In terms of actual evidence, all I see are themeparks making more $$$ then sandboxes.
I'm just stating factual numbers.
Whether you like those factual numbers or not is irrelevant.
You see WoW making more than Eve. What other themepark is beating Eve?
How about Aion?
How about SWTOR (latest is 500k-1M)?
Here's another question, name one other sandbox MMO other than EVE that's above 100k subs?
By the way I always reference factual numbers rather than 'my guild died so MMO X is dying!'.
To stay on topic, even EVE-Online has a 'group finder'. Yeah, that's right. The largest sandbox MMO has a group finder.
It actually doesn't, not the same kind of group finder that we're discussing here.
Here's another question, name one other AAA sandbox MMO that's been made in the last 8 years? ...oh right, none!
Kind of hard to stack one up with Eve.
And SWTOR does not have anything remotely close to 500k subs. They're down to about 8 servers and shrinking. Most of the devs have been fired, and those who haven't have quit.
And Aion has basically no pressence in the west. It's entirely free and there's no way to judge how many subs it has. And its the western market we're talking about here. Because if we get Asia involved, WoW isn't the king over there.
It actually doesn't, not the same kind of group finder that we're discussing here.
Here's another question, name one other AAA sandbox MMO that's been made in the last 8 years? ...oh right, none!
Kind of hard to stack one up with Eve.
And SWTOR does not have anything remotely close to 500k subs. They're down to about 8 servers and shrinking. Most of the devs have been fired, and those who haven't have quit.
And Aion has basically no pressence in the west. It's entirely free and there's no way to judge how many subs it has. And its the western market we're talking about here. Because if we get Asia involved, WoW isn't the king over there.
I must have not wrote the 'factual numbers' on my post (oh wait I DID!) since I deal with numbers that we know are true until proven otherwise.
I don't use numbers that are essentially 'my guild died so MMO X is dying!'.
Like I said, whether you like those numbers or not is irrelevant since they won't suddenly become false just because you don't like them.
EVE-Online has 'fleet finder' and while it doesn't totally work like WoW's LFG system, its pretty close to it in game design.
Trying to make it harder for people to group up and do XYZ just for the sake of 'immersion' in an MMO has very niche appeal.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
1. People seem to forget that we are still playing games - not virtual worlds that are suppose to be 100% realistic.
2. The Raid/Group finder filled a need in WoW. It made it so you no longer have to sit in a capital city and spam "LFG" or "LFR", sometimes for hours on end. Blizzard steamlined and improved the process and only non-WoW players seem to cry foul.
3. Players in low population servers have the same chance of finding a group as players in high population servers.
4. Implementation of real ID allows you to stay connected (and even queue up) with people that you meet from different servers. I have made a few friends this way.
5. The Raid/Group finder automatically determines if you are geared enough for that content. Back in the day players would have to do manual gear checks. Since that time, Blizzard has streamlined the process. (Nobody found it fun to sit and spam for a group all day anyways). Yes WoW is a gear grind. Yes the end goal is achieving the best gear and bragging rights. Blizzard has never tried to pretend this is NOT the case.
6. Better loot still drops from raiding with a guild. Raiders are still alive and flourishing. They still develop friendship and rivalries, they still experience success and failure, they still have drama and bonding experiences, they are still like they were in 2004.
7. Even if raid and group finders made the PvE side of WoW less sociable (which it didn't), who cares? There are still multiple ways to socialize outside of doing dungeons and participating in the Raid finder system.
Typical haters. Trying to hate on features that actually improve a game.
They didn't ruin the genre alone. Instances were the first blow, then quest based leveling after that. And then phasing after that.
There is pretty much ZERO difference now between MMOs and Diablo.
It's really, REALLY pathetic.
110% agreed...
Instancing was the first blow.. When EQ came out with LDoN, all I could think was "Is this the beginning of the end to social gaming"? From where I sit, it was.. A good portion of the game was the socalizing, whether it be learning a new language, or finding out locations to tweak your character and skills.. Back in the day, chat moved reguardless of the zone you were in.. Nowadays, I log on to any game and barely see a "HI".. Even in guild chat there isn't much going on besides someone asking to be powerleveled, or needing crafting help.. The genre just isn't the same anymore..
