expand...
It's graphics are as cartoony as WoW's, minus WoW's love of pastel colors in places (I'm looking at you Night Elves), and the pets aren't particularly cutesy. I'd say that it's targeted at the same age demographics that WoW is, which is to say teens and up. The pets (which consist between a cosmetic choice between a dog or a cat) are taken directly from Roguelikes (maybe even Rogue) and are there to mitigate the number of trips to town.

EDIT: Speaking of multiplayer, it looks like someone is making a mod to do just that. They don't think that it will work with DRM protected versions (like Steam) but it will work with the box version.
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3569
EDIT2: Looks like they were talking about specifically the Yummy DRM, no clue about steam.
 
I might actually get this. I never played Diablo multiplayer anyway. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
 
Slowly playing through it as an alchemist, and I'm having a great time.

The amount of support this is receiving from the devs is awesome, they even released an unofficially official respec mod that puts a 3000 gold potion in the general vendor's inventory so you can reset your skill points whenever you want.
 
I'd like to bump this game.

Not because I played it or liked it.
But because it represents the future of game industry as I see it, as opposed to the bloated companies making shitty-games-for big-markets-only we have now.


So here are some of the characteristics :
- Small team : 14 people at the start, 26 now working on two games (It's already big for the Indie side but - compared to other game companies it's really small)
- Use of Open-Source technologies : OGRE 3D engine
- Short development cycle : 1 year and a half
- No marketing budget
- Online distribution : Or how to stick it in the ass of the gigantic money-pumping industry of publishing
- Visually Appealing game without consuming much computing ressources : No shaders, Not too much polygons, All in the textures
- SMALL COST : 20$

The main result of this is a reduction of costs and scale, with still a production-quality game, up to standards.

This, my friends, opens possibilities of making games for a smaller target audience, like, say, "People who loved Fallout 1 and 2" and still making enough profit.
Seriously, give me a budget, 6 dedicated teammates, 18-24 months, and I make you a goddamn RPG. With all the Open-Source production-quality technologies out there, it's a shame no one already took up the task.

I hope the rest of the industry is trembling right now.
 
If there's one thing that needs adjusting, it's the controls. It simply won't do that attacking and moving are done with the same mouse button, because every time you miss your click you start moving instead.

It's not possible to customize the controls in any way.
 
fail, you do fail...

if you use the shift button, you wont move but will always attack.
 
I didn't pick this name for no reason, you know.

Some tutorial popup must have explained that but I forgot. There doesn't seem to be an in-game key reference anywhere.
 
TheWesDude said:
fail, you do fail...

if you use the shift button, you wont move but will always attack.
Click to expand...
reminds me of the Diablo "shift+click"-fest. :)

it set a standard for the genre. ;)
 
failout said:
I didn't pick this name for no reason, you know.

Some tutorial popup must have explained that but I forgot. There doesn't seem to be an in-game key reference anywhere.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is one either. There is a note about the shift key in one of the loading screen messages, though. But it is disappointing that you can't reconfigure your keys.
 
TheWesDude said:
there are so few keys... why do you need a key map :P
Click to expand...

I'd rather have 6-0 mapped to q, w, e, etc so I don't have to move my hand every time I want to use one of them. Also, my left thumb is a bit sore so I would rather use another key instead of alt for highlighting loot. Not really a big deal though, most of the keys are fine.
 
well, the alt for highlighting loot is a press-hold or a toggle...

there is one of the buttons near the middle that if you click it, it turns on loot names without using alt.
 
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