Let’s get it out right now, Torchlight 2 is probably the best gaming purchase I’ve made this year.

Loot Explosions!

There’s just something to be said about your screen being filled up by loot.  Every corner seems to have a chest and even if it’s only money and 2 items, it showers the screen.  The entire point of the genre is the slot machine effect of getting loot.  Having this perpetual reward, well spaced mind you, is gratifying.

Distinct Characters

My first playthrough was with an Outlander.  I went pure strength, a few passives, dual pistols and rapid fire for the most part.  That got me to level 54 without any problem.  I could play again and use a bow, or a shotgun, or a cannon.   I could go for summons, or poison, or glaives, or pure defense.  All are viable.  Combine this with 3 other classes and you finally have true variety between players and actual replayability.  The fact that you can take the hardest difficulty from the start (instead of having to spend 40 hours on a character first) is amazing too.

Diverse Enemies

There are 3.5 acts and throughout each you’ll find some rather unique enemies.  Some have armor that must be destroyed, some teleport, some set you on fire, some poison, some run away.  All bosses have some sort of unique feature that keeps you on your toes. All of a sudden that dragon breath seems simple once he starts throwing giant rocks from the sky and summons 8 enemies to help him.  Enemies all look different too.  There are very few recycled skins and you never really spend long enough against a type to grow bored of them.  The best part though, is that there are no cheap shots.  No arcane sentries. No immune to all damage.  There’s challenge without walls.

Pure Fun

This is where the difference truly lies.  I have a smile on my face when I play Torchlight 2.  I don’t feel a grind when I’m on a quest or a new dungeon, I feel like I’m a hero.  I don’t need to kill 50 enemies on the screen at once to be strong, I can do it by killing 5-10 at a time, back to back to back.  I don’t have to worry about numbers so much to progress.  Certainly, getting better stats helps but we’re talking about a 5-10 point different in gear, not 100-200 and 5 stats per item.

There’s just so much of it to enjoy.

Syncaine has a good argument against the 3 monther.  It’s a much better take than Keen’s in terms of clarity.

The argument stems from the argument of choice, at the core.  If a game is designed to attract the generic masses and the generic masses are nothing but sheep, then you’re going to have a problem.  TOR designed their game for the casual crowd (clearly) and they came and went.  WoW designed their core game around the dedicated crowd, they came and stayed for many years.  The farther along WoW trends towards the casual crowd, the more they alienate the core.

Can there still be games developed with a longer than 3 month time span?  Certainly but not in the F2P market.  The F2P market is designed 100% around the casual player.  Those games that do offer a sub model in addition to F2P however, are running a 2 tier system.  This is a topic for another time though.

RIFT is probably the only game in the past 5 years that targeted a core group of players, a casual group and provided the content for both on a regular basis.  Actually, it’s the only sub game that has ever done this, to my knowledge.

Are we going to find games that cater to a core group?  Are there any of those people left that are not currently invested in an existing game?  I wonder.

Keen coined the term 3-monther to describe MMOs that only keep people entertained for 3 months at a time, then take a massive dip in subscribers (or simply players).  His recent topic on how not all games follow this trend is divisive, to say the least.  I certainly disagree with the permanent nostalgia he has for EQ and DAOC.

My thought on this is simple.  Nearly every single game available today is an MMO.  If you can play multiplayer and with multiple people at once, then it’s by definition, an MMO.  Diablo 3 is an MMO, Dungeon Defenders, Call of Duty, the list goes on and on.

Way back when UO launched, there were a grand total of 1 other MMO available to play: Meridian 59.  Remember that first to market topic I keep coming back to?  UO’s success is based on this theory.  When EQ launched, DAOC, SWG and finally WoW, there was no competition on the market.  UO was a PvP gankfest where you could lose all your work in a flash.  People jumped ship as soon as a “carebear” option became available (also the cause of the sharding of Trammel).  EQ was a hardcore PvE grind with next to no content.  You killed the same bears for 4 levels, which could take 8 hours or 8 days.  Plus you needed a group to do it, which could take an hour to make if your friends weren’t online.

DAOC was a PvP realm game with next to no PvE, so it drew a specific crowd.  SWG, at launch, was an amazing sandbox but it had massive imbalances.  Without direction, people simply wandered without direction.   NGE turned it into a themepark and it killed the population.  WoW, at launch, was a solo-friendly, content-rich, PvE game that drew massive crowds.  Up until then, it was next to impossible to find a game where you could actually accomplish something in 1 hour.  Most other games, you had to wait an hour to get started.

You can see, there was next to no choice back then as to what game you wanted to play based on your playstyle.  Hardcore PvE?  EQ.  Hardcore PvP?  DAOC.  Sandbox?  SWG.  Casual PvE?  WoW.

