Yeah, I'm one of the cofounders. Heck I'm the president *insert eye roll here* Which basically means that this time out, if things go ass-over-teakettle, it's all my fault.
Hopefully that won't be the case though.
Perfect World is our MMO publisher. The single-player game ( and the press release makes things a bit confusing on that point ) is going to be released this year, and we haven't announced any publishers for that yet, although we're aiming to do online distribution, hopefully box, and OEM if we can swing it. So, casual game distribution channels.
The single-player will be a 20-30 dollar game or so, and we're going to release the tools we used to build it. It's extremely mod-friendly - people should be able to relatively easily add items, monsters, level, art, quests, skills, and the like. We have some pretty nifty tools.
The single-player is our baby, and PW has given us their blessing to do it, with the understanding that the work we do there will be very beneficial for the MMO ( assets, lore, tech, tools, etc. ) - especially since we had to start all over again from scratch after Mythos sank into the mud. It's effectively a merging of what we learned with Fate and Mythos. Development began in earnest about November 1st or so of 2008, a little bit after we incorporated, evaluated tech solutions, got an office, and did all the boring stuff to make sure it was possible to pay ourselves and keep the power on.
At any rate, we're having a blast making it - it's a nice change of pace to make a single-player game again on a short schedule, and it's been coming together very fast. There are a couple of screens we released to some fansites so you can get a bit of an idea of how it looks early on - sort of The Incredibles by way of Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair. Or something like that. These are representative of approximately 5 or so months of development - maybe 6. Lots will probably change.
The single-player will be a 20-30 dollar game or so, and we're going to release the tools we used to build it. It's extremely mod-friendly - people should be able to relatively easily add items, monsters, level, art, quests, skills, and the like. We have some pretty nifty tools.AWESOME! :)
The single-player is our baby, and PW has given us their blessing to do it, with the understanding that the work we do there will be very beneficial for the MMO ( assets, lore, tech, tools, etc. ) - especially since we had to start all over again from scratch after Mythos sank into the mud. It's effectively a merging of what we learned with Fate and Mythos. Development began in earnest about November 1st or so of 2008, a little bit after we incorporated, evaluated tech solutions, got an office, and did all the boring stuff to make sure it was possible to pay ourselves and keep the power on.So, let me get this correct....
At any rate, we're having a blast making it - it's a nice change of pace to make a single-player game again on a short schedule, and it's been coming together very fast. There are a couple of screens we released to some fansites so you can get a bit of an idea of how it looks early on - sort of The Incredibles by way of Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair. Or something like that. These are representative of approximately 5 or so months of development - maybe 6. Lots will probably change.
D seriously man.
I can't wait to hit 10,000 posts.
No so I unlock the D punch bonus. :P
+1
No dates, but the dude said the SP game would be released this year. Heres hoping.Nice!
Damn, that actually looks fantastic. I've been looking forward to it and all, but that's actually looking quite cool. Can't wait to see the final product.
gamebunny:
About how many hours are you expecting a single play-through to take?
Runic (Erich Schaefer):
We are estimating about 10-20 hours to play through the storyline. On the longer side if it’s your first time, and quicker if you’re experienced and just plow through. After the storyline quests are complete, however, you still delve deeper and deeper, fighting tougher monsters and finding more loot.
gamebunny:
In the E3 demo I came across skeletons, spiders, ogres and others. How many enemy types can players expect to battle?
Runic (Erich Schaefer):
We plan to have around 30 base monsters, with many variations of each. In addition to those, we’ll have four or five specific, mega-bosses.
We've exposed just about everything to modding - you can create new levels, new artwork (our formats are open, so models, textures, sounds, music, etc), new quests, skills, classes, monsters, items, itemsets and recipes. All the stats are exposed for tuning modification, and we use a powerful effects system for skills and items that allows you to do some interesting things with them. Everything is basically editable from inside our tool, which also allows you to play the game inside itself (you can snap together a level and run around it, or make a new skill, or what have you, without starting the game proper). We've also got a visual scripting system that is drag and drop with connectable inputs and outputs, timelines, logic objects and so on. Particle editing is integrated into the editor, as well as game-world structure (dungeons, towns, regions, portals, etc). The UI is also moddable, and all our base filetypes (excepting textures and meshes, although there is an intermediate XML format for meshes) are all plain text until they are compressed. As long as you want to make an Action-RPG, you can pretty much make a new game.
