My PAX 2009 Torchlight Gameplay Experience

[Jerich]

Netbook ran it at 12fps, I think MaX mentioned that around the same time he said geforce 2. I doubt a netbook is running on anything but a integrated gpu.

Yep, but netbooks are very weak overall.

Which means it will probably be faster than 12fps on your system.

- Jerich

[Notmyhandle]

Cool pic. anyone going to figure out what everything says?

The numbers on the right side of the character pane represent the damage applicable to that stat. For example, if I wield an axe that requires strength to use, its damage will only be increased if I increase my Strength. In the image, it says 2-3, which is the base damage before being reduced by enemy armor. Obviously the Vanquisher has pumped more into Dex, and is wielding a Dexterity based weapon. Magic, in this case, is referring to magical weapons (Wands/Staves). These numbers do not represent the various skills you acquire. The number next to Defense makes little sense to me, but perhaps it is the amount of damage reduction.

I was looking through my photos and I noticed a screenshot with a monster highlighted. Just an update for those interested in this:
*The monster, Rock Troll, is highlighted in red during combat.
*Above its name is "Level 2"
*Below its health bar is "Knocks back foes - Knockback immune"

[Omnifas]

Netbook ran it at 12fps, I think MaX mentioned that around the same time he said geforce 2. I doubt a netbook is running on anything but a integrated gpu.

I used to play Mythos with 4-15, so I never got to play anything with tons of particles (Pyromancer explosions anyone?).

I ran Mythos with about 12-25, so I was almost in the same situation as you. Hopefully since Torchlight was built ground up with Low-end in mind, unlike the Hellgate Engine which was aiming higher then attempted to go lower with Mythos, the framerate will be a stable 30+

[permaximum]

Intel x4500 is at least 10 times faster than Geforce 2. And it has support for most of the latest technology for example DirectX10, Shader Model 4.0, OpenGL 2.0 etc.

Guys, system requirements questions are a little bit pointless. Because devs pointed out that the game doesn't use shaders, even a pc with geforce 2 runs the game and geforce 2 was introduced by nvidia in early 2000. Does anyone plan to play Torchlight on a 10 year-old pc?

[travisbaldree]

Should run a good bit better than Mythos - hopefully it should perform pretty well for you.

[hawkn]

I have a laptop with 2 gigs of DDR2 ram, a 2.3 GHz processor, and a good video card. I'm not worried about frame rate. I just need to buy windows so i can run bootcamp, and split up my hard drive... I wish it were october...

[Killmouse]

hey guys

i ve found some more articles

http://game.blogdig.net/archives/articl ... 6dfce3bb22

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/50113 ... -Of-Mythos

http://www.1337life.com/?p=2465

[Wonder]

A quick shout out to the staff I met: Max, Travis, Peter, Wonder, Kyle, Sirio, Brock, Marsh, Leo, Matt Lefferts, Mike, and I think Ben was there on Saturday. And of course Jason and Alex from Perfect World.

Where's that group pic?

[GCoder]

Thanks Jerich! Amazing work!

It looks Torchlight will be one of the major game of the year candidates.

And thanks everybody for the info and links. I haven’t seen so much information and support from the devs and the community about a single player game.

Have to read the rest of the TL previews. The PAX TL coverage is just massive...


P.S. Torchlight has a minimum coverage in Gamespy website (only IGN has some previews) and I can’t find videos on Gametrailers. We need to spread the word...

[Volbard]

P.S. Torchlight has a minimum coverage in Gamespy website (only IGN has some previews) and I can’t find videos on Gametrailers. We need to spread the word...

Thanks! We've put nearly all of our time and money into making the game rather than into marketing, so we definitely appreciate your help in getting the word out. |^)

[leoleez]

OMG! thanks dude, I wish I bought tickets before they sold out... man I really wish II could've gone, but this is a great review and makes me excited!

[GCoder]

P.S. Torchlight has a minimum coverage in Gamespy website (only IGN has some previews) and I can’t find videos on Gametrailers. We need to spread the word...

Thanks! We've put nearly all of our time and money into making the game rather than into marketing, so we definitely appreciate your help in getting the word out. |^)

We are trying our best!

Btw GameTrailers.com have updated their website and they have now a Torchlight page:
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/torchlight/11997

Woot!

[Wonder]

Just saw that on twitter - huzzah!!

[leoleez]

this game sounds better than D3, you guys sound humble when you talk about how you don't wanty to compete with D3.

