Opinion: Torchlight 3 - Echtra Games Made A Mistake - MMORPG.com

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Opinion: Torchlight 3 - Echtra Games Made A Mistake - MMORPG.com

This week Echtra Games announced that Torchlight Frontiers is no more, but declared, long live Torchlight 3. Max Schaefer stated plainly in the announcement video that, throughout the alpha and development cycle Torchlight Frontiers “told” them that it preferred to be the spiritual successor to Torchlight 1 and 2. The reveal of changing everything from how you pay to how you play says something very different to me, and it isn’t very good.

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black9ice

Wow! an article on MMOrpg that was worth reading! Nice work, I agree, this seems to be the trend in the gaming industry lately.

Take the safe option or what investors shove down your throat. There are only a very limited number of titles that the teams are allowed creative freedoms, they are obviously making fun games.

You cant change your artistic vision half way through and expect good results. If anything, it will be average, if good at all.

Spiider

Blend in
Cash in
Cowards

Darkpigeon

Well that's disappointing.

ScottJeslis

Yep, I was disappointed. I was also surprised to see how many on social media embraced this change. Of course, maybe they are the only ones posting LOL

Machkeznho

Anytime you take an ip to mmo format you have to dumb it down, even more so if you plan to go to console with it, to many sacrifices are made for the sake of accessibility and networking demands of having multiple players on the same screen. This isnt a knock against console users but having a keyboard and better hardware really allows for more complexity in systems design, the minute you have to make a game playable with a controller only the PC version of the game instantly loses depth, the minute you have to add a bunch of players on the screen depth is lost to accommodate it.

WhiteLantern

Opinion: I disagree with your opinion. /shrug

magentowizard

I disagree with the article. I played Frontiers and it was a boring grind fest. I never ran into people except in the city hub. They could still have this feature, when the game releases. Also the company they were working with was going to be taking a percentage of their profits and now they will have more money for themselves. They can charge more for the base game and just sell downloadable expansions.

keyboardshinobi

Im actually ok with this change, I got hours of fun out of modding TL2, and if it was an mmo i wouldn't be able to do that. I embrace this change from change and while I enjoyed Frontiers in the alpha i understand why they are going this direction.

lahnmir

Torchlight 0.5, what a disappointment. On or offline won’t make the difference, the bland classes, boring skill trees and lacking combat feedback will. 

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Antarious

I played or tested if you will on and off for quite a while. If this change works out best for the company then I guess more power to them. The game as it was shaping up in testing wasn't something that pulled me in. However, I would imagine there were players that did like it and obviously this change won't make them happy.

Raquis

if it's really good i'll pay for it but it's a shame Path Of Exile shows everyone a free game can be great.

Dragonyck

Finally some good fucking article. I completely agree with you, they can't get away with this. Hopefully that will result in a backlash.

StevenWeber

Arterius said:

As someone who been playing the game for six months this is the best decision  they made. The game was really bad. Hopefully this means the game will at least be average.

Don't get me wrong, I'm with you that Torchlight Frontiers in the state it was in was not a game that many people would enjoy.  On the other hand though, completely scrapping an idea rather than attempting to fix it doesn't do Echtra Games any favors. 

Instead of overhauling systems to make an MMO work, they decided to completely ditch the idea entirely. This didn't have to be the case. Take Final Fantasy XIV for example. They released a game that wasn't working, but they fixed it, and it became one of the best MMORPGs of the last decade. 

Sure, Echtra Games may not have the resources that Square Enix does, but I don't believe there was an overabundance of issues that needed fixing.  Progression is the main thing people wanted, and Frontiers limited that progression substantially.  Revamping that system would have gone a long way to doing the right thing to both appease their players and achieve their goal in making an MMORPG. 

I guess we'll never know now.

Hariken

Sorry but T3 is what the fans of 1 and 2 wanted from the start. You have to give your fans what they want and i'm glad they listened to the testers of the alpha. I played the alpha and it was a mess.

Hariken

ScottJeslis said:

Yep, I was disappointed. I was also surprised to see how many on social media embraced this change. Of course, maybe they are the only ones posting LOL

People are trying to turn it into single players vs online players which is just stupid. Most of the alpha testers wanted T3 instead of the mmo thing. Nothing wrong with single player games. Fist it was pver's vs pvper's now we are getting this .

aslan132

Im willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and see how things go. Honestly for me, it couldnt get much worse, so why not try something that they know has worked in the past. I can say, I have had access to months of testing, and maybe logged in 3 times. It just wasnt that great of a game, so something needed to be done. I am hoping they figure it out, I am a long time fan of the franchise, but was sorely disappointed with what Frontiers was. Good luck to the team.

