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Can we legally make a game to replace our need for a better Torchlight 2?
Posted by steffire3 on 28 Feb, 2018 16:05 -
Quote from: steffire3Quote from: DxDark;1694914735993229554
And now they're dead.
Wonder how long until someone remakes TL2 in Unreal/Unity Engine and includes mouse controls from this decade...
Thanks so much for giving this community such a wonderful idea!
To protect the project from the Legal monster it would be nice if this was done as a Fan inspired tribute where all the names and lore are changed yet clearly based off similar numbers and pace of Torchlight 2.
Or even better just go Patreon, Donation, Open Source, Community Driven and make a "new" world that again is clearly made to improve what this game could not and still legally respect what is now Arc Games Property without stepping on their toes.
That way more stuff would be possible (like all the content that didn't make it into the official game) looking at the mod "Unearthed Arcana".
Also to include items that do extend the game's combat options like the mods of "Sniper Rifles" and the Light Swords, Flamethrowers, True Rifles, Machine Guns of "Ruination" and the Throwing Axes and Elemental Shields from "LAO III" even finally making a functional "Improved Arrows" for Bows and Crossbows (let's also include that idea of allowing small Crossbow meshes as One Handed Pistols).
Let's also remember what the now abandoned "Synergies" and "Adventure Pack 2" were trying to accomplish and also Corley's new "TL2-E" mod which adds a farmable Act 5 which includes many vanilla dungeons rarely accessible in the vanilla game and improves the Vitality Stat.
Then implementing the "Warbounds" to create a fully dynamic npc squad of battle helpers probably nerfing their damage by 90% to keep things balanced and dependent on the Player.
Include more Class ideas from "Parallel", "Variant" and "Darkthan's Packs 1 and 2".
Let's also remember "FEP+" and extend the items to include asian themed options.
And the mods that have attempted to extend and fix Gems, Items and Item Skills like "LAO 2.0 Chaos" and probably nerf the weapon damage by 50% to keep things balanced.
Extending the Craft System like "Torchfun" and the Fish System like "Better Vanilla Game Simple".
Finally that unreleased "Naruto" mod has some very original methods of activating Skill attacks which is something worth considering.
Extending the Hair and Face options beyond "Rainbow Redux", "Themed Faces", "Extended Options" and "Non playable Faces".
Also including UI fixes (look at all of Doudley's mods) and adding more hues and images on items and battle animations for easier ID.
It's also worth considering adding Minion all stats increase into Dexterity to finally support dedicated Summon builds which would actually make Dexterity more valuable past 500 points especially in a mod like "LAO III".
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And to see all this in an Engine that amps the visual graphics would be appreciated.
And now we can finally get Shared Screen Multiplayer, Fix the Internet Multiplayer Connection Issues, Removing the issue of separating Multiplayer in New Game Plus, Actually have First Person Cameras (Adjust Battle animations and Attack Controls to help this), get some Real Feeling Weather, Fog of War Options (fight by lamps to avoid the true dark), Implement a true survival wave mini game better than the mod of "Corpselight", extend the dungeons to the unseen side, enable the ability to climb and fight from cliffs, support true Mouse, Pointer, Keyboard, Console, Touch Controls, and much more.Quote from: Corley@steffire3 interesting idea and thread - looks like you have taken the best of TL2 and summed it up nicely, if something comes of this or a team starts up I would be first to offer my services in developing. I will wait to see what others say first
Quote from: steffire3Ah yes. I know the feeling!
I wish to keep my distance from the actual script / programming of Open Source Game Replacements of the community's Torchlight needs however I am one of few members here who repeatedly writes of the ideas from past mods on the Steam Workshop and informs anyone of the future what needs to be added into the new base game because these features are too awesome to leave out.
And finally the limit of 10 mods or non functional mod packs will be no more! ^_^
A truly Open Source development will enable the Community itself to become the mods and developers that the base game needs.