Here are a few scenarios that any buyer whose holding the boxes of D3 and TL will come down to:

Price: 20 to 50 dollars (TL to D3), a thrifty buyer will get TL

• Alluring packaging: I have not seen the packaging, but it comes down to the buyers tastes
• Thematic elements AKA tastes: Dark gritty or Mysteriously badass?
• Renown: TL has the devs, Blizzard has the big guns, the renown. If the devs just put they made D1 & 2 and Fate, and developed part of mythoss then you will win this category
• Word of mouth: depends on us fans.
• Guy in the store: all I can say is they better be fans
• Casual or Hardcore: casuals MAY pass but Tl seems more casual friendly. if you have your credentials on the package it may convince some hardcore guys to join our ranks.

okay tha being said, I'm converting ppl as we speak, please join my efforts in such endeavours.
I'm decent at my oratory skills, but using visuals help alot, stuff that gets ppl excited:

• videos, PAX and E3 are good ones
• Screenshots, show them the Destroyer smashing zombie faces
• Concept art, serious, if they are partially artsy the style of art is quite captavating
• Just keep telling them about it, when they give you rides, when you give them rides, when you sit and a computer with them visit the page, etc etc.

yea, just some suggestions I'm gonna post this on a new thread

[jamesL]

yeah, this thread has gotten way off topic
you can delete your own post since you're going to make it its own thread

[prestige]

Here are a few scenarios that any buyer whose holding the boxes of D3 and TL will come down to:
...

Let's not forget the most important part of that scenario: it won't even happen until the year 2011 or later.

[Tid]

2011 for diablo 3 *sighs*. But then again im super excited about torchlight .

Thanks to jerich for the nifty feedback, its hard to find info on this game on the net, but i only recently found my way to these forums where the devs are so open with questions and info, its nice that the community here already seems like a lovely place to chat and the devs are part of that community, which is something so rare nowadays.

Going back on topic, i heard something about a "infinite" dungeon, does this mean a endless dungeon? and should such a thing exsit, say i quit out and load back into the game, will monsters on the above levels respawn? or will the level completey regenerate its self or stay the same? etc .

[Jerich]

2011 for diablo 3 *sighs*. But then again im super excited about torchlight .

Thanks to jerich for the nifty feedback, its hard to find info on this game on the net, but i only recently found my way to these forums where the devs are so open with questions and info, its nice that the community here already seems like a lovely place to chat and the devs are part of that community, which is something so rare nowadays.

Going back on topic, i heard something about a "infinite" dungeon, does this mean a endless dungeon? and should such a thing exsit, say i quit out and load back into the game, will monsters on the above levels respawn? or will the level completey regenerate its self or stay the same? etc .

Infinite dungeon means that you can keep going down levels forever. Well, there is probably a limit to the levels, but it would only cap out at a ridiculously large number. If you use the console cheats and send yourself down to the one thousandth or even one millionth level, you are probably ok. If you try to go down to a number like 10 to the 23rd power (1 with 23 zeros ), I bet you will crash the game. Barring cheating or playing one character until you are 100 though, you can always find another down stair in your current level and the next level will be slightly harder than the one before.

As far as re spawning, I have no real idea, but my guess is that cleared levels would stay clear for a while, but then eventually re spawn when you log off and back in. I bet the layout of each level stays the same though, since that can be stored relatively inexpensively in a save game.

- Jerich

P.S. If Fate is any indication, I believe I was able to crash the game if I consoled down like 100 million. I am guessing perhaps the limit will be either level 4,294,967,295 which is the biggest number an unsigned long integer can represent in C++ or 18,446,744,073,709,551,615, which is the biggest number a really long number can take in C++ or .Net. If you were not cheating, though, and took 30 seconds to clear each level, it would take you around 4000 years and 20 trillion years respectively to clear this many levels.

P.S.S. Hopefully the Torchlight cheating console will be slightly more robust and just ridicule you when you put in such a suitably large number instead of crashing.

[jamesL]

FATE has 2,147,483,647 dungeon levels. That's 2 billion !
if it crashed for you at 100 million then that was just a temp bug. It does that sometimes.

[Jerich]

FATE has 2,147,483,647 dungeon levels. That's 2 billion !
if it crashed for you at 100 million then that was just a temp bug. It does that sometimes.

Thanks for the info James. I was just throwing out some random number from memory and was too lazy to look it up on GameFAQs.=P Looks like fate used singed integers to store levels (numbers that can be positive or negative), instead of unsigned. If Torchlight did something similar, it would take you a mere 2000 or 10 trillion years to reach the end.=P That is without sleeping or eating ... or dying for that matter.