Occasionally Fatal said:
shihonage said:
Torchlight 1 was a budget title. Torchlight 2 is a full-fledged Diablo II clone with aggressive pricing (as a big fuck you to Blizzard).
Don't kid yourself. If they thought they had enough content / quality to sell their game for the same price, don't think they wouldn't just to give "a big fuck you to Blizzard." They probably have less than a tenth of the resources Blizz does, and they know it, thus your "aggressive pricing." That's not aggressive pricing, that is what their game is worth. What do you think their sales would look like at say, $40 a pop? It is what it is. Don't get me wrong, I wish the Torchlight guys all the best and think they have a smart approach, but
they're not even competing with Diablo 3.
shihonage said:
EDIT: I just looked at a recording of the earlier live beta session. It's very interesting how Blizzard shot themselves in the ass by going for low-fidelity graphics, because Torchlight II looks, at best, better then, and at worst, the same as, Diablo 3.
Yeah, sure.
Any research to back up your claims?
Everything I've seen and heard suggests that this is not a "budget game", but a serious effort, financed with their money from Torchlight.
A story in 3 acts (2nd act taking place in a desert - sound familiar?), identify scrolls, town portals, armor sets, varying enemies, and minor enhancements to the existing gameplay formula (random wilderness quests, monsters carrying chest keys, pets selling vendor junk).
It even has cinematic cutscenes, again, like Diablo 2 did. And LAN play, like Diablo 2.
It also has day/night cycle and weather effects (rain and snow).
In addition to the D3 beta video, I've looked through TotalHalibut's "WTF is Torchlight 2" videos, and listened to the game's director -Max Schaefer, founder of Blizzard North, also lead designer of Diablo 2.
This particular snippet of interest took place (slightly paraphrased):
TotalHalibut: "So, this is like your own Diablo 2?"
Max Schaefer: "I guess, and that's a bit awkward, because Diablo 2 was also my Diablo 2"
Everything I heard Schaefer talk about, sounded like he was making improvements on the Diablo 2 formula, not creating some subpar clone of it.
On Torchlight 2 random layout generation
And yet, when they decide to drop the price, cynics all around the Internet start to assume that the game's actual value is low.
If there's one shortcoming I foresee, is that it will only have the equivalent of "open battle.net" (no closed battle.net). But that is easily remedied by playing with people you actually know.