Today’s Penny Arcade comic and news post focus on Torchlight‘s clever innovation in inventory; giving all characters a backpack-wearing wolf or lynx for a pet. The pet fights for you, can be outfitted with equipment and spells, and is a fairly effective tank, but perhaps most useful is its backpack, which is huge; identical in size to your character’s.  Better yet, the pet can journey back to the surface and sell anything you give it, while you continue battling in the dungeons. The selling trip takes some time, longer the deeper you are in the dungeon, and you lose the tanking benefit of the pet while it’s gone, but when it comes to the moral victory of saving a trip to town, this is a great innovation.

Is the Diablo 3 team thinking of anything along these lines? Not yet, at least according to what Jay Wilson told us in our exclusive interview a few weeks ago:

Diii.net: How will we sell items easily in town, since there are no more town portals? How do you pop back quickly and easily without slowing down the gameplay?
Jay Wilson: Waypoints are a little bit more frequent and your bag space is a little bit bigger.

Diii.net: It’s going to be Diablo 2 in style? There won’t be pets you can send back, or NPC merchants out in the wild, or any other odd features?
Jay Wilson: No.

This might yet change, of course, but at this point the D3 team seems not real interested in innovation or newness in their inventory management plans. That by itself isn’t horrible, but consider that they are not going to include Town Portals in the game. Their reasons for removing TPs are sound; they want to add strategy and danger to combat, and make players stick it out in battle, rather than vanishing back to town any time things get sticky. That’s fine, in theory, but it seems like a good way to make item sales and inventory management very inconvenient. More frequent waypoints or not.

No one enjoys coming up with a full inventory and having to stop in the field and sort out the junk. Left clicking items it to a pet that can sell those items though… that’s nice. Nicer than Dungeon Seige’s pack animal assistant. Hellgate: London‘s method of allowing players to instantly break down items into their (much less bulky) raw components (which were used in crafting) was another clever innovation along these lines. One thing to keep in mind: items in D3 sell for tiny amounts of gold, compared to how much you can accumulate by picking up gold. (There were no NPCs to sell items to in the Blizzcon build, but the item hover info included the sales price, so comparisons could be made). That said, I don’t think that making items so cheap that they’re not really worth the trouble of selling is a great solution to this issue.

So what do you guys think? Should D3 stick to the old school, “you will return to town and run to an NPC merchant,” or would you prefer to see some innovation? NPC merchants in the dungeons, right clicking for instant item converting/sales (perhaps for less gold than you’d receive in town), a pet or pack animal or mercenary with extra inventory and the ability to sell it off, etc?

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Richard A. Knaak has a book signing tour throughout various bookstores within Texas to promote his LEGENDS OF DRAGONREALM, and as usual welcomes Warcraft and Diablo fans to come by to say hello and to get their Blizzard novels signed.

I have been pestering Knaak and Jaime Costas (Pocket Books) for ages, and more recently at BlizzCon 2009 and a few weeks ago. The answer remains the same. They won’t spill the beans, confirm nor deny if there are Diablo novels in early discussions. We will have to be patient, but heck I bet everyone shares the sentiment that we need more Diablo novels while we wait for Diablo III to keep our craving to normal levels. Don’t worry, I will continue pestering and torturing them till they shine some hope for us avid readers of the epic-adventures within Sanctuary.

If you live in Texas, check out the following bookstores that might be near you, after the break.

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Another day and another batch of Torchlight news and other features.

We’re conducting a podcast/interview with Runic Games’ Max Schaefer this week, and we’re looking for question suggestions about TL or other issues. Drop them into this forum thread if you’ve got something you want asked.

Taking firm hold of the stupidest article yet written about Torchlight is this piece on MMOSite.com, which asserts that Blizzard is going to have to remake Diablo 3 because of Torchlight.

It is rumored that the release of Torchlight will force Diablo 3 to be remade. Blizzard has stopped announcing any new information about Diablo 3, which is within our expectation. A game with most content of Diablo 3 has been open to the public, certainly, it has a bad influence on the popularity and anticipation of Diablo 3 in any way. Blizzard no longer publishes any news about Diablo 3, it seems that Blizzard has made up its mind to reform the game system thoroughly. This way can also relieve Blizzard’s awkward situation in the face of Torchlight.

