Eh, games like poe can be enjoyed without paying anything, but at a certain point you pretty much need to. A guy who won first place in a few league races didn’t even buy one stash tab though, so it can be done and enjoyed if done right.
Gwynbleidd Roach most of the time the people “enjoying” games that are free to play are “enjoying” the game at the cost of pretty much their life lol. To keep up and thrive in 99 percent of most free to play games involves you grinding your life away while the game tries to make you have to grind so much that you break and give it money.
It's not a sign of reckoning. However I think you could say that it is PLAUSIBLE that it is the start of a MOVEMENT. Also remember: This is NOT a AAA Game, regardless of who is making it.
i imagine the lead (being veteran and have been slighted before by AAA) fought hard for this, and not the money people that done this. So not really a reckoning, more like a stroke of luck.
The actual signs may be elsewhere. Jedi Fallen Order and The Outer Worlds doing well in sales and reception, Ubisoft restructuring its creative team with more leads and more independence to each. These things may generate better stuff from EA, MS and Ubi in the future. Besides that though, I wouldn't expect a full AAA reckoning before at least two more things happen: - Bethesda and Bioware are fully reformed from the ground up. People say it's the suits, but I highly suspect that, in those two cases specifically, a bunch of leads and designers also got jaded and complacent. They need new blood. - The mainstream public tires of stuff like Fortnite, Apex Legends, LoL and so on. Not that I hate those games or anything, but as long as they remain as big as they are, we'll get a bunch of AAA publishers trying to replicate parts of their models, even if they don't fit the project in question.
This kind of reminds me of what the Overwatch dev team did. They had to fight activision hard to allow us to keep our cosmetics in Overwatch2 and not let Activision force us to buy the same things over again and deny all of us access to the new areas in OW2. Out of all the games at Blizz rn, I feel like the OW team stands up to activision the most. It's really painful seeing how much these devs love the game and want to do the right thing, but are being handicapped and held back by these suits who have no appreciation for the games they own.
t's a lie to hook you in up front and sneak monetization back in later. Much like how other games launched without monetization but added it in and changed all the damage/loot to make that the only way to progress after all the reviews were in.
@@ahmataevo they've said that there will be a full offline mode and that there will not be any microtransactions. If they do add them later then they would have bait and switched and also false advertised meaning lawsuits and manditory refunds so high doubt.
@@YoBoiSyn - Bait and switch is ubiquitous in games now, Call of Duty, Ghost Recon and more have all done the bait and switch, there were no lawsuits and if anything they raked in billions for their deception. This would be no different, because people are stupid. Yes, your optimism is stupid.
I remember when this happened to Orcs Must Die. Loved the first two games, but the third was a super-grindy F2P where you chain-ran the same map a billion times against bloated enemy stats for RNG crafting rewards.
Sounds like plants vs zombies now. Garden warfare was a crime against humanity man... Switched to squad based 3rd person shooter with defined roles, you had to get RANDOM CARD PACKS just for your basic items like FUCKING PLANTS. Want a sunflower? Pack. Want a acid shroom? Packs. Want new character skins that feature meaty upgrades in them? Packs. Ofc the money you got was piddly-shit and you were supposed to end up buying with real money. Fucking popcap sold out hard
@ageofbogyo It will be. He's talking about Orcs Must Die Unchained, which released 2-3 years ago. Man, I worked on localization for that game and even I forgot it ever existed. :P And I played the first one so much... But to be fair, maybe that was the kind of game that didn't really merit sequels. Some things just work better as a fun one-off idea.
Publishers are as incapable of long term thinking as a cockroach. I bet all my internets the devs threatened them with something. Maybe they had partial rights to the IP or some core members threatened to walk. You can't argue with a sociopath. You can only threaten them.
Wait, the whole region locked items and such, like resetting your character when you go to a new region is the same thing Cube World did, except Cube world isn't a f2p game with micro transactions.
Except it didn't work in the way it was described at all. All gear was useable in all frontiers but in foreign frontiers item power was scaled down a little bit which encouraged you to find gear from that area. Skills did not reset at all, relic weapons were also frontier-independent. In reality the system was misunderstood and not given a fair chance.
@@1Orderchaos Well, Blizzard has region locked everything (including your friends list) in StarCraft 2, Diablo III and WoW. I've heard at least one of the reasons for this not being addressed has to do with the data going 'round in those games. Apparently not all of that data is entirely legal in, say, the non-Americas regions. Anyway, plenty of people play those games, so...
Well WoW is not the hest example, because I witnessed plenty of BAD feedback..... I was mostly ok with BFA for example.. Yes, it had its flaws.. However, the general "feedback" was tending to tear the whole thing down instead of fixing the issues, without even acknowledging the things BFA got right.. No, WoW got destroyed by its community and their attempt of giving "feedback" to the devs.....
@@NickStrife While the average player isn't the best about constructive feedback, it also falls on the dev to be able to filter that feedback. Check out Internet Historian's vid on No Man's Sky on how Hello Games fixed it for an example of what I'm talking about.
Except it isn't. It doesn't matter if your game doesn't sell at all in EU and USA. If it sells to 0.1% of Chinese and Indian smartphone users, you'll make billions.
Also worth noting is that one can reach a wider audience by making games with different themes rather than sacrificing gameplay. If I went to one of the local LGBTQ meetings and said that hey, there's an arpg where you can play a transgender witch, people there who had never played that genre would suddenly be interested and it wouldn't take anything away from the experience at all for anyone else.
Thing is, Asians don't usually have personal computers and consoles. It's not really a thing in the EU and the US but internet cafes/computer shops where you rent a computer for an hour or so, is much more common in Asia. Legit the only reason why F2P games reaches more players is true.
This is great news, indeed! I had given up on this game, but it looks like I'll need to keep an eye on things moving forward! Added to my Steam wishlist.
I was going to say this. How stupid does a dev have to be to think forcing gear to only be usable in the area it was found in would be a good idea? It's not even a mediocre idea, it's fucking satan shit.
