torchlight - a baby diablo

computer froze during this :(

this takes everything annoying about d2 and smooths it out

item drops suck in this; seems I always need to upgrade my weapons at the merchants which is very lame

I started this last night. It's lots of fun. Control with a trackpad is a little imprecise but it's mostly that when I got ganked by a big group of mobs it was hard to click on individual mobs. Fortunately my dog helped clean up the mess.

I made level 4, but I'm not sure if I want to keep playing as a tank. It's my default just b/c I tend to hack and slash even as a mage and I like the thrill of upgrading weapons and seeing an immediate crushing impact, rather having my mana go up. Well, I guess I can replay this, or just create a mage and see if I like it more that way.

Euler: shift key helps with that. it sticks you in place to attack

huh yeah that would help! cool

this is the diablo crack, alright. word of warning - those pocket dungeons you can buy out of the shop? absolutely BRUTAL. You can't warp out, and they're super hard, so stock up on potions like mad... took me ages just to do one floor, after which i gave up... nice thing at least i was super buffed for the story game and other missions at the "proper" level

Level 24 tank

ugh spending way too much time reading the torchlight forums

zero-punct'd
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1385-Torchlight

He obviously did that one for the paycheck, as it really doesn't say anything. I mean, even for yahtzee.

While I enjoy the hell out of this game, but it's also kind of the epitome of the stuff we were talking about in the "envy" thread, where i know there's no substance to this at all, it's just hollow, massively time-consuming entertainment, yet so fun. I am staying far, far away from the MMO when that comes out.

haha I was thinking of that envy of gameres thread too when I was playing last night

Torchlight
65 hrs

yeaaaaa half of those are mine

I've been playing in offline mode, otherwise I'd add 20 more hours to that. haah

I bought a Heal II spell and then stupidly "accidentally" unlearned it...down 2000 gold but whatever, I have so many heal potions that it doesn't matter I guess for now.

gold was rolling in when I went into the level 1-10 pocket dungeon which was more fun than the normal dungeon b/c it was harder. I'm playing on normal so maybe that's why this seems kinda easy and thus kinda silly to me...despite that I'm still gonna play through b/c it's satisfying in the way it's satisfying to play an old-school arcade shooter like 1942, full of mechanical violence without worries about "plot".

Oh yeah that reminds me of something I wanted to mention. This is a small thing in scope, but I love the fact that when you start a new game, and they give you a description for each difficulty. Sure - maybe it seems obvious what "Easy", "Medium", "Hard" and "Very Hard" mean, but it never is, since you never know what basis a game is using that as (like what's "Normal" difficulty, and to who?). Since the description for Hard actually say it was for people who had played Action RPGs before and I think it says Very Hard is for masochists or something like that, I knew Hard was the way to go for me. Every game with difficulty settings at the start should have verbose explanations, since you usually can't change the difficulty mid-way (and even when you can - it usually feels like a cop-out, TWEWY-aside).

I felt kind of stupid about being shocked about the pocket dungeon above - I didn't realize the Level 1-10 doesn't refer to your character level but to a random floor of the main dungeon, so I think the first time I picked up one it was like 5 floors ahead of where I was. Also more lulz at that post - I was probably inches away from the portal exit, since they end shortly after you hit the second floor.

I usually pick Normal because I'm not very good at games, but here I wish I'd picked Hard. Aside from the pocket dungeons, it's not even possible to be harder on yourself (go down further, faster) because you'll just end up leveling as you clear all the mobs on the linear path.

That said, crushing things and making them go splat is pretty satisfying.

huh I didn't realize that the levels in the random dungeon were random. I'm glad I got a difficult one!

Wait, so can you change difficulties in this? Google search is just confusing me: it says you can now do it with a patch but only in "console": does that mean I can't do it in the main game and have to load some other program?

I have no problem with changing difficulties midway through, if it makes a game more fun for me. Fun's the only reason I'm playing. I think I would like to move up to Hard in this.

Ah, didn't realize that you could do that! The console is in the game, but you need to change line in the settings.txt file to enable it. See here for info on that file's location - easiest way is to run %appdata% and browse to the runic games\torchlight folder.

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Torchlight/Console

It's not listed there but after hitting Shift+~ ingame, the command should be SETDIFFICULTY 2. Valid numbers are 0-3 for the different difficulty levels.

ok cool, I will do that!

I assume steam games get patched automatically?

yep yep

once you enable the console you can also redistribute your character's skillpoints - type 'respecpotion' into the console

i'm told that labels you a "cheater" and you can no longer share items with other characters

It looks (from reading around) that changing difficulty doesn't make you a "cheater", but changing other stuff in console can.

you mean some random person on the TL forums was incorrect?!?!?!??!

haha I think it was fixed in a patch but fuck, reading online about this game isn't very helpful for some reason.

I think respecpotion is officially sanctioned; not sure

runic games' forum is a good place for info

Ok, those forums DO have a lot of info! Though i now i realize i may have to respec my summoner/caster/dual-wand (ok maybe I did try too many things) Alchemist since i dumped too many points in the wrong skills. The game does encourage this, though, with the skill level tiering - which is totally cool - because it IS more fun to try out a dozen different abilities than to power build - though my eyes are definitely changing for my games with the other classes. Glad the respec potion exists, though, so I don't have to completely start over with Alchemist!

