Torchlight III (formerly Torchlight Frontiers)

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

That was the mistake of Hellgate: London that ended up hurting it so much. Those kinds of abstracted for isometric systems done work in first or third person when you also give the playing an aiming reticle, free aiming movement like a modern FPS, and direct control of the character. It should have had a lock-on system for ranged attacks, so you're brain isn't thinking about it funtioning like a FPS but not working like one. It just doesn't feel right when you put your aiming reticle on something, fire, and then don't hit the thing it was clearly on. It's like it's taking how you know video games should work and then telling you it's wrong.

Nah, you're wrong.
That kind of aiming worked just fine in Morrowind or Daggerfall (IIRC), for example.
It's simply RPG-combat instead of action combat.
It is fine with first person perspective and requires no changing - though certainly a better explanation would have been welcome. I can see how some would have been initially confused by it.

The mistakes of Hellgate: London have been discussed to death by now. The tl;dr: is that the game was killed by its catastrophic launch, ludicrous business/subscription scheme, technical problems and devs went broke so soon they could barely push out content and patches. Basically everything around the game was botched, but not the core gameplay.

It was shit in Morrowind. Although Hellgate does it way better than Morrowind from what I remember of Hellgate when it came out. That kind of RPG rules abstraction from isometric games doesn't work within a modern FPS system which is far less abstract. It just all feels off, because they're two totally opposite systems. If you're putting that stuff into a first person view, and you're giving the player FPS controls, you're better off having a bunch of stats govern a number of facets about your aiming reticle functions, and having different animations giving the player information like when you aim too long in Thief and your bow (and aim) start to sway. I'm not however saying a first person view can't work.

If your aim doesn't actually enter into the equation of hitting or not hitting something in the game then there's no reason to have a aiming reticle or even give the player manual control over their aim. Giving the player those thing tells their brain shit is going to work like a FPS, because that's how FPS almost all work, but then then actual game's systems are something totally different.

 

[thesheeep]

If your aim doesn't actually enter into the equation of hitting or not hitting something in the game then there's no reason to have a aiming reticle or even give the player manual control over their aim. Giving the player those thing tells their brain shit is going to work like a FPS, because that's how FPS almost all work, but then then actual game's systems are something totally different.

I'm sorry if your brain function is so limited it cannot comprehend RPG combat from first person perspective. You thoroughly confuse first person perspective with first person shooters.
You are not the only one with this problem, rest assured.

I and others who enjoy Morrowind combat do not have this limitation.
And I actually prefer it over the alternative. In RPGs, anyway.

That said, it would actually be extremely simple to switch between both modes.
At least in in single player.

 

[luj1]

 

[Grotesque]

I and others who enjoy Morrowind combat do not have this limitation.

 

[circuit breaker]

Not sure about this one.

I really enjoyed Torchlight 1. 2 was competent, but wasn't as much fun, for some reason.

I wonder how well they will execute on pivoting TL3 back from an MMORPG to a single-player RPG.

 

[abija]

Torchlight 2 was a perfect foundation to expand upon but that would require trying and giving a shit about your product...

 

[Farewell into the night]

I haven't played Torchlights that much, but I applaud devs for their attitude and shift from the mmo and dlc territory. This is amazing.

 

[Latelistener]

No matter how good or bad Hellgate was, it started the whole shlooter thing, i.e. Borderlands and its successors. Essentially those guys got it right, but it flopped for various reasons. Although there was a fan server somewhere, which means it's not entirely forgotten.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Borderlands started development in 2005, a couple years before Hellgate London came out. I'm not sure how much Hellgate ever really figured into the equation of that game, although their previous game Diablo was a huge inspiration on it. There was lots of Diablo talk back when they first showed it off, before it went away and came back looking cartoony.

 

[vortex]

I haven't played Torchlights that much, but I applaud devs for their attitude and shift from the mmo and dlc territory. This is amazing.

Yes. If only Diablo 4 would do the same.

 

[luj1]

Matt Uelmen still on board?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Doesn't seem like there's any reason he wouldn't still be on it. Doesn't look like they're totally scrapping Frontiers, so it would be odd if they did that to stuff he'd already done for it.

 

[ADL]

Babby's first aRPG

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Babby's first aRPG

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make.

 

[Haba]

The thing. It looks like shit.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

The thing. It looks like shit.

They made a lolrandom trailer. It's pretty fucking lame, but it's also not important. I just want it to play well

 

[ADL]

The thing. It looks like shit.

They made a lolrandom trailer. It's pretty fucking lame, but it's also not important. I just want it to play well

It's representative of the tone and the audience they're going for. I don't know why people are downplaying it, Torchlight has always been this way.

 

[The Great Deceiver]

Just waiting for the soundtrack.

 

[ADL]

Babby's firstthird aRPG is live on Steam

 

[Infinitron]

 

[luj1]

Matt Uelmen's gothic folk soundtrack alongside this infantile Pampers art direction is like eating caviar and drinking donkey piss.

 

[Metro]

Servers are apparently sketchy and it's online-only for the duration of Early Access so they can get bug reports. Will wait until full release which seems to be slated for another month or two. They also said the price will go up after Early Access so maybe from $30 to $40.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

The game is also retty dumbed down it seems? Skill trees are simplified, enemies are slow, no fishing etc.

It would seem they are not making enough changes from the time they were trying to make a f2p game

 

[Kruno]

The game is also retty dumbed down it seems? Skill trees are simplified, enemies are slow, no fishing etc.

It would seem they are not making enough changes from the time they were trying to make a f2p game

I am mentally challenged from having to select from 2 skill trees, how do you expect people to deal with more than that? We need to have 1 skill the entire game, and then maybe some of us wont be as mentally challenged from that!

 

[Metro]

Early signs are definitely not good.