A new interview with Max Schaefer is out, once again in Podcast form and once again with hints at new tidbits in regards to the MMO and other future developments. The interview takes up the first 50 minutes or so, and you can find it by going to the Rumble Pack Podcast page, right here.

Here are some of the topics in the podcast, mixed in among the puns and other jokes. Apparently Max is a funny guy!

• Torchlight going on consoles
• Torchlight less likely on facebook
• Talk about Max’s history
• How to apply at Runic Games
• Shared Overworld in the MMO
• More examples of how instancing could be done
• Lots of talk about possible “end-game” content in regards to retirement

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An excellent new interview is out in podcast form at Gamers Only Older. The interview starts 1 hour and 20 minutes into it, but it is worth listening to. Here are the main pointers as I listen to it:

• The original name of Runic Games was “Surprise Truck.”
• One design goal was to make it work on anything with as far back as a Geforce 2 graphics card.
• Travis says “We won’t be adding multi-player to the existing game” and refuses to say more on that topic.
• While they don’t give numbers, the numbers and revenue from the 5-dollar Steam sale were “favorable.”
• Details on customization in the MMO are still in the works

Travis’ quote about multi-player is very interesting. It pretty much shoots down the idea of an expansion pack to add multi-player play to the existing game, and since he doesn’t specifically say “We’re only making the MMO” it sounds to me like he wants to leave the option over for an MP sequel? It could be me reading to much into it, but he IS a very careful man with his word choice.

You can download and listen to the podcast right here.

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In our first interview to be released in quite a while, the UK site Gaming Daily has just published an interview done with everyone’s favorite Minister of Culture and PR Lady, Wonder Russell. There’s nothing much in the way of new info, but it is still an interesting read. Here are some clips:

‘Diablo Clone’ is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot with fast-paced RPG’s – what do you think of that?

It’s totally fine. Honestly, a lot of it is because the A-RPG genre is extremely limited compared to other genres; almost every contender is going to get called some sort of Diablo-clone because the diversity is still growing. Think about how “Doom clone” dominated the shooter genre until there was enough variety available. And since we devs from Diablo worked on Torchlight, we wouldn’t deny the heritage!

What have been the biggest surprises with the release?

The overwhelming number of people who wrote us thanking us for making Torchlight. How high our Twitter followers spiked within a week. The folks who reviewed and played Torchlight who not only loved it, but told all their friends. It was humbling and overwhelming.

Are there any plans to extend Torchlight in the future with extra levels/character classes? And can you say anything about your upcoming MMO?

More on both of these questions will be answered in the coming couple months

You can check out the full interview right here.

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Our favorite article writer Jerich managed to attend a workshop at the University of Washington Bothell’s IOTA Game Program entitled “Pioneers in Interactive Media” this past Friday, and caught Marsh for some new information, as well as listened to some awesome speakers. Below is Part 1 of his report, which contains the basic information about the workshop and tells you what he managed to get on the record about what Runic is up to these days. Read on for the juicy details:

Jerich Speaks with Marsh Lefler (Bebop) at the “Pioneers in Interactive Media” Workshop Part 1

Yesterday, on January 29, 2010, I had the privilege of talking to Runic Games Developer Marsh Lefler while attending a workshop at the University of Washington Bothell’s IOTA Game Program entitled “Pioneers in Interactive Media.” A star studded group of developers was there. Take a look at this list:

Moderator

• Alex St. John: Creator of Microsoft’s DirectX media platform, founder of WildTangent and President & CTO of Hi5.com

Speakers:

• Marsh Lefler: Founder of Runic Studios, Created dozens of hit downloadable games including Fate and Torchlight (Jerich’s Note: This is actually Travis’ bio because Marsh filled in for him)
• Ed Fries: Created Microsoft Game Studios, Launched the Microsoft Xbox, Halo, Age of Empires, and many others
• Matt Wilson: Led creation of Microsoft’s Gaming Zone, MMOG efforts including Asheron’s Call 1&2 and Sony’s Agency MMOG, Founder of Detonator Games
• Steve Theodore: Technical Art Director for Bungee on Halo 3, Valve Half-life, Team Fortress and Counterstrike
• Patrick Wyatt: Created Arena-Net, VP of R&D for Blizzard Entertainment leading development of WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo

The discussion was geared to the University of Washington game students in the “Center for Serious Play.” and was primarily a focused on presenting students with the knowledge of what it takes to be a game developer. I will go over the conference in more detail later, but first I wanted to discuss the juicy bits of information I was able to wrangle from Marsh. Here they are:

Continue Reading…

Over at Video Game Evolution, in their Gamers Only Older Podcast forum, a thread has gone up today asking for questions to ask some of the Runic Games Devs. I’m betting that most of you are tired of reading the same questions and answers over and over again, so why don’t you pop over to the forum post and give them some inspiration? Here’s the post for those of you interested:

Yup, that’s right, we’re pulling Runic Games in to talk to. We don’t have a 100% confirmation on who will be attending, but as of right now it’s set up with Max Schaefer (CEO) and Travis Baldree (President & Project Lead). It should be a fantastic time as we discuss the introduction of Runic Games, the development of Torchlight, the retail release, and what we’re looking to see out of the MMO down the road. So as always, we’re looking for questions that you want answered. So please join us by sending us some via email or voice mail at the standard channels:

Email: podcast@gamersonlyolder.com
Skype: gamersonlyolder
Voice: 414.455.5446

……or (obviously) as part of this thread.

It may comfort some of you to know that we at RGF recently sent in a bunch of very carefully chosen questions for the devs, and the first response was “Let’s wait until January after we actually decide everything!” Can’t ask what they don’t know themselves, right? ^_^;

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I’m a bit late on getting this posted, but late is sometimes better than never when it comes to interesting news. Adrenaline Vault recently released a podcast that features an interview with Max Schaefer, and it is a very interesting listen for anyone who is interested in getting into the game business, or if you want to know the true story of why Max and the others ended up leaving Blizzard. It’s a very entertaining story. Did you know that at Max’s first job they couldn’t pay anyone so he ended up taking home all the computers? Don’t take my word for it, go listen!

A small apology to Mark at AVault for taking so long to get this posted. I had listened to the podcast, but for some reason never got your e-mail! Better late than never, right?

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