...Or you raised a bad point and we're raising good points to counter it.
...Or your points are not based on any facts. Thats why I don't bother countering them.
+ If you read correctly, I was referring to the design of the game, like level design and spells effects. Sure u can't make a fireball look like a frost bolt but you can spice it up a little.
Anyways, you guys don't seem to see that I LOVE Diablo 3, I LOVE all Blizz games and I'll definitely leave behind TL when D3 is out.
...Or your points are not based on any facts. Thats why I don't bother countering them.
+ If you read correctly, I was referring to the design of the game, like level design and spells effects. Sure u can't make a fireball look like a frost bolt but you can spice it up a little.
Anyways, you guys don't seem to see that I LOVE Diablo 3, I LOVE all Blizz games and I'll definitely leave behind TL when D3 is out.
What? Our points are based on facts. Read our replies again.
I gotta say that Torchlight was a shitty game. Yes, that game was shit. I admit that i played it and was somewhat excited about it but only for 2 days really.
I couldn't agree more. Thank you for putting that so cleanly.
On topic: I knew going into playing Torchlight that it was a game which was created to profit from the announcement of D3 and the universal knowledge that there would be a huge gap between D3's announcement and release. The game seriously felt like a cheap bootleg of the D3 gameplay trailer except that I had the added bonus of being able to control the character on-screen.
This thread is ridiculous, it is clear that most if not all of the similarities mentioned in the OP between torchlight and D3 were shown in D3 before having existed in TL.
I think for the next topic we should discuss how much the movie Fern Gully stole from Avatar...
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All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
- Ernest Rutherford
You have to admit that if games lacked similar themes that make them awesome they would all be freakishly abstract and not very competitively friendly as far as gameplay goes.
All the similarities i can think of are good. Pick bad similarities and i will understand your frustration. And as far as being lazy goes, i believe many (if not all) of those ideas have been thought up through alternative sources to diablo over torchlight.
Also, those two games have designers who both have worked on blizz games.
... Okay, I guess if you're going to use extremely petty details (can you even call this a detail, this is an instance within the game) instead of, you know, details of a much more fundamental value, then that's cool. It's not, but if that's how you get your kicks, it's okay.
Warrior, barb, that uses a cleave attack with a red "swoosh", check
Again with these incredibly small details?
1. It's a special effect. I'm pretty sure I saw the same thing in Dungeon Siege II, which came out in 2006 or something. And I'm also sure that the red swoosh that you mention was present in the 2008 gameplay trailer.
2. Blizzard was inspired by Torchlight's "cleave attack"? I'd like to hear the story behind that, must be a great fiction.
3. They're both warrior classes, they're going to cleave.
Shield that slows things around you, check
Slow Time, used by the wizard, isn't as much a shield as it is a strategic move. And it only slows things down within a given radius. And she can step out of it. But good try though.
Shared stash, check
Actually, a good amount of Diablo II players have wanted a shared stash since the game came out. Ever heard of "muling"?
Wandering vendors, check
Vendors are the basis of any in-game economy. You can't not have vendors, it's just not possible.
Prison in a molten sea of lava, check
That's a level. I saw the same thing in Dungeon Siege. The River of Flame from Diablo II is also the same concept.
My point being, Blizzard probably hasn't looked at Torchlight and said, "that would look really good in our game" because Torchlight is just a regurgitated Hack N' Slash. Can you ask yourself how Torchlight has reinvented the wheel in any way, made progressive movements within the Hack N' Slash genre, and defied the very boundaries of the genre itself? I can't. I look at Torchlight and think, "this just looks shitty. There's shit everywhere, this doesn't even look fun."
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
IF the ideas from torchlight make diablo 3 better then I say take them and use em, torchlight for being made in 11 months as outright brilliant (couldn't imagine what a 2-3 year dev cycle would have done).
All games across every genre take what works best and then adapts them into there games. In the action rpg genre which the Diablo franchise pretty much dominates I would say without a doubt everything out there has taken at least something from the franchise and used it, heck diablo took elements from other games itself to better itself.
I only genuinely good idea I noticed they took was the three attack mouse configuration (Left Mouse Button, Right Mouse Button, Tab to Swap Between Skills on Right Mouse Button).
Wandering Vendors? Done Before Torchlight
Shared Stash? Done Before Torchlight
Prison in a Molten Sea of Lava? Huh? Diablo in D2 was Surrounded by Lava...
Mostly everything torchlight did outside the pet was done before, sad fact is all these good action rpg developers of late are all former employee's of blizzard north, it really doesn't surprise me that even if they didn't copy ideas from each other they might possibly come to the same conclusions.
I don't know, copying ideas if they work is a must, it's adapting them that separates them from clone to standalone.
In fact the "three skills on mouse" was an idea Torchlight probably took from Diablo III. It was in the announcement trailer. You press tab to switch between two skills on the right mouse.
Goes to show I don't pay attention to the little things aye ^_^;
(couldn't imagine what a 2-3 year dev cycle would have done).
You won't have to imagine it, you'll see what a longer, deeper dev cycle gets you from that team this summer.
