Torchlight II (not the MMO)

[Kitsune]

I am honestly and sincerely curious: let's pretend they can both be played offline, or they both need for you to be online to play, what are your (people in this thread) reasons to play Torchlight 2 instead of Diablo 3? I haven't betatested this, but I played enough Torchlight 1, so I really would like to know your angle on this cause personally I can't see it. As I said, this is not a mock. I am really interested.
[/quote

I was playing in the beta yesterday, and found myself in a position where I was fighting pirate skeletons with a cannon that I was carrying around.  PIRATE SKELETONS.  With a CANNON.  There is literally nothing in Diablo 3 that can compete with that experience.

[Lucas]

I am honestly and sincerely curious: let's pretend they can both be played offline, or they both need for you to be online to play, what are your (people in this thread) reasons to play Torc+hlight 2 instead of Diablo 3? I haven't betatested this, but I played enough Torchlight 1, so I really would like to know your angle on this cause personally I can't see it. As I said, this is not a mock. I am really interested.
[/quote

I was playing in the beta yesterday, and found myself in a position where I was fighting pirate skeletons with a cannon that I was carrying around.  PIRATE SKELETONS.  With a CANNON.  There is literally nothing in Diablo 3 that can compete with that experience.

Arrr!!!

[apocrypha]

what are your (people in this thread) reasons to play Torchlight 2 instead of Diablo 3?

Battle.net is offline. And I have a pet ferret called Sausages.

That's all I can think of.

[Threash]

15 bucks vs 60 is a huge one.  Could easily be 5 vs 60 if you wait until christmas.

[Ironwood]

what are your (people in this thread) reasons to play Torchlight 2 instead of Diablo 3?

Battle.net is offline. And I have a pet ferret called Sausages.

That's all I can think of.

That's enough.

[Tebonas]

...and a disconnect from the US servers and I'm standing at the beginning of the cemetery of the forsaken again after almost being to the crown.

Thats why Torchlight 2 is superior, even not taking awesome pet ferret into account.

[jakonovski]

When's this thing coming out anyway? There's a niche to fill for Diablo clones right now.

[Mosesandstick]

Dammit, did everyone go for a ferret?

[Malakili]

Dammit, did everyone go for a ferret?

How could you *not* go for a ferret?

[Hawkbit]

This is really well put together.  Between D3 and TL2, I fear other games won't get played this year.

I didn't care for the Outlander much, and the Mage was pretty bland.  The engineer was fun.  But the Berzerker is flipping awesome.  It really feels like a berzerker should, just flying around the field smashing all in the path.  The fact that all the abilities are based around wolves is just that much cooler.

[apocrypha]

The ferret has flying goggles.

Flying goggles!

'Nuff said.

[Kitsune]

Dammit, did everyone go for a ferret?

The ferret has flying goggles.

Flying goggles!

'Nuff said.

This.

[Fabricated]

The outlander felt like it took way too long to build charge, and they get a lot less bang for theirs than the other classes do. Engy skills do more damage and look cooler with charge, Berserkers become nearly invincible, embermages fill their charge really fast and can cast for free for quite a while when they max out, Outlanders...uh, crit a bit more and shoot a bit faster if they can find enough shit to shoot for like 5 minutes to max it out and keep it filled.

[Modern Angel]

Dammit, did everyone go for a ferret?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Double ferrets all the way.

[kaid]

It must be said that you can get ferrets in diablo 3 if you are a demon hunter.

[Kitsune]

Does it have goggles?

[Fabricated]

There is another thing that TL2 does a lot better than D3, now that I've read some more of the D3 forum and that's randomness.

The one-off dungeons and quest areas of course pop up in the same areas but their arrangement and the general arrangement of the zones/dungeons in TL2 can be pretty dramatically different. You can recognize some chunks like "Oh, that bridge is usually in here somewhere", but it's WAY the fuck more random than D3.

[Numtini]

I jumped for the weekend event and I really like the game, probably more than D3, but I'm sticking with my thought that random easy group matching in D3 is a killer app. The big list of games isn't a substitute and I missed playing with other people. I think this is like the LFD in WoW. Now that it's out in the wild, it's something that you really have to have.

[Mrbloodworth]

The Friend system in D3 is fantastic. I have no need for randoms.

