Torchlight dev speaks about Blizzard competition, MMO plans
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Nov 12th 2009 at 3:30PM } 
The more intriguing part of the interview came when Schaefer discussed the future of the series -- a future which involves a free-to-play MMORPG based in the world of Torchlight. Just because the game won't put a hurt on your wallet doesn't mean Runic Games is skimping out; according to Schaefer, the Torchlight MMO will be a large production, complete with "a lot of customization, an overworld, random and instanced dungeons, PVP, and much more!"
Schaefer added that the MMO is still about two years out. The studio plans to go into pre-production as soon as it squashes all the bugs in the offline version of Torchlight, and hopes to have the game reach the community with alpha and beta testing phases "as quickly as possible."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Petebot330 @ Nov 12th 2009 3:56PM
Anyone know if they're planning to bring this to consoles at all?
hobocop @ Nov 12th 2009 4:24PM
Doubt it. They're focusing on releasing an MMO which is hard to do on consoles, let alone for a 40-man development company, so I'm thinking there isn't enough people to work on a port.
Monkey Fetish @ Nov 12th 2009 6:37PM
A console port would be great. I got this on Steam but would totally double dip on a PS3/360 port.
Meh @ Nov 13th 2009 9:47AM
Yeah, Diablo 1 played better on the PS1 IMO.
Blank-Mage (ATDF's Nuker) @ Nov 12th 2009 4:03PM
I'm pretty sure Blizzard doesn't consider them competition. They may, and this isn't certain, have noticed the release of Modern Warfare 2. Anything less than that is like the buzzing of flies; an annoyance, not worth the effort of crushing.
Jonny @ Nov 12th 2009 4:09PM
Does Blizzard really even have competition?
So many MMORPGs come out claiming to be the WoW killer and after a few months end up falling flat on their face.
freaparn @ Nov 12th 2009 4:16PM
Blizzard was pretty cautious about their original release, extending the beta until they felt the game was ready to launch. Even then, the first month of retail was an ungodly mess of server queues and downtime. Compare that to, well, every other major MMO release ever, where the game is launched in an unfinished state in *addition* to server/queue issues, and it's no surprise that no one has ever seriously challenged them for the throne of MMOs.
That being said, WoW became awfully repetitive and "more of the same" with each expansion pack, so with the right funding and experienced devs behind the wheel, I'm sure at this point in time Blizzard could be easily toppled. Although it's far more likely that they'll simply take their bajillions of dollars and simply make their *own* WoW-killer MMO, heh.
snarfoogle @ Nov 12th 2009 4:09PM
I don't care about the MMO version, I just wish there was co-op in the current version.
Guibs @ Nov 12th 2009 4:13PM
Amen to that. This is the reason I have not bought this game. I like Diablo style games but I've always played and enjoyed them most while playing with a RL friend in a coop setting.
Alan Carr @ Nov 12th 2009 4:11PM
Activision Blizzard probably noticed that Activision Blizzard released MW2, true. :-)
nbcaffeine @ Nov 12th 2009 4:18PM
They might have noticed that someone else was finally making activision some money
brian @ Nov 12th 2009 4:59PM
because activision only has WoW?
i hate them asl much as any other person who might hate them, but they still make a ton of good games, even if they have a dick for a ceo
hobocop @ Nov 12th 2009 4:27PM
Am I the only one that heard Arnold's voice in my head for the interviewer?
Warlock @ Nov 12th 2009 4:36PM
This is a reply to Blank-Mage, but since the comment system is retarded and throwing javascript errors over the apostrophe in his username (really guys? who coded this?), I can't *actually* reply to his post.
Anyways, I doubt Blizzard is too worried about Modern Warfare 2, given they share a stock with the company that just released it :P If anything, they are elated :)
devilsei @ Nov 12th 2009 4:36PM
Blizz don't care though, its Activision-Blizzard now, one company, so they haven't a worry in the world. :P
Faar @ Nov 12th 2009 5:10PM
Torchlight is much more than just an unashamed ripoff of both Diablo and WoW, it's so close to an amalgamation of both games it borders on straight plagiarism. Town portal scrolls, pets, fishing, unidentified random magic items (keeping WoW's green < blue quality), yellow exclamation marks over quest givers, round minimap in top-right corner, skill names and abilities... Just tons of design elements ripped straight out of either game. There's even extremely WoW kobold-like mobs early on in Torchlight.
It's a decent game, though the skill trees seem rather disjointed and not very well organised or interesting, or at least not for the amazon ripoff class. I haven't had time to check out the others yet. There's no real 'whoah!' type skill in any of the trees, and like with WoW (and to some extent Diablo) it's hard to know exactly what stat benefits your class the most - unless you read a guide on the internet.
Should I put a lot of points into strength as an amazon ripoff? Agility seems to be my primary stat, but lots of armor and weapon items require tons of strength, forcing me to spread myself thin and limit my customization options. What about defense, how much of that do I really NEED? No idea!
Oh well, at least the game is pretty cheap, so it should be good value for money despite whatever complaints someone like me might have. :D
Coyotecom @ Nov 12th 2009 6:14PM
You must be trolling. Every damn RPG since Dungeons and Dragons First Edition has had kobolds.
Just because WoW is the biggest doesn't mean they invented the idea of gaming. All these elements have been in games for decades. it's not the ingredients, it's the mix. Torchlight is mixing very well in my opinion.
HaloBreaker @ Nov 12th 2009 7:20PM
Diablo is just a graphical Roguelike it's not innovative or original at all. Blizzard just had the cash to market it. Sure it may be a little more fun becasue it's faster pased than the turn based movement of RLs, still in your aspect it's a rip off.
james_lankford @ Nov 12th 2009 10:30PM
"Torchlight is much more than just an unashamed ripoff of both Diablo and WoW, it's so close to an amalgamation of both games it borders on straight plagiarism."
"Town portal scrolls, pets, fishing, unidentified random magic items"
guess you never played FATE or Mythos
"yellow exclamation marks over quest givers, round minimap in top-right corner"
Oh My God !
no game has ever that before !
"it's hard to know exactly what stat benefits your class the most "
yeah, unless you read the tool tip right in the char sheet
Marty @ Nov 12th 2009 6:59PM
Torchlight is a fun game, and definitely worth the $20 price tag.
Once you've played for a few minutes though, it's pretty clear that they were -ahem- greatly inspired by Diablo and World of Warcraft.
hobocop @ Nov 12th 2009 7:36PM
Did you read the interview?
"We plead guilty to trying to perfect a style of game we've worked on since the early 90's. Since we have two of the founders of Blizzard North, five people who worked on the series, the creator of Fate, and the whole team that worked on Mythos, it only makes sense to make an ARPG as our first title under the Runic Games banner."
They can't "be inspired" something they invented.
Mabui @ Nov 12th 2009 10:54PM
I think they should totally skip the whole idea of having a MMO and release expansions and new character types and such for Torchlight - or just start working on Torchlight 2 once they finish fixing up the first one.
Hibiscus @ Nov 14th 2009 4:47PM
"we plead guilty to trying to perfect a style of game we've worked on since the early 90's."
Keep trying, please. Don't get me wrong. I like Torchlight a lot. Considering its short development time and 20$ price tag, it's a scarily complete product. Thing is, it fails in exactly the area you would expect these guys to excel in - the skill tree design. It's as amateurishly done as any second-rate Diablo clone, which is sad because Torchlight deserves better and these guys, if anyone, should be able to do better. Median XL, a Diablo II mod made by one guy, has better skill synergy and design.
Major props for releasing the developer toolkit, though. The community is already in the process of fixing Torchlight's balance issues and embarrassing lack of build variety.