Torchlight II Isn’t Coming Out Until Next Year, Folks

no diablo 3 for me because of the DRM. so still eagerly waiting for TL2.

FFS, please don't move it closer to the Diablo 3 release.

Im actually happy cos it gives me time on other games, snd actually finish the first one :)

No rush for any game over the next few months. November always has 3-4 months worth of games to play.

Meh, I got enough to play until 2012. Just hope they beat the apocalypse.

Yeah, unfortunately, people will be playing Diablo III next year. Should have released it before. I just really hope they have a story this time around.

Bummer. Like it's been said previously I wanted this to tide me over until Diablo 3. I suspect I will play both games but do wonder if Diablo 3 will drown them out. Interesting business decision. I'm sure they would really have preferred to tap into the holiday market this year. Delaying release and releasing it nearer to Diablo's date means they still had much to clean up.

I remember when this was supposed to be my salvation during the summer drought...

My prediction for Diablo 3's release is Valentine's Day. I don't think Torchlight 2 is going to make it. It seems tortoise beats hare once again. Hopefully Torchlight 2 is awesome enough that it merits playing on its own terms.

In regards to Blizzard North.

Multiple Blizz devs/community guys already said that about half of the team that originally worked on Diablo 2 is also working on Diablo 3, as well as a huge amount of other guys of course.

Not all of Blizzard North left Blizzard and to be frank, who could blame them? Wikipedia even mentions only 8 actually went to Flagship Studios which somewhat became Runic Games later on. Also, it's not like only people at Blizzard North were actually working on the game. Most obvious example would be Blizzards Cinematics department that did some damn fantastic cutscenes in Diablo 2, which in my opinion are also responsible for adding a lot more atmosphere and story to it. And according to Wikipedia (guess take it with a grain of salt!) one of the reasons of the 'conflict' was that people at the top weren't satisfied with the quality of the Diablo 3 development.

A lot Torchlight / Indi Dev fans keep saying how Runic is the one actually responsible for Diablo 2 etc. pp. when in reality the part of Runic Games members that worked on Diablo 2 was rather small. And yes, Max and Erich Shaefer may have been the ones leading the project but every single member contributes a lot, so saying Diablo 2 is their game is rather ridiculous and almost an insult for everyone else who worked on it.

And now why does everyone love Runic Games so much? I think it's that Indi Dev Hipster Hype to some degree. I mean Hellgate London wasn't so great right? Mythos never got its release with Runic Games but one may say it didn't look particularly impressive either. Now with Torchlight they tackled there another Hack'n'Slash with rather little ambition. It's okay and doesn't cost a lot but one dare say that's all it got. Why did it get so much attention? Probably the Diablo 3 Hype bandwagon that a lot devs jumped on (and still are). They announced the game and the comparisons to Diablo 3 kept flowing and flowing and... that's all the marketing it needed. Add the already mentioned "from the 'real' developer of Diablo 2!!!"-crap and reviewers who don't even know what makes a game good but all just say one thing: "It's kinda good and it's cheap, so fuck yeah Torchlight!" and you're in for a lot sales.

Now I can't really blame Runic Games for that too much apart from the game design problems I see in Torchlight. But what does annoy me is when they announce "Yeah we try to churn out Torchlight II and even possible Torchlight III before the release of Diablo 3". That and looking at the footage/information about Torchlight 2 that's already out one might wonder if they actually intend to step up their game (no pun intended) or just make some good money with fast food. Especially considering how they also keep talking about a Torchlight MMO which sounds like the least ambitious project I've ever heard. Doesn't look like they're going to step over their Hack'n'Slash-bounderies anytime soon.

At least they decided to delay Torchlight 2 by quite a lot now, I hope that'll actually be visible in a much better game. Because if (peer-to-peer) multiplayer and more of the same is all they got... That said, it's kinda crappy how they handled all those delays, yeh they didn't announce exact release dates but they kept targetting rather specific timezones as in "early this year", "well this summer!", "well at least this year!", "well....". "It's done when it's done" is an honorable appraoch, but you still have to know your deadlines as a software developer. This actually sounds like they didn't plan it through all to well during the pre-production phase.

