f13.net

Don't know if this should go in PC games or in here but Hellgate "Friends and Family Alpha" has started.  It appears that people who were in the Mythos beta got invites or at least some of them did.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. Me want.

Amaron, that means you got one, you dirty little bastard.

I'm pretty sure it's because of the Mythos beta you might want to signup for it if you haven't yet.

http://www.mythos.com/join_kingdom.jsp

People already in Mythos should prolly check email too.

Check the PC Gaming Forum.

Bunch of us are playing Mythos.

I'm in the Mythos beta, and didn't get one. Just checked my email.

I did get 5 Mythos beta invites, though. The first 5 people to post something funny and profane to this thread get em. Oh and PM your email address also please.

Hmm that's odd then.  I don't even think I signed up to Hellgates forums.  I got into Mythos via a friend invite really early on and he also got into the Alpha so I just assumed that was it.  I can't think of any other reason.

Have you mouthified any strange wangs lately?  That'll usually get ya an alpha invite.

Well there was that wife of some guy who worked at Bliz but I'm almost certain he worked at central and not north. 

(http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper144/stills/h63pbf6u.jpg)

Down to 4.

(http://images.worldcupblog.org/ecu/beckham5.jpg)


Source  =  http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2105972,00.html

what

Shh.  David Beckham is posing.  (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/drool2.gif)

I'm so confused.

Ali-G Interviews the Beckhams (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P842Tmi6lrc)

OK - that was awesome. They were incredible sports.

feh. I tried to sign up for Mythos beta awhile back, but it said they weren't taking apps at the time...


Not all that profane, but it's got some sexy action...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfPSmDLfX_Q

She really isnt half bad when she actually talks and smiles.

Is it my laptop or does Tinkerbell need her ass wiped ?

Further, the Beckham thing is totally fucking bizarre.  You'll be listening to the news, hearing about Man U and Ipswich County and they'll be talking cricket and Darts and Bowls and all of a sudden its "And LA Galaxy had a cracking result in their latest game".  You don't get commentary or who they're playing next or whatnot.  Simply a 'nod' to the washed up Beckham.

It's really strange.

Not your laptop.

On Topic, is the Alpha NDA'd or anything like that ?

I'm seriously interested in HEARING about this game, even if so far I'm not entirely sure I wanna play it...

Yea it has the typical NDA for an alpha.  I don't think I'd be breaking it to say though that I was wrong in giving the impression that it had just started.  It's been going on for a bit at least before I got in apparently.

The Ali G interview is from about seven or eight years ago, around the time the Spice Girls and Beckham peaked in their UK popularity.

One of the things about the Spice Girls was that they had a certain level of input into their brand. They weren't just packaged pop, they had enough brains and guts between them to push people's buttons and work the media, with "girl power" (a kind of commercialised feminism) as part of their image. There was also a nationalistic pride about how they were seen in England.

Posh and Becks were not just a celebrity couple, they were England's Best Footballer and the Most Glamorous Spice Girl together - the dream celebrity couple, bigger than royalty.

So put that time, their image and her Spice confidence together, and that's her in the interview. Add three kids, seven years of celebrity life, incredible wealth and whatever goes with it, and that's her today.

P.S. As punishment I'm now going off to learn what Hellgate London is.

...



...



You have 1000+ posts here and you dont know what Hellgate London is?

I've been following whatever I can and I STILL don't know what Hellgate London is.

Some bastardised Diablo FPS, as far as I can see.

Most games are disappointing, so I rarely absorb info about an upcoming game until people who have actually played it start saying good things. That's probably why I'm hanging out on f13.net instead of mmorpg.com.

If this really is the alpha and not the start of the closed beta this game isn't going to be ready by October 31, 2007.

Maybe. But why say you game will be done in two months if it likely will not?
Yeah games get delayed all the time but normally thats when said date was several months out and just their best guess.
Anyway guess your right though, they had better have things nailed down by this point to make Oct 31st.

It's alpha in terms of public testing. The game had already been pushed back a good deal from internal discussion of release dates. I'm not particularly worried.

QFFT I've a friend who reads that site and he drives me insane nattering about 100 different games every week where 99 of them are obviously going to be vapor/suckware.

The worst possible thing that could happen to MMO's would be if every new title was awesome.

Spoken like a true SWG subscriber.

 :rimshot:

I'm not sure I want to ask but I'm clearly a masochist so I will.  Please bring on the pain and also allow me to subscribe to your news letter.

Don't be so stupid.

I've had a mild interest in Hellgate, but neither do I know what it's actually about. Failed PR, perhaps. Most people I've heard talk about it have mentioned bits of fact like "the guys who made Diablo" and so on. Oh, I have picked up that Roper & the guys went bitter from missing out on the moneyhats Blizzard are sporting, thus decided to charge people rent for their god damn servers. And that the pre-rendered movie was cool and that the game doesn't seem one iota as cool as the movie. Which, I guess, pretty much goes for Diablo aswell.

No, you got it right.  Pretty much the only thing Hellgate is about is that it's by the guys who made Diablo and Diablo II.  Considering those two games weren't really about anything other than 'TING!' that's enough for most people.

Wrong. What kept us coming back was the Ting. If MMOGs had a sense of danger and randomly generated fields and dungeons, then maybe MAYBE they'd be moderately replayable. MAYBE. There's a whole slew of shine that made Diablo 1 & 2 worth playing and Ting wasn't it, that's what simply kept us coming back. It was the hook.

It should be. He's only played one league game which LA lost and he played maybe 20 minutes.

That video was money.

I'm sure it was the randomly generated maps (even though you figured out the pattern given enough time) that kept me going.   You are 100% right that the ring noise (I CAN STILL HEAR IT I CLOSE MY EYES) is the hook.  Right into my brain.

https://accounts.hellgatelondon.com/PingAccount/invite_signup.jsp

"Sign Up to Participate in Early Playtests
Interested about Hellgate: London but didn't get an invite? Well, we've got your answer -- sign up for an opportunity! Simply enter your e-mail address in the form below and you'll be added to the list of potential invitees for the next round of testing. If you're lucky, you'll be invited to join the Hellgate: London testing phases in the not-too-distant future!

A few things to remember:

1. Signing up doesn't guarantee an invite, but does raise your chances significantly in receiving one.

2. Please only enter your e-mail once, as duplicates may cause you to not receive an invite.

3. If you're already part of the Alpha, don't re-enter your e-mail – but tell all of your friends!

4. If you do receive an invite, keep in mind that all content is contractually under NDA until further notice.
"

Not sure if this was posted, but here ya all go

I'm confused.

I'm pretty sure they mean "tell all your friends how to sign up".

Apparently the next round goes out today and current players will be able to send out invites for friends.

Interesting.

I am keeping my eye on this thread.

Also, I still want to buy one of those rad $250 dollar Hellgate statues.

The hunter is awesome looking.

If you buy one, you get into the beta.... (At least the email I got last night said that).

If this is true, lets get an f13.net invite train going.

Don't forget to use protection. FSM only knows where some of these people have been.

Pokebutt. I'm gonna rape ya!

Many thanks. HG:L is currently pegged at an 11 on my hype meter, so keep the info coming.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO RAPE ME

BULBASAUR WILL BITE YOU

hay i liek mudkips

do u liek mudkips?

what

SEAKING, FUCK YEAH!

i herd u liek mudkips

was just wunderin

pika pika! pikachuuu!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uriZHIaEqd4

I, myself, have been in beta for both AO and Vanguard, and I played Horizons and Seed longer than any human should have so... yeah.  I'm dirty.

Appearantly you can get a guaranteed beta spot if you buy a 225 action figure from http://www.wetanz.com/.

See http://www.wetanz.com/collectibles/ for details.

(Info Stolen from FOH.)

Those must taste like margin.

Speaking of the gates of hell ....

uh-huh. The boy sure does like his meme's.

To get back on track and talk about Hellgate: London

I think that pricing plan is why I have zero interest in this game..Let me get this right..

10 bucks a month (on top of your initial $50 dollar purchase) gets you...

Elite players are bumped to the front of the line for servers - this is really bullshit. If you ever sat in a WOW que (and your paying there as well) you know this fucking sucks donkey balls

Elite players get 12 characters, regular players get 3 - Take a look at SWG (one character per server shit). I don't understand why developers won't allow you to try different builds/races etc etc....this is just another barrier thrown in by the developers.

Elite players can hold 40 items in lockers around the city, regular players get 20 and can't move them to other players - Can you sell shit to other players? or will you be stuck selling shit to NPC merchants who buy that super rare drop that your character can't wear for 2 copper? Also limiting the amount of space in bags? Every MMO I have ever played has you managing your inventory and it usually is the biggest headache you have next to bugs.

Elite players have access to better shinier gear (the only difference is aesthetic) - whatever; I could give a shit if I was wearing a french maid outfit and a pink fucking tutu as long as the stats were better than Plate Mail of Awesomeness +2.

Elite players have access to shuttles to move easier around the city - This is another bullshit barrier. The most important commodity in MMO's is time. The more you make of your time in a MMO, the more successful you will be by earning more money, raiding with the buds or whatnot. Making you take the slow ride like a public transportation bus rider only pisses you off and go get a cup of coffee, make breakfast, maybe watch a movie while you wait till you get to your destination.

