I bought Grim Dawn like two months ago and today after almost 140 hours in game, I killed Korvaak and with that I definitely finished Grim Dawn story/lore content. One small quest remain which I will do tomorrow, and Shattered Realm above level 5. During my let´s play I finished dozens of quest, and read dozens of notes. Discover several hidden location. It´s impossible in a game of such scale make 100%, but I make to reach that so much as possible.
Therefore I can say I discovered much of what game offers to player. And I want to say that Grim Dawn is what Diablo 3 should be, is a new Diablo 2 game we were waiting since 2001. Im not typical fan of hack’n’slash aRPG. Exclusively single player gamer. Back time I loved D2, is still one of my most favorited games of all time, however also it was the one of few game of genre I played and the only one enjoyed. Because so unique atmosphere, and very interesting lore. And here we go, Grim Dawn is second aRPG game I fall in love with. Because basically it have everything that made me fall in love with D2, but in many cases more, more elaborate, and also some other stuff don´t have D2.
So here go the question, after Grim Dawn experience, I am eager to delve deeper into the universe´s lore, see the continuation of the human struggle for survival.
I would like ask Crate Entertainment if you currently working on some kind of story continution or have some in mind - more expansion, Grim Dawn 2, etc. - or not, and you leave Cairn for some time?
The next project Crate are working on atm is a town builder which has nothing to do with GD. It’s also unlikely that any more expansions will be made for GD though there will still be a few more updates after the new rogue dungeon content comes out later this year.
GD2 - maybe at some point in the future, but probably several years away as Zantai has said there are other projects that need to be done before they decide whether to make it or not.
I always say GD is the true evolution of D2 and more. The good news is the world Cairn has many more adventures for you to enjoy. Not just the lore or hidden quests. Builds, builds and more builds! Endless possibilities! Unleash your imagination and creativity and you will have thousands of hours of fun! I’m at 6000 hours now and still not even close to say it’s over
I also (sort of) recently bought the game but more like 6+ months ago and I’ve logged a billion hours. I’ve always said GD is the best ARPG since D1 and is as good as (better in my opinion) than D2.
I think medea already answered your question, but I sure hope that sometime in the next 3-5 years we get a GD2. In the meantime I have a lot more GD to play before I move on to my next game.
Diablo II is truly the ambassador of Hack&Slash RPG games. Many have tried following them but few have succeeded. Grim Dawn can definitely claim to be heir of Diablo II and at the same time to have own, unique style and features. So good blend in !
My thoughts on GD. Best aRPG. Period. Diablo-schmablo.
Thing is over-balancing and clinging to certain RNG elements is killing the game for many veterans. Over-balancing is self-explanatory. By RNG elements I mostly mean the mutators. They were good in 1.0.2.0. Now they’re too strong. Also, stackable debuffs on trash.
Another thing, SFX could be toned down, procs made less numerous but more significant.
Future of GD? GD2. Unless Zantai merges elemental and removes aether and chaos. A few other changes in that direction and GD2 will be D3.
There was a thread about GD2 and this was mentioned. I think it’s a terrible thing. Dmg types in GD are great. There’s some complexity to it. Making the game less complicated for noobs is a step towards D3ness.
Only thing that need to be merged is pierce + bleeding. Others are fine IMO.
For GD2, I wish for:
bestiary for every enemies we have defeated.
lore to every characters we have met.
more human main NPC.
more compelling quest and story.
GD Build mechanics and stuff is mostly perfect. Some adjustment needed maybe on shield. Defensive shield soldier is good, but other than that, shield is mostly a worse offhand.
About balancing thing. I actually enjoy it right now. I treat it as season, where shit item become good, good item become shit; shit mastery become good, good mastery become shit. I think it’s a way for crate entertaining us, long term player. It’s actually the thing that give me more reason to play GD.
That is true. Changes are needed to keep the game alive and rediscover it anew. But GD is kinda special. It takes more effort and knowledge to optimize a build. So you naturally have favorites and, so to speak, specialties. You become attached to concepts that you created or perfected. So seeing them go… not my favorite thing.
So I just can’t stomach all those unnecessary nightblade nerfs - especially when SR is on the rise and melee naturally sucks there. There should’ve been buffs to nightblade, not nerfs. Or the Anasteria helmet nerfs we talked about in Mad Lee’s sorc thread - completely uncalled for. Or the very fact that sorc is better than binder on Agrivix now? Jaysis Christ! Demo is better than necro for aether? Or the fact that due to enemy buffs across the board phys res is now the first prerequisite of viability, and concepts that don’t naturally have it go down the drain (my beloved Venomblade - I fucking spent hundreds of hours with that guy in crucible, and now I can’t even clear it more than twice in 10 tries without pharma unless I give up on my best dps ideas or pilot like a grandma). Or Octavius… it’s squisher than whichever SR set build you can cook up, seriously gotta kite like Pac-Man sometimes. It’s was already shit after the first warlord nerfs but there were like 2 or 3 more rounds of nerfing it and everything that was on the one setup I posted (btw Warborn mace and Spellscorge ammy is better now than The Pummeler and Beronath ammy- Pummeler was overnerfed and those mods are not worth it anymore).
So in principle balancing isn’t bad. It’s just tends offend particular tastes very often.
Lets not knee-jerk too much here. It’s quite a long road to go from removing 2 or 3 damage types to channeling the “D3ness”.
