Max Schaefer Talks Torchlight Page 3

19 Nov 2009 at 13:04:39 by Tim McDonald

So lots of interesting plans for that. This is a clichéd question, but what are the advantages and disadvantages of an MMO like Torchlight, versus some huge, massive project like Warhammer or World of Warcraft?

I think more money has been wasted trying to take down World of Warcraft in this industry! *laughs* I think that's a fool's game to try and do. The advantages – well, first of all, I don't think that there's a really good, snappy action-RPG MMO out there yet, so we think it's a gap in the industry and something that hasn't been done. We feel like we've kinda got that style of gameplay down, so it's a good opportunity for us. It'll be a faster project, it'll be more efficient, it'll be leaner. So, yeah, we have quite a challenge in front of us, but we think we're aiming at a good spot.

Do you think that your model is a little like the Asian RPGs where it's a little more item-based and a little faster, versus the bigger Western ones?

Yeah, but even moreso. Even going further down the line of it being quicker, faster combat. We want to make the level grinding fun. We don't want to look for alternatives to the level grind – we want to make the grinding fun, and make the adventuring fun, and make dungeons cool, and getting your party together, and getting a map, and going to some special dungeon should be a fun event, not a chore you do so you can get to the next level, so you can unlock something or get a particular item. Again, like I said, there hasn't been a good, snappy action-RPG in this structure. I think we were pretty close with Mythos and we were going down the right track with that, but this is going to be a lot better. We learned a lot of lessons from that one.

It's sort of a stupid question to ask if you have any regrets, but if you had Mythos back today, if you had the IP, would you still be working on that? Is there something you feel that Mythos had that Torchlight didn't, or vice versa?

We loved working on Mythos, and we're really attached to the community. I have to say that it was a little bit of a struggle making it because we were working on tools and technology made for a different kind of game – for Hellgate – and so it was a little bit like we were shoving a square peg into a round hole. It's easier working on Torchlight – the tools work better, the tech works better. It's just easier. I regret that we couldn't get Mythos out, because we put a lot of work, and our heart and soul into it, but we're pretty happy to be where we are now.

I have one other question about Torchlight that I forgot to mention earlier. Are you guys working on a way for players to trade items with each other, or do you figure that's going to come out with mod tools and item trainers and stuff?

We don't plan to support that, but we think that'll be a pretty trivial mod, for sure.

Do you think that any players might manage a multiplayer mod, or is that just way too much code and way too much stuff to write for LAN code and TCP/IP?

We would be seriously impressed if someone was able to do that! *laughs* We'll take their resume gladly.

Any aspiring designers out there, write some multiplayer code for Torchlight, and you may have a job! Speaking of jobs at Torchlight, Max is living in the Bay Area still, full-time as far as I know, and he's the CEO of a company that's in Seattle. Has that presented any interesting issues? Do you fly up there regularly?

Yeah, I've got a lot of flyer miles now! *laughs* I go up at least every two weeks. And it is interesting. It was the way we worked on Mythos, so it's what everyone's used to, and also our publisher - Perfect World – is right here in the Bay Area, so it's really easy for me to pop down to the publisher's office and do things there. So I think especially as we transition to the MMO, we'll be using quite a bit of their infrastructure and working quite closely with them, and it will actually be an advantage.

Have you enjoyed the Torchlight community? You guys were a brand new community, and very quickly some fansites popped up, and you obviously have Diablo sites that're still covering your game, and a lot of other media. Have you enjoyed how that's worked? Any regrets not being the centre of the mass tornado that is anything Blizzard does?

We love the community that we've got. A lot of them came over from Mythos and they've been super-cool and really fun to participate in the development of the games with. It's tough when you get as big as Blizzard. On the forums, it's almost hard to know people by name because they're just so big and things happen so quick in them, and they can get pretty hostile. *Laughs* I think right now we're enjoying the smaller community but of course, we hope it gets big.

I remember back in the Blizzard North days, Max used to come into our chatroom and there'd always be one guy who'd have some huge bug up his ass about some minor game feature, and you would sit there and debate with them, and argue with them, and talk, and of course nobody from Blizzard goes anywhere near any chatrooms these days. They have corporate rules and Blizzard Irvine, and you see the community managers but even they can't post off-site. I assume you like being in a smaller community – and of course, you're the boss; you can kinda do what you want. It's nicer you can actually interact with the fans?

Definitely. We deliberately made a smaller company, even than Flagship, this time around, just for that reason. Everyone in the company posts on the forums, and there are no rules other than “Be cool,” and we will try to keep it that way as long as we possibly can for sure.

That's good to hear. Any final thoughts, Max? We've had a lot of time here, you've got a lot of other things to do, you've got a dog to go home and train...

Yeah, I shudder to think what I'm going to find when I get home right now! *laughs* But no, thanks for the great reception for Torchlight from everyone, and you know we're going to get an alpha of the MMO as soon as possible. We'd like to have community involvement in our game production and we'd like to have the game running all the time, so one of our goals is to get that up and running as quickly as possible, so even though it's two years off before the MMO will be out, it'll be a lot sooner that we'll have servers up and we'll have a beta community and we'll get going with making this thing!

Really? So you're going to beat Diablo III, it looks like. And you're going to have the existing community – you're going to need beta testers, you're going to need all kinds of people to help out with ideas. I guess you have your own staff for ideas, but fans always love when they feel like their input and their ideas and their concepts, and the lessons from Torchlight, can be applied to the new game.

Yeah, for sure. And we have to beat Diablo III out, because if we don't it's going to set back our own production about six months! *laughs* It'll be all anyone's doing in the office for a little while.

Thanks a lot for your time, Max. This is Flux for IncGamers signing off.

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