Elite players can own property, regular gamers can't own a house or enter houses - Another bullshit barrier. I would imagine people will possibly have NPC merchants in their house? Maybe additional storage. Whatever it is, if you can't buy shit others can buy and you can't save shit that you could make money off of later, your gonna gimp yourself something fierce.

Elite players get more game types - What the fuck does this mean? They get to play a different game than the one I paid 50 bucks for? If so fuck them.

Elite players get monthly content additions - This I can agree with.

Really, I am a huge diablo and diablo 2 fan and a long time Blizzard fan. Roper and Co. might as well piss down my fucking mouth while I sing Dixie cause this pricing plans sucks balls.

edit: If you couldn't tell, im pretty fucking angry at the nerve of these guys.

You know that all that stuff is JUST for their secure online servers, ala B.net. You can still play single player anyway you see fit. Likewise with LAN. Or host your own damn server.

NEWSFLASH! Company wants money for additional features and continued service. Film at 11.

Lariac, the whole point of that list is to drive players to Elite status. It's no different from how other games drive players to expansions by releasing new content/features they can only get by doing so. Nor different from Fileplanet gimping anyone who doesn't pay some sort of subscription.

At the same time, them doing this means they can offer anything at all to people who don't want to pay the fee. You can't play legit/official WoW for free.

I am Jacks amazing sense of entitlement.

Of all those, the biggest perk is owning a house I think.

QFT. The monthly fee is there for people who WANT the extra stuff, but the free option is there so people who dont want to pay monthly can still play. Kids who can't use mommy's credit card come to mind. And I know I'd be more than willing to shell out $10/month (less than most MMO fees anyway) for less bullshit timesinks.

Look at it this way: $50 gets you the single player game and the ability to play online. If you're only going to solo or play with your friends than thats all you spend. Wanna play it as an MMO (or at least an online RPG; Diablo II was capped at what, 8 players per game?) then you have the option of getting more features for a fee.

I plan to play with only friends or solo.  I've had enough of random internet assholes.

Will you play with me? In that sexy white t-shirt no less.

Uh.

Our little NiXel is growing up.  Right here.  Online.  Before our very eyes.  Every bit as bent and twisted as we expected.  (http://www.terranuts.com/forums/images/smilies/pcheerleader.gif)

And I thought that completely homo LOTRO character was just a joke! ;)

Oh, jeez, no... give him your XBL name.  You'll see.   :-o

I understand what you are saying Darniaq, and I don't have an issue with them charging for new content, but some of those items listed should be part of the initial package you get when you purchase the game.

It is as if I bought Oblivion and had to purchase my mount, my house and my banking slots on top of my initial purchase. It just doesn't sound all that fair to me.

I have no issue if in Hellgate your 10 bucks allowed you to add different graphics to your mount or a different mount, maybe a bigger house, or access to your bank from many different locations rather than one or two locations, however removing key gameplay enhancing abilities from the game and charge extra for it just rings of a jailhouse bendover.

But you could win oblivion without a house, without a bank and without a mount.  The same is true of Hellgate. You are paying extra for something extra.

You are absolutely right.

However, we are talking about a quasi MMO here and from previous experience in many different MMO's those particular items I just listed have major gameplay advantages associated with them.

DAOC/SWG - in house merchants that allowed you to sell good at no cost or very little compared to NPC AHs.

DAOC/SWG/WOW/ - Anytime you have a mount, you can earn cash faster, get to pvp faster, go anywhere faster. If you can earn cash faster or get to the fight faster than the next guy, that is a clear advantage.

More bank slots means that you can hold more stuff and since you will not be able to create mules unless you have multiple accounts, your gonna have to unload your stuff on NPCs who give you a song for what you could sell it to other players for. On top of that you will not be able to trade between characters, so your forced to sell only to NPCs.

Cash is king in MMO games and severely limiting it causes you to be at a disproportionate advantage to the other guy. I mean hell, this is why people bitch about Chinese farmers.

edit: I am just not gonna suck the Hellgate dick because of the people creating it and I think that it will set a nasty precedent for all gamers if gamers buy into this pricing plan. What is to stop other developers from doing the same nickel and diming of key gameplay elements to us gamers?

In response to your edit:

Don't play the game. I won't be playing HG:L specifically because of this. It's some third-rate bullshit that is on the scale of dedicated GM support a la Legends EQ1 server.


Fuck that noise.

lariac, I think you hit the nail on the head by calling it a "quasi-MMO". By not calling it a straight-up MMO, they can change pretty much everything. This could be good or bad, but free-to-play is where a lot of games come from, knowing full well they'll get the cash from you some other way.

As it is, I agree with you. But to be honest, I'm used to paying for that stuff in these games already, so if I liked HA, I'd happily for them there too.

So you weren't one of the screaming masses that bashed Bethesda something fierce for Oblivion's horse armor pack? And if you made the bank accessable in 1 location for free and 10 with the fee, people would make the same arguement as they do for the mount: more timesinks for the non-paying customers.

Some of us are willing to pay extra for extra features. I can't think of how many times in the first 6 months of EQ2 I'd have shelled out an extra $10/month for a Legends server.

I really don't see what the big deal is with this anyway. HG:L Isn't the first game to do this; from the Dungeon Runners website (http://www.dungeonrunners.com/membership.html):
You can't even use your "epic lewts" without paying their monthly fee. But no public outcry. (or was there, and I missed it?) Is HG:L just getting the attention because it's a bigger name title?

You're the one with the provocative pictures!

So basically, it's an MMO.  Being able to play it for free is about as meaningful as being able to play Runescape or something for free.  Pity, I thought it was going to be like Diablo.

It's exactly like diablo. You can experience everything that comes in the box online without paying them anything. As they add content, you need to pay to get access.

Of course a couple of months after release when new content is available nobody will ever actually play online in the "free" areas, so in a sense you're right after all.

Yes. With prettier graphics and a better pedigree.

Nobody particularly cares about dungeon runners, because it's a D-grade game. Nobody expected great things. HG:L is exactly the opposite, it's a AAA title.

Fair enough Darniaq. Leave it at that.

...Touche.

Question:  Can I play it single-player, offline, and see and use absolutely everything short of paid expansion content?

Other than multiplayer specific areas, yes.

Oh, that's cool then. I need to keep reading this thread to remind myself it's a diablo game and thus I really don't want to play it. But it's good to know that all this extortion stuff is multi-player only.

Or is the phat lewtz not in the single player? Because that would be true mmo style, to bar solo players from the phattest letwzorz.

But if you play the solo game only, on your own pc, you wouldn't know about phat lewtzorz unless you did some research.  If you didn't know, you wouldn't care, unless the game was too hard for the level of loot that was available (and really, isn't the complaint that Diablo-style games are too easy?).

I'd say obnoxiously mouse-clicky, repetetive and bland.

Pikarape. I'm gonna click you!

 :-D I have you given any thought to your compulsion to post in a thread that is about a topic you find not-fun?  /duck!

Im presently MMO'ed out. AoC is on my radar, but with my present job and significant other Im not sure I have time in my life anymore to pour hours into a MMO.

Since this is more Diabloesque and should therefore be easier to pick up and put down when ever needed, Im looking at it.

I need a new laptop though. (DX10 aside mine is going on 4 years)  :cry: Which is in direct competition with all the camping gear Im still trying to acquire.

I'm mildly interested in the game if it strays far enough from the Diablo roots, I always thought Diablo was a good game that just didn't get finished (Divine Divinity). I do apologize for bashing the game, I hate when people do that when the thread is clearly for people who enjoy it, but he asked and I was being honest.

Lariac  you're correct that the whole elite thing is basically a marketing trick to make sure people pay for the online fee unless they absolutely can not do so.   Are you angry that it's basically a marketing trick though or that the game even has a pay for model?

If it's the second Diablo 2's secure play servers actually cost quite a bit of money to maintain.  The only reason they could do it for free was because it's Blizzard and the game was bound to be a huge success thus the costs could be easily subsidized by box sales.   It's probably impossible for a newly started company to take such a risk on their first big release though.    Also I doubt the game would of even been properly funded if it wasn't being pitched to investors as a game that would use an MMO pricing model.

I believe FSS has already made a nice profit by licensing the game to Asian companies.

The game or the game engine? If you meant the game I wasn't aware the licensing schemes gave so much payout before the game is even released.  Do you have more details?

I see your point. It does piss me off that they are gouging gamers for items that should be included in the game; However they don't have the resources (like blizz) to bank a no fee policy. I still think though that they should just charge 10 bucks for new content and leave it at that. But didn't take the perspective you outlined above until now.

To be fair, most MMORPG style games give you Nothing For Free. Except a demo on an island or sommat.

$10 for updated lewts and areas?

Everything else is gravy. This is seriously just One of Those Things Not Worth Complaining About.

What ticks me about the HG:L subscription fee is that it has a distinct overtone of post-WoW bitterness, in addition to the assumption every gamer is now prepared to pay for continous play. Yes, WoW did break monthly fees into the so called casual market, but it still feels like a shitty thing. Will it work? Almost certainly. Thousands of Internet sites apply the same payment system - pay some extra dough to get the almost essential, but not quite, bling-bling. I'm currently subscribing to three different games, but while that doesn't dig any holes into my finances as I got a job, subscription fees are a considerable expense to kids.