Let’s count the number of casual themepark MMOs today.  WoW, Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, RIFT, Star Wars Online, DCUO.  That’s ignoring the F2P market, which has dozens of options.  You can put your money anywhere.

All that to say that in today’s massive gaming market, you are near guaranteed to find a game you like, with an online component, at most every 3 months, if not faster.  Heck, I’m in the middle of Borderlands 2 and Torchlight 2 right now.  XCOM in a couple weeks will suck me in too.

The 3 month game is here to stay.  MMOs can hope to keep people for longer but they will need to do the following:

• Aim for large box sales and a retention point of 25% or less.
• Release content at most every 8 weeks
• Concentrate on the core playerbase, they pay your bills
• Use the F2P market to decide which content your players want.

Success is possible in this new reality.  RIFT is a prime example.  So is DDO.

Last week we saw Torchlight 2 come out (which you should buy ASAP) and the comparisons to Diablo 3 are inevitable.  Torchlight has most of the minds behind Diablo 2 pushing it along while Diablo 3 is more along WoW’s mentality.  I wanted to take a better look at the core mechanic differences.

Weapons

Diablo 3 bases all damage on the weapon slot and boils it down to melee or ranged attacks.  A bow is the exact same attack as a crossbow, if the stats were the same.  In the end, the weapon is no more than a set of stats.  In Torchlight 2, each weapon is distinctly different than others.  Some are AE, some are close range, some are single shots.  Changing weapons is more than changing stats, it’s changing playstyles.  I won’t argue which is best but the latter, by it’s very nature, adds more choice the the game.

Skills

Torchlight 2 uses an old talent tree model, where you assign points to skills – both passive and active.  All have a near linear increase in power.  The active ones have 3 tiers, where an additional bonus is acquired, making a 5 point investment significantly better than a 4 points.  This in fact gives 4 tiers of talents (1pt, 5pts, 10pts, 15pts).  Your skill choices are static and cannot be changed (unless you have a mod).   There are no limits to the amount of skills you can use, only in the amount you can purchase.  Nearly all builds are valid at end game.  You have quite a lot of choice but once you make it, you can’t go back.

Diablo 3 limits you to 6 active skills and 3 passive ones.  Every single character has the exact same skills available to be picked, so each character is unique based on the 6 choices made.  Some builds are more defensive, some offensive and pretty much everything is an option until Inferno difficulty.  Once there, you basically have 2-3 build per character as an option due to the mechanics.

Trade

Here we have an issue.  Diablo 3 is built around an auction house while Torchlight 2 is has no system to encourage trade.  I’ve written at length why that is a poor decision by Blizzard – if you use the RMAH, you’re essentially giving money to Blizzard – but the real issue here is that the core game mechanics of Inferno’s gear wall mean that you need to buy items to succeed.  Even now, the odds of getting the gear necessary to progress in Inferno from drops is along the 1 per 8 hour session.  Trade is required.

Mechanics

I wanted to close with this section as it’s the most complex.  Torchlight 2 has a mix of mechanics that provide balance with the skills.  Some skills are based on weapon DPS, some not at all and others are a mix.  The increase in power for weapons is pretty linear.  You have an auto-attack.  Some enemies hunt in packs, some are ranged, some slow.  None have a cheap mechanic that is simply meant to kill you.  The difficulties are not related to character level but on player skill.   This means you can play the hardest difficulty off the bat.  You can also restart the game with a new game+.

Diablo 3 is a numbers game.  Either you have the numbers to beat the enemy or you do not.  The game before Inferno is fairly well balanced with bosses using unique attacks and strategy.  Once in Inferno, the power increase is exponential between tiers.  To reliably beat Act 3/4, you need gear that is 75% optimized in terms of stats, otherwise progress is next to impossible.  Damage is based nearly entirely on weapon DPS and an weapon with a slot for gems is overpowered (600 lifesteal or 100% crit damage).  This means the difference between an average top-tier weapon (say 600 dps, no slots, decent stats) and a good one (say 1000, 1 slot, above average stats) is the difference between 20,000DPS and 40,0000.

Overall

The more I play any game, the more I get a more complete idea of what makes great games.  Diablo 3, like SWTOR, was launched early without any endgame plan.  Games that want to stay on the radar need something like this thought out.  Torchlight has an infinite dungeon at the end, for better and better gear.  Diablo 3 is about to implement something like that in the future – well over 6 months after launch.

It’s really saying something that Blizzard’s ‘release when it’s ready’ system failed so much here.  I remember in the fall during D3 beta where they essentially re-wrote the entire combat system.  Then launched 5 months later.  Beta is for refinement, not re-writing.

I’m sure looking back people will enjoy both games for what they were.  I think everyone should give both a try to see how developers that understand mechanics make a game with different approaches.  With two widely differing opinions, people are guaranteed to find something they like.

Even when they are from smaller-ish studios.

