Tag Archives: Max Schaefer

Runic Games co-founder and CEO Max Schaefer has said the firm chose Perfect World Entertainment as its partner for the Torchlight MMO due to the Chinese company’s experience with the genre.

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Runic Games has officially priced Torchlight 2 at $20, and has revealed the final class in the game as the Embermage. Previously announced classes were the Berserker, Engineer, and Outlander. Runic CEO Max Schaefer has said the price will allow everyone to “comfortably afford,” to play the game “via a LAN, or play single player offline, all with no further purchase.” There still isn’t a set release date for the game, but it is still on target for 2011. Thanks, Joystiq.

“That’s obviously still in the plan. But is it the next thing or is it something beyond that? We just don’t know. We have a lot of good ideas for the MMO, we just aren’t committing to any kind of schedule yet. If Torchlight 2 blows up on PC and it’s the biggest thing since sliced bread we’ll probably want to give more attention to that before heading into the MMO world.” – Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer to Eurogamer.

Runic boss Max Schaefer has Torchlight has been pirated over 5 million times in China, but since it knew such a thing was an inevitably in the Asian market, they see it as a way to promote the upcoming MMO based on the series.

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Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer has commented on the upcoming Torchlight MMO’s most troubling and obvious competitors – Diablo III and World of Warcraft.

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Torchlight II is going to see a slight release delay, according to Runic Games.

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Max Schaefer, co-founder of Runic Games, has said the firm has been working on the Xbox 360 version of Torchlight for around “6-8 months in various stages” and it is more than just a “simple translation of the PC version”.
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Runic co-founder Max Schaefer has told VG247 that action-RPG sequel Torchlight II will be “considerably” larger than the original indie hit, but that a party limit for online co-op – the game’s most anticipated update – is yet to be fixed.

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Runic Games is on the up. Having clocked more than 500,000 sales for 2009′s universally-loved indie ation-RPG Torchlight on PC, the developer hit the big leagues this week with a place on CES’s Microsoft keynote stage and confirmation of an XBLA version.

While the console outing has received a complete UI and control overhaul over the PC smash, Runic’s rushing towards a “May” launch of Torchlight II on PC, replete with online co-op, overland areas and more.

We spoke with Runic co-founder Max Schaefer in December on the state of play for PC development in general, the original thinking behind Torchlight as a project and what we can expect from the much-anticipated sequel.

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Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer has said the firm’s not only looking into some PvP elements for Torchlight II, but it’s also very excited folks will be able to go out into the Overland this time around, instad of being stuck in the underworld most of the time.

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Runic Games hopes to release Torchlight on PSN and XBLA bu the holidays, according to Runic CEO Max Schaefer.

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Runic Games not only announced a sequel to its popular RPG Torchlight this week, but regrettably also let slip gamers would have to wait a bit longer on the MMO based on the franchise.

According to the Runic’s CEO Max Schaefer, delaying the MMO was all about giving people what they wanted instead of making them wait.

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Action RPG Torchlight is coming to consoles, if comments by developer Runic Games are anything to go by.

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Max Schaefer, co-founder of Runic Games and Blizzard North has said that while there are similarities between Torchlight and Diablo, it’s nothing more than trying to “perfect the style” the teams has been working on since the 90′s.

‘We plead guilty to trying to perfect a style of game we’ve worked on since the early 90′s,” Schaefer told PC Games. “Since we have two of the founders of Blizzard North, five people who worked on the series, the creator of Fate, and the whole team that worked on Mythos, it only makes sense to make an ARPG as our first title under the Runic Games banner.”

Schaefer also said that the MMO version will be out in a couple years, will be in pre-production as soon issues from launching the single player are finalized.

“It will feature a lot of customization, an overworld, random and instanced dungeons, PVP, and much more,” he revealed. “It will be indeed free to play, and we’d like to get alpha and beta versions up and running as quickly as possible, though, so hopefully we’ll have a lot of community interaction during the development cycle.”

More through the link.

There’s a patch available for Torchlight over on BigDowload. We’re sure it’s also available at whatever file site you prefer.

It’s only for the version purchased directly from Runic Games, if you got it elsewhere, check with that outlet for it. Bad news about it, is that you will have to uninstall the game before you patch it, so be sure to backup your saved games in another spot before you do.

Also, due to a developmental issue, the game will still show v1.11 on the title screen although it updates Torchlight to v1.12.

Interested in hearing more about the game? Then head on over to the Columbus Dispatch were the weekly show chats a bit with Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer and the development team.

You may have heard of Schaefer before. He was previously VP at Blizzard North and a director at Blizzard before co-founding Flagship Studios. He also contributed to art design on Diablo and was the eventual project, design and environment art director on Diablo II.

Just in case you never heard of Blizzard or Flagship before.

Speaking here, Flagship COO Max Schaefer has said that PC developers need to get over the whole “disarray” mindset and start thinking about how best to enjoy the massive PC install base.

“PC gaming isn’t going anywhere until people stop having PCs,” he said. “It’s up to developers and publishers to keep it fresh and keep bringing creative, entertaining games to market. PC still is the only platform with decent chatting ability and people are by necessity in front of their PCs for many hours a day.

“We have a captive audience, we just need to do a better job of reaching out to them.”

Hit the link for more.