I think it has generated alot of bad-will for FSS, is all, something that they possibly could have avoided by introducing "eliteness" a few months down the road. HG:L is currently signalling "If you want to play for real, you better pay for real, biatch" rather than "You're playing for real now, but in a while we'll have some extras for the catasses that want it." Having subscriptions is not necessarily an evil thing to do, it just seems a little clumsy.

It's like anything else.

You get what you pay for.

That's how we come to bitching about $10 goddamn dollars a month. I spend more than that on energy drinks before noon. Five days a week. I just finished a $3 can of Jolt. It's all about priorities. Don't want to pay the $10 for ALL the content. Don't pay it. But don't bitch about it, that's just lame. It's not like there aren't 500 other games that are worth playing.

People really only bitch about stuff they want, but don't want to pay for. At least in videogames that's how it goes.

If all us MMO vets, long since introduced to the concept of paying for game subscriptions, are bitching about the fee then they're doing something wrong.  We are not twelve year olds looking at WoW for the first time and going "WUTS U MEAN I GOTTA PAY EVRY MONTH?? SHOLD BE LIKE BNET!"

If they make a good enough game, I'll be glad to shell over a hot and ready pizza and a coke per month. Seriously, ten bucks these days is nothing. I break a fifty and its gone. Hell, it costs 20 bucks for my 4 person family to eat at cheaper fast food joints.

I understand the costs of server support, infrastructure upgrades, content updates, and a new boat for their top exec.

Either way, if the game isnt good enough... dont sub. 


I'm kinda sounding like schild's echo here, but I agree with him completely on this one.

Nah, just you and a couple of others.  The majority 1-post and leave the thread response seems to be "So what?".

The sub idea is still fucking stupid.

Get with the times and use the cash shop system.  Appeal to the cheapskates, the kids and the casuals who want insta dings at the cost of some greenbacks.  Makes more sense and provokes less wrath then this whole elite versus slave gamer tag shit.  But hey, like I've always said just give me an auto-shotty I can socket with spell bullet powers™ and I'm your fucking man-slave.  Good for at least $80...

Just as a side note does anyone else live in dread of games that have freeplay/cash shop?   After GuildWars I'm almost convinced that paying 10 dollars per month for a game is a feature in and of itself.

A shop/rmt sales system in a diablo style game would ruin it for every single hardcore player.

Like I said in the other thread, getting any advantage through anything other than completely dropped loot makes it completely not worth playing.

Again, seriously, $10 a month.

Meh, I can't be bothered to care, either play it or don't play it.

  I'm not sure why we're not looking at it from the opposite direction, if it's a quasi-MMO, and has a non-subscription element, why isn't that being praised?  Isn't it similar to WoW letting you play single player with no monthly fee?  Or any of the other subscription based MMO's?  Why are we concentrating on the fact that you CAN pay for extra services?  Why not look at it from the perspective of "hey, a game with an OPTIONAL subscription model, that's a GOOD thing".  I think there's a large portion of us that still think that $50 should be the cost of the game period, and another segment that thinks a monthly subscription is to be almost expected, this time, it seems like they're targetting both audiences.

  I know personally I skipped over guildwars, because I thought that model was flawed.  And I'm going to most likely skip over this game as well, because of the fact that for me it would be a single player game, since I wouldn't pay a monthly fee for a non-persistant world.


Just my .02

That is a solid point for HG:L due to the nature of the game.  I still stick by "cash shops = teh future" though but that's another topic for another thread I suppose.

Even in Korea none of the real mmo's that are also successful are cash shop games are they?  L2/WoW/etc all have some other form of payment system if I recall correctly.  Largely I doubt it'll fly over here.  There's doesn't seem to be any real incentive for them to drop the subscription model where it's already firmly established.

I've always thought that offering other alternatives along side a competitive subscription model would be the way to go, e.g. A pay as you go or cash shop style that offer an alternative to those not able/not willing to pay continuous monthly fees.

I am baffled by the anti-subscription wave that is going around myself, why remove something that a decent percentage are accustomed to, and then layer in other alternatives.

More invites sent out today.

One word:

FUCK.

FUCK YEA

or

FUCK YOU

FUCK is not an exclamation of anything awesome.

Agreed.

Why is it that I get into every piece of shit MMO beta except the one that might actually be good?

Oh yeah, God hates me.

So, will HG: L have Securom on board?

Possibly. EA had been using SafeDisc for a while but C&C 3 uses SecuROM.

There's a new video on my PC Mag about this.

It looks complete; it looks ready to ship; it looks shit.

Oh dear.

Hmm I forgot it would have single player, thus I didn't even consider that.  It'll probably have digital distribution of some sort though so I'd imagine no.  One can hope anyways.

Very possibly. But I don't plan to pirate it, so why would I care? It isn't starforce, after all.

You should care because it's notorious for screwing up frame rates or causing other problems.  As far as "being annoying" in general goes starforce has a much better record.   

You're doing it wrong.

Yeah.

 :hello_kitty:

:(

:heart:

Soon, grasshopper. Soon.

Pre-order from EBGames (http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=647062), and get a guaranteed beta spot on 9/17. Also they'll have a limited number of lifetime subscriptions available, price unknown.

Many of them actually are, assuming "cash shop" means microtransaction-based. They are free to get (usually download), free to play the game (unlimited lifetime members), and collect their revenue from players who buy stuff from the game from a debit account they fill with real world money, and more recently through embedded advertising or the type that appears only at login and logout. People who pay into these games typically pay much more per month than a player who pays a flat monthly fee, which is why there's so much attention on the model. But then things get hazy.

These games have a lot of registered accounts (Audition alone has over 120mil, Maplestory is over 70mil), but peak concurrencies don't seem to follow the same model as a flat-fee sub-based game, so it's hard to gauge usage alone. Then unless the company reports it, it's hard to tell how many players pay anything at all into the game. Which makes extrapolating how much money is being made at all even more impossible to guess. But the games are also a lot less expensive to make, and come out more quickly.

So as usual, it depends on the definition of "success". They are profitable, they are popular, they make money, their host companies are scaled appropriately. That's business success. But they don't generate omgroxxorluv in places that focus on AoC and WAR, being largely for different audiences.

Guessing $100-$150. I can see playing this, given what I've heard, for 2 years +, a little each month. Done.

Yeah - I'll drop that on a lifetime sub, easy.

I've spent more then that on virtual currency...

God, this is going to be a hard decision. Wait until it drops and play it unspoiled. Or do beta and enjoy the second coming of Robot Jesus Diablo early.

Also the regular edition boxart PWNS the collectors.  :cthulu:

You can keep the Diablo while adding the cash shop by selling keys to unlock found uber-items.  You find a Shotgun of Kerrigan +5, but it doesn't work unless you install some technobabble thing like a 'bio-ident override module'.  Which goes for $2 from the cash shop.  Voila, loot is still found rather than bought, income is still directed to the game operators, monthly subscriptions are avoided.

Keep complaining about the sub fee. That'll change it.

RMT WILL NOT WORK, IT'S BASED OFF THE IDEA THAT LOOT IS MOTHERFUCKING RANDOM. IF I KNOW WHAT I'M GETTING, I AM NOT INTERESTED AND NEITHER IS THE DIABLO COMMUNITY.

FUCK.

Release your anger...it makes you strong.

That seems like a massive oversimplification. You don't think there are methods that can bridge the gap (like the one mentioned above but perhaps more elegant?

RMT's that affect drop percentages or require specific in-game criteria like completing certain episodes etc. seem like potential starts to looking to not alienate the diablo community.

I remember going for specific unique sets and spending hours grinding on the hopes of the right drop or enough Horadric fodder to trade for it, and finding that no one had what I was looking for. I loved the random element, but sometimes I just wanted THAT ONE GODDAMN PIECE, rar! (and I probably would have paid for it in real money gladly)

I don't think it's a binary situation (works/doesn't work) and I don't have the perfect solution right now... but I bet lots of places (including FSS) are pondering the same problem.

Regardless, anger is good and I am definitely looking forward to the game. (First time I've ever considered a lifetime sub option)

YES.


NO.

This is just like Vegas. How can you guys play the digital equivalent to "Ding! And than you don't get any money!"

If I had to kill and wade through piles of bodies in vegas to get winnings, it'd be a lot more fun.

See also: Intermittent reinforcement - Skinner, B.F.

But like all human traits, they can be plotted to bell curves. Outliers on the curve may respond differently.

Most RMT i have seen are not about loot, they are about consumables, buffs, and cosmetic changes or members only features (more space and crap).

IE: Dungeon runners, non members can use potions, that don't stack, members can use ones that do. See the hook there? (Even if thats not a RMT)

Dungeon runners isn't RMT. It's a subscription based service. I'm not sure why you brought it up.

RMT is exactly about loot and such most of the time. In fact the original korean and MUD RMT schemes were all gold and items.

Because its very close to a Diablo online, and to illustrate that not all of the RMT  have to be about loot, that one was a good hook, just like what they plan to use. I didnt bring it up to say it was a RMT, just that that little item, could be an example. Again, most of the ones i look at are not about loot, but buffs ETC.. SOTNW is a RMT, but i haven't seen any loot items on the list, just buffs and stuff (+xp, ETC..).

I don't care at all, ill be checking it out, but not all RMT is about loot, it really isn't. Can be storage, buffs, cosmetics etc...

Diablo style games have loot that gives "buffs and stuff."

Therefore, you'd be buying loot.

Therefore, it would be RMT for loot.