Devils advocate; I'll give even odds that Perfect World will shoehorn in some kind of MTX later down the road. That seems to be the new thing publishers are doing, announce games with "no microtransactions" as a selling point but then add them later.
Really glad to hear this. A few years ago, I had surgery for arthritis in my left hand. 4 week recovery. Couldn't play 1st person shooters (mouse and keyboard for me). Couldn't wield a gamepad at all. Found I had Torchlight II in my library. Don't even remember buying it. I think it was part of a Humble Bundle or something. Found I could play that since the left hand is only pushing one button at a time and all the movement and combat is mouse based. I'd never even played those type of games before. But I fell in love with that game. Put in over 40 hours on it during my recovery. Enjoyed every second. If there's a proper Torchlight III in the works, I'll be getting it.
I was a closed alpha tester. You could take your gear to another zone, but because the gear is so tailored to each zone (for example the goblin zone has all fire resist gear since most of the bad guys there do fire damage) it won't be effective in the next zone because nothing there will do that kind of damage (for example teh "Hive" zone all the bad guys did poison damage). Similarly the weapon damage types and effects were tailored to each zone. I explained repeatedly to the dev team that this was not progression. It felt pointless. We had to fight tooth and nail to get them to redo the skill system from this really sketchy looking "earn orbs to buy skills" system to a regular exp progression -> results in skill tree points system. Very glad they listened once again and are fixing it.
We need you to keep making videos like this. The more we draw attention to the fact that they make more money focusing on the players than making a quick buck off stuff we don't want, the better chance we have of getting good games instead of cash grabs.
Meanwhile, no mention of Grim Dawn which has been a massive contribution to the ARPG scene in the last few years, with a steady stream of content updates, patches, and improvements. While not FTP, it's development is exactly how games used to be, and exactly how I hope they happen in the future (but I dont mind small cosmetic microtransaction streams).
Cannot say I liked Steve Jobs, but his statement of "Look at what everybody else is doing and do something else" tends to hold incredibly true. For a smaller-ish game like Torchlight with an established competitor like PoE, *not* going Live Service and winning the hearts of gamers and press is probably gonna turn up *more* ROI. Good move, I say.
Publishers: We need to put the cart before the horse. And we wonder why games are shit anymore. When you can count on one hand good games that come out in a year, there is something wrong. I can remember when I had to decide where my money was gonna go in a year, because there were multiple games that meant something. Far Cry, FallOut, Call of Duty,(to name just a few) those titles used to mean something. Now they're just a storefront, with a little bit of game thrown in. Publishers are the problem. the Bobby Kottick's and Andrew Wilson's are the problem. Look at Blizzard. A name synonymous with quality. Activision shows up, and what does Blizzard mean now? Nothing. Mud. And there isn't anyone out there with quality and vision being put first. There has been goodwill squandered, and I don't think that goodwill will ever be restored. There has to be a new company that decides that to change the system, someone has to do it. A new Blizzard for gamers to rally behind. But I don't see it happening. A billion dollars can probably change anyone's mind.
What about those situations in which fans said, "this isn't what we want" and when the game came out, it turns out it was a great game anyway, probably more successful than the original series? Xcom: Enemy Unknown stands out as an example, they did broaden its appeal and made it less hardcore, a lot of people liked it less as a result but was a bigger success no doubt, than most of the older, more nichè, titles, and critically extremely well recieved.
SERIOUS QUESTION: I play a lot in a medium-sized, live-service, cross-platform, free-to-play game that is not pay-to-win. The devs interact with the players, including twice-weekly Twitch streams. However, they seem to always prioritise new features over fixing old ones (including everything from minor bugs to glaring GUI design issues). I, and many other very-active players, have repeatedly asked to have the old problems fixed, trying many strategies: naked bullet point lists, essays covering every aspect of a problematic game mode, prioritised lists of pain-points, lists of dozens of possible solutions to each problem, etc, etc. Almost none of this has made it into the game. And when changes are made, it feels like we had to mobilise the entire active community to get something glaringly obvious changed. My question(s): Is it normal for devs to not schedule enough (any?) time for tweaks of new features after they're released? Why are they obsessed with getting more new features rather than getting existing ones working smoothly? Is it just passion to reach their vision? Is it because they believe new features will bring in new players? Is this even true? (How can it not be a complete fallacy?) How can we players get through to them that there's a problem?
I think the best thing to do is assume the worst. Let other people get sucked in, wait a month, if all is good, buy the game. Make publishers earn your hard earned dollar. (Or your parent's hard earned dollar).
Thank goodness. I had something like 600 hours in Torchlight II, I loved that game (and it's awesome mods). Now I can look forward to a new Torchlight!
The reset your lvl and gear to zero sounds like the dauntless gameplay loop. In dauntless each different monster has different elements and you need to build gear to be able to fight higher level versions of it. So when you start against a new monster you can only fight a basic version of it at first, then you kill it a few tines and slowly get gear that is strong against it. But then you change monsters and have to start again.
The biggest and most painful example for this is the modern incarnation of an old classic, Dungeon Keeper. The original game and its sequal were so much fun. They were novel, original, imaginative and just so much fun. But years later some wretched company bought up the rights and made it "free to play" mobile game. Tragic.
Thank you for featuring Path of Exile in this, its a great example of free to play done correctly and then mostly paying for convenience if you want to Its honestly at its core such a good game and nothing you can ever do with real money can make you better at the game and we mostly enjoy supporting them because theyre very transparent as a company and Grinding Gear Games is one of my favorite modern video game companies because they know fully well that its not about the money, people have to enjoy your game to want to support it and they've done fantastic over the years. Chris Wilson is also a big brain genius who came up with some John Carmack levels of mechanics and intricacies within the game and their social media is top notch. Defending companies normally makes you look bad but Tencent has no say in what is actually produced beyond the microtransaction store. Make a good game, keep good company, get good reviews.
Great news. Longtime ARPG fan here. Bought both Torchlight games. I'd prefer a single price point for core game. Would like an in store shop for modders to sell community improvements, skins, etc. Also an in store to release multiplayer quests that are added as expansions so that the fire game stays fresh. Would love it if Torchlights graphic style was grittier.