Runic Games 'Fantasizing' About XBLA Release For Torchlight
Small studio committed to MMO spinoff of their new dungeon crawler, but would like to see downloadable console release as well.
By Kat Bailey, 10/08/2009
A little over a year after the collapse of Flagship Studios, direct descendant Runic Games is preparing to release dungeon crawler Torchlight. But while the Diablo-like RPG is currently exclusive to the PC, CEO Max Schaefer admitted that the team wouldn't mind seeing their game on consoles.
"We talk about it a lot. We fantasize about getting the [Xbox Live Arcade] version, and that would probably be the one we did... the XBLA one," Schaefer told 1UP.
Runic Games has other commitments however, with Schaefer saying that "we're really committed to making the MMO version next, and we're a pretty small studio. We just have one little team."
If Torchlight ever made it to XBLA though, the team at Runic feels that it would be successful. "We look at it and we say, 'This would really do great," Schaefer said.
Torchlight is currently slated for release at the end of October, and will focused exclusively on single-player. It's being positioned as a budget download on the PC, and will include a full suite of development tools upon release. While any console version would necessarily lose the modding aspect, Torchlight's lightweight accessibility would seemingly make it an ideal fit for services like XBLA and PlayStation Network.
For now though, Runic is committed to developing the massively multiplayer spinoff of Torchlight after it's released to the public. Look for it on PC on October 27, with the Mac release date to be announced later.
G4: The game is coming out and you're starting with digital distribution. That was the idea with Mythos, right?
Schaefer: Yeah, it was going to be a free-to-play free download item sales MMO, which is a model we really like for a lot of reasons. So it just seemed like a natural with Torchlight.
By the way, we are doing boxes for Torchlight. They come out in January-ish at a Wal-Mart near you. But it seemed liked the digital download is a little bit more modern, little bit more convenient way to go about it.
And the way we've designed Torchlight is that it's really low tech. We don't use any shaders, so there's no normal maps or environment amps and all the crazy stuff that makes your file size bloated. So it's a really tight [game]. 300MB. And so it's a pretty quick and easy download and the economics are much better for a download than they are for a $20 box because Wal-Mart buys that box for $10 and you take out the cost of making it and split it with the publisher and it's a tiny fraction of what you get for a download.
And [with] download you can get it everywhere very easily day one, we're going to get up on Steam and Direct2Drive and on our own site and Perfect World's site and just make it really easy for people to get it.
Your mod tool looks like a full-fledged level editor.
MS: It's even more than a level editor.
TB: It's an everything editor.
MS: You can adjust the stats globally and the balance of the game globally or item. You can do particle systems. You can do scripting for quests for events. You can do level layout.
TB: You can build your own skills. You can rebalance all the existing skills. You can change their names, their icons, their particles, and their animations. If you wanted to raise their level cap, it's about five seconds. Pretty much everything we used to build the game is available. You can add new sets of items. You can add new uniques. You can rebalance all the existing ones. It's pretty full featured. It's actually pretty fun to play with.
MS: This is the actual tool that we're using to make the game. We're not dumbing it down for the consumer or anything. This is the real deal what we use every day to make the game. We fully expect our modding community to do even cooler things than we've done with it because there are thousands of [potential modders].
TB: And none of our file formats are protected file formats. They're all open. They're all easy to change and modify. All of our art assets are using publicly available file formats with publicly available exporters. So, it should be hopefully really easy to add new stuff.
MS: This is a unique thing that you can do with the single-player game. Obviously, if you have an online game, it's going to be trouble to have one guy with the hacking tool basically.
We're probably just going to throw a bunch of unlocks on there - 10 or more. We don't really want it to be a hassle, and we'll probably use the absolute minimum protection possible for our own distributed versions.
The reason for this is really that we want to do an unlock demo because, to be frank, they just sell better. If someone doesn't have to download the game, and then download it AGAIN if they want to buy that, it's just a better experience.
So my preference is to make it very very light DRM with a large-but-limited number of unlocks. If you buy the game, I don't care if you install it on every PC in your house.
If you buy the game, I don't care if you install it on every PC in your house.
Torchlight has brought the best of Diablo, Mythos, Hellgate and Fate to bear and it shows. I couldn't get enough of Torchlight and can't wait to see what the community creates using the level editor. Similarly, I am already eagerly anticipating the Torchlight MMO.
At any price, Torchlight is a bargain and you will squeeze every dollar and more out of it.
The demo's available on Steam right now. I'm gonna download and check it out.
I think the free level editor was released today as well. At least that's what I think the countdown on the Torchlight site was for.