Maybe you're having issues with what I'm saying because you don't understand the games.

Trust me, I'm right.

So a RMT potion thats +100XP for 4 hours = loot? Don't think i have ever seen that type of augmentation attached to a sword.

I see loot as any item in the game thats equipable for the most part (other than the other items in game, vender trash, crafting, ETC)

Like i said, most RMT come in the forum of buffs and other items, if you wish to translate that into loot, i'm not going to argue.

I think our disconnect is more a matter of definition.

Potions are potions. Augmentations are augmentations. Your sentence doesn't parse.


No. Loot doesn't have to be equippable. At all.


You can't argue because you're wrong.


Nope, you're just wrong.

There aren't many genres/type of gaming that I'm THIS black and white about. But I know my fucking dinggratslootwhore games.

I see what MBW is saying. I personally dont like RTM, but I do see his point of view.

I agree with Schild, in that I dont *think* it would work, but you never know what they could come up with. I think the comparision to Dungeon Runner was a pretty good one.

Like i said, RMT isn't a set thing, it can be just about anything.

I do get a portion of what your talking about, however, i just do not believe its a black and white as you make it out to be.

If i get a sword thats a +4 to something, and a potion thats a +4 to the same thing. The first is a loot item, the second is a RMT augmentation that dosn't detract from my permanent sword augmentation.

In the intrest of continuing, please define thies terms:

"Loot".
"Augmentation".
"Potions".
RMT items.

In my mind, even a consumable potion augments your player for a period of time. If thats what it does.Aallot of the items can be "loot", and RMT items, or one or the other. There is allot of cross over.

I i have seen more than just buffs, like cosmetic, storage, or features for RMT... all of them are viable options for RMT in a game like this.

The potion stacking could easily be a RMT scroll, or something, does that then make it loot?

That being said, i would prefer the 10$, just like i do with dungeon runners.

Or like Dungeon Runner, where you dont have access to be able to obtain the super high end loot unless you pay money. You dont buy the loot, you buy the ability to have the loot drop, or some shit.

Christ your dense.

Ok, the first one is a sword of +4, let's say rat-killing. It actually has less value than the potion of +4 rat-killing. Why? The potion can be used with any weapon. If I don't use a sword and I find one, all I can do is sell it in game. If the potion is never a drop, they're taking away from everything the game is about.

As for your four definitions, you asking those questions reveals you simply don't know enough about the systems to be having this conversation. But, I'll play your game and label them out very basically.

Loot is anything dropped by a mob, found in a chest, or found from destroyed furniture. This includes augmentations and potions. For any given items, no store in the game should sell the top tier of any item. Except maybe health potions, and only late in the game. Diablo 2 taught us that, and it's the right way to do it.

Augmentations are a type of loot. Sometimes weak ones can be purchased.

Potions are loot. Often purchased in game as well. Though you can generally find (via loot) stronger potions than you can buy at any given time (i.e. you can buy light potions but loot regular potions, a la Diablo or Fate or Titan Quest).


Potions and augmentations are nowhere near alike. You're attaching too much to the verb augment and forcing it upon other shit trying to clump it together. Stop doing that.

Look, the moment you allow people to buy stuff with real money in a game based around loot, the game is fucked. You can argue it all you want, but you're wrong.

Also, Having gone back and forth with you so much, I've finally broken down. Don't take it personally but fucking learn how to spell or use a spellchecker. Your posts are making me stabby.


This is kind of reasonable. it depends on if it changes the chance of loot dropping though (like upping your percentage of magic items, that would be flat out cheating, even if purchased). I paid for Dungeon Runners, and they sort of gimp non-paying members a lot. It's kind of insulting. I didn't like how it was handled. They obviously increased the rate at which shit dropped.

Thing is, with dungeon runners...whats "high end" loot? The game, and encounters scale to you..so..does it matter other than an order of magnitude or sliding scale?

Heh, the things that got my 5$ for that game was the storage and stackable potions. But i do like yellow items ;)

I am sorry you feel that way.


Most of the potions are temporary in RMT shops. As for the sword, you wouldn't have been able to use it anyway, item shop or not. We both know that equivalent items WILL drop in a random loot game... So there is no taking away there. If the potion is a never drop, then they have just made a sale. as its optional, and not required.


I ask because of the way you use them. I said augment, when thats what potions (as well as items ETC..) do, they augment your stats... you have a different idea for it, it seems. A Trait is an augmentation.




Your doing that with the word "Loot".



I don't think this is true, it depends on the game, and the items in question...and thats been my point all along.


My bad.


This could be, yet another RMT item, lol.. Really..It can.

For the record, i am not a fan of RMT, most implementations i have seen do just what you fear, and unbalance the game in some way.Big no-no in competitive games.  But, that does mean that they always will.

Thing is, you have this RMT idea in your head, and seem to think there is only one kind..I don't think this is the case. The possibilities are endless. Only reason i even posted anything, is because i thought someone who plays as many games as you do, would not be so quick to label, file, and dismiss possibilities.

The problem here is that you believe them controlling what does and doesn't drop to make an extra dime via RMT wouldn't ruin the game.

It would.

You obviously don't care as much about this type of game as I do.

It would fucking RUIN IT. This sort of game HAS to be subscription based if anything.

You started the augment stuff wiith this:

Attaching the word RMT to it is gaming the system. A potion that's +100XP for 4 hours = loot. Yes. It should be dropped. Whether or not it was ever attached to a sword doesn't mean a single goddamn thing. It's apples and fucking rainbows.


No, I'm not, I very VERY clearly just laid out definitions for you.


I don't have a different idea for it, I just have thousands of hours of loot whoring and understanding, discussing, reading and helping with such systems.


No shit, but we aren't talking about just any game. We're talking about Diablo clones. And that's it. I could care less about any other type of game. And once you realize we're talking about diablo clones, you realize that it doesn't matter about the items in questions. At all. You don't buy items in a fucking diablo style game, not like this, not to skip the loot whoring part. Regular MMOGs are already ruined for me when I see people in end-game armor and weapons, since I know I'll be striving for that. The point of a Diablo Game is, most of the time, you aren't striving for the same shit everyone else is. It's more about - how efficiently can you survive and how rich in loot and money can you get? That is, if you're playing hardcore mode - which you should be.


I love RMT and I love the future of RMT. It will be fantastic for indie groups. Just not for a loot based game. Not like this. It's an error and completely wrong. These types of games are about the gamble. Stacking the deck via any means where the rich (irl) are better by default ruins the dynamic.

I'm not dismissing possibilities, I'm dismissing you thinking that you understand how a diablo-style game should work, when clearly you DON'T GET IT. I don't understand how you don't get it either. It's like, the simplest game design ever. And one of the only ones I would blow my fucking top about having RMT applied to.

schild, i do get it, And i do get where your coming from. I'm just playing devils advocate here (have been).


Thats how i used to feel about mmogs, but then i thought...Who am i competing with? I think at some point, i stopped caring about the "Joneses". Because, they have no bearing on my fun in a mmo. None, as i don't really PvP in mmoRPG's. May be one reasons i do like the PvMP in LOTRO. Its an odd creature. Same way i felt when playing Diablo, i only played that with friends as well.

However, i do think a properly thought out RMT system in a Diablo style game could work..

How about this, forget augm...err... Stat adjusting items (lol).

How about cosmetics, Storage, Features (such as potion stacking), Member only servers..ETC...as RMT? Very close to what they are already doing, no?

uhhhhhhhh those things you just listed aren't very good RMT fodder. They're the type of thing you'd be buying every month you played... In other words it becomes a sliding price subscription. Might as well get a flat rate out of everybody.

This is a banner day, I agree with schild twice!

Though I would have to make a minor adjustment:

The moment you allow people to buy limited resources with real money, and or allow the benifit of spending money on the game to be uncapped, or capped at a level beyond the reasonable, the game is fucked.

Which is to say, I think it's ok to have a game that is 'free' but that allows each player to rent a specific item of leetness for $10 a month. As long as they can only buy one and that there is only one item. Because what you are doing in that case is basically an optional subscription fee. It'd be like WoW saying "WoW is now free, but only those who pay $15 a month will be able to zone in to instances". On a technical level you are selling loot, but insofar as it effects the game it acts like a subscription cost.

Muds I've played adopt this model. They have certain items which can be purchased by the player and not obtained any other way. but once you've purchased these items then that's it; the differentiation becomes between purchasers and non purchasers, not on level of expenditure.

And such a thing has a place,  but unless there are real reasons for using a "optional subscription" method such as this I would just stick to simple subscription.

I also agree with schild for the most part.  In a Diablo clone, buying items isn't going to make purists or poor people happy; I happen to be of the former set.  However, I can easily see paying for things that don't affect the level of competition: decorative things, or storage space, or UI tweaks, or any number of things that aren't competitive edges.  Would you pay a bit in order to NOT see the retarded decals other players paid to have on their avatars?  I might if those decals were hideous... also, I just might be a genius.

The real deal here is that you have to design the game for whatever you are going to sell right from the get-go, not just decide you are going to make Lord of Destruction 2: Ebay Edition.  If you make the game from the start with this idea, and assuming you pull off a good design, I submit that you could have a game where item sales don't break the system.  This system would not be a Diablo 2 clone.

