Not a Blog Redux

[Killmouse]

that post was so cool


btw i think tl2 wont come out at august unfortunatly T.T

[ArtimusFoo]

Its nice to see a company that actually takes the feedback from the beta and does something about it. It seems all too often that all the beta is used for now a days is some form of special VIP club that allows early access to the game for those dedicated nerds amongst us. So long as the finished product is something that we have all been waiting for, than if this game came out on the very last day of summer it would not bother me what so ever.

[Plague83]

That was a great read! Thank you and as previous posters said, this will (hopefully) calm down the "naysayers" !

Cheers and great work

[notbuu]

I take my hat off to Travis and Runic for the opening of this thread - very interesting and it comes at the right time!
This gives much more information about whats going on now than anything else in the last weeks. Very impressive and now the changes like uniques are more clear!

Nonetheless I am still waiting eagerly to get a definitive release date inside this month - but you've won little more time that the community will wait.

[Darkkrows]

Nice update. Hats off

btw, do we have Random appear Sandstorm that whoop our ass randomly in Act 2 Desert?

[CrashFu]

I should stress that we didn't REMOVE cool stuff from skills and ball it all up to make the tiers neater. We have tried to make sure that the skills are designed to be cool as is, and just get a notable 'extra' at the tiers.

Thank. Goodness. It really peeves me when developers go the other route to make later tier content seem cooler. "Hey, you'll be happy to know this one skill is now more interesting at higher level! ... Comparitively. Because we made it far less interesting initially than it was before." D: Very glad to hear you didn't fall down that route. Now the big question; do all of the skills descriptions say what kind of bonuses they get at the tiers, or do we have to level them up to find out?

Polish means taking that and making sure that the individual monsters are fun to fight,

Heheh. I hope you guys didn't accidentally spend TOO much time making sure the game is fun, if you know what I mean. It must be tempting when you're working on such a fun game to begin with. But in all seriousness, this is good to hear too. I look forward to encountering a lot of exciting monsters.... and then exploding them with critical cannon shots.

You can find uniques that shatter shields, perform skills on strike ( or swing ), or at other triggering events. This allows for much more interesting uniques that are well and truly unique - instead of just more powerful in terms of a given arrangement of passive properties.

If I can't find a hammer that sometimes shoots cannon-blasts on swing, then I will be mildly disappointed... for about a minute, then I'll go try and figure out how to make it myself.


Thanks for the post of legendary quality, Travis. It truly was like a ray of light from the heavens, complete with angelic choir. Or Runic choir, at any rate. Wait, is that a late tier skill for anyone?

[gluemchen]

I`m overwhelmed and speechless. Great info. Your seriously are doing a great job of showing us how your take is on TL2. Your definetly gone far beyond what a customer/gamer would want from a game studio. For that all i can say is thank you and that i have all the faith i can muster to believe and trust. Btw... *cough* where is my succuubus... no really.... xD

[travisbaldree]

Thank. Goodness. It really peeves me when developers go the other route to make later tier content seem cooler. "Hey, you'll be happy to know this one skill is now more interesting at higher level! ... Comparitively. Because we made it far less interesting initially than it was before." D: Very glad to hear you didn't fall down that route. Now the big question; do all of the skills descriptions say what kind of bonuses they get at the tiers, or do we have to level them up to find out

You can see the tier bonuses always. The main point of the tier system is to make later, interesting goals for skill investment visible.

Separate response - in addition to what Matt was saying about recipes. You can now actually see a list of recipes and ingredients.

[travisbaldree]

btw, do we have Random appear Sandstorm that whoop our ass randomly in Act 2 Desert?

Will tornados do?

[Shades]

Awsome info. Thanks for putting it out there!

As someone who is definitely not a fan of the whole Diablo style tiered skill tree, I for one am quite happy to see you making a departure from it. I find your multiplayer solution interesting, but now I wonder: Will a split game attempt to reconnect to the network from which it split? I'm now imagining playing this game with a static group (a specific group of friends playing through the game together) and happily finishing a difficult part of the game only to find that I've been playing by myself for half the previous battle because my (or someone else's) internet connection lagged a bit. This has the potential to be frustrating, to say the least, and if it's liable to happen I'd like the ability to attempt a reconnect when things stabilize.

