Partnering up with Chinese MMO company
Runic Games sent out a press release today announcing work on a new game called Torchlight.
Runic Games who? You might have just said now. Many Runic Gamers worked on the almost-successful Diablo-inspired Hellgate: London, and worked on the great -- but never publicly released -- Mythos game (screenshot above). The key players from this pedigree are Max Schaefar, CEO, and Travis Baldree, President.
Torchlight what? You might have just asked. It is an ARPG game that the Runic Games team is working on, in Seattle (they need a texture artist by the way.) The game will feature "a simple and intuitive interface, fast and furious action, and a colorful and compelling game world." It seems like it is a safe bet that Torchlight will have strong fundamental similarities to Mythos -- I'm sure the team would not want all they learnt on that project to go to waste. But will they be able to release Torchlight before the return of the King (Diablo III) ?
In today's press release, Runic also announced a strategic partnership with a big MMO company based in China called Perfect World. It appears that Torchlight will run on micro-payments, and that they will be concurrently working on localized versions, in an attempt to recruit gamers of all different sorts.
It appears that Torchlight originally be offered as a single-player ARPG, with eventual plans to become a MMO.
Pictured below is the first released screenshot of the game, first appearing on website RunicInsder:
forums
Have you ever heard o Silkroad??
Micro-transations is to allowing Bots, or gain the double experience or so.. IMHO it will suck cause the best players will ble AFK
http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/image002.jpg
Regarding the above comment, Mythos, a game the Runic Team was working on with their previous studio actually was going to feature mico transactions that would mostly be asthetic or ones that don't affect gameplay too much. Things like double XP won't matter too much, as this is more like an Action RPG like Diablo where levelling won't take you months like in an MMO. (At least that's what it seems like based on Mythos)