Oh God what pathetic pining for the good old days of Diablo when you had to take your chances with the random-number generator just like everyone else. Let me boldly guess that your will to play Diablo broke the moment when you learned that other people were hacking the game and getting the items they wanted. Sure, I know, you tried to tell yourself that it doesn't matter what other people do. That even if they were spoiling their fun, you could still have yours.

But it was all in vain.

If I were to tell you that I've upped the drop chance to almost certain in Titan Quest and I still don't find it a very good game, would that make you want to play Titan Quest more, or less?

Those Evercrack addicts had their EQ, and you had your Diablo. The only remaining question: who's going to make your Vanguard?

What the hell are you talking about?

I used a massive number of hacks on Diablo 2 to see the armor and weapons I never got. I was then done with Diablo 2. There was nothing left to see.

And when I saw high-level armor in the DDO beta, I knew I never needed to own the game, I'd seen the end and it wasn't shiny enough. (I'm not saying DDO is a Diablo clone here, I'm just saying that all MMOGs are e-peen calculators, and top level gear is as big as your e-peen gets, and if that shit isn't cool, I have absolutely nothing to strive for since they all have the same playstyle. As such, Diablo style loot systems where there's an obscene amount of high level gear and it's randomized has the best opportunity of keeping me playing).

There's a difference between playing good games and seeing everything and playing shitty games because I need a fix. I'm not playing Loki. It's a piece of shit. I didn't play Beyond Divinity, it was poorly optimized and ahem, had Star Force. I'm not desperate, I just happen to love a certain gamestyle.

I'd just like to go on the record and state that I don't think much about Diablo and never have, but that I think Hellgate has a chance to be a good game besides!

Anyone know if HG:L are doing the stupid seperate-servers-by-region shit?

I can find plenty of pricing info - not so much on european server arrangements.

Wait, what? Diablo 2 loot was fun because it was random. And Diablo 2 itself was fun (beyond the first couple of plays) because of the loot. It wasn't all about having the loot though, it was about seeing it drop and wondering what you got. I will never forget the ping of a ring hitting the floor. That sound let you know there was magic loot right there at your feet because every ring was magical. And rarer than other items (or so it seemed). I loved picking them up and hovering over them to see what they were. Maybe it's an upgrade, maybe not, but it was always fun to find out. OH SHIT ITS A UNIQUE RING! HOT DAMN WHICH ONE IS IT? Oh it's nagelring. Oh well. Damn a unique ring, so close.

I never really played Diablo 2 online. There was nobody to show off my epeen to, it was just fun as hell to get the loot for its own sake.

*ping*

I guess if you played it by the rules that you HAD to have every best item ever then it might have sucked. It definitely sucked in WoW when you went on your upteenth run of X place and didn't get what you wanted. But you don't have to play the Diablos like that. I kick back and enjoy the ride, wearing whatever I can get from drops, gambling, or buying from a vendor. The brothers are going to die regardless of what I'm wearing and there's no damage meter telling me I need better gear. I sometimes gathered some MF and grinded a boss when I felt like it, but it was for fun and once the luster of seeing what came out wore off I moved on to the next activity.

Killing a boss in D2 and watching the fountain of loot and then quickly mousing over everything looking to find that ONE item with absurd stats that would cause you to respec your character was fun.  It would be pointless if you just bought Super Uber Axe of Humpty Dumpty for a buck.  It's one play through of the game vs dozens or for some people even hundreds.

Yes, and if you're making Diablo Online, you have to target your content to those dozens-to-hundreds-people, otherwise it won't feel like Diablo. Guess what: that's also known as the Vanguard way.

You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, do you?

The way I see it, if you're going to remake EQ, you have two choices: you give it the WoW treatment or the Vanguard treatment. If you're remaking Diablo, you have an extra option: Dungeon Runners.

World of Diablo: no death penalty, you can complete your set by doing quests, bosses drop tokens that you can exchange for loot.

Diablo: Saga of Heroes: hardcore mode, a minigame you have to grind to get access to the next act, some loot drops are DISABLED for your character.

Or Dungeon Runners.

Those are your options.

It's nice to see you aren't designing games.

I think most of us would say that about most of the rest of us.

I lol'd.

Why do you get 2 options to not make a Diablo clone when in the process of making a Diablo clone? See you're missing the fundamental point here. Diablo is the loot. That's what it is. You've done the equivalent of suggest that in making a Planescape: Torment clone you can keep all the tedious words in it or just let everyone get right to the action. What you have suggested is stupid.

Would it still get people's manties in a twist if RMT was simple alternative for in-game shops, carrying the same goods just for RL currency rather than in-game coins? Or, to clone model from some Korean games etc if the strength of items was like: NPC shops < RMT shop < top tier loot?

I mean, if someone rather spend a buck to buy dunno, stack of health potions rather than grind in game for hour to get game money to buy the same, that ruins it for the hardcore how?

Most modern MMO's it wouldn't mean a thing but throw in contested mobs, ala EQ2, and then it becomes a disaster.

In EQ2 there are publicly attackable raid mobs just wandering around certain areas, they spawn rarely and have most of the best loot.  Whoever gets there first get's to try their luck but it's nto easy, I watched a 24 man raid of well equipped level 70's wipe again and again and again the other day trying to take one down.  If you can just zerg cash at it to win, well, then what was the point?

Never have been a fan of potions.  Assuming they are in HGL, I would not have a problem in them being sold for real money... of course, I have my expectations on how potions would be used in gameplay but those are just guesses.  I do have a problem with someone buying a thing that most people would "work" for, but if it cuts out tedium and lets me get to the fun part then I'm fine with it.

I can't remember a time in any diablo-style game where I had to grind for potions. Not once.

Seriously. How do you ever get that poor?

I don't know, ask the guys who think RMT has a place in Diablo games.

You are actually reinforcing my point, which is RMT does not belong in a Diablo clone, although I'm not stating it very well.  I don't like potions in Diablo, either; I consider them to be a design flaw.  The fact that you don't grind for potions at all makes them the safest bet for RMT in a Diablo clone, BUT this decision will still have to be accounted for in the game design rather than tacked on as an afterthought even though the real-world value of a potion would be something like fifty for a penny.  The item being sold would have to have zero gameplay impact, so even potions are risky, otherwise the whole game would have to revolve around paying for power.

http://www.hellgatelondon.com/beta/

I want Biohazard!

I must pick up multiple pre-orders.

Also, $150 lifetime confirmed, etc.

$150? Cake.

Edit: I will probably wait a week or so to see what happens with the upper level tiers of items though.

If I go preorder now, can I still get in the Beta?

Uh, yes.

I preordered from GameStop Online and while I got an order conformation I got nothing about my bonus beta/crap. Should I have gotten an E-mail or something?

I wish they would have put the original armor color next to those images, so we could see what difference the dye makes. Cause I like the silver, but if it was already kind of silver, I would take the Biohazard.

From most of the screenshots I've seen, it's already pretty silvery as-is.

I think it's just a different shade or something.

It is probably supposed to be Wal*Mart Blue.

I don't want to preorder, but looks like I have to in order to get the Lifetime. Ugh.

Look on the brightside.

If you're sitting in europe looking at that deal you'd have no idea....

1) if you buy a US copy, with the preorder deal, will it work with a non-US card.
2) if you'd be stuck on US servers.



Seriously, trying to get information about this game has the whole blood-stone thing going.

I can only assume that the pre-launch interest is mostly from non-MMOG players, because the first fucking questions every EU community site would normally ask over and over don't seem to be asked or answered anywhere.

bah.

Long story, short: I am currently in the UK (Dundee, Scotland to be precise) because of work, and I chose to pre-order from EB (lava dye, beta chance) etc.

I went ahead and sent a support email asking the particulars of the beta email, and received this response:


So, if you're sitting on the fence about international shipping to get the pre-oder for "beta reasons", I'd hold off  :roll:

I'll update as I learn more.

PS: I am not complaining, I figured there was a risk. Just trying to help out the other international folks.

Edit--- Actually the Hellgate website has a decent FAQ (http://www.hellgatelondon.com/news/view/91/#fancy_panel) on some of this, specifically:

you know, watching the videos, the combat looks rather slow..and repetitive (as in animations and ability's, such as the dual swords animations, and moves).

Not really impressed, but then again, its just he videos.. they could be not showing allot (thats my hope anyway). And a good portion of the guns seem to auto target or "Bend" to the targets..

All classes have a degree of auto-targetting except for the hunter. The hunter plays in first person, more like a FPS.

I don't see that class on the main site.

I don't think that is entirely true.  While Diablo 2 did have some parts of the loot generation randomized, in all the time I played D2 I never found items for the class I was playing at the given time (unless I was in multiplayer and then it seemed like the other person found the loot I needed and I found the loot he needed).

I know I wasn't alone in this because I remember seeing many questions posed to the developers of WoW when WoW was in beta, asking if they would only find loot for other classes.

R A N D O M.

I played lots of D2, I found lots of items my class could use, just more that others would use better.  I think there were 5 classes finally in D2?  So, if 1/5th of the items you found were for your class then guess what?  It was working properly.

... you do know the whole thing about random and perceptions and whatnot, yea? I recall many instances where my barbarians found barbarian helms and put them on because they were awesome. I'm sure my other characters did too but I don't recall them specifically.

I played  so much Diablo that I had multiple full sets of great armor. I mean sets, the green ones.

Who knows how many gold items I had that were useful to me.

