Torchlight 2 priced at $20, final class revealed
Runic Games has announced that Torchlight II will launch at $20, and has revealed the final playable class in the game.
Runic Games has announced that Torchlight II will release at the same price point of the original game. It will be $19.99 when it comes to downloadable services later this year. Given the response toward the first game, it only makes sense to imitate success.
"It's always been our goal to provide exceptional value for the price," said CEO Max Schaefer in the announcement.
"Everyone who wants to play Torchlight II will be able to comfortably afford to do so, and they'll be able to play with their friend online or via a LAN, or play single player offline, all with no further purchases."
Runic also announced the fourth and final playable class, the Embermage. The lore page for the Embermage details her powers, which include the usual elemental spells along with manipulation of time and space. In context of the game, this means teleporting to a better position for her dual blades. She joins the Outlander, Berserker, and Engineer.
The announcement didn't include a release date, however, so it's still set for the nebulous time-frame of 2011. It's a PC exclusive for the time being, as Runic has said putting it on the Xbox 360 would require redesign to fit the memory limit.
-
Shacknews
replySteve Watts posted a new article, Torchlight 2 priced at $20, final class revealed.
Runic Games has announced that Torchlight II will launch at $20, and has revealed the final playable class in the game.-
-
-
[deleted]
-
the biggest feature this game needs is release date before diablo 3 LOL
-
[deleted]
-
[deleted]
-
-
IAWMFU.
-
-
No, but Runic can capitalize on the excitement for D3 by releasing Torchlight 2 early. I imagine there would be no small number of D3 customers who would snatch up Torchlight for the interim who may ignore it once D3 is out.
-
-
Pretty much my sentiments exactly. Diablo 3 will just be a different class.
-
-
No, but I'll probably put it on the back burner for at least a year.
-
If both came out at the same time, I'd buy Diablo 3 and not touch this until it was on sale.
If it comes out first, they'll get my money day one. -
[deleted]
-
if I'm currently playing D3 a shitload there's really not much point in picking up a game that's extremely similar. I would get TL2 eventually but I'm not going to play it concurrently with D3 so might as well wait for a sale. It's not much different than being serious about MP FPS and 2 very similar ones come out at the same time, if you put serious time into one you're just not going to bother with the other.
-
Also, is Torchlight 2 really still going to be $20? I just assumed as a much bigger game than the first it was likely to be a full price title.
-
-
Yeah, I just noticed that. I'll probably buy it at launch either way at that price.
-
-
-
[deleted]
-
yeah that's what I expect too, just saying that as much as I'm looking forward to both, if they're both out at the same time D3 is much more likely to be the one I devote my time to and thus TL2 I'd wait for a sale.
-
-
-
-
More like 360.
-
And then walk away.
-
-
-
-
you would buy an impreza and a bmw on the same day? what would you do with 2 cars?
-
Calling D3 an Impreza may offend some people.
-
-
It's funny to me how much negative attention Diablo 3 can get, and yet people are dead set on getting it no matter what.
Always online - yes.
Real money auction house - yes.
Simplified skill tree - yes.
instant sell items (no need to visit vendor) - yes.
A game as simple as a hack n' slash is being simplified even more to grab as much audience as possible, although the D2 sold 18 bazillion copies to begin with. Blizzard could come out tomorrow and say it would cost an extra $5 per new character a player creates, everyone would bitch and complain, but it still wouldn't matter.-
hahahaha i can tell you didn't read any of the developer commentary on those changes. it's not simplification, it's trimming unnecessary fat (skill trees and vendors). the other two don't matter, play hardcore. i'm not going to bother retyping what the devs already said cause you won't read it anyways.
-
[deleted]
-
-
[deleted]
-
-
-
Yeah instant selling of items should be available in Fallout and Elder Scrolls games and Borderlands because it's obvious there can't be improvements made to the reasons why people should travel back to vendors from time to time.
And simplification of the skill tree? Fat? What? Improving something doesn't have to involve simplifying or dumbing it down. It can be more intuitive, easier, more useful, and more varied, all while being both improved.... instead of just less upgrade paths end of story.-
Did you or did not you read their explanation for the skill changes? What is your actual point of contention with them besides 'no skill points = dumbed down'?
-
I actually do not have a point of contention with them. My point originally was that, a game like Torchlight 2 can keep coming out with more and more great news and it still won't sell as well as Diablo 3, even if D3 continues it's trend with more and more controversial / bad news regarding features, gameplay, pricing, etc.
