Diablo 3 and Torchlight? Who copied who?

[Sinitar]

I haven't played D2, so this may not be a fair comparison. However, I noticed some jarring similarities between these two games, and I'm a little worried. I want to love Diablo 3, I want to have a blast playing through the whole thing, but I need to get this off my chest. So, where to begin?

The gloomy mood: It's similar to both games, and D3 does an excellent job at it. The dark atmosphere, coupled with the lore tidbits are an excellent combination. Who doesn't like a quick lecturing on the abominations you're battling?

The music: While it's different, New Tristram's music resembles the Torchlight city soundtrack. It's just so obvious that it got me thinking: Why would a huge company such as blizzard take inspiration from a lesser game? Perhaps I'm wrong, though I ask you kindly to give this post the benefit of the doubt.

There's a couple of small things too, like the lightning sparks that appear when using an enchanted bow(I'm not sure here; all I know is that my pal played a mage and used a bow), the healing wells, and the portal you can create to get to the city. They both share that oval shape.

[Sting]

Torchlight is often called a Diablo clone for a reason.

[Uoyredrum]

I haven't played D2, so this may not be a fair comparison. However, I noticed some jarring similarities between these two games, and I'm a little worried. I want to love Diablo 3, I want to have a blast playing through the whole thing, but I need to get this off my chest. So, where to begin?

The gloomy mood: It's similar to both games, and D3 does an excellent job at it. The dark atmosphere, coupled with the lore tidbits are an excellent combination. Who doesn't like a quick lecturing on the abominations you're battling?

The music: While it's different, New Tristram's music resembles the Torchlight city soundtrack. It's just so obvious that it got me thinking: Why would a huge company such as blizzard take inspiration from a lesser game? Perhaps I'm wrong, though I ask you kindly to give this post the benefit of the doubt.

There's a couple of small things too, like the lightning sparks that appear when using an enchanted bow(I'm not sure here; all I know is that my pal played a mage and used a bow), the healing wells, and the portal you can create to get to the city. They both share that oval shape.

Well considering the Diablo series has been around since 1996, take a guess.

The tristram music is remixed.

The dark atmosphere is from the series as a whole.

No they didn't steal graphics.

[Pilarczyk]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Torchlight made by the same people who made the original Diablo, but that later split off from Blizzard and formed their own company? So that's probably why it looks so much the same.

[lolo855]

I haven't played D2, so this may not be a fair comparison. However, I noticed some jarring similarities between these two games, and I'm a little worried. I want to love Diablo 3, I want to have a blast playing through the whole thing, but I need to get this off my chest. So, where to begin?

The gloomy mood: It's similar to both games, and D3 does an excellent job at it. The dark atmosphere, coupled with the lore tidbits are an excellent combination. Who doesn't like a quick lecturing on the abominations you're battling?

The music: While it's different, New Tristram's music resembles the Torchlight city soundtrack. It's just so obvious that it got me thinking: Why would a huge company such as blizzard take inspiration from a lesser game? Perhaps I'm wrong, though I ask you kindly to give this post the benefit of the doubt.

There's a couple of small things too, like the lightning sparks that appear when using an enchanted bow(I'm not sure here; all I know is that my pal played a mage and used a bow), the healing wells, and the portal you can create to get to the city. They both share that oval shape.

Everything you summed up are things that were already in the older games from the series, not sure if this is a troll post or trying to start a flame war because it is well knows torchlight tried to copy some aspects from diablo ( which isn't bad because they copied good things from diablo ) but yeah diablo takes the credit for all those things.

[ZenX]

Torchlight is the Diablo clone, it was made by some of the developers that had left Blizzard North after making D2.

[Jeffyjimbob]

Pretty sure torchlight came out like early 2009, and D2 came out 2000, so it's safe to say torchlight was influenced by D2, and D3 is just the next step in the Diablo series. Nothing more.

[Deleted]

Torchlight is obviously the ''clone'' its their version of Diablo 2 and if im not mistaken some Blizzard staff even worked on the game.

[Deleted]

The sound track to D3 is near identical to D1 + D2, Town portal is pretty much identical to the previous games, as is the overall gritty/gloomy mood and dark atmosphere, the healing wells, etc. all of those are original Diablo features.... if it's also similar to Torchlight then I'm afraid D1+D2 came first so you can do the math.

[OldHammer]

I haven't played D2, so this may not be a fair comparison. However, I noticed some jarring similarities between these two games, and I'm a little worried. I want to love Diablo 3, I want to have a blast playing through the whole thing, but I need to get this off my chest. So, where to begin?

The gloomy mood: It's similar to both games, and D3 does an excellent job at it. The dark atmosphere, coupled with the lore tidbits are an excellent combination. Who doesn't like a quick lecturing on the abominations you're battling?

The music: While it's different, New Tristram's music resembles the Torchlight city soundtrack. It's just so obvious that it got me thinking: Why would a huge company such as blizzard take inspiration from a lesser game? Perhaps I'm wrong, though I ask you kindly to give this post the benefit of the doubt.

