f13.net

Review: Diablo 2.75: Titan Quest

Let's just assume that Hellgate: London is Diablo 3 and that Brian Sullivan left Ensemble to make a game that he could play until Hellgate: London came out... since Blizzard obviously has no interest in trying to cash in on Diablo one last time. Well, he did and the result was Titan Quest. Now, why did I choose 2.75 instead of 2.5 as the sequel number? Well, it's good. It's more than Diablo 2.5. I hope you weren't expecting a better description. Let's just say that after roughly 9 and 1/2 hours of playing, I'm happy with the purchase. It's already paid for itself in the form of sweet sweet lewts. Read on for the lists.

Edit: [Chapter 1 Gallery]

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What was stopping you from using Print Screen to do screenshots? Sure, it would be a pain in the ass, but you could do it.

I take it the game is not alt-tab friendly?

Wouldn't know. I never alt-tab out of most games.

Oh, and also nice job with the new review rubric. I like it. It's very short and to the point, and tells me exactly what I need to know about the game.

Also, ++ for lack of mental masturbation. Gamespy had 2 pages of blah blah blah that I couldn't be bothered with. I then went to IGN for another comparison....Wow, when did they change their format? If it was ass before, it's tubgirl now - Way too much shit. What are they trying to be, a site for All Media? Why would I go to IGN to read about the new Mercedes-Benz CL-class? I feel like I need to wash my rods and cones with acid or something. Oh yeah, their review was also shit.



...But I may have to pick the game up after reading the review here, then seeing screenies - I'm a sucker for anything close to Greco-Roman.

/em agrees

I didn't see this in your review: Is there a multiplayer option? I know that seems like a stupid question in this era of "omgz our new game must have mp for us to get the fat publishing $$$". But, if I'm going to talk my brother into buying it (presumably after those annoying loot bugs you mentioned get patched), it would help to be sure it's multiplayer :)

I agree, the multiplayer issue is pretty important. I avoid games with both components. I like chocolate OR peanut butter.

Also, Diablo sucks :)

Never Mind (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/titanquest/review.html?sid=6153206)

So it does have multiplayer. I told you it was a stupid question :)

I read an interview with one of the devs and he basically said the only difference between Titan Quest and Diablo 1/2 is that there will be a very heavy mod community for Titan Quest.

Performance sucks.  That's a -- in an action game.

Agreed.

Although

++ Monsters drop the weapons they are actually using
+ Sound is great, first action game in a while to get it as good as D2 did (better even)

- Sound skips out on some of the dialogue

I just use FRAPS (http://www.fraps.com/) for screenshots. It's a lot faster than in-game screenshots becuase a lot of them freeze up while they snap it, like WoW for example, and sometimes can get you killed.

So if I buy this I get to gank phat lewtz from Schild?  If so, I might be very interested.

We know his address if you want to steal his car.

I have an older licensed version of FRAPS I use myself.

What kind of car?

Where's the stash?

Isn't there too many minuses for a 9.5 (or whatever score it got)?

We're being too easy on Schild me thinks.

-Explain how multiplayer matchmaking works, how many PC's can be in a game max?
-Socketing and/or Cube-type systems?  Are there any?
-Do all items effect character appearance?  Are the items visually varied?

I believe it's a scale of 1-13. I think.

Match making? It uses Gamespy or some shit. I never, ever, ever play coop titles like this with strangers. There's no fun in playing this in legendary mode with someone you don't know. It defeats the entire purpose.

Yes, there's a heavy collection system. Items aren't socketed so much as you can apply relics and charms to them. And instead of a Horardric Cube, you just apply charms and relics of the same type to eachother to increase the potency. The relics are based on godlike items or powers (like Dionysus' Wineskin or somesuch) and the charms are based on parts of animals/creatures. Or at least, that's what I've seen thus far.

Items effect character appearance. Being on chapter 1, that appearance hasn't changed much of course. I'm in a pretty peasanty looking robe right now. But that may be because I'm a full caster. I haven't even taken my second class yet, I'm maxing out my liche king in the spirit tree first. From what I've seen, it looks like it could easily get as varied as the starting shit armor in Diablo all the way up to the Bone Armor template and then some. Oh, and item sets have unique appearances it seems. I can't wear the ones I have but the graphics on them are unique (I have 2 of the pieces from the Theban Panoply, a warrior set).