-
even if D3 continues it's trend with more and more controversial / bad news regarding features, gameplay, pricing, etc.
and my contention is this isn't an actual trend and that the majority of people will actually benefit and enjoy these changes more than the D2 systems.-
-
yes I'm well aware, that would put you in the minority
-
[deleted]
-
if you honestly believe the majority of Diablo fans care about online only DRM, let alone to the point of not purchasing it purely as a result of that feature, I don't know what to tell you besides you're completely out of touch with the average person/gamer
-
-
-
-
-
The stuff you listed as "bad news" for Diablo 3 can be considered good news or (at worse) a no-op by many/most.
Simplified skill trees isn't necessarily bad news for Diablo. Skill trees in Diablo (+ WoW) have very few actual, legitimate choices in them. You saved points waiting for new shit to unlock, or the points were largely useless (ex: attributes). There's nothing magical, special, or complicated about it. Diablo was no where near Sacred in terms of actual choices in building your character. Streamlining it makes sense.
Real money AH? Who cares -- if Blizzard didn't explicitly support it, then underground ones would have emerged. They exist for both Diablo 2 and WoW, as well as almost every other MMO.
Always online? Again, not something people tend to get worked up about, save for those vocal few who get worked up about fucking everything.
Instant sell items? Again, gameplay enhancement. You can still go back to town if you want a break from the action, but those of us who just want to kill shit can. -
Of course not. You talk about simplification -- Torchlight's systems were several orders of magnitude simpler than Diablo 2s. That's what allowed for the variety and complexity of builds in D2 -- juggling breakpoints for fcr, ias, fhr, blocking % ... the way those were all balanced with ever-increasing amounts to hit the next breakpoint was amazing. They were balanced so well that all were equally important and you couldn't become godly by focusing on any one of them, it was always a trade-off that made for interesting choices. Torchilight had nowhere near that kind of build complexity or depth to any of the underlying systems which is why it was fun for one or two run-throughs but got old quickly after that.
And game systems aside, the gear alone was far more balanced in D2 than Torchlight.
TL is a fun little game but I doubt TL2 will have the complexity of D3.-
-
I don't know.
I found most of the choices when building a character in Diablo to be largely superfluous. Generally you had one thing that really mattered (ex: drop a fuckton of skill points in X), and then a bunch of shit that didn't (attribute points once you could equip an armor type). As a result, you could get by with a lot of variation to a core build largely because the choices were completely irrelevant.
Systems like Sacred, on the other hand, are ridiculously complex and connected, and have an insane amount of depth to them. This puts off a lot of people, though, since a very small number of missteps can completely fuck over a character.-
I found most of the choices when building a character in Diablo to be largely superfluous. Generally you had one thing that really mattered (ex: drop a fuckton of skill points in X), and then a bunch of shit that didn't (attribute points once you could equip an armor type). As a result, you could get by with a lot of variation to a core build largely because the choices were completely irrelevant.
But this was only true in normal/NM, Hell was where you got punished for doing random shit with your attributes/skills/gear. And figuring out what the right skills to pick without the help of the internet would've certainly taken awhile.-
-
No, I didn't like the Sacred 1 demo and I never got around to 2 since it has failed to be at a reasonable sale price for a 70ish game. I don't doubt it could be more complex/deeper than D2 to some degree, but obviously it didn't review well for a variety of reasons and I imagine some of that is making that complexity hard to understand or make reasonable choices with. The point is just that D2's choices don't seem that meaningful until you get to Hell where it's meant to test how perfect your build is. Until then you can get away with a lot more.
-
Even in hell, I would run with most of my attribute points unassigned, just because they didn't make much of a difference once you could equip your gear.
The Sacred series doesn't review well for two reasons -- the games are usually very polished (same with any European RPG), and the build systems are ridiculously unforgiving and unintuitive unless you read up on it (either in-game, or online). As a result, it scores in the "good, but niche" bin (70-80%) in online reviews.
The complexity isn't hard to understand -- you just can't make assumptions. One (fatal) mistake new people tend to make is that they learn all of the skill runes they find, and end up with abilities with ridiculously long cooldowns. You do not want to do that unless you're building an auto-attack character with abilities that hit like a truck. If you're going for an ability-spamming build, then you need to keep your abilities at level 1 until you get specific attribute/skills high enough so that you can level up the ability without having its cooldown significantly exceed 1s.
