Titan Quest

[Destarius]

Saxman is my hero. He fixed the demo install issue.

Posting instructions

1) Make a file on the drive where you have the most room. Name it something ie: "See Drive"
2) In Explorer go to Tools -> Map Network Drive
3) Select your "See Drive" Folder and give it the drive of C: if you don't have it already (I don't have a C: at all)
4) Go into your newly made C: and create a folder called 'Program Files'
5) Follow the regedit instructions that were posted before...

This does not work for me at all. I can map C: drive, but I cannot select any file or folder on my computer.

[Saxman_72]

This does not work for me at all. I can map C: drive, but I cannot select any file or folder on my computer.
Ah, the folder in question needs to be shared before it can be mapped.

[Destarius]

Ah, the folder in question needs to be shared before it can be mapped.

Ah, ok. Have done the necessary work arounds and installed the demo.

Looks pretty, doesn't feel as polished as Diablo 2 but was willing to give it a good go. Unfortunately I ran into the incredible frame rate slowdown (with nothing else on the screen) others have reported, and it becomes unplayable at that point. There must be some sort of voodoo hex on this game which will not allow me to enjoy it.

edit: It appears that the frame rate hit is reliably triggered whenever I step into a cave. FPS is about 2-3 at about that point.

edit: After hours of experimenting (yay free beta testing), I discovered I could avoid the frame rate hit but turning everything down to minimum for that particular cave. For two other caves, I could proceed without any problems at the usual maximum detail. It's a good game, I'd buy it, but I don't seem to be as enamoured with it as some others here. YMMV. I would say that it feels more solid than Sacred though. Maybe I'm just being a strange duck.

[Chris Woods]

Picked this up and I must say this game is really excellent. The character development is really fun and the fights are actually somewhat challenging, though that could be because of my build (Storm/Defence, since you asked.)

Anyhow, I do have one thing that is really annoying me I'd like to suggest: Please add an options toggle so that targeted spells are automatically cast at my mouse cursor when I hit '1', '2', etc.

Let me explain:

As it stands, I have ice shards (?) on my right mouse button, and then have Shield Bash, The electric orb of stunning, and Squall on my hotbar.

So, I'm bashing in the monster type faces with my mace and a small pack jumps me. I need to hit them with the Orb of stun, but if I hit '1' key nothing happens. so, I let up on the mouse button, hit '1', then depress the mouse button again.

That only gets the spell off 50% of the time though, because if you are in mid swing animation the cast is ignored or something. As a result, to shield bash something I have to:

- Let up LMB
- hit '4'
- wait until my guy is standing still
- click on thing to bash

which has an end result of being worse then if I had just kept bashing normally. Ideally what would happen is I'd be holding down the LMB and hit '4' and my guy would shield bash when his attack finished.

With the interface the way it is, I don't use a lot of my skills because it's too much coordination and when some satyrs and centaurs are bashing on you and some boar is charging from the left while a frost lich throws bolts o' death the interface is the last thing I need to be fighting.

Other then that, awesome.

Chris Woods

[flyinj]

Ugh, the NoCD is causing crashes for me as well. I guess back to the normal exe with all the chugging. I really hope they patch this.

Other than that, fantastic game. I'm loving it. Yet, I agree with the previous poster about spell casting. It would be nice if spell casting interrupted a swing animation, or at least reliably cued it up for the next attack. I'm getting about a 60% success rate at pulling off a spell if I'm in mid-swing.

[Albert Woo]

If anyone in Canada is thinking about picking this one up, Best Buy will have it for $29.99 from June 29 to July 1.

Edit: Looks like the price is for the CD-ROM version only, the DVD box is $49.99.

[Gordon_Bleu]

What about in the US? Any sales coming up? Luke?

[Chowhound]

Gamestop was out of the DVD version, so I picked up the CD version.

Unable to install, after 3 tries. Gets to CD 4 out of 5, pops up an error saying the wrong volume is in the drive, and to insert CD 1. I do that, it then gives a setup.exe error and ends the install.

Yay.

[Jab2565]

I had a problem similar to that when I bought Armed and Dangerous. Try disabling anti virus and anything that stops spyware and try it.

[Calistas]

You lot are tempting me, and I'm only mildly entertained by Diablo-style clones.

Is multiplayer much fun? Just bash through the game with mates or is there something else to it?

[Chowhound]

Various errors now. Disabled my anti-virus, this time, crashes on CD2. Next time, a CRC error. Another try - crashed on CD3.

It's hard for me to believe that I can't get the game installed on 2 machines, sheesh.

[Damien Neil]

Just picked it up at Fry's. Attention PC gaming industry: I'm getting really sick of your 5-CD installs. For the love of all that's holy, release on DVD already.

If you're so terrified that people won't have DVD drives (despite having the uber systems required to run your larded-with-snazzy-graphics games), then put both CDs and a DVD in the box.

[Misguided]

Various errors now. Disabled my anti-virus, this time, crashes on CD2. Next time, a CRC error. Another try - crashed on CD3.

It's hard for me to believe that I can't get the game installed on 2 machines, sheesh.

Are you certain you don't have a spyware problem?

[Damien Neil]

...and started installing, which demands a second comment. It's cute that you realized that "Language for non-Unicode programs" setting is Japanese. Cute, but stupid. Especially since you forgot to include localized strings for the buttons.

[Chowhound]

Are you certain you don't have a spyware problem?

Reasonably sure. Both Spybot and AdAware came back clean, with latest updates installed.

I may just have a bum CD set - coping each CD to a folder on the HD works fine, save for CD4 which always comes back with a CRC error.

[JPR]

Just thought I would chime in that I am enjoying this game a lot more than I thought I would. I turned off the demo after about 30 minutes because I felt like I was getting nothing out of it at all. At the time, some people thought the demo should have focused on a higher-level character. That is definitely true.

Once you play for a couple of hours, things start to open up, and I have really been enjoying it. So far I'm up to the Oracle (just talked to her), and I have found 15+ greens and 3 or 4 blues, so I certainly feel like the loot is coming. Actually, it's maybe showing up a bit too much. And I'm already feeling the weight of 200,000+ relatively useless gold pieces.

I have found the game to be a little too easy for my taste so far. Though I have died a few times (I think 3?), it was always because I just wasn't paying attention and got spiked by 2 bosses at the same time. My build is Spirit/Earth, and I mostly just summon my Lich King and cast my 2 always-on spells, throw my bombs about half-way between me and the mob, then staff attack until my Life-stealing spell is recharged, then wand some more.

I don't feel like I'm getting to use any deep tactics or anything, but it's no shallower than Diablo 2. Actually, the dual-class system makes it a little more flexible and engaging than Diablo 2 was. It's a pity that the PC is so generic and boring looking. I don't feel like my phat l00t has improved his appearance yet, and I'm betting it never will.

The environments and everything are all nice looking, and the seemless loading (minus the hitch when you enter/exit a cave) works well, even on my Athlon XP 2500+ and x800XL. I'm running at 1024x768 with everything on High except shadows (medium), V-Sync on, and no AA.

Edit: Oh yeah. There's a fix out now for the no-cd patch. I haven't tried it -- you have to delete your saves.

[Charlatan]

Just picked it up at Fry's. Attention PC gaming industry: I'm getting really sick of your 5-CD installs. For the love of all that's holy, release on DVD already.

If you're so terrified that people won't have DVD drives (despite having the uber systems required to run your larded-with-snazzy-graphics games), then put both CDs and a DVD in the box.
There is a DVD version - that's the one I purchased.

I'm finding the challenge good, and I'm not really swimming in cash at this point (I just blew 100k on a 'Something wraps of the Glade' to go with my Tunic of the Glade). I'm playing a Storm/Spirit build, and have avoided getting the Liche pet, because I wanted to try a non-pet build. So I use ice shard as my main attack, and I've got a thunderball for a 2 second stun, a maxed out Visions of Death for a 5 second AE fear (which i LOVE), and just got Squall to deal with those pesky off-screen archer batteries. I'm also using the Storm Nimbus aura to up my DPS. I've only died once, and that was when I got mobbed by a centaur boss who had some sort of battle rally (and his 5 friends).

The only problem I have is boss battles tend to see me running around like a chicken, since the ice shard takes a while to beat em down, and the fear doesn't typically work with them. And when I fought an ice-resistant hero (orange name guy) it took forever, since I was barely denting him (I have a cold-shooting staff with an awesome +18%/+5 damage, so just firing with that didn't particularly help...)

I've gotten maybe 4 blues (3 shields and a spear), and perhaps 3 or 4 greens (most of which I didn't want. I do like that you can buy greens from vendors. The relics are a great addition too, and the full relic bonus is sweet.

Things I like:
------------------
- the world: great setting (helps that I visited Greece a few years ago and it's like I'm revisiting the places I went to then).
- inventory expansion: happened at the perfect time, IMHO
- atmosphere: the burning olive grove? Awesome! Running behind a bunch of Athenian soldiers, then seeing the cyclops? Neat (and scary). Entering the city of Delphi and seeing the aftermath of a gigantic battle - something like 50 corpses at the gates - moving.

Things I don't like
--------------------------
- leveling definitely seems a bit slow
- I had to go to work today so I can't play

Definitely has the "let me play for just a bit more" factor - especially since it seems when I hit a rebirth fountain I'm always saying "I think if I just go one more I'll be able to stop..."

I had a "quarter to two" moment Tuesday night when I got the game - first time in a long while that's happened to me in a while.

[Charles]

I've had a couple crashes when alt-tabbing, just as a warning.

Also, there's a *really* annoying bug that's been added since the demo. Now, if you move through an NPC, it pushes them away so it doesn't hinder your movement. But if you are standing close enough to an NPC that he's pushed off his center, quest text will stop a fraction of a second after it starts.

Oh, also, I'm becoming more convinced that the framerate stutters I see are more to do with loading than graphics, as my framerate is always smooth if I'm not moving.

[mtkafka]

Also noticed I do get fps drops when entering a total new area (usually cave or crypt) after playing a couple hours. Only way to fix is to save exit and restart from the rebirth place... only problem is respawns, but the framerate becomes good again.

The framerates, imo, are very good. I just think there is some memory flushing problems if you traverse lots of different areas etc... sorta like in Oblivion for me.

etc

[Chris Woods]

Using Volcanic Orb to toss eight skeletons into Low Earth Orbit and then brawling with the last one while the bones of his brethren rain down around you is more satisfying then you think.

Chris Woods

[claybob]

I know I am late saying this, but this game is on my gotta-have list. After the dev stated they paid specific attention to the single player game the hook was set. Tom's review sealed the deal.

[Equisilus]

Just picked up the DVD version. I'm impressed with the package--a nice thick manual loaded with info and the skilltree foldout. The game installs surprisingly fast, and it loads and plays fine. One minor glitch is that it didn't put any shortcuts in the All Programs listing, even though I left all the defaults as they were (I didn't tell it not to). No matter, I just created my own shortcut and away I went.

Haven't played any yet, but I did start up the game to take a look. At 1680x1050 with all high settings and AA on, the game looks incredible. Can't wait to get into some playing; have to read the manual first (I always do, I'm just one of those types).

[Damien Neil]

Well, damn. I guess Fry's was out of the DVD version. Grumble.

[Charles]

They didn't even have a CD version where I went. I was pleasently surprised to get a DVD version, and for only 50 bucks CDN no less.

[Gendal]

Using Volcanic Orb to toss eight skeletons into Low Earth Orbit and then brawling with the last one while the bones of his brethren rain down around you is more satisfying then you think.

Chris Woods

So is wading into a crowd of mobs with a maxed dual wield skill and just watching them go flying like a minute tactical nuke went off. They go every which way, I especially love it when they come towards the camera with their limbs akimbo. The animations and general physics of it all just feel great. It's one of the most important aspects of this genre, getting the combat feel right, and this one nails it. I just went with a passive dual wield skill and the passive, activate once ravages of time tree with spirit, so combat should be super boring but I still love watching it.

[deccan]

So any digital distribution plans for this one?

[Equisilus]

Oh wow! After playing for a few hours only, this game has me hooked. Insanely addictive gameplay, beautiful settings, and an intricate character development scheme has me itching to sign off on the rest of my life (well, most of it) and keep at it exclusively.

Now, all I need to do is figure out where the points are that you restart. Are those just the portals, or are each of the Rebirth Fountains spawn points for saving and leaving the game? Or maybe the next "town" area? See, I've only exited the game once since starting play...guess I should just go find out and get sucked in for another few hours.

And yeah, I love the combat animations and physics. Even the subtle things like a skeleton slumping over against a chest as I finished it off, let alone the bodies flying everywhere, are great to see. Oooo.

Anyone notice that some of the sounds seem to be almost exactly the same as in AoE? I believe it was the level-up sound that first got my attention. Am I just imagining the similarity?

[JPR]

I saw something really cool happen when I was playing a couple of hours ago. I used my fire-bomb/volcano orb thing on a wild boar near an incline. He got blown up in the air and crashed to the ground an inch or two away, then his burning corpse slowly rolled down the hill until it came to rest against a rock.

[Jab2565]

Been playing it, so far I'm liking it. But I'm noticing a kind of weird effect as the screen scrolls. Like a rippling effect. Not sure what it is. I have a question about relics though, when it says you can combine relic that are similar, do they mean like combining 2 monster relics. Or is it something in the name?

[Equisilus]

Been playing it, so far I'm liking it. But I'm noticing a kind of weird effect as the screen scrolls. Like a rippling effect. Not sure what it is. I have a question about relics though, when it says you can combine relic that are similar, do they mean like combining 2 monster relics. Or is it something in the name?

In regards to the rippling, I noticed it too, until I turned on Vertical Sync in the Video options. That solved the problem. Otherwise I have all the options maxed and the game plays smooth at 1680x1050.