And finally a modded version of an old prediction by my fellow modder Doudley has an opportunity to come true:
"The Player is the Mod Class and the Mod Class is the Player."
That cryptic statement makes more sense if this article is read:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/200710/discussions/0/133255603285071449/
I've watched the Open Source Engines of Godot, Krita, and Open Office get stronger over the years under an Open Source Donation environment because of needs.
And ultimately I keep seeing players returning to Torchlight only to correctly complain of it's features lacking without mods and most mods which are so troublesome to connect especially when made by authors using different methods.
So far only few modders have made mods that reduce compatible issues like "Doudley", "Viz", "Corley", "Torch Modders" and potentially "Haxley" as he works hard to fix "Naruto" for release.
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Thanks for acknowledging this article! "@ Corley" ^_^
I decided to release this idea for future potential in case the multiple communities of Torchlight wish to venture into something greater.
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My day job is software engineer, and I've poked around with unity and I've converted torchlight assets to work in unity in a VR project.
I'm looking at that list, and thinking about the requirements, and resources needed. That is massive.
Also, different people are going to want different things from it. Balancing that will not be fun.
Keeping the art style consistent will be entertaining too.
Even if you can get programmers and 3d modelers, and animators, sound and music people to make assets or customize other assets from the unity store. You would need someone acting in a product manager capacity. Like what Phanjam did with T1CP mod. This will be a huge time suck for whoever does it.
Doing a unity open source project would be tricky if you are using anything from the unity asset store.
If I was going to make an arpg, I'd probably start off with something like this to get going.
and start with a small team. Maybe 5 people. Keep the source private to the team, but the exe freely available and extendable via mods.
It has been my experience that the programming side of games is actually very small compared to the art side for a game like torchlight.
You will need to make sure that the game is architected for mods and multiplayer from the get go.
Someone will need to be in charge of code quality and make sure peer reviews get done.
I'm not saying it can't be done, I just want you to have an idea of what it is going to take.
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@Vkoslak Thank you for listing the requirements and this info is very helpful especially for those who are less experienced in the logistics of getting this done.
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make new game inspired by Torchlight , I think it's very legal
but if you take the name without ask for permission then it's gonna be copyright problem
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make new game inspired by Torchlight , I think it's very legal
but if you take the name without ask for permission then it's gonna be copyright problem
We have to change all the lore and names too yet we can still have our "Destroyer" just named something cooler like "Destroydon".
We also need to choose a new name for the next community driven title like "Porch Light", "Scorch Lite" or "Torque Fighter"!
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i prefer new one, new story, new classes (with very common class name)
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i prefer new one, new story, new classes (with very common class name)
Agreed!
That way we can focus on fixing the flaws that mods couldn't touch.
It will also help players to better immerse into the project. -
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I was just poking around in the Unity asset store and ran across this:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/systems/ummorpg-51212
All the workings for a basic mmorpg.
It's not free, but if you can round up a couple of people to make torchlight style art, it looks like it does a lot of the heavy lifting gameplay wise.
I read the details and Oh my! That IS impressive!
Thank you so much for finding and posting this @Vkoslak !
I suspect we keep the art simple enough since TL2 did have an easier family friendly cartoon almost cel shade style and we can always ask whoever takes up this responsibility to focus on keeping it beautifully basic and ensure the assets fit together nicely! -
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but if you can round up a couple of people to make torchlight style art, it looks like it does a lot of the heavy lifting gameplay wise.
How does one go about rounding up potential capable recruits for a project like this? How do we make it worth their time and work? How do we make this known to the communities of Torchlight?
I'm new to this stuff since I've only ever seen development on the personal side rather than a team of collaborators (yes we collaborate on mods however this requires something more).
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Ideally you would round them up from the torchlight modding community, but given the small number of people modding the torchlight series, that may be an issue.
There are a limited number of people that have learned how to properly make 3d models that work well as wardrobe mods.
