Diablo Meets Tower Defense in The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot

Judging from Diablo III's sales numbers, pointing, clicking, and looting are all clearly activities that gamers enjoy. For the just-announced hack-and-slasher A Mighty Quest for Epic Loot, the developers at Ubisoft Montreal -- normally folks who spend their time crafting eight-figure-budgeted blockbusters that set you back $60 apiece -- have a rather simple question for you:

Would you like to point, click, and loot for free?

Such is the unique offer that Mighty Quest makes, though it's far more than a simple free-to-play Diablo clone. It's actually a two-sided affair of attacking and building. The former you're already quite familiar with from years spent playing Blizzard's devilishly successful franchise and its countless imitators. It even lifts Diablo III's interface almost exactly, with a health bar, mana bar, and four skill/attack slots. So it's the latter that sets Quest apart. On defense, you'll create your own dungeons using a handy level-creation tool, easily dragging, dropping, rotating, and populating challenging scenarios that other players will be faced with navigating and completing when they go into Attack mode. It's true that the team at Ubi Montreal will provide a batch of pre-baked scenarios for all to both traverse and study using either of the two included character classes (Knight and Archer), but the bulk of Quest's content generation will come from gamers themselves.

As in any good tower defense game, you won't simply be able to pile everything and the kitchen sink into your dungeon in Defend mode. You'll be on a budget, which both maintains competitive balance by keeping you from loading a room with every boss in the game simultaneously and prevents you from soaking up every drop of RAM from the PCs of your map's visitors. But you can add a healthy selection of monsters and trap-laden structures. Some of them are even themed, like a forge that featured flame-spewing ovens, which led to a final room guarded by a fire-breathing dragon named Mr. Firesly.

Interestingly, your character level and castle levels are separated. The idea is that you're meant to have to play the Defend mode in order to advance in it and unlock new and better fortifications and not simply rely on your offensive skills in order to hack-and-slash your way to an über-castle. And the longer players spend in your sanctuary of sadism, the more you'll be rewarded. In other words, the tougher you're able to make it on your fellow gamers, the better you'll be compensated. And you're asked to rate each castle you complete on a five-star scale, pushing the better designs to the top of the community's virtual bulletin board and earning gold for skilled builders. Better still, you're able to easily create bets with your friends. Challenge them, for instance, to get through the castle you just completed in under a certain amount of time, and bet the gold amount of your choice on it. To even the odds, you'll be able to set the character level for the both of you, so if you're level 20 but your pal is only 12, you can set it to 20 and give your buddy a taste of what's in store for him when he spends a bit more time with the game.

Fittingly, you'll see that, as the title indicates, A Mighty Quest for Epic Loot doesn't take itself too seriously. It's an intentionally tongue-in-cheek take on genre tropes, even if the core gameplay is plenty serious. Beta keys are starting to go out now, so you'll soon have the chance to judge for yourself if Mighty Quest is a laughing matter or not.

Ryan McCaffrey is the Executive Editor at IGN Xbox. He used to own a DeLorean, which is weird. Follow him on Twitter, on IGN, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

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Torchlight 2 launch trailer released

The developer behind Torchlight and its sequel, Runic Games, has just released the official launch trailer for Torchlight 2, the highly anticipated hack-n-slash Diablo-alike.

It's a bit early for a "launch" trailer as Torchlight 2 is currently on track for a September 20 release, but maybe Runic Games just wanted to get in on all the PAX Prime festivities.

The anticipation for Torchlight 2 has risen substantially since the release of Diablo 3, which some hardcore fans saw as disappointing. Over the past few years, speculation had always been that Torchlight was some sort of steward to the throne of Diablo, but now it seems likely that Torchlight 2 could gain popularity to rival its Blizzard rival.

Source : gamesradar[dot]com

Diablo 3 Paragon system will be implemented today

Though it was only announced mere hours ago, Blizzard has revealed that Diablo 3's new Paragon system will officially be going live in the game later today. 

For those of you who missed the announcement yesterday, the Paragon system adds 100 extra levels of achievement onto the current 60 standard levels. They function a bit differently from current levels though. There will be no additional gear or content for Paragon levels, but characters will get stat boosts each time they level up.