I wish I could abolish quest leveling and phasing as well.. Those work ok in single player RPG games on the Xbox, but have no use in a true MMORPG.. In my opinion..
Guys, guys... You have to remember that there are people who want the game to be as inconvenient as possible to force players to "socialize". They are seemingly against all accessibility and user-friendliness, so they can feel superior because their game is "hardcore". They don't like the fact that you can enjoy a game right away, on your own time and possibly all by yourself. They want you to spend hours preparing and hours doing something that supports the "having fun"but is not itself the fun, because they think that the effort they put into it makes it somehow better.
The highs only feel so high because the contrast between the highs and lows is so great. Vast majority of the times you'll be in the low, so any high is welcome. To some its enough, to most (I think) its not. That is why I quit Eve: The highs weren't frequent or high enough to justify the constant low. Point is, there is no greater high in what these people refer to "real MMOs" or "hardcore games". The good moments feel great only because the rest of the time, the game is so bad.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think there should be easy to use tools for setting up groups. What I dislike are the things they tend to bring which compromise an MMO's worldspace, such as teleporting you to a dungeon for no apparent reason and putting you in a group with people that aren't even relevant to your server.
Originally posted by Axxar I think there should be easy to use tools for setting up groups. What I dislike are the things they tend to bring which compromise an MMO's worldspace, such as teleporting you to a dungeon for no apparent reason and putting you in a group with people that aren't even relevant to your server.
I agree.. ( I think ).. I personally dislike all the quick travel in today's games.. zip zip poof.. I'm here... I'm not much of a fan of random grouping with people that aren't even on your server.. However, that being said I would be very open to allowing people to "sign" up.. for grouping.. This being different that is only tags you as "LFG" within your own server ONLY, and does not auto group.. This way people don't have to spam chat LFG.. I'm still old school and wish game devs would find better ways to promote a community.. I know I can, but then how do I get hired without inside contacts.. LOL
Originally posted by Scot I would never call casuals lazy, but they are casual and that has led us to this point.
So.. What would you call a character in EQ that wanted to get from Halas to Freeport, but didn't want to spend the 20-30 minutes running it, or paying someone to port them there? I'm just curious.. Oh.. is this a good time for me to say how much I hated the installment of PoP books? LOL
It's got nothing to do with "hardcore" vs "casual"
I hate instancing because. It destroys the atmosphere You hit endgame, and in a heavily instanced game like say wow, your just paying for a lobby into instances not a mmo I tend to run them In guild, as do many others, so you don't meet new people. Because they are such controlled environments there is less change of emergent gameplay (esp instanced pvp) They make the world empty Typically their has to be a current "elite instance" with the best gear, you can't make crafting important or the people that ran the elite instance a million times will beef. You can't just group with friends you make, you need fixed groups with fairly rigid composition (with exceptions like coh that has loose roles and scales to size of group) Instanced pvp - omg - let's not play to the strengths of a mmo like say eve or daoc, no let's pretend we are league of legends or csgo or Tf2, offer a sub standard product to all the prior and charge people a monthly sub for it, what a wheeze.
Having instances don't make mmos more casual, if anything when they took off big style - later EQ, later vanilla /bc wow - they have elitist jerks more powers to lord it over people with gear scores, dps meters and dkp loot systems.
Guys, guys... You have to remember that there are people who want the game to be as inconvenient as possible to force players to "socialize". They are seemingly against all accessibility and user-friendliness, so they can feel superior because their game is "hardcore". They don't like the fact that you can enjoy a game right away, on your own time and possibly all by yourself. They want you to spend hours preparing and hours doing something that supports the "having fun"but is not itself the fun, because they think that the effort they put into it makes it somehow better.
The highs only feel so high because the contrast between the highs and lows is so great. Vast majority of the times you'll be in the low, so any high is welcome. To some its enough, to most (I think) its not. That is why I quit Eve: The highs weren't frequent or high enough to justify the constant low. Point is, there is no greater high in what these people refer to "real MMOs" or "hardcore games". The good moments feel great only because the rest of the time, the game is so bad.
Posts like this really piss me off. The whole time i read this i felt nothing but a condescending tone to it. And this seems to be the very sentiment of the "entitlement crowd"
Working towards something means were somehow sufferening for our game untill the big payoff? Give me a break.