Lobotomist

I was in Alpha for over a year. Torchlight frontier is honestly not only the worst of 2 previous Torchlight games, but its also probably one of the worst ARPGs on the market today.

But if you strike the Open World MMO idea, the game has absolutely nothing new. Its as bland as it gets.

And even comparing it to complexity of games like POE, heck even D3, is like comparing WW Beetle to Tesla.

Unless they dont change something, I mean make it almost new game. This will probably be only good for 12$ bargain bin game.

blamo2000

Lobotomist said:

I was in Alpha for over a year. Torchlight frontier is honestly not only the worst of 2 previous Torchlight games, but its also probably one of the worst ARPGs on the market today.

But if you strike the Open World MMO idea, the game has absolutely nothing new. Its as bland as it gets.

And even comparing it to complexity of games like POE, heck even D3, is like comparing WW Beetle to Tesla.

Unless they dont change something, I mean make it almost new game. This will probably be only good for 12$ bargain bin game.

Honestly, if the game lasted for a year for you it has to have something going for it.  I only lasted a couple hours in D3.  

Albatroes

Saying Frontiers had the opportunity to be "something" is a bit delusional with Perfect World as the publisher. Its even more delusional to think that monetization doesn't influence game development. Perfect World heavily monetizes ALL of their online games, so this is for the best for the franchise.

kjempff

We asked the testers their opinion. The testers that were there because they liked the previous (single player) Torchlight games. We didn't ask those who wanted a mmoarpg because those were not alpha testers. The evidence was clear and scientific, nothing to question here.. Move on.. Oh btw we also realized that it takes a lot more effort to make mmoarpg than we thought, a .. Lot .. More..but obviously that is not the reason we change now, no nop nopers not at all no.

foppotee

Seems like a good outcome.  Fight the good fight against Perfect World.

Torchlight_Fox

These changes needed to happen, gameplay wise, and fanbase wise. There was such an overwhelming doom and gloom over the game that it made any type of positive coverage get overshadowed by naysayers of the free to play model. Gameplay wise, resetting that frequently per frontier just didn't feel good. This change took an entirely negative reddit, and turned it around into a positive supportive force. I don't see how you can consider listening to their fan base a bad thing.

Iselin

Having a hard time seeing the catastrophe here unless you think that making changes to a second (third?) rate ARPG in development is somehow catastrophic.

I've played both previous Torchlight games and although they were enjoyable they have never competed for the top ARPG spot... not even close. I had no illusions that their attempt at Massivelyish MP would be either.

To be honest I looked at every little bit info they revealed while developing it with the same thought "yeah, yeah but how will it play solo?" because I never really had any interest in any MMOish parts of it.

MMOARPG just isn't something that attracts me at all. And It's not just the iso perspective that by default detaches you from the character you're playing, it's that ARPGs at their best, are fun but casual loot grinders that don't ask to be taken as seriously as traditional RPGs do. Doubly so with the cutesy and whimsical Torchlight artwork and stories.

That's just not my idea of any MMO persistent world I want to pretend to be living in.

Considering the publisher I was also very skeptical about their motivations. I never bought the "Torchlight we always wanted to make" PR spin. It was more like "you gamers have a proven track record of being fools with your money when presented with cash shops and loot boxes so we want in on that sweet Games as a Service action."

I'm much more likely to spend $19 (what tier 2 ARPGs should cost) for this T3 than I would have been for Frontiers.

Maxstone1

I'm not really disappointed either by this outcome. I know a lot of the people who came into Frontiers because it was Torchlight and not entirely because it was online. MMO's are horribly dicey prospects and more and more ditching the RPG in favor of the Raid, PVP maps, or MOBA. So if I was a company trying to keep my popular franchise alive, I wouldn't go to an online game model. I never really got their horizontal progression model and was still waiting for a good ranged, non-magic class to make it, but even then I wasn't having a whole lot of buy-in being surround by other people. Better delay than release something that will become a nasty taste in the mouth.

tenebrae22