Blizzard said the change became necessary because many players complained that due to the randomness of loot drops, they could actually end up losing money after spending time in the game at level 60. If a player received no significant drops it often meant they'd just be stuck with a hefty repair bill and nothing to show for it. The Paragon system at least guarantees that a player will be making progress toward the next level of Paragon.

Battle.net is currently down for scheduled maintenance, and it is expected that the update will go live once the service resumes at approximately 1pm PST. 

Source : gamesradar[dot]com

Diablo III Patch 1.0.4 -- An Interview With Blizzard

IGN recently had a chance to speak with Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson and Senior Game Designer Andrew Chambers about Diablo III the new 1.0.4 patch. On top of adding a host of changes to all the classes, this patch touches on every major system of the game, as well as adds a whole new game component called the Paragon System. The goal for 1.0.4 is simple: give players a reason to keep playing...and to come back if they've stopped. Doing that is harder, though, because Wilson, Chambers and the entire team have to struggle to design and update a game that needs to appeal to a vocal hardcore minority, as well as millions of other players who will likely never read patch notes or reach max level.

Why does Diablo III need major tweaks, though? Why couldn't they see the need for these changes prior to release? To Wilson and Chambers, it's just part of making a game. "People play the real game at a different level than they play the beta," said Wilson. Before release there was no auction house, so the team tuned the game as best they could without it. "The game we released? We love," added Chambers, "But the thing is we're our own best critic -- harshest critic, even." With over 10,000 people playing the game, they feel it's inevitable that issues would be exposed. "That always happens," said Wilson, "That happens with every game we've ever made. Even with games like WoW, where they do a more extensive beta test...they still have all kinds of things that slip through the cracks and get found out after."

Many things about Diablo III's design have become contentious since design, but Legendary items have been a particularly sore subject. Thus the team is attempting to change them in a way that appeases fans with 1.0.4, adding considerable buffs to stats and new effects that make them feel ultra-powerful. Still, to Wilson and the team they felt pretty good when they first tested them internally. "When we would get Legendaries, Legendaries felt special. Because we didn't have the quality level of items that quickly kind of propagated in the live environment, said Wilson. But the need for change also wasn't unexpected according to Wilson, "We had an expectation that we would probably go out the gate and learn some things about the game and need to adjust. We just kind of planned for that."

The other major issue for fans has been finding reasons to keep playing after level 60. For some the farming and loot grind is enough, and Blizzard has already changed Magic find and item drops and is continuing to do so. For the rest of the audience, though, Blizzard is adding the Paragon System, an additional 100 levels that give small stat boosts and give you increased Magic and Gold Find after you hit the level cap.

Difficulty is something players often bring up as well, and it's a particularly tricky part of the design to work on. Said Wilson:

The basic issue I think we have with difficulty is that  we've got some players want a super difficult game and some players who don't view Diablo like that. They think Diablo is much more of a farming game and...about the player feeling awesome. And the problem is they're both right. One of the biggest problems of the game right now is we don't address the issues separately for both groups...We've touched difficulty,and we've really pushed it more towards it's going to be a bit easier because we've gotten way more feedback that the game's too hard than we've gotten that it's fine.

Wilson was quick to clarify that the issue of difficulty wasn't off the table, just not something they're touching in 1.0.4. "That being said, moving forward that's one of the things we're going to be looking at next...How can we address it for both players?"

Ultimately, the goal is to make sure players enjoy themselves. "Everybody should be able to have fun," said Wilson. But how do you design a game to be fun for everyone? For Wilson and the team it involves listening to everyone and gathering as much information as possible, not just listening to the loudest voices. "It's important that you listen to your forum community, but it's also important that you recognize they're not the entire audience...You've gotta play the game, you've gotta talk to each other about it, you've got to gather as much anecdotal evidence as you can." Only after a lot of listening and talking then do Wilson and the team, "make decisions about what's right for the game."

Anthony Gallegos is an Editor on IGN's PC team. He enjoys scaring the crap out of himself with horror games and then releasing some steam in shooters like Blacklight and Tribes. You can follow him on Twitter and on IGN.

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Diablo 3 to get big end-game boost with Paragon system

Blizzard has been taking quite a beating over Diablo 3's end-game (or lack thereof.) For months now, fans have been complaining that the title's end-game essentially boils down to a never-ending loot grind with no actual purpose.