I've only found one Monster Charm so far, so I can't tell you how those work.

Oh, found out my own answer to my query above: turns out you spawn at the start of the game at the last Rebirth Fountain.

[stusser]

You can only put one type of monster enhancement or god relic on an item at a time. Monster enhancements stack up to 5 and relics up to 3. There are only a couple of types per act. In general, the monster ones suck and god relics are somewhat better. When you have 3/3 or 5/5 on the item, you get a special completion bonus.

Note that you can stack monster enhancements and relics in your inventory, this will save tons of space. Just rightclick a relic and use it on another one.

You can only enchant grey (crap), white (nonmagical crap), yellow (magical, but still crap) and green (rare) items, not blue (epic) or purple (legendary). This decreases the value of many blues; I find myself using lots of enchanted greens with one or two rare affixes instead. I don't think you can find purples in less than legendary difficulty. The game also has sets, but they're really rare.

I like diablo2's system better. The gemstones weren't too great, but the runes and runewords were an inspired idea. Actually diablo2 was better all around. It had more low-level rare and sets. Often in TQ you'll find yourself using the same helmet from level 6 to the end of the game.

Oh yeah... I'm halfway through act3 already. TQ isn't an instant classic, it ain't diablo2, but it's still fun as hell. Hopefully mods will keep this one on my hard drive; lack of closed multiplayer makes it pointless.

[Backov]

"Virtual Memory must be enabled to run Titan Quest"

On the junk pile you go.

[Michael Fitch]

I don't think you can find purples in less than legendary difficulty.
Greetings:
You can find legendary items in Epic difficulty and occasionally from the last encounter in Normal.

On the "found a helm at 6 and still using it" thing, are you using it for the secondary bonuses? Have you not found any rare helms at merchants? This comment has come up a lot, but it's completely opposite of my experience. A really great epic item, or a double-affixed rare, I'll keep for 10-15 levels, but nothing has ever been worth using from the start of Normal to the end.

Best,
Michael.

[stusser]

Yep, don't remember if it was a helmet but I've kept a rare with +attack speed and +% damage since the beginning of act2. My char is a dualwielding warfare/earth spec so speed is all-important and +damage works on both hands.

The problem is one of design. The difficulty gradient should be steeper. Characters should level more frequently and loot should be better to compensate. It seems like the carrots are spread too far apart when you level once an hour and upgrade your equipment every two.

Also, rares aren't good enough to offset the lack of enchanting. I end up vendoring all of em... even marduk's edge and, as I said, I'm a dualwielding warfare spec, so that sword was pre-built for me.

[DrDel]

And yeah, I love the combat animations and physics. Even the subtle things like a skeleton slumping over against a chest as I finished it off, let alone the bodies flying everywhere, are great to see. Oooo.



Ditto on that.

I chose the Fire/Earth specialty.. there is a firebomb spell that launches enemy off the screen and then they hurtle back to the ground... pretty funny animations/flying sequences...

[JMR]

"Virtual Memory must be enabled to run Titan Quest"

On the junk pile you go.


Yeah what's up with that requirement?

[Jab2565]

I reached level 8 and I choosed storm as my 2nd class. So far I'm not really using the storm skills. As I have my lich out who is doing alot of the work.
I think there might be too much lower end loot in the game. After a fight I see at least 7 pieces of white items all around. And they're pretty much useless compared to the yellow items. (Right now I have all yellows on)

[JPR]

That was something I meant to mention earlier: If anybody is sticking to that bullshit about "picking up every item, even the broken ones", I weep for them. After like level 3, I've only picked up yellows, and I'm absolutely swimming in money I have no use for. If I were picking up whites, not to mention greys, I would shoot myself over all the trips to town.

[Gordon_Bleu]

"Virtual Memory must be enabled to run Titan Quest"

On the junk pile you go.

Why not turn on VM? Do games run better with it turned off?

[Charles]

Dear Titan Quest developers: In the patch, please let me bind my extra mouse buttons. Every other game lets me.

Also: I want to be able to disable the stupid intro cinematic. If the game is loading, just give me a load screen, or some indication of WHY hitting every key on the keyboard doesn't do jack for the first 15-20 seconds of that movie.

[forgeforsaken]

So I was planning on going Storm/Hunter and using Storm Nimbus heavily with the bow. I got to 8 though looked at the tree and Hunter is a little uninspiring as a secondary, should have made it my primary maybe. Anyway I ended up making a Druid Storm/Nature instead.

I had a question related to this, does Storm Nimbus buff staff attacks? Anyone know? It works on melee and bows, but it's tough to tell visually with the way staffs work, and there I'm adding magic to the magic so i'm not sure if i should stick with bows (in which case I'll need to keep pumping the dex as well as the int)

Overall I really like it, though the teleporters may be a little too far apart.

[AndrewM]

That was something I meant to mention earlier: If anybody is sticking to that bullshit about "picking up every item, even the broken ones", I weep for them. After like level 3, I've only picked up yellows, and I'm absolutely swimming in money I have no use for. If I were picking up whites, not to mention greys, I would shoot myself over all the trips to town.

I'm just glad for once there is a game where not having OCD works for me instead of against me.

[Backov]

Why not turn on VM? Do games run better with it turned off?

No reason to have it. If you have it, Windows uses it for no apparent reason. Running with it off, I am well under 1 gig allocated even when running most games, and I have 2 physical.

[Michael Fitch]

I had a question related to this, does Storm Nimbus buff staff attacks? Anyone know? It works on melee and bows, but it's tough to tell visually with the way staffs work, and there I'm adding magic to the magic so i'm not sure if i should stick with bows (in which case I'll need to keep pumping the dex as well as the int)
Greetings:
Storm Nimbus affects all weapon attacks.

As for picking up stuff, after level 5 or so, I just use the X key.

@Charles
Mapping extra mouse buttons is on our future features to look at list.

You only can't skip the intro the first time. After that, you can.

@Stusser
Keep in mind that the difficulty in Normal is paced for a non-hardcore audience. If you feel like it's too easy and you're leveling too slow, just head up the main road a little more and explore a little less.

Do you remember which rare affix was on that helmet? It sounds like a bug that it was rolled on armor. It should be tied to a weapon, which would make it outdate properly because of the increase in base stats.

Best,
Michael.

[Jab2565]

Where are the instructions to use the level editor? When the game installed there wasn't a folder created in the start menu.

[chet]

Fun game.

One request would be to beef up the dialogue box. First it is ugly. Second it is annoying when you complete a quest you have to click on the guy, click to speed scroll his little bit and then "Move away from me and find out what you won!". It would be cool if the dialogue box actually included this info.

Also had one little bug where my dog trapped the NPC and i kept getting the start of the dialogue box and then it would close. I killed my dog and all was good.

Lots of fun, can't wait to try out multiplayer this weekend.

Chet

[Destarius]

Titan Quest Demo cannot uninstall. DOH! This install program, was it written by elveses?

[flyinj]

I'm almost done with the first chapter, around level 16.

My main complaint is the sheer amount of loot. They really should have cut drops down by about 75-80%. The vast majority of the loot is useless, and gold is even more useless. Having the need to pick up every damn piece of equipment before I can tell what it's stats are just exaserbates the problem.

It also seems really really easy. I think I've died a total of 3 times in the 10 hours I've played.

Other than that, it is still a great addictive experience.

[JM]

Yeah, it is pretty easy on Normal. Maybe give us an ini hack to enable Epic from the start? :)

[Equisilus]

Where are the instructions to use the level editor? When the game installed there wasn't a folder created in the start menu.

Yeah, no folder in the start menu for me either (I mentioned the same earlier). You can run the Editor.exe file in the THQ\Titan Quest folder, though, to start it up if you like.

[Charlatan]

Chris Woods I love you! (in a platonic way that is).

I rolled up an Earth/Nature Summoner last night and am currently rocking away at level 11 with a Core Dweller and 2 wolves - my only offensive spell is Volcanic Orb, and I love tossing an Orb into a clump and seeing body parts go flying every which way.

This combo has made the early game bosses and heros pretty darned easy (the Cyclops and Spider Lady at the burning olive grove).

Plus it's tons of fun... I don't care if the game is easy, at this point I'm enjoying it!

Oh, and ditto about not picking up everything: I only pick up Yellows and higher at this point. But I gotta say every once in a while I see a kickass item at the vendor (I saw a necklace that had +30% elemental damage reflection, +10% elemental damage, +20% energy regen and +something else - it was 139k and I could only scrape up about 110 at the time). You guys who say you got nothing to spend your cash on .... you never see Green items at the vendors? I see greens now and then, and most of the time they're upgrades (the only blues I've gotten have been melee oriented so I am not using em).

[DrDel]

I am level 3 and I am loving this game.. I hear it keeps getting better the more you level.

[Sam Jones]

You guys who say you got nothing to spend your cash on .... you never see Green items at the vendors?

They only appear occasionally, but they're usually pretty good. I've bought plenty of stuff from the vendors. I would like a better "item preview" feature whereby you can simulate wearing an item to see how your stats will change compared to your existing kit.

[Anders Hallin]

Overheating the laptop is such a hassle :(

[Saxman_72]

To those of you all enjoying this game right now,

SCREW YOU ALL!

God-damned Wal-Mart.

=(

[mtkafka]

The more I play the more I get puzzled with some of the less than stellar reviews. Imo, TQ is GotY material... in the 9/10 or 4.5/5 range... but I'm seeing 7/10 or 3/5 reviews?!? Whats up with that? oh well. I really hope the game sells well because I want to see a Titan Quest expansion with Thor, Odin and Loki! err I mean Norse mythos.

etc

[Equisilus]

The more I play the more I get puzzled with some of the less than stellar reviews. Imo, TQ is GotY material... in the 9/10 or 4.5/5 range... but I'm seeing 7/10 or 3/5 reviews?!? Whats up with that? oh well. I really hope the game sells well because I want to see a Titan Quest expansion with Thor, Odin and Loki! err I mean Norse mythos.

etc

It's likely falling into the 'unoriginal sequel' category for those reviewers. I'm loving it (level 9 right now...) and agree that it's one of the better games I've played (and certainly a lot better than my last game purchase of HoMM5, which I do find dull and unoriginal). However, when someone sits down to play this, they'll invariably compare it to the games that it takes inspiration from (D2 mostly) and wonder if the upgrade to graphics combined with some changes to character development and playing in a different setting make this game worthy of the same scoring that the Diablos got upon release. It's unfortunate, but reviewers often have difficulty separating any game from those that came before.

Or perhaps reviewers are being tougher on games these days, and are seeking innovation (!!) instead of just sheer enjoyment.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Dammit, guys. I was on the fence with this one and have blown my entertainment budget on books.

The demo was very uninspiring, but all this enthusiasm is winning me over. Looks like a buy.

Troy

[VegasRobb]

Grabbed it last night. Planning on checking it out after I add the new HD to my system.

I tried installing it on my laptop, but the laptop doesn't meet the minimum requirements because of the graphics card.

[stusser]

Why do you think TQ is GOTY material? It's more of the same, well-presented, with great production values. With no closed multiplayer, in a week we'll all have finished it and moved on. A solid 8 on the 7-9 scale. I would have beat the game last night but I watched bittorrented episodes of a british drama where private school lesbian hotties who discover they're witches fight demons and fornicate with fallen angels to create the antichrist instead. (no, really (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_%28TV_Series%29).) The accent does it for me every time.

[Anders Hallin]

Just one lesbian :(

[forgeforsaken]

I dunno about being done with it in a week. It's going to get at least two play throughs with different character builds over here.

[SirBruce]

The BBC sure has been producing some good stuff lately.

Bruce

[Kalle]

The game is not quite as polished as Diablo 2, and the lack of server-stored characters will hurt the online community. But Titan Quest is still the best sequal Diablo 2 ever had, and considering how much time I spent on Diablo 2 that's a stellar achievement.

[mtkafka]

Why do you think TQ is GOTY material? It's more of the same, well-presented, with great production values. With no closed multiplayer, in a week we'll all have finished it and moved on. A solid 8 on the 7-9 scale. I would have beat the game last night but I watched bittorrented episodes of a british drama where private school lesbian hotties who discover they're witches fight demons and fornicate with fallen angels to create the antichrist instead. (no, really (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_%28TV_Series%29).) The accent does it for me every time.

I really do think its the first Diablo Clone to be overall better than Diablo and Diablo II. That's just my opinion of course. Closed multiplayer isn't as big an issue with me since I really wasn't a big fan of it with Diablo II. It would be a welcome addition though. And maybe a chat interface in the in-game browser could be better.

etc

[EvilIdler]

I really do think its the first Diablo Clone to be overall better than Diablo and Diablo II. That's just my opinion of course.
My opinion is that Darkstone was always the better Diablo :)

[Jab2565]

I'm starting to see the potential of my spirit/storm character, I have the staff power bonus you get with spirit, plus the cold lighting bonus in storm to give my staff attacks a nice power boost. While my lich fries anything that moves.

[balut]

The game really does seem to get better the more you play. Once I dinged level 8 with Titus Pullo, my Warfare specialist, and sub-mastered Stormcalling, and saw him just cleave through enemies dual-wielding with frost and lightning effects, the game had me for good. IMO, it seems the way to go is to focus on one or two paths from your primary, and then pick and choose one path or the best complementary skills from the 2nd mastery. In this way so far, I'm turning my Thane into a dual-wielding berzerker-type, and using the Storm secondary to add useful auras and passives to slow enemies and add effects to his weaponry. At most I see myself using one active offensive skill from the Storm set, as my character's relatively low Intelligence really doens't encourage regular casting anyway.

[Jab2565]

Has anyone tried tinkering with the editor yet? I was looking at it eariler and have no idea what the heck I'm doing . I'm going to try and see if I can find the manual in the folder next time.