As for the other parts and bits I left out in my sleep deprived state:
1. I can not confirm nor deny the existance of PVP. But it would be stupid all things considered if it weren't toggled in the future. Multiplayer maps that are just giant arenas would kick ass. I've seen tilesets to make such a thing in game already.
2. You know how there were five towns in all of Diablo 2? In the first chapter of this game, there are at LEAST 5 major towns and 4-7 smaller hamlets of sorts. Also, there are a few places where merchants and other NPCs will just be out in the woods.
3. The scale was 7-9.
4. My car is a 2002 Acura RSX Type-S and no, you can't steal it.
5. I have acquired FRAPS. If Ookii is up for a few hours after I get home from work, I'll set up a gallery of the game.
6. @Tazelbain - The performance doesn't suck. Just turn your settings down. If the performance sucks in this game, you simply overestimate the power of your computer. I know my computer is a piece of shit and even I can run this at a higher level than I thought possible.
7. Yes, the sound across the board is better than Diablo.
8. Monsters do drop weapons they are using, but I'm not sure if uniques and set items show up as uniques on them. Monsters seem to draw from a template pool in terms of what they're carrying.

Edit: Oh, and just like Diablo, as you advance throught he game, there's sort of a natural curve on the base type of level and armor available. Most recently I went from Pupil stuff for my finger wiggler to Scholar stuff.

Might have to give this a serious look once it gets patched it seems.


EDIT: Also, what role do the different deities play? Are they just a part of the plot, or do they somehow have an effect on actual gameplay? Like choosing a deity, and having different skill choices because of it?

I have played PC games before.   :roll:
This engine makes EQ2 engine seen peppy and it doesn't look as nice.  Thats a pretty low bar.

I don't know why your computer is having trouble with the engine.

Ok, I got one today.  If it sucks, I'm blaming MrHat.

Re: PVP: If it's not in there yet (I'll be picking up my copy tomorrow and we can confirm schild), but the game is extremely moddable.  Also, if there is PVP, except lots of whining since I don't think there is a central system to prevent the b.net fuckmuffins from messing shit up.

It's damn fun though, maybe we'll get some L1 multiplayer going on tomorrow late night or something.

Oh, I could go for some multiplayer. Hell yea, tomorrow is my day off. I plan on playing this godforsaken game for the next two days. There's really no way a new Diablo type is safe for me to play. I played Fate for a good 80 hours in the course of a few weeks. 11PM CAN NOT COME SOON ENOUGH.

Yes, I'm frothing mad.

So uh, do we want to set up times and class selection and stuff? We COULD make this like a weekly friday or saturday thing. I'd have no problem with that. Also, teamspeak plz.

Working my way through the demo. I wish picking up loot was easier. Also, the character sheet doesn't seem to display stats for dual-wielding correctly.

I get off work 11pm EST tomorrow night, or hell, I could run to best buy tonight and buy if you want schild...

Edit: where the fuck is the stash?

Hold down "alt" like in Diablo, Guild Wars, and WoW to make loot picking up easier.

I will be online around 2:30 your time, Hat, so tonight might not be best unless you want to stay up LAAAATE.

heh

ya, mebbe not

Edit: lol @ Credit Screen

Edit 2: Where the fuck is my stash?

No, I knew about the alt key, but it just seems like more...percision is needed to properly pick up loots.

DAMN I knew I forgot something. ON THE OTHER HAND, the inventory gets extra bags that are sizeable as you get levels. it looks as though it happens every 10 or 12 levels. With so many towns I thought it was quite well paced really. Remember, this game has roughly twice the amount of loot that Diablo 2 had. So be careful to manage the inventory well. I actually love the inventory management aspect created by dumping the stash.

I just don't pick anything up anymore.

On a side note, I've got wolves and a lich!

Yea, the lich king is all the awesome. I think I'm gonna dual with protection as the vast majority of it is passive. If we play multi with some people, i'm gonna go straight rogue me thinks.

I like the innate ability to gate to town whenever you want. It really helps to offset the agonizingly small inventory space.

Yep and nothing needs to be identified.

No, "inventory management" fucking sucks. I spent more time managing my inventory in Dungeon Siege II than killing things (yes I'm a fricking pack rat).

Edit: forgot the comma

So there is no inherent multi-player system akin to Battlenet that Diablo used?  :-(
It runs through Gamespy or something you said? How does it compare to Battlenet if it compares at all?

Battlenet and the ease of finding and popping into multi-player games was a big part of the enjoyment of Diablo for me.

Having finished Chapter 1 and having installed FRAPS (I need to tinker with it more for better screenies of chapter 2), I've added a...

...smallish gallery (http://www.f13.net/gallery/titanquest/chapter1/).

I"ve read than the boss had no aggro management at all.  Meaning than you can run in circle while your pets kill the boss.  Anyone had this problem?  It sound like an *almost* deal breaker if you aways have a free way out of boss fights.

Hm. My pet really didn't do enough damage for that to be viable.

But I also went in with 50 potions and 50 energy.potions which resulted in me spamming heal. Sort of like the first time you hit chapter 3 Travincal in Diablo 2. But ptopns have a timer on them in Titan Quest, so it's not bad and there's still the threat of death. The other problem is that I think nobody here has finished the game yet so no one can reall speak for the two harder difficulties. I know I won't be able to for at least a week or so.