Do you still remember that the launch of NOX caused a notable impact on Diablo 2 in 2000? Partly similar elements of NOX made sensitive Blizzard modify Diablo 2 for more than one year. How long will it take to remake Diablo 3 completely when Blizzard confronts the clone Torchlight? Maybe players can only have a chance to experience Diablo 3 after 2014. Suppose you marry now, maybe you can play it with your child when it’s officially published. lol…

That bit about Nox is just insane. I remember the game well, and trust me, despite the best efforts of Westwood (they flew webmasters from all the leading Diablo fansites, including our former writer Gaile, out to a Nox launch event in Las Vegas), Nox sunk almost without a ripple. It launched on January 31, 2000, shortly before the Diablo 2 beta began, and caused no delay of any sort to Diablo 2. Nox had no randomization and therefore very little replayability, and there was no co-op multiplayer upon launch.

As for Torchlight and D3… really? TL was released a week ago, and Blizzard has kept on releasing just as much Diablo info during that time as they have since Blizzcon. (Which is to say, not so much.) It’s true that Blizzard might take some inspiration or feature ideas from Torchlight—Bashiok acknowledged as much in a recent forum post—but it’s irresponsible to invent rumors of this nature just for the fun of it.Especially when they are directly contradicted by things like… facts.

Elsewhere, Wired’s Game Life column gives a big thumbs up to Torchlight’s addictive nature.

The latest iGame Radio podcast features an interview with Max Schaefer, Travis Baldree, and Jason Beck of Runic Games.

Finally, GNews points out one benefit of Blizzard’s multi-year development process. Other games and developers have room to sneak in their own games in the same genres. Torchlight is mentioned, of course, but they also mention that the various Starcraft 2 delays have given aid to other RTS titles such as Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising. Click through to view that game’s not-very-impressive trailer.

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Bashiok replied today to a fan impatient for more info on the fifth character class. I’ve inserted a visual aid to help you envision what I think their original design concepts for the 5th character were.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Well the game was originally announced with the barbarian and Witch Doctor. BlizzCon ‘08 saw the announcement of the wizard (at BlizzCon, not three weeks after), and BlizzCon ‘09 saw the announcement of the monk. The fifth class was something that was decided early on, but after continuing to work on the game and the other classes it just wasn’t up to standards any longer. So it’s back on the drawing board. We only have one class left to reveal, it’s sort of a major card we can still hold close to the vest. While development doesn’t depend on our plans to reveal it, we definitely aren’t going to tell everyone what it is just because we know what it’s going to be.

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With Halloween now done and dusted, now only fond memories, people return to work and spend their entire days in the Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 forums nervously awaiting the Christmas stress spectacle...

Torchlight has had a lot of attention lately, and now also a brand spanking new Torchlight Forum here at Diii.net. If you happen to like this very entertaining action RPG from the creators of Diablo II join the discussions yourself!

Back in the world of Diablo, sales of Diablo II have gone extremely well, with our all-time fav reaching top-10 and top-20 spots in the PC games charts. With all this many new sold games, I'm sure there are newcomers who'll be feeling well and truly out the loop. To get IN to the loop, head over to the Diablo 2 Newcomer Forum, where lots of people already visit it, and can help you with any questions you have about the game.If you are an old-timer, or just quick learner, perhaps you can visit and answer questions from our new brethren!

A good start if you feel lost is:

Mursillis' Beginner's Guide To Build Selection

• Described as a "Very good informational thread by Mursillis" by other moderators, it's well worth a few minutes of your time before plunging into the world of character building in Diablo II.

With the help of our long standing moderators, I am also going to take visitors of the site on a tour around some classic features of the forums in the next few months of Forum Watches. Starting with this a little in previous weeks, we're continuing with both old and new threads this week.

A classic guide, revisited

• DurfBarian's humorous guide to v1.09 duelling. It's an absolute classic from way back in 2004.

Interesting bug: Annihilus in SP

• Most here knows of Brother Laz and his mod, but this thread by him is not directly about the mod, but an interesting bug in single player. Discussion in the thread has been goign strong for the last two years.

Too much blood

• The thing about blood is a topic we have reported on before, and Vaughann722's idea of possibility to scale down the blood has had a lot stronger positive response than I could have imagine. Are you for or against a scale for blood splatter in the game?

Diablo Pumpkin Carving!

• Last remnants of Halloween, Jucky's pumpkin carving thread is a must read.

You know why I love this site?

• Everyone is entitled to some self love from time to time. Erichb, who recently has come out of lurkerdom express exactly what I feel about the site. It rocks. So hard. I love it, and it's an honour to get to make the odd news item here as well!