It’s one thing to streamline and improve aspects of a game on the next iteration and quite another to cut the Diablo completely out of the heart of your game (as they did in D3). My thoughts are that as long as Zantai has his hand in the pie we should be relatively D3-free in GD2.
Further to my earlier post here’s Medierra aka Arthur Bruno, founder of Crate Entertainment and Lead Game Designer for TQ/IT at Iron Lore, on his philosophy for the future of the company. This was posted back in November 2016, but the basis still holds true. He wants a broad range of games in the company’s portfolio so they’re not relying on just the one franchise.
"We do plan to keep working on Grim Dawn. How many expansions we produce just depends on how well the first expansion sells and how well GD itself continues to sell.
There is also a good a chance we’ll do GD2 at some point but, due to the age of the current engine, we either need to undertake some massive update work on it or start from scratch with a licensed engine, which would mean a massive amount of work writing all new gameplay code.
Given that we’re working on an expansion now, might do a second one and I’ve been working on ARPGs for 14 years now, I feel like I could use a bit of break before jumping right into GD2. Imagining exciting new features, systems and a whole new story arc take a lot of energy and passion. I’m happy continuing to work on and oversee content for GD but I feel like I need to recharge before I can give a whole new ARPG my all.
There are other genres of games I love and have always wanted to work on. I’d also like to work on something lower scope next, that requires less building of content and which won’t take too long to finish. I expect to be releasing this new project 12-18 months from now. Then after that, who knows, maybe it will be time for GD2. I won’t know until I get there. One thing I can say though is, I’d be a lot more excited to work on GD2 if we could get to a point where we had a lot more money to throw at it.
Someone mentioned that Banished / Anno town-builders were overcrowded but that looks like a wide open market compared to ARPG. Not only are there a lot of ARPGs coming out recently but players commit to a single one for much longer than games in other genres and it requires a ton of content and features to be competitive - more than almost any other genre of games. Then think about the fact that the ARPG genre has a franchise that is widely seen as “king” and is developed by one of the biggest, most well funded and widely respected companies in the industry. Everything is compared against Diablo and it’s hard to compete with a team that has virtually unlimited resources. Then Grinding Gear has around 5x the people we do and I doubt competing against a free-to-play game has helped our sales. Then there’s Torchlight (although it looks like their next game isn’t an ARPG), Marvel Heroes, Van Helsing, Victor Vran, maybe a TQ expansion or sequel from Nordic, Lineage Eternal (if that ever finishes), Wolcen and too many others to remember. Since the huge sales of D3, everyone and their mom seems to be making an ARPG these days. About the only thing worse would be deciding to make a MOBA.
Even with all that going on, I wouldn’t say it would prevent us from making GD2 but it certainly makes the level of competition in most other genres look a lot less daunting.
A big factor for working on something else though is that I don’t think it is good to keep all our eggs in one basket, as a studio. Our primary goal is to keep the company alive so we can keep being independent and making games. While it’s certainly possible to focus on one franchise and stay alive for a long time doing it, it’s riskier having all your future dependent on the continued success of one game property in one genre. Diversifying the types of games we can make and the IPs we own is a good way for us to better secure out future.
Beyond just branching out to work on other genres, it has always been a goal of mine to be able to work on concurrent projects. Not only do we not want to be pigeon-holed into one genre but I think it’s important for us to be able to work on multiple projects at time. That way, we’re not just counting on the success of a single big release to keep us alive, where if it under-performs, it could take years to course-correct and finish another project (years we likely wouldn’t have). This also helps to increase the efficiency of the studio, as we can shift people around based on the needs of a project at any give time, instead of having lulls at the beginning and end of a single project, where not everyone is needed at full capacity. Another factor is that people get burnt out working on one thing for too many years. When people get burnt out, they leave and look for something new. I feel like we have a great team and I want to keep them engaged with fresh new projects and not solely grinding away on ARPGs for the next 20 years.
Since we would like to keep making content for GD, we’ve brought on some new people for that, to keep up the level of energy and enthusiasm (or new old people in the case of Grava, aka Josh Glavine). We’ll keep making content for GD as long as it’s financially viable. GD2 is a definite possibility but whether / when that happens depends on how things progress in the ARPG genre and internally for us at Crate over the next year or two. We also have some ideas for GD related games that are set in that universe and will share some mechanics but are not quite ARPGs.
You’ll also be hearing about at least one totally new project in the next year though."
Bear in mind that Crate is still a small indie company, there are only 13 employees. And since Crate are always giving us more than they originally planned, it partially explains why that new project that was supposed to be releasing around 2017-18 is still being worked on.
I remember buying Grim Dawn in early access and seeing all of the areas added 1 by 1 and seeing constellations added.
One HUGE thing Crate should be proud of above and beyond putting out such a good game and a game that was actually READY for release (looking at you BL3), is that they are one of the few companies that actually take into account what their fan base likes and dislikes.
They are always listening to comments (and responding) and making changes. Sometimes we hate them and sometimes we love them, but they are always advancing the game, but not at the expense of their core player base (again, looking at you BL3).
In an age where game companies push out unfinished product or release a product and don’t try to improve it, Crate has literally raised the bar for every game company. Unfortunately, most other game companies won’t try to emulate what Crate has done so perfectly which is sad, but at least I know that if I buy a game from Crate it will always be perfect for those players that play it, even if it isn’t necessarily my type of game (town builder).