Also I'm now finding green loot worse off then yellow. I found a garland thingy. Mine gives 10+ strength, the green gives 10% strength. I'm getting less strength bonus with the green though.

[flyinj]

Do the same vendors get different things throughout the game, or do they get a static inventory every time?

I don't think I've found anything that I wanted at a vendor. It would be a lot more convenient if the vendors grouped their goods from most expensive to least expensive, or in some way showed in the stock window if an item was green/yellow etc.

[DanielElliot]

That would be great, so would an auto-sort button for your inventory, and so would right-clicking to equip items. There's a bunch of little interface tweaks like that that I could think of, but that's really about it. Loving this game.

[Charles]

@Charles
Mapping extra mouse buttons is on our future features to look at list.

You only can't skip the intro the first time. After that, you can.


As super annoying as it is the first time, the fact is that it doesn't skip immediately, you have to hit buttons for a while before it goes away. There isn't an immediate response to my demand to skip the cinematic.

Also, I've crashed at least three times while alt-tabbing. And once the game was stuck loading forever, so I had to kill it.

[scharmers]

Thumbs up from me for the game here. Definitely occupies the #2 spot for "Best Diablo Clone" -- with "Fate" still holding #1 (sorry, but Fate puts a smile on my face that Titan Quest doesn't.)

[Equisilus]

Has anyone tried tinkering with the editor yet? I was looking at it eariler and have no idea what the heck I'm doing . I'm going to try and see if I can find the manual in the folder next time.

Also I'm now finding green loot worse off then yellow. I found a garland thingy. Mine gives 10+ strength, the green gives 10% strength. I'm getting less strength bonus with the green though.

There's a Toolset folder which has some documentation in it. That might be what you are looking for.

The 10% strength bonus would be on your base strength, so if your base strength is less than 100, I would guess that the +10 strength is better. However, once you are 100+ in strength, the 10% would be better. That's my math skills semi-working. ;)

[Michael Fitch]

I killed my dog and all was good.
Greetings:
That has got to be my favorite quote on any board so far.

If you're interested in the editor, definitely stop over at the TQ Vault site (http://www.titanquestvault.com). There's a modder's guide that will walk you through the basics. There's also a fairly active group over at the fan forums (http://www.titanquest.net), with a dedicated area for modding. We will also be releasing a "getting started" series of videos, starting either next week or the week after.

@JM
You really wouldn't want to start in Epic with a lvl 1 character. Trust me. If you're finding it too easy, just run ahead a ways. Or get someone in MP to teleport you up.

@flyinj
The vendor inventories shift over time. So, if you teleport back to a city you haven't visited in a while, you can find new rare items there. Good for hunting down rings/necklaces in particular, since they don't have base stats.

@Charles
Gettings stuck on loading forever, was that in MP? Or was it in SP after alt-tab? Admittedly, we don't handle alt-tabbing as gracefully as some, so I wouldn't recommend doing a lot of it.

Glad to hear people are enjoying it, and also nice suggestions. For better or worse, all commentary is appreciated.

Best,
Michael.

[Charles]

@Charles
Gettings stuck on loading forever, was that in MP? Or was it in SP after alt-tab? Admittedly, we don't handle alt-tabbing as gracefully as some, so I wouldn't recommend doing a lot of it.

It was probably after an alt tab. And while I like the game and don't want to be too much of an asshole, there is really no excuse anymore to not properly support alt-tab in a windows game. What is this, 1998?

[Troy S Goodfellow]

It was probably after an alt tab. And while I like the game and don't want to be too much of an asshole, there is really no excuse anymore to not properly support alt-tab in a windows game. What is this, 1998?

Yeah, I want to echo this. Most people have something else running the background for one reason or another and would like to switch back every now and then. Alt-Tab is pretty standard and I get mighty annoyed when a game locks up because I need to check that email again, or answer a chat ping.

Troy

[Backov]

Ugh, you bastards made me turn on VM.

[Ergo]

You running out of hard drive space or somethong?

[JM]

@JM
You really wouldn't want to start in Epic with a lvl 1 character. Trust me. If you're finding it too easy, just run ahead a ways. Or get someone in MP to teleport you up.

Oh, right, you don't start new chars for it. Got it! :)

[Charles]

Yeah, I want to echo this. Most people have something else running the background for one reason or another and would like to switch back every now and then. Alt-Tab is pretty standard and I get mighty annoyed when a game locks up because I need to check that email again, or answer a chat ping.

Troy

It wouldn't even be so bad if there was an actual save, but since it goes with the Diablo 2 checkpoint system, to quit the game and restart it means I'd have to either wait till I got to a new checkpoint, or slog through everything again. Not that I mind slogging through everything since it's enjoyable, but it's the principle of the thing.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Titan Quest is the best PC game I've played this year, but the screwy alt-tab and the semi-skippable cutscenes (it usually takes 5 seconds and/or what seems like 10 keypresses to actually skip the intro cutscene... why?) annoy me greatly as well.

[flyinj]

I find that if you continuosly tap the left mouse button right after you start to load the game, it skips all the intro videos and goes right to the main menu.

[Chris Woods]

I have heard through sources not related to me that a website commonly associate with piracy, lets call it GameCopyWorld, has a download that will disable the intro movies without replacing the exe.

Other sources also not related to me have confirmed that this does indeed work and does not negatively affect the game or do anything that could prevent you from patching it later.

Chris Woods

[stusser]

You can just rename the files. No need to crack the game.

Sheesh.

[EvilIdler]

there is really no excuse anymore to not properly support alt-tab in a windows game. What is this, 1998?

I like the way City of Heroes+Villains does it. You can select all sorts of
resolutions, plus one special setting: Desktop-sized window. This means
instant alt-tab, safely, as it's just a screen-covering window.
No speed issues that I can see.

[Gendal]

Alt-tab works fine for me, the game has been rock solid. It stutters all the time, and once or twice I thought it was going to crash, but it never does. I do love the way City of Heroes handles it though, the desktop sized window does indeed rule.

Beat the normal difficulty with nary a hitch with my spellsword. It was till the very end, stupidly easy. Then it got just easy. So I loaded up Epic and got off to a running start till I hit the brick wall. Ouch. Now I am debating which of the two from storm,earth, and nature I want to go with for a new character. Probably something with nature because hey, survivability is a good thing.

[Jab2565]

I'm noticing slow down when there is the day/night transition. Especially if I'm in the woods or in town. Besides that the only problem that I'm having is the loot issue. So much loot, but nothing really good. I did buy a new staff from a trader. Also is there a way to see the effects loot has without putting it in the inventory?

[EvilIdler]

It's running a bit jerky at times here, and I've had two bluescreens. Tried
moving my swap space to a different drive before the second BSOD, so I
dunno what the problem is. I don't have any other games that crash so
drastically, but the saves have in both cases been seconds before the
points the game crashed at.

I found earth to be a nice primary. Taking Earth Enchantment doubled my
damage output - killing satyrs at the first village in half as many blows.
At level 4, I got the very nice Ring of Flame, but after a few upgrades, the
two constant effects are starting to cost all my power. WTB cheap ring of
energy regeneration!

[forgeforsaken]

The energy reserve mechanic is kind of neat. I don't think I've seen that done before.

[Traumahound]

They only appear occasionally, but they're usually pretty good. I've bought plenty of stuff from the vendors. I would like a better "item preview" feature whereby you can simulate wearing an item to see how your stats will change compared to your existing kit.

Well, if you buy an item you can sell it back for full price if you don't close the merchant screen. I do this quite often to, as you say, "preview" a purchase.

[Charles]

I like the way City of Heroes+Villains does it. You can select all sorts of
resolutions, plus one special setting: Desktop-sized window. This means
instant alt-tab, safely, as it's just a screen-covering window.
No speed issues that I can see.


Yeah, WoW does that as well. It rocks, all games should do it.

[Kalle]

The really annoying thing, to the point where I wondered if the game was broken, was that the game would without warning give me a black screen and freeze the computer until reboot a couple of minutes after I started it. I figured out that what happened was that my firewall had seen Titan Quest sending packets over the network (in Single Player, so it wasn't obvious) and popped up a window asking me if I wanted to allow it. The window took focus away from the game, but for some reason the game didn't like it and just made the screen go black.

That seems like a bug related to the alt-tab problems, but with a black screen and seemingly no user input that prompted it, it was a pain to diagnose.

[ydejin]

It would be a lot more convenient if the vendors grouped their goods from most expensive to least expensive, or in some way showed in the stock window if an item was green/yellow etc.

I agree. I'd like to be able to see instantly which items are white, which are yellow, and which are green, so I can quickly look at the ones I'm interested in and ignore the others.

Alt-tab works fine for me, the game has been rock solid.

Definitely crashes on context switch for me. I was running Outlook in the background. Midnight rolled around and Outlook decided to put up the next days notification alarms. Window's automatically switches to Outlook to tell me about it, and instant crash of Titan Quest. Other than that, I've had only one crash in about 18 hours of play, so generally rock solid, but would be nice to support Alt-Tab.

[Rob Beschizza]

Just bought this, installing now.

Does anyone have a 2 GHz Pentium IV, DirectX 9.0 video card and Windows XP and no DVD drive? This is like the Amiga days where games would come on 15 floppy disks.

[Moggraider]

Has any game beaten the as-far-as-I-know record of Everquest II, which came on 10 CD's?

[Jab2565]

Could the loot issue be a bug? I'm finding loot further in the game that is worse then the loot I dropped off a few hours ago. I'm still using the helment for its bonuses. And I picked it up about 2 hours in. (I must be at least 10 hours into the game now)

[EvilIdler]

Well, the special edition of Wing Commander IV that came with the Creative
Dxr2 MPEG2 decoder/DVD drive combo was a double-sided, dual-layer DVD.
If it was released on CDs, it would have been *very* big ;)

TQ is just one disc for me (yay Europe - get it two weeks later, on DVD!).
It's also an unstable game. BSODs and CTDs every other time it crashes,
which is every half hour, tops, plus more often if you have corrupted maps.

Only fix I've found that works is to delete all but the character (saving and
reloading doesn't fix anything).

[EvilIdler]

Could the loot issue be a bug? I'm finding loot further in the game that is worse then the loot I dropped off a few hours ago. I'm still using the helment for its bonuses. And I picked it up about 2 hours in. (I must be at least 10 hours into the game now)
I would have expected the loot to scale with difficulty, yes. We've gotten
quite a few of those enhancements tonight, though, but every green has
been crappier than the yellows I use.

[SirBruce]

Well, the special edition of Wing Commander IV that came with the Creative
Dxr2 MPEG2 decoder/DVD drive combo was a double-sided, dual-layer DVD.
If it was released on CDs, it would have been *very* big ;)


The original WC4 was 6 CDs.

10 CDs is the most that I know of. I remember back when the switchover from floppies to CDs was happening, some games were coming out on 24+ floppies (but remember, those were compressed as well).

Bruce

[Sam Jones]

Well, if you buy an item you can sell it back for full price if you don't close the merchant screen. I do this quite often to, as you say, "preview" a purchase.

Damn. Didn't know that. Thanks!

[Kareem]

The amount of good words about the game in this thread is really gonna make me buy it. I was going to ignore it after reading the first page of the thread when it first started.

[JM]

Just a comment about stability - I played it for 3-4 hours straight when it arrived and didn't have a single crash.

Very, very entertaining game :)

[John Reynolds]

I can't decide on my masteries. I went rogue with the thought of adding spirit for a evil toon, but now I'm sort of regretting that and thinking of starting over for a pure earth/storm mage.

[Misguided]

The original WC4 was 6 CDs.

10 CDs is the most that I know of. I remember back when the switchover from floppies to CDs was happening, some games were coming out on 24+ floppies (but remember, those were compressed as well).

Bruce

I still remember getting Sierra's Time Machine which came on 10 floppies (double-sided!) to the tune of 100 bucks. Games are so cheap these days. ;)

[Equisilus]

I can't decide on my masteries. I went rogue with the thought of adding spirit for a evil toon, but now I'm sort of regretting that and thinking of starting over for a pure earth/storm mage.

That's one of the reasons I always pre-decide my first character. Basically, every RPG I play, I start out with a 'warrior' class of sorts. In TQ, that turned out to be a Warfare/Defense (Conquerer) character. I save other builds for the replays. Haven't been disappointed yet.

[Charles]

Two things:

There's a serious balance issue with dropped loot, and the game really needs a bank of some sort.

Example that describes both! I got a nice weapon drop earlier. I'm level 9. It's required level is... 18. The required level of everything else that's dropped so far is... 3. It's not hugely better than what I have, but I'd like to use it. I'd like to keep it. However, my only choice is to lug it around in my pack.

Bleah.

[Jab2565]

I miss the storage chest from D2.

Also I noticed that for once in an action rpg I have more gold then I know what to do with.

[Kalle]

The gold sink is the ability to reconfigure mastery points that appears roughly halfway through greece.

[SolomonGrundy]

back when I had a gaming pc I ran two monitors- one with CoH running, the other with a web browser or whatever- i could just drag the mouse out of the game to the other monitor- a small hiccup but that was it. Worked great with my clown and finding the worst jokes ever written to say ingame.
I'm dying to play the full version of TQ, sadly my wife's pc just blue screens after 15 minutes in the demo. Working on cobbling together 3 of my old rigs together to get one rig running- without much sucess at this point.

[ydejin]

I miss the storage chest from D2.

You'll get some extra bags added which help out quite a bit. The first one is added somewhere in Greece. I think the second one is added when you head to Egypt. I just got to China and received a third bag. I'm hoping there is a fourth one, since that would be nice for long term storage, but I'm pretty sure with the three bags I've got, I've got way more storage than the D2 storage chest.

