Guild Wars isn't really about finding items at all. You can easily get the best PVE weapons you want before you even hit the level cap. That, or just make a max level PVP-only character and start with the best.

For item whores, Borderlands does pretty well.

Catti, this is very true. But still, it has that "feeling" about it. Customizing your character and stuff. PVE and PVP.

Borderlands... hmmmm. I'm skeptical of the hype, but maybe I should take another look.

You could try Hellgate: London

And Sacred 2 is kinda okay. kinda!

Torchlight

yep, insanely fun for a while. dies out when you realise you're all alone though..

Oh yes I enjoyed Lodoss war too.

Been playing Dungeon Crawl lately. It's a turn based roguelike so might not be what you want, but it has graphics and mouse control and isn't too painfully random. Otherwise it is a massive game with loads of items and character options.

http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/

Wasn't Lodoss just DA SHIZNIT!!! Good god. Save me from my love affair.

Anyway, I'll check that game out.

torchlight

Thanks,

I've heard about this elsewhere. I'll take a look.

WoW

torchlight is fucking shit.

Why?

its not shit, its similar to diablo. it has fun grafics, there's alot of item hunting going on.

if you play on hard you have an acceptable difficulty.

shame tho that you can't play multiplayer

Torchlight mmo would be sweet! :>

You mean will, Perfect World is on it.

WILL? Sweet :>

2011

Gave the game a good hard look. Looks very good. Better than Sacred 2? I don't know. For $20 bucks, I may have to check it out.

I'm concerned about variety. Sacred 2 has just one huge gigantic world with TONS of variety, whether they be enemy types or new terrain. Torchlight has a bunch of random dungeons right?

An MMO is in the works, but it'll be free to play, about two years from now.

there are basically 2 dungeons, one under the main village, and one through a portal in the main village.

the monsters and texture sets/environment change every few levels.

its proper hack 'n slash.

i've never played sacred2, so cant really say. but this game is pretty fast&fun.

tho i have to admit i was disappointed to find out it had a pause key (and i refuse to use it).

the fighting is fun, there are lots of monsters and you have a pet that annoys you all the time.

im not through yet tho. im a a point atm where i've spent all my money, have barely any health things left and have to get through some dungeon pretty much without getting damage, because i have no money for health potions.

also you're not going to run out of content really fast since some editor was released and people will probably be making stuff pretty fast

sacred 2 has tombstone messages!

I also enjoyed playing it. Pretty much all bugs shuold be patched by now, too. The only negative thing I would mention that you sometimes have to walk quite far distances for quests and the entire levelling up system takes some time to adapt to. For example you should only put one point into certain skills so the cooldown stays low and max others.
apprantly, it's also possible to make a character that is basically invulnerable by level 100 or so.

Playing Sacred 2 or Torchlight?

Walking far distances kind of makes me assume S2.

Sacred, haven't tried torchlight though.

Those games are way too risky for staying up too late and being worthless at work :D

Well hell yeah they are.

So you enjoyed Sacred, did you play the game to completion? Is there really a lot of variety like there seems to be? Different difficulty levels?

Torchlight seems like the "tighter" and better designed game, but Sacred seems to have more mass, even if it was a little rough around the edges.

I played it through once, but for the last third I didn't do any side-quests, becuase i wanted to rush to "gold" difficulty. But didn't play it much more after that.

I got to level 50, or so which isn't much, considering that mastery of a skill can be reached at 75 and it still can e improved afterwards.

As for difficulty levels, you can only play it on bronze or silver for the first completeion and then go up to gold and later platinum for the next ones.
There is also a hardcore mode if you are into that.

The ingame difficulty varies a bit, you get a "survival bonus", which means the longer you go on without dying the higher the enemies levels will be above you. I think my max was me lvl 30, they level 36.
Sometimes the difficulties have much to with what items you, for the proper damage/armor type.
But I guess that is pretty standrad for all hack'n'slash games.

Runescape is horrible.

Mythos was pretty neat, but didn't they shut that down?

I haven't really heard anything good about Torchlight, but then again you seem to want to play solo (the game has no multiplayer what so ever), so it might be for you.

Well, that a game is ABLE to be played solo is the important part. That going on epic raids is not a requirement at any point. That a game CAN be played with other people certainly isn't a detriment.

Was just speaking from my own point of view. Sure Diablo 1 & 2 was great a few times solo, but playing it just with one more person was so much more fun, especially since in 2 you could up the difficulty (if you were playing TCP/IP anyway).

Its just my personal opinion, and if you truly enjoy such games solo it might be for you, but I've also talked with people who think the game has no depth what so ever. I might try it out myself regardless, but I don't count on it being anything I'll play more than a few hours.

Oh yeah...

