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Rebinding Torchlight
Runic Games' inaugural effort is out, huzzah! My full review will be up later in the day, [EDIT: The review is up!] but in the meantime, check it out:
Keybindings!
You can't change the (terrible) default keybindings from within the game. However, you can dig into the settings file and do it manually. I'd prefer to not have to have to do it at all, but Runic apparently feels like the same crappy keybinds we've been using since Diablo are sufficient. They're wrong, of course. Thankfully, the fix is easy.
First, you need to open your settings file. Under Vista, find it here:
c:\program files\runic games\torchlight\application data [this is a link that takes you to the normally hidden AppData folder]
From there, navigate to appdata\runic games\torchlight\settings.txt
Torchlight uses ASCII decimal values to bind functions. My settings file is here. Feel free to download it; it's a tiny text file. The relevant lines are these, which you can copy/paste over your own settings to change them:
NO CAMERA SHAKE :1
This turns off the annoyingly disorienting camera shake.
KEYMAP_1 :81
KEYMAP_2 :87
KEYMAP_3 :69
KEYMAP_4 :82
KEYMAP_5 :84
KEYMAP_6 :65
KEYMAP_7 :83
KEYMAP_8 :68
KEYMAP_9 :70
KEYMAP_0 :71
These change the keybindings for skills to qwertasdfg, meaning you can get to all your skills without having to move your left hand over, look down to find the key you want, and then look back up at the resurrection screen because it takes so freaking long. All keybinds in Torchlight use decimal ASCII values for the uppercase version of a letter.
KEYMAP_STATS :74
KEYMAP_SKILLS :75
KEYMAP_QUESTS :76
KEYMAP_JOURNAL :59
These are mostly holdovers from my standard MMO binds. Character sheet (noted as STATS here) is j, skill pane is k, quests are l, and journal is o. With automap at m (below) and inventory at its default i, all of the non-combat stuff you want to do is conveniently located in a tight clump.
KEYMAP_AUTOMAP :77
Automap toggle to m, like I said.
KEYMAP_SHOWITEMS :32
This moves item highlighting to the space bar, which your thumb will thank me for. This is the most important change I made, no question.
KEYMAP_WEAPONSET :89
This moves your weapon switch to y. I don't use it much so far; I may end up binding it somewhere more convenient later. Either way, it defaults to w, which I'm using for a skill bind, so it had to move.
KEYMAP_CLOSEALL :39
This oddly named function actually pops open both the character and skill panes. It defaults to spacebar, so it had to move. This binds it to apostrophe, since I don't use it ever.
That's it! Enjoy more comfortable dungeon crawling with non-awful keybindings.
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