Torchlight out now

by **Demiath** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:10 pm

Although I was initially quite skeptical about the need for yet another Diablo clone, after having played the recently released Torchlight (which is very reasonably priced at 20$) for an hour or two I must admit that I'm having a lot of fun so far. The art style is great (like a much-improved and more ambitious version of Fate) and the hack'n slash is satisfying and has some nice features which help differentiate and streamline the otherwise Diablo-like experience. Little things like the ability to send your familiar (either a cat or a dog) to town where it automatically sells off loot so you don't have to is a great idea which I haven't seen in similar games before (then again, I haven't played a roguelike dungeon crawler seriously since Diablo II). A level editor will be released soon which is part of the extensive modding support which the developers are providing, and it will definitely be interesting to see what kind of neat user-generated content the community will develop during the coming months...

More info here:
http://www.torchlightgame.com

The game is also available from Steam, GamersGate, Impulse and probably a lot of other places as well.

by **getter77** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:33 pm

Indeed, many good things shall come of this. I too shall enter into the fray on the mod/TC side of things in conjunction with my next substantial milestone regarding it and Scallywag. Between TorchED and RAGe---very good things should be possible.

by **BlueSalamander** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:52 pm

Thanks for this, the video looks good. Just by looking at it, though, I expect camera control to be a major downside.

by **Demiath** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:09 pm

BlueSalamander wrote:Thanks for this, the video looks good. Just by looking at it, though, I expect camera control to be a major downside.

It would certainly be more convenient if one could rotate the viewpoint rather than just zooming it in and out. That said, the mine tunnels in this clip are more narrow than paths I've seen in the other environments so far (some of which don't have walls at all), so I wouldn't say the video gives a representative example of how close the walls normally are to your character.

by **dastein** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 4:56 pm

I have played it for a couple of hours, and while I agree on the strong points that Demiath already described, it didn't really grab me. The granularity of level design is rather low, meaning that there can be exact replicas of whole areas in consecutive levels. Also I felt that there was too little enemy variety, and selling prices at vendors seemed really low (even though gold doesn't seem to be a big issue). Still, fans of the genre will have a hard time ignoring this title, as it's a greatly polished and very reasonably priced way to stave off the boredom that is waiting for Diablo 3 - but for me, it lacked the atmosphere necessary to spend more time with it.

by **Gragt** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:39 am

I'm loving it so far. I wouldn't say that camera control is an issue because you can't control it with the exception of zooming, and that feature seems to be there mostly to allow you to examine some smaller details. I'm kind of glad that they kept a fixed isometric perspective because it feels just right for that kind of game.

One thing that surprises me is that I'm not yet filthy rich as it usualy happens in Diablo and Diablo 2 and their clones. Maybe it's because I spend time enchanting items and optimise my gear if possible, and maybe that will change soon, but so far I'm glad to see that money has some kind of value in this game instead of becoming irrelevant very fast. Might also be because I play on hard, so I guess I'll see when I replay the game.

Oh yeah, to anyone who plans to pick up that game: if you have any sort of experience with Diablo-clones, do not play the game at any setting under hard, because normal is fairly easy and easy is a walk in the park. And of course, if you do not like that genre, Torchlight won't convert you to it.

by **Demiath** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:47 pm

Gragt wrote:One thing that surprises me is that I'm not yet filthy rich as it usualy happens in Diablo and Diablo 2 and their clones. Maybe it's because I spend time enchanting items and optimise my gear if possible, and maybe that will change soon, but so far I'm glad to see that money has some kind of value in this game instead of becoming irrelevant very fast. Might also be because I play on hard, so I guess I'll see when I replay the game.

To put things lightly, I'm not what you would call a dedicated optimizer (a quick glance at Attacks Per Second and the occasional enchantment is usually as advanced as my customization gets) but money isn't quite growing on trees for me either, which - contrary to what real life experience suggests - is a Good Thing.

Gragt wrote:Oh yeah, to anyone who plans to pick up that game: if you have any sort of experience with Diablo-clones, do not play the game at any setting under hard, because normal is fairly easy and easy is a walk in the park.

I agree. Have played a few hours on Hard so far, and after having pretty much spammed my way through the first few dungeon environments it has quickly become noticeably more challenging, which keeps things interesting and might even encourage me to spend more time micromanaging my equipment like any respectable Diablo clone player would...

by **getter77** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:08 pm

There is a rather substantial camera control mod of sorts decently along in the works, though I suspect it won't finish until the TorchED editor is actually released. Scarily enough, it thus far seems to have managed as far as a semi-functional First Person mode...

by **Gragt** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:38 pm

So far my main regret is that the game doesn't handle quests better, but then again the best implementation of quests I found so far in a Diablo clone is in the original Diablo itself. It picks one or two quests, out of a list of two or three, for each zone of the dungeon, meaning that you'll never see all quests in one game and will need to replay it later to see them all, perhaps with another character, The rewards are also very nice, being mostly unique items that will last you a fair deal of the dungeon or consumables that increase your attributes permanently. They could also be initiated by finding some special zones into the dungeon. Nothing like that in Torchlight: the quests are always given by the same NPC and consist of finding an item or killing a monster on floor X and upon delivery the NPC gives you another quest to retrieve an item and kill a monster on floor X+1. There is no element of surprise but the worst part is that the rewards suck, mostly consisting of random piece of equipments just like those you can find from regular monster killing. The hilarious part is that you can see the reward when you take the quest and you already know you won't be able to use it or that it will be horribly outdated when you finally get it. Only the reward from the very first quest, which is guaranteed to be a socketable gem with random properties, has the potential to be useful for your class. You mostly take quests because they are just on the way down and you are likely to run into the target if you are thorough in your exploration.

Ah well, a disapointment but at least bashing hordes of monsters never gets old.

by **Demiath** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:50 am

Gragt wrote:So far my main regret is that the game doesn't handle quests better, but then again the best implementation of quests I found so far in a Diablo clone is in the original Diablo itself. It picks one or two quests, out of a list of two or three, for each zone of the dungeon, meaning that you'll never see all quests in one game and will need to replay it later to see them all, perhaps with another character, The rewards are also very nice, being mostly unique items that will last you a fair deal of the dungeon or consumables that increase your attributes permanently. They could also be initiated by finding some special zones into the dungeon. Nothing like that in Torchlight: the quests are always given by the same NPC and consist of finding an item or killing a monster on floor X and upon delivery the NPC gives you another quest to retrieve an item and kill a monster on floor X+1. There is no element of surprise but the worst part is that the rewards suck, mostly consisting of random piece of equipments just like those you can find from regular monster killing. The hilarious part is that you can see the reward when you take the quest and you already know you won't be able to use it or that it will be horribly outdated when you finally get it. Only the reward from the very first quest, which is guaranteed to be a socketable gem with random properties, has the potential to be useful for your class. You mostly take quests because they are just on the way down and you are likely to run into the target if you are thorough in your exploration.

Ah well, a disapointment but at least bashing hordes of monsters never gets old.

A fair criticism. Me, I just finish quests to get the satisfying "Quest Complete" statement; I don't even read the quest descriptions. Mostly did the same with the Diablo games...