Mythos is still going strong, if my understanding is correct. It's in Beta.

Well I did play it like 2 years ago or so, and I was actually playing it WHEN it shut down. Glad they picked it up again, even though I'm not a fan of the whole "overworld" thing they were working on when just before they shut down.

From Wikipedia

Starting in 2007, the game had been in an ongoing closed beta testing stage, with an open beta expected in mid-2008.[7] However, on July 19, 2008 it was announced that due to continuing financial hardships at Flagship Studios, Mythos would be going on hiatus, and the beta closed shortly thereafter. The company laid off most of its employees, and the development of Mythos was suspended. Almost immediately after Flagship's closing, the entire Flagship Seattle team responsible for Mythos (consisting of 14 people including lead designer Travis Baldree and executive producer Max Schaefer) formed Runic Games and began development of a new game named Torchlight.[1]

Seeing as it seems to be a completely different crew working on it this time around, I don't have any high hopes.. :/

I think that old mythos crew is now the Torchlight peeps.

Or, to be more accurate, some key/main designers.

Edit.
doh!

I does say taht in his wiki-quote, yes.

I see.

Temple Of Elemental Evil

the monkey island series has many items. you could try the new tales of monkey island. Way more fun than some grind and spam fireball button type game

Check this out too.

It's been a while since I played adventure.

Record of Lodoss War seems to be quite a rare DC game. Keep hold of it, should be worth a bit in a few year's time.

I think it's down to Torchlight or Sacred 2.

Mindless fun. Massive loot!

Now which one?!

Both =P?

Can't be stretched too thin. I hate that.

I'm also banking on the Sacred 2 reviews to be laughably bad. For example the one done by Gamespy.

Torchlight has gotten some great praise, but I think it's just the heard following the heard.

I saw some Sacred 2 reviews that wasn't very promising either, but a lot of games get the shaft these days whether they deserve it or not.

From the sound of it you should probably try Torchlight first.

Be sure to check back and tell us what you thought!

sacred 2 looks way too realistic :D

If you are going to play torchlight just make sure you play at least on hard or up difficulty.

I played on normal which was sadly way too easy. Also playing as the summoning guy is probably more fun as the ranged chick I played the game with.

Having said that the game is very polished, and fun to play. It doesn't offer a lot of re playability once you completed it though.

ya i went hard right away and im at some point atm where i keep dying and have no health potions.

im playing as the warrior guy, i heard something that the alchemist character was way too easy, not sure on what difficulty level tho.

Ultima VIII: PAGAN!

Bought Sacred 2, Torchlight and Guild Wars + Expansions.

Okay, Guild Wars will come later.

Torchlight is exactly what I was looking for, but it will have to wait for the bigger and more involved Sacred 2. Sacred 2 could learn a thing or two from Torchlight.

Torchlight is a smaller and more focused package than the gigantic Sacred 2. I will comment more when I have put more time in. Bottom line: Great game. I'm looking forward to the MMO.

Sacred 2 - awesome game. Totally underrated. I piss in the eye of every n00b that gave this game a bad review. Here's looking at you Gamespy. That clown should be fired:

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/sacred-ii/

Sacred 2's problem: The skill/mastery/aug system might be one of the most confused systems ever devised. With such an alien system (relatively) one should be able to reassign points. That is my only HUGE gripe.

Initially when I start games, I don't want to agonize over skill points. I want to experience the game and get my feet wet. This might be a bad idea with Sacred 2. There is an ironic double-edged sword with clowns like me. I revel in the stats. I revel in the loot. But I don't revel in researching the perfect way to do it. So in that regards, everyone should read the piss out of forums. Get some general knowledge, and then move on to the specific knowledge. Research, then play. In aspects like these, the simple joys and charming world of Torchlight is a welcome departure.

Did you get Eye of the North with Guild Wars? Factions/Nightfall were more like addons, as they didn't offer any additional high level content, just new races/classes with new leveling areas.

The Factions story/area was somewhat lacking, but Nightfall/GWEN were fantastic.

Nope. But thanks for telling me. I guess I have go buy that too. :)

Could you rank them in order of best to worst please.

Factions is the worst as far as story/innovation, and can also be a real bitch if you are only running areas/missions with henchmen/heroes. I had the most fun with Nightfall, but I haven't made it all the way through Eye Of The North yet. From what I've seen, Eye Of The North is at least on par with Nightfall.

I was like that in the beginning, too.

But then I just followed a few basic rules, which I told you in the ims, and chose one direction I wanted to go for. Double sword dps seraphim \o/

I think perfectly optimizing the build is only really important when you want to play on hardcore or maybe platinum (never got there). You get so many points, than one or two wrong ones don't matter that much.

