t’s the Friday treat! Friday is an especially treat-y day for us as the first day of PAX 09. We’ll probably be on site right now as you read this! For those of you who can’t stop by, we’ve saved some fun updates.

First of all, check out Meet the Team section! If you haven’t read John Dunbar’s yet, head over there and try to find out exactly what he does at Runic Games. ;) We also have a new dev bio up today for artist Kyle Cornelius. Second, we have an expanded version of the NPC article that ran on IGN – call it the Director’s cut. Meet some of the characters you will encounter when you play Torchlight! Third, Patrick Blank presents Episode 2 of the Preditor tutorial! This is the 2nd of four episodes designed to guide you through the powerful mod tools Torchlight will ship with. Fourth, Check out the About the Game section for new art on the three classes, and an introduction to the characters you will be able to play in Torchlight! And saving the best for last – the official launch date is announced this morning. Mark your calendars.

We really hope you enjoy these goodies and especially hope you will be able to swing by our booth at PAX to say hi and play the game for yourself. We will be tweeting from PAX all three days, so be sure to follow us for live updates and pics! twitter.com/runicgames

Have a PAX-tastic weekend everyone!

The boomtown of Torchlight is not just filled with ember-crazed monsters and heroes – there are also the characters you will meet along your journey. In this article you will meet three NPCs that are your primary contacts within Torchlight – giving you quests and critical information, even briefly adventuring at your side. Please meet Master Alric, Syl, and Brink.

Syl

Last-born of a noble house, Syl’s early life expected both too much from her and not enough. As a child she escaped political lessons to explore nearby ruins, and it was there that Alric found her. He had never wanted an apprentice, but Syl had potential he could not ignore. She understood the magic of Ember intuitively, and her curiosity mirrored his own. Syl’s family released her eagerly, and her true lessons began.

She drank in his knowledge and the world opened up before her. She learned to defend herself with the power of Ember, and to look deeply into the past. As Syl studied the remains of civilizations, she could see patterns. Sometimes a small thing would have made the difference, a push at the right moment to save them from ruin. While Alric seeks the power to change the world, Syl seeks the wisdom to guide it.

Alric had been absent for two years when Syl finally received a message calling her to Torchlight. It was not unusual for her and Alric to spend months apart before meeting to share their discoveries, but he had been missing for far too long. Relieved, Syl and her companion Brink began their journey to Torchlight.

Brink

Last-born of a noble house, Syl’s early life expected both too much from her and not enough. As a child she escaped political lessons to explore nearby ruins, and it was there that Alric found her. He had never wanted an apprentice, but Syl had potential he could not ignore. She understood the magic of Ember intuitively, and her curiosity mirrored his own. Syl’s family released her eagerly, and her true lessons began.

She drank in his knowledge and the world opened up before her. She learned to defend herself with the power of Ember, and to look deeply into the past. As Syl studied the remains of civilizations, she could see patterns. Sometimes a small thing would have made the difference, a push at the right moment to save them from ruin. While Alric seeks the power to change the world, Syl seeks the wisdom to guide it.

Alric had been absent for two years when Syl finally received a message calling her to Torchlight. It was not unusual for her and Alric to spend months apart before meeting to share their discoveries, but he had been missing for far too long. Relieved, Syl and her companion Brink began their journey to Torchlight.

Master Alric

Alric has spent his long life gathering knowledge and secrets, not from libraries, but from the heart of forgotten temples and crumbling cities. He sees a world poised on the edge of renaissance, but bound by savage creatures. Civilizations rise only to be consumed, their knowledge and progress wasted. If he could gather enough power to control the monsters, he could change the world for the better. After all, anything is possible with Ember.

After countless expeditions in dark labyrinths Alric has collected scars, gained an apprentice, and grown old. Faced with dwindling time and his life’s work incomplete, he began to experiment with Ember transfusion. Alric steeped himself in the essence of magic in an effort to prolong his life, but he had little success until the discovery at Torchlight.

The Ember vein below Torchlight is richer than any remembered, and the Ember’s special properties gave Alric hope. He could almost hear it whispering to him as he manipulated it, telling him the proper way, promising that he was nearly there. By the time he sensed the corruption, it had already taken root within him.

Cursing himself for a fool, he set off for Torchlight in search of a cure.

It seems many people enjoyed the PrEditor Scripting 101 video that was released last week, so I’m happy to bring you part 2!

This video will demonstrate how to create levers, bridges that extend, and more importantly, how you can take individual parts of your level chunk and randomize portions of them to create even more randomization overall. I demonstrate this with a very small chunk of the level, and with 2 possible options that can be spawned. You can make larger areas, with more complicated scripting if you choose.

So enjoy part 2 of this series, and please give feedback to us in the forums of anything else you would like to see in the 3rd and final part!