Well, there was the one about the Asus Max being able to charge the Tesla. Oh, and the blizzard one about adding pandas to World of Warcraft, and than actually did a few years later. And than there was the stars wars sleeping bag that was so popular, they actually did it. Pacman on Google Maps.
There were a few good April Fools jokes.
robc04
2902
The Syd Finch joke in Sports Illustrated (in the 80s I think) was awesome.
draxen
2903
When THQ died the majority of its assets was bought by a company called Nordic Games (including Titan Quest). It seems that Nordic Games have been working on a new patch for Titan Quest with the intention of putting Titan Quest and Immortal Throne up for sale at GOG. Awesome! :D
Here’s the thread:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/4550/discussions/0/412448158142593998/
Strato
2904
Oh wow. Thanks for adding that, I’ve now gone ahead and put my TQ into the beta patch state. The patch notes from the 1st April (apparently not an April Fools joke) make some character builds much more viable now that they’ve made stat dependency for damage types like poison and bleeding.
Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition!
For all of you lovely individuals in possession of the Steam version of a Titan Quest title – we have a special treat for you! (Hint: Look at your Steam Library!)
Of course, if you want to ruin the surprise you can also keep reading…
Vienna (Austria), August 31st: THQ Nordic releases a surprise title on Steam called Titan Quest Anniversary Edition for the game’s 10-year-anniversary and gifts the game to everyone calling either Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne or Titan Quest Gold their own on Steam. So, in numbers, more than 1 million people will automatically find the game in their library starting today.
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition contains both Titan Quest and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne which have been completely reworked in terms of multiplayer, stability, performance, balancing, AI and much more. In rough numbers, this translates to roughly 1.261 changes to the original version 10 years ago.
One Question: “Why?”
Before someone comes around asking why we give our games out for free (or almost for free if you want), here’s a quick explanation: After our name change from “Nordic Games” to “THQ Nordic”, we wanted a running start for our new identity and had to think about how to begin the new era with the most positive connotation possible (for a publisher).
So, many months ago, we had a conversation in our marketing department which went something like this:
“Guys, what can we do to make people like us and stay with our brands?”
“Easy, we just have to be grateful. Remember, without them, we would be nothing.”
“And how should we show gratitude?”
“Free stuff… I guess. Everyone likes free stuff.”
“Well then, give them free stuff, for f***’s sake”
So, that’s basically where we are now.
Anniversary Edition update
- Restored and improved multiplayer functionality, including new features like a built-in voice chat and NAT resolving for best multiplayer connectivity
- Support for more resolutions, larger camera distance and scaleable UI size
- Improved performance and general stability
- Support for modders through new modding options and a fully integrated Steam Workshop
- Complete balance rework with improvements to all Masteries, damage types, unique items and sets
- Countless bug fixes and other improvements, including ten years’ worth of community fixes
- Increased challenges and rewards for larger parties and on higher difficulty levels
- Dozens of new heroes and bosses to encounter
- Improved enemy and pet AI
- Quality of life features like higher stack limits, quick item pickup, a larger stash and a speed setting
- Reduced cheating with curbed exploits, removal of test items and mod comparison in multiplayer
- Steam Friend Invites
- Steam Achievements
- Steam Trading Cards
Changelog Here.
Holy crap. I guess they applied the unofficial fan patch changes to a lot of this.
Huh. Well, I guess it may be time to take another run at TQ. Never did actually get to the expansion, after all. (I beat the original game but the end boss was barely doable with my build before they buffed him.)
rowe33
2908
Will have to check to see if a Mac can run this so I can jump back into it…Seems unlikely.
I did finally finish the main game in Titan Quest once, with a really specialized character. All the hybrid characters I made that experimented with this and that and other skill all died too often to keep going past Act 1 or 2. But with that specialized archer, I did finish the main game, but then I got to the boss from the expansion and just couldn’t beat him. I finally gave up.
This is definitely the hardest ARPG I’ve ever played for the first run-through. In Diablo 2, you could create any character you wanted and put skill points in completely useless gifts all you wanted and still beat Diablo and Baal. But the difficulty came in Hardcore, but even in softcore the difficulty came in the higher difficulties once you beat the game once or twice. In Titan Quest, that first run-through is just brutal in comparison.
LMN8R
2910
Really cool of them to do this! However I’m having the same problem as I had in Grim Dawn - the engine hates high-DPI screens :-(
The mouse cursor just doesn’t appear at all in full-screen mode.
And unlike Grim Dawn where I can use compatibility settings to fix the issue, compat settings just cause Titan Quest to crash.
LMN8R
2912
Yeah that does work, still annoying though cause within a window you can’t choose a rendering resolution independently from window size. So on a high-DPI device you’re either stuck at a low resolution with a tiny window, or a huge window with a massive resolution.
And even though this new anniversary version of TQ has some amount of UI scaling, it doesn’t scale the UI enough to actually make a big enough difference on a 13.5" screen with a 3000x2000 resolution.
Very cool of THQ Nordic Whatever to do this! I loved the original Titan Quest (had it on retail CD), so I bought the Steam Gold version long ago in some sale or another with the intent of applying the fan patches and replaying someday. Now it looks like they’ve done all the work for me and I can simply download and enjoy some TQ in HD. This may see some action from me this weekend!
So, if I have a disk, can I get the patch still?
Good god, man! This is crazy! Makes me want to dive back into TQ again, probably my most played game in history.
I wonder if I can find my spreadsheet with all the classes, masteries, levels, deaths, and difficulty level of every one of the 45 different class combo (and solo) characters I had. Had to try them all.
[Edit] Found a paper still-in-progress version of the spreadsheet from some point while playing. Haha!
[Edit 2] This is interesting. From the spreadsheet itself, total deaths for each mastery. My poor Conqueror had the worst time, but he was my first character:
I’ll buy a new copy from GOG, since I can’t get the patch for my disc version (or my Gamersgate version, for that matter). This is still my favorite Diablo-like ARPG ever - and yeah, I have played Grim Dawn, but I still like Titan Quest more.
Holy crap, finally the map scrolls around smoothly as you move! That was always the fly in the ointment with Titan Quest, no matter what machine I played it on, but with vsync on it’s buttery smooth and even more fun! I always enjoyed the fact that this game is so bright and breezy, a very different setting to the usual grimdark demonic stuff.
So, I guess if you have the base game on steam, you automatically get it all.
robc04
2919
Too bad I own Titan Quest on GamersGate, the pre Steam edition. I probably wouldn’t play the free update anyway, but free!
There is someone on my Steam friends list with 1700 hours in Titan Quest. Those are MMO numbers.