Also, Armor skill is a must, since it unlocks many great bonuses on the armor you can use. If you want you can keep it at level 1 after that.
Likewise, choosing one weapon type also unlocks the bonusses for it.

Additionally, if you want great loot, you should go for the skill that enables it and keep it at max (it's on of the green ones, I think). You find much more stuff that way.

http://www.adom.de/

http://www.nethack.org/

nethack! <3

Dungeon Siege 2 is basically a 3d Diablo clone. Pretty fun game for what it is, even if it is a blatant ripoff. The item system and skill tree is almost exactly the same, except you 'choose' your character class by fighting with certain weapons (melee, ranged, nature magic spells, battle magic spells). You're supposed to run with a few npc's in your party, and that's a bit annoying at times, but it's perfectly fine to go solo (except much harder).

Divine Divinity is Diablo with more emphasis put on the story, quest and npc development, with a comedic twist and much better graphics. Extremely fun game, and pretty damn hard, to boot.

Torchlight is decent, but super generic and gets boring fast. It's like the alpha test of Diablo 3. I really hate the WoW-ish, cartoonish graphics, too.

Borderlands is supposedly (barely played it) tons of fun, but when playing with mates online. The single player experience was not great and i got bored after 4-5 hours of playing.

A nice read about the shortcoming of Torchlight from a dedicated fan. It's called: "Reasons People Quit Playing the Single Player"

In it he details some shortcoming of the game and a way to overcome them for their next game, which will be a free-to-play MMO in the style of Torchlight. He says:

"How to read this review… I have already written positive reviews about Torchlight. This is my more critical review and is mainly designed to illustrate the design decisions that limit the single player longevity. While the multiplayer obviously will be more polished and have community, competition and cooperation as added player motivations, I think several of these designs for single player need to be critically looked at in preparation a transition to MMO."

A noteworthy aside from the writer mentions that he often starts playing Torchlight (keep in mind this is after the game is completed on every difficulty level) but ends up stopping and then moving on to Guild Wars.

http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=...4a42b17558

This advice is applicable to all Hack 'n Slash. That the community seems to be very strong and dedicated (reminds me of CPM) that's a good thing.

The feedback from the developer was impressive, their initial reply:

"Wow that is one hell of a thread so far. Anyways thanks to everybody especially Jerich for this. Lots of things to think about and to be honest a lot of it we feel quite the same way about. All I can say is I have read it and I can pretty much say the entire office will be reading it soon enough( sent it out as an email )."

I don't agree with Jerich on some issues. Particularly having X amount of stats for a weapon. He thinks that once it gets beyond 3 to 5, that's enough. Anything more is ridiculous, because comparing gear becomes a problem.

More stats = more fun!

I've gotten around to installing Torchlight and played some and I have some of those feelings mentioned in the forum thread you posted.

I first played a Vanquisher on Hard to lvl20, while I still wasn't really fed up with the game yet, I felt like it wasn't really evolving, everything was dying pretty easily and my pet felt kinda useless already.

The complaint on skills is what really breaks it for me. The passives , while boring, are a must (I did fine with just the first lvl1 skill and then maxing out 2 passives), but the real complaint is that the skilltrees are really BORING. There just aren't anything exciting to look forward to and it kinda makes you wonder where you should distribute skills to not waste them which is in it self a problem. I could go on about this but I guess its all already in the other thread.

I currently started a Destroyer on Very Hard because I felt like that would be the character with most potential for varied gameplay, as well as the hardest one, but I kinda see myself changing games very soon.

i don't know what the class is called, that i'm playing, i'm guessing its the destroyer(the big muscled melee guy).

im lvl 22 or something currently in some dungeon part with lava pits as background, and enemies are some teleporting ghosts, some charging bulldogs, some small annoying fast dieing things and some really big muscle things that die hard.

i'm playing on the hardest or second hardest setting, can't remember how many there are.

and i gotta say its really hard.
at this stage i have a constant shortage of health and mana drinks, and my pet is REALLY useless and runs away as soon as there's a fight.
also i die alot :D

tho i still gotta say this game is fun. the summon spells are great, and being able to give them to your pet is fun aswell.

tho the fights atm are the same.
go to enemies
5,6,7, 3,4, click click click, spam mana and health key buttongs, 3, 4, click click click, mana and health, and so on

[+] for DIE HARD

Yea, the destroyer is the big guy.

As I said im playing on the hardest ("Very Hard") atm and I've already managed to die twice already. I'm only level 10. Even though I'm starting to get more comfortable now as I'm getting some proper equipment there's still some challenge.

5,6,7, 3,4, click click click, spam mana and health key buttongs, 3, 4, click click click, mana and health, and so on

That sounds a lot better than many other ARPG's and MMO's out there :P

torchlight hooks you up for a couple of days. then it gets boring.