If you haven't seen them already, you can see them in this image here -- the first bag is the extra inventory space on the right, additional bags accessed via bag tabs.

http://vaultmedia.ign.com/rpgvault/image/titanquest06061202_1150139668.jpg

Okay, just went and counted them:

D2 Expansion: main inventory space 10x4 = 40 spaces
Titan Quest: main inventory space = 12x5 = 60 spaces

D2 Expansion: storage locker 6x8 = 48 spaces
Titan Quest: single bag 8x5 = 40 spaces
Titan Quest: 3 bags = 120 spaces

So by the time you get to China you'll have over twice as much space to store stuff as the D2 main inventory + storage chest. I'll have to admit, I still don't think it's enough space if you try to store up to collect sets -- that's why I'm hoping there's a fourth bag waiting for me when I replay on hard.

[Jab2565]

Always seems that I'm running out of room in Titan, must be because I'm still in Egypt. Anyway I finally got a blue item that is better then the piece of armor I'm wearing. Still haven't found any set items yet. So far my guy can deal with any non boss enemy easy, thanks to my relic enhanced staff.

[ydejin]

Has anyone tried tinkering with the editor yet? I was looking at it eariler and have no idea what the heck I'm doing . I'm going to try and see if I can find the manual in the folder next time.

If you haven't already got a hold of it, you can find the Modders/Editor manual here (http://titanquestvault.ign.com/View.php?view=other.Detail&id=3).

[ydejin]

Always seems that I'm running out of room in Titan, must be because I'm still in Egypt. Anyway I finally got a blue item that is better then the piece of armor I'm wearing. Still haven't found any set items yet. So far my guy can deal with any non boss enemy easy, thanks to my relic enhanced staff.

I hear you. Valley of the Kings, for example, has absolutely huge amounts of treasure. The wealth of the Pharohs, yours for the taking, and all you have to carry it all out with is this small-size backpack. I definitely spent a lot of time portaling in and out to the merchants in that section.

[Equisilus]

Set items, relics, charms, and potions are the things that strain the inventory. Since you can use your portal stone, you are able to clear our your inventory to make some gold whenever you like and keep room for the useful stuff. I've just made it to Egypt and have close to 900,000 gold (level 18) with only one piece of a set item.

I wish we could have a nice little home with limited inventory (like the D2 chest system) but contains 'display cases' where we can collect our sets (and these are unlimited). Finding all of a set isn't easy to do, and allowing us to collect them would be a fun side adventure, even for sets that are of no value to the particular character. Or would this unbalance the multiplayer game or something (I play single player, so didn't read about how mp works)?

[Michael Fitch]

Greetings:
We always figured that the almost double storage space you end up with would be plenty. What we missed was that there's a significant psychological difference to having it be on your character rather than separate. With the stash in D2, you end up making hard choices about what to keep or not keep in your stash, but since you're making those decisions at a different time than making choices about what to carry on you, it doesn't feel as limited.

We actually don't make you carry as much stuff (no keys, no tomes of town portal or identify, no charms), but we do put a lot more stuff into the world, so people who want to pick up every magic item (or god forbid every item) do get overwhelmed. We missed the boat on this one, to be sure.

However, there are some things you can do to lighten the load. For example, you never really need more than 40 potions of each type. People have a tendency to hoard these, and it does eventually stack up.

Also, you can sell or use any Greek-themed partial relics when you get to Egypt, any Egypt-themed partials when you get to Asia, and any partial normal relics or charms when you get to Epic. These things won't drop in more advanced stages, so you won't complete them, so you might as well either use them or sell them.

Finally, being aggressive about filtering loot can also help. I always use the non-magical filter (X by default) after about level 5, and I'll only pick up yellows that are relevant to my character. I'll pick up any jewelry for the cash since it's the most size/cost efficient, but if I'm playing a bow character, I won't pick up any staffs or melee weapons, if I'm a mage, I won't pick up any melee armor, etc. It's rare that I actually need to portal back to town, since there are small towns in between the major cities, and even merchants out in the wilderness.

I usually have one bag that's just for relics and charms, one for potions and saved items, and one for saved items. That lets me use my main inventory space just for stuff I find between one merchant and the next, and generally, that's plenty for me.

Like with any new game, especially one that feels familiar, it can take a while to adjust your thinking/habits (I always flail around when a new Civ comes out because I'm still trying to play it according to the last one's rules), but once you adjust, it becomes just as transparent to you and you can focus on the fun stuff, like greens and blues and purples.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Michael.

[VegasRobb]

Well, if you buy an item you can sell it back for full price if you don't close the merchant screen. I do this quite often to, as you say, "preview" a purchase.

Thank you!

[ducker]

hm quite odd.. I tried the demo last night... saved myself. now when I try to go back in I get it all locked up with a white screen and an hourglass in the lower right hand corner. bummer. ok... well that happened twice in a row... upon the 3rd attemp it allowed me in... quite odd.

[Equisilus]

Greetings:

Also, you can sell or use any Greek-themed partial relics when you get to Egypt, any Egypt-themed partials when you get to Asia, and any partial normal relics or charms when you get to Epic. These things won't drop in more advanced stages, so you won't complete them, so you might as well either use them or sell them.

Really? Wow, didn't expect that, although it makes perfect sense. However, you can go back to those earlier areas, so you may be able to complete them if you aren't bent on a straight line through the story on any particular difficulty level.

Guess I have a tab of relics and charms that aren't of much use keeping anymore. How sad. Ah well, I'll stick 'em and move on.

[stusser]

Just beat the game on normal at level 32 with a total playtime of 26 hours. I explored everywhere. No crashes at all, period, but the game runs like a pig with constant slowdowns. I've got to say that the difficulty scales way up at the end.

I played about 30 min of epic difficulty (killed nessus) and quit. It's the EXACT same game. Without closed multiplayer to compete against other players or randomized levels, I just don't see the point. Hopefully they patch in something akin to battle.net and/or people start doing something really cool with the editor, cause otherwise TQ is going on the shelf. I'm not complaining, 26 hours of gameplay for $40 ain't bad, and you can tell I liked it because it's only been four days since it came out!

[TomChick]

It's the EXACT same game. Without closed multiplayer to compete against other players or randomized levels, I just don't see the point.

I hear you, stusser, and I understand the point you're making. I felt the same way at first. But having played over parts of that "EXACT same game" several times, I've come to disagree.

Where you are might be identical*, but the replay value comes from who you are. The different character builds are the most obvious example. Try a mix of two different masteries to see how it plays. Odds are it will feel different.

But even replaying the same character at the harder difficulty levels changes the game by the fact is that you're now going through the same areas with 32 entirely new levels of character development under you're belt.

If you're over Titan Quest, I'm not trying to convince you you're wrong. But as someone who's seen a lot of the same areas more than once -- we've been playing multiplayer at Shoot Club -- it hasn't felt as futile and repetitve as I thought it would.

-Tom

* And, to be fair, it's not identical. There are randomized creature gatherings, randomized drops, randomized treasure, and randomized merchant goodies.

[stusser]

I get what you mean but you're still fighting satyrs, pigs, crows, and centaurs. One group of mobs may be centaurs instead of satyrs the second playthrough, but that doesn't add any replayability for me. I feel no particular need to replay the exact same game using a different spec, and without closed multiplayer the drops have no particular value either.

Which brings me to another bitch, every boss I killed dropped yellows. Can't they guarantee that the first kill gives at least one green or blue? The end boss of the entire game didn't drop a single green or blue on my first kill! And the named (orange) minibosses, the vast majority of them drop no loot at all. Weak.

[Equisilus]

Well, moving through the first section of Egypt now, and I have to say that the difficulty must have jumped a bit. I never died through all of Greece, but my Conqueror has now died twice (once by some giant scorpians and another time by some worms). Good that it got more difficult, but I certainly didn't see that coming.

Encountered a couple of odd things, too. I was in Hathor Basin and just finished off a small cave (of worms and scarab thingies) where on the other side on a cliff, I emptied out a majestic chest. I teleported back to town to sell off some stuff, but when I went to teleport back, there was no icon for my portal! I tried doing it a bunch of different ways, but couldn't get the teleporter to bring me back to my portal. So, I exited and re-entered at the last Rebirth Fountain. No problem, it wasn't that far away, but now I am wary about using the portal without being near a Rebirth Fountain. Not good.

The other thing I have a question about is the "Hamstring" skill. Is this supposed to be one that you can activate with a mouse click or hotkey? It doesn't show up in my right-click menu for the mouse or hotkeys and it doesn't say it requires a specific weapon type. If a skill cannot be used, does it just not show up in the list? Mayhap next time I find a few different weapons, I'll stick them in the slots and see if I get different skills showing up.

Have to agree with Tom above, about the replayability being all about different builds gathering different loot, not about a different gameworld (although, a randomized area as in the Diablos would have been nice). Still, 28 different combos (or 36 if you include the singles) plus all the different ways you can build the skill trees is an awful lot of replay value, even if you only do a few. That's why I tend to make my builds as different as possible (my Conqueror, being a strict melee type won't be anything like my next build which will be to the caster side); it enhances the replay value if you easily notice how different your builds are.

[Anders Hallin]

What's the opinion on using levelling points on health? It seems wasteful, in a way.

[Equisilus]

Yeah, I used one early on in health but then noticed my health was going up anyway so stopped after that, concentrating almost solely on strength and dexterity (in about a 2 to 1 ratio) with the very odd intelligence thrown in.

[forgeforsaken]

Honestly I never found Diablo II to be that random. There's some basic kind of templates that you learned to recognise after a while. The only place that ever felt really reandom was the jungle and that was often a pain in the ass.

Back to TQ, I have some niggling problems with it. Teleporters are a bit too far apart. I've had it crash on me a few times now. It was fine all through Greece, now that I'm in Egypt it's become unstable :(

I love that they let you respec your skill points. Gives me something to do with my money and lets me fine tune the build. I think I was going a bit too even between my two skill sets, I've pulled it back and have started to focus on one a lot more than the other. Have to see how that plays out.

[stusser]

Hamstring works on every mob you hit with onslaught. All "circular" skills with prerequisites work like this. It's worth one point. Actually that's another design decision I disagree with; many skills are frontloaded in such a way that putting in more than one point is unnecessary or wasteful.

Warfare has an essential skill war wind (http://www.gamebanshee.com/titanquest/skills/warwind.php). It's allows you to attack 4 mobs at once, pointblank, with one point. Adding more points just slightly increases the amount of damage done. 40 damage is nothing, my guy's max hit was over 900 and I didn't even play through epic. Then there's lacerate (http://www.gamebanshee.com/titanquest/skills/lacerate.php), the followup to war wind, where the 1-4 points adds 1 target, and 5-8 adds two. So you either put 1 point in or 5. There are a ton of skills like this. It's simply bad design.

In addition, many of the skills won't scale with your character and equipment. Take counter attack (http://www.gamebanshee.com/titanquest/skills/counterattack.php) for example. 12 points for a 13% chance to do ~60 damage when you're hit. Remember, my dude crits for 900 damage. Bad design.

Don't waste points on health or energy. Supposedly it also slightly increases regen rate, but not worth it.

[mtkafka]

I get what you mean but you're still fighting satyrs, pigs, crows, and centaurs. One group of mobs may be centaurs instead of satyrs the second playthrough, but that doesn't add any replayability for me. I feel no particular need to replay the exact same game using a different spec, and without closed multiplayer the drops have no particular value either.

Which brings me to another bitch, every boss I killed dropped yellows. Can't they guarantee that the first kill gives at least one green or blue? The end boss of the entire game didn't drop a single green or blue on my first kill! And the named (orange) minibosses, the vast majority of them drop no loot at all. Weak.

This could easily be abused, though athis point without a closed system it is pointless. i was actually thinking the opposite.. I've already gotten like 5 blues in one run through the game at normal. All in all i think the drops are fine. There is definite tweaks that can be done to the game, from loot drops to character balance. But beyond that this is a WORTHY diablo heir.

More important I think is that they upgrad the online part. As is, it's very lowgrade. It really really needs a battlenet component. This could really boost popularity. Plus I want to trade with myself!

etc

[DanielElliot]

What does closed multiplayer mean exactly? What did Battle.net do that TQ doesn't? I never got into multiplayer Diablo, only the singleplayer.

[forgeforsaken]

It saved the characters online so in theory you couldn't cheat and hack stats/loot, though there was a fair bit of cheating anyway.

[EvilIdler]

I fucking hate the chat. HATE IT! It gets in the way of me clicking where
the character walks. I want to move it away, and I want an easier hotkey
to start chat with, plus transparency options.

I love the few skills I've picked up, which seem to make me a tougher warrior
than a mage should really be. Can't wait to upgrade my flame circle to actually
also add protection.

I've had 5 blues total, and only my first (retired 3 hours ago :) was from a
boss - the rest were actually in random chests. The greens have largely
been OK for selling, not much else. But the aforementioned blue was
retired to make room for a slightly relic-upgraded caster tunic, so the loot
seems *too* random. Yes, loot my level 15 character gets from level 17-18
enemies has a level 3-8 requirement, BUT the stat requirements are still
higher than at least one of mine. But not the bonuses on the items.

Best weapon I've found so far is a 16-21 damage falcata that leeches
energy on hits. That's pretty much essential for the Wargare/Earth build I
use, since I spend all my energy in no-time. No clickies, apart from Onslaught,
just passives.

The dual-mastery allows for a lot of interesting class combinations, and the
modding options might make all sorts of cool stuff. A Qt3 semi-persistent
world o' hurt, anyone? :)

[EvilIdler]

It saved the characters online so in theory you couldn't cheat and hack stats/loot, though there was a fair bit of cheating anyway.
A system like NWN's servervault would be an excellent addition.

[DanielElliot]

Ah. That doesn't matter to me in the least, I only play with people I know (online) anyway. Even for people who play with randoms, is it really such a big deal if they've cheated on their loot? This isn't a competitive game.