I hit level 10 last night and am thinking, even with kicking the level up to Hard, that this isn't going to take so long to complete. So I'm cool with screwing up my tank by choosing specs badly and then playing again as a blaster. It's mostly just dumb button-mashing fun for me so far, kinda like Marvel Ultimate Alliance (I played Diablo but not Diablo 2, and it was a long time ago...this is the first game like this I've played since then).

Haha, don't worry about completing the game here, trust me. There's... something afterward.

haha ok, I guess I can create multiple characters then? I want to see how the other classes work, esp. b/c I'm avoiding distance weapons and (for the most part) spells with my tank.

sure, why not? all your characters stay selectable/reloadable from the main screen in any case

cool, I think I'll do that then!

wow, playing on hard really cleared my sinuses out, so to speak: I was midway through a pocket dungeon (level 8; my char is level 10) and I ended up dying uh, 6 times? And that was just on the small second floor. Then I went back to the main dungeon and I did better, so I guess it was just the beefed-up pocket mobs that were the trouble.

best tip from the forums so far, if you haven't seen this:

before you go to the gambling man in town, put a socketed item in your pet's inventory. mouse over an item the diceman is selling. if:

-it has at least 3 requirements (level + 2 attribs)
-the socket/gem appears on the item in your pet's inventory

you have a 90% chance of getting a rare/unique item. (maybe all unique items have 4 requirements? dunno.) yeah i was complaining about being overpowered earlier. whatever, now i have a mace with a ram's head.

hah - I just sunk a couple of points into Barter, too. maybe I'll turn my chararcter into a gold finder

i didn't even bother with magic or gold find bonuses on my first main runthrough - a foolish decision! even getting 2 or 3% find, especially gold, makes the game go so much smoother

gonna try out that tip on the gambler - so far i've gotten screwed over for the most part on those

So far (about 6 hrs of play) I haven't found gold to be particularly necessary. The gear that pops has been plenty good, I think. Is there significantly better gear available for purchase at the store?

my best weapons have been store bought (drops have not been kind to me)

I should start checking out the store then; the town is kind of a dreary place to spend time so I try to get out asap.

I make enough money that I clean the gem seller out of gems every time I get - also I check to see what spells she has

I have a bad habit of constantly using the enchanter, which just eats up gold at a crazy rate, but then you get these awesome items with 10 bonuses and slots and whatnot. But I am probably better off buying more store stuff.

just finished this on hard, have absolutely no desire to do the endless dungeon or very hard

ok whoa is this fun as alchemist; sitting back, blasting away...and I just figured out that wands shoot too! but who needs to when you've got serious triple ember bolts blasting away!

dual wand, motherfucker! what's really sick though is if you go the summoner route, between all the different summon spells, your imps and golems you can control a ridiculous little army

yeah I am rocking dual wands! is there some reason not to? b/c so far no mob gets close to me when I'm blasting away with ember bolt (it has 50% knockback I think). playing on hard now too...but I think I"m only level 6 with this char so far.

RPS review spot-on, I think: www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/10/30/wot-i-think-torchlight/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/10/30/wot-i-think-torchlight/

That RPS review is quite correct, and I really like those guys, but wow did it really need 15 paragraphs to say "best diablo since diablo ii, shallow and great"? Ah, that's what they always do, though.

Euler: There's a dual-handed proficiency you might want to invest in at Level 20, I think, but the main reason not to do dual wands is to have a shield for better defense and blocking. But I'm pretty ok with that general strategy of blasting away anyone who gets close with spells. You'll know when the game wants you to slow down because you'll spawn on a new floor and BAM instamob death, kinda like forks said way early in the thread.

you are now introduced to Valve Time

I don't like Valve Time.

46% d/l'ed!

I just got the client - Torchlight, here I come!

I don't suppose there's a way to transfer savegames from my, um, unofficial Mac port to Steam.

you can probably just copy the savegame files from the runic games folder (though I don't know where they are yet in the steam mac version or the unofficial version - on windows they were in %appdata%/runic games/torchlight/save), just do it when Steam isn't on

Dang - it turns out it won't do Windows to Mac or vice versa cloud syncing for character saves (though oddly the mods did sync. Bummer. Fortunately, copying over my Windows saves manually did the trick, and the mods seemed to work as well.

good info, i will now give runic the $10 they more than deserve

Nhex, to where did you copy the Windows saves? And did they work? The forums suggest that you can't play your Windows saves in Torchlight Mac.

They worked for me, though I only tried one of my 3 characters, they all appeared on the load screen intact with play times, only error message was the mod mismatch warning. The Mac saves go in the same relative place as the Windows version, "%appdata%\runic games\torchlight" being "~\Library\Application Support\runic games\torchlight".

huh, yes, you're right, it works! It's funny, on the TL forum their staff was saying you can't do this b/c of some binary incompatibilities. Obv. that's false!

yep, weird developer excuses at play! especially weird since my mods synced fine

Love it!

so i guess now that this out for mac im getting it huh?

just in time for nice weather and lots of work that needs to be done!

Sequel announced - NOT the MMO, but a new single player game with online co-op modes! New classes, more MMO-style customization, outdoor environs...

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/04/torchlight-2-interview-with-runic-games/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejqCZw4Mua4

Not Torchlight, but another Diablo-alike, Path of Exile, is having a public stress test this weekend. Not many New Zealand-made games around, so I'm curious to see how it holds up.

it's out. get hype.

no hype for me. Gotta wait for the Mac version.

hey guys, you know what's a good game? 2012's Torchlight II.