Preview Titan Quest devairy VII at GameSpot

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Titan Quest

<a href="http://www.gamespot.com">GameSpot</a> has a <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/titanquest/news.html?sid=6151841">seventh development diary</a> where the developers of <A href="http://www.titanquest.com">Titan Quest</a> talk about their mythological action CRPG. This time up, they're looking back on the development of the game, since it's nearly done. Here's a taste:
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<blockquote>We have concentrated on providing a compelling story that takes place in an immersive, realistic, and beautiful world of ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Far East. There are 60 to 90 hours of gameplay, broken into three levels of difficulty (normal, epic, and legendary), <u>which we expect to take approximately 20 to 30 hours each</u>. These levels can be played individually or in groups of up to six, and the epic and legendary games will provide unique loot and a special encounter or two. While some will feel compelled to go through Titan Quest in a linear fashion to get to the next unique boss or complete the next main quest, others will want to explore the multiple side areas, side quests, and numerous dangerous caves. No matter what your style of adventure is, we have provided for it.</blockquote>
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Being able to complete an action CRPG in two weekend afternoons of ph4t l3wt frenzied, drool inducing marathon gaming seems a bit on the short side to me.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.shacknews.com">Shack News</A>

 

[Rivo]

What? 20-30 hours is a decent ammount. How on earth you want to do that in two weekend day's afternoon'?

- edit -
Sorry, forgot we're all nerds here. My bad.

 

[NoisyKillerHPB]

It'll take less than 15 if you aren't retarded

 

[Levski 1912]

20 hours of repeated mouse clicking? Where do I sign up?!

 

[Drakron]

What? 20-30 hours is a decent ammount. How on earth you want to do that in two weekend day's afternoon'?

- edit -
Sorry, forgot we're all nerds here. My bad.

Nope.

Remenber GameDeveloperLanguage: 20 Hours = Common English: 5 Hours.

 

[EEVIAC]

20-30 hours is about right - epic and action RPG don't go together well. Sacred could have done with being a lot shorter, with a smaller, denser world.

 

[Rivo]

Dammit, I tried being not so harsh for once, and all I get is being punched at by other people.

I just have a weak for d2 clones. Sorry.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

20-30 hours is about right - epic and action RPG don't go together well. Sacred could have done with being a lot shorter, with a smaller, denser world.

Considering they've gone on and on about the story and sidequests, I'd say 20-30 hours is pretty damned short. Action CRPGs probably could stand to be longer than typical CRPGs because all you really have to do is set up monsters and traps in gobs of dungeons for the majority of the game play. Something like KotOR, Fallout, etc. can stand to be shorter because there's a hell of a lot more to do and more ways to do things. Action CRPGs is pretty much KILL KILL KILL.

 

[EEVIAC]

Monsters and loot are just window dressing for character building for me. Titan Quest could probably stand to be longer because the character classes don't look that fun - a few mage classes and a few combat classes. Sacred on the other hand has some distinct builds, the gun-dwarf, the dual-wield trap elf, the sci-fi influenced angel, etc. I've played pretty much all of the classes up to around level 30, then gotten bored. D2 was the same.

 

[Old Scratch]

Monsters and loot...

Monsters & Loot. Sounds like the beginning of a brilliant franchise. Someone needs to get on that idea.

"Monsters & Loot: it's not your grandmother's RPG."

 

[LlamaGod]

"Monsters & Loot: it's not your grandmother's RPG."

"It's your 5 year old brother's"

 

[Awakened_Yeti]

when the fuck did multiplying the games length by 3 difficulty modes become a viable measurement of its "gameplay"??

wow thats retarded

 

[EEVIAC]

What's wrong with monsters and loot, you larping pansies? Its the backbone of gaming.

By the way, has anyone managed to find a storage locker in Titan Quest? That kind of fucks up the loot. I thought leaving shit out in the open was phased out after Diablo. Now that I think about it, the monsters weren't that great either. Harpies are meant to be tits-out.

 

[Old Scratch]

What's wrong with monsters and loot, you larping pansies? Its the backbone of gaming.

Yeah, unfortunately they take the primary roles in game design too frequently, you brain-dead hamster.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Titan Quest could probably stand to be longer because the character classes don't look that fun - a few mage classes and a few combat classes.

I think I'm biasing myself based on Guild Wars, which used the same class idea. I can't really say the classes were very interesting in that game.

I think Diablo 2 and Sacred both had play time beyond level 30, though. In Diablo 2, you didn't get the really cool skills until level 30. Even then, you could only pick one of them if you had the pre-reqs for it. In Sacred, the limitations on skill choices based on level is one thing that pushed the level interest beyond level 30. There's a few builds that just don't flesh out in Sacred until level 40 or so. Some beyond 50. Dwarves are pretty much beyond level 50 type characters just because of the skills thing.

 

[EEVIAC]

I think Diablo 2 and Sacred both had play time beyond level 30, though. In Diablo 2, you didn't get the really cool skills until level 30. Even then, you could only pick one of them if you had the pre-reqs for it. In Sacred, the limitations on skill choices based on level is one thing that pushed the level interest beyond level 30. There's a few builds that just don't flesh out in Sacred until level 40 or so. Some beyond 50. Dwarves are pretty much beyond level 50 type characters just because of the skills thing.

That's just so they can provide interest at super high levels though. The whole leveling thing is pretty arbitrary and there's no reason why you couldn't get those cool top tier skills at lower levels. It just seems to me that a lot of these games just make you grind it out after level 30 and for me it gets boring. The gameplay stays (practically) the same but the rewards come less often.

Yeah, unfortunately they take the primary roles in game design too frequently, you brain-dead hamster.

What's worse is that even these most rudimentary gameplay foundations are fucked up on a regular basis. Consider the amount of very decent rogue-likes in comparison to the pretty fucking awful action-RPG's we've had to suffer for years. If a single guy from Korea is making better games than acclaimed, multi-million dollar studio productions, you have to start wondering what the fuck is going on.

 

[doctor_kaz]

I love it when developers count varying difficulty levels as part of the game's gameplay length, as if it's the only game on the market where you can play the game on "hard" after you play it on "medium".

 

[Limorkil]

Sacred?

I'd just like to say: Thanks for reminding me about Sacred. I bought that game a while back but my old PC choked on it. Now I have a whole new setup and I really ought to install it again. I really liked it at the time. I rarely play anything other than RPGs and it is good to play a mindless action-oriented one every so often (and before you recommend Oblivion: I found that mindless but slow).

Thanks