Torchlight II dev has "no plans" to work on MMO
Runic's planned Torchlight MMO will have to wait
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, Runic Games president Travis Baldree said that the studio has no current plans to work on the previously-mentioned Torchlight MMO.
"I'll be frank, we have no plans to jump into that right now. The landscape is a little different than a few years ago, and creating the amount of content we did for Torchlight 2 was a supreme effort with a team this size. Taking on an MMO immediately afterward is not our current desire," replied Baldree when asked about the MMO.
Runic Games vice president Marsh Lefler later explained to another fan that the studio's next project probably won't be related to Torchlight or the dungeon-crawler genre.
"We really don't know what we are going to do next. However I will say our next project probably won't be another Torchlight or a Torchlight MMO. We really need to take a break. Quite a few of us here have been doing ARPG's in the style of Diablo for 7 years; while Travis has been doing it for probably close to 10 years and lets not even talk about Max and Erich (15+). Something slightly different will be nice. We still love RPG's; especially action ones," he said.
When it comes to piracy, while Runic does have Steam DRM on Torchlight II, CEO Max Schaefer said that studio is more concerned with making a great game instead of significant anti-piracy options.
"With respect to piracy, a small company like ours isn't going to solve it. And the last thing we think is appropriate is to punish our honest customers for something other people are doing. We believe that if we put out a quality game at a fair price, there will be less incentive to pirate the game, and that those who do pirate it may decide to buy it down the road. That's our approach and we're sticking to it!" said Schaefer.
"I don't think anti-piracy measures work super well in general. Being nice and transparent about what we do, and charging a reasonable price, seems like the most effective way to convince people to buy our stuff. That, and a demo. I mean, we HAVE DRM. But it's not super-draconian. It's mostly there to allow a mechanism to continue playing after you unlock the demo, which is the same download. It will, of course, be cracked within minutes. It probably already HAS been cracked!" added Baldree.
Torchlight II is available on Steam today for the low price of $19.99.