The Torchlight Frontiers site has been updated with a lengthy post from Echtra's Max Schaefer to lay out the company's philosophy about the free to play experience and how it relates to the forthcoming game. Most notably, Schaefer writes that the "community is the most important thing to us, and your happiness is critical to our success". He adds, however, that an "awesome world requires revenue", but that they are confident in the choices they are making to achieve both goals.
Here's what Torchlight Frontiers will embody:
- a free-to-play model from the ground up
- item sales are "ones you want to buy, but do not need to buy"
- players should earn rewards through game play, adventuring and killing monsters
- limited acceleration items will be available to increase gold or luck. These are shareable but loot is still only earned through adventuring
- normal gear and most Relic Weapons is only earned through adventuring, but the team may sell "some special items, like specific Relic Weapons, though these will also be "a reasonable way to attain or craft them through normal gameplay as well"
- fun cosmetic items that can be purchased, dropped as loot or crafted. These have no gameplay impact
- "We reject "pay-to-win". For one thing, there is no specific "winning" in Torchlight Frontiers. We want you to be who and what you want to be in our world."
- no gated content, no "premium areas"
These are the guiding principles that drive our monetization plans. We are prepared to adjust and tweak them as necessary, and your input is vital to this effort. We know we cannot please everyone, and sometimes the market doesn't always please us, but together we can make this a success. We cannot wait to start our public testing with you, to both show you the world we are in the process of creating, and work with you to chart the course for the future. We are starting this process early in development, so at first it's going to be a bit rough. We will fill in the spaces, and steer the development according to our data, and the creative minds of both our amazing staff and your expert input. In the end, we need to make you happy, and that fuels our every effort. May the world of Torchlight live on for many years to come!
Read the full letter on the Torchlight Frontiers site.