These people are often busy with their own mods, or real life.
More people know how to make textures, so you could have some people do some re-skins.
I think you could save some animation work by using the mecanim system in unity. As long as your humanoids follow the recommended skeleton rig, it supposedly can re-target animations. I have not tried it yet. -
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Ideally you would round them up from the torchlight modding community, but given the small number of people modding the torchlight series, that may be an issue.
There are a limited number of people that have learned how to properly make 3d models that work well as wardrobe mods.
These people are often busy with their own mods, or real life.
More people know how to make textures, so you could have some people do some re-skins.
I think you could save some animation work by using the mecanim system in unity. As long as your humanoids follow the recommended skeleton rig, it supposedly can re-target animations. I have not tried it yet.
Agreed.
One thing I've learned in my time helping some of the Steam Modders was advising them to start with simple place holder art.
I remember one time someone made a Sniper Rifle mod and never finished it however his plan was to model some unique meshes for some 100+ Rifles.
He was creatively immobilized by the amount of work until I told him to just start with 4 very different looking Rifle meshes and assign them according to which Rifle Image resembled one of those four choices.
I feel something similar may be ideal in this situation.
Let us the Torch Modders agree to some kind of Basic Standard Few Armor Sets (someone who knows how to paint their vertices of the armor to the model's bones properly for the animations) and base the entire game around those few pieces as loot drops and vendor items (this should reduce large amounts of work for the early phase and make the art work less daunting) and allow people to have the grey texture files and just have them submit some different looking patterns to diversify the loot in game.
The Torchlight textures aren't complex and this new game doesn't have to be either. With some Open Source Art Engines and Third Party Filter Plug In's and with a basic Fence Tool- even a person with little gift for art can suddenly turn any basic diamond shape fabric texture into a swirl of Filter Effects.
I think it's important that we start considering what kind of Affixes we want this game to have. Should the Classes be based around certain Affixes (i. e. Health, Mana, Charge, Damage, Melee, Range, Chemistry, Minions, and so on).
We can save ourselves some time by deciding what won't be in this game's early phase which will help the art take shape.
Does Unity or it's UMmoRpg Template have some RPG standard animations like 4 and 2 Leg Beasts, Birds, Fish, Bugs, Deformation Orbs, Humanoid Creatures that can help with this early phase to establish some animation default enemies?
I realize you hint at this in the previous statement so this is merely poking at the details. -
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So SunflowerTwix decided to entertain the idea of attempting to consider starting the process of what it would take to begin a new game in honor of this community (not Torchlight yet clearly a familiar theme thereby respecting legalities and being free to pursue a new direction hopefully answering many issues raised by the community like bugs and missed opportunities).
Here's the Discord:
Now the reason I'm posting here is to simply ask: If we wanted to honor the cartoon proportions inspired by a certain game then how big should the heads, feet and hands be? I learned a few years ago that this greatly affects character interactions and weapon sizes.
Again we refuse to use any assets from a certain famous game this community is known for as a result knowing the Torch Modders experience handling character meshes they must have encountered the dimensions for head and hand sizes.
So basically is there any advice you can give us? Especially when we explain these proportions and thematic elements to our team of not just the art style yet also the height and width which will affect the game design and will certainly affect our placement of hit boxes.
Thanks for your time!
Extra Note:
I find that some people think Visual Art and Game Design are two separate fields yet for me they are intimately connected because if something looks to be a certain size and shape then players will expect hit boxes to match those dimensions. -
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I was not a fan of the extra large hands in TL2.
It's like everyone did Popeye's workout routine.
The art styles were different between TL1 and TL2. You don't have to match it, just be in the same spirit. The mobile versions style was a little different as well. -
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That's good to know. I remember someone made a custom Great Sword mod on Steam and made the sword handle too short and the big hands completely swallowed up the entire hilt. It had to be edited to fit properly.
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assetstore.unity.com