[Kalle]

*Sw0rD-d3wD hits Satyr for 1,000,000 points of damage*

Yeah, I can't see how that would affect anyone's game experience online.

[Ryan A]

Is it that an screenshot from the game? Is it really that ugly?

[JPR]

Is that a serious question or are you kidding? That's what the merchant/character screen looks like. Some of the icons could be a little better, and the UI border doesn't appeal to me a whole lot, but the game looks pretty fantastic overall.

Screens (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/titanquest/screenindex.html)

A lot of them are taken zoomed way in and look pretty breathtaking (that first one in the second section, for example), and there are several that are taken zoomed all the way out. The graphics are more impressive in motion, though. There's a lot of motion in the the scenery.

[Jab2565]

One problem that I have about bosses and hero units. Is that they rarely drop rare items. I've killed at least 7 hero units(orange name) and not one has dropped any loot. Also bosses only seem to drop lots of yellow items. Except for one boss we fought during multi last night ,that dropped 2 greens and a blue.

I know that regardless of the difficulty levels I'll probably make one more character, maybe a rogue something.

[JM]

I'm still fairly early on, but it seems to me that the lack of direct drops from bosses/heroes is counterbalanced by the fact that you'll usually find they were guarding some shiny chest with a decent chance of a good drop.

[Anders Hallin]

I think the problem with ydejin's pic was the JPG compression.

[Calistas]

Bought. Bastards, the lot of you!

[Michael Fitch]

Greetings:
Just a couple of points.

Putting attribute points into health generally isn't needed in Normal difficulty, but it can be a life-saver after that. As you build up your mastery, you will generally get plenty of health along the way, but in Epic and Legendary, you can get one-shot killed, particularly by bosses, if you've neglected your health stat. The difference between getting hit and backing off and/or drinking a potion versus getting hit and dying changes the gameplay significantly.

Also, for clarity, upping health increases health regen; upping intelligence ups energy regen. You generally want to increase your energy pool if you're running into problems due to reserved energy powers taking up too much of it, or if you're casting a variety of high-cost skills in rapid succession. Otherwise, focusing on intelligence will help you with the regen and potions will get you through the big fights.

Hero creatures (the ones with orange names) do have a higher probability of equipping high-level gear, but the primary reward for these guys is that they give a large experience bonus for killing them. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get anything in (sound or visual) to clue you in to this. It's a flaw in the implementation that these guys are more challenging but the reward being correlated to that isn't something you can see.

Bosses generally won't always drop a lot of cool stuff, but that's what the nearby chests are for. Be sure to check out nearby caves as well, as there is often extra loot hidden in there.

Best,
Michael.

[DanielElliot]

Where are the crates for the sidequest in Greece, with the merchant who says he abandoned his cargo near a ruined city full of skeletons? The sidequest is under the Delphi heading, and since I'm almost into Athens, it occurs to me that I probably passed it by.

[Gendal]

Where are the crates for the sidequest in Greece, with the merchant who says he abandoned his cargo near a ruined city full of skeletons? The sidequest is under the Delphi heading, and since I'm almost into Athens, it occurs to me that I probably passed it by.

Remember where you made a right to get the tree branch for Delphi? It's off the road that loops around and goes under the bridge. If you pass under the bridge, you went too far. I think that's it anyways, I might be confusing it with another quest.

[forgeforsaken]

Remember where you made a right to get the tree branch for Delphi? It's off the road that loops around and goes under the bridge. If you pass under the bridge, you went too far. I think that's it anyways, I might be confusing it with another quest.

No that's it.

[Jakub]

There's something really fucking wrong with the game on my system.

I move for 30 seconds, the game freezes for 10 seconds. I move another 30 seconds, it freezes for 10 seconds.

Turning graphics detail levels down has helped the problem, but not fixed it.

[Calistas]

Try dropping the res. I had that issue in the demo.. lets see if I have it in the full..

[Jakub]

Try dropping the res. I had that issue in the demo.. lets see if I have it in the full..
Yeah, did that already.

I don't think 1024x768 at medium settings is too much to ask of a GeForce 6800 Ultra.

[JPR]

I just had an issue with a side-quest. Outside Knossos, there is a side-quest to go into a cave and retrieve some guy's staff. The cave wouldn't load -- I could see it, but I couldn't walk into it. Tried warping to town and back, thinking it might reload, but still no good.

Haven't gone back in after quitting yet... I'll let you know.

Edit: Worked after quitting out.

[Saber Cherry]

Yeah, did that already.

I don't think 1024x768 at medium settings is too much to ask of a GeForce 6800 Ultra.

I run 1280x1024 @ medium on a GF6800 pro, without that kind of issue. AA off, anisotropic @ 16. It's not purely your card.

[Calistas]

Well, the game is completely unplayable.

First time I loaded it I managed to get to the fight over the horse before the game stuttered to a complete crawl.

Second time, I made it to the guy who gives that little quest.

Third time, I made it to the first man.

Fourth time, I don't move at all. As the image loads up and the screen fades in from black the game starts to crawl. All this while I have dropped the settings to 1024x768 and 'LOW'.

NVidia 6800, 1 gig ram, plenty of hard drive space.. :(

edit: Punching it back up to 1280x1024 - my desktop res, has helped. AA off, other stats reasonable. Still, when I walk into a 'new' area the game pretty much locks up. More setting fiddling required. Disapointing.

eidt2: All on medium it works. Went to the first cave, approached it from behind and the game locked up again. I seemed to fall through the ground into the cave, at least, that's what it looked like the last time the screen refreshed..

[mtkafka]

I guess I should be happy I have an ATI? doh...haven't had any graphics problems except for the chugs when i play for a couple hours (and porting fixes that for me).

etc

[MattKeil]

This game is awesome, except when it's relentlessly fucking with my display drivers. It starts to chop up after twenty minutes or so, and twice has actually ground my computer to a stop, requiring a hard reset.

Running in high at 1280x1024 using SLI GeForce 7800 GTXes. I think it should be able to handle it. :/

[John Sansker]

Since this hasn't been mentioned here yet.(dunno about the hardware section)
For those running nVidia cards, they released new drivers on 6/23/06. (91.31)
I was having a few issues, one of which was that ripple effect thingy.(v-sync fixed this) Updated my drivers, as I was still running 84.21. runs great for me at 1024x768 with everything set to max.(haven't tried upping the res to the monitor's max, think I'll give that a shot and see what it looks like.)

[Charles]

Yeah, the game performs like a dog. It also has memory leak or fragmentation issues, as after a certain period of time, it starts running like shit no matter what, and simply restarting the game fixes is.

On top of that, indoor/outdoor transitions are slow as hell, cities are crap if you have shadows at anything other than low, and there's a major performance inbalance between parts of the game.

Out in the open, in some areas, I can play with the game with all settings on full at my lcd res of 1280 (Athlon 64 3400+, 2gb ram, X800 XL) at a perfectly smooth framerate. Go in to a city with this though, or in certain areas, and it drops to easily 2-3 FPS. Seems to me that the game could really use some dynamic LOD for detail levels in order to balance the framerate. The game looks fucking fantastic on full, and even though I can play probably 80% of the game at full, fact is that unless I'm going to fuck with my video settings every 5-10 minutes, I pretty much just leave everything on medium with shadows on low.

Oh, btw, there are serious Z-fighting issues with shadows on low detail.

[Backov]

Is it that an screenshot from the game? Is it really that ugly?

The game itself is quite beautiful. The UI looks like shareware.

[Michael Fitch]

Greetings:
Those of you having technical problems might want to drop by the TQ Vault tech support forums (http://vnboards.ign.com/titan_quest_tech_support/b23097/p1) or the TQ fan-site technical forum (http://www.titanquest.net/technical-corner/). We've got devs in both these places looking through issues, as well as compiling lists of tips and workarounds.

You guys tend to be pretty savvy, so you might spot something there.

Best,
Michael.

[Equisilus]

Since there's a rash of complaints regarding poor performance in TQ, I'll throw in my specs and settings for comparison, and note that the game runs smoothly in all instances except for one time in the labyrinth where it was noticably stuttery when my character had Onslaught effects swirling about him. Here we go:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4400+
XFX GeForce 7800GTX (256 MB)
2 GB OCZ Platinum 3200 (DDR400)
Audigy 2 ZS
2x 250 GB WD SATA hard drives with 16 MB cache (game and system on primary C)

That's all the relevant specs. I'm playing at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed/on and v-sync on (to stop that ripple effect). I have my video set to allow the game to choose settings, so otherwise things are mostly set to the default outside the game. I do, however, have a dual display and play on my primary display while the other is still active.

I'm still using the last set of beta drivers 91.28 so haven't switched up to 91.31 yet (not sure if I'll bother or just wait for the next set to come along, as I'm not having any issues with 91.28).

[John Reynolds]

I've got it running at 1920x1200 with AA/AF and all in-game settings maxed out with about as beefy a non-dual PEG system as you can get (1900 XTX, 2GB of low latency DDR2, Intel 'Conroe' CPU, etc.) and it hitches like a mofo when transitioning between dungeons and outdoors, and definitely starts stuttering after extended play.

And speaking of extended play, restarted last night and got a warfare/defense toon up to 10th level and already regret choosing defense instead of, say, earth or storm as my second mastery. I've put maybe 1 or 2 skill points into it since I have so many warfare pts in dual wielding.

[mtkafka]

I've got it running at 1920x1200 with AA/AF and all in-game settings maxed out with about as beefy a non-dual PEG system as you can get (1900 XTX, 2GB of low latency DDR2, Intel 'Conroe' CPU, etc.) and it hitches like a mofo when transitioning between dungeons and outdoors, and definitely starts stuttering after extended play.

And speaking of extended play, restarted last night and got a warfare/defense toon up to 10th level and already regret choosing defense instead of, say, earth or storm as my second mastery. I've put maybe 1 or 2 skill points into it since I have so many warfare pts in dual wielding.

defense is still useful without the shield skills. Adrenaline is THE boss killer skill (with the speed + at 24). Up that tree, alone, and you will make mincemeat out of most bosses. and the stun blunt and lower armor requirements are good skills. I'd say max at 24 for the adrenaline at least. it IS useful even with dual wield.

etc

[Calistas]

The driver upgrade fixed it. Hmm, I am surprised to see it make such a difference, but there you go, game is running smooth as silk now.

My toon is at lvl 9 and is a spirit/rogue mix, making him a Warlock. My lich and lifedrain blends most bad guys and the poisoned, boosted up blade attack makes short work of all the generic mobs. My only concern is staying alive as he doesn't tank too well, hehe.

I figure the spirit tendency to induce bleeding weakness and the rogue's tendency to do bleeding attacks will be a nice combo. Only thing is all these leeches and posions never get a chance to work, they all die too quick.

[Rywill]

Am I correct in thinking that stats work the same for swords and bows? I.e., in many games, archers want to improve Dexterity but melee types want to improve Strength. But in this game, all weapons hit based on Dex and do damage based on Strength, is what I am understanding from the manual.

[Equisilus]

Am I correct in thinking that stats work the same for swords and bows? I.e., in many games, archers want to improve Dexterity but melee types want to improve Strength. But in this game, all weapons hit based on Dex and do damage based on Strength, is what I am understanding from the manual.

You forgot about pierce damage, which are for swords, arrows, and spears, and they use your Dex modifier. So bows will have an additional type of damage beyond that provided by strength.

[JM]

I figure the spirit tendency to induce bleeding weakness and the rogue's tendency to do bleeding attacks will be a nice combo. Only thing is all these leeches and posions never get a chance to work, they all die too quick.

I get the feeling that smart builds like this will come into their own on the higher difficulty levels. Only against Boss-types has my build been anything more than "attack, kill" :)

[DrCrypt]

Like Fate, this game gives me exactly what I want: prettier Diablo 2, with some different monsters and settings. Unlike Fate, in which the only viable character build was a dual-wielding gnomish warrior dressed entirely in pink and purple with a yapping daschusund trailing behind, Titan Quest has a strong character building system. Also unlike Fate, all the most obnoxious elements of Diablo 2 have been pruned from the interface: no identitfy, no repairs, no tomes of town portal, no antidotes or throwing potions, no arrows or ammunition of any type.

Unfortunately, also unlike Fate, this game somehow forgot the personality. I'm more than happy to putz around in Greek mythology one more time, but please infuse it with some spark that makes it feel something other than Edith Hamilton does Poser. Centaurs look just the way I expect centaurs to look; harpies look just like harpies; walking skeletons are exactly the same as they were in Jason and the Argonauts. I realize for some people these would all be pluses, but I prefer God of War's spunky take on Greek mythology.

Also, put me in the same category as the guys who miss randomization. I realize that Diablo 2's randomization protocol only randomized according to level design templates, and those templates were all pretty familiar. I don't care about that. But I have to say, I do miss just wandering into some random elite boss in the course of adventuring through an area I've been a hundred times before, with a name like "Doofus the Snotbearer". So far, I've found no random named bosses... which, small detail though it may be, also makes the game feel like it has little personality.

One more thing that feeds into the feeling of lack of personality: there's only two character avatars. Yeah, you quickly mix it up with equipment, but some other personalization touches would have really helped connect you to your character.

This isn't a pan: actually, I really love the game. But I don't really love Titan Quest for being Titan Quest... I love it for being more Diablo 2. Bizarrely enough, that's not the way I felt about Fate, which was a game that lifted Diablo 2's gameplay out wholesale but still managed to create its own colorful, charming little world.

By the way... is there a hardcore mode?

[DrCrypt]

Also: I wish one of these games would ape Battle.net. The big reason that's so important to me is it guarantees that the great equipment I get actually has real currency. I can trade it with other players (in a large network), I can twink lower level characters, and if I die in hardcore mode, it doesn't just disappear into the ether, but can be used by whoever happens to find it.

