Torchlight the MMO

[CeeKay]

an upcoming action MMORPG by Runic games, one of the companies that formed from what was left of FLagship with Travis Baldree and Max Schaefer.  maybe it'll be in the same vein as Mythos.

[CeeKay]

apparently this will be introduced as a single player game? and the MMO portion won't be for about 18 months after that is released?

[CeeKay]

MMO info!

[CeeKay]

no subscription for the MMO.

[CeeKay]

I'm beginning to think they should have kept the whole MMO thing quiet:

Runic Can’t Commit To Torchlight MMO Yet

“We have great Torchlight MMO ideas,” Schaefer said during an interview with RPS. “We’re not saying we’re gonna do it next because we don’t want to be locked into something and disappoint people if it turns out we get to the end of this and really what we should be doing is an expansion or another platform. We want to have that flexibility. We’re a small company. We’re 30 people, and we can only really do one thing at a time. So we want to have the flexibility to pick what we want to make, that our fans are asking for, and make the decision based on that.”

“And the reason I’m making so many caveats about this is an MMO is a hell of a commitment. It means we’re gonna be doing that for a few years at least prior to release and then committing years of support for it afterward. So it’s a decision we take very, very seriously.”

[Blackjack]

I don't realistically think they can "run" an MMO unless they partner up with one of the mega-publishers, who can maybe handle some of the customer service, technical service and server hosting issues, or help pay for it. But at that point, Runic would lose its independence, which is what its whole appeal is based on; or it would have to double, triple, etc. in size and become something very different than what Runic wanted to be (i.e, a big bureacracy with humongous staffs and development groups).

I'm sure they already knew all that. I don't blame them for getting cold feet, if that's what this is, but CeeKay's right (stop the presses!  ), imho -- maybe they shouldn't have babbled about MMO plans if they weren't truly committed to the idea.

imho, it'd be more realistic to do some sort of battle.net-type secure server for Torchlight 2. That isn't by any means cheap to do, but I think (perhaps with some Kickstarter funding boost or something) it might be reasonable for Runic to do without expanding the company massively or losing its independence to a big publisher.

[Azhag]

They are already owned by Perfect World, which runs a number of F2P MMOs (primarily from Chinese games). So I don't think that aspect is huge... although I'm sure Runic would still have to grow significantly to do it.

[Harpua3]

I love all that is torchlight! 

[CoS_Ethan]

This is really not a MMO, it's a co-op multi-playing game. But I've heard that Perfect World is going to release Torchlight OL next year.