Shack News has posted an interview with Peter Hu, formerly of Blizzard North, now one of the lead programmers working on Runic Games’ upcoming title, Torchlight. Peter was one of the chief programmers on D2 and D2X, and he almost single-handedly rebuilt the game’s architecture in the v1.10 patch, largely to make modding (official and fan-made versions) much easier. Fans will find it even easier to mod Torchlight, as Peter relates in the interview:
Shack: With Torchlight being singleplayer-only, the mod tools are obviously a pretty important part of the longevity. They look fairly robust.
Peter Hu: The mod tools are what we use to create all the assets in the game.Shack: So it’s the exact same tools you use?
Peter Hu: The exact same tools. So you can obviously create levels, create quests. There’s a visual scripting system, so you can create a lot of trigger points. You can create items, or your own skills. You can adjust AIs, create monsters. If you have 3D Studio Max experience, you can add in animations. You can modify textures. Whatever you want.Shack: How easy is it to integrate that content into the game?
Peter Hu: It’s pretty easy. Some people have actually already started mod sites, where you can go and pick up mods once the game is released. But in general, all the mods will exist in a folder on your computer. You can just zip that up, send it to one of your friends, they put it in the Torchlight folder and they can run the mod.