[Charles]

So, there's a sidequest called The Master Blacksmith. He is supposedly in a cave or something off the side of the road to Delphi. I can't find him. At least, not before Delphi. Anyone have any idea where he is?

[Gendal]

So, there's a sidequest called The Master Blacksmith. He is supposedly in a cave or something off the side of the road to Delphi. I can't find him. At least, not before Delphi. Anyone have any idea where he is?

Can't be as helpful on this one because I don't really remember any of the features around it, but you go up a little lane with water to your right side then a bridge that crosses the river. Don't cross the river, keep going up into a little culdesac with a few centaurs and such, he is up above it in a small alcove. Probably not much help heh.

[Charlatan]

Yeah, what Gendal said about the blacksmith - at one point you're going almost due south over a wooden bridge. If you go north or east instead, you run into him in about 10 seconds. He had a mix of stuff but when my Summoner found him, it was mostly melee oriented stuff.

[Charles]

You mean near the olive grove? I found an NPC that says he's "In the hills near helicos pass"

[Charles]

Nevermind, finally found him. He has some good stuff.

[Anders Hallin]

Beat the Greece bad guy, was pretty easy with plenty of potions and 30% resistance against most elemental stuff.

[stusser]

The entire game (on normal) is very very easy until you get to the area immediately preceding the endgame, the obsidian caverns I think they were called. Then difficulty spikes way up. I actually died there a couple times, first time for me.

Lurkers, if you haven't bought it yet here's a $10 coupon for best buy (http://img418.imageshack.us/my.php?image=titan8ul.jpg). Some compusas had it marked down to $0.98 on 6/30, but they fixed it quick.

[Kunikos]

Just thought I'd point out a bug I found, but I'm not sure what the actual producing thing was, but here I go anyway (tiny little spoilery stuff):


I had two sets of weapon/(s)/shield in my character's swap-sets and one of them (an 85 shield from the hidden smith merchant) required around 200 str to wield, which the +14STR on my Patroclys' Shortsword (a blue item) put me over the top to be able to use, and in the other set I have a yellow mace and a green shield (a spiky 55dmg dropped off an arachnos). I'm playing as a warrior with 6/6 in the charge-up 1st rank attack skill, and when I switch from the sword/shield to the mace/shield I noticed something very important-- mainly the fact that only the 1st of the two sets generates charge per connecting attack for the attack skill (ie I don't see the radius of swirling glowy effect *at all* on switch, it just disappears and never comes back no matter how many ppl i hit). I tested removing the 2nd set and then replacing the items in the 1st set with them, and it turns out only the 1st set generates the charge-up points. So much for having two different weapon sets, as this pretty much makes it moot for me since my entire character build is based on this mechanic (I'm playing as a Thane, but mostly the idea is to charge-up extra damage per hit and keep storm nimbus going all the time and just plow through enemies-- most standard grunties I kill in a single hit and they go FLYYYYING, somethingwhich I will probably never get tired of btw).

[Misguided]

Are you sure you had sufficient strength to wield the second shield without the bonus from your sword in set 1?

Unlike Diablo, if you lose the ability to use an item due to an equipment switch, it will NOT kick it into your inventory but the background of the slot will turn red.

[Jab2565]

Just finshed normal. For the last boss, the fight felt a bit anti climatic. No uber weapons or anything dropped. I got better loot from the boss before him. I'm going to try epic now see if anything has changed.

I have a question. The spirit power that you need the power that triples your staff shots to get. What does it do?

[Equisilus]

You mean Arcane Lore? According to the manual it adds a speed boost (cast faster) and area damage. Does it not give a description in-game?

[John Reynolds]

Just beat the Greece boss last night. Got so sick of that Minoan maze that I ran through probably 75% of it until finding the boss' lair. There's content and then there's fluff for the sake of extending a game's playtime to an unnecessary length.

[Phred]

Just thought I'd point out a bug I found, but I'm not sure what the actual producing thing was, but here I go anyway (tiny little spoilery stuff):


I had two sets of weapon/(s)/shield in my character's swap-sets and one of them (an 85 shield from the hidden smith merchant) required around 200 str to wield, which the +14STR on my Patroclys' Shortsword (a blue item) put me over the top to be able to use, and in the other set I have a yellow mace and a green shield (a spiky 55dmg dropped off an arachnos). I'm playing as a warrior with 6/6 in the charge-up 1st rank attack skill, and when I switch from the sword/shield to the mace/shield I noticed something very important-- mainly the fact that only the 1st of the two sets generates charge per connecting attack for the attack skill (ie I don't see the radius of swirling glowy effect *at all* on switch, it just disappears and never comes back no matter how many ppl i hit). I tested removing the 2nd set and then replacing the items in the 1st set with them, and it turns out only the 1st set generates the charge-up points. So much for having two different weapon sets, as this pretty much makes it moot for me since my entire character build is based on this mechanic (I'm playing as a Thane, but mostly the idea is to charge-up extra damage per hit and keep storm nimbus going all the time and just plow through enemies-- most standard grunties I kill in a single hit and they go FLYYYYING, somethingwhich I will probably never get tired of btw).

Where is the hidden smith hidden anyway? I looked for him a couple of times and couldnt find him.

[instant0]

Where is the hidden smith hidden anyway? I looked for him a couple of times and couldnt find him.

Look earlier in the thread.

It was something about following the river instead of crossing the bridge.

[Charles]

There's a bridge east of the olive patch. The smith is east of that yet again. He has good stuff -- I took the time to do 5-6 runs on him until I replaced both of my weapons. It was totally worth it.

[Jancelot]

Interesting. I guess I was underwhelmed by that special blacksmith because I had already found 2 blue weapons and a 2 pieces of blue armor. I just unloaded my fluff and moved along.

I believe I played for a total of 8 hours yesterday. I'm playing a dual-wield Warrior/Spirit build. Most fights have been easy (just have a stack of 40 health potions handy) but the Cyclops omgwtfpwned me twice. I ended up having to run away and whittle him down with my bow.

Oh, and the dual-wield progression is a blast with a pinch of War Wind mixed in. Great game.

[malphigian]

I'm really enjoying this game as well. I'm only just past Delphi, I'm playing a Defense/Earth mix (a "Juggernaut"). I'm aiming for that skill that turns me into a giant, but I'm also building up the weapon enhancing fire damage skills from earth. Had a rough start but he's a ton of fun now, I use the charge skill to fly into the middle of pack of baddies, then use the shield slam which instantly ignites and kills three of them.

Part of my success is coming from my weapon (http://titanquestvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=427), which I've also tossed a fire damage enchant on, which I think stacks with the Earth skill called Fire Enchantment.

I kind of get the feeling that all the build combos work pretty well with a little effort, at least on normal.

[JM]

I'm a rogue/warrior ("Assassin"), dual-wielding with a blue mainhand (Traitor's Chiv, I believe) and a +10% attack speed offhand that I've added a 5/5 artifact set to for another +18% attack speed. Lots of fun - I have a half-decent bow and throwing knives for ranged stuff, lots of points in the early warrior + rogue trees, and rely on flash powder a lot.

The great thing is, I could probably do about 4 separate builds with those two trees alone.

[Kunikos]

Are you sure you had sufficient strength to wield the second shield without the bonus from your sword in set 1?

Unlike Diablo, if you lose the ability to use an item due to an equipment switch, it will NOT kick it into your inventory but the background of the slot will turn red.

Yes I am sure, because the second shield was significantly easier to wield. I did notice that when switching from the second set to the first set the shield of the first set, with the might more difficult strength requirement that needed the bonus off the sword in the first set to wield it, would be red for a split second and then back to normal background. The bug isn't so much this but the fact that whenever I'm using the weapon in the second set at all I do not accrue charges for the warrior attack skill.

[Kunikos]

Where is the hidden smith hidden anyway? I looked for him a couple of times and couldnt find him.

Look for the green dot on the minimap, which signifies the merchant. :) He's right before a bridge, off the road northeast-ish on the way to Delphi.

[Kunikos]

I believe I played for a total of 8 hours yesterday. I'm playing a dual-wield Warrior/Spirit build. Most fights have been easy (just have a stack of 40 health potions handy) but the Cyclops omgwtfpwned me twice. I ended up having to run away and whittle him down with my bow.

I was playing a one weapon warrior at the time I took on the Cyclops, I had to use the stunning horn skill and just hit him a few times and run away and heal (rinse, repeat). My build didn't work very well for fighting 1-on-1 so I've been doing tweaks since then. I dumped the war horn and rage skill in favor for the storm nimbus skill line (change on hit for cold/lightning dmg, attacking enemies get movement and attack slowdown, ...) and boosting the basic attack skills and resist damage up to max.

[Becoming]

Part of my success is coming from my weapon (http://titanquestvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=427), which I've also tossed a fire damage enchant on, which I think stacks with the Earth skill called Fire Enchantment.
I actually found that same weapon at level 8 just before I was about to stop playing the other night. Are the bonuses for the weapons random? Mine has slightly different numbers on the poison damage and no dex boost on it.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1857/deathweaverdaggerpic1ck.jpg

[JM]

Greens are random I think.

[Jancelot]

Forgot to add that I hit an odd, but not necessarily unwelcome, bug on the final fight in Greece last night. When fighting the Telkine (sp?) I portaled back to town for a stack of 50 healing potions. When I went back he was completely immobile and just stood there as I hackety-hack-hacked him to death. I admit is was anti-climactic, but at that point I was well past my bedtime (praise to Coffeecus, Bleary Eyed God of the Bean).

[EvilIdler]

Greens are random I think.
I guess that's why they can be randomly better than blues from around the
same area. If you add relics to them, you can end up with some great stuff.

[Jab2565]

I played for about 40 minutes of epic, and something odd is going on. Near the end of normal I was doing more damage with my basic attack then my lich was. But in epic, it's reverse, the lich is doing way more damage then I'm with my basic attack. I also noticed my dps dropped 100 points just for switching to epic.

I'm sorta annoyed that I won't see any legendary weapons for at least another 10 hours, since the manual said they don't show up until the end of epic. Does anyone remember if the most rare items showed up in normal diff in D2? (not the most powerful just that level of rarity)

About the staff power, my attack speed is 92%, so is it better to build up that power or just get attack speed bonuses?

Also I started a rogue class, I like how it is completely different play style, and I'm going to give him defense as his dual.

[Charles]

I like the skill and class system, but I'm afraid that levelling is so slow that trying out many combinations will prove to be difficult if not impossible. Diablo 2 was pretty fast, so you could get a feel for a class pretty quick. Or at least, it seems that way in my memory.

I just want to do a lot in titan quest but I suspect that would mean a few hundred hours in greece alone, and that's kind of crappy.

[DrCrypt]

Does anyone remember if the most rare items showed up in normal diff in D2? (not the most powerful just that level of rarity)

No, the rarest items showed up only in Hell.

[Charles]

One thing I'm really missing from titan quest is to be able to teleport to nearby waypoints. Those little save-fountains are cool and all, but they'd be better if you could also teleport to them.

[forgeforsaken]

There isn't a bestiary is there? I'd kind of like to get a better handle on the different monsters resistances.

[Jab2565]

Whoever said that epic was easy was right. So far instead of 1 shoting everything it's 2 now. It's probably different for a melee guy. But with my caster and pet only archers have a chance of hurting me. While the loot is better, it still doesn't come close to beating the green and blue stuff I have on. I was expecting to see some yellow item completely beat the bonuses on my green.

The funny part is that my rogue defender who is in the same area on normal. Is having a harder time then my caster on epic.

[Equisilus]

I like the skill and class system, but I'm afraid that levelling is so slow that trying out many combinations will prove to be difficult if not impossible. Diablo 2 was pretty fast, so you could get a feel for a class pretty quick. Or at least, it seems that way in my memory.

I don't think leveling in TQ is slow at all. In fact, just the opposite. I'm level 30 (almost 31) after approximately 25 hours of gameplay. That's over a level an hour! I wouldn't have minded if the leveling was spread out to once every 3-4 hours, but that would mean the game would have to have been much longer as well and balanced very differently, so I guess the leveling is fine for its length. Anyone have an idea of an average end level is for each of the difficulty levels (normal, epic, legendary)? I'm probably going to be ending normal in the low 30's (I'd estimate 33 or 34 by the look of things).

[Charles]

I wasn't talking about personal perception of levelling speed. I was talking about absolute speed when compared against Diablo 2.

[playingwithknives]

I got to the end of labyrinth and died to the boss as i hadn't stocked up on enough potions and ran out. I then respawned at the last rebirth well right at the end of the maze with no potions. Oops i thought, i looked for some cheats, i tried an infinite health trainer, my friend and I attempted a MP game to get me out, but i was totally stuck, I was close to restarting a new character.

And then i discovered the town portal button on the GUI.

I had been wondering why a D2 clone didn't have a town portal, but had somehow totally missed on the GUI, the tips, the instructions and the key assign menu.

It's a good game, I'm a D2 fan and am really enjoying it.

[playingwithknives]

Does anyone remember if the most rare items showed up in normal diff in D2? (not the most powerful just that level of rarity)


D2 Uniques can be found anywhere from the very beginning of the game onwards. If thats what you mean.

http://www.diabloii.net/items/uniques/weapons_swords.shtml

Normal can be found in normal mode, exceptional in Nightmare, and elites in Hell. Sets can be found at any level, and are scaled similary.

[Kalle]

I found a set item at level 8 in Titan quest, so they're definitely out there. regrettably, the odds of finding the rest of the set seem just as slim as in Diablo 2.

[Charles]

I found a set item at level 8 in Titan quest, so they're definitely out there. regrettably, the odds of finding the rest of the set seem just as slim as in Diablo 2.


The weird thing is that I found a set item pretty early (around level 7 I think), but haven't seen anything else since. In diablo 2, you'd find set items relatively often, some more common than others.

