Author Topic: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.  (Read 6271 times)

Offline MysterD

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Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« on: Thursday, January 08, 2009, 08:46:27 PM »
NEW -> 03-18-2016:
Grim Dawn has joined the DRM-FREE club at GOG.

OLD:
RPS -> Hands on w/ Grim Dawn.
Grim Dawn website -> New Class-based Wallpapers added.
RockPaperShotgun -> Interview w/ Arthur Bruno of Crate Entertainment.
Grim Dawn -> Pre-Alpha Video on Occultist Class.
EvilAvatar -> "Environmental Sweep" video.
GrimDawn.com Forums -> Crate employees are working on affixing extra Skills to Special/Rare Items for Grim Dawn.
Grimdawn.com -> New screenies posted, which are in a pre-alpha state.
Shacknews -> Info on Grim Dawn.
Grimdawn.com -> Official Website has been launched for Grim Dawn.
Titanquest.net -> TQ-Engine based Action-RPG is Grim Dawn.
GameBanshee -> Crate's upcoming "Black Legion" project has on hold; they're now working on another ARPG using the TQ Engine.
Edge-Online.com -> Interview w/ Arthur Bruno (formerly of Iron Lore, now w/ Crate) on the death of Iron Lore & the birth of Crate.
Masshightech.com -> Crate Entertainment has been formed by some ex-Iron Lore members.

Quote
In the world of action role-playing games, Iron Lore Entertainment couldn’t get to the next level — but the games it was developing will live to fight again.

Iron Lore ran out of cash last February while trying to duplicate the success it had with Titan Quest, a computer RPG, with an offering on the Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 gaming console. That project, dubbed “Black Legion,” is now out to game publishers in a demo, after two former Iron Lore employees quietly formed their own gaming company, Crate Entertainment, and bought the rights to it.

“One of our real goals is to take the solid game play we established in Titan Quest and repackage it to make it sort of grittier and more appealing to the mainstream audience,” said former Iron Lore lead designer Arthur Bruno, who founded Cambridge-based Crate with Eric Campanella over the summer. The Black Legion developers are using facilities at Demiurge Studios, through a cooperative arrangement with the Cambridge company, Bruno said.

Often derided as “hack and slash,” or “rat pellet” games, the outcome of combat in PC-based action RPGs like Titan Quest, Diablo or Dungeon Siege is usually statistically determined. Such treasure hunting and statistics-based character progression can be addictive, Bruno said — but console players demand more sophisticated action. “We’re trying to evolve the action to something that will bring the RPG to its next level,” he said.

Crate Entertainment also plans to include Internet-based player-versus-player combat in the title. Bruno declined to disclose details of Crate’s second project, also purchased from Iron Lore.

Iron Lore founder Paul Chieffo is now technical director of a new U.S. branch of Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese Internet service portal and game developer, in Maynard. Chieffo and four other Iron Lore veterans are working on a massively multiplayer game for Tencent.

PC-based action RPGs are among the most popular styles of games in China, Chieffo said — including Tencent’s own QQ Fantasy title. When Iron Lore closed, Tencent contacted the company’s founders, he said.

Bruno said he and the other Crate Entertainment founders also heard from recruiters — but the call of entrepreneurship beckoned. “I thought, I can take a job at another company and keep doing what I’ve been doing,” he said, “or I can do something more than that.”
« Last Edit: Friday, March 18, 2016, 08:06:39 PM by MysterD »


Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Crate Entertainment formed by Ex-Iron Lore members
« Reply #2 on: Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 06:52:18 PM »
Best of luck to 'em.  They seemed like good dudes.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline MysterD

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Re: Crate Entertainment formed by Ex-Iron Lore members
« Reply #3 on: Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 07:35:04 PM »
Best of luck to 'em.  They seemed like good dudes.

Well, their studio is in Massachusetts! Wo0t!

Offline MysterD

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Re: Crate Entertainment formed by Ex-Iron Lore members
« Reply #4 on: Saturday, August 08, 2009, 07:06:17 PM »
Crate's upcoming "Black Legion" project has been put on hold.

They're now working on another Action-RPG, which will use the TQ Engine.


