Torchlight's setting is somewhat fantasy with a little bit of steampunk -- right now I'd say it feels something like 75/25 leaning towards a unique fantasy world. Can we get a little more steampunk, though? I think that would help set the game apart to an even further degree, and the art style already supports it.
Of all the many strengths it possesses, story and setting are the game's biggest weakness. It's not that what's there is necessarily bad -- it's just so very sparse. And really, that's understandable given the 11 month development cycle of the game. Hopefully the next year and a half of development will allow for a world full of places, people and stories ready to be pillaged by players eager to experience it all.
I assume the world is going to be expanded upon greatly, so why not have a Steampunk kingdom of some kind? Personally, I like to imagine this is where people like the Alchemist flock towards to study and progress their powers. A place so grand that it plays host to many legends and tales of old -- plus it could have a cool name like Alornia.
Maybe Runic will see fit to fast-forward the setting some time, allowing for the exploits of the characters in Torchlight to become legends. It's not exactly original, probably because it's not a very terrible idea when dealing with turning a world into an MMO.
Player vs ?
So much of what makes this game fun is dungeon crawling, and thus much of the gameplay is going to be just that. I mentioned guild PvP earlier and I do think that would be a whole lot of fun in a game like this, even if PvE is an innate strength where hack 'n slash crawlers are concerned.
Boss encounters and challenging "Deep Dungeons" (Hey, not bad) that are essentially dungeons made for groups are where a vast number of players will thrive. I'm not even sure PvP will be a large focus at launch, although those are my words and not Runic's. Ultimately, the team has only so much time and energy to properly develop both PvE and PvP aspects of a game. I'd wager that much of their time is going towards getting as much PvE content up and running in time for launch.
Dueling? Probably. Large player skirmishes? Less likely, although hopefully -- even though I was never very good at online dueling in Diablo II.
Dev of Personality
Runic Games is obviously full of people with wonderful personality, because it's flooded Torchlight with a light of uniqueness. My biggest hope is for the team to do the same thing again with the MMO. The leveling, loot and satisfying crunch of combat keep me coming back to those dangerous dungeons over and over, yet it's the soothing sounds, music and art direction that make me want to come back day after day.