Anyone get any preorder beta keys?

No, not yet. It's unclear when the beta is going to start, but it doesn't look like the 17th is likely.

Nobody in the retail channel seems to have any preorder boxes or any clue about preorder status.  A shame, 'cause I'm at least willing to plop down five bucks to get in a few weeks of beta and see if it's worth going for the full game.

According to a flagship poster on hellgate guru, they already distributed the beta keys. But he wouldn't give up the target date.

They haven't distributed them to Gamestop/EB Customers. If they did, they did it today. Games came out every day this week for me, so I've kinda spent some time at the store.

Yup, Best Buy doesn't have them yet either.  I've heard a rumor of the beta being pushed back a week and the keys being distributed retail next week.

Edit: Its not a big deal, as TF2 is still on schedule for this week.

My wait-and-see light just went off.  March on, intrepid gamers... I'll guard the base camp.

I do want to look special though...

That's great. And to large degree side-steps the original question. Which was, to remind:

"Would it still get people's manties in a twist if RMT was simple alternative for in-game shops, carrying the same goods just for RL currency rather than in-game coins? Or, to clone model from some Korean games etc if the strength of items was like: NPC shops < RMT shop < top tier loot?"

replace potion with whatever other shit these shops sell, if you must.

Yeah, some people would get knots in their pants.  Purists, for one, people expecting Diablo 3 but getting Maple Story.  There are also cultural issues with it, I think, however we haven't had a well-designed western game with this stuff in it.  Except perhaps YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates.  Maybe I should say a well-designed AAA title that appeals to the traditional gamer.  Unexplored territory.

Why the hell did you have to get me talking about diablo 2 with crazy talk of random loot being bad? Now I need to play Diablo 2 badly but I find that my CD-key has rubbed off somehow and I can't. I may have to dig into my draw of coins and lug a sack o' coins to my nearest games outlet.

Ever seen the look on a cashier's face when you give them $89.95 in 50c, $1, and $2 dollar coins? It's awesome. :evil:

Actually it wasn't, I felt like such a dickhead but oh well.

I sincerely hope you didn't pay ninety bucks for Diablo 2.

Yeah for real, ever heard of amazon?  Or better yet ever heard of a gamestore that doesn't have copies of the game and xpack for $15 or less each?  I guess you have heard of the latter, sucks for you.

He lives in Australia.

Yep, games be expensive here. Plus it was the battlechest.

Amazon would have taken quite a while to get here and still cost a fair bit with enchange and shipping. Not to mention it would require money in the bank that I can allow myself to spend on games. I can spend the coins in the coin drawer because it's like free money (seriously, I've been throwing my coins in there for years and never spent any until now).

Oh!  Australia.  So that was like fifteen bucks US, no big deal then.

Actually, I saw the battle chest in Best Buy today, still $40 here.  Scary that people'll still pay that for a game that old.

I've spent over $200 on Diablo 2. $50 + $40 for the game + Expansion. Plus 3 $40 battlechests. It's the only game where I continually lose the key.

It's a really good argument for why things like Steam and a static email address are necessities these days.

It's ancient but it's still the best game of its type and it has a large following to this day.

Again that is strange because i remember playing the necromancer and the paladin and finding a lot of barbarian, sorceress, and druid equipment.  I also remember seeing questions about the loot tables on the WoW beta boards.


On an unrelated topic, I went to preorder today and both Ebgames and gamestop (in Illinois outside of St. Louis) told me that they had no promotional codes for Hellgate London and to check back in the first week of October.

Dang, what did you carry that in, a wheelbarrow?  Is the 50c piece still a half-kilo multi-sided blunt shuriken thing roughly the size of your palm?

FIFY

http://www.ea.com/article.jsp?id=hg914


Short fucking beta.  2 Weeks!

That blows, unless they plan to convert it to an open stress test on 10/7. Which is pretty likely.

Ah, good point.

The guys at hellgateguru now believe that beta will begin tomorrow, 9/17, and will run until "close to release" due to the many delays. But that wasn't confirmed by anyone from flagship. So I guess we'll see.

Also beta signups are now active on hellgatelondon.com. The beta (not the alpha) has officially begun.

(http://www.vision.net.au/~pwood/Volume86.gif)

You must have tiny hands.

I live in Australia too. I'm still not paying $90 for Diablo 2.

My beta code from the gamespot preorder just arrived.

So I'll get home, sign-up for the beta, then cancel my online pre-order and get a local pre-order.

And yet I still can't find a pre-order box on the shelf anywhere.

Boxes won't be available in stores until 9/24. If you want to get in now, you need to preorder online.

Online Gamestop preorders require full payment don't they?

I am such a preorder nublet. classes finished at 12:00, I drive down to EB and put $10 on Hellgate thinking I've won at life.

all I have won is a receipt.

Thats fine. Just order it online from gamestop, get your key, sign up for the beta, then cancel the online preorder.

It's illegal to charge consumers until the product is shipped.

So Doing That.

Eh, I'll just wait.

I think I see a hook in that worm.

Heavens, a hook in that worm? What sort of voodoo is that? Alls I see is a purple bait of +7 penguing slaying.

I am not discouraging you.  By all means, go for it.  I'll be here or on AIM when you get back.

I'm at work :( :( :( :( I might not even bother because of the TF2 beta.

Yup.  That's my decision.  I'll do TF2 this week, and worry about HGL next week.

Oh, Jesus, SORRY, I meant I was going to be getting killed in TF2, not twiddling my balls on AIM.

How long did it take from pre ordering to getting the beta invite?

This is the important question, I think.

I preordered a couple of days ago, sorry. No clue.

SOMEONE BE A TEST CASE. PREORDER NOW, COUNT THE MINUTES.

I pre ordered about 5 mins before i asked the question, ill let you know.

Nice one.

I pre-ordered at about 1:00 EDT from ebgames.com.  I imagine they have a batch program that runs once in a while, hopefully at least once a day...

Ziplock bag!

If it makes you feel any better, they're totally fucking up the launch and nobody can even view the beta forums or download the client, much less play. So don't worry about it.

Gamestop always ships their beta codes / giveaway shit / other emails on Thursdays. I'd imagine after the buyout that EB now does this as well. I have heard that if you email them you will get your code earlier. Take that with a grain of salt as that's like 4th hand info at best.

NDA skirting here a bit but they did just push a major publish a few days before hand and also switched to an alternate method of client download. I doubt that is helping the mass influx of testers today.

They changed the story to "we never meant to open the beta today in the first place, and you're lucky you made it on the forums or downloaded the client because you weren't supposed to". Anyone's guess as to when it opens now. Not an encouraging start.

Shrug.

Where'd you read this Sam?

On the forums I'm not supposed to have access to. I can still read them, RDP'd to my work desktop.

For what it's worth, I pre-ordered from ebgames.com yesterday and just got the beta key via email today, roughly 24 hours later.

Yeah mine was received at 2:43 EDT today, order was placed at 1:00 EDT yesterday.

Everything I read about it says that all aspects of the beta are broken right now.  I don't actually trust that the key will be consumed properly so I might wait a while, I have lots of betas to play anyways.

Edit:
The hellgate site says this right now:

I went ahead and created my beta account with no trouble at all. They made it clear my account is not active until the beta begins, at which point I will be able to download the client.

So go ahead and make your account. And keep your fingers crossed for beta.

I got my beta key also, but im not going to bother with it until things are working.  New version of mount and blade is keeping me busy.

New Update. Or Update2, as those fancy people like to call it.

I happened to see a copy of the pre-order box at the local ebgames today.  The blurb on the back of the box sounds like it's selling more as a single-player game with multiplayer support.  I've been thinking it's a persistent world MMOG but am I wrong?

I had always assumed it was Diablo/Guild Wars style based solely on who the developers are and the mighty power of assumption.

You are wrong.

Flagship and EA have absolutely no clue how to play this game and their PR and CRM people have no fucking idea what they're doing. They need to keep marketing it as a KILL DEMONS game from BILL ROPER. That seems to be working thus far.

Surely it depends on where you draw the line between the two?

If you think of guild wars as a MMOG, surely so is this?

I don't consider Guild Wars an MMORPG.

Yeah definitely chat rooms and instanced areas.

So how does that work then.  There are five acts which you progress through. What happens at the end?  Go through on a new difficulty? 

To me it's massively multiplayer if I can interact with an 'large' number of players before the 'game' ends. That makes GW and HGL (and diablo 2 for that matter) MMOGs because my game carries over from instance to instance, developing the same character, plus presumably I can trade in the 'lobbies'. Taking it any other way and you start to conclude that even something like CoH with missions, or EQ2 with encounter locking isn't a MMOG.


Back to the point, your 5 acts are supposed to be different for each faction, so you can cover that, plus there's helping others with the 5 acts. And there's always grinding for potions.

It steals a page from Diablo with randomly-generated levels, so you fight through five acts... then you do it again.  And again.  And again.

Or you can subscribe, and play through minor stuff added every 2 weeks and major content pushes every 3 months.

You'll get a free bonus bridge with your subscription, too!

snorf! maybe I'll get a code "early" after all, then a box, then the real box :geezer:

I love this thread.

Yea, well, WELL, it hates your face.

FINALLY my login was activated. I'm in, bitches!

What a horrible, horrible launch.

You can almost see people hopes and dreams being crushed.