There's a couple of small things too, like the lightning sparks that appear when using an enchanted bow(I'm not sure here; all I know is that my pal played a mage and used a bow), the healing wells, and the portal you can create to get to the city. They both share that oval shape.

10/10 good troll

[Deleted]

10/10 good troll

Please remember the rules, it's against the rules to call someone a troll, there's no need for that. If you genuinely think someone is trolling you can report their posts and let the moderators decide if it needs to be closed or not.

[Deleted]

Diablo 3 and Torchlight? Who copied who?

I thought I'd point out that Torchlight was designed by the Schaefer brothers, who designed Diablo and Diablo 2. That should suffice.

[Uennie]

The title of this thread makes me laugh.

Torchlight is the Diablo clone, because Diablo has been around for over a decade.

[Deleted]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_%28video_game%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight

I win thread?

[Blackmist]

Torchlight was made by some of the Diablo guys when they got bored of waiting for Blizzard to stop titting about with WoW, afaik. A full 3D version of single player Diablo. If that's all you wanted, your itch will be scratched by that.

Tbh, it's pretty much as good as D3 would have been had it been released then. Torchlight appears to have taken the old WoW talent system and made it worse, while D3 takes it's influence more from what they're doing with MoP.

Be interesting to see Torchlight 2 and the eventual console version of Diablo 3.

[Deleted]

Torchlight was made by some of the Diablo guys

Namely Erich and Max Schaefer, the designers behind Diablo and Diablo 2, from Blizzard North.

when they got bored of waiting for Blizzard to stop titting about with WoW, afaik.

Not quite. I think you might be thinking of Path of Exile.

[Deleted]

The music: While it's different, New Tristram's music resembles the Torchlight city soundtrack. It's just so obvious that it got me thinking: Why would a huge company such as blizzard take inspiration from a lesser game? Perhaps I'm wrong, though I ask you kindly to give this post the benefit of the doubt.

Oh let me guess, Matt Uelmen is copying himself now? Because both town themes, are his.

Get a fucking clue.



People just love to say x copied y. There's really NO POINT in these discussions. They both belong to the ARPG genre, of course they are similar.

You might as well claim that they copy reality, because they have OH MY GOD TREES, WHAT A BLATANTLY STOLEN IDEA. SWORDS? COPY PASTE REALITY? LAME.



You're worried because another game is similar to another? Some great logical processing over there.

[Hobb]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Torchlight made by the same people who made the original Diablo, but that later split off from Blizzard and formed their own company? So that's probably why it looks so much the same.

That is correct, the makers of Torchlight are the same developers that made D1 and D2.

D1 and D2 were made by a developer studio called Condor, which later was purchased Vivendi and renamed Blizzard North. Blizzard North and Blizzard however were independent developers from each other. Blizzard only inherited the series after Blizzard North went out of business in 2005.

So yes while its a clone of Diablo, its a clone made by the same people who made Diablo.

[Scratches]

I thought I'd point out that Torchlight was designed by the Schaefer brothers, who designed Diablo and Diablo 2. That should suffice.

This. Max and Erich Schaefer, are, inarguably, the fathers of the Diablo series.
When they started working on Diablo, did you guys even know that they weren't a part of Blizzard? They formed Condor Studios in the early-mid '90s, and Blizzard didn't buy the studio (and subsequently rename it Blizzard North) until just 6 months before Diablo's release.

After a myriad tale of conflicts/creative differences with publishers and studios (helmed by Bill Roper (*cough*) lol) going under because of failed projects, Erich and Max later formed Runic Games, bringing the entire team that they oversaw at Flagship Seattle (a 'division' of said failed Flagship Studios) with them. They worked on an action-RPG while at Flagship (Mythos -- a fully playable action-RPG "tech demo", designed to test netcode and related tech for Hellgate: London), so it's only natural to expect that the fathers of Diablo would work on another action-RPG: Torchlight.

Additionally, regarding the music: as Wolfsage points out (kind of), Matt Uelman (who composed the music for Diablo/Diablo2, Starcraft, and even some music for World of Warcraft and its expansion, Burning Crusade) composed the music for Torchlight, as he now works for Runic as well.

So, draw your own conclusions. If you're sticking to the retarded "who copied who" metric, Diablo3 is the copy, as the creative vision lies with the original Lead Designers (Erich and Max Schaefer), who now work at Runic and are developing the Torchlight games.

EDIT: Damn you, Hobb. By 5 minutes... lol

D1 and D2 were made by a developer studio called Condor, which later was purchased Vivendi and renamed Blizzard North. Blizzard North and Blizzard however were independent developers from each other. Blizzard only inherited the series after Blizzard North went out of business in 2005.

Just a slight niggle: They didn't go out of business. They were shut down, citing "poor development," of what was to be Diablo3.

[Deleted]

Matt Uelmen is a demigod