Torchlight: Infinite Devs Take a Jab at Diablo Immortal
Torchlight: Infinite will not repeat the mistakes of Diablo Immortal. At least that's what producer Liu Heng assures, who mentioned, among other things, microtransactions and a „presentation.”.
Not only gamers complain about Diablo Immortal (or bitterly joke about it). The problems of Blizzard's mobile game are also addressed by the producer of another title. We are talking about XD Entertainment, which announced the return of the Torchlight series. Its representative, Liu Heng, in an e-mail interview with GameSpot revealed something about the new project.
Torchlight: progress not for money
Let's make one thing clear first: microptransactions will be present in Torchlight: Infinite. However, Heng promises that players will not be able to buy equipment items or materials for crafting items with money. These will only be acquired through active play (read: grind).
"Goods" in the store will fall into two categories: content in the form of new heroes and cosmetic extras, and "amenities" along the lines of talent resets, item storage space expansions and automatic loot pickup features. No mention was made of how much of this "premium offering" will be obtainable without paying.
In addition, there will be no system that limits the player's progress in the game, for example, a stamina bar. If one wishes to spend long hours on a single day with Torchlight: Infinite, instead of breaking it up into a whole week - they can do so.
Diablo Immortal without Diablo
In the discussion of microtransactions, the developer did not once mention Diablo Immortal, although it's hard not to get the impression that the aforementioned assurances refer to various pains of Blizzard and NetEase's title. When GameSpot editors asked about the lessons learned from the release of DI, Heng referred not to annoying microtransactions, but... inadequate "management of player expectations."
The producer believes that fans of Diablo were unhappy primarily because Blizzard was advertising Immortal as a typical installment of the series: an action RPG / hack'n'slash with a huge number of customization and character progression options. Meanwhile, in this respect, the title is a step backward compared to Diablo III, and the whole is more of an ARPG MMO than a pure action RPG, which could do quite well without Diablo in the title:
"From our perspective, the community was dissatisfied primarily because Diablo Immortal was presented as an ARPG, but was released as an ARPG MMO.
If the game had not used the brand Diablo, its outcome could have been quite different, in our opinion."
XD Entertainment, wrote Heng, from the beginning introduces Torchlight: Infinite as a hack'n'slash, in which progression is based on collecting loot, and players have a lot of opportunities to create their own character builds (as the game will feature not classes, but specific characters). An influx of new content will be provided by seasons starting every three months.
Torchlight: Infinite will be tested in October as part of an open beta on PC and mobile devices. Closed tests are underway for now, and we probably won't find out until the release of the full version whether the game really won't repeat the mistakes of Diablo Immortal. Another issue is whether, in the face of the financial success of this production it is indeed legitimate to talk about the "mistakes" of Blizzard and NetEase's mobile game...