P.S. -- I am a big fan of the open modding mentality that encourages us to roll up our sleeves and make the game we'd like to see. I know I've come off harsh in some other posts, but there's a lot you're doing right here. Make us proud. *sniff*

[travisbaldree]

Awsome info. Thanks for putting it out there!

As someone who is definitely not a fan of the whole Diablo style tiered skill tree, I for one am quite happy to see you making a departure from it. I find your multiplayer solution interesting, but now I wonder: Will a split game attempt to reconnect to the network from which it split? I'm now imagining playing this game with a static group and happily finishing a difficult part of the game only to find that I've been playing by myself for half the previous battle because my (or someone else's) internet connection lagged a bit. This has the potential to be frustrating, to say the least, and if it's liable to happen I'd like the ability to attempt a reconnect when things stabilize.

P.S. -- I am a big fan of the open modding mentality that encourages us to roll up our sleeves and make the game we'd like to see. I know I've come off harsh in some other posts, but there's a lot you're doing right here. Make us proud. *sniff*

The fracture of a game is EXCEEDINGLY rare. But when it happens, you are notified you have disconnected. Then you can try popping back to the lobby and rejoining and warp to a player. It won't try to reform - someone else could have joined and filled the game, and any changes you make to a level then can't be resolved with the other 'version'

[ombra]

Damn, that post was really awesome. I appreciate the hard work you do and I am really happy, to support such a nice company. Keep up the good work. After all this insight I have a different impression of how hard posishing is. I also want to play this game as fast as humanly possible, but I also want you guys to take your time to deliver a finished and awesome product!

All the things you worked on after the beta are really appreciated. I like them!

[AppleShrapnel]

What's the word on pets? In that interview with Erich he mentioned prior plans of expanding both skills and cosmetics for our furry/scaly/feathered friends, but it was all shelved. Is this something Runic can patch in later, or are you guys gonna pass the concept over and let modders do it? Will you guys keep it in your collective pocket and implement it into the TL mmo, at least?

(I'm a big fan of the pet system... I love it; to me, it's as big a part of the TL universe as the art style. So I was a little dismayed that these plans were on the table but put aside... I'm not questioning why, mind you- conceptualizing, balancing and fleshing all of that out would undoubtedly push release further away at this point. Just wondering if Runic has any plans- official or tentative- on revisiting this ridiculously awesome-sounding concept for pets in TL2 or not. )

[Brixtan]

Thanks for the update Travis! Super excited to hear about all the changes and polishing going on - the item changes that Eric is working on implementing sound way cool!!! Keep up the good work and finish strong!

[dacckon]

Awesome update, keep up the good work!

[NinjaBoots]

You guys take all the time you need. I for one am a patient man

QFT

I completely agree, although I may not be as patient, I'd much rather wait however long it takes for you guys to polish the game to an even higher level awesomeness than have you give in to people begging for an earlier release xD

Thanks for the update

Uniques with skill procs sound rather interesting... It has me considering uniques with a chance to cast spells as well, unless that's already planned xD armor with a chance to summon aloe gels (or healing bots) on being hit or something would be interesting O.o

[Darkkrows]

btw, do we have Random appear Sandstorm that whoop our ass randomly in Act 2 Desert?

Will tornados do?

a full screen sandstorm with low visibility would be nice, but at this late of the game dev, I'll take the tornados. I like that while I'm getting attack by monsters, a tornado do a surprises deadly final blow on me. Dying unexpectedly is fun.

*would like a thunder strike as well, on rainy area I hope I am not asking too much.

[Ager]

Thank you for this thread, mr. Baldree! It's reassuring to know what the devs are up to (not that we don't trust you guys ).

Would it be wrong to assume that adding tier bonuses to skills means that you had to rebalance the whole game? (mob levels and skills, group spawns, etc)

[Xarius]

Thanks a lot for posting this - this is exactly the kind of thing a lot of us were hoping to see. This post has somehow made the wait both easier and harder at the same time!

As has been mentioned already, I would also love the ability to link items in chat. While I'm playing with friends, it would make it a lot easier to see if I've found anything that someone could use.

Once again, I really appreciate your taking the time to write this.

[Zidders]

I think i'd like to take a moment to thank Omnifas for suggesting this and Webbstre for convincing Travis to do this. Both of these people have been a huge asset to the community for many years and I think we should show them our appreciation, too. This is an excellent example of just how much Runic really cares about the community.

Thanks, guys.