Its the work that we put into the game to get those big payoffs at the end is whats fun for us.
There is more evidence to suggest that core MMORPGs are successful than there is to suggest that themeparks are where the money is. We didn't have failures as gargantuan as most of the themeparks over the last 8 years.
The problem is, publishers don't have their finger on the pulse of the MMORPG community, they take a cursory glance, see WoW is doing well, and go "copy that". The people that actually know how to make a good MMO don't get publisher backing most of the time.
And what evidence is that?
In terms of actual evidence, all I see are themeparks making more $$$ then sandboxes.
I'm just stating factual numbers.
Whether you like those factual numbers or not is irrelevant.
You see WoW making more than Eve. What other themepark is beating Eve?
TOR .. even a "failed" themepark got 2M boxes sold and 1.7M sub for months. That is 4x what Eve achieved in years.
There is more evidence to suggest that core MMORPGs are successful than there is to suggest that themeparks are where the money is. We didn't have failures as gargantuan as most of the themeparks over the last 8 years.
The problem is, publishers don't have their finger on the pulse of the MMORPG community, they take a cursory glance, see WoW is doing well, and go "copy that". The people that actually know how to make a good MMO don't get publisher backing most of the time.
And what evidence is that?
In terms of actual evidence, all I see are themeparks making more $$$ then sandboxes.
I'm just stating factual numbers.
Whether you like those factual numbers or not is irrelevant.
You see WoW making more than Eve. What other themepark is beating Eve?
TOR .. even a "failed" themepark got 2M boxes sold and 1.7M sub for months. That is 4x what Eve achieved in years.
And the marketing budget for TOR is probably bigger than the entire development cost of Eve over the course of the last 5 years.
A lot of big box sales means absolutely nothing when you spend 30 million on CGI trailers at E3 and on TV and on every gaming website, with one of the biggest IPs in the world.
All that, and right now Eve still has more subs than SWTOR does. SWTOR cost 300 million to make, Eve cost, how much?
Eve is still growing, while most of the SWTOR staff has been fired or quit.
If we take FACTS, TRENDS, and HISTORY into account, as a model, themeparks do not work and do not keep people playing long term.
Oldschool MMOs though, did.
Old MMOs grew over time and peaked years after release.
New MMOs peak at launch and collapse right away.
You ignored WOW.
And what is so great about long term? It is not like we don't have a thousand games to play. I certainly don't want to play any oldschool MMO, long term or short term.
It is much more fun to hope around and have different experiences.
Sitting in a capital city spamming trade chat for a group for hours on end is not my definition of good gameplay.
If there was a happy medium, where finding a group could be less tedious without taking people out of the world, I'd be all for it, but for right now I think LFG works just fine.
Guys, guys... You have to remember that there are people who want the game to be as inconvenient as possible to force players to "socialize". They are seemingly against all accessibility and user-friendliness, so they can feel superior because their game is "hardcore". They don't like the fact that you can enjoy a game right away, on your own time and possibly all by yourself. They want you to spend hours preparing and hours doing something that supports the "having fun"but is not itself the fun, because they think that the effort they put into it makes it somehow better.
The highs only feel so high because the contrast between the highs and lows is so great. Vast majority of the times you'll be in the low, so any high is welcome. To some its enough, to most (I think) its not. That is why I quit Eve: The highs weren't frequent or high enough to justify the constant low. Point is, there is no greater high in what these people refer to "real MMOs" or "hardcore games". The good moments feel great only because the rest of the time, the game is so bad.
well no.
They (myself included) are looking for a game where the experience is closer to a world, where it is less like a ride and more of a social experience.
A place where you can meet others on the road and something can come of it. A place where sometimes you have to work toegether to make things happen. Where your reputation matters, good or ill. Where, because of your efforts you can be famous or infamous.
And, if they want to feel superior, they do so by thier effort. It's just a different way of thinking.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
For me, a group finder is a requirement in a themepark. I probably would have subbed a month in SWTOR if it had one on release. I probably would have been more willing to do dungeons in GW2 if they had one. I love the fact that I can return to WOW someday and know that I can improve my gear by simply queuing up for dungeons in the group finder and then queue for heroics or a simple version of teh raids..