Derivative and shallow or not, the fact is that one team releases games and the other one releases concept art and cinematics. Personally, I like games more.
I'm going to quote T.S. Eliot here, in his discussion of poets. Mentally replace the word "poet" with "artist" or "game designer" or suchlike.
One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.
We're dealing with design archetypes. There's going to be overlap, and perhaps some of D3 has been inspired by Torchlight. So what? How does any of this imply that D3 will not be a great game?
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"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
My point stands, and you unwittingly helped support it. At no point did I claim someone said that in this thread. I simply said that Diablo can benefit by learning from the good things in related titles.
Here's another quote, from Einstein: If I have seen farther than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. The art and technology that has come before should help serve us to move art and technology forward. It should not serve as hallowed ground to be avoided. That was my point. Innovation comes from adding and expounding upon what already exists.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
...Or your points are not based on any facts. Thats why I don't bother countering them.
+ If you read correctly, I was referring to the design of the game, like level design and spells effects. Sure u can't make a fireball look like a frost bolt but you can spice it up a little.
Anyways, you guys don't seem to see that I LOVE Diablo 3, I LOVE all Blizz games and I'll definitely leave behind TL when D3 is out.
What? Our points are based on facts. Read our replies again.
On topic: I knew going into playing Torchlight that it was a game which was created to profit from the announcement of D3 and the universal knowledge that there would be a huge gap between D3's announcement and release. The game seriously felt like a cheap bootleg of the D3 gameplay trailer except that I had the added bonus of being able to control the character on-screen.
This thread is ridiculous, it is clear that most if not all of the similarities mentioned in the OP between torchlight and D3 were shown in D3 before having existed in TL.
I think for the next topic we should discuss how much the movie Fern Gully stole from Avatar...
- Ernest Rutherford
All the similarities i can think of are good. Pick bad similarities and i will understand your frustration. And as far as being lazy goes, i believe many (if not all) of those ideas have been thought up through alternative sources to diablo over torchlight.
Also, those two games have designers who both have worked on blizz games.
... Okay, I guess if you're going to use extremely petty details (can you even call this a detail, this is an instance within the game) instead of, you know, details of a much more fundamental value, then that's cool. It's not, but if that's how you get your kicks, it's okay.
Again with these incredibly small details?
1. It's a special effect. I'm pretty sure I saw the same thing in Dungeon Siege II, which came out in 2006 or something. And I'm also sure that the red swoosh that you mention was present in the 2008 gameplay trailer.
2. Blizzard was inspired by Torchlight's "cleave attack"? I'd like to hear the story behind that, must be a great fiction.
3. They're both warrior classes, they're going to cleave.
Slow Time, used by the wizard, isn't as much a shield as it is a strategic move. And it only slows things down within a given radius. And she can step out of it. But good try though.
Actually, a good amount of Diablo II players have wanted a shared stash since the game came out. Ever heard of "muling"?
Vendors are the basis of any in-game economy. You can't not have vendors, it's just not possible.
That's a level. I saw the same thing in Dungeon Siege. The River of Flame from Diablo II is also the same concept.
My point being, Blizzard probably hasn't looked at Torchlight and said, "that would look really good in our game" because Torchlight is just a regurgitated Hack N' Slash. Can you ask yourself how Torchlight has reinvented the wheel in any way, made progressive movements within the Hack N' Slash genre, and defied the very boundaries of the genre itself? I can't. I look at Torchlight and think, "this just looks shitty. There's shit everywhere, this doesn't even look fun."
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
All games across every genre take what works best and then adapts them into there games. In the action rpg genre which the Diablo franchise pretty much dominates I would say without a doubt everything out there has taken at least something from the franchise and used it, heck diablo took elements from other games itself to better itself.
I only genuinely good idea I noticed they took was the three attack mouse configuration (Left Mouse Button, Right Mouse Button, Tab to Swap Between Skills on Right Mouse Button).
Wandering Vendors? Done Before Torchlight
Shared Stash? Done Before Torchlight
Prison in a Molten Sea of Lava? Huh? Diablo in D2 was Surrounded by Lava...
Mostly everything torchlight did outside the pet was done before, sad fact is all these good action rpg developers of late are all former employee's of blizzard north, it really doesn't surprise me that even if they didn't copy ideas from each other they might possibly come to the same conclusions.
I don't know, copying ideas if they work is a must, it's adapting them that separates them from clone to standalone.
You won't have to imagine it, you'll see what a longer, deeper dev cycle gets you from that team this summer.
Derivative and shallow or not, the fact is that one team releases games and the other one releases concept art and cinematics. Personally, I like games more.
One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.
We're dealing with design archetypes. There's going to be overlap, and perhaps some of D3 has been inspired by Torchlight. So what? How does any of this imply that D3 will not be a great game?
-Thomas Jefferson
Here's another quote, from Einstein: If I have seen farther than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. The art and technology that has come before should help serve us to move art and technology forward. It should not serve as hallowed ground to be avoided. That was my point. Innovation comes from adding and expounding upon what already exists.
-Thomas Jefferson
Thanks Caniroth for the awesome sig!