Torchlight

When Flagship died, nearly everyone involved formed a new company, Runic Games.  They immediately began developing a game along the same lines as Mythos.  


Background  

Remember, these guys are the very same people that invented the genre, so they know what they are doing when it comes to Action RPGs.  I get the impression that they really liked Mythos and they were sad that they had to abandon that game.  In fact, Torchlight looks and feels so much like Mythos, I nearly laughed out loud when I first saw it.  It's obvious that they believe in the concepts behind Mythos, and those concepts got ported over to their newly created IP, Torchlight.  

They also developed this puppy in one year, which is simply unheard of.


But is it an MMO?

Yes but no but yes.  It's due to be released as a single player action RPG (something these guys know a LOT about) this fall.  Based on its pedigree, the game will probably be successful.  

As soon as the single player game is released, the company will develop the IP into an MMO.  They'll release an expansion in the near future that will add the MMO elements to the game.  I don't know of anything like this having been done ever before, so this is new territory.  However, the company is confident that this expansion to Torchlight, one that turns the game into an MMO, will be successful.

While no details about the online aspects of the game have been revealed, it's extremely likely that Torchlight will have the same online feature set as Mythos.  That means that players can meet in town, which is the only part of the game that is traditionally MMO-like.  Then they group up and head out into instanced content where the group will never, ever run into another live player other than themselves. When they're done slaying monsters, they'll return to town where everyone can, once again, freely interact.  


Diablo III   

Diablo III is, obviously, the next step in the phenomenally successful Diablo series.  'Nuff said.


Background

If anyone from the first two Diablo games is working on this sucker, I can't find a single reference to it.  The team is substantially, if not entirely, new.  

Having said that, I played the Diablo III demo at last year's Blizzcon, and it **rocks**.  I cannot overemphasise how much fun that baby was to play (Ed-Err, playing babies...?).  It's basically Diablo II modernised, prettified, and brought into the modern era.  It's also more addictive than crack (Ed-Err, crack?).


But is it an MMO?

At last year's PAX, I had a very interesting conversation with Bashiok, a Blizzard community manager.  He began describing how players will interact online with each other, how many concepts had been imported from WoW, and the whole thing sounded very MMO like.  I asked him, basically, was Diablo III going to be an MMO.  His answer:  "No".

We discussed this for a pretty long while.  Players choose avatars, customise their skills and gear as they level up, group up with other players, form parties, clear dungeons, and even form guilds.  The question, of course, popped into my mind:  How is this not an MMO?  What's the difference?   Bashiok actually had to think about this for a moment, but his answer was that the world is not persistent, and that's a key difference.  

In the time since that conversation, I've found myself thinking a lot about whether or not DIII is, in essence, an MMO.  (I don't dare talk about this in front of Diablo fanboys, or they tend to rip your head off).  Unlike Mythos and Torchlight, there is no online hub, a central town, where everyone logs in and meets up.  Instead, players meet up and form groups via the Battle.Net interface.  Then they log into the instanced content, similar to the games described above.  My personal conclusion is that DIII has a lot of MMO-like qualities - a LOT - but the Battle.Net features described above keep the game squarely in the realm of multiplayer.  Good multiplayer, to be sure, but not rising to the level of an MMO.


Summary

Of course, opinions vary.  This debate is actually a pretty hot one among MMO aficionados, and it won't be settled here.  However, my original point - that action RPGs are increasingly morphing to become more MMO-like - is a valid one.  Even Diablo III, the least MMOish of the three games discussed above, has a rich variety of MMO elements, and provides a full set of online support features.  The distinctions between traditional MMOs and this new generation of action RPGs is becoming quite blurred, and will probably become increasingly so as time goes on.    

And that is all for this week.  If you enjoyed this little ditty, come and visit us over at the newly skinned (and extra pretty) Wandering Goblin, where we debate this kind of nonsense every day.  For now, ciao!

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