As our friends at Runic are at home for their holiday weekend, it is time for another round of forum tidbits for you all. There hasn’t been too many lately, so we saved them all up for today’s post. Today’s topics include:

• Monster Scaling
• Loot and Virtual Economy
• Some bits about shared stash and modding
• Technology in Torchlight
• Using Art Assets for other purposes
• Pet Death

First up, forum member heron asked some a variety of questions, most of which other forums members were able to answer, but Volbard chimed in with an answer for the unanswered question:

Omnifas has about covered everything I can tell you, I’m not sure about the inventory and camera. I can say that scaling monsters is super easy.

Next up, in an entirely unofficial comment that may or may not have anything to do with Torchlight, Volbard talks a little about game economies and soul-bound items:

In a virtual world, people are constantly finding new items. Those items flow into the economy, and unless there is some system to remove them as fast as they are coming in, you end up with mudflation. Powerful items are so common that they’re almost worthless, and players never like any of the loot they get from monsters because they’re using their friends’ hand-me-downs which are more powerful.

This is where soul-binding comes from, it’s a way of removing items from the economy, and letting people find their own cool drops. If an MMO doesn’t have a system like that, it will need some sort of replacement, like item durability or some sort of sacrifice system.

Maybe you can think of other interesting ways to get loot out of the economy |^)

I personally never realized it before, but he is right: I tend to use hand-me-downs from friends because my loot finds always are terrible.

Moving on, Bebop had several tidbits on the official forums about Preditor:

Jaknet wrote:I know nothing about modding(as I’m sure will become obvious ), so I’ve no idea if this is possible or plain daft.Using the editor can you create a portal to a level off the town of torchlight, which you could use as a home (for want of a better word), Include a chest or container of whatever type and have the contents of the area and chest save and load up each time you start the game regardless of what char you log in with?

So basically would this create a basic shared stash/area for the SP game or is this just completely showing my lack of modding knowledge?

A couple of ideas just to link with this. Maybe have the “home” start out as a basic cave (or something) and as your fame increases so the quality/size/style improve. Finally on the bosses have a drop of a head or other body part as a trophy you can display there. (too much fable TLC I guess )

Sorry I haven’t answered you yet. The truth is that we are working a few things that would change my answer to you. And we still are working on those things so I’ll answer what I can …

Yes you should be able to make your own house and put a portal in town to it.

As for the shared stash … you’ll have to wait. I’ll let you know as soon as possible about that.

Upgrading your house based off your fame might be possible in the future but not right now.

Adding boss heads should be possible but you’ll have to make the art. You’ll just need to check and see if that quest is done and if it is show the head in the house.

sorry for the long delay.

TiberiusAudley wrote:Is there a limit to skills available to a single monster?

Are the character models available for monsters to use?

I have a very fun idea for a ‘quick’ mod to make, (quick in relation to my other projects, anyway) basically making a PvP arena where the opponent is AI. But I want it to use the default Torchlight characters for both enemy and player choice.

Yep unlimited.

And yes you can use the players as monsters.

And in the same thread, one more question is answered by Volbard:

LeStryfe79 wrote: Hello, long time Mythos fan here!

Will we be able move the included art assets around in order to provide other functions? For example, would I be able to use stationary monsters to look like statues, or maybe create an NPC that is a talking treasure chest?

Thanks

Volbard wrote: That sound pretty reasonable LeStryfe |^)

Next up, a question about the technology in Torchlight invokes a response from Wonder that gives us a little more of an idea of the theme the world will take place in:

Good thread start! One thing I will say is that when we were hashing out the idea behind Torchlight, we wanted a “frontier” vibe – not as in a western, but as in, on the fringes of civilization, and still transitioning between old school weapons (swords, say) and newer, experimental forays into technology, with magic still being figured out. It makes it really fun and unusual, and different classes would approach their styles differently because of it. What kind of weapons and whatnot would you expect to see? Barring lasers, of course.

And last up, probably for a few days (unless the Runic gang spends their holiday weekend on the forums, as sometimes happens), Wonder confirms that pets in the game actually can die:

Pets can die, but when they do, they disappear for a while before regenerating later and rejoining you. They do attack but you can also set them to “neutral” or “defense” modes, and heal them by dropping potions on their life bar, so you don’t go without their help for long.

That’s all for today! Don’t forget, our T-shirt contest deadline was delayed by 7 days due to the sudden server change, so you still have a week to enter! Only two people have submitted comics, so your chances of winning a signed Runic Games T-Shirt are still good!

Finished reading? Feel free to talk about today’s tidbits on the forums!