Publisher vs develooper is a pretty standard case of creative vs. financial. Actual creative minds typically just want to do that, to make a good game, a good movie, whatever, and don't care about how much money it will make beyond that. It's the financials that want the overmonetization and cut the costs as much as possible to make pure profit for as little investment as they can get away with. The tragedy is that these two sides ultimately need each other. As much as we'd love to see creatives get free reign to just make the best game possible, it's very easy for a creative to get carried away their vision and eat through all their budget while not even coming close to said vision. So the financials have to reign them in. But when financials have too much control, we get gutted games with massive grinds and "optional" microtransactions to "skip" the grind that only exists to sell said skip. It's a balancing act that most of the industry has given too much control to the financials for too long, ultimately, and it's good to hear a developer skewing things back the other direction.
I LITERALLY yelled 'WOOHOO!' when I watched the re-announce video yesterday. Torchlight is one of those 'great games of my youth' and I was super hyped to learn they pulled their heads out of their booties.
Youth and Torchlight? god damn how old are you? fucking kid🤣 I have been playing video games since the early 80s! before most of you even born! back in the days video games didnt hold your hand when you play and no such thing as micro transaction if you think original torchlight is your youth golden age of video games or ps2 is your prime era golden age? then you are so young and havent experienced the real golden era of old days. Talking about Amiga, MSX, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo that was the golden era of video games when most companies do games mostly because they love games and not greed and not focusing on purely on money.
Torchlight also had the brilliant idea of having a pet companion that would sell your loot so you didn't have to port back to town just for that, keeping the action going
Agent 005 I didn't even know there was a cash shop for years. I've never used it and have been playing since open beta almost a decade ago (it cost $10 for the game back then). The difference between PoE and other F2P ARPG is you truly don't need to use the cash shop. You get amazing armor and weapons just by farming maps.
It was never just planned for Arc alone. It was going to steam regardless, it was just the arc client made it easier for updates, so the alpha was only on Arc at first. It was actually Max's idea to do the MMO element, as he had wanted something like that for Diablo 3 before they left Blizzard North. He had stated that they had full control of how the game would be monetized, and it looked like they were just trying a few new ideas that just didn't end up working out all that terribly well. That being said, they 100% do listen to the community, they are a great group of people, and avoid crunching their employees. It's overall a great community to be apart of. I went from being apart of the modern day WoW arena community, to apart of the Torchlight community and it was a night and day difference.
Hoestly, the "free to play" model can be successful. Look at "Mabinogi" and "Maple Story" which really don't have anything that affects gamplay in the shop, but, both made huge amounts of money for the publisher. DDo is pretty fun to play, and you can play it without needing to ever pay a cent. It isn't always the best way, but it can work
I kind of feel like this is what happened with WoW classic. A bunch of people said hey, we dont like this game anymore. Give us the version we want, but Blizz said you dont know what you want. Turns out after they finally listen we really did want it..
I really really want a company to build their market on being stable and AFFORDABLE. I swear the moment a company starts chasing the money they fucking lose themselves.
Remember that the publishers of torchlight are owned by perfect world (arc) and that they just recently announced ANOTHER F2P MMO ARPG: Magic Legends. They say they abandoned the F2P model because of community feedback, but you can't be sure that the publisher didn't want to differentiate them somehow and that the decision didn't come from the top. Sure people complained, but not everyone. I did think strong/good MMO elements were lacking from frontiers, but that it could possibly be remedied in a patch.
With POE2, D4, Wolcen, Last Epoch and that Riot game all coming out within the next few years, there were no way in hell that Torchlight Frontiers would've been a success. I want to believe they did this out of good will, but in reality I think they panicked and just wanted to get their investments back.
Well thing is most AAA open beta or whatever they call it is just a few week/days before release. Its not possible to make any major change or any change at all at that point.
Thats really good news. Tho i personally dont mind in game cash shops if they ONLY include cosmetics items and some really minor conveniences like invetory slots like 100 max free and can buy 100 more and decently prices like in Path of Exiles. I hardly play the game but whenever i play i buy something to show support.
Torchlight 2 is one of my favorite games of all time (It is one of two games I have bought twice just because I loved it so much I didn't mind paying twice for it), the best ARPG out there, even better IMO than post RoS D3, I was kind of saddened when I learnt Runic games was canned and Perfect World wanted to make a F2P game and saw the whole frontier mechanics. I really wanted an expansion to TL2 and while we had a shitton of content from mods and some other added after launch I really wanted more of TL2 experience, it is nice to see we are going to have a proper Torchlight 3 and I cannot wait for it, gonna buy it day 1
Thanks for drawing attention to this! The first two games were fantastic and while I was holding on hope that the third one will be good too even as a f2p, now that's pretty much a guarantee! More people need to know about this awesome franchise and its devs!
This is awesome news... I’ve never played this series but I’m tempted to buy all 3 to show support for the company and show this is the business model we like
Developer vs Publisher. So many games have been trashed by the heavy-handed actions of the publisher. I'm glad that this developer managed to stand up to the big guys.
I feel bad for the developers. As a developer myself that has been forced in a direction I know management will come to regret, pivoting like that is not easy. The code base was built a certain way and now they're going to constantly be dealing with legacy code issues. It's frustrating when the developers know exactly how something is going to play out cause they've seen it happen enough times, but management is too intoxicated with their own idea to see the glaring issues.
So thankful that Torchlight is getting this treatment! I'm totally going to spend my money on it now, and will play it to death to complete the collections, and show Perfect World and others that this is how games need to be, again.
What is your opinion on an in game shop where everything is obtainable in game, but once you obtain it in game it is unlocked in the shop for purchase on additional characters?
Thank God. I don't mind paying for additional content( NOT COSMETICS) after I buy a game, but I am sick of paying for something slowly and painfully. Give me a COMPLETE GAME!!!!