I still think the item calculations are 'off' in TQ. Yes, I'm comparing it to diablo 2. But that's what I have to compare it against. As far as item and loot systems go, I feel that Diablo 2 is generally unmatched. Honestly, I think TQ's skill/mastery system is pretty awesome, but I really wish it had diablo 2's item system.

One minor thing that annoys me (mostly irrationally) is how any ring with +stat is exactly the same name, regardless of how much it adds. It's a small thing, but psychologically, a ring of the drake in diablo vs a ring of the dragon was a nice difference, even though they added the same type of stats, just different amounts. In TQ, a ring of energy is a ring of energy, whether it gives 5 or 80. It means that I have to spend more time examining items to know if they are useful, whereas in diablo if I say "ring of the dragon" on the ground, I'd know immediately, "OH! I want that!" There's more ooooooh aaaaah factor.

[Michael Fitch]

I actually found that same weapon at level 8 just before I was about to stop playing the other night. Are the bonuses for the weapons random? Mine has slightly different numbers on the poison damage and no dex boost on it.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1857/deathweaverdaggerpic1ck.jpg
Greetings:
Some of the attributes have random ranges, and rare items can also get additional affixes. I may not have this exactly right, but I think the "Deathweaver's Legtip" is a "monster infrequent", which is rare in itself. You can also get "monster infrequents" that have additional affixes, which is what malphigian has got (monster infrequent + common affix). You can, if you're lucky enough, get monster infrequent + rare affix, and if the gods truly shine upon you, monster infrequent + rare affix + rare affix. And then you can put a relic on it. :-) For translation reasons, the monster-based equipment doesn't show the affixes in the title. but they're still there under the hood.

The bug isn't so much this but the fact that whenever I'm using the weapon in the second set at all I do not accrue charges for the warrior attack skill.
You did notice that the RMB and LMB assignments get swapped when you change weapons, right? Did you assign Onslaught to the LMB with both sets?

I played for about 40 minutes of epic, and something odd is going on. Near the end of normal I was doing more damage with my basic attack then my lich was. But in epic, it's reverse, the lich is doing way more damage then I'm with my basic attack. I also noticed my dps dropped 100 points just for switching to epic.
We bump the stats on the pets, same as we bump the stats on the monsters, when you go up a difficulty level. Otherwise, they'd be insanely overpowered on Normal or useless in Epic. Are you sure that your DPS dropped and it wasn't just that you didn't have any enchantments/skills active? There's nothing in the code that drops your DPS on higher difficulty.

I'm sorta annoyed that I won't see any legendary weapons for at least another 10 hours, since the manual said they don't show up until the end of epic. Does anyone remember if the most rare items showed up in normal diff in D2? (not the most powerful just that level of rarity)
Legendary equipment actually starts dropping in the very last encounter of Normal, so you can find it throughout Epic. Of course, it's still going to be quite rare.

About the staff power, my attack speed is 92%, so is it better to build up that power or just get attack speed bonuses?
Six of one, half dozen of the other. You might want to focus on power for a while, so it doesn't take as many hits to bring things down, but either way, you're getting stronger.

Best,
Eyejinx.

[Lando]

Re: Set items

I picked up two pieces of the Obsidian set and two pieces of the Oracle set, and I'm not even through the second 'Act' yet. I'm hoping I'll find the remainder of the Obsidian set, but it will likely be, if at all, after I can get better gear anyway.

Regardless, love the game. It's been a while since I've been sucked into a game like this.

[Charles]

Greetings:
Some of the attributes have random ranges, and rare items can also get additional affixes. I may not have this exactly right, but I think the "Deathweaver's Legtip" is a "monster infrequent", which is rare in itself. You can also get "monster infrequents" that have additional affixes, which is what malphigian has got (monster infrequent + common affix). You can, if you're lucky enough, get monster infrequent + rare affix, and if the gods truly shine upon you, monster infrequent + rare affix + rare affix. And then you can put a relic on it. :-) For translation reasons, the monster-based equipment doesn't show the affixes in the title. but they're still there under the hood.

On that note, his screenshot showed a deathweaver's legtip with a level requirement of 3. I had one with a level requirement of 18 drop. It had one or two more stats, and was blue instead of green. Seemed a little wacky to get that 18 drop at level 9, or whatever I was at the time.

[Rywill]

Forgot to add that I hit an odd, but not necessarily unwelcome, bug on the final fight in Greece last night. When fighting the Telkine (sp?) I portaled back to town for a stack of 50 healing potions. When I went back he was completely immobile and just stood there as I hackety-hack-hacked him to death.
I've found a similar bug many times with my Hunter. One of his first-tier skills is a thrown net that immobilizes enemies for a short duration. But oftentimes even after the net dissipates, the enemies just stand there and do nothing while I shoot them. Very handy, but sort of cheap. (Also, the net DOTs for a small amount, which is odd because (a) it isn't mentioned in the manual and (b) there's a later skill that is supposed to add a DOT to the net.)

[ydejin]

Whoever said that epic was easy was right. So far instead of 1 shoting everything it's 2 now. It's probably different for a melee guy. But with my caster and pet only archers have a chance of hurting me. While the loot is better, it still doesn't come close to beating the green and blue stuff I have on. I was expecting to see some yellow item completely beat the bonuses on my green.

As a melee guy I totally had the opposite experience. Epic was much harder (although the tail end of the regular game was tough -- those dragon lancers sure hit hard and the monsters in the special end location leading up to the final boss were no picnic either).

I think what really strikes me about epic is all the bad guys seem to have their full powers on whereas, almost none of them seem to have any special behaviors on regular. For example I was shocked the first time I came up to an elder centaur on epic and he blew his War Horn and there I was completely frozen while he and his fellow centaurs pounded the crap out of me. (It was kind of embarrasing since I'd been using the exact same skill to great effect on monsters for the past 30 hours). On regular, I don't think any of the critters can actually freeze you, and only a few seem to slow you down. Not the case in epic.

Also those blue kitty man things (merads?) which have green glowing weapons -- super easy on regular, but on epic without some serious anti-poison equipment, nasty as all get out, a few hits with from those weapons and oooh, look I think my health is almost zero. Similarly except for the dragon lancers on regular, I never really noticed anything which seemed to do piercing damage. Not so on epic. Make sure you've got your anti-piercing armor lined up, otherwise anything with a lance (e.g., satyr peltasts) or even just arrows, are going to do serious damage. I think one thing is that all your resistances start off at -40% in epic, so any special damage really hurts a lot.

I think all the changes in epic definitely make the game a lot more interesting. But for me it is a lot, lot harder.

Some of it might be equipment though. I was constantly getting schooled until I ran into this baby:

Somatophylakes Plate

http://www.gamebanshee.com/titanquest/equipment/images/somatophylakesplate.jpg

105 Armor

29% Pierce Resistance
23% Elemental Resistance
23% Poison Resistance
+16 Strength
-20% Reduction to All Requirements
+1 to All Skills in All Masteries

This upped my armor rating, took care of all my special resistances, and then to top it off added +1 to all my skills. Oh baby! Suddenly after picking this up epic wasn't so hard after all.

[Jab2565]

I just checked my dps and I did forget to put my cold/lightning buff on, which accounts for 100 bonus dps points. Also I finally found my first set item fighting the cyclops. Further proof that I'm unlucky, the set item is for warfare characters. I'm slowly seeing good yellow items, but still the blue items I got around egypt in normal still beat out anything I'm finding regardless of color in epic.

I'm still having fun though, I'm putting points in storm mastery so I can get a 2nd pet out on the field, and I'm about a level away from hitting the intellgence needed to use some of the stronger staves I've found

I was wondering how I got stunned, so the centaur boss had a war horn? That could explain how he ran up and started pounding on me as I stood there:)

[forgeforsaken]

I'm in the Orient now and my poor little wolves aren't cutting it. I suppose it's my fault for neglecting their tree for like 10 levels or so. Let me just say I love Storm Surge, I'm not sure if it's the most effective thing in the world, but man I feel like a Lightning Enchanged Named from Diablo 2 with that thing, it's awesome. Oh you want to take a swing at me, ok go ahead. ZAP! Oh, did you and your friends all just die?

[Jab2565]

I think I perfer the caster types over the melee, I've died more as a warfare or rogue guy in 30 minutes then I did over the entire time as a caster. What's bothering me is just how ineffective melee is in the beginning because of the lack of skills and good weapons. Which brings me back to why loot needs to constantly scale up. The first centaur boss took my guy 6 tries to get thru because the guy would hit me 5 times in the span of 1 of my swings.

[EvilIdler]

The first centaur boss took my guy 6 tries to get thru because the guy would hit me 5 times in the span of 1 of my swings.
That boss was tricky, but the next bosses were sort of butter-ish after
pumping points into Earth. The best defense isn't an offense, but a defense
that IS an offense :)

[ydejin]

I think I perfer the caster types over the melee, I've died more as a warfare or rogue guy in 30 minutes then I did over the entire time as a caster. What's bothering me is just how ineffective melee is in the beginning because of the lack of skills and good weapons. Which brings me back to why loot needs to constantly scale up. The first centaur boss took my guy 6 tries to get thru because the guy would hit me 5 times in the span of 1 of my swings.

I generally start with the bow until I get to level 2 or 3. Until you go up a few levels, you can't go toe-to-toe with anything. I'm sure you can take on a few satyr scouts and win, but then your health will be shot and you can't afford potions at that level. After the first few levels, I mostly did melee for the rest of the game, but occasionally switched to bow when appropriate. Starting sometime in China, I think I almost gave up completely on bows, as my stats weren't setup right (dexterity to low) to buy new bows and the old bows didn't do sufficient damage to make a difference.

At first level, even going up against a boar is pretty tough going and can cost most of your health. You definitely don't want to go toe-to-toe with stuff. Better to use run and gun tactics pull individual monsters from the herd, reduce health before closing with monsters by sniping with bow, and only switch to melee when they close. Things will get better, but give it a few levels first.

[ydejin]

(**** Minor Spoilers if you haven't finished Greece ****)

Okay, I'm officially getting my butt kicked on Epic. Enter cave with three Gorgons, point on one of the Gorgons and attempt to do a Shield Charge (300% movement, plus stun and damage). I never quite reach the first Gorgon, I seem to slow down slightly before getting to it (although that may be a frame rate issue). My health then goes to zero, you are dead, thank you for playing. Anybody have any idea what those woman are packing? My stun and disruption %'s are over 100 and I tried packing for high elemental damage (although I can't get my defenses much over 15% or so without searching for better equipment). I literally don't last more than 2-3 seconds with them. I'm playing a Conqueror (Warfare/Defense) and have quite a bit of defensive protections, so this is pretty disheartening.

[Jab2565]

Even with my caster, that was a hard fight, I know that one their projectiles can turn you to stone for awhile. Best thing I can think of is to try to get one to follow you then attack that one.

I put some points into nature, and I have one wolf out. Wow, the wolf barely did any damage against the frog like guys. I miss my druid and barbarian from D2 :)

[EvilIdler]

I just did that fight with my warfare/earth character, but he's level 16.
I survived with only two health potions needed. Then it bluescreened :/
I'm getting slightly more levels than I probably should because I'm redoing
sections after crashes.

[forgeforsaken]

I've got three characters going right now. A druid (mostly lightning focused) who is in Babylon and is almost 28, a briggand and a juggernaut both at 9 and in Delphi. I've got some doubts about the briggand as I'm not sure what he's going to do about crowd control yet. There's some nice synergies between hunting and rogue but also it looks like some huge gaps, we'll see how it turns out. I'm determined to play through as some kind of bow focused character though in addition to a caster and melee class.

[LionelThompson]

I am sure it will kick my ass because pets don't scale, but at level 15, I've been all nature with maxed out wolves and three points into the wood nymph and so far I've had to do almost nothing except pick up loot of the ground. I do keep my weapon up to speed and I have a healing spell as backup (I use almost no potions), but it's almost as the game plays itself for now, which is fine. My next step is to give the nymph the ability to cast absorb damage for the party. I took Earth as a 2nd, but have 0 points in it so far.

[ydejin]

ATI Users, FYI I've had much better luck running Titan Quest on Catalyst 6.2 then on the current 6.6. I started off on 6.2, which mostly worked fine, as long as I kept my settings medium to low. Decided to upgrade to the latest and greatest and the game became close to unplayable at night. Major frame rate issues. Backed off to 6.2 and it went back to being fine.

Anyway, YMMV, but I thought I'd mention it. For what it's worth I'm on a 2.4GHz Pentium with 1Gig memory and Radeon 9550. With the 6.6 Catalyst drivers I couldn't run 1024x768 no AA all settings on lowest. It was fine during game day, but night was awful.

[ydejin]

Even with my caster, that was a hard fight, I know that one their projectiles can turn you to stone for awhile. Best thing I can think of is to try to get one to follow you then attack that one.

I put some points into nature, and I have one wolf out. Wow, the wolf barely did any damage against the frog like guys. I miss my druid and barbarian from D2 :)

Thanks pfreak that did it.

(*** minor spoilers ***)

It took a few tries, but once they're separated they're actually not too bad (they do reset to their original positions if you die though). From what I could tell one of the gorgons attacks melee with a lance and the other two have bows. The bows fire elemental damage, I think one does strictly fire and the other does just ice. Arrows are slow enough that if you're careful you can dodge out of the way. Also occasionally Medusa herself fires off some kind of relatively slow pinkish ray. I presume that's her stoning ray, but I'm happy to report I never got hit with it. This is all on Epic, so their behavior on Standard may be a bit different, and you maniacs playing on Legendary are on your own (but I may be asking you for hints when I get that far :-)

Not sure what was killing me before, maybe multiple arrow hits before I reached the actual gorgon combined with frame rate issues (see ATI driver post above). Their arrows do hit hard, I lost around 1/6th of my total health per hit.