-
-
-
-
I'm assuming you never did the high-end end game stuff (uber trist, uber diablo)? Or maybe even play in hell post 1.10, as none of thsoe would allow you to get away with throwing points willy-nilly. There were only maybe half a dozen specific builds that could solo hell after 1.10 sans not-legitimately-obtainable runewords, and only 2 or 3 builds that could solo uber tristram.
-
I'm not saying the game allows you to throw all of your points around willy-nilly.
I'm saying each successful build had some basic core (ex: pump a bunch of points into 1-2 abilities, get attributes up to ~X so you could equip Y, etc.) that made it successful, but then a significant amount of your left-over points went into other shit (ex: pumping vit) or could even be left unassigned. Some of it did not matter.
Sacred's system, on the other hand, is much more complete. If you wanted to build a character around spamming 1-2 abilities, then that dictated every single choice you made in the build. This allowed for much more meaningful choices to be made, and some interesting builds as a result.-
Attribute points vs skill points are very different though. The former certainly did not have the weight Blizzard wants out of a system like that. Skill points were massively more valuable.
-
-
certainly, I'm just saying that just because the attribute system was meh didn't leave lots of depth in the skill system combined with loot
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Well I doubt D3 will have the complexity of D2 also.
-
-
no that's pretty much right. Fewer classes, fewer skills per class (and poorly balanced ones at that, Ember Lance >>>> everything else in the Mage line), and less balanced loot.
-
Does TL have charts to track the various breakpoints per class?
http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Breakpoints
or calculators (since IAS has so many variables and complexities it can't be contained in a simple chart)?
http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english
For the 90% of players that never make it past nightmare, it doesn't matter -- the game is nice and accessible at a more superficial level. But it has incredible depth for those who look for it. And that's one thing that Blizzard does incredibly well; WoW and Starcraft are similarly enjoyable at a more superficial level for the non-hardcore, but have loads of depth once you start analyzing the systems. walker270 talks about the complexity of Sacred, but that's only part of it. If the game isn't *simultaneously* accessible and complex, then it fails to engage both the casual and hardcore player.-
-
your second statement does not follow from the first
-
-
No, that still doesn't follow. The technical reasons didn't just spring out of the ether, they chose the technical direction of the game.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
that's because the people bitching about those things aren't even 1% of Diablo fans and most of us don't think those are serious issues if they're issues at all. Did people mock Guild Wars for being too dumbed down compared to Diablo 2 because it didn't have skill points? Nope, they loved the PvP and found it much better than D2.
-
None of those 4 points matter to me. As long as the gameplay is sharp and responsive, as long as the abilities are fun and varied, as long as the monsters are sweet and the artwork beautiful, and as long as I get neat trinkets to put on my dude, then I'll be happy with Diablo III. I have, thus far, little reason to think my wishes won't be met.
-
-
All those are positives to me. (I don't really care about the always online part but if it helps keep the game from being hacked and/or pirated then that's a plus.)
-
This is a truly horrible post. Everything you listed results in a net positive if you take the time to actually use your brain and think it through.
-
Everything he listed? No. I do not agree.
Real money auction house I'm ok with, though concerned it might show itself broken somehow. It's not a bulletpoint that bothers me.
The dumbing-down of the system might be more efficient. Maybe. But I'm not really happy with it.
But the online-requirement is a killer.-
Explain to me how it's a killer, exactly. I'm not trying to be obtuse, I really want to know what the complaint is. Because I have a hard time imagining how almost any of us here, a tech-savvy bunch of people, would ever spend a significant amount of time on a personal machine that is offline.
-
[deleted]
-
Not wanting it and considering it a "killer" are not really the same thing in my head.
-
-
Travel, military service, living in areas that aren't profitable enough for cable companies to string line, power outages due to storms/heat/brownouts.
There are plenty of scenarios that could crop up that an always online police can bite you in the ass.
It's another hoop to jump through just to play a game.
If this was a totally new game Blizzard was releasing it probably wouldn't be making nearly the waves it is by releasing always on drm, but since it's an established series that has a history of offline/lan play it's going to catch flak.
What surprises me is all the hate piled onto people that are voicing their discontent over a series design change. If you disagree and can't see past it not effecting you personally than ignore it and get on with your life, no need to bash the people who are affected or care.