GGG also did PoE's model in a palatable way. Even in their own words, and actions, they wanted to EARN your support for their game. They offered QoL and cosmetic purchases, yes, but the first, most important aspect was giving the players the absolute best game they could make. I was happy to spend money on PoE because I loved the game and how connected the devs were to the community. It was never pay to win, and I never felt like their love of money came before the love of the game. These other publishers really just straight up say they want your money and don't give a crap about the game or the players.
You know, *maybe* this time the 'devs won' because Perfect World itself is waking up, too. Or at least some suits in there are. I mean, they did publish Remnant, a complete package for a lower price (US$ 40, I believe) that still received a bunch of free updates later. And by all accounts it was well-received and sold better than expected.
Still so sad that Hob will never be more than a stand alone game. It had such wonderful potential to be Zelda outside of Nintendo's platform. It will always have a special place in my heart.
I actually signed up for Torchlight Frontiers after hearing about it (as I played Torchlight 2 and wanted more of that). I guess this is why I never got Alpha or Beta invite as they revamped it. Which is a good thing. I dislike fremium games as you cannot easily get all the content in that. This is why I like premium games, you get what you pay for, and no BS/strings attached!
I've recently gotten back into Star Trek Online Now a perfect world product. The klingon war which was a good 15 episode(what they call mission) almost all cut, They slashed the story away to get it in line with the current meta which is a 3-4 major faction alliance and conflicts with the original starting story. Yet they don't seem to get this is suppose to be months years even of time passing as you fight the war and progress in the story till you get to the alliance.
Oh, this is cool. If they can get it working for console in the future too, I'm willing to play it. TL2 was a fun romp and I look forward to whatever else they have in store.
Now to see if they players will step up and spend money, protecting the developer from layoffs if the revenue drops. Just remembers publishers only layoff people when revenue and revenue productions drop.
Given how disgusting a publisher Perfect World is, I wouldn't at all be surprised if they make changes post launch that adds a heavily monetised cash shop, regardless of what is said now.
problem for Torchlight 3 is, for now as far as i can see it is the unknown release date. Diablo 4 is said to be released this year too in an unknown release date and if the release date was far too near each other then the Titanfall 2 situation can happen again
This made me really happy. Loved Torchlight 1 and 2, but I had little faith that this game would be good. Not that the core gameplay would be bad, but rather the f2p aspects would tarnish it. Really glad this decision was made. Now if only more companies could follow suit and actually listen to their fans
I love this story and so happy the developers made it a full game. I installed WC3 Reforged on the 28th and in about 3 minutes of gameplay I contacted Blizzard support and demanded my refund. I got my full refund within 2 hours.
OMG, your video explains why the Magic the Gathering ARPG from Prefect World looks like a diablo clone, even though it was called a MMORPG when first announced. Thank you.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Im tired of FREE TO PLAY stuff that are PAY TO ENJOY in reality.
amen
i agree that's why i play indie games without dlc or where the only dlc is just more of the game and a few hours more fun for me
Eh, games like poe can be enjoyed without paying anything, but at a certain point you pretty much need to. A guy who won first place in a few league races didn’t even buy one stash tab though, so it can be done and enjoyed if done right.
Gwynbleidd Roach most of the time the people “enjoying” games that are free to play are “enjoying” the game at the cost of pretty much their life lol. To keep up and thrive in 99 percent of most free to play games involves you grinding your life away while the game tries to make you have to grind so much that you break and give it money.
I call them Free to Log.
it's so sad how ecstatic we are at an announcement that they've decided to make their video game into a video game
Is this a sign of a reckoning for AAA?? Doubtful, but one can hope
It's a AA IP, but hopefully it'll at least keep mid-tier publishers trying to force this crap on that level of release.
@@InnuendoXP Well said. None of them seem to realise that their individual greed has the potential to collectively poison a whole industry.
It's not a sign of reckoning. However I think you could say that it is PLAUSIBLE that it is the start of a MOVEMENT.
Also remember: This is NOT a AAA Game, regardless of who is making it.
i imagine the lead (being veteran and have been slighted before by AAA) fought hard for this, and not the money people that done this. So not really a reckoning, more like a stroke of luck.
The actual signs may be elsewhere. Jedi Fallen Order and The Outer Worlds doing well in sales and reception, Ubisoft restructuring its creative team with more leads and more independence to each. These things may generate better stuff from EA, MS and Ubi in the future.
Besides that though, I wouldn't expect a full AAA reckoning before at least two more things happen:
- Bethesda and Bioware are fully reformed from the ground up. People say it's the suits, but I highly suspect that, in those two cases specifically, a bunch of leads and designers also got jaded and complacent. They need new blood.
- The mainstream public tires of stuff like Fortnite, Apex Legends, LoL and so on. Not that I hate those games or anything, but as long as they remain as big as they are, we'll get a bunch of AAA publishers trying to replicate parts of their models, even if they don't fit the project in question.
This kind of reminds me of what the Overwatch dev team did. They had to fight activision hard to allow us to keep our cosmetics in Overwatch2 and not let Activision force us to buy the same things over again and deny all of us access to the new areas in OW2.
Out of all the games at Blizz rn, I feel like the OW team stands up to activision the most. It's really painful seeing how much these devs love the game and want to do the right thing, but are being handicapped and held back by these suits who have no appreciation for the games they own.
Well I've gone from zero interest in F2P garbage to probably a day 1 buyer. Well done boys.
t's a lie to hook you in up front and sneak monetization back in later. Much like how other games launched without monetization but added it in and changed all the damage/loot to make that the only way to progress after all the reviews were in.
Same.
@@ahmataevo they've said that there will be a full offline mode and that there will not be any microtransactions. If they do add them later then they would have bait and switched and also false advertised meaning lawsuits and manditory refunds so high doubt.
@@YoBoiSyn - Bait and switch is ubiquitous in games now, Call of Duty, Ghost Recon and more have all done the bait and switch, there were no lawsuits and if anything they raked in billions for their deception. This would be no different, because people are stupid. Yes, your optimism is stupid.
@@ahmataevo crash team racing did that with microtransactions
*Professor Farnsworth walks into the room*
"Good news, everyone!"
