08-05-2010, 05:07 PM
(08-05-2010, 01:26 PM)Bolty Wrote: I have reservations that Runic Games won't have the network code and willpower to stop rampant cheating.
They are going in completely the opposite direction and won't even try to do that. TL2 is back to the original Diablo model (minus the hidden character files, encryption, and other useless anticheating measures): peer-to-peer with a simple matchmaking service, LAN play, modding, but no server-side checks. It'll be cheap, casual and light and up to players to decide who they play with and how they use it.
The originally planned Torchlight MMO is still being developed and that will be server-side, but supported by microtransactions (claimed, and probably with reasonable accuracy, to be entirely optional) rather than by subscriptions.
As someone who never liked WoW, I'm still hopeful about D3, but I also really wonder about the direction Blizzard has been going recently -- maybe it's part of a transition in the whole gaming/online industry.