That last bit isn't directed personally at you my marsupial friend.-
Yea, being in the military is making these online only games a real pain
-
Travel - who needs to play Diablo when you're traveling? If you're on vacation, computer games should be the last thing you're interested in. If you're on business travel, then yeah that sucks but business travel itself is an inconvenience, you shouldn't expect all your creature comforts. The game will still be there when you get home.
Military - I get that this also sucks, but as with business travel you're there on an obligation, and in particular it's an obligation that you've placed upon yourself by choosing to be in the military. Blizzard is not responsible for your decision nor should you expect them to cater to this. I get that it sucks, but it's part of the deal.
Limited internet access - probably the only real legitimate complaint here. That said, the number of people these days with that limited of internet access are probably in a minority.
Power outages - Really?
I think the reason people are reacting to some of these complaints is that some of them are downright silly or exhibit an excess of misplaced entitlement.
Also, not a marsupial - read closer :)-
Blizzard can start telling these segments of their customers to go fuck themselves if they want. They've built up a buffer and can be cocks. But is it really in their best interest telling people who travel, military, and people limited Internet access that they just don't care about them? Blizzard got where they are by making good games and being cool.
-
Apologies Womb, started on my beergoggles early.
All of those are legitimate complains in the context of having the ability to play a single player game. Unfortunately Diablo is no longer a single player game. (yes I know you can make a room and play solo, you can solo your way up in WoW as well, but an online restriction is multiplayer in my eyes)
And yes power outages, rolling brownouts in California have stopped me from playing Diablo 2 before on battlenet, I'd just swapped over to offline until the juice came back on. I've also had a transformer explode here in Minnesota and have to run off generators for 6 days.
When it comes down to it I'm more upset about the removal of choice. I don't care for the arrogance they responded with, and the reasons given for not adding it seem flimsy.
But in the end, hey it's their game if they wanted it to be only playable from space more power to them. Regardless I'll still complain bout and lament the decision.-
They've earned it (the arrogance), but it doesn't make them fans. You can also see it in their response to the WoW'ification of the graphics. They might as well respond with "Blow Me" at this point. Somehow I feel like the acquisition by Activision has really had a negative impact on them as a company.
-
WoW'ification? Dear lord.
-
I'm not saying it's bad graphically, but they did switch from Blizzard North (closed) to the studio that does the WoW graphics, and the change in styles is noticable.
-
-
-
Their reasons weren't flimsy. It's not feasible to create two independent and disjoint versions of the game, which is what it would take to manage both the online game they're currently creating and a completely stand-alone, offline one you want.
When they talk about security and whatnot, they're talking about the fundamental architecture changes necessary to support an offline game. You end up moving the item spawning and world management to the client-side, because adding another 2 years to the project to creating two identical but independent code-bases for something-
oh, and it's nice to see this site still has the less-than bug.
The rest of the post said creating something like :
less than 5% of the user base will actually base their purchasing decision isn't exactly financial feasible. Unless they want to force people to add a new couple nodes to their home network to install a small set of oracle databases (they don't exactly like to share resources) to mimic the battle.net shit, which isn't exactly feasible either...
-
-
-
-
-
I'm in college in a dorm. There isn't wifi all over my campus. I can't take a 20 minute break to play some diablo in between classes now without running back to my room or trying to find one of the shoddy hotspots.
-
This can't be a serious post. Not being able to play for 20 whole minutes?
-
-
-
Online only is necessary once you have RMAH. A client-server setup is much more secure -- not allowing the client to have all the code on their machine means it is much harder to find ways to exploit the code. If there was an offline single player mode, all the code would necessarily be on the client pc where it could be dissassembled and analyzed at leisure.
With a RMAH, the last thing Blizzard wants is to have the duped / hacked / bugged item plague that infested Diablo 2. In fact, they owe it to the playerbase to ensure the auction house is completely legit and scam free. How upset would players be if they couldn't sell shit on the auction house because some hackers had duped a thousand copies of every item and were undercutting all the legit players' prices?-
[deleted]
-
if something is inevitable, it is often best to accept that fact and craft systems to make it better than fruitlessly fight it. We just had a war on drugs thread... Selling items for real money has been happening in D2 for ages. It will happen in D3 whether Blizzard has a real money auction house or not. By adding it themselves they make those transactions safer for all involved, and yes, they get a cut because they're a business and not stupid.