I remember when this happened to Orcs Must Die. Loved the first two games, but the third was a super-grindy F2P where you chain-ran the same map a billion times against bloated enemy stats for RNG crafting rewards.
god they ruined orcs must die too? I loved the first 2 games 😔
Sounds like plants vs zombies now. Garden warfare was a crime against humanity man...
Switched to squad based 3rd person shooter with defined roles, you had to get RANDOM CARD PACKS just for your basic items like FUCKING PLANTS. Want a sunflower? Pack. Want a acid shroom? Packs.
Want new character skins that feature meaty upgrades in them? Packs.
Ofc the money you got was piddly-shit and you were supposed to end up buying with real money.
Fucking popcap sold out hard
@ageofbogyo It will be. He's talking about Orcs Must Die Unchained, which released 2-3 years ago.
Man, I worked on localization for that game and even I forgot it ever existed. :P And I played the first one so much...
But to be fair, maybe that was the kind of game that didn't really merit sequels. Some things just work better as a fun one-off idea.
well damn a studio that is saving themselves from obvious failure, it's a rare sight.
Publishers are as incapable of long term thinking as a cockroach. I bet all my internets the devs threatened them with something. Maybe they had partial rights to the IP or some core members threatened to walk. You can't argue with a sociopath. You can only threaten them.
Wait, the whole region locked items and such, like resetting your character when you go to a new region is the same thing Cube World did, except Cube world isn't a f2p game with micro transactions.
Worst change Cube World got compared to alpha. Hands down
Except it didn't work in the way it was described at all. All gear was useable in all frontiers but in foreign frontiers item power was scaled down a little bit which encouraged you to find gear from that area. Skills did not reset at all, relic weapons were also frontier-independent. In reality the system was misunderstood and not given a fair chance.
Why would anyone think region locking the gear is a good idea? It just seems like the best way to make people stop playing
@@1Orderchaos as I said - it was not region-locked. It was region-boosted. It was a means to allow playing the zones in any order the player wants to.
@@1Orderchaos Well, Blizzard has region locked everything (including your friends list) in StarCraft 2, Diablo III and WoW. I've heard at least one of the reasons for this not being addressed has to do with the data going 'round in those games. Apparently not all of that data is entirely legal in, say, the non-Americas regions.
Anyway, plenty of people play those games, so...
Good on the Torchlight Dev's. I am looking forward to the 3rd game :)
+1
Imagine if Acti-Blizz finally started listening to devs again and the player base,... It would be an amazing era of games.
I'm hoping that the success of classic wow will send a message to them
Well WoW is not the hest example, because I witnessed plenty of BAD feedback.....
I was mostly ok with BFA for example.. Yes, it had its flaws.. However, the general "feedback" was tending to tear the whole thing down instead of fixing the issues, without even acknowledging the things BFA got right..
No, WoW got destroyed by its community and their attempt of giving "feedback" to the devs.....
....which was more of senseless blind hate than feedback...! As Taliesin and Evitel say... ..... it was a SHITSHOW!
Nick Strife obviously! 🤣🤣
@@NickStrife While the average player isn't the best about constructive feedback, it also falls on the dev to be able to filter that feedback. Check out Internet Historian's vid on No Man's Sky on how Hello Games fixed it for an example of what I'm talking about.
there's no longer ingame microtransactions - until after the initial glowing reviews on release
It says playing with offline characters doesn't require an internet connection.
That's usually a feature of a microtransaction pit.
@@eskikasar what offline games have microtransactions?
@@hisokamorow6709 I think they meant that games with microtransactions normally need to have a internet connection in order to play
Wishlist the game on Steam now lads! Give the industry some metrics, send a message!
Already done! Glad to know I'll have something to play on my shitty laptop in 2020 as I don't think I'll be able to run Cyberpunk properly.
Getting it on switch, perfect kind of game to play in bed
Protip: The wider audience is a myth. Make a good solid product that will sell its self and you wont need to compromise.
The only thing you need to do well if telling people your game exist in the first place. So finding a good marketing approach is key for survival.
Except it isn't. It doesn't matter if your game doesn't sell at all in EU and USA. If it sells to 0.1% of Chinese and Indian smartphone users, you'll make billions.
@@illusivec You fail to see the point and deeper meaning.
Also worth noting is that one can reach a wider audience by making games with different themes rather than sacrificing gameplay.
If I went to one of the local LGBTQ meetings and said that hey, there's an arpg where you can play a transgender witch, people there who had never played that genre would suddenly be interested and it wouldn't take anything away from the experience at all for anyone else.
Thing is, Asians don't usually have personal computers and consoles. It's not really a thing in the EU and the US but internet cafes/computer shops where you rent a computer for an hour or so, is much more common in Asia. Legit the only reason why F2P games reaches more players is true.
Some of those former Blizzard devs had to of been looking at the reaction to Diablo Immortal and thinking what are we doing.
This is great news, indeed! I had given up on this game, but it looks like I'll need to keep an eye on things moving forward! Added to my Steam wishlist.
The Progression you mentioned at the Start about Torchlight Frontier, the horizontal one, remindme of Cubeworld. That is such a stupid System.
Yeah it literally destroyed cubeworlds release. Sounds like maybe wollay heard some seminar and echtra was at the same one
It basically killed whatever was left with Cubeworld.
I was going to say this. How stupid does a dev have to be to think forcing gear to only be usable in the area it was found in would be a good idea? It's not even a mediocre idea, it's fucking satan shit.
Devils advocate; I'll give even odds that Perfect World will shoehorn in some kind of MTX later down the road. That seems to be the new thing publishers are doing, announce games with "no microtransactions" as a selling point but then add them later.
Really glad to hear this. A few years ago, I had surgery for arthritis in my left hand. 4 week recovery. Couldn't play 1st person shooters (mouse and keyboard for me). Couldn't wield a gamepad at all. Found I had Torchlight II in my library. Don't even remember buying it. I think it was part of a Humble Bundle or something. Found I could play that since the left hand is only pushing one button at a time and all the movement and combat is mouse based. I'd never even played those type of games before. But I fell in love with that game. Put in over 40 hours on it during my recovery. Enjoyed every second. If there's a proper Torchlight III in the works, I'll be getting it.