Today Blizzard has unveiled their new "Paragon" system which will add 100 levels of achievement onto the end of Diablo 3. It will become available after players hit level 60 with one of their characters, and will function similarly to normal level upgrades. While there will be no new gear or skills for the Paragon levels, players will get stat bonuses each time they level up.

Crucially, each level of Paragon will give players +3% gold and magic finding, cutting out some of the randomness of the drop system. More experienced players will now be far more likely to find high-value drops.

Blizzard said on their official blog that the change was made because some players would run into situations where they played for hours but found no gear. Which essentially added up to a net loss for the player because of the repair fees for their gear. 

Source : gamesradar[dot]com

Diablo III Adding 'Paragon System'

Class changes and buffs to Legendary items aren't the only changes coming in the 1.0.4 patch for Diablo III. Today Blizzard detailed a new Paragon System on the game's official blog, something it hopes will go along way towards alleviating the issues people have with Magic Find (and more specifically gear-swapping) and giving level 60 players something to earn.

The solution is a set of sweeping changes collectively referred to as the Paragon System. Once it's implemented all experience earned after level 60 will be put toward 100 Paragon levels. Per today's post, each level gives you:

• Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level
•  3% Magic Find and 3% Gold Find

Visually, earning Paragon levels will result in "a distinctive increasingly-impressive border" around your character portrait "[denoting] your Paragon progression."

Game Director Jay Wilson, author of today's post, says "We know that a lot of you out there are level 60 -- maybe on multiple characters -- and this system provides a way to make progress every time you log in to the game."

On top of other bonuses, Blizzard will also be making the Nephalem Valor bonus give a 15% experience bonus per stack, help you earn Paragon levels. As for how much longer you can expect these levels to take, Wilson writes, "The first Paragon level should take about as long as it took most players to get from level 59 to 60, and the experience requirement will rise from there. The time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II."

One of the other major goals for the Paragon System is to eventually "transition away" from having Magic Find on items. Eventually Wilson wants to "slowly and gently move Magic Find off of items in the future," but without doing, "so in a way that doesn't flip the entire game end-over end." Magic Find and Gold Find will now be capped to 300% before Nephalem Valor in 1.0.4, which means, "you'll hit the cap when you reach Paragon level 100." Thus as you level in Paragon levels you can start to remove Magic Find items, eventually weeding them out completely.

To see Wilson's words for yourselves, check out his post on the official Diablo III blog.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com

Monster Slaying in Van Helsing

Neocore’s The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is an action-RPG that lets you use magic, swords and guns in a Diablo-style action role-playing game. The mechanics in this game should be familiar to genre fans, where the action is presented from an overhead view and you run around maps wiping out packs of enemies then scoop up the loot they drop.

Making kills earns you experience to level up and accumulate points. Some of these points can be used to boost Van Helsing’s primary attributes, and others go into a skill tree that’s split into three main branches: swords, guns and magic.

In addition to using points to power up individual skills, you’re able to learn individual modifiers that can be activated during a fight. Van Helsing builds a resource while he battles that can be used to trigger these multipliers, which then come into play the next time the skill they’re attached to is used. For example, Van Helsing can burn enemies with a fire carpet spell that spreads flame across the ground. If you have enough of the modifier resource available, you can activate a booster that dramatically expands the fire’s area of effect the next time it is cast.

Three modifiers can be activated at a time, adding a little bit more depth to the system as you consider whether you should activate three different multipliers or instead stack the same one three times to greatly enhance its effects. If Neocore adds a lot of useful variety with the modifiers, this could lead to some more interesting battles.

The item system allows for more customization, offering options to combine and break down certain items so you can enhance whatever statistics happen to support your build. In case even after all your skill and item tinkering you’re not powerful enough to cut past enemies, others can join your game, as there’s support for four-player cooperative play.

Whether or not The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing really catches on when its ready depends a lot of factors that aren’t really possible to assess in a short play session, but the basics certainly seem to be there. Enemy types also seem to have varied characteristics, as some will explode into poison clouds when killed and some are resistant to incoming damage from the front, forcing you to move around, stay active, and switch around weapon types. Neocore’s action-RPG is scheduled to be released sometime in the fourth quarter of 2012 for PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

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