So, it's about time we made a thread about these two great games.

For those of you who are unaware, Torchlight was made by many of the same designers who were responsible for Diablo and Diablo II. Their touch is very very evident from the moment you start playing. You'll even start hearing music that has only very slight variation from themes in Diablo and Diablo II. For example, the Tristram theme plays when you're in the town of Torchlight.

Torchlight boasts a lot of the same item grabbing and socket-gemming you'd be familiar with in Diablo and Diablo II, as well as skills, and stat points. But the thing that really makes it unique, is that there is nothing keeping you from playing a class a certain way. We'll get to that in a minute. There's also the Pet mechanic, where you have a dog or a cat that follows you into the dungeon, that you can load up with merchandise for sale, and send it to town, while you continue to fight into the dungeon. A minute later, it comes back with money for the sale.

One of the biggest features of Torchlight, though, and this is a bigger thing with the first game than it is with the second, is that it is made to run on a lot of machines. There's even "Netbook mode", which is designed to run on, you guessed it, a Netbook. So there's little to no risk to running this on any particular PC.

There's also a game editor, which lets you edit levels, models, the works.

The classes in Torchlight:

The Destroyer - high HP, low mana, lots of skills revolving around melee combat



The Vanquisher - low HP, low mana, lots of skills revolving around ranged combat



The Alchemist - low HP, high mana, lots of skills revolving around summons and blasts




Now, as I was saying earlier, you don't have to play these a certain way. While the Vanquisher clearly leans towards range, the Destroyer towards melee, and the Alchemist towards magic....they don't have to be done that way.

1. Spells exist in the game, and every class, not just the Alchemist, has access to them. It should be pointed out that there is a discrepancy between Spells and Skills, even though both consume Mana. And every class has access to Passive Skills that bump up a particular spell school. Granted, they have access to those skills at different times, but they all eventually have all of them.

Spells range from Fireball, to Summon Skeleton, to Healing, to a myriad of others. Every class can have 4 spells learned at any one time. And while each spell has a cooldown on it, there's nothing stopping you from learning the same spell 4 times, just at different levels. So you could know Summon Skeleton I, II, III, and IV, and summon 4 skeletons with rapid succession.

2. Passive Skills to improve one-handed weapon proficiency, two-handed weapon proficiency, ranged weapon proficiency, and wand+staff proficiency, are available for every class. Again, they get access to them at different times, but by level 30, regardless of your class, you have access to all of them.

3. Many skills do damage based on what you're holding in your hand. So it rarely matters how you outfitted yourself, so long as what you gave yourself does a crap-ton of damage.

4. Each class has some skill that can be used if you decide to build a certain way. For example, the Alchemist has Ember Shock, a melee skill where he punches someone in the face and sparks all of their nearby friends.


Torchlight is currently available on Steam, and Xbox Live, and can be played on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and Xbox 360. Depending on specials, it usually ranges between $3 and $20. It came free with pre-purchases of Torchlight II.


Torchlight II

Changes:

1. Multiplayer! You can now play with others! Up to 6 people in a single game.

2. 4 new classes - we'll get to that in a minute. The original 3 are not available.

3. The passive skills from the previous game are gone. Some of them have resurfaced as "Passive Spells" you can learn, others have not.

4. Charge bars - each class has a charge bar of some sort, that typically charge up the more you hit monsters. Each class handles their charge differently, which we'll get to in a minute.

5. Much like the difference between Diablo I + II, you no longer just dive into a 30 level dungeon, you have a lot of different overland areas, you have Acts to go through, etc.


The Engineer - Heavy Melee based class, has a lot of skills surrounding the use of a shield, the use of a two-handed melee weapon, or the use of cannons (huge two-handed ranged weapons with a slow fire rate). They have a few summon skills, including a healbot. Their charge bar is the most intricate of all classes, as it has several levels, each of them useful in amplifying certain skills when they're used.

The Embermage - Elemental caster class, has a lot of ranged elemental skills. Their charge bar, when fully charged, grants them a time in which none of their skills will cost any mana whatsoever. In addition, they will do an extra 25% damage.

The Outlander - Ranged attack class, has lots of skills amplifying their ranged attacks in various ways, some of them focusing on a particular weapon type, pistols, shotgunnes, etc. They also have a lot of skills using their Glaive, which is related to their Charge Bar. Their charge bar boosts casting speed, attack speed, dodge chance, and crit chance, proportional to the amount they've got charged.

The Berserker - Melee attack class, focusing mainly on dealing a ton of damage with two melee weapons in a very short amount of time, and having crit effects. Their charge bar is very simple, in that as soon as it's charged, all of their attacks are crits, until their Berserk duration has expired. There are ways to increase the amount of time they stay Berserk, as well as getting there faster.


While each class is clearly built with a particular build in mind, it is again time to remind people that there are several ways to build them. The Berserker, for example, has two entire skill trees with Cold and Shadow magic, along with passive skills to amplify their effectiveness.

Torchlight II is available on Xbox Live and Steam for the PC, while they are working on making it available for Mac OSX.



Who has Torchlight II on which system? I will collect names for the purpose of helping others figure out times to play with each other.

Steam (PC) :

Thawmus


Xbox Live :

Looks like Torchlight II will be going on sale this weekend. Having just learned that I can have a ferret as a pet, I must own this.

Really, are you and I the only people playing this? I've only put in a couple hours on Torchlight II, but it has, thus far, been a riot. Targeting is much smoother than the first game, the maps are way more open, and (based on my fairly limited experience) customizability within classes allows you to tweak your build in a way that goes beyond simple min/maxing.

Incidentally, my Steam handle is frinktopia. I don't get on much, and when I do, it's usually fairly late in the evening.

I'll be sure to add you tonight. I might be getting some of this on tonight.

I finally finished the game out with my Berserker a couple of nights ago, and I haven't decided what class I want to play next.

Berserker was a ton of fun. 30% crit rate, with 10 seconds of Auto-Critting when he's charged up, and an extra 130% crit damage, is just phenomenally fun. Especially when people just explode in a shower of bits while you're doing it.

And I just did my first phase beast portal challenge. Holy cats.