[Ingmar]

I jumped for the weekend event and I really like the game, probably more than D3, but I'm sticking with my thought that random easy group matching in D3 is a killer app. The big list of games isn't a substitute and I missed playing with other people. I think this is like the LFD in WoW. Now that it's out in the wild, it's something that you really have to have.

The problem with random matching in TL2 is that everything is client-side so public games would just be an insane mess of cheating, hacks, etc. Like a worse version of the original battle.net for Diablo 1.

[rk47]

Damn, an authenticator is what we need to prevent it!

[Malakili]

f

The problem with random matching in TL2 is that everything is client-side so public games would just be an insane mess of cheating, hacks, etc. Like a worse version of the original battle.net for Diablo 1.

The problem isn't even cheating/hacks.  Runic openly supports and encourages modding the game.  There is simply nothing to stop someone from creating whatever item they want and just giving it to themselves using the dev tools for that matter.  I can't recall what they've said so far about mods and multiplayer in terms of what games you'll be able to join.  I recall something a while back about them saying they wanted to make it so you could download the mods running on the fly so you could join a game without having to log out, find the mod on some website, install it, etc.  But I don't know what they have actually implemented at this point.

[Sjofn]

Something I did not expect to say, given how much I actually like the art style: I do not like how TL2 looks. Grant you, I only had a very little bit of time with the game this past weekend (it was a busy weekend :( ) but the monsters just weren't standing out to me. It was too bright/busy/SOMETHING in the beginning and it bugged me enough that I decided I'd rather do something else for a while.

Ferret pet goes a long way, though. I like the papillon too. :P

[Hawkbit]

I actually liked the art style in the game, but the cinematic was not good.  It's a shame they wasted any amount of time on it.

[Azazel]

I've been kind of enjoying D3. Not amazingly, but decently. The battle.net servers dropping and general annoyances make me think that T2 (with LAN play!!!) is definitely going to be a go. Though probably not immediately on release, due to too much stuff to play.

[Modern Angel]

Something I did not expect to say, given how much I actually like the art style: I do not like how TL2 looks. Grant you, I only had a very little bit of time with the game this past weekend (it was a busy weekend :( ) but the monsters just weren't standing out to me. It was too bright/busy/SOMETHING in the beginning and it bugged me enough that I decided I'd rather do something else for a while.

Yeah, it's really busy and some of the critters fall into the background a bit too much. I adjusted, though, and then it was awesome. Prefer it to my (limited) D3 experience.

[Numtini]

I felt it was too bright as well. Something just not right about it. I like the TL1 art very much though so I don't know.

[Fabricated]

The art feels pretty good to me. I think some of the cave dungeons obscure your view too much however. Yeah, enemy outlines glow when obscured but that's not 100% helpful.

[kaid]

I jumped for the weekend event and I really like the game, probably more than D3, but I'm sticking with my thought that random easy group matching in D3 is a killer app. The big list of games isn't a substitute and I missed playing with other people. I think this is like the LFD in WoW. Now that it's out in the wild, it's something that you really have to have.

I would have to agree the D3 grouping/friend system is so slick and well designed its probably the best feature of the game. It really is amazingly well done.

[Sjofn]

I felt it was too bright as well. Something just not right about it. I like the TL1 art very much though so I don't know.

Yeah exactly, I really liked the TL1 art style a lot, and in a vaccuum I also really like the TL2 art. There's just something off in the actual game, though, and I hope either my brain adjusts to it or they fix it or something, because whatever it is was not ... right?

[koro]

I think I know that Sjofn means. I had trouble keeping track of enemies once or twice due to how well they sometimes blended in with the rest of the scenery. I adjusted to it after a while, but it'd sometimes creep back up on me, especially if I had the mid-screen automap up and going.

Had the same sort of feeling like getting tunnel vision when driving.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, that's a good way of describing it I think, I had trouble keeping track of dudes.

[Fabricated]

Welp, I dunno where the info is coming from since I didn't see it on their official website and haven't seen it on any of the regular gaming feeds, but following Runic's conversation with some random fans on twitter I guess they're delaying the game another 2-3 months.

They STILL don't have all of the skills nailed down. Starting to wonder what degree of polish they're going for here, or if they're having some sort of technical/internal issues.

[Xanthippe]

I found it - from this article from E3.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/07/e3-2012-torchlight-ii-getting-closer-to-launch


Too bad they didn't actually launch a month after Diablo 3. I suspect they'd sell more copies - I'd be playing now if I could.