-
Here's a crazy thought: If RMT is going to happen no matter what Blizzard does (and it will), then why NOT shove out this 3rd party black-market shit and take a cut themselves by managing it?
In fact, why not use this as a way to get recurring revenue out of a franchise INSTEAD of charging monthly fees or going an F2P route of binding in-game desirables to microtransactions?
I gotta be honest, most people paying attention to the industry and Blizzard knew some other monetization shoe was going to drop, beyond the $60 purchase. I was actually relieved that shoe ended up being an RMAH instead of optional monthly fees for perks, or selling shit heavily tied to gameplay like Spiral Knights, et al.
-
-
-
-
PS - Here's some things potential posters DON'T get to use as an argument:
- "Not forced to make choices."
Refutation: You still choose which skills to use. You still must learn how to make a combination of skill choices effective. You can't use everything simultaneously. Having to re-roll a character to do so doesn't make those choices more meaningful, it makes them more frustrating and time-consuming for no apparent reason.
- "No sense of character customization/individuality."
Refutation: Items still remain a major customization component, even more so now that Runestones can impact your build and play-style. Many unique builds in D2 required certain gear to support the play style effectively. Several developer interviews indicate they have worked to keep this aspect of gear in D3.
- "Everyone is going to be the same."
Refutation: As opposed to D2 where every character was a unique snowflake? I got the strong impression most players either spent a lot of time finding out what everyone else did that was effective and copied it, or just made uninformed choices because they didn't know better--not to be unique.
- "No reason to re-roll since I can play every build of a class with one character"
Refutation: Are you really going to constantly switch between every imaginable build combination, repeatedly throughout each Act and difficulty, especially the gear-dependent ones on your first play through? Honestly, that sounds both impossible and miserable. I know I'll be re-rolling my favorite classes to try out different builds in the earlier difficulties with the new gear I find as I play.
I don't even want to argue about manual stat-point allocation, it's not worth arguing over how silly it was and would be if they kept it even vaguely similar to D2.
-
-
-
Always online - sucks
Real money auction house - awesome
Simplified skill tree - wait and see
instant sell items (no need to visit vendor) - awesome -
- Always online = D3 ships before 3rd Quarter 2012 and/or has more work put into more important things = YAY! ***see footnote
- RMAH = RMT is going to impact game economy, integrated or no. Integration = Blizzard has better control over scope of impact + long-term source of income for developer = YAY!
- Simplified Skill Tree = Removal of poorly designed, archaic skill system + using a decade of feedback = YAY!
- Instant Sell Items = Removal of arbitrary restriction that means nothing to casual players and gives OCD players a collective sigh of relief = .. no big deal? Small yay?
Did I miss anything? I think you didn't bitch about the lack of moddability, the lack of runewords, and the general focus on coop PvE instead of PvP, including but not limited to the lack of ganking and griefing er.. hostile flagging and PvP-centric gameplay? Although fans may have come to appreciate these aspects in D2 (minus the PvP-centric gameplay, which was never there), none of these things are core to the Diablo experience, and the franchise will not suffer in any meaningful way by excluding support for them.
-------
*** Apologies to the minority of fans unable to get reliable internet access during their gaming free-time. Being marginalized always sucks, and even though its a logical business decision for Blizzard in many ways, it does not magically invalidate your anger over the issue. I hope you will check out Runic Games and their upcoming Torchlight 2 to lend support to developers that don't exclude you from their target audience.
-
-
-
-
agreed, heck with this at 20 I can avoid the $60 D3 for quite a while.
-
-
This is awesome news.
-
Instant buy.
-
Will probably get this, though I might wait for sale (provided the sale happens prior to D3). While I could appreciate the 1st one for what it was, it was a chore to finish it since there was no depth to the gameplay and it got pretty boring pretty fast. And the loot system, arguably the main carrot to playing these games, was bad.
-
I'll buy 3 copies and have 10x more enjoyment as COD:MW3.
-
Excellent news. They've got my money again.
-
Awesome price, I can't wait to play more Torchlight. :)
-
But when does it come out?! I want to give them my monies!
-
What's the current release date? October?
-
Still playing the first one, but I'm glad to see multiplayer in this. That was one of the few things I really missed in the first one.
-
I will buy 107 copies.
-
Someone at Steam should make a 107-pack for sale haha
-
-
