Two Diablo-style MMORPGs: Torchlight and Mythos

Whether you like it or not, it is a truth that WOW is the current trend in the MMORPG world- quite predictable and tamed like Hollywood movies. Even NCsoft, the developer of already wildly popular Aion, thinks no one can be a WoW killer: they just aim to produce the second most popular MMORPG. Blizzard has almost been the limitation that all gaming developers want to go beyond. At the same time, the game designers who have ever worked for Blizzard become the sought-after talents among the gaming industry. Today I will bring you two Diablo-style MMORPGs from the original Blizzard North designers developed in Flagship Studios: Torchlight and Mythos.

For most game fanatics, the complex relationship or love, or hate between Blizzard and Flagship Studios are familiar to them. I only offer a brief look at it: Flagship Studios is a computer game company founded by Bill Roper along with Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik, the original developers of Diablo and former high level Blizzard North executives. I don’t want to talk about their disputes or controversy and let’s skip this part of the history. Unfortunately, the company was finally dissolved in August 2008 due to financial troubles. OK, they still leave us some good games. Let’s focus on the two Diablo-style MMORPGs: Torchlight and Mythos. Maybe we can call them Diablo series?!

First of all, I quote a paragraph from the article Twisp & Catsby In: The Visitation(by Tycho) posted on Penny-arcade.Com to begin our travel.

You might know about Torchlight, even if the name is not immediately familiar to you: when Flagship Studios, they had another project going called Mythos. Initially the product of one dude, it served as a test bed for Hellgate and continued to simmer while the rest of the company disintegrated. When everything Flagship was sold to Korea, an unbelievably appropriate team was built to refine those concepts into pure sugar. It'll ultimately be the basis of a free to play MMO, but for now, twenty dollars will return to you some measure of your misspent youth.

Mythos

Development History

Originally codenamed "Project Tugboat" the game started as a networking technology test for Flagship Studios' multiplayer game Hellgate: London. Mythos was built upon the same core engine and technology that Hellgate: London used. Starting in 2007, the game had been in an ongoing closed beta testing stage, with an open beta expected in mid-2008. However, on July 19, 2008 it was announced that due to continuing financial hardships at Flagship Studios, Mythos would be going on hiatus, and the beta closed shortly thereafter. The company laid off most of its employees, and the development of Mythos was suspended.

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Almost immediately after Flagship's closing, the entire Flagship Seattle team responsible for Mythos (consisting of 14 people including lead designer Travis Baldree and executive producer Max Schaefer) formed Runic Games and began development of a new game named Torchlight.

The intellectual property and game assets of Mythos moved into the ownership of South Korean MMO publisher HanbitSoft. Then Mythos became more suited as an online game.

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