We have the answers back for our 10 interview questions with Runic! A big thanks to Wonder for helping to set this all up, to Marsh Lefler for answering all but one question, and Matt Uelmen for answering the question about his music!

Is there going to be any way to pass items between chars in the single player game. e.g. shared stash (Titan quest) or some form of in-game mail/transfer.
(Jaknet)
As for the single player game you will be able to retire and the current plan is to pass along a single item to your heir. That however hasn’t been hammered out just yet and could change as we get closer to ship. In the MMO, you will be able to mail items like in Mythos.

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Do you have any plans to make things unlockable, either by beating the game or some other method? For example, could a person mod Torchlight to unlock a Ninja, Samurai, or Paladin class once you beat the game with a Destroyer?
(Altered version of hadati’s question)
Unlocking classes is probably not going to happen for the single player. However unlocking items/new dungeons is possible. User’s should be able to open up new dungeons given a quest line. Meaning once the main quest is done you can then have another quest occur in other dungeons. Those dungeons can become active only when that quest is excepted or the main quest line is accomplished.

How exactly are the triggers in the editor like? What can we do with the Triggers? For Example can we make the NPC/PC move(a cutscene).
(Omnifas)
Triggers in the editor function in a multitude of fashions. For example we have levers which if the player pulls can then trigger something to happen. We have player sphere’s which are triggers – which when a player enters or exits can trigger something to happen.

A common trigger we have is called a “Unit Trigger”. This is basically a unit that you can place in the world. We currently have a small puzzle involving three different levers( “Unit Triggers” ) that have to be pulled in the correct order to open a secret door.

As for the cut scenes. A camera control( with spline ) probably won’t be put in. However the ability for the camera to change targets ( say look at a boss ) will probably be implemented in some fashion ( probably this week as a matter of fact ).

As for NPC’s moving – we would like to do that. However it’s kind of towards the bottom of the list of things to do right now.

Will TorchLight have a debug/cheat window ?
(jamesl)
Yes( shift + ~ )! You can even type Help in it and it gives you all the commands. When we release we probably make player enable it via the settings file though.

What are your plans for including ways to reset skill points or stat points? (aka respec)
(Altered version of Marshel’s question)
You could always just cheat. To be honest for the single player game we really aren’t to worried about it. MMO side I’m sure we’ll have something.

If you plan to finish the single player game this fall, what is your planned schedule so far for when the MMO will see alpha and/or beta phases? (aka do you plan a long development period before public testing?)
(Heavily altered version of jamesl’s question)
I personally would like to have an open alpha like we did for Mythos – longggg. The sooner we get people playing and finding bugs/telling us what they hate/or love the better the game will be. Internally we haven’t really discussed this much other then as soon as we feel like the game is showable and playable we should do it.

What are your plans for versions of Torchlight for Mac or linux systems?
(Altered version of Akerholt’s question)
I would love to do a version for both. Ogre – our graphic’s engine supports both systems. If we did do that though the editor wouldn’t be compatible unless you are using a windows emulator. For those interested the Editor is built in C# – which is a Windows thing only.

Will you have a collector’s edition available with Matt Uelmen’s soundtrack?
(Sp3tsnaz)
From Matt Uelmen: I honestly have no idea at this point.  The odds are
that the SP game won’t have much more than 40 minutes of music, while the
MMO will likely have much, much more, possibly meaning that a CE soundtrack is more likely with the MMO.  I do hope to do a promotional release of at least a couple of game tracks for the SP, though that has not been finalized in any way yet.

Can we save the game whenever and wherever we please? For example, when we reload a game, will we start at our last saved location or will we restart back in town?
(Tiptoe)
Yes you can save whenever and where ever you please and you won’t start in town.

What kind of in-game item customization will Torchlight have? For example, crafting, socketting, “cube-style” combinations, etc.
(Webbstre)
Torchlight won’t have a “crafting” system but we would like to get a “cube-style” system in place. Socketting is in the game already. We are throwing around the idea of a mini-game with the gems too – we’ll see how that turns out.

Is there anything cool or interesting that no one has asked about/you guys haven’t had the chance to talk about yet?
(Webbstre)
**Can we talk about other mini-games here?**

How about active skills versus found spells or even weapon skills! So we now have a skill tree, spells you can equip and weapon skills. There will hopefully be other mini-games – unlocking special chests, splitting gems and possibly more.

Thanks again to everyone for answering our questions, and to everyone who submitted questions for the interview! We would love to send them all in, but then the devs would never have time to finish the game! ^_^; All of the unasked questions will be considered when we have future opportunities for interviews.

Finished reading? Feel free to go talk about the interview in our forums!