Quote
We've been aware that Crate Entertainment licensed the Titan Quest engine from Iron Lore for awhile now, but it wasn't until this afternoon that founder Arthur Bruno was willing to chat with us about it. Here are the details he was willing to provide:

Quote
"Crate Entertainment has licensed the Titan Quest engine from Iron Lore. THQ owns the rights to the TQ IP, so we won't be making a TQ2 anytime soon but we are developing a new game for PC that will offer similar ARPG gameplay but in a darker fictional setting. Right now we have no outside funding and are operating as a privately funded indie-developer. So if we continue in this manner, the scope will be somewhat reduced from TQ in terms of total art assets but we're developing gameplay systems in a new way that will allow us to actually have more depth in certain areas. The game is still in its formative stages, so the design isn't set in stone yet, but we want to improve various aspects of gameplay, manage content more closely to ensure smooth performance, and introduce some cool new features. A few of the new things we're considering include having over 100 character levels, a less linear more replayable world with secret unlockable areas, an ultra-challenging difficulty mode balanced for team play, and shooter-style rapid healing when you're out of combat to reduce dependency on potions. We hope to have some more detailed information in the coming months."

And, in case you were wondering, their previously announced action RPG Black Legion has been set aside for the time being in order to devote their resources to this new project.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Crate Entertainment formed by Ex-Iron Lore members
« Reply #5 on: Wednesday, October 07, 2009, 06:00:39 AM »
That TQ-Engine based Action-RPG officially has a name.
It's called Grim Dawn.


Quote from: Medierra of Crate Entertainment
It was announced as soon as the forum headings were changed ; )

The titanquest.net community are the first to know about it. We'll probably make an announcement to the general press in a few weeks.

It's the dawn of a era, and its looking to be a grim one.
« Last Edit: Wednesday, October 07, 2009, 08:50:24 AM by MysterD »

Offline MysterD

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Re: Grim Dawn - Action RPG from Crate Entertainment [former TQ Dev's] (Reply 5)
« Reply #6 on: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 03:12:06 PM »
Official Website has been launched for Grim Dawn.

Here's what it's about - from Action Trip.

Quote
Titan Quest Devs Announce 'Grim Dawn'
[Ure "Vader" Paul]

11:22 am EST @ January 21st, 2010
Filed under: GRIM DAWN, TITAN QUEST, CRATE ENTERTAINMENT

Hm, I definitely didn't see this one coming (nor have any of you guys, so shut up). Crate Entertainment announced a new action/RPG called Grim Dawn. The development of this title was evidently funded by fans willing to preorder the game. Crate Entertainment was formed by veteran developers, who formerly worked for Iron Lore Entertainment. Grim Dawn will be powered by the Iron Lore engine utilized in the Titan Quest action RPG.

According to the developers, "players will be thrust into the dark, war-torn world of Cairn where a once proud empire has been brought to ruin and the human race driven to the edge of extinction. Cairn has become ground zero of an eternal war between two otherworldly powers, one seeking to use human bodies as a resource, the other intent upon destroying the human race before that can happen. This cataclysmic war has not only decimated human civilization but is warping the very fabric of reality and, in its wake, giving life to new horrors."

They continue: "For humankind it is the dawn of a grim new age where iron has replaced gold as currency and the importance of salt as a weapon makes it far too valuable to waste on food. Small enclaves of human survivors exist scattered throughout the world, holed up in hidden refuges. These humans have quietly watched the warring invaders destroy one another and have become wise to the strengths and vulnerabilities of their otherworldly foes. A few survivors have begun to exhibit strange new abilities after surviving possession or exposure to the warp. These unnatural powers are feared by some but give many new hope of launching a resistance to fight the "outsiders" and reclaim what's left of their world."

EDIT:
Screens and additional info are here on Shacknews.

Quote
Set in a fantasy world influenced by the Victorian era, Grim Dawn is describe by Crate as "a spiritual successor to Titan Quest and proud Diablo-clone" toting 200 character levels, crafting blueprints, multiplayer and a "refined loot system" dropping "less junk."

Hoping to keep Grim Dawn privately-funded, Crate is already accepting pre-orders, with packages ranging from a $20 'Normal Edition' which simply gives a copy of the game upon release and "knowing you made the world a little better" to a $48 'Legendary Fan Edition' granting alpha and beta access, an in-game item and a place in the credits.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Grim Dawn - Action RPG from Crate Entertainment [former TQ Dev's] (Reply 5)
« Reply #7 on: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 04:12:15 PM »
I wish them luck, but hopefully they work on "feel". Torchlight has a great feel when playing, but I just didn't get that from Titan Quest. Its tough to nail down exactly what was wrong but it just didn't do anything for me.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Grim Dawn - Action RPG from Crate Entertainment [former TQ Dev's] (Reply 5)
« Reply #8 on: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 05:14:53 PM »
I wish them luck, but hopefully they work on "feel". Torchlight has a great feel when playing, but I just didn't get that from Titan Quest. Its tough to nail down exactly what was wrong but it just didn't do anything for me.