I was a closed alpha tester. You could take your gear to another zone, but because the gear is so tailored to each zone (for example the goblin zone has all fire resist gear since most of the bad guys there do fire damage) it won't be effective in the next zone because nothing there will do that kind of damage (for example teh "Hive" zone all the bad guys did poison damage). Similarly the weapon damage types and effects were tailored to each zone. I explained repeatedly to the dev team that this was not progression. It felt pointless.
We had to fight tooth and nail to get them to redo the skill system from this really sketchy looking "earn orbs to buy skills" system to a regular exp progression -> results in skill tree points system.
Very glad they listened once again and are fixing it.
We need you to keep making videos like this. The more we draw attention to the fact that they make more money focusing on the players than making a quick buck off stuff we don't want, the better chance we have of getting good games instead of cash grabs.
Meanwhile, no mention of Grim Dawn which has been a massive contribution to the ARPG scene in the last few years, with a steady stream of content updates, patches, and improvements. While not FTP, it's development is exactly how games used to be, and exactly how I hope they happen in the future (but I dont mind small cosmetic microtransaction streams).
Wow a company listening to voices of reason which will increase goodwill within their community both now and in the future... novel idea!!
I was going to reluctantly give Frontiers a chance because I love the franchise, but I can't wait to buy Torchlight 3
[Meanwhile on Game Journalist little world]
Urinalist: "COMPANIES BENDING THE KNEEEEEE TO FEED BACK?!!!! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"""
Everybody is Reeeeeeeeeing these days
@Agent 005 It just fits them perfectly! You also see it more and more written in the community tab in steam.
Nah it only pisses them off if they listen to us, the peasants. When they listen to them, the cultured elite, it's good.
Cannot say I liked Steve Jobs, but his statement of "Look at what everybody else is doing and do something else" tends to hold incredibly true. For a smaller-ish game like Torchlight with an established competitor like PoE, *not* going Live Service and winning the hearts of gamers and press is probably gonna turn up *more* ROI. Good move, I say.
Publishers: We need to put the cart before the horse.
And we wonder why games are shit anymore. When you can count on one hand good games that come out in a year, there is something wrong. I can remember when I had to decide where my money was gonna go in a year, because there were multiple games that meant something. Far Cry, FallOut, Call of Duty,(to name just a few) those titles used to mean something. Now they're just a storefront, with a little bit of game thrown in. Publishers are the problem. the Bobby Kottick's and Andrew Wilson's are the problem. Look at Blizzard. A name synonymous with quality. Activision shows up, and what does Blizzard mean now? Nothing. Mud. And there isn't anyone out there with quality and vision being put first. There has been goodwill squandered, and I don't think that goodwill will ever be restored. There has to be a new company that decides that to change the system, someone has to do it. A new Blizzard for gamers to rally behind. But I don't see it happening. A billion dollars can probably change anyone's mind.
"Games as a Service" needs to die already. Nowdays it's just an excuse for companies to push out unfinished, MTX filled subpar games.
What about those situations in which fans said, "this isn't what we want" and when the game came out, it turns out it was a great game anyway, probably more successful than the original series?
Xcom: Enemy Unknown stands out as an example, they did broaden its appeal and made it less hardcore, a lot of people liked it less as a result but was a bigger success no doubt, than most of the older, more nichè, titles, and critically extremely well recieved.
well damn, I'm actually looking forward to Torchlight 3 now
SERIOUS QUESTION: I play a lot in a medium-sized, live-service, cross-platform, free-to-play game that is not pay-to-win. The devs interact with the players, including twice-weekly Twitch streams. However, they seem to always prioritise new features over fixing old ones (including everything from minor bugs to glaring GUI design issues). I, and many other very-active players, have repeatedly asked to have the old problems fixed, trying many strategies: naked bullet point lists, essays covering every aspect of a problematic game mode, prioritised lists of pain-points, lists of dozens of possible solutions to each problem, etc, etc. Almost none of this has made it into the game. And when changes are made, it feels like we had to mobilise the entire active community to get something glaringly obvious changed.
My question(s): Is it normal for devs to not schedule enough (any?) time for tweaks of new features after they're released? Why are they obsessed with getting more new features rather than getting existing ones working smoothly? Is it just passion to reach their vision? Is it because they believe new features will bring in new players? Is this even true? (How can it not be a complete fallacy?) How can we players get through to them that there's a problem?
Good to know Torchlight still has a chance
I think the best thing to do is assume the worst. Let other people get sucked in, wait a month, if all is good, buy the game. Make publishers earn your hard earned dollar. (Or your parent's hard earned dollar).
Thank goodness. I had something like 600 hours in Torchlight II, I loved that game (and it's awesome mods). Now I can look forward to a new Torchlight!
I am so pumped for torchlight 3 now.
I was not before, but I certainly am now.
Put it on our wishlist
@@kvothe5824 already did!
@@kvothe5824 did right away
I'm soooo glad I refunded Warcraft Reforged the moment i heard there would be microtransactions
"Exclusive to their ARC Platform..." No wonder I completely forgot what happened to this when I never 'saw it come out'. Kek.
Great video once again. Makes me wonder how is it possible you don't have more than a million subs.
The reset your lvl and gear to zero sounds like the dauntless gameplay loop. In dauntless each different monster has different elements and you need to build gear to be able to fight higher level versions of it. So when you start against a new monster you can only fight a basic version of it at first, then you kill it a few tines and slowly get gear that is strong against it. But then you change monsters and have to start again.
wait, had torchlight 1 and 2, didnt even know torchlight 3 was even a thing.
It wasn't until now
Well, it's just announced. It wasnt supposed to be torchlight 3.
It was called torchlight frontiers.
Sadly, the Blizzard we love is long gone IMO, I'm sure the devs are good people but Activision-Blizzard are the guys running the show now.
That's a big problem with the gaming industry. The publishers can't stay the hell away from game development and let the developers do their job.
It's not Activision running things into the mud.
It's Activision Blizzard doing it, which is a different business entity.