Um, is it me or is there no Auto Arrange of inventory items.  Im finding myself manually moving shit around that i have total inventory space for but is non lined up....

Xilren

Just in case someone is interested in getting the art book and shipping for free.

Hm.. I tried the demo out last night and it was okay; pretty much 3D-ified Diablo2++. If someone other than Schild starts gibbering insanely, I might be convinced to pick it up in a few weeks.

I thought the game was good. I went through the demo again as a caster....is it just me, or do the fire nukes Suck? The first one you can get is just weak and has a very limited AoE, while the big fireball works like artillary - it might be good in group play, but solo it is just too slow to use a lot. I ended up mostly just using my ranged staff attack with the buff you ca get in the earth/fire tree.

Yeah, I tried a fire dude in the demo but had to end up as some kind of weak-ass hybrid melee-mage mostly beating things to death with a stick.

A fire stick, thanks to that buff. I occasionally used the artillery nuke on large crowds from a long distance.

Maybe it's me, but I'm not particularly fond of the spellcasting method of hotkey-then-LMB, but the spells recharge too slowly to actually use them as your primary means of attack... maybe getting one of those ranged zappy staves is necessary?

Re: loot collection, why can't devs let people target and collect just by using keys?

I hate pointy clicky.

P&C gives that whole hand of god feeling.

Couldn't a real god make the loot come to them?  I would rather the hotkey of god.

Point and click makes baby repetitive-stress-injury Jesus cry.

I have to say, I'm finding it just okay.  Maybe the whole Diablo thingy wore off.  Maybe I'm just in a pissy mood. 

Schild,

Really like the format of the review.  Picked it up tonight.  Will meander a bit with it this weekend if I have the time.  Got my damn Diablo demon sitting on my shoulder saying PLAY IT FOOL!

No, its because you miss ganking 14 year old kids on Battlenet playing Burritozons....and the cow level.

Atleast thats what I miss.

Need to know how to build up to a Thane. My Stormcaller is getting his ass kicked at lvl 6.

[edit]

Nevermind. Toughed it out.

I intentionally gimped myself by only training up Storm Mastery and Storm Nimbus (the passive Aura dmg thing). Mainly killed shit with a crappy wand. Nukes suck in this game (as far as I can tell), so I'm not even bothering.

Gonna keep on training Storm passives, and climb up one of the Warrior trees as well.

Wait a minute, I'm confused.  Can you play with random idiots or not?

8/8 Onslaught on your left mouse button is pretty sweet stuff. A lot of folks on various boards were saying that they were having problems with Conqueror (Warfare + Defense) implying that they didn't work well together... so I thought I'd try and prove that wrong first. At Delphi so far, level 10, got my first blue set item - a Theban helmet.

Yes!  You can play with idiots you know, idiots you might live with and random idiots that you meet on the random idiot multiplayer screen.

I have an awesome shield.  It looks like a very sharp pinwheel.  It's better than my weapon.

Yes, but is it as easy and effective as Battlenet was for Diablo? No one's really answered that question, and that would be the key factor in buying any Diabloesque game for me (and probably many others?).

You pick a server in this game the same way you would an FPS. Press refresh, and pick one with an open spot/low ping.

Who gives a fuck though? Would you play with random idiots now if this were on BNet? No? OK THEN.

Just saying, Its like Battlenet without the chat room. Its in game but no doubt its gamespy, some games are real fun, if its not its easy enough to leave and try another.

Bought it, love it. There can't be enough Kudos for allowing to switch to the English language in the German version of the game. That should be mandatory.

I get the same warm fuzzy feelings playing it I got with Diablo 1. I always liked Diablo 1 more than Diablo 2, so that is a compliment.

Beat it.

Ended up being better than Diablo 1 & 2, or even 1+2. At its heart, it really is Diablo 3. Wish you could rotate the view, but I'll cope. It felt expertly crafted tne the final area, well, the final area makes both Diablos look like amateur hour.

Edit: I'll talk about Epic mode in the multiplayer thread in PC/Console Gaming.

Actually yeah I did and would. Except for PVP challenges and tournaments set through the Diablo forums, most games were just with random people in cow lvls to quickly level up my new barb build, or for joining an 8 man game to farm loot from bosses (Mephisto & Diablo).

Farming and Grinding?

And that was fun?

Finally we know at whom MMOG developers target their games. I didn't know it was an actual person instead of an abstract concept.

I question Broughdens farming methods. It's much more efficient to farm from the council members in Travincal then hit up Mephisto, and then take the waypoints to Chapter 5 and take out Pindleskin. Or just run Pindleskin a thousand times. The loot from Diablo is actually pretty bad.