 :cry:

Just friend just told me the servers are up, and he got an email saying its ok for him to log in.

*Update* He cant log in.

 :roll:

*Update 2* He can now log in. Go go go.

I can't login and i got no email :(

They're sending out invites in waves; I'm in the second wave. The third will probably be 3PM ET tomorrow.

So I should just preorder online now?

The sooner you do the sooner you get in i would imagine.

Damn it Jim!!!  Where the hell are my impressions?!?

I just ordered it from Gogamer.com so that I can have the 4th armor dye kit. Wasp.

(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1211/1404212194_ea896b9039.jpg?v=0)

Why don't they just let us choose the damn colour?  This buying it from certain retailers is beyond stupid.

The dye kits are a gimmick. The way it works is, you can rightclick on any piece of armor and bring up a little paintdrop, which allows you to paint that color scheme across your entire character so you don't look like a mismatched clown. Also guilds can choose their color schemes, which are available to all guildmembers. One of the ways that unique items are made unique is their colorschemes, too.

Pre ordered from gogamer.com.  Had my beta key within 30 minutes.  No problems with account set up, now just waiting in line for client.

Yes, but is it fun?

99.9% chane im getting a lifetime sub if they don't fuck up the top tier armor loadout.

Nostalgia alone of Diablo on TEN is most likely enough to keep me going long enough to go for the lifetime sub.

I wonder if you could somehow ebay the lifetime account if you decide you don't want to play anymore, it would be pretty useful to anyone who does want to keep playing.

Still waiting on my Beta key. Its been over an hour and a half now. My order on GoGamer.com says its "Processing".

That dye stuff is all public knowledge, "is it fun" is under NDA. Not sure why, since every preorder is getting in beta over the next couple of days, but it is.

Ebaying the account might be against the rules but sure, I don't see why not. It's just a login and password after all.

So could we have just made the same color scheme as the preorder dyes?

Thats the kind of specific information covered by NDA. Plus I haven't actually played yet, I'm still at work.

So, generally, the longer the NDA is up the less faith I have that the game is any good.  No one hides, "OMFG AWESOME!!!" any longer than absolutely necessary.

I have not canceled my pre-order yet.

That yet leaves a lot to the imagination.

I just got access to download the client so it seems like the turn around is about 2-3 days to get your key and then your client.

3.8GB download OUCH! Hope their patcher is damn good. On the upside I must have missed the rush as I'm getting blazing fast speeds on Nvidias servers.

Edit: Download done, installing. Robot Jesus Awaits.

Fake later Edit: :nda:

It's a quick download for the size.

I can safety say that your fears are entirely unwarranted in this particular situation.

You're goddamn right. Don't fear the NDA, LOVE THE NDA.

No item spoilers. No class spoilers. No zombie master spoilers.

:D

Pew pew

OK, pre-ordered.

I haven't stayed up that late (early?) playing a game in a really long time.

I played for eight hours yesterday. Straight.

Told ya.

Damnit. I hate you all.

I preordered, got my key, entered it. And no account activation yet. I hope they send out more invites today. I really wanted to play this over the weekend.

Well tonight I'll see if my beta account is still active after canceling my pre-order. I'm guessing it will be since the gamestop people seem to be out of the loop once you get your code.

I need to read that NDA again and see if I'm even allowed to say anything or if anything we're hinting at here is a no-no (it can't be that draconian can it?).

 :-D

Let's apply some faulty logic FTW.  If you don't have a preorder then that means you can't possibly be in the beta, ipso facto you aren't bound by an NDA :evil:.

So this game's good?  Cause I gotta tell ya, after watching a couple of gameplay videos, my interest went from 11 to 3.
It just looked like more of the same.

What schild said.

How many times do I have to say it's a _good_game_? Nay, an _excellent_game_.

 :nda:
I am already losing days of my life on this.

Agree with Schild, already saving my pennies for lifetime.

Yes, but you say that about a lot of things.

Has anyone in the thread WHO HAS PLAYED disagreed with me?

And it's not my fault when I talk something up and then someone goes out of their comfort zone to play it and doesn't like it. Next time someone who plays Madden listens to my advice on a game like Disgaea, I'm just going to remind them that they're happy with a fucking buggy football simulator.

lol, i'm not sure logic is supposed to work that way =p

Relax bru, i'm not ragging on you or the game (since, you know, i've not actually played it or anything) - i would simply like to see some more evidence as to it's worth.

What's the benefit of a lifetime subscription? I mean, why pay all up front? Who's to say something better won't come along a year from now?

If you think you're going to be playing it for more than a year, it would be worth it I'd imagine. Pretty much any game I've enjoyed I've played for longer than that. Hell, I'm still playing TFC and Counterstrike and those are pushing a decade now. Assuming it's something you can log into for however long you want and accomplish something 15 minutes or 10 hours - I'd play it long enough to make it worth it.

Is there anything stopping us from having a subforum (for those playing right now so that NDA info doesn't get out), even though it's only for a few weeks?

Every mod and admin needs to have a beta account for this to happen. Sorry.

Trust me, if they are playing Madden on any system, not only are they NOT happy, they aren't playing a football simulator.

Damnit. Its now been 2 days since I got my beta key, and still no account activation.

it's okay to cry, I did...I mean, I'm just saying it's okay. you know. about this. and.

No.

Why am i not invited yet! i hate you all!

Is the gameplay like the videos or are the videos your standard CGI bit that youll never see in game?

Hellgate is digital crack coated with a fine medley of milk chocolate, nicotine, 40 year old scotch, zanax and strawberry cheesecake ice cream bites.

Yes it's that fucking addictive.

The thing to remember is that you're either into action RPGs and the lootwhoring, packrat vanity that goes with it, or you're not.

For those who are, write off your sleep for a good stretch post Halloween.

I've actually had to force myself to quit playing the beta for a stretch simply so I wouldn't ruin everything before launch. Even though I knew and know character wipes are imminent. That any and all pretties would be gone sooner rather than later, and that what I was doing held no long term value. I still couldn't pull myself away.

Lace em up tight kids, this one is no joke.

I've given myself an eye infection from staring at my screen too long. 

Don't bother, keep playing. The beta is not the full game. You'll finish it around level 18.

Blah, two days after pre-ordering and registering the pre-order code and I'm still waiting on the beta invite.  Was hoping to play this weekend.  :(

It's like the gameplay videos. It's not like the CGI videos.

So, depends which particular videos you are looking at.

Oh man.  :cry:

Between this and TF2 I'm fucked.  How am I going to decide which to play?  Where will I find the time to sleep, work, and pretend I care about my family/friends? 

You can play both.  I live on two or three hours of sleep a night and I'm still alive.  Physically, you can live... mentally?  Well, who cares really.  Marry well and retire then move at least six or seven thousand miles from your nearest relative.  Sorted.

Fuck, buying it now, wtf...

*added*

back, looked at armor, wanted biohazard.  Bestbuy.com doesn't know this game exists, what kind of fuckwadtarditry is this?

Finally got the invite on Saturday.  Took me until Sunday evening to actually get to play it though.

Updating my video card drivers exposed that I hadn't done a clean install of XP in 2+ years.  To make a long story short, I am now running Windows Vista Home Premium.  We'll see how long that lasts.

We cant have beta boards can we? the official ones are like any other official boards.

We will open a board the day it releases. I will not have any skill or item spoilers on this damn forum.

Not a goddamn chance! No! Out Damn Spot! Wait Til Halloween!

Are Pre-Orders at Gamestop yet?

Picked mine up today.

Just picked up mine. Turns out the store had them on Friday but a moron put them into a drawer they never use.

Also, for those interested, Schild and I have been discussing the Bat Country guild hall. I don't want to get into all the details, but lets just say it involves hot pink velvet and rhinestones.

EDIT: Also, has anyone ever bought online from gogamer before? I'm digging the Wasp dye kit but I've never dealt with gogamer so I'm a bit skittish.

I've ordered from them.  Once or twice. Haven't had a problem yet.

As long as you people write-up a good class summary so the rest of us can make an educated class/skill/whatever choice w/ our initial character I'm ok.

Gotta move next weekend or so, not exactly the greatest time for starting up a crack addiction.

Easy enough to do, were the beta not under NDA. But, it is.

oooooo.   And some fluffy white feathers!

Rejoice ..... kinda....

HGL is now available as a pre order direct download from EA. Fuck that shipping. From what the dev said in the forums, you get the Wasp dye kit for the online purchase.

http://eastore.ea.com/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=ea&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=81460600

I like having boxes.

I went into my local store to change my preorder from regular to CE, because I am dumb, and they still don't have the fucking pre-cardboard-cardboard! I want NDA!

if I weren't so busy with TF2 and reporting on the goddamn weather I'd explode! or order online.

I may be completely blind, but is there anywhere that lists PC specs for this game? Does it take a beast of a machine to run it all pretty? Are you even allowed to answer that?

Ahh here is your chuckle for the day..

Far be it for EA to not sneak a little extra charge in there. Whey you go to checkout, they give you the option of paying an extra 6 bucks to keep your copy on their servers for two years. If you don't pay the 6 bucks, it only stays on their servers for 6 months.

I totally wouldn't trust non-Steam games without boxes, what the heck is that "your copy" bozacks? ew.

