Recently there seems to be a lack of good games to play so I went back to play Diablo 2, and after getting to Hell again I realized this game was as dumb as when I stopped playing it 5 years ago, so I went to Steam and Torchlight was on sale for $5, so I figure what the heck, how hard can it be to do a Diablo clone?
And indeed, it is very easy to do a Diablo clone. In fact, this is rather intriguing because I can genuinely say the 3 Diablo clones I have played (Shining Force NEO/EXA + Torchlight) are genuinely better than the game they cloned from. Even Shining Tears or whatever abonmination Sega drew up in their initial attempts to clone Diablo was probably at least as good as Diablo. I never finished Shining Tears but I never finished Diablo 1 in single player either so I figure those two are about equal.
Now a very large part of Diablo is the ability to multiplayer, but really what do you get out of multiplayer Diablo? The game is unquestionably harder in multiplayer because enemies regenerate at a % of their health and their health scales to the number of players, so unless every player is hitting the exact same enemy at the same time you're doing worse just on regen, which is not trivial to overcome until you have really souped up characters. The only practical reason to play Diablo 2 multiplayer is so that you can bum waypoints (especially for Act 3) because otherwise you might never have the motivation to get past Nightmare Act 3. Of course, then there's the fact that you found your awesome items and trade it/show off with a friend, so Diablo 2 is good because you can show off your gear? Most likely you won't even play in the same game as another guy (since multiplayer sucks) and BNet still requires you to queue your games on their server even now.
And yet Diablo 2 is one of the best selling games ever, while Torchlight is $5 on Steam and probably no one here besides me has ever played Shining Force NEO and EXA. Unlike World of Warcraft, which genuinely had some quality that could make it the most played MMORPG, Diablo 2 doesn't have any purely from a gaming perspective. It is not superior to any of its clones (though a lot of them came way later) on gameplay or graphics. Even multiplayer is suspect since BNet is slow, and the game punishes you for playing with other players anyway. So, you're talking about a game that was successful simply because everyone else played it, and I guess also that there was nothing that was even a halfway decent clone of Diablo 2 for a very long time.
As a side note, I think Diablo 3 took so long to make precisely because Diablo 2 sucks. I don't know the technology behind a Diablo-like game but if Sega can make 3 or 4 Diablo clones in 5 years it cannot be some kind of rocket science. In the case of Starcraft, you can genuinely say Blizzard had a superior game (at that time anyway) so you're sure if you do something that's better you'll make the sales. Diablo 2? Not so much. I mean sure everyone plays it, but that's about all you can say about the game. Now obviously Diablo 3 isn't going to be a bad game, just like the original Diablo 2 wasn't a bad game either (ironically the later patches made the game progressively worse as it's tuned around duped items with best mods), but I don't think there's any guaranteed the game will be a runaway success. It can probably sell a million copies easy but that isn't necessarily success or even profitable when you consider the time and number of people that are behind the project.
Oh, and about Torchlight itself, it's pretty much your standard clickfest. The game is pretty challenging on Very Hard, and I can't imagine the game being at all enjoyable at any difficulty below that unless you're making a hardcore character. To me if you're not dying in a game like Diablo then you're doing something wrong, because that'd mean you already mastered everything there is to know about the game. Even ignoring the cheesy instant kills/lag, there's definitely a learning curve in Diablo 2 before you can start avoiding deaths reliably. Of course, the later patches made Hardcore a joke when any random combination of mods on Hell can do 1000+ damage to you, and I'm sure people get around that by wimping out and level up in safe areas (like Bloody Foothills before the monster revamp in Act 5 where no base population monster is capable of doing more than 100 damage). Actually Diablo 2 is pretty much on the easy side if you ignore stuff like Duriel with a non tank character (you die), Diablo without magic reduction (you die), or any of the ways of taking 1000+ damage with no possibility of avoiding on Hell. In Torchlight I've died a couple times that's avoidable but difficult. The game plays a lot like the Shinng Forces where attacks that can do ridiculously damage are usually very easy to dodge, but can still hit you if you screw up or get trapped.
And indeed, it is very easy to do a Diablo clone. In fact, this is rather intriguing because I can genuinely say the 3 Diablo clones I have played (Shining Force NEO/EXA + Torchlight) are genuinely better than the game they cloned from. Even Shining Tears or whatever abonmination Sega drew up in their initial attempts to clone Diablo was probably at least as good as Diablo. I never finished Shining Tears but I never finished Diablo 1 in single player either so I figure those two are about equal.
