Game Journal: Titan Quest

Matthew's been playing a melee build. I'm playing a hunter. The problem is, I wanted to play a ranted hunter, but the game is geared towards the hunter being a melee / ranged hybrid. Every level the game gives me some strength points I don't need, except for the fact that later bows will require a certain level of strength. Those all feel like wasted points to me. Worse than that. I'd also like to cast spells, which means I'll be splitting my attributes three ways. I should probably just give up and double up on another strength / dexterity hybrid like a rogue. But idohwanna. :P I wanna shoot guys with bows and freeze them with ice magic to keep them away from me. Is that so wrong?

At least later in the game I'll be able to reset myself so I can switch builds if I find Hunter / Storm too ineffective. It may be a cheap way to balance a game, but the developer went out of business anyway, so the worst you could say is that it wasn't cheap enough. :P

The game still looks good, better than in any screen shot you'll see because there's enough detail in the trees and grass that JPG image compression always makes them look muddy.

Anyway, I liked Titan Quest before, it was just too much of a slog for me to bother finishing it. But as a casual multiplayer game, I don't think I know a better one. I tried the demo of Sacred 2, and if you thought the women in Titan Quest were tarted up, you got another thing coming. (And no, I will not post pics. :P )

If you want to be a part of our casual destruction and jaw session, the gold edition (which includes the game and its expansion) is $20. You can download it on Steam or pick it up at Amazon or Best Buy for that price. The system requirements are very low by modern standards (WinXP, 1.8Ghz CPU, 0.5GB RAM, GeForce 3 level graphics card).

We use Hamachi (a free program that simulates local play over the internet). The game has internet play, but advertising a server on a Windows machine means advertising security vulnerabilities, so I don't blame Matthew for wanting to use Hamachi to keep the server unlisted.

We used Steam for voice chat last Sunday, but we might switch to TeamSpeak once we get a group going.

Right now there's a call for interest and voting on whether we want to play Thursday or Sunday nights. If you have an interest, just let me know. (My email's in my blogger profile.)

Back to my own experiments, I finally tried a Spirit (necromancer) character. Life drain is on enough of a cooldown (time between castings) that it can't be used to keep a wimpy caster standing while a gang of baddies or boss baddie beat on him, but it's still a moral victory to damage an enemy while healing myself. Also, the spirit tree has a really nice aura that weakens undead, which should be pretty valuable in a party.

My hunter's aura which weakens beasts and beastmen is really his main contribution to partying at the moment. I could add a snare ability, but since Matthew is playing a melee class, it doesn't seem like that would really be much help. One attacker, more or less, doesn't seem likely to make much difference.

I'll keep experimenting, as long as it's fun.