Echtra Games ceases work on Torchlight 3

[Elixir]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/nlat44/echtra_games_ceases_work_on_torchlight_3/

I want to say good luck to Max Schaefer, I have been a huge fan of all your games up until TL3.
________________________________________________________

Hello Torchlight III Community,

This message is a bittersweet one. We are very excited about the Cursed Captain update, and everything it comes with. The Cursed Captain is an amazing new character class with awesome summoning skills, giant cannons salvaged from ships to blast enemies in the way, and a salty, ghostly personality to match. It’s really a lot of fun to play. We’ve also added a ton of new pets, including ferrets, two new types of dogs, stags, glittersprites, and more. There’s a new contract to play through, new wardrobes and fort props, and significant improvements to every character class. We’ve killed countless bugs, made several UI fixes and enhancements, and added lots of quality of life improvements. And very significantly, we’ve improved performance to a meaningful degree on every platform. In short, we feel like this puts Torchlight III in a good place.

But this is also a sad message because it marks the end of Echtra Games’ work on Torchlight III. As you may have heard in the news, we were acquired by Zynga back on March 2nd. As a result of this transition, we are moving on to new (and exciting) things, and we will be passing the baton back to our partners at Perfect World. We absolutely enjoyed our time with Torchlight III, and only hope for the best for the future of the franchise. We are grateful for the opportunity to have worked on it. But more than that, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of you who took this journey with us. We had ups and downs, but through it all, we learned so much, and a lot of that credit goes to all of you. Through thick and thin, you gave generously of your time, provided expert and valuable feedback, and made the trip enjoyable and worthwhile for all of us at Echtra. We hope you’ll keep tabs on us in the future, because we’re doing some incredibly exciting things that you’ll be very interested in. We look forward to seeing you on the other side, and will certainly keep tabs on Torchlight III. Thank you again for everything, we love you, we love Torchlight, and we will always cherish the memories!

Your Torchlight Captain,
Max Schaefer

[takes_reign]

Interesting times ahead for TL3 it seems, as it will be somewhat high and dry until Perfect World sees fit to clarify what will happen with the game going forward, if anything.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Max Schaefer and crew come up with next.

[UltraKidBro]

Their multiplayer servers are really laggy, hopefully they will sort that out before jogging on

[FrodoFraggins]

Well. doing this without first adding mod support is a big FU to PC players. They could at least leave it in a state where modders can improve it.

[Pestilence]

Rest assured, I will never buy another one of their games. This game was trash at launch and they abandoned it in trash state.

[kuaikukia]

This game barely 1 year old and the dev already abandon it. Such a shame. Glad I didn't buy this game

[Pluckyninja]

The devs didnt choose to abandon this game, they got bought. We'll see if PW does any thing with it.

[takes_reign]

Originally posted by FrodoFraggins:

Well. doing this without first adding mod support is a big FU to PC players. They could at least leave it in a state where modders can improve it.

Echtra Games wasn't calling the shots here, in case you didn't notice.

Complaints about mod support not being added would be appropriately directed to Perfect World, assuming one can be bothered knowing they likely won't care one bit.

[takes_reign]

Originally posted by UltraKidBro:

Their multiplayer servers are really laggy, hopefully they will sort that out before jogging on

They're done with TL3 so won't be further sorting anything.

This ball is now solely in Perfect World's court.

[Snowfunk]

Crying shame this game never really got a chance...

[Elixir]

Yeah very sad.. I was a fan of all Schaefer's games until this one. I hope he can make a legit ARPG in the future, because I know he can. I would really like to hear the development behind this game and everything that went wrong.

But then again, Zynga is a Mobile Game company, so kind of an epic fail haha. I think that might be it for TL..

[FrodoFraggins]

Originally posted by takes_reign:

Originally posted by FrodoFraggins:

Well. doing this without first adding mod support is a big FU to PC players. They could at least leave it in a state where modders can improve it.

Echtra Games wasn't calling the shots here, in case you didn't notice.

Complaints about mod support not being added would be appropriately directed to Perfect World, assuming one can be bothered knowing they likely won't care one bit.

Nah - they addressed this directly and said they had no plans for it as they were supporting in on multiple platforms.

[DiodA]

I won't be playing mobile games so if they think they are going to serve that crap to me, they will burn before I fund them.

[takes_reign]

Originally posted by FrodoFraggins:

Originally posted by takes_reign:

Echtra Games wasn't calling the shots here, in case you didn't notice.

Complaints about mod support not being added would be appropriately directed to Perfect World, assuming one can be bothered knowing they likely won't care one bit.

Nah - they addressed this directly and said they had no plans for it as they were supporting in on multiple platforms.

Then it was never their intent to begin with so there was no reason to expect it would ever be implemented at all, nevermind just before their involvement with the game would end. That makes your complaint over the absence of it rather absurd.

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

Originally posted by Nokkternal:

Yeah very sad.. I was a fan of all Schaefer's games until this one. I hope he can make a legit ARPG in the future, because I know he can. I would really like to hear the development behind this game and everything that went wrong.

This is a legit ARPG. Nothing went "wrong" with it like that. It's probably better than TL2, even.

[Elixir]

Originally posted by FINE MOTION:

Originally posted by Nokkternal:

Yeah very sad.. I was a fan of all Schaefer's games until this one. I hope he can make a legit ARPG in the future, because I know he can. I would really like to hear the development behind this game and everything that went wrong.

This is a legit ARPG. Nothing went "wrong" with it like that. It's probably better than TL2, even.

Hey, that is just like, your opinion man. Just like mine, everyone has their idea of a good ARPG. But the vast majority DO think that TL2 is better. Not sure if you just like being against the mold type person or if you genuinely think that, but it is hard to gauge people on the internet. Not saying it is a bad game at all. Period.

But that doesn't change the fact the game did horrible in almost every facet, with reviews, technical performance and I'm sure it didn't do good in sells either. It was abandoned by the devs barely less than a year in since release. During the alpha/beta, the testers were telling them it isn't in a good state and they decided to release it anyways. Anyone with any decency can attest to that not being a good thing, they even said they were going to do a lot with this game after release.

We can only hope that Perfect World does a decent job at updating the game, I know they have been their publisher in the past as well. So here is to hoping I guess.