I really want it but I want to wait for the retail release.
I think it'll hold people quite well until Diablo III comes around. Then in about two years the Torchlight MMO will come around to keep it in the running.
That seems a bit optimistic to me. I'm thinking the Torchlight MMO will be holding people off for a couple years while they wait for Diablo III. ;)Haha good point :P
Haha good point :P
I'm playing as an Alchemist, which is odd for me since I don't usually play as any magic class in any game. I've developed him as a cross between melee and ranged.
The dual-wielding is great too! I have a pistol in one hand and a wand in the other for a combination of ranged and magic damage, and I switch for a badass "Reaper Axe of Thunder" when the baddies get close.
I love having a pet :D makes dungeon raids less lonesome and and the "send to town" command eliminates the looting/inventory issues.
Yeah, the game in general feels like a refined and expanded Fate.Sorrie about your cat Butch, man.
I called my cat "Butch" in honour of my old cat who died in June. I love that little guy.
Sorrie about your cat Butch, man.Thanks, MyD :)
May "Butch" kick some major Torchlight-ass, in his memory. :)
I really want this game, but I'm still not finished with Borderlands. Of course, games like this and Borderlands could last a really long time.Yeah, you're right - I think games like Borderlands and Torchlight are going to be played over and over - and likely w/ numerous different classes. Torchlight especially - since it has the SDK and multiple difficulties.
Client 1.12 for Runic Games' click-tastic action RPG, only for those who purchased direct from Runic themselves. If you bought Torchlight anywhere else, this will not work.
This a full reinstall rather than a patch, due to changes made to improve loading times. If Torchlight is already installed you will need to uninstall it--and don't forget to backup your saved games.
Runic notes, "If the new install asks you to re-enter your key to activate, do so, and you can contact us at customerservice@runicgames.com and we'll decrement your key count so you're square."
All the more reason to wait for the retail in Jan 2010, they'll likely have ironed out a lot of issues by then.Agreed.
Will the retail version have any extra content compared to the earlier downloadable game?Oh man, now I get to pretend I'm Shiren the Wanderer in Torchlight. Awesome.
Just one feature in particular. [Spoiler Alert]. We created a new pet for the retail version. The new pet version is a ferret, actually more about the size of an otter, and sporting a cool pair of Alchemist-style goggles. This is brand new information, so that's the scoop! The ferret pet will be featured on the box art, too, to let folks know of the extra feature.
Torchlight = $10 on Steam currently. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/41500/)
It really was a guaranteed purchase before... but even more so now.
Torchlight = $5.00 on Steam for today ONLY. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/41500/)
FUCK that's a good deal.
Damn, I should have read this thread yesterday. Just bought this for $10.
Edit: This game is really, really addicting.
So how long is this game? I'm level 17 at the moment and just got the quest to kill the main dude down in the mines. I'm doing a few side quests before that because I am assuming that's the last mission.
I'm really enjoying it. I find that, for me, its not addictive in a "play for hours" kind of way. Its addictive in a "play for 20 minutes, take a break, play another 20 minutes, etc." kind of way. Any time I feel like killing a few minutes I fire it up and run around killing monsters and taking their stuff.
I'm really enjoying it. I find that, for me, its not addictive in a "play for hours" kind of way. Its addictive in a "play for 20 minutes, take a break, play another 20 minutes, etc." kind of way. Any time I feel like killing a few minutes I fire it up and run around killing monsters and taking their stuff.
Torchlight sells 500K. (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/54843/Torchlight-Reaches-Half-Million-Mark-In-Sales)
Yeah, hey, guess what Intel sucks at? GPUs.Haha big time :P
Baldree says, “our vision is to have an MMO that plays as close to single player as we can get it. It will have the same focus on relatively fast action: carving your way through hordes of monsters with a large number of hugely devastating skills. The game has to be solo-able, but players will have to have skills that make them useful in a party and make them work together.”
Travis also says that even though the Torchlight MMO business model will be based around microstransactions, he won’t be buying any items. “I will never, ever buy a microtransaction item,” he states. “I’m that kind of player. And the game has to be enjoyable for me, too. We don’t want our monetisation stuff to offer ways to skip the game because the game is boring.”
Runic Games had dreams of putting Torchlight on Xbox Live Arcade, then it put "serious effort" into a console version, and now the studio is hoping to have the game out by this holiday for PSN and XBLA.
Schaefer also told us the game has now sold over 750,000 units and is en route to a million.