‘Borderlands 2’ from 2K Games/Take 2 debuts at the top of the All Formats Chart this week with the biggest launch so far in 2012, toppling the previous best, ‘Mass Effect 3’ by over 4,000 sales.

Borderlands 2 is worth every penny.  Minor bugs aside, this hybrid RPG-FPS sets a its own bar for future games.  Akin to my previous post, being first to market with an idea (even on a sequel) makes you the industry leader by default.  Good on them.

First, I’m playing Borderlands 2.  The game is great.  A true improvement over the first game.  There are still some annoyances but that’s part and parcel of a RPG/FPS.  It strikes the perfect balance of “just one more quest”.

This got me thinking about the small vs big development houses and by proxy, triple A games vs. indie games.  The amount of effort (and money) needed to build a AAA game is staggering and success is not guaranteed.  You need massive marketing and stellar gameplay to recoup the costs.

Indie games don’t have as much to risk but also tend to have less to gain.  If their measure of success is 50K games sold, then that is something that is completely achievable in today’s distribution market.  If they build an amazing game with awesome word of mouth  – say like Legend of Grimrock – they might quadruple or more their sales projection.

Here we are with Torchlight 2 out in a day competing for a piece of the Diablo 3 pie (among others).  I think it’s a safe bet to say that the dev costs for the former are much, much lower than the latter.  They have different operating models too.  It will be interesting to look back at Torchlight 2 in say, 3 months, to see how healthy the game is and its actual sales numbers.  I think it’s a good thing that Diablo 3 has soured people, it will probably increase Torchlight 2 sales.

Looking forward to it!

We learn today that the leads from Bioware, Drs Muzyka and Zeschuk are leaving the gaming industry.  I am personally saddened by the news as they brought the RPG game to the mainstream and came up with some amazing IPs.

Take a look at the wiki page.  Shattered Steel, Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, Planescape, Icewind Dale, Dragon Age and Mass Effect all stand well above their competitors at the time.  Most of those are in the top 100 RPGs of all time too.

It isn’t so much a bad thing to try on a different pair of shoes after 20 years in the industry.  I’m pretty sure this was planned when EA bought BioWare a few years back and with the non-competition clauses, they essentially had to wait out the requisite time.

That being said, the last 3 games that BW has sent out, all under the EA moniker I should add, came to massive fan backlash.  Dragon Age 2 was a fairly universal disappointment when compared to DA1 – lacking the depth we were used to.  Mass Effect 3 made headlines with a completely nonsensical ending that needed to be patched after fan outcry.  It still sold like honey cakes though.  Finally, TOR’s rather significant failure (which I could write for weeks about) brought a $200 million hole into EA’s pocket books.

I would love to have a few beers with these two gents, just to pick their brains about how games have evolved since they started and where they think they will end up.  How they went for building games for themselves to building games for the masses.

My hat is off for two of the industry’s innovators.  They will be missed.

So today we learn about Dragon Age 3: Inquisition.  I don’t know if this will close the loop on the DA franchise but there are some interesting items to note.

First is that they are using DICE and Frostbite2 as the engine.  This is the same engine used for the Battlefield series (again, EA at work).  The engine is pretty good but it’s also meant for multiplayer massive battles with environmental destruction.  DA is pretty much the opposite of that.  So that’s interesting.

Second, BW is taking the step to combat rumors and lead with some minor details.  This is a smart move but also risky.  Too much talk about a game too far before launch can kill the vibe of the game.  Timing is crucial. TOR is a super good example of this gone bad.

Third, they say they are listening to the fans who played the first two.  BW has in the past acknowledged that DA2 lacked the polish of the first, especially in the “content variety” aspect.  Hopefully that gets addressed.

I am cautiously optimistic about this game.  It’s still an EA brand game and I’ve stated clearly I won’t put a penny into their pocket, but from an outsider point of view, perhaps this can help redeem the BW luster it seems to have lost this past year.

From 20 to 1.  Before starting, it’s important to state that any such list is subjective to the writer.  The odds of a majority of people agreeing are slim.  Still, the general idea should be good and everything 1-10 should be worth playing a few times over.

EverQuest (20) – My 2nd MMORPG and the one I sunk a ridiculous amount of time into.  Still going on but the magic has left this one.  A good example of a time capsule game.  Most modern RPGs owe their foundation to this game.

Earthbound (17).  A decent RPG with a rather unique story and game mechanics.  Ness has become a Nintendo mascot now.  I wouldn’t have put it this high but I can understand the nostalgia factor.

Diablo (16).  This game plays the same today as it did over 15 years ago – minus the small graphics.  A near perfect storm of elements, I remember passing hours after school at the local network shop playing this with friends.  I died a LOT.

Secret of Mana (15).  I guess you could call this Square’s first take on a western RPG since it was all live combat.  The story was amazing, the magic system pretty deep and you could play co-op.  I played it again recently and it is still amazingly fun.

Final Fantasy Tactics (14).  An update to the Ogre Battle system with FF characters.  Since this style of game best fits the Square model, it came to be something quite interesting.  The Job system combined with the bounty board was a rather unique twist on the grinding.

Planescape: Torment (13).  One of the best non-fantasy RPGs to ever come out.   Built on the same engine as the Baldur’s Gate series, P:T was too far ahead of it’s time when it launched.  You can only really appreciate what it did today, which is a shame.

KOTOR (12).  The mother of Star Wars RPGs, KOTOR simply raised the bar for western RPGs (and perhaps all that ventured here).  A complex story, detailed character development and a somewhat robust combat system.  Like all BioWare games, the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts.  Well worth playing today.  Really makes the movies (1-3) look like garbage.

FF7 (11).  I expected this higher due to the fans but it’s appropriate here too.  This game launched the 3d RPG, movies-in-game and the 12 minute boss fight.  I think people attach so many good memories to this game not so much because of the quality (which is still pretty high) but of the simple timing of the launch.  I mean, Sony has admitted that it’s the primary reason they sold the PS2 in the US.

Fallout 3 (10).  When this game launched, I was hesitant.  I loved my old Fallout games.  This one took that idea, broke it down to basics and blew it up to a million wild pieces.  There is just so much to do in this game, and all of it is related.  Win a mayorship up north, find the old mayor down south with some ants.  Superheroes, giant robots, deadly children, vampires, nukes…everything.  Simply amazing.  Just don’t go into melee.

Mass Effect 1 (9).  This above the sequel is both odd and somewhat appropriate.  The first game was a unique take on a unique IP.  While the individual systems were weak (Mako anyone?) the whole of it was a fun story with a great pace and amazing music.  Think about it, this game is why EA bought BioWare.

WoW (8).  I would have put this higher if only because 1/3 of PC game players seem to have played this at one time.  No game, any time, has had more social impact than WoW.  It is not the game that launched (EQ-lite) or the carebear game that it is today that puts it this high.  It’s simply that this one game blew up a market that had yet to break a million per game in the west.  That it still holds sway over 10 million players and has TV ads in the middle of a football game is a testament to its power.

Skyrim (7).  Take Fallout 3’s systems, refine them a bit into the Oblivion model and you get Skyrim.  This is a sandbox dream game, just at the cusp of true AI.  Shooting dragons out of the air with giant fireballs does not get old.  Killing 3 at one doesn’t either!  You can do what you want, when you want, how you want.  Refreshing.

Diablo 2 (6).  Interesting that both Diablo games are so close to the top.  D2 took the first model, refined it to a double diamond and set it out on the masses.  People are still playing this game today online, the balance is just so spot on.  D3 has a near impossible measure to reach to even come close to being compared with D2.  The team that built this game understood gaming and we are lucky for it.

FF4 (5).  You know, most people don’t remember this game.  This was the first FF game with the ATB gauge.  It had great characters, a decent story, challenging combat and just a solid overall gameplay.  I would not have put it this high in the list personally, but it’s still a game that every RPG player must try at least once.  This is the true birth of the Square RPG as we know them today.

Pokemon Red/Blue (4).  I figured they would be higher on the list!  Who hasn’t played these games or a variant?  For a rock-paper-scissors game, this game spawned a multi billion dollar franchise  An extremely basic but complex game that took hundreds of hours to complete to perfection.  You really wanted to catch them all!

Baldur’s Gate 2 (3).  I figured 1-3 are a toss-up in rank.  BG2 is a seminal RPG that changed the entire landscape from that point forward.  Conversation trees that mattered, complex and satisfying combat, a solid leveling curve of power, great music and dragons.  There simply has never been another RPG that comes close to giving you the experience this game does.  It is practically perfect.

Chrono Trigger (2).  Oddly I was playing this the other day, the game just calls to me from time to time.  Kooky characters, interesting combat, great time travelling storytelling, CT is a masterpiece of gaming.  You could play this a hundred times and still find something new or something to smile about.  Add to that the fact that there are dozens of endings, some quite hard to find makes it well worth replaying, again and again.

FF6 (1).  When this game came out, I bought it for 100$.  So like 175$ today.  It was worth every penny.  From the start in the winter steppes, to flying around as an esper, to using a chainsaw or suplex on an enemy, I can’t remember a better time playing an RPG.  Unique playstyles for every character (draw an enemy?) made the team of 12 (14 really) players a pile of fun every time.  And really, Kefka is the best villain I have ever seen.

So that’s the list.  Do I agree with them all?  No, but in batches I do.  Pretty much every game from 1-20 is worth playing at least once.  1-10 should be in your gaming library.  IGN did a pretty decent job here and that’s comparing to other lists they’ve built in the past. Hats off!