Hopefully Torchlight 2 gets a big community. The reason I quickly got tired of the original Torchlight is that I find games of the genre (the Diablo series included) tedious without the social component that multiplayer brings. With multiplayer and a bit more variety Torchlight would have been a great game.

Completely agree, Torchlight is great, but once you get through it the first time there's very little reason to go back and do it again.

I've found Diablo 2 to be more forgiving in that regards than Diablo, but Blizzard isn't particularly friendly with mod makers and they can be kind of a pain to install.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen, however from what I've seen of the new features I think it's going to be a lot more interesting to mod. Particularly since there will be a new set of tools and the ability to play online.

EDIT: Plus the system requirements are likely to be low enough that pretty much anybody that's interested in playing will be able to. Chances are my laptop will be able to run it.

I killed Diablo, twice. Walked through Hellfire, and had to haggle with a pegged legged boy named Wirt. Now Wirts been promoted, looks like he's in charge of Blizzard, and, I'm not paying Wirt another dime of my hard earned demon-spawned loot.
Blizzard: Fire Wirt, he just wants to make quick cash then hobble home to the secret cow level, leaving you destitute bemooing your anti-consumer DRM antics. :*(

It's not really an issue in Europe (though, it used to be during early hours of the morning), but then again, European gamers are far less twatty than American ones.

My money will be going to torchlight 2 and grim dawn. These guys i respect as they give the players the game what they want.

I don't really get this argument.

The maximum group size for Diablo III is four players -- so you will never share the gameworld with more than three people at a time. There are no cities/hubs where massive amounts of players gather before venturing out on their dungeon crawls. There are no class roles (healer/tank/DPS). None of the content actually requires you to group with other players, let alone form guilds and/or structure pre-planned raids -- you can play the entirety of the game solo. All of it. Actually, you have the option to not interact with any other players at all if you don't want to.

Yes, there is the always online component and, arguably, the auction house (though that is completely optional), but those are the only two aspects that are comparable to MMO's and IMO they do not make D3 an "MMO without pay-per-month". Guild Wars was an MMO without pay-per-month. D3 is a hack and slash action RPG that can be played solo or with a couple of friends. There's a big difference.

What big difference is there? That you can solo the content? Some MMOs allow that too.

IMO D3's visuals look vastly superior to those other three games -- Torchlight is too cartoony for my tastes, and Lineage and Grim Dawn look almost like they're the same game, and very generic in their style.

After the initial announcement in 2008, when people started complaining about D3's art style and "colourfulness", some of the devs explained how they took a painstakingly long time to "get the art style just right"... well, it shows. The game is instantly recognizable and looks spectacular.

If you want to experience all the content an MMO has to offer, especially the big endgame dungeons/bosses, but also a lot of smaller "leveling" dungeons and even certain quests, you have no choice but to group with other people. That's the way MMO's are structured -- they force players into social interaction and cooperation and a large part of their content (including accessibility to endgame equipment) is build around that, and thus completely inaccessible to solo players.

Games like Diablo are basically single player games with a multiplayer component for those who prefer it. You can play the entire game by yourself, up to and including the most challenging dungeons and bosses on Inferno difficulty, and have access to all the equipment the game has to offer. Sure, Blizzard has added features that encourage social interaction, but it is not a requirement by any means.

I see the point that you're making about D3, but I don't understand where you see the big difference to Guild Wars - because everything you said about Diablo, can also be said about Guild Wars. I've been soloing this game for years, and apart from a handful of completely optional areas, this is a viable and well-supported approach throughout the entire game. So, by your reasoning, either there is no big difference between D3 and MMOs, or Guild Wars isn't an MMO and you picked a bad example.

I am not familiar with Guild Wars' endgame content and whether or not it requires grouping with other players, but when I played it, I always had a very strong impression that the game's concept was structured firmly around the titular guilds and thus social interaction and cooperation.

If the guilds and grouping are in fact completely optional and the entirety of the game can be played solo, then I picked a bad example ;-) I love GW by the way. And am very much looking forward to the sequel.

T1 wasn;t DRM-free, I doubt 2 will be, especially since it is not an indie game.

For storyline they are optional. For hi-end content (=five areas with the strongest enemies) you need other people. In fact, you cannot use henchmen there.

http://www.torchlightgame.com/buy/#buyfaq03

http://www.torchlightgame.com/buy/#buyfaq08

That's irrelevant since the boxed copies were released at least one year after release.