I used to love Diablo 2. But nowadays I think that these kind of games are fun, but nothing special anymore. This made me kind of immune for the D3 hype I guess. But after checking several game websites, I began to wonder about something.

I discovered that there are 3 upcoming hack'n'slash games that people are looking out for.  Diablo 3, Path of Exile and Torchlight 2. What I don't understand is the media coverage. It is all about Diablo 3, a little about Torchlight 2 and barely about Path of Exile. I understand that the Diablo franchise is a big one and a lot of people have good memories about D2. But what I can't discover is how they are compared to each other.

If I would use mediacoverage or price as measurement, then I would expect that Diablo 3 is supposed to be a lot better then Torchlight 2 or Path of Exile. But when checking some vids I don't get this impression at all. Actually, Diablo 3 seems to be even watered down compared to Torchlight 2 for example. Path of Exile on the other hand has clearly more bugs but it free to play and has this really gritty look which I expect will attract followers.

I could have fun with all 3. But could anyone explain to me why most players only seem to be interested in D3 and don't give the other 2 even a second thought?

Because Blizzard has more money to burn on marketing? Ockham's razor, sir

dunno but will be waiting for TL2. not interested in D3 at all. Love the art style and wittyness (is that a word?) that is Torchlight.

Originally posted by pierth

Because Blizzard has more money to burn on marketing? Ockham's razor, sir

Yeah that would explain the player's interest. But assuming that selfrespecting gaming websites don't get paid by those companies for game coverage, I would expect an even coverage on all 3 games.

If you are about covering good games, then you should look beyond strong marketing and mainly look at what games are good and simply fun to play instead.

These 3 games would be perfect for a vs. article. To do a side by side comparison in terms of features.

I don't get the media coverage of D3 compared to Torchlight 2.

It's Blizzard, I get it, but everyone seems to have forgotten that Blizzard completely ignored their playerbase who overwhelmingly said they wanted offline play and no RMT in their game. For some reason the fans gave up and instead of standing behind Torchlight 2 they bought D3. Really weak, from both the playerbase who was against it and the media.

I played Path of Exile on this past weekends public stress test and liked it alot.  I had to turn off the chat because of all the people arguing about which was better it or D3.  My theory is enjoy the game for what it is.  For me F2P with a kickstarter fund is better than $60 for a single player game you have to play online.  For you it might be different.

Mix of Blizzard's history for holding the franchise (even if D3 has none or only a few guys left from the original titles), then of course people might feel comfortable with the story and setting of Sanctuary some NPC "legends" as well like Deckard Cain, and there's probably some longstay power with the ladder ranking system and the RMAH making sure people will have a working economy. Plus the hype over YEARS yup!

Personally I'm going for TL2 and PoE though

Reason for Torchlight 2 is the randomness in level layouts and item stats and the freshness, while it still has oldschool mechanics which I favour over the new simplified "hotkey" system in D3.

And of course the ability to mod everything (Torched2! editor), allowing for mini persistant servers a la NWN, reskins item or new class mods etc.

PeO well let's see I feel it looks pretty spot on and they went nuts on that huge skill system which looks promising.

Also combat in PoE looks a little bit more "hands on" than what I've felt when playing the D3 beta event.

However there's another hackenslash game coming its way, Grim Dawn (by Crate Entertainment, the core dev team formerly known as Iron Lore Entertainment  makers of "Titan Quest")

Actually there is a 4th contender that appears to have gotten even LESS coverage than all the others and considering the gameplay trailers I can't for the life of me undertand why.  Lineage Eternal or LE.  Now I know a release date has yet to be given so perhaps that is contributing to the lack of coverage but when I compare all gameplay videos of these 4 games side by side LE "looks" to stand far and away the best ARPG to be in production.  But don't take my word for it, check it yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lineage+eternal&oq=lineage+eternal&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest.3..0l10.1415.6208.0.6995.17.9.1.7.7.0.110.943.0j9.9.0...0.0.-FiLSoFN-zE

Originally posted by miguksaram

Actually there is a 4th contender that appears to have gotten even LESS coverage than all the others and considering the gameplay trailers I can't for the life of me undertand why.  Lineage Eternal or LE.  Now I know a release date has yet to be given so perhaps that is contributing to the lack of coverage but when I compare all gameplay videos of these 4 games side by side LE "looks" to stand far and away the best ARPG to be in production.  But don't take my word for it, check it yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lineage+eternal&oq=lineage+eternal&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest.3..0l10.1415.6208.0.6995.17.9.1.7.7.0.110.943.0j9.9.0...0.0.-FiLSoFN-zE

Thanks for showing! That game looks very good, but more interesting to me was the drag skill mechanic. It looks quite intuitive to use. Also the interaction with the environment looks good, like how you can pick up a brazier and throw it into a tent to set it on fire (the mobs inside included).

But the lack of coverage might be because its release is still far away? While the 3 mentioned by me are in beta or released.

Originally posted by munecaroon

Mix of Blizzard's history for holding the franchise (even if D3 has none or only a few guys left from the original titles), then of course people might feel comfortable with the story and setting of Sanctuary some NPC "legends" as well like Deckard Cain, and there's probably some longstay power with the ladder ranking system and the RMAH making sure people will have a working economy. Plus the hype over YEARS yup!

Personally I'm going for TL2 and PoE though

Reason for Torchlight 2 is the randomness in level layouts and item stats and the freshness, while it still has oldschool mechanics which I favour over the new simplified "hotkey" system in D3.

And of course the ability to mod everything (Torched2! editor), allowing for mini persistant servers a la NWN, reskins item or new class mods etc.

PeO well let's see I feel it looks pretty spot on and they went nuts on that huge skill system which looks promising.

Also combat in PoE looks a little bit more "hands on" than what I've felt when playing the D3 beta event.

However there's another hackenslash game coming its way, Grim Dawn (by Crate Entertainment, the core dev team formerly known as Iron Lore Entertainment  makers of "Titan Quest")

The editor and random level layout was something I didn't know about Torchlight 2. I really like such features in games. It adds a lot of replayability.  So does this mean that PeO and D3 don't have random level layouts?

One of the reasons why we play Minecraft so much for example is because of the random world generator and that you can use mods (Tekkit is the reason why we have the patience to wait for upcoming games atm :p ).

I don't know why people get wrapped up in this crap. Diablo has a history and a lot of visibility therefore it gets more coverage and more people are aware/excited for it. It's true in a lot of areas not just games. If you are into gaming you'll find the lesser covered gems and play and enjoy them. Torchlight made some noise with the first incarnation so I'm seeing more info for the upcoming TL2 than I did for TL1. Things build. That D3 gets more press though shouldn't be a shock.