Loading... Torchlight by Candlelight

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Posted Fri, Sep 03, 2010 by B. de la Durantaye

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Welcome to the 1,411th edition of Loading...

Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and Reuben "Sardu" Waters raid PAX today, but not before spending some time with Runic Games last night. Dinner was good, company was great, and being able to talk Torchlight and Torchlight II was epic. Read about some of Runic's plans for Torchlight II and Ten Ton Hammer's plans for the rest of the weekend today in Loading... Torchlight by Candlelight.

The Pulse You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?). Today's top 5 Pulse results: World of Warcraft Everquest 2 EVE Online Dungeons and Dragons Online Age of Conan Biggest movers today: Rift: Planes of Telara - UP 18 to #11 Guild Wars 2 - Down 5 to #14 The Secret World - UP 3 to #16	Recent Releases 6/29 - APB (release) 7/27 - Need for Speed World (release) 7/27 - StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (release) 8/17 - City of Heroes: Going Rogue (release) 8/18 - EverQuest II Extended (release)
	Upcoming Releases September 7, 2010 - Aion: Assault on Balaurea (free expansion) September 30, 2010 - Final Fantasy XIV (release) October 26, 2010 - LEGO Universe (release) November 2, 2010 - DC Universe Online (release)
	Upcoming Events 9/3 - 9/5 - PAX Prime 9/3 - 9/6 - DragonCon 10/8 - 10/10 - New York Comic Con 10/22 - 10/23 - BlizzCon 3/24 - 3/26 (2011) - CCP FanFest
Exclusive Warhammer Online Giveaway We have eight codes for Warhammer Online. These codes will give you a Bottomless Bowl of Custard to chuck at people, a Skaven Skin Cloak and a Razored Skinning Iron trophy. Want one of these codes? Simply send an email to ben@tentonhammer.com with the subject line "WAAAGH". Eight winners will be picked randomly this weekend and contacted through email with their code.

Loading... the Daily Column your parents always warned you about

PAX Prime begins today, and Reuben and I - a.k.a. Team Hammer - are pretty much booked solid from 10AM to 9PM+. Bastard that I am, I didn't even build in time in the meeting schedule for meals. I'd say prisoners have it better, but prisoners don't get to see over a dozen awesome games in rapid succession then tell you all about what we see. PAX Prime promises to be packed, for sure.

While we were waiting for today's festivities to commence, we met up with Producer Travis Baldree and a few of the freespirited folks of Runic Games last night for dinner. The chemistry of the team is remarkable, in that in an age of rapid turnover and travelling acts that would make a Bedouin footsore, many of them stuck together through the disastrous fall of Flagship Studios and have since made a name for themselves at Runic.

Runic, from a business perspective, seems to be doing all the right things - producing Torchlight and soon Torchlight II to fund the development of the Torchlight MMORPG with cash money, rather than relying on a monolithic publisher or a group of investors that may or may not understand the unique demands of creating a quality MMORPG. Not only that, but Torchlight II will give them a real life laboratory to test out their theories about multiplayer combat before going setting things in relative stone with the MMO.

Before dinner, we got a chance to check out one of Torchlight II's newest classes, the Railman. Part John Henry, part an monocle-sporting robber baron, the railman swings a giant hammer with turn-of-the-century relish. One of Runic's strengths is breathing awesomeness into tired old class archetypes, and while the Railman clearly belongs in the fracas as a pure melee or perhaps DPS tankish role, it didn't feel Barbarian-esque or like an action RPG class I'd played before. That playsession was just a taste, though, we'll have a full writeup following our appointment with Runic on Saturday.

During dinner, many topics arose, from Torchlight and Torchlight II to Mythos to Flagship's fall. The last topic seemed especially poignant given the dismal news and opinion coming out of Realtime Worlds, Acclaim, and CME / Dark Comet this week. The ex-Flagship devs told gallows humor-imbued stories of firing day - of signing each other's layoff letter like a yearbook ("See you next year, XOXO!"), taking turns calling each other into offices to say "You're fired!"(since apparently no one from Flagship's San Francisco office was left to do so), taking laptops in lieu of severance pay or last paychecks, and explaining to a furious landlord that the same people who write his checks weren't returning their calls either.

Those sour stories had a happy ending, though - many of the Flagship exiles found a home with Runic, and two years later their development house is one of the most successful young companies we talk with. Let's hope all the good folks at Realtime Worlds land on their feet as well.

But onward and upward, and this weekend we're focused on Guild Wars 2, Rift, End of Nations, DDO, LotRO, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, FFXIV, LEGO Universe, and many more games that will help define the future of MMO gaming. We'll stick with the yearbook theme since it's back to school time: what's your PAX Prime pick for fall 2010 most likely to succeed? 2011 pick? Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum, stay tuned for all of our coverage from PAX Prime 2010, and have a great weekend!

Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day

From our WoW General Discussion Forum

Symbolic e-girl search

Between the title and the OP's username I simply couldn't resist this WoW thread. I can't quite wrap my head around it. Is it a joke? Well, then it's a creepy one. Is it real? Then it's creepier still. All I know is that Symbolic (I can only assume that's a guild) is looking for "easy going and fun girls to chat and stikam" with. (Yeah, I had to look up just exactly what a Stikam was, so if you're Googling it right now come join me among the pop-culture challenged.) If you want to chill with these guys, know that you're gonna be "geared out through Heroic ICC and Ruby Sanctum runs." And know that they're judging applicants "largely...based on appearance." All interested virtual gold diggers who want to Stikam with these fine, um...chaps should apply through (wait for it...) Justinbiëber. (Justin Bieber? Really?)

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Awesome Quotes from the Epic Thread

"...it's quite creepy.!"

- stefman123
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