[Equisilus]

I generally start with the bow until I get to level 2 or 3. Until you go up a few levels, you can't go toe-to-toe with anything.

As someone who always plays a melee-style character first in any RPG, perhaps I am more used to them, but I didn't have any issues with my Conqueror (who was just a Warrior until level 8, of course) early on in the game. Right from the start I went toe-to-toe with anything and everything sent at me. I never used a bow (or any range weapon) in the game yet and I'm level 31 approaching the end of the Orient. I did die twice, in early Egypt, taken out by scorpions and worms surrounding me and doing unexpectedly high damage, but it's been pretty smooth sailing since then again (I expect the end game to be tough, so I've heard).

Perhaps it's an equipment or play style difference rather than anything in particular wrong with melee? I don't do anything special, but I prefer melee classes over casters and range characters. My next game will try out a caster class combo to see how it matches up.

[ydejin]

As someone who always plays a melee-style character first in any RPG, perhaps I am more used to them, but I didn't have any issues with my Conqueror (who was just a Warrior until level 8, of course) early on in the game. Right from the start I went toe-to-toe with anything and everything sent at me. I never used a bow (or any range weapon) in the game yet and I'm level 31 approaching the end of the Orient. I did die twice, in early Egypt, taken out by scorpions and worms surrounding me and doing unexpectedly high damage, but it's been pretty smooth sailing since then again (I expect the end game to be tough, so I've heard).

Perhaps it's an equipment or play style difference rather than anything in particular wrong with melee? I don't do anything special, but I prefer melee classes over casters and range characters. My next game will try out a caster class combo to see how it matches up.

Well, I'm more of a Strategy and RPG player (i.e., non-action player) so I'm not suprised to hear that others have done better. I think you'd have to be pretty good not to chew through potions very fast early on though. As I said going one-on-one blow-for-blow with just one of those boars took out about half my 1st level health. So I always start out with a bow.

I haved learned more or less by necessity that you can in fact dodge arrows and if you're really good, you can time things to avoid attack animations. I'm sure this is all second nature to an action gamer. I've also learned new appreciation for why FPS players are insistent on a high frame rate. I'm playing in epic at level 32 and definitely have more trouble staying alive when the frame rate slows at night.

[Charlatan]

Got my Summoner (Earth/Nature) through Normal, and whoever said it ramped up in the Obsidian Caverns was correct - I have pretty upgraded wolves (12/15) and Core Dweller (9?/15?) and a teeny fruity Dryad, but there are packs of undead dragons that just tear through the Thing (I'm thinking he needs more elemental resist or something).

The last waves before the final boss (Minotaur packs) were also really difficult - they started critting about every 3rd hit. But the final boss was a real wuss, he only killed me twice! After killing the final guy, my Summoner was level 31.5 fyi.

It was great. Just peeked into Epic and it's funny killing level 31 Satyrs at the start.

As for the cash situation - I actually purchased a couple items from the last real vendor in town - got some yellow leggings that were better than anything I'd found, and a green staff something like "Energized Archon Staff of Feasting" which upped my DPS about 25% from the blue staff I'd carried from level 15 or so.

Even if I never touched this again, I've gotten maybe 40 hours out of it from all my characters combined, so from here on out. But heck, it's still fun - and I still am eager to get to the next level to pump up my skills and abilities.

[Equisilus]

Well, I'm more of a Strategy and RPG player (i.e., non-action player) so I'm not suprised to hear that others have done better. I think you'd have to be pretty good not to chew through potions very fast early on though. As I said going one-on-one blow-for-blow with just one of those boars took out about half my 1st level health. So I always start out with a bow.

I'm the same as you, though. I don't play "action" genre games at all and stick with strategy and RPGs of various sorts. I can dodge pretty well, so perhaps a couple decades plus of gaming has honed my action skills enough that I can stay alive. I think I might have purchased only a few potions in the entire game, having plenty to last me just by finding them (at times I've sold off lower potions and purchased higher ones just for the efficiency of it).

That's not the whole story, though. People are just better than others at certain builds. I've never been more than adequate as a caster/range character (although I didn't have issues in D2) so it's likely my tune will change come then. ;)

To Charlatan, I laughed when I read you saying "the final boss was a real wuss, he only killed me twice!" The fact that he killed you twice means he's not a wuss at all, at least by my terms. So that got me thinking, what do folks classify as 'easy' when it comes to a battle? I usually suggest something is 'easy' in TQ if it took no effort whatsoever to kill (no running around frantically, no taking potions like mad, no panic attacks); if I get killed, then it was tough or I made some critical error in the way I engaged in battle.

[forgeforsaken]

Is there a FAQ up anywhere yet on this? I'm mostly concerned with the location of all the plus skill/stat sidequests as I want to ensure I don't miss them.

[John Reynolds]

Took the advice that was given to me upstream and poured points into my 2nd mastery, Defense. I'd realized that my dual-wield setup wasn't really producing DPS significantly higher than my current best weapon wielded solely, and I was taking massive damage when surrounded without having a shield equipped. So I used one of the mystics and reversed the points put into the dual-wield line and put those into the Defense mastery itself. At 23rd level my Conqueror now has Defense maxed out and 1 point in Colossus Form (which looks really cool on screen) and 2 in Pulverize, a nasty shield attack that activates 8% of the time (and comes with a very satisfying crunch sound).

As for playing on Epic or Legendary, I think I'd have more fun replaying with different builds than continuing the same toon against level 30+ satyrs.

[Jeff Green]

I'm finally starting to get into this game (just hit level 8 w/my Warfare dude and am now adding Storms, I think), after being put off at first by it basically just being Diablo again. But the addictiveness is getting to me--just like the game it emulates. I guess you might if you're gonna emulate a game, it might as well be one that we all loved....

In any case, still having a hell of a time getting this thing to run well w/my nVidia 6800 GT. Constant slowdowns, hiccups, and graphic glitches. Even just opening and closing my inventory will cause the game to lockup for like a minute. Very annoying. :( Hoping this July 5 patch will fix some of this, because this stuff really starts wearing me down and makes me want to quit playing after like an hour or so every time.

[JM]

I'm determined to stick to dual-wield despite the obvious defensive problems. I've put points into whatever I can to mitigate damage (dodge, flash powder, etc) because wearing a shield just doesn't feel right for an Assassin. It's tricky when I get surrounded but eventually having skills like War Horn and Flash Powder ought to get me out of trouble in most situations...

... I hope.

[DrCrypt]

I don't even understand dual wield. I have like 5/6 points in it and according to the game, I'm doing LESS damage and dps with two weapons, not more. How can that be?

[JM]

Does your second weapon swing replace the first? So if you had a low-dps weapon in the offhand, when it swings it's replacing the damage a high-dps offhand would do...

I only have a single point in dual wield at the mo, and am using the second basically as a stat booster (attack speed etc) until I find a viable offhand.

[Matthew Gallant]

One thing I'm wondering: why does Titan Quest use STLPort? Not just the use of STL in general, though that's sort of a question mark itself. Is STLPort faster than Microsoft's implementation? In that case, why use STL at all? Did they want to mess with the implementations of whatever bits they're using? Seems like a bad idea.

[John Reynolds]

There's a lot of automated shield attacks in the Defense mastery, though. I'm tellin' 'ya, that Pulverize skill is alone almost worth maxing out Defense for. I've put 3 points into it now so it hits 10% of the time and it's great for taking out mobs of enemies. If you're going with a pure tank, the game is a lot easier with Defense.

[stusser]

I don't even understand dual wield. I have like 5/6 points in it and according to the game, I'm doing LESS damage and dps with two weapons, not more. How can that be?
The DPS meter on your character sheet doesn't take the % chance stuff into account. It averages the dps of both weapons. The dualwield stuff actually works quite well for damage if you sink in enough points. Imagine you have all dualwield skills maxed and a d100 is rolled.

1-22 = both weapons hit one target, 200% damage (straight dualwield)
23-33 = both weapons hit one target with hew, 300% damage
34-44 = both weapons hit two targets in a 90degree radius, potentially 400% damage
45-55 = both weapons hit three targets in a 360degree radius, potentially 600% damage
56-100 = one weapon hits one target, 100% damage

It all scales quite well, although it looks like the best min/maxed build is actually spirit/storm or spirit/nature with ternion attack and the wisp for massive damage or nature for pets/survivability.

[JM]

Yeah, a "recent DPS" meter would be nice. Might clear up some confusion.

[Charles]

Oh, interesting update on performance of TQ. I've noticed that the game runs far better in windowed mode. Often sitting at a bad framerate location and using alt-enter causes the framerate to jump back up. At first I thought it was vsync, because it's disabled in windowed mode, but turning off vsync and playing in fullscreen mode didn't help performance compared to windowed mode.

[Damien Neil]

One thing I'm wondering: why does Titan Quest use STLPort? Not just the use of STL in general, though that's sort of a question mark itself. Is STLPort faster than Microsoft's implementation? In that case, why use STL at all? Did they want to mess with the implementations of whatever bits they're using? Seems like a bad idea.

From what I've been told, Microsoft's STL implementation used to be pretty bad. I'm not certain to what degree they've improved it, but that's certainly one possible reason for not using it.

(I do most of my coding in other languages than C++, and other OSs than Windows, so I don't have any direct experience with MS's STL; this is second-hand to me.)

[shang]

From what I've been told, Microsoft's STL implementation used to be pretty bad. I'm not certain to what degree they've improved it, but that's certainly one possible reason for not using it.

I've heard this too, so it must be true. ;)

I think the APIs also didn't quite match the the STL standard 100%, so projects that wanted to be cross-platform preferred STLPort.

And why wouldn't you use STL if you are coding C++? It's like the best thing C++ has over C. Now that compilers have good template support, STL is probably much more efficient and bug free than trying to re-invent the wheel yourself, not to mention anyone else proficient in C++ reading the code should know the APIs by heart as opposed to some custom container classes.

[Chris Nahr]

I believe Microsoft's STL implementation in pre-VS7 compilers was about as good as it could be, given the compiler's wretched implementation of templates. That means any other STL implementation wouldn't be much better, at least if you applied the Dinkumware patch to the VS6 library.

I don't have the game -- are you sure that Titan Quest is using a Microsoft compiler in the first place? Maybe it's Intel or something else?

[Chris Nahr]

And why wouldn't you use STL if you are coding C++?

Many game programmers are deeply suspicious of any technology invented after circa 1920...

[Jab2565]

I got my warfare nature guy up to 12 and it's starting to get a little better. I finally found some blue swords and a green armor, I doubt I would have gotten as far as I am (past delphi) without them. The wolf is finally starting to do damage with 5 points into it. How many points do you need to put in to get more wolves?

[Equisilus]

Going back to what I asked earlier, I just finished TQ with my Conqueror. Now, I found Typhon tough, used about 20 health potions and a few energy potions and he had me down to a fraction of my health left a couple of times. Didn't die, but it certainly wasn't easy. So, if you described your battle in those terms, would you say it was easy or tough?

[DrCrypt]

Quick question: someone in multiplayer who was level 18 and hadn't been to Athens yet said he only had three bags. Am I missing something? Can you buy bags from someone? I'm almost at Athens at level 17 and I only have one extra bag.

[mtkafka]

Quick question: someone in multiplayer who was level 18 and hadn't been to Athens yet said he only had three bags. Am I missing something? Can you buy bags from someone? I'm almost at Athens at level 17 and I only have one extra bag.

They probably reset there quest log.. or used some editor. you don't get three bags til end of normal...iirc.

etc

[OrangeCoke]

Bought the game and it's great - no regrets. My only real complaints are that it's a bit too easy on normal. I have an archer with Earth mastery, so I have a Core Dweller walking around with me. I rarely get hurt. I started a second character who is strictly melee, and he occassionally dies so that's a bit more fun :)

By the way, I found blue and green items by level 6 or so. One was a shield, one was a magic-user headpiece.

[mtkafka]

Bought the game and it's great - no regrets. My only real complaints are that it's a bit too easy on normal. I have an archer with Earth mastery, so I have a Core Dweller walking around with me. I rarely get hurt. I started a second character who is strictly melee, and he occassionally dies so that's a bit more fun :)

By the way, I found blue and green items by level 6 or so. One was a shield, one was a magic-user headpiece.

The Coredweller is like The Thing... you just cant hurt him. It's CLOBBERIN TIME!

etc

[Jab2565]

I had a great moment yesterday, on my rogue, they have a bonus attack every 4 normal strikes. Well on the fourth my guy uppercuted a satyr, he flew straight up in the air, and landed on a cottage next to me. I smiled for atleast 5 minutes after that.

[forgeforsaken]

Yeah, the knockback in this game is great.

[EvilIdler]

Quick question: someone in multiplayer who was level 18 and hadn't been to Athens yet said he only had three bags. Am I missing something? Can you buy bags from someone? I'm almost at Athens at level 17 and I only have one extra bag.
That was probably me, but I *have* been to Athens..and reset the game
once because *every* *single* *map* was corrupted. Had to start over,
and I received more bags at the start of Megara, or whatever it's called
where you get your first bag. 'Sploit!

[EvilIdler]

I'd realized that my dual-wield setup wasn't really producing DPS significantly higher than my current best weapon wielded solely
Getting a secondary with magical damage bonus helps a lot, then. Earth
gives you several powers with fire damage. My damage drops to less than
half if I forget my two buffs.

[ydejin]

The wolf is finally starting to do damage with 5 points into it. How many points do you need to put in to get more wolves?

Looks like (http://www.firopolis.de/forum/index.php/topic,593.msg1249.html#msg1249) just two more points. Should have two wolves at 7 points.

[EvilIdler]

[ Should have two wolves at 7 points.
Some other forum had a post saying 17 points gives you 3 wolves. In other
words, you need a +2 skill item to get there.