I refuse to sit in a zone and spam that I want to join a dungeon. I don't want to have to join a guild to enjoy instances.
Sitting in a capital city spamming trade chat for a group for hours on end is not my definition of good gameplay.
If there was a happy medium, where finding a group could be less tedious without taking people out of the world, I'd be all for it, but for right now I think LFG works just fine.
Uh, there is. There has been, since the dawn of MMORPGs. Not having instances.
See the problem with you people advocating the dungeon finder, is you're just imagining in a game that is entirely instanced. Games that are designed with instances are inherently broken in their core, and yes, probably benefit from the dungeon finder (though its still not a good system, its like saying amputating a leg is a good way to save someone from an infection).
Golden age MMOs didn't have this problem, because you could go in any dungeon you wanted at any time, and push as deep as you wanted with however many people you wanted. Want to go down to the harder room and do bosses? Well walk inside the dungeon and see who wanted you to join them. No groups? Oh well, you can still do the dungeon yourself.
And for all the people constantly complaining that old MMOs had "forced grouping" (when in reality, it only ever even slightly existed in EverQuest) WoW and its clones are the only games that have LITERALLY forced grouping for instances.
If we take FACTS, TRENDS, and HISTORY into account, as a model, themeparks do not work and do not keep people playing long term.
Oldschool MMOs though, did.
Old MMOs grew over time and peaked years after release.
New MMOs peak at launch and collapse right away.
You ignored WOW.
And what is so great about long term?
I ignored WoW because it is a complete and total outlier, something every sensible person realized a long long time ago. WoW was lightning in a bottle that CANNOT be reproduced. The conditions that allowed WoW to become what it is no longer exist.
And what's so good about long term? GEE I DON'T KNOW, why the hell would a company want a stable increasing income over time?
TSW, SWTOR and GW2 all released with out group finder and all are doing much worse off then imaginable.
I firmly believe that if a game releases instanced PvE then you better release a group or dungeon finder. No one finds spamming in a capital city or outside the entrace to the instance fun and meaningful community building.
100% agree.
If you only want to do instances with friends/guildies then that's still available. In WOW you can queue as a full group and get the faily benefits. There are plenty of ways to socialize in themepark MMOs without forcing people to sit in a city or zone spamming LFG or LFM.
torchlight 2 is a much better game as its not hampered by design descisions to encourage players to use the real money auction house, youre not portalling back to town every 5 frikin minutes and it doesnt force you to play through on noob mode first.
Torchlight 2 is dead already. It's a ridiculously shallow game that lasted me two weeks. TL2 is made by a good team that doesn't have the budget/desire to make a true D2 successor. It's just a $20 short term game. It's essentially a console game for the PC.
I gladly returned to D3 after all of their improvements. The current iteration of D3 is far,far better than TL2 and POE.
Comments
It actually doesn't, not the same kind of group finder that we're discussing here.
Here's another question, name one other AAA sandbox MMO that's been made in the last 8 years? ...oh right, none!
Kind of hard to stack one up with Eve.
And SWTOR does not have anything remotely close to 500k subs. They're down to about 8 servers and shrinking. Most of the devs have been fired, and those who haven't have quit.
And Aion has basically no pressence in the west. It's entirely free and there's no way to judge how many subs it has. And its the western market we're talking about here. Because if we get Asia involved, WoW isn't the king over there.
I must have not wrote the 'factual numbers' on my post (oh wait I DID!) since I deal with numbers that we know are true until proven otherwise.
I don't use numbers that are essentially 'my guild died so MMO X is dying!'.
Like I said, whether you like those numbers or not is irrelevant since they won't suddenly become false just because you don't like them.
EVE-Online has 'fleet finder' and while it doesn't totally work like WoW's LFG system, its pretty close to it in game design.
Trying to make it harder for people to group up and do XYZ just for the sake of 'immersion' in an MMO has very niche appeal.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
1. People seem to forget that we are still playing games - not virtual worlds that are suppose to be 100% realistic.
2. The Raid/Group finder filled a need in WoW. It made it so you no longer have to sit in a capital city and spam "LFG" or "LFR", sometimes for hours on end. Blizzard steamlined and improved the process and only non-WoW players seem to cry foul.