Thanks everyone for reporting on interesting threads. That's all for now, and remember to continue to send cool/fun/interesting/sad forum links to !

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Bashiok replied to a forum post asking if we’ll have a movable camera angle in Diablo III. Short version; no.  Longer version:

	Blizzard Quote:
	It’s a fixed camera. Back when we announced the game we had our dialogue interaction set up where the camera would zoom in, and you’d see the characters up close and they’d talk to each other in this zoomed in view. We threw that out a long time ago though just because it was too intrusive, it stopped the game, pulled you out of the action, and just felt like too much. There was also a point where we zoomed in on the character in one of the videos to show some attack animations and item switches better, but that’s not a feature of the game. The camera doesn’t zoom or tilt or rotate, it’s a fixed camera. It’s kind of fun to watch people that have never played a Diablo game before, or it’s been a long time. They immediately go for the WASD keys, and when those do nothing they then try holding down the right mouse button to rotate the camera. Sometimes by accident they’re reminded it’s click to move. It’s just not a control scheme and camera angle that are used a lot these days, there’s maybe been a handful of games in the past five years that qualify as isometric arpg’s? So anyway, props to all those games and the developers keeping the style alive. We’re continuing the tradition, proudly, because we feel it’s the best way to present a sequel in the Diablo franchise.

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Another day’s grab of Torchlight features, since so many of you guys are playing and enjoying it, as evident in our Torchlight forum. (If you think we’re doing a lot of TL news, wait until D3 actually comes out, and we’ve got like 30 news items a day.)

• Torchlight Lead Designer Travis Baldree is updating a patch list on the official forums, if you want to know what they’re working on for the first round of post-release improvements. It’s all performance improvements and bug fixes, and it’s coming soon.
• Torchlight debuted as the #3 best selling game over Steam, just behind Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2.
• Massively.com has a nice little article on the pleasures of Torchlight.
• ArsTechnica has a nice article on Torchlight, which they’re calling “Diablo for Loners.” It includes some interview questions with Runic Games’ “Minister of Culture,” Wonder Russell.
• MMOSite has a huge seven-page play report/discussion of the game.  Also on MMOSite is this giant 70 Tips About Torchlight (part two) feature. A lot of the “tips” are more like miscellaneous facts, but it’s an informative piece.

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Gearbox, the creators of the newly-released RPG shooter Borderlands, have frequently expressed their admiration for Diablo 2, and talked about how their item system is heavily inspired by the slot machine system of the favorite title of many of us around here. They also included a monster that gives homage to one of the classic D2 bosses, Rakanishu.

The Borderlands version has a name that’s spelled slightly differently, and it’s a flying, fire-breathing demon rather than a squirrely, electified Fallen One, but it’s a nice homage all the same. Best of all, this boss drops a “cracked sash” which, despite the name, is actually a fairly useful item in Borderlands. You can see the Borderlands version of Rakkinishu flying and scorching in this video, at around the 1:40 point.

Thanks to GamerVision for the tip.

Update: In comments Noammr says there’s also a weapon called “Butcher” that has the line, “Ahhh… Fresh meat” in its description. K3wlz!

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A new episode of the IncGamers Podcast is online ready for listening.

Enjoy the usual lively banter between the guys as they discuss the week’s news including Modern Warfare 2 leaked video, Amazon pulling MW2 reviews, MW2 third person mode, news on the Splinter Cell Conviction sequel, Molyneux’s picks for most revolutionary games in the past 20 years, Star Wars: The Old Republic and more.

The team also discuss the games they have been playing including Torchlight, RaceOn, Left 4 Dead 2 and Champions Online. Oh! And don’t forget the “Special Needs Post of the Week” and the “Bullshit Story of the Week”. Not to be missed!

Listen here!

Note: If you’re easily offended it’s probably not for you.

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Torchlight is proving a particular draw to Diablo players and as an action-rpg with similarities to Diablo 2 and some say 3, it’s no wonder Blizzard have been putting in some time on it too. A post appeared on the Battle.Net forums detailing three interesting features that may transfer well to Diablo 3. They boil down to shared stash, mercenary stash and mercenary trotting off to sell your loot while you carry on playing.

Bashiok, playing cards close to chest again, only confirms that Mercs are in (as already revealed but they are called Followers) and that Blizzard are exploring options for item sharing, account-shared stash being one option. But they’re playing Torchlight and will no doubt be keeping an eye on what those of us who are playing, are most enjoying.

• Both posts in full are below the fold.

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