The biggest and most painful example for this is the modern incarnation of an old classic, Dungeon Keeper. The original game and its sequal were so much fun. They were novel, original, imaginative and just so much fun. But years later some wretched company bought up the rights and made it "free to play" mobile game. Tragic.
Thank you for featuring Path of Exile in this, its a great example of free to play done correctly and then mostly paying for convenience if you want to
Its honestly at its core such a good game and nothing you can ever do with real money can make you better at the game and we mostly enjoy supporting them because theyre very transparent as a company and Grinding Gear Games is one of my favorite modern video game companies because they know fully well that its not about the money, people have to enjoy your game to want to support it and they've done fantastic over the years. Chris Wilson is also a big brain genius who came up with some John Carmack levels of mechanics and intricacies within the game and their social media is top notch.
Defending companies normally makes you look bad but Tencent has no say in what is actually produced beyond the microtransaction store.
Make a good game, keep good company, get good reviews.
Great news. Longtime ARPG fan here. Bought both Torchlight games.
I'd prefer a single price point for core game.
Would like an in store shop for modders to sell community improvements, skins, etc.
Also an in store to release multiplayer quests that are added as expansions so that the fire game stays fresh.
Would love it if Torchlights graphic style was grittier.
Publisher vs develooper is a pretty standard case of creative vs. financial. Actual creative minds typically just want to do that, to make a good game, a good movie, whatever, and don't care about how much money it will make beyond that. It's the financials that want the overmonetization and cut the costs as much as possible to make pure profit for as little investment as they can get away with.
The tragedy is that these two sides ultimately need each other. As much as we'd love to see creatives get free reign to just make the best game possible, it's very easy for a creative to get carried away their vision and eat through all their budget while not even coming close to said vision. So the financials have to reign them in. But when financials have too much control, we get gutted games with massive grinds and "optional" microtransactions to "skip" the grind that only exists to sell said skip.
It's a balancing act that most of the industry has given too much control to the financials for too long, ultimately, and it's good to hear a developer skewing things back the other direction.
I LITERALLY yelled 'WOOHOO!' when I watched the re-announce video yesterday.
Torchlight is one of those 'great games of my youth' and I was super hyped to learn they pulled their heads out of their booties.
Youth and Torchlight? god damn how old are you? fucking kid🤣 I have been playing video games since the early 80s! before most of you even born! back in the days video games didnt hold your hand when you play and no such thing as micro transaction if you think original torchlight is your youth golden age of video games or ps2 is your prime era golden age? then you are so young and havent experienced the real golden era of old days. Talking about Amiga, MSX, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo that was the golden era of video games when most companies do games mostly because they love games and not greed and not focusing on purely on money.
Torchlight also had the brilliant idea of having a pet companion that would sell your loot so you didn't have to port back to town just for that, keeping the action going
This is great news. Torchlight III is now on my Steam wishlist. I loved playing the first two and hope for more of the same.
abusive husband - "listen honey I am not going to beat you tonight"
The abused - "thank you" your not so bad after all.
Or abusive wife
@@madhouse2594 Think you are missing the point here
@@PurushNahiMahaPurush I get the point of the comment. Just pointing something out.
Things are a-changin', and Looking Up! Yowza!!
PoE is a great example of dev's doing F2P correctly. I honestly don't know how they did it, but PoE is a gem among rocks.
Agent 005 I didn't even know there was a cash shop for years. I've never used it and have been playing since open beta almost a decade ago (it cost $10 for the game back then). The difference between PoE and other F2P ARPG is you truly don't need to use the cash shop. You get amazing armor and weapons just by farming maps.
It was never just planned for Arc alone. It was going to steam regardless, it was just the arc client made it easier for updates, so the alpha was only on Arc at first.
It was actually Max's idea to do the MMO element, as he had wanted something like that for Diablo 3 before they left Blizzard North. He had stated that they had full control of how the game would be monetized, and it looked like they were just trying a few new ideas that just didn't end up working out all that terribly well.
That being said, they 100% do listen to the community, they are a great group of people, and avoid crunching their employees. It's overall a great community to be apart of. I went from being apart of the modern day WoW arena community, to apart of the Torchlight community and it was a night and day difference.
Hoestly, the "free to play" model can be successful. Look at "Mabinogi" and "Maple Story" which really don't have anything that affects gamplay in the shop, but, both made huge amounts of money for the publisher. DDo is pretty fun to play, and you can play it without needing to ever pay a cent. It isn't always the best way, but it can work
I kind of feel like this is what happened with WoW classic. A bunch of people said hey, we dont like this game anymore. Give us the version we want, but Blizz said you dont know what you want. Turns out after they finally listen we really did want it..
As Michael was talking about companies forcing their business model on developers, the video broke to a WoW BFA commercial. Ironic.
I really really want a company to build their market on being stable and AFFORDABLE. I swear the moment a company starts chasing the money they fucking lose themselves.
Well, Torchlight 3 is on my waiting list now. Did not even know that there was a free one, let alone another game in the series.
Remember that the publishers of torchlight are owned by perfect world (arc) and that they just recently announced ANOTHER F2P MMO ARPG: Magic Legends. They say they abandoned the F2P model because of community feedback, but you can't be sure that the publisher didn't want to differentiate them somehow and that the decision didn't come from the top. Sure people complained, but not everyone. I did think strong/good MMO elements were lacking from frontiers, but that it could possibly be remedied in a patch.
We have to support this game if it will be for real good. We desperately need more cases like that. When feedback means something.
With POE2, D4, Wolcen, Last Epoch and that Riot game all coming out within the next few years, there were no way in hell that Torchlight Frontiers would've been a success. I want to believe they did this out of good will, but in reality I think they panicked and just wanted to get their investments back.
Never heard of this game before, but this story combined with them being old Blizzard devs has me very interested.
Well thing is most AAA open beta or whatever they call it is just a few week/days before release. Its not possible to make any major change or any change at all at that point.
have been in the torchlight alpha for a while and the torchlight devs truly are the best. This really is a win for the players!