3. Players in low population servers have the same chance of finding a group as players in high population servers.
4. Implementation of real ID allows you to stay connected (and even queue up) with people that you meet from different servers. I have made a few friends this way.
5. The Raid/Group finder automatically determines if you are geared enough for that content. Back in the day players would have to do manual gear checks. Since that time, Blizzard has streamlined the process. (Nobody found it fun to sit and spam for a group all day anyways). Yes WoW is a gear grind. Yes the end goal is achieving the best gear and bragging rights. Blizzard has never tried to pretend this is NOT the case.
6. Better loot still drops from raiding with a guild. Raiders are still alive and flourishing. They still develop friendship and rivalries, they still experience success and failure, they still have drama and bonding experiences, they are still like they were in 2004.
7. Even if raid and group finders made the PvE side of WoW less sociable (which it didn't), who cares? There are still multiple ways to socialize outside of doing dungeons and participating in the Raid finder system.
Typical haters. Trying to hate on features that actually improve a game.
110% agreed...
Instancing was the first blow.. When EQ came out with LDoN, all I could think was "Is this the beginning of the end to social gaming"? From where I sit, it was.. A good portion of the game was the socalizing, whether it be learning a new language, or finding out locations to tweak your character and skills.. Back in the day, chat moved reguardless of the zone you were in.. Nowadays, I log on to any game and barely see a "HI".. Even in guild chat there isn't much going on besides someone asking to be powerleveled, or needing crafting help.. The genre just isn't the same anymore..
I wish I could abolish quest leveling and phasing as well.. Those work ok in single player RPG games on the Xbox, but have no use in a true MMORPG.. In my opinion..
Guys, guys... You have to remember that there are people who want the game to be as inconvenient as possible to force players to "socialize". They are seemingly against all accessibility and user-friendliness, so they can feel superior because their game is "hardcore". They don't like the fact that you can enjoy a game right away, on your own time and possibly all by yourself. They want you to spend hours preparing and hours doing something that supports the "having fun"but is not itself the fun, because they think that the effort they put into it makes it somehow better.
The highs only feel so high because the contrast between the highs and lows is so great. Vast majority of the times you'll be in the low, so any high is welcome. To some its enough, to most (I think) its not. That is why I quit Eve: The highs weren't frequent or high enough to justify the constant low. Point is, there is no greater high in what these people refer to "real MMOs" or "hardcore games". The good moments feel great only because the rest of the time, the game is so bad.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
What? The highs and lows?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I agree.. ( I think ).. I personally dislike all the quick travel in today's games.. zip zip poof.. I'm here... I'm not much of a fan of random grouping with people that aren't even on your server.. However, that being said I would be very open to allowing people to "sign" up.. for grouping.. This being different that is only tags you as "LFG" within your own server ONLY, and does not auto group.. This way people don't have to spam chat LFG.. I'm still old school and wish game devs would find better ways to promote a community.. I know I can, but then how do I get hired without inside contacts.. LOL
So.. What would you call a character in EQ that wanted to get from Halas to Freeport, but didn't want to spend the 20-30 minutes running it, or paying someone to port them there? I'm just curious.. Oh.. is this a good time for me to say how much I hated the installment of PoP books? LOL
I hate instancing because.
It destroys the atmosphere
You hit endgame, and in a heavily instanced game like say wow, your just paying for a lobby into instances not a mmo
I tend to run them In guild, as do many others, so you don't meet new people.
Because they are such controlled environments there is less change of emergent gameplay (esp instanced pvp)
They make the world empty
Typically their has to be a current "elite instance" with the best gear, you can't make crafting important or the people that ran the elite instance a million times will beef.
You can't just group with friends you make, you need fixed groups with fairly rigid composition (with exceptions like coh that has loose roles and scales to size of group)
Instanced pvp - omg - let's not play to the strengths of a mmo like say eve or daoc, no let's pretend we are league of legends or csgo or Tf2, offer a sub standard product to all the prior and charge people a monthly sub for it, what a wheeze.
Having instances don't make mmos more casual, if anything when they took off big style - later EQ, later vanilla /bc wow - they have elitist jerks more powers to lord it over people with gear scores, dps meters and dkp loot systems.
Posts like this really piss me off. The whole time i read this i felt nothing but a condescending tone to it. And this seems to be the very sentiment of the "entitlement crowd"
Working towards something means were somehow sufferening for our game untill the big payoff? Give me a break.