I don't believe they've released specs outside of beta, but developers say they're aiming at scalability for lower-end systems which could mean some nice custom options.
the Conjecturizer 3000 reports that requirements for recent releases (cough Bioshock) are, surprisingly, similar to Hellgate. the Conjecturizer 3000 also requests icosahedron re-alignment.

I'm starting to get seriously jazzed about this game, its been a long time since I've felt that tingly feeling and my senses have longed for the smell and feel of freshly ripped cellophane...

Also, BestBuy needs to pull their fucking collective head from within their collective asses and let me preorder I want the orange armor goddamnit.

Scales well it would seem.

Does not work with my onboard audio, the new AC97 stuff I think it is. I'm sure they'll fix that. I now hate MUTE games.

Sound card. Look into it.

My onboard sound has been just fine considering it's just outputting a raw stream via optical out.

A raw stream of ass still sounds like ass.

Wise Words.

 :roll:

1680x1050 runs fine with settings turned down on a shit computer (800GTO from ATI).

New publish, character wipe and wave of invites went out today. Check those inboxes.

Was wondering which character I was going to have to flush to check out the other three classes.  Guess that decision was made for me.

Wish they'd lift the NDA I want to talk about this stuff not on the official forums.

I have a lot to say but  :nda:  :nda:  :nda:  :nda: and  :nda:

With the massive, near worldwide launch they have planned. They have to go gold within the next 14 days or so if they haven't already and just haven't announced it. They'll probably do a "Gone gold, NDA lifted" double jobby.

Looks like more than the characters got wiped for the time being.

Least I got a new avatar out of it  :-D

I guess I'm gonna do the preorder online/cancel thing, fuck. fucking stores! I'm also playing the original Diablo in protest until I get into this goddamn motherfucking piss tit cunt ass

That anti-Tourettes medicine is working just fine.

Some engineer set up turrets in his mind.

Why does Bestbuy not list the PC game title Hellgate:London anywhere when this url:

http://hellgatelondon.com/preorder

Clearly leads me to believe it should be available for preorder. Is there a date when the game will become available or should I just purchase the game from another retailer?

***

Hoax,
I am Paul with Best Buy Customer Care. Thank you for your recent inquiry concerning the availability of the "Hellgate:London" game.  The item is currently unavailable on our website. We do not have any information as of the moment when will this item will be available. Please check our website for recent updates. We look forward to your next visit to one of our stores or to www.BestBuy.com.
Thank you,
Paul
Best Buy Customer Care Team

***

Paul or Whomever, You didn't really tell me anything I dont already know, if it weren't for the preorder special detailed at the url I sent in my previous missive I wouldn't think twice about purchasing from eb/gamestop where the game is currently available for purchase. I was hoping someone could figure out why Flagship Studios & their publisher think your store will be distributing their game which is due for official release on Halloween when clearly nobody at Bestbuy seems to have any clue about the title in question.

-Hoax

***

Hoax, I am Mich with Best Buy Customer Care.

I understand your concern about your interest to purchase Hellgate: London PC Game.

Unfortunately, we do not have access to information about upcoming release dates for new products?or about possible pre-orders on new products. Please check back periodically to see if the item you're interested in is available.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for any questions or concerns. We look forward to your next visit to one of our stores or to www.BestBuy.com.

Thank you,
Mich
Best Buy Customer Care Team



Fucking chucklefuck assclown shithead motherfuckers...  I want my biohazard dye goddamnit

I got my preorder box at BestBuy this afternoon, but I want to download the client right away so when I get my invite I can get right to it. Does anyone have a useful link?

That's pretty annoying.  Definitely calls for a digital punch in the face.

I also like that you used the word "missive."

Edited for important missing information

Gotta love foreigner-based customer service.  That or he's a bot, because it's pretty apparent he didn't read/ understand what you were asking.

Yet another reason to not use Best Buy. Woo.

Nether not reading, not understanding, or even not caring are exclusive to bots or foreigners.

Just sayin.

I understand your interest about your concern of not caring.

I understand your problem and cannot help you with it at all.

We look forward to your next visit!

I cannot help thee with that.


Seriously, when does the NDA drop?

I went from CompUSA to Best Buy as my favorite place to buy pc games, but BB has, in a breathtakingly short time, become the universal center of ass.

I want to go in there wearing a t-shirt that says "Do not offer me an extended warranty".

Made a Hellgate London Teamspeak Channel.

How does it make you feel that you cannot help thee with that?

I was going to do something like that post where I claimed to be spilling the beans on the LOTRO beta, but described what was obviously Diablo 2, and half of everyone didn't get it and really thought LORTO was an isometric game where you go to Tristram.  You know, "Hellgate graphics are so bad they look like sprites from 1993!  And cyberdemons, oh how original!"

But I'm lazy, so I'll just post about the post I might have made but didn't quite get around to.  Also, WUA said something about the nineties and sprites, cue gratuitous UO jab!

More like, I understand your question and am instructed to play dumb about the whole issue. As I like eating and thus my job, I won't tell you shit.
As my contacts with you are monitored I will now wish you a pleasant day.

New publish going up in a few minutes, so anyone having stability issues might want to give it another go. Supposed to help with the client crashes some people have been having recently.

Shacknews has beta impressions up:


http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=602


Not in the beta myself, but some good info for those considering a purchase.  Mentions the bugs and crashes and mentions an in house mystery build that is supposed to fix many of the problems.  :-o

Makes me kind of wary, but suppose will have to wait and see.

Not sure what I can say so I will say it this way, I don't want to lose my spot in the Alpha/Beta by breaking the NDA.   :-D

The mystery build makes me laugh.  Remember the AO mystery build?

That AO build is still a mystery as far as I know. With the HG:L latest patch  :nda:  :nda:  :nda:

I'm happy I've got a preorder.

Those guys have the most fucked up preorder Beta I've ever seen. It's been over a week now and I'm still waiting to get my preorder invite.

Yup, me too. I came to the thread to complain about the exact same thing. I bought mine on 9/21 and still nothing.  They better hurry it up since they're ending it on the 16th.

Where did you hear that? All they've said is that the beta will last longer than 10/7.

I believe it was on either the preorder box or the registration website. I'll doublecheck when I get home. It's possible I'm confusing it with something else, but I don't believe so.

The beta will not end on the 7th as stated here (http://www.hellgatelondon.com/underground/pre-order-no-beta).

I can't wait  :nda: :nda: :nda:.  Yay NDA!

Although I'm not saying I got an invite at all but if I did I would probably make some characters named Trouble, Liv and Midden.  They might be suffering from loneliness.  Maybe.  Who knows?  Not me.

Apparently I imagined it. I can find no mention of it ending on the 16th anywhere.

It's a good bet.  Hell, doesn't shit have to go gold like a week or more before release?

I will take that under advisement.

Doesn't mean the beta ends.  When was the last time you installed a game that you didn't have to immediately patch?

(http://hellgate.iahgames.com/preorder/images/dyekitsbig.jpg)

KEKE!  (http://hellgate.iahgames.com/preorder/)

So, are those for the USA version or some azn version that wouldn't let people play w/ USA/EU people?  Somehow I see Singapore and I think scam even though it is mentioned here on the main site:

http://hellgatelondon.com/underground/iah-pre-order

Too tired to bother w/ a in-depth search and fucking a most of the HG:L fansites are fugly as sin.


*added*  srsly I want the tiger one even more then I wanted the biohazard (fuck you bestbuy), somebody confirm for me that this isn't some kind of trick so I can buybuybuy!@!!

Hahahhha, Asian people get all 3 options.

I'd play as Kung-Fu Bunny colors because the world would be a little brighter.

I would absolutely choose the bunny suit.

You can buy/ship to USA but it ends up costing $63 for the regular version, still worth it for "so sowy you tiger now" dye kit but I still want confirmation that that isn't a total scam.


*added*  Turns out there is a SEA set of servers, which is what that version would be for, which means it woulda sucked balls to buy it.  So I guess I'm back to Biohazard being the best looking dye.  BBuy says they know the game exists now, but since thery dont offer a direct download I'm sure I can't get into the beta any time soon.  I guess I'll preorder the game for pickup so that if I decide to take Thurs/Friday off I know I can actually play at launch instead of waiting around on my ass for the box to show up at my door.

I knew EA had a senior consultant for Evil policies.  They sent me this email 2 days after I registered my beta key :

FROM: betatest@hellgatelondon.com
SUBJECT: Hellgate: London Beta! Get in on the Action!

with this picture :
(http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1850/qlldy5.th.jpg) (http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=qlldy5.jpg)

Of course it's just an add. They use the email from the registration process to send you an add about a preorder you've already made.  With the added bonus of giving you a short lived false hope of Beta goodness. 

Check your email, people.  I think they may have sent some out about an hour ago.  The EB pre-order beta I bought for Righ turned up.

I finally got my invite this morning.

Supposedly, any remaining pre orders who hadn't got their invites yet were supposed to get them today.

Does it break NDA to say something is so full of awesome it's like looking at the black obelisk in 2001?

Watch out those obelisk guys will turn you in to fetus if you break the NDA.

Is anybody able to play this game right now?

I've been getting hard locks since about 11:00 am.

Can you connect and get into the game at least? I can't connect at all.

Yeah I can. Apparently Temple is kaput tho.

Thanks. I figured out my connection problem. Now let's see if I can get past all the patching issues...

Any word on whether this will be downloadable via Steam or something?  And will I need a monster rig to run it?

likely to