Max Schaefer on Diablo 3, MMO's, and Sales

[News Portal]

The man behind Runic Games and Torchlight, former Blizzard employee Max Schaefer, revealed that Diablo was once intended to just be a straight MMO. "When I was working at Blizzard a million years ago we were working on Diablo 3 and it was an MMO," said Max. "We were going to do the Diablo version of World of Warcraft."

Max also was delighted when Diablo did end up going in the direction of always-online and auction houses. "We already decided we were kinda going the opposite way with that, so when they came out with those announcements it was good for us because we could draw some distinctions between the two games," he said. According to Max, pre-sales on Steam shot up 40% on the day of Diablo 3's release - and stayed there.

Source: I.Eat.Games. Thanks to Tim Morgan for sending this in!

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[Kinky Kel]

I for one welcome our new torchlight 2 overlords.

[Cyrinno]

Yeah I never thought I'd agree with that, but it's always easy to say without T2 being released yet.

[Kinky Kel]

Very true. For all we know T2 could flop big time.

[PinothyJ]

I have completely forgotten about T2 with the release of Krater just a few days ago…

[R3DNUT]

hmmm, krater looks pretty cool. a combination of heaps of games all rolled into one.
borderlands,diablo,magic candle,finalfantasy,D&D.. nice. if it werent for d3, i'd be all over it. never played torchlight but t2 will probably get a look in too.

[aggabo]

I have completely forgotten about T2 with the release of Krater just a few days ago…

Just had a look at it... was not interested untill I saw it had multiplayer due on 10/07/12. For $15 you can't go wrong

[Marius]

There's a lot of good D3 alternatives around. I might give Krater a shot.

[PinothyJ]

Just had a look at it... was not interested until I saw it had multi-player due on 10/07/12. For $15 you can't go wrong

I am still unsure at how multi-player will work as only single player online was available to test during alpha.

There's a lot of good D3 alternatives around. I might give Krater a shot.

It is really good quality fun. It is really exciting to see Fatshark take the Diablo formula and add all of that good stuff you have loved from other genres. Plus, it is pretty entertaining that FS can release a DX11 game and the money drenched, -- sarcastic quotes -- "AAA" studios cannot.


So far there has been a patch a day with fixes and changes as reported by the community which is also very reassuring…

[Marius]

Well I just bought Krater, so we'll see how it is. Still not sold on Torchlight 2, though.

[PinothyJ]

Well I just bought Krater, so we'll see how it is. Still not sold on Torchlight 2, though.

I would highly recommend reassign the hotkeys in settings nefore your muscle memory latches on as it can be a pain in the arse to quickly bounce from one skill to the other when they are in a single eighteen centemetre (1-9) line.

The following is working for me:

Code: Select all

Attack Move: 1
Stop: 2
Defend: 3
Extract Team: 4

Ability Bar 1: Q
Ability Bar 2: W
Ability Bar 3: A
Ability Bar 4: S
Ability Bar 5: Z
Ability Bar 6: X
Gadget Bar 1: E
Gadget Bar 2: D
Gadget Bar 3: C

Select Soldier 1: F1
Select Soldier 2: F2
Select Soldier 3: F3

Open Team Management: T

With the above hotkey setup I keep everything in a square which is a lot easier to find the exact skill I want without having to take my eyes of the screen. For the soldier I have in slot one I use Q and W for his skills and E for his gadget. The same goes for the other two but the subsequent rows down.

Do not be tempted to assign anything to ` as doing so will crash the game upon hitting Apply.


I hope this helps for when you start getting to the high-level fights…

[Marius]

This better not be comic sans I'm seeing everywhere...

[lucassot]

I am eagerly waiting for Torchlight 2! Have been looking at Krater but I think I'm going to wait for the coop content next month. I dunno, I see many mixed opinions on the game but it looks really appealing to me. Be keen to see what you guys here think about it too.

[Marius]

Krater is pretty fun. Combat is reminiscent of Dragon Age Origins, bit faster though.

[PinothyJ]

Krater is pretty fun. Combat is reminiscent of Dragon Age Origins, bit faster though.

Unfortunately, the people who give the game a good review are not counted by Metacritic so that is going to hurt the Indie dev…