TQ: Immortal Throne - Designer Diary #3 @ GameSpot

Dhruin

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Iron Lore Big Kahuna Brian Sullivan has penned the third Immortal Throne dev diary for GameSpot, writing about the Underworld:
The expansion begins in front of a temple to Apollo above the city of Rhodes, where Zeus has chosen to return you to the earth. You don't take more than a few steps when a ghostlike figure appears to you out of thin air. It is the shade of Tiresias, greatest of all seers. He tells you that terrible things are going on below, in the realm of Hades, the land of the dead. So you set off on a journey to find an entrance to the underworld. And when you finally get there, you discover there are a lot of things that aren't right, not to mention a massive army poised to invade the surface world!
More information.
 
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Sounds like they've worked this up pretty well. There definitely needed to be more sidequests to alleviate some of the brain-numbing mob agro, new mastery sounds interesting, and the Hades location provides some different perspective. Looking forward to taking my Guardian through hell.:)
 
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well you'll have to wait 'til hellgate london for that;) i'm sure you know the difference but considering i am fond of mythology and paganism i thought i would bring up for others that the underworld/hades is not really hell.

off topic if anyone likes mythology and cyberpunk they should pick up pollen by jeff noon. its one of my all time favourite novels by my favourite author who although has only written 6 novels and a marvelous short story book he is amazing. his first novel won a couple of awardsand the first four books all have small ties into each other. the 3rd book he wrote though its takes place first is actually an imaginary trequel to 'through the looking glass' called automated alice. pollen the 2nd book written but last in the series takes place in a near future manchester that is being infected by pollen via persephone through the dream world. the main character winds up travelling into the underworld to meet john barleycorn/hades himself. as i recall from mythology hades is the god and the place and it is where all souls end up not just the evil ones.

by the way i noticed titan quest is available pretty cheap for those interested. the demo was one of the worst experiences i've had in years but someday i might give it another go. 18.99 is still too steep for me.

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4112722
 
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Yes, you're right, curious. Hades and hell are not synonymous. Just a figure of speech :)
Sorry the demo sucked for you--it is a very heavy combat hack-n-slash game, lacking in subtlety as far as rpg elements, but I find the skill masteries a lot of fun--and I like to mindlessly kill things. :) I can understand that it might not be a role player's dream.

OT: The novel sounds quite interesting. I'll keep a lookout for it at my favorite used bookstore--they're an internet outlet and sell all books for $1 or less, so I can feed my reading habit fairly cheaply. Picked up a copy of "The Hunger" there today.
 
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well i loaded up the demo today. hadn't played it since it came out last april. its better than i remember. the main thing that ruined it for me was the graphics were all corupted/flickering the first time i played it. wierd thing is i haven't added any hardware to my pc since then. it played fine today for an hour right before i had to leave then blue screen of death. i don't get those from very many games so maybe its just not meant to be that i play it. the setting is nice and the combat is fun...but there is far too much inventory managment for my liking...respawning enemies. it is well done though in a lot of ways.

i would like to see a hack and slash that had dropped essences that didn't go in a traditional inventory. you could then use these essences to boost certain skills. like collecting so much fire essence from fire based based enemies could be added to a flaming arrow skill, or a fireball skill, or even a flame sword. this way whatever type of enemy you killed most you would be gaining its power kind of. then only bosses would drop rare items, or chests, and of course merchants. non fantasy types of games can bypass this problem as they can have enemies drop ammo which stacks and doesn't require rediculous amounts of inventory space.
 
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The game is quite stable for me, but it lags a bit on the high settings. Never had a CTD. The respawn rate isn't as bad as Sacred, but I think they overdid it with the mobs as well. Like D2, it makes a huge difference to have a good character build, where the skill masteries are synergistic. I don't care much for their take on spellcasters--it's all about having an uber summoned creature to soak up the aggro while you spin out a few energy attacks from your staff, which incidently any character with the right stats can use and mimic the mage effect. Your essence idea would be quite cool--if they spread the enemy types out where you didn't run into all the fire critters in the first act, and they would increment on up as you played through.

My favorite part of the game is later on when you get to China. It is visually spectacular fighting little winged dragonlets on the Great Wall overhanging cloudy mountainous chasms. This is probably not a game that would work with so-so graphics.

It's far from perfect, but it is a well done Diablo clone with some thought in the set-up. The expansion will hopefully smoothe things out a bit, though I doubt they'll be slenderizing the phat lewt. ;)
 
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The game is quite stable for me, but it lags a bit on the high settings. Never had a CTD.

Did you play from Day of Release, or wait for patches? Personally I did have a ton of issues, but I was playing the initial release ... from my review:
The major problem in this gorgeous epic is stability. The game crashed more than any other in recent memory and complained about the DVD not being present when it was clearly identified by Windows. While some have had no problems, many others on the official forums have complained about similar issues. A new patch supposedly ameliorates these concerns, but remains the sole caveat in recommending this game. The game is long, challenging, and worth replaying alone and with others, if you can keep it running.
 
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I've only played with the patch. I installed the game and patched it before I began play--also patched it again later I think--I seldom buy a game before the first patch anymore--been burned too many times with games that are rushed out the door, as so many seem to be. I also try to control myself and don't pre-order games for the same reason. :)

That said, I've had no technical issues at all in many hours of play, so apparently they've taken care of the issues, at least on my system.
 
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