T1 and T2 cost me like $5 each and were more or as enoyable as the best isometrics.
T3 will be in my library day one.
Super stoked about this news. Much happier knowing Torchlight 3 is coming.
seems like some of the companies are seeing, that short term profit isn't worth a quicker death.
Thats really good news. Tho i personally dont mind in game cash shops if they ONLY include cosmetics items and some really minor conveniences like invetory slots like 100 max free and can buy 100 more and decently prices like in Path of Exiles. I hardly play the game but whenever i play i buy something to show support.
Torchlight 2 is one of my favorite games of all time (It is one of two games I have bought twice just because I loved it so much I didn't mind paying twice for it), the best ARPG out there, even better IMO than post RoS D3, I was kind of saddened when I learnt Runic games was canned and Perfect World wanted to make a F2P game and saw the whole frontier mechanics. I really wanted an expansion to TL2 and while we had a shitton of content from mods and some other added after launch I really wanted more of TL2 experience, it is nice to see we are going to have a proper Torchlight 3 and I cannot wait for it, gonna buy it day 1
Thanks for drawing attention to this! The first two games were fantastic and while I was holding on hope that the third one will be good too even as a f2p, now that's pretty much a guarantee! More people need to know about this awesome franchise and its devs!
Torchlight III on my Wishlist now. Thanks for the update.
This is awesome news... I’ve never played this series but I’m tempted to buy all 3 to show support for the company and show this is the business model we like
Developer vs Publisher. So many games have been trashed by the heavy-handed actions of the publisher. I'm glad that this developer managed to stand up to the big guys.
I feel bad for the developers. As a developer myself that has been forced in a direction I know management will come to regret, pivoting like that is not easy. The code base was built a certain way and now they're going to constantly be dealing with legacy code issues. It's frustrating when the developers know exactly how something is going to play out cause they've seen it happen enough times, but management is too intoxicated with their own idea to see the glaring issues.
So thankful that Torchlight is getting this treatment! I'm totally going to spend my money on it now, and will play it to death to complete the collections, and show Perfect World and others that this is how games need to be, again.
Just to point out - they didn't technically say there'd be no microtransactions. All they said was that there'd be no "in-game shop"
This was great coverage, Thank you for this news.
As a HUGE Torchlight fan, this is very pleasing.
I can BARELY wait for that Warcraft 3: Reforged video. OMG what a disgrace that thing is...
What is your opinion on an in game shop where everything is obtainable in game, but once you obtain it in game it is unlocked in the shop for purchase on additional characters?
Thank God. I don't mind paying for additional content( NOT COSMETICS) after I buy a game, but I am sick of paying for something slowly and painfully. Give me a COMPLETE GAME!!!!
GGG also did PoE's model in a palatable way. Even in their own words, and actions, they wanted to EARN your support for their game. They offered QoL and cosmetic purchases, yes, but the first, most important aspect was giving the players the absolute best game they could make. I was happy to spend money on PoE because I loved the game and how connected the devs were to the community. It was never pay to win, and I never felt like their love of money came before the love of the game. These other publishers really just straight up say they want your money and don't give a crap about the game or the players.
You know, *maybe* this time the 'devs won' because Perfect World itself is waking up, too. Or at least some suits in there are. I mean, they did publish Remnant, a complete package for a lower price (US$ 40, I believe) that still received a bunch of free updates later. And by all accounts it was well-received and sold better than expected.
Still so sad that Hob will never be more than a stand alone game. It had such wonderful potential to be Zelda outside of Nintendo's platform. It will always have a special place in my heart.
I actually signed up for Torchlight Frontiers after hearing about it (as I played Torchlight 2 and wanted more of that). I guess this is why I never got Alpha or Beta invite as they revamped it. Which is a good thing. I dislike fremium games as you cannot easily get all the content in that. This is why I like premium games, you get what you pay for, and no BS/strings attached!
This is perfect if it can come before and not be in direct competition with it, its gunna make a killin from all of us waitin for d4
I remember the time before social media where developers just made a game and feked off.
I've recently gotten back into Star Trek Online Now a perfect world product. The klingon war which was a good 15 episode(what they call mission) almost all cut, They slashed the story away to get it in line with the current meta which is a 3-4 major faction alliance and conflicts with the original starting story. Yet they don't seem to get this is suppose to be months years even of time passing as you fight the war and progress in the story till you get to the alliance.
I want a Torchlight MMO so bad right now.
Oh, this is cool. If they can get it working for console in the future too, I'm willing to play it. TL2 was a fun romp and I look forward to whatever else they have in store.
Hope you're covering the atrocity that is the EULA for custom games in WC3.
Go on...
Now to see if they players will step up and spend money, protecting the developer from layoffs if the revenue drops. Just remembers publishers only layoff people when revenue and revenue productions drop.
Given how disgusting a publisher Perfect World is, I wouldn't at all be surprised if they make changes post launch that adds a heavily monetised cash shop, regardless of what is said now.
problem for Torchlight 3 is, for now as far as i can see it is the unknown release date. Diablo 4 is said to be released this year too in an unknown release date and if the release date was far too near each other then the Titanfall 2 situation can happen again
This made me really happy. Loved Torchlight 1 and 2, but I had little faith that this game would be good. Not that the core gameplay would be bad, but rather the f2p aspects would tarnish it.
Really glad this decision was made. Now if only more companies could follow suit and actually listen to their fans
I love this story and so happy the developers made it a full game.
I installed WC3 Reforged on the 28th and in about 3 minutes of gameplay I contacted Blizzard support and demanded my refund. I got my full refund within 2 hours.
OMG, your video explains why the Magic the Gathering ARPG from Prefect World looks like a diablo clone, even though it was called a MMORPG when first announced. Thank you.
Great episode, it's a long fight, but were starting to turn the tide. Keep on the pressure, educate and vote with your wallets.
I'm actually looking forward to Torchlight 3 now
Now we need to get CROWFALL in the same spot. $1000+ digital purchases such as housing is ridiculous.
I think the biggest reason maybe that China is starting to monetise the hours their citizens play games so free to play grind will take a huge hit.