@NaDannMaGoGo said:

@ Forum_User

I don't care how much a game costs, it must be fun in an absolute value, not fun in a fun-to-price ratio.

totally agree... the only thing a lower price excuses is a shorter game... not a loss in quality

@gamefreak9 said:

@Fuga said:

diablo 3 is gonna fuck them up

This...

But... its okay to take the diablo concept and work on it... but looks like taking a concept also comes with the Blizzard delay... a mistake in this case.

Yeah, this is a real shame. Maybe they can still beat D3 out. D3 is in March, right?

I don't mean this to sound as a slight to torchlight 2, because I really did like the first one, but I don't think too many people will be devastated by this news. There's so much stuff to play right now and I'd really rather play the polished product that they want to be put out rather than a rushed one that could be available by the end of the year.

@Fuga said:

diablo 3 is gonna fuck them up

This...

But... its okay to take the diablo concept and work on it... but looks like taking a concept also comes with the Blizzard delay... a mistake in this case.

If Diablo III beats them to release then they've already failed.

I was hoping this would be released in December, guess that's not happening anymore, damn.

Joystiq's spin on this story was better.

There is a few big name games out now that might overshadow the release of Torchlight2 but feeling that it has enough of a following that when it does come out that it will rock & there will be a lot of people playing it. Also recall that the first one didn't take that long to get out due to it being only single player & any time you add co-op/multiplayer into just about any game that's not just split screen fun that it adds a ton of complications into the mix on testing otu all the bulk of the crashy bugs.

Oh, this is dangerous.

@Spankmealotus: Well whether or not that's true (which it probably is, the original Diablo team was fairly small), two of the major driving forces behind Blizzard North, Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, were responsible for the work done at Blizzard North.

@Cogzwell: I'm pretty sure I read on the torchlight forum from their community guy that there is only like 1 dude that worked on diablo working on torchlight. He said something to the effect of neither torchlight 2 nor diablo 3 have original diablo people working on them.

Doesn't that feasibly throw it right at Diablo 3?

I'm glad to wait for Torchlight 2.

Unlike many shallow and generic AAA titles these days,

you'll know what you can await from Runic Games.

Meaning, you get, what you pay for, too.

Called it. Not that it was difficult to call, but i still want my five 'bucks'

Runic has said that they are not even thinking about a Xbox/PS3 port. Big mistake in my book.

And I care this much [0,0]

it'd would be a great ironic shame if the people who made the original Diablo, are killed by Diablo.

Hm. While I have confidence that the game will eventually be released, I have to question the wisdom of their decision. Releasing it anytime after Diablo III or just before Diablo III is a bad idea. If they don't release their game before Diablo III has a definite release date in 2012, they're just going to hurt themselves.

Even if it was a bit buggy, it would have been better to release it this year.

@Traegan said:

I know Runic is under pressure to release before DIII. I am glad they are doing the right thing and delaying to get the game right. I'll be buying both DIII and T2 regardless of release dates, as both predecessors were excellent.

joins the crowd

There are folks on the net saying "w/e, Diablo III won't hurt this because of stupid DRM and paying for items!"

Mmmhmm, while you will have a vocal minority, related actions didn't stop Starcraft II from being a smash success. I know if Diablo III and Mass Effect 3 are close, I'm done and so are any prospects of me getting Torchlight II until the Steam summer seal.

@ Forum_User

I fully agree with you. Torchlight was just insanely dull. And while a lot comes down to Runic being a small Indi dev that just doesn't have the ressources they also didn't deliver on aspects that can be done well disregarding your team's size.

What I mean with that, is that basically all mechanics and aspects in that game are just badly designed. Be it skill system, itemization, shops (enchanting items.. oh god), balance, story, atmosphere, combat etc. pp. Sooner or later you'll explore a lot weaknesses with all of these mechanics and aspects. The game is basically a worse version of Diablo 2 in almost every regard. They didn't even try to change some core mechanics to be honest. They kinda claimed that that pet system is what makes Torchlight special, in reality however it turned out to be a gimmick. You just kept using that pet for selling items...