I don't think TQ had the best set of sound effects for when you're hitting an enemy with a weapon.
Meanwhile, when you hit something in Torchlight, the sound effects are killer - really sounds like you are hitting, slamming, and/or pounding your enemy.

Maybe this is part of it for you?

Offline idolminds

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Re: Grim Dawn - Action RPG from Crate Entertainment [former TQ Dev's] (Reply 5)
« Reply #9 on: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 05:46:24 PM »
Probably some of that, along with animations and the floaty ragdolls.

Offline MysterD

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Offline gpw11

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Re: Grim Dawn - ARPG from Crate Entertainment [former TQ Dev's]
« Reply #12 on: Monday, October 25, 2010, 04:40:57 PM »
Is that a big deal in the rpg world?

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Grim Dawn
« Reply #13 on: Sunday, February 28, 2016, 02:19:21 AM »
Fuck, has this thing REALLY been around this long now? That's insane. The game just went live on the 25th.

Anyway, I don't know why I never posted about this. I backed the Kickstarter and played the game a couple times in early access, but was more or less waiting for the full launch. It's out now and it seems really solid. It's super cheap ($25, on sale for $22 and change) and seems to be every bit as big and robust as games like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile. None of that trifecta seems to really "win", as they're all kind of different, but people definitely seem to gravitate to one of them more than the others. It seems the Diablo 2 crowd that was very displeased with Diablo 3 is super into Grim Dawn. One of the Steam reviews I read said "It's like Titan Quest and Diablo 2 had a baby," and that seems to be the general consensus.

I'm only a brief ways in, and so far it feels good, looks pretty good, and generally seems to do what you want. It starts off a little overly basic and slow, and I was kind of bored through some of the initial stuff, but once you start to open up more room for improvement and get some decent weapons, you can see it come into its own.

The skill system in particular is fucking phenomenal. You've got a Diablo 2-like skill tree system, but with more variety and potential for specificity since there are both more skills to choose from and also you can level each of them a lot more deeply by jacking a bunch of points into them (seems like most allow for 12?). On top of that, you can dual-class after level 10, choosing another "mastery" (class) that you can put as little or as much into as you want. Obviously this allows for a host of different potential character builds, much more so than your average game of this time. And while I haven't gotten too deep yet, I've heard the loot system is really robust as well, which can tie into making great builds.

Also telling is that where most of these games seem to generally be built around multiplayer, this is built around the single player experience. I spent a good 4 hours playing with Heather tonight, so certainly multiplayer works just fine, but this more Diablo 2 than Diablo 3 in that regard, something that doesn't require other people quite as much to have a fun or productive outing. Also means that they're okay with the game being a little broken from the standpoint of not cracking down on mods and such. And, of course, you can actually play offline instead of being tied to a server. On that same note, a DRM free version is supposed to be coming out by March 4th, and a GOG version sometime in March.

Anyway, check it out if you like this kind of thing. It start a little slow but seems to be snowballing into something cool. I'm really loving the skill system and pondering the possibilities. It's not a perfect game, but for something built by such a small team, it's really a pretty incredible feat. They've got expansion plans, but the base game has 4 acts, all of which are supposed to be nice and big, and most people seem to be much more pleased with what this game's endgame has been even before the final act was released compared to Diablo 3's even after being "fixed" numerous times. I don't have a big opinion on that yet obviously, but I will say that Diablo 3's endgame of "hey, level up and throw some uninteresting bonus stats on your dude while you grind for gear" did eventually wear on me to the point of not wanting to play anymore, even after developing a roster of high-level characters. I love the adventure mode, love the rifts, think they did so much so well ... but at some point I still just felt like it was a treadmill I needed to get off of.

But yeah, no idea how Grim Dawn will hold up for me personally in the long run, but the buzz all seems pretty damn positive so far, other than a few complaints about environment art and design, generally: "This game is fucking awesome, it just should be a little less brown," etc. I'm looking forward to digging into it some more, as now that I've got two characters moving into more interesting territory with the skill system, it's beginning to come into its own.