Its the work that we put into the game to get those big payoffs at the end is whats fun for us.
TOR .. even a "failed" themepark got 2M boxes sold and 1.7M sub for months. That is 4x what Eve achieved in years.
And the marketing budget for TOR is probably bigger than the entire development cost of Eve over the course of the last 5 years.
A lot of big box sales means absolutely nothing when you spend 30 million on CGI trailers at E3 and on TV and on every gaming website, with one of the biggest IPs in the world.
All that, and right now Eve still has more subs than SWTOR does. SWTOR cost 300 million to make, Eve cost, how much?
Eve is still growing, while most of the SWTOR staff has been fired or quit.
See where your example doesn't work?
You ignored WOW.
And what is so great about long term? It is not like we don't have a thousand games to play. I certainly don't want to play any oldschool MMO, long term or short term.
It is much more fun to hope around and have different experiences.
That is a good thing. That is why i came back to MMO. Diablo is a great game. People don't care about the "world" aspect of MMOs as much as you think.
Hence, the trend. You don't think the fact that MMOs becoming more like online ARPGs is without reasons, right?
I voted yay.
Sitting in a capital city spamming trade chat for a group for hours on end is not my definition of good gameplay.
If there was a happy medium, where finding a group could be less tedious without taking people out of the world, I'd be all for it, but for right now I think LFG works just fine.
well no.
They (myself included) are looking for a game where the experience is closer to a world, where it is less like a ride and more of a social experience.
A place where you can meet others on the road and something can come of it. A place where sometimes you have to work toegether to make things happen. Where your reputation matters, good or ill. Where, because of your efforts you can be famous or infamous.
And, if they want to feel superior, they do so by thier effort. It's just a different way of thinking.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
For me, a group finder is a requirement in a themepark. I probably would have subbed a month in SWTOR if it had one on release. I probably would have been more willing to do dungeons in GW2 if they had one. I love the fact that I can return to WOW someday and know that I can improve my gear by simply queuing up for dungeons in the group finder and then queue for heroics or a simple version of teh raids..
I refuse to sit in a zone and spam that I want to join a dungeon. I don't want to have to join a guild to enjoy instances.
The raid/group finder does not keep people from exploring the game world. Not wanting to "explore" the game world is what keeps people from doing it.
The raid/group finder is a grand convenience and makes it a thousand times easier to get a group and enjoy the actual content.
If you want to "explore" go do it. Most people at level cap have already done so, and probably multiple times.
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Uh, there is. There has been, since the dawn of MMORPGs. Not having instances.
See the problem with you people advocating the dungeon finder, is you're just imagining in a game that is entirely instanced. Games that are designed with instances are inherently broken in their core, and yes, probably benefit from the dungeon finder (though its still not a good system, its like saying amputating a leg is a good way to save someone from an infection).
Golden age MMOs didn't have this problem, because you could go in any dungeon you wanted at any time, and push as deep as you wanted with however many people you wanted. Want to go down to the harder room and do bosses? Well walk inside the dungeon and see who wanted you to join them. No groups? Oh well, you can still do the dungeon yourself.
And for all the people constantly complaining that old MMOs had "forced grouping" (when in reality, it only ever even slightly existed in EverQuest) WoW and its clones are the only games that have LITERALLY forced grouping for instances.
I ignored WoW because it is a complete and total outlier, something every sensible person realized a long long time ago. WoW was lightning in a bottle that CANNOT be reproduced. The conditions that allowed WoW to become what it is no longer exist.
And what's so good about long term? GEE I DON'T KNOW, why the hell would a company want a stable increasing income over time?
100% agree.
If you only want to do instances with friends/guildies then that's still available. In WOW you can queue as a full group and get the faily benefits. There are plenty of ways to socialize in themepark MMOs without forcing people to sit in a city or zone spamming LFG or LFM.
Torchlight 2 is dead already. It's a ridiculously shallow game that lasted me two weeks. TL2 is made by a good team that doesn't have the budget/desire to make a true D2 successor. It's just a $20 short term game. It's essentially a console game for the PC.
I gladly returned to D3 after all of their improvements. The current iteration of D3 is far,far better than TL2 and POE.