Information on Exp. pack

[doubleored]

Hello all. They had a big write-up in PCgamer about the Titan Quest expansion pack, so I thought I'd list the stuff they talked about. All this information is from the article, and although I'm paraphrasing, I'm trying my best to include all the pertinent info here. I.E. I can't elaborate on specifics if the article didn't mention them.
Title
The expansion's title will be called Immortal Throne.
Storyline
An army from Hades is cutting a swath of destruction, and you'll have to fight you're way though the Mediterranean and into the underworld itself to stop it.
Gameplay Summery
1 new act, roughly the size of the other acts, and it should have about 10 to 15 hours of additional gameplay.
1 new mastery (more about this below) which will create 8 new classes.
two new item types: Scrolls and Artifacts (More below)
two new town services: Caravans and Enchanters (More below)
Level cap increasing to 75
30+ new quests
20+ new monster types
250+ pieces of unique weapons and armor as well as new basic pieces (Article Didn't elaborate - but expect to see new monster equipment, and new white standard equipment)
new relics & charms
There was no mention of any new affix's, but this is probably likely.
New Mastery
The new mastery will be called Dream Mastery. They've designed it so that it can either stand on it's own, but that it also has support skills for both melee and casters. Overall, the mastery is about altering reality, and it has powerful buffs called "trances." These trances sound a lot like the 'aura's from the paladin in Diablo 2, where you can only have one trance active at a time. Rounding the mastery off are directional and area-of-effect spells, as well as conjuring nightmares from the dream world (summons I would assume)
New Town services
The first new service, and one I think everyone will be happy to hear about is the Caravan service. Caravan's will be traveling to all the major cities in the game world (Such as Delphi, Memphis etc.) In game terms, it's essentially a way for your characters to store items and equipment instead of using your character inventory. One additional feature that Caravan's will have is the ability to trade items between your characters - so you won't have to utilize TQVault or find a trustworthy friend to do that anymore.

The second new service is the Enchanter. They will allow you to separate relics and charms from the items you've put them on, but that sometimes one or the other will get destroyed in the process. Enchanters also have access to the Alter of Creation which leads to one of the new item types - Artifacts.
The Enchanters will be a gold sink to spend your cash on, but I'm not sure if the Caravans will be a gold sink or not - the article didn't say.
New Items
The first new item will be Scrolls - these will be available at most merchants. Scrolls are one shot skills and buffs that will do many different things depending on the scroll used. They can do anything from providing an offensive or defensive bonus, to summoning insects to sting and confuse enemies. They don't sound like they are permanent effects, but they'll be another item to sink money into and could be rather interesting.

The second and most interesting new item (imho) are the Artifacts. A new item slot will appear on your equipment screen just for these. They are in essence a 'crafting' item and as such won't be dropped by monsters or found in chests. Artifacts bestow powerful effects on characters, but you have to make them at the Alter of Creation via Enchanters. To create them, you'll have to acquire an arcane formula and the proper ingredients which range from simple relics and charms to rare pieces of jewelry. "Finding and creating artifacts will be a significant new part of increasing your characters power. Creating an artifact is also very expensive, so all in all, players should find gold to be much more useful in Immortal Throne." I'm assuming that these formula will most likely be find from monster and chest drops, but the article didn't say for sure - so that's just my speculation there.

That pretty much sums the article up. I hope you guys find this helpful!

Doubleored

[Kris Rhodes]

Originally Posted by doubleored

One additional feature that Caravan's will have is the ability to trade items between your characters - so you won't have to utalize TQVault or find a trustworth friend to do that anymore.

Hehehe, here's what's lame about me: That part alone is enough to make me sure I'll be buying the expansion.

-Kris

[Minervian]

doublered, thank you for the detailed summary!

Looks like we're going to hell! (Hades, underworld....)

[schellen]

the crafting of new items sounds like what the horadric's cube in diablo2 can do, IIRC.

sounds good!

[moncomb]

I can't wait
Damn I hate waiting.

[Sobek]

Sounds great!!!
I can't wait either...
Maybe a silly question, but can we play the expansion with our character without finshing the Legendary or Epic episode?

[TohKlidan]

Originally Posted by Sobek

Sounds great!!!
I can't wait either...
Maybe a silly question, but can we play the expansion with our character without finshing the Legendary or Epic episode?

If it is like it was in Diablo 2 than I would say yes. And i hope so, cause i only have played normal so far.

[Sobek]

Originally Posted by TohKlidan

If it is like it was in Diablo 2 than I would say yes. And i hope so, cause i only have played normal so far.

I'm in Epic so far and I'm working on it to go to Legendary...

[Equisilus]

Glad to hear of some info, although I'm disappointed there will only be one new mastery. I was hoping for another melee-centric one for a total of two new masteries in the expansion. It's really the masteries that make TQ so worthwhile replaying. Ah well, the expansion is practically a must since TQ has been one of the more enjoyable games to replay in recent times. That is, other games may have been better overall, but they aren't as interesting to replay repeatedly as TQ.

[medierra]

Originally Posted by Sobek

Sounds great!!!
I can't wait either...
Maybe a silly question, but can we play the expansion with our character without finshing the Legendary or Epic episode?

The expansion storyline picks up after the end of TQ1, so you only have to finish the game on Normal and you can move into the expansion.

I really wanted to get 2 masteries into the expansion but with the 8 masteries already in the game it was difficult to think of unique new skills we hadn't already done. Some of the new skill ideas we did come up with (such as shapeshifting) were not possible the way certain systems are currently coded and rewriting those systems would significantly delay the release of the expansion, which I think would make people unhappy.

I think the expansion content will make a great addition to TQ. We learned a lot working on TQ and, though we still had to work within the constraints of the existing system, I believe this will be a much better product because of that experience.