I was initially a little put off by the inability to choose harder difficulties from the outset, but realized at some point that the game features the Diablo 2 difficulty system, which means you progress in linear fashion through those difficulty levels, starting with either "normal" or "veteran". I'm playing veteran and the beginning is just braindead easy to a fault, but people have told me it gets considerably tougher.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Grim Dawn
« Reply #14 on: Saturday, March 12, 2016, 03:42:59 PM »
Little bump for this. Game continues to be really great. Videos going up on YouTube now:



EDIT - Up to 7 videos, completing the first act. Several more to come, and I'll be trying to dig more into this next week since I had a lot of writing to do this week, amongst other stuff. Still thoroughly enjoying the game. Have made two characters, one of which you can see me play during one of the upcoming videos.
« Last Edit: Friday, March 18, 2016, 08:02:15 PM by Quemaqua »

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline MysterD

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Re: Grim Dawn
« Reply #15 on: Friday, March 18, 2016, 08:05:09 PM »
Grim Dawn has joined the DRM-FREE club at GOG.

10% off at $22.49 currently.
(normally it costs $24.99 on GOG)

Regular Multiplayer does require GOG Galaxy to access it.
Meanwhile LAN doesn't require GOG Galaxy to access it.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #16 on: Friday, March 18, 2016, 09:07:51 PM »
Great price for a shitload of game. If you were a Diablo 2 fan, and if like me you can't deal with Path of Exile's unfortunate feel and art design, it's a great choice.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline idolminds

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #17 on: Friday, March 18, 2016, 09:45:04 PM »
Will get GOG version eventually.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #18 on: Saturday, March 19, 2016, 04:17:34 AM »
I'll probably get whatever version (Steam or GOG) is cheapest first. :P

Likely, I'll mostly probably be playing alone.

Since the regular MP uses GOG Galaxy, I would guess the number of players in general for MP will be MUCH lower than Steam.
Love it, hate it or indifferent to it - Steam's just way more popular; and that version's been out (since Early Access) way longer.

It's cool that LAN doesn't use Galaxy; probably just the game itself is middleware so likely anyone can play together.

It would be interesting if say a game launched both on GoG Galaxy & Steam at the same time - and see how the player numbers go for each version, since some of the newer games in each version for its main MP are using different middleware for it (i.e. Steam-version uses Steamworks; GOG version uses GoG Galaxy). While likely GOG is more niche and won't do Steam-like numbers, a simultaneously launch might go better for GOG b/c gamers could pick a version than say launching a game later GOG when players might have already bought it on Steam b/c it wasn't anywhere else.

Still, though - it's better w/ it ending up also on GOG (for Non-Steam fans, DRM-FREE fans for the SP component, and for having another pricing competitor) than not at all. :)

EDIT:
That's the only good thing about extra middleware like say GameSpy (RIP) or GameRanger, back in the day - no matter what version you bought (Steam, D2D, GOG, whatever), you likely could get a MP game together w/ someone who might have a different game-client version b/c different versions didn't use Steamworks for the main MP or GOG Galaxy for main MP. This was the case w/ Borderlands 1 back in the day, as I was able to get my retail version game going on GameRanger with Steam version owners b/c GameRanger decided to step in and get MP working for it (when GameSpy first had issues with it).

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #19 on: Saturday, March 19, 2016, 03:06:12 PM »
This isn't something you're going to want to play with strangers. This is a play-with-buddies game. So if you're worried about multiplayer populations per service, I would say ... don't. The game is hackable and moddable, and there are exploits, at least as far as I understand it. It's also not so much like Diablo 3 where you're just going to pick up and play with randos and still have a great time. I don't think it was ever setting out to be that. This is much more focused on the single player experience, or on having a party of like-minded friends.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #20 on: Friday, April 01, 2016, 10:33:33 AM »

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #21 on: Tuesday, April 02, 2019, 05:36:42 PM »
I just discovered this game a few days ago, because of the launch of some DLC for it.  So far, it out-Diablo's Diablo.  I expected something lightweight like Torchlight, but no; it dukes it out with the Blizzard legends, and being more modern, bests them technically.  The world rotates and zooms.  Plays with the controller and the mouse, depending on which I reach for.  (Mouse is better for UI tasks; controller is better for action.)  Smooth as silk.  Hours go by like minutes.  Feels like old times.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Grim Dawn -> Update: Grim Dawn joins GOG.
« Reply #22 on: Tuesday, April 02, 2019, 09:03:47 PM »
Grim Dawn's really good. I do need to get back to it, at some point. Getting burnt-out on ARPG's didn't really help over the years, for me to try to stick w/ this and all.

I'm sure I'll get back to it at some point, as I really ain't done a ARPG grind like this in some time.

Also, while I'm at this - Titan Quest: Gold/Anniversary is also awesome.