And it doesn't look like Torchlight 2 will differ much. Now you just got more of everything including a more open world. Also yes, Multiplayer. However as you mentioned there won't be that persistence that makes Diablo 2 so great because it's for peer to peer etc. and no centric TL2 server cloud.

Then there's that "it only costs 20$" argument that a lot people will bring up. Well all I can say to that is that yes, it doesn't cost much absolutely, but in relation I wouldn't even call this 1/10th of a Diablo II/III game. So those 20 bucks wouldn't grant me fun gameplay really...

I don't care how much a game costs, it must be fun in an absolute value, not fun in a fun-to-price ratio.

Not requiring internet to play by yourself still gives this one an edge for me, but I am bummed about the delay. I am looking forward to a real honest-to-gosh LAN party.

@wolf_blitzer85 said:

Better than coming out broken.

@ohsnaphighfive said:

:( this makes me sad, I was hoping this would tide me over for Diablo 3

100% agreed.

Wow, this is the 4th delay for this game. Spring 2011, then Summer 2011, then Fall 2011....never fucking mind 2011. I wonder if they are hiring better project managers.

Aww chucks. In my opinion they need to beat Diablo 3 by two months to get strong release day sales... Otherwise they'd have to rely on Steam specials later next year.

"Studio's desire to do have a beta test partially driving the latest delay."

Sense a disturbance in the force I do.

Let me guess, someone stole your sweet role...

I figure there's room for both games. Diablo games have a lot of content but they aren't endless, especially without an expansion pack. People who like hack-and-slash-and-loot games will probably end up buying both.

Needs to hit the street ahead of diablo 3 or it's in trouble

A bit of a bummer, but more polish is always a good thing. I can wait.

I know Runic is under pressure to release before DIII. I am glad they are doing the right thing and delaying to get the game right. I'll be buying both DIII and T2 regardless of release dates, as both predecessors were excellent.

As much as I enjoyed the first one, it got to the stage where I just got bored of it. It's a great game but found it somewhat repititve.

I'll probably pick it up for $5 and quickly become bored like I did with the first one.

Torchlight felt really dull compared to Diablo II. Also, the skill system was just kind of poorly designed in a lot of ways. Being able to spend skill points on merchant skills (when those points could otherwise be spent on combat skills) as if it was a more open ended style role playing game seemed particularly dumb. That's kind of a minor thing, but it just illustrates how the skill design is kind of all over the place and not really well thought out.

In the end, Diablo II combat just felt right. I haven't seen any other dungeon crawler get it quite right. Also, I want online play. More specifically, I want online play that is run on the developer end so people don't just hex edit their characters and items or what have you. Save for some free to play offerings, it seems that Diablo II is still the only one of these games to ever have done that. Yeah, some people don't want an online-only dungeon crawler (including people looking to pirate it, obviously), which...to me, that's just their loss, because I think the online hooks are what gave Diablo II such longevity (and I had dial-up back when it came out, like most people).

Anyway, I'll be pleasantly surprised if Torchlight 2 is a great game instead of merely okay filler like the first one was, but I'm not getting my hopes up. When they're only charging $20 for it, it sounds like the devs aren't either. It will probably be better than a lot of dungeon crawlers, but that's not saying a whole lot when I feel like Diablo II is the only one that was ever really anything special.

Oh damn, as much as I like Torchlight, everyone knows Diablo might just gobble it up.

Screw it then. I am gonna get Diablo 3 instead.

Didn't they say that the game would release this year unless someone on their dev team died?

RIP someone on Runic's dev team.

The knew they needed to come out before D3. They even said as much themselves. I wonder why development ran so much longer than they'd planned.

Any news on the beta date?

this just in. this game is gonna get snuffed out almost completely by diablo 3.