Now a very large part of Diablo is the ability to multiplayer, but really what do you get out of multiplayer Diablo? The game is unquestionably harder in multiplayer because enemies regenerate at a % of their health and their health scales to the number of players, so unless every player is hitting the exact same enemy at the same time you're doing worse just on regen, which is not trivial to overcome until you have really souped up characters. The only practical reason to play Diablo 2 multiplayer is so that you can bum waypoints (especially for Act 3) because otherwise you might never have the motivation to get past Nightmare Act 3. Of course, then there's the fact that you found your awesome items and trade it/show off with a friend, so Diablo 2 is good because you can show off your gear? Most likely you won't even play in the same game as another guy (since multiplayer sucks) and BNet still requires you to queue your games on their server even now.
And yet Diablo 2 is one of the best selling games ever, while Torchlight is $5 on Steam and probably no one here besides me has ever played Shining Force NEO and EXA. Unlike World of Warcraft, which genuinely had some quality that could make it the most played MMORPG, Diablo 2 doesn't have any purely from a gaming perspective. It is not superior to any of its clones (though a lot of them came way later) on gameplay or graphics. Even multiplayer is suspect since BNet is slow, and the game punishes you for playing with other players anyway. So, you're talking about a game that was successful simply because everyone else played it, and I guess also that there was nothing that was even a halfway decent clone of Diablo 2 for a very long time.
As a side note, I think Diablo 3 took so long to make precisely because Diablo 2 sucks. I don't know the technology behind a Diablo-like game but if Sega can make 3 or 4 Diablo clones in 5 years it cannot be some kind of rocket science. In the case of Starcraft, you can genuinely say Blizzard had a superior game (at that time anyway) so you're sure if you do something that's better you'll make the sales. Diablo 2? Not so much. I mean sure everyone plays it, but that's about all you can say about the game. Now obviously Diablo 3 isn't going to be a bad game, just like the original Diablo 2 wasn't a bad game either (ironically the later patches made the game progressively worse as it's tuned around duped items with best mods), but I don't think there's any guaranteed the game will be a runaway success. It can probably sell a million copies easy but that isn't necessarily success or even profitable when you consider the time and number of people that are behind the project.
Oh, and about Torchlight itself, it's pretty much your standard clickfest. The game is pretty challenging on Very Hard, and I can't imagine the game being at all enjoyable at any difficulty below that unless you're making a hardcore character. To me if you're not dying in a game like Diablo then you're doing something wrong, because that'd mean you already mastered everything there is to know about the game. Even ignoring the cheesy instant kills/lag, there's definitely a learning curve in Diablo 2 before you can start avoiding deaths reliably. Of course, the later patches made Hardcore a joke when any random combination of mods on Hell can do 1000+ damage to you, and I'm sure people get around that by wimping out and level up in safe areas (like Bloody Foothills before the monster revamp in Act 5 where no base population monster is capable of doing more than 100 damage). Actually Diablo 2 is pretty much on the easy side if you ignore stuff like Duriel with a non tank character (you die), Diablo without magic reduction (you die), or any of the ways of taking 1000+ damage with no possibility of avoiding on Hell. In Torchlight I've died a couple times that's avoidable but difficult. The game plays a lot like the Shinng Forces where attacks that can do ridiculously damage are usually very easy to dodge, but can still hit you if you screw up or get trapped.
It seems like similar to Diablo 2, very hard is tuned against hacked weapons that do 100 times of whatever spell/weapon I have since all the youtube videos shows guys doing 5 digit damage with regular attack at a lower level than what I am at when I am lucky to break 3 digit damage. Though with the exception of the last boss all of very hard is quite doable with standard gear, and the final boss probably is doable with some patience and extra levels (biggest problem is finding a weapon that can hurt him to beat it in a reasonable time). The last theme (Black Palace) had some levels that are seriously way too big given how tough Dark Disciples are (both of their attacks can kill you from full to 0 if not avoided without very significant resist gear). I think Dark Disciples push the limit of how hard a regular enemy can be in a Diablo type game. They are ranged attackers, and do poison/lightning damage (alternate). Lightning is unavoidable, and poison bolt is tracking. If you're not wearing resist gear either attack will kill you, so I guess it's assumed that if you play very hard you'll be watching for lightning/poison resist gear instead of just putting on any random armor with the highest level requirement you found along the way. I finally found a good lightning resist ring right as I get to the final stage, and it looks like you can prevent them from one shotting you with the right gear. Dark Disciples take only 3 hit to kill, and are usually alone (though can run into 2 rarely and of course you can gather more than 2 up if you're crazy).