Compare to TL2

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DonExiled wrote:

Won't say anything against TL2 because i haven't played it but from what i've seen i didn't like its cartoonish style of graphics and that's all i'm going to say for now :)

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LunacyPolish wrote:

You kids today and your internet.

There was a time when I played Diablo, not even Diablo 2 mind you, but DEE AHB LOW before anyone knew there was going to be a Two, on my family computer for hours on end, a computer which was never connected to the internet in its whole service life.

A year or so after I started playing the original Diablo, we got this newfangled thing called Dial Up. You couldn't use it very often because it tied up the all important phone line.

People in the local newspaper editorial pages commented that home internet use was a money grab by greedy corporations and consumers would come to their senses and reclaim their phone lines.

Fast forward. I'm playing Dark Age of Camelot on a fancy dancy new thing called a Kay Bull Mode Em. It was unprecedented, internet that was constantly on and didn't tie up Mom's Phone Line? Yay for part time jobs for teenagers to pay the cable bill!

God I am old.

The point is there was time before computer gaming went all multiplayer on me. Now the singleplayer experience isn't gone, there's great games like Half Life 2, Skyrim, some of the RPG series like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, etc. still out there and kicking. But it's a dying approach to games. Most people buy HL to play Counterstrike, I buy HL to play HL.

There was a time a game had to be more carefully thought out, to be fun and interesting to play on its own merits.

TL2 is a rejection of your Auction House Three ARPGs and your useless player economy and grindy, grindy, grindy gameplay that serves only to encourage you to whip out the plastic to buy a virtual sword. If the game's any fun it's an accident.

It's an old school game like Baldur's Gate. It is simultaneously self contained and yet supports really fun multiplayer with, gasp, actual friends of yours who play the game too. It's not an MMO, although I'd love to see these people make one of their own.

Now that's not to say I don't appreciate the new school too. Guild Wars 2 is eating my time here lately and that's as anti-old school as it gets right now. Today's multiplayer environment sure is fun, and leads to exciting PvP gameplay you just couldn't get back in the day.

But the point I'm trying to make is that there was a time when games couldn't use multiplayer as a crutch. See multiplayer automatically makes things more fun and interesting, the game doesn't have to be quite as good for people to get on it. In fact if you look at a genre like the MMORPG that is defined by multiplayer, those games suck horribly if you play them alone.

There are however really good games which blend elements the two schools. Two of these games are Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile.

Torchlight 2 is one extreme of the spectrum, it's almost an anachronism. Its approach is 98% old school. It is complete unto itself, no connection to the Information Superhighway required to enjoy it, and it is a toy for you to play with. Mod it. Cheat. Make new monsters. Whatever. It's an experience, not an economy. It's old school Nintendo; nothing you accomplish on a given playthrough is in any way preserved nor does it matter because each episode of play is its own entity.

Path of Exile is way on the other side of the spectrum in terms of being new school in architecture, but it reaches into the past and pulls out the idea the game ought to be fun and interesting unto itself. You can't even play it offline, but you can play it for hours upon hours by yourself and be satisfied. But the catch is, whatever you do persists. This same character is always there, its integrity and existence preserved outside of your immediate control. You lose the "go nuts" factor but you gain the sense of building and accomplishment.

That's the difference. TL2 is all about playing a game just to have fun playing a game. I think it's great and the devs were really smart, they didn't have the resources to make a closed server game so they made the "funnest" open game they possibly could have and give you the freedom to just go nuts. If you don't like it that's okay because fun is subjective.

Path of Exile is all about being presented with a long term challenge, to design and play a character in an interactive world with other people. What's great, no, absolutely genius, about PoE is I can play it my way for fun and self challenge, and you can play it your way to win something and we can both play the same game and have fun.

TL2 I dare say offers a greater experience of play. Actually playing the game, you can see the effort and thought went into making the actual execution of the game as excellent as it could be. It's fun!

PoE has a very different appeal. It's still pretty good gameplay, but the fun actually comes from the scope of your ambition. I want to be this OP Totem Marauder, etc. You need certain things to meet your goals, you can't just mod it in and try it so there's actual risk you'll fail or do badly which makes it exciting, and your progress is saved.

I like both a lot, obviously. It's not a problem if you don't like one approach or the other.

In fact I'm happy as a clam they both exist at the same time for me to enjoy. Both are games that someone somewhere put a lot of their personal creativity and vision into, neither Runic or GGG made a game like everyone else was making, they made the game they wanted to see.

TL2 doesn't look like anything else. PoE doesn't either. Most people I talk to say they both look like crap. Not that I care what they think; I like both.

I wish sorely there was a version of PoE I could play offline and I wish sorely TL2 offered a closed server experience, but until that day which may never come, I'm just very glad I have both of these excellent games to cover all my bases. TL2 is a mere $20, and Path of Exile is free, although I'll probably spend a bit here and there buying new slots and the like at launch. Outstanding, just outstanding. Life is good sometimes.

It's worth commenting games like these are games I play in fits and starts off and on for many years, so that may color my perceptions and tastes.