Do you remeber how fast 8 man cow games went with a few lightning javazons in them?

Yeah you could get to Pindleskin pretty fast, but otherwise the quickest bosses I could get to solo while others were killing cows were Diablo and Mephisto.

In Diablo2 X-Pac? Hell yes!
Farming was fun because it was all about finding that ultra-rare completely random loot drop.
Grinding? a) You were killing cows! That is uber fun and b) You could go from 1-99 (max lvl) in about one day...so it wasnt like grinding took all that long.

Bought it.  With any luck it'll show up tomorrow.

Well, the game sounds interesting, but my computer, she is not so young anymore.  I'm hearing that this game can curb-stomp even high-end machines with the settings turned up high.  Is this true?  Any thoughts on how it would run on a box that stutters on anything heavier than World of Warcraft?

I have textures/detail turned to high. Shadows and Reflections on low because I don't care about them in games where sneaking isn't the primary objective and the resolution on the next to highest widescreen mode.

My computer is just about 4 years old.

It runs fine.

Judging by the system reqs and recommendations on the box, this game can seem steep...but you just have to know how to deal with the video settings really.

I bought it and played until almost the end of Egypt, then had to re-install. Doing that apparently deleted my savegames (I was expecting an option to keep them like most other games), so now I have to start over :cry: . Well at least I can drop Earth for Spirit like I've been wanting to do since about 30 minutes after I trained in it.

So, the damn thing have no PVP and MP IS FUCKING OPEN BN ONLY.

It shouldn't get more than 1 point on 7-9 review scale and have no right to be called diablo clone.

Besides, how can you not implement the ultimate antipiracy system (closed BN) when you have a chance to do so? I just cannot comprehend how one can be so incredibly retarded.

There is PVP. You have to start the client with the special '/pvp' switch on the commandline (or via a shortcut), and you will then be shown a list of all PVP-enabled servers.

Or so I remember reading somewhere.

Does it matter? No one is forcing him to play it. I think a game called Kitty LUV came out this week he might enjoy.

Um, because Iron Lore is not Blizzard, and maybe doesn't have the resources to run all those damn servers for free?

A few things to add having finished the game earlier today:

-  I kinda miss the overwhelming number of monsters that would attack you in Diablo.  You don't really get a lot of that in TQ.  Instead the challenge in this game is that the creatures start hitting a hell of a lot harder later on.

- As Schild has mentioned the end boss is easy.  He's slow as hell and if you run away from him and out of his area he'll break off pursuit and lumber back to his starting point.  It's all too easy to hit him a few times, run, and hit him again.  Anyone with a ranged attack can kill him without taking a hit if they're carful.  Also, once you beat the game, you can start out in his level (on the difficulty you already beat).  I could do a Typhon run in probably around 15 minutes or so, with little risk.  He might hit harder on lEpic and Legendary, but if he can't hit me it doesn't matter.  They need to patch in some better AI for him.

Yeah, the end boss is ridiculously easy; my speed record so far is 6 minutes 11 seconds from start of that level to cracking the pinata. And that's with killing everything else in the level. I could probably blitz past them now. One time, and one time alone, did he give me a run for my money.

Don't let him ...

SPOILER!

SPOILER!

SPOILER!
 --> ... get near the Hades statue. He does a life leech/energy drain attack that sucks almost all your life and all of your energy off, fully healing him. <--

Ah, so that's what those statues do.  You can run past all those mobs and just kill the last two ogres, then fuck up the boss.  Takes like 2 minutes.  Which sucks.

Mastery + Battle = Dead Titan.  But I can't get him to drop anything as good as the first time.

If you look at the lewt tables in the editor, he has a substantially higher chance of dropping Good Stuff(tm) the first time and a lower chance all subsequent times. You're better off farming chapter 1 in epic mode.

yeah GameSpy used to have to leave too much stuff on my PC way back when.  And ya, the company to be had was forgettable. Some like it, but then some say pOtatO.

That's a shame. He didn't drop anything good when I killed him. Just yellow vendor trash. On the other hand, I just stood there swinging my sword and occasionally quaffing potions. Very easy, no running involved. Maybe I'll kill him some more and try to get lucky.

I just got an item that put me over 300dps. Kek.

Think I'm at around 620dps at the moment  :-P

I'm straight spirit. When I say I have 300dps it means I have ternion maxxed out and that's 3 bullets at 300dps at a time. I wasn't interesting in waving around my FULL e-peen. But it seems I have no choice!

Work is gonna suck today.

Melee is gimped.

Even with all the sexiness I just receieved (thank you!), I still have to run around with my dick in my hand.

Time to reroll something ranged! What's not taken?

Just keep it out of your avatar kthx  :-D