Torchlight II Previews
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The world in Torchlight 2 looks like it will be much more varied than the first game. There is good news for both the player and modders. Here are some highlights:
'¢ There will be 4-5 acts that will be somewhat non-linear but also have gated areas (think acts in Diablo 2)
'¢ Inside of each act, there will be a variety of sub-outdoor areas and dungeons. For instance, in the area I explored there were multiple variations on the same tile-set (mountain pass, mountain with river basin, evil undead gothic mountains, etc.) This is due to the tile-set aliasing which I will describe in the modding the world section.
'¢ There will be more than 10-15ish indoor tile-sets.
'¢ Each outdoor tile-set will have access to day / night cycles and weather effects. Modders will be able to control weather effects.
'¢ Dungeons will have a different feel to them... there will be variety (cramped hallways versus expansive areas, large sprawling levels versus a quick tomb or house basement)
And then Ten Ton Hammer follows through with some details of their own:
Pets, the loyal helpers that not only fought beside every class in Torchlight but ferried your extra loot to town and returned with money, are back in Torchlight II. We saw one of the new pets a ferret, and I saw that pets had more spell slots than in the original game. Everyone loved the idea of a zombie-summoning cat in the original Torchlight, and Travis explained that pets' mobile turret capacity would be equally important as their (muling) capacity in Torchlight II.
The biggest question I had for the Runic Games team was this: how will gameplay grow to make the addition of multiplayer worthwhile? After all, four-plus groupmates and their pets would make short work of anything in the original Torchlight, even if enemies' hitpoints were simply scaled fourfold. Travis explained that Torchlight II's classes would have more support abilities and positional abilities than their predecessors, skills like healing or damage buff rings that players must be inside of to take advantage.
