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With Torchlight II due to launch sometime this summer (likely September, many fans believe), Runic Games addressed the community last week with two lengthy posts explaining the current state of development as well as what can be expected of the sequel. In response to feedback from May's closed beta, the company is spending many of its final pre-launch hours applying additional polish to elements such as the skill system.
"Skills are made available for investment by level (just as they were in the tree), but their unlock level is no longer determined by vertical positioning in the tree, which gives us more flexibility to place them where we want them," Runic said. "In addition, you receive specific bonuses to each skill (apart from standard investment bonuses) at every 5 point mark, or tier, which are hopefully a good enticement to continue investing in a skill."
In an example, projectiles shot from one of the Engineer's weapons begin ricocheting at 5 points, they pierce targets at 10 points and at 15 points, the projectiles are tripled. In-between those tiers, other attributes such as damage also increase. Runic stressed that it "didn't remove cool stuff from skills and ball it all up to make the tiers neater." Additionally, passive abilities now have their own section so they can be unlocked earlier.
Much of Runic's time is being spent polishing Torchlight II's acts, with focus currently on the second and third. This includes tweaking the abilities, health, damage, attack range, weapons, behaviors, spawn density, sound sets, death particles, and explosion particles of monsters players will encounter. "Often as we are polishing an act we find a 'gap' -- it feels like something new should be there. So we fill it," the company explained.
Last week, for example, one developer writes that he polished 13 different monsters and gave them 12 new skills, revised spawnclasses for 6 different regions, worked on destructible elements for a sewer area, made various particle systems, fixed multiplayer boss battle issues and more. To offer eager fans an example on the scale of Runic's latest undertaking, the company provided an infographic comparing it to the original game.
In terms of assets and approximate playtime, Torchlight II is said to be nearly four times the size of its predecessor. The new game has over six times the number of unique areas, and over 200% more monster models, unique monster variants, monster abilities, boss battles, room layouts, room pieces and musical tracks. There's also a boost unique player skills and items such as unique wardrobe sets and weapon models.
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Torchlight
Torchlight is an action role-playing game developed by Runic Games. The graphics are three dimensional and viewed from an overhead perspective, similar to the isometric perspective used in the original Diablo. The PC version of Torchlight is designed to allow extensive modding by players, and Runic Games has released the game editing tools they used to create the game as a free download.
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User Comments: 21
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You could say less than $20, because if you pre-order you get the first one free.
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Tekkaraiden said:
Looking forward to playing this co-op with my wife when it's released.
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I missed this, is torchlight a diablo-ish game?
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Darth Shiv said:
I missed this, is torchlight a diablo-ish game?Yeah the lead designers of Diablo 2 I think are running the show at Runic.
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thats cool, sounds like something I should pick up. lord knows I had fun with the D3 beta (when it worked) and I never got around to D2.
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spydercanopus said:
I purchased three copies of the first Torchlight so that I could play with my friends. Then I realized, this isn't multiplayer!! Guess I should have checked first, but I never saw a game like this not being multiplayer. So I never played it, wasted $30, and will never purchase software from this company again.
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1 person liked this |I purchased three copies of the first Torchlight so that I could play with my friends. Then I realized, this isn't multiplayer!! Guess I should have checked first, but I never saw a game like this not being multiplayer. So I never played it, wasted $30, and will never purchase software from this company again.
Its actually a lot of fun. If you still have the keys, makes a nice present, I got one for my buddy when it was on sale for $5, he enjoyed the poop out of it.
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Hahaha, ah boo hoo. Your loss.
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Tekkaraiden said:I missed this, is torchlight a diablo-ish game?
Yep and it's developed by the original founders of Blizzard North.
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TitoBXNY said:
Torchlight was OK, the poor story really brought the game down for me. It became a repeat fest of the same levels and felt too much Like Fate. The loot drops became outrageous, since most were vendor blues that I couldn't use. My dog went to to town many a time. I will purchase 2 and hope it's much better.
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Looks more promising than Diablo, and best part of all it features LAN play! More than likely going to give this a try, and $20 for two games, you can't go wrong now can you.
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So I never played it, wasted $30, and will never purchase software from this company again.
You're never going to buy software from them again, due entirely to your own stupidity? That seems rather childish.
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spydercanopus said:You're never going to buy software from them again, due entirely to your own stupidity? That seems rather childish.
Yea, I know. I should have checked. But I felt duped because it came across like a multiplayer game. They could have added a multiplayer patch or something. The game doesn't feel finished without it.
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Well Torchlight 2 will be multiplayer and I have already played it in the closed beta. Man is this game ever fun. Easily 500% better than the first Torchlight. The gameplay is just so satisfying. I bought Diablo 3 and played a total of 20 hours before finally getting bored - compared to at least 2 or 3 thousand hours of Diablo 2. I already have more than 20 hours in the TL2 beta and that was only a glimpse of the game, I am very anxious for release! I preordered on Steam already, only $19.99 and TL1 comes with it for free!
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Torchlight 2 will have multiplayer/co-op. That's one of the main criticisms of the first game.
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LNCPapa said:
I'm wondering if I'll get a separate TL1 key if I pre-order TL2... I already own TL1 but I'd like to be able to gift it to my daughter.
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I'm wondering if I'll get a separate TL1 key if I pre-order TL2... I already own TL1 but I'd like to be able to gift it to my daughter.
You should check out the TOS or whatever of the deal. IIRC I was going to buy something that also had a free game with it, but they said that the bonus game was not transferrable, so I ended up not buying it.
Or e-mail Valve, from what I've seen they're pretty good about answering stuff.
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Can't wait to play it
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treetops said:
I spent about 20 minutes playing torchlight one before realizing you just go to the same looking hole in the ground over and over. Then fight a boss thats just a big version of something you previously killed 100 times. Cosmetically and skill wise. If it had more to it the lack of multiplayer unmotivated me into not finding out.
It had a nice feel to it I hope they spruced up t2.
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@ LNCPapa
If you preorder it on steam you get torchlight 1 in your inventory, which you can then send as a gift. I did this myself as I was in your same position.
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Maybe you should have read the info and description behind it. Never buy stuff without doing a little research. The fault's on you, not Runic. And Torchlight 2 is incredible! Depending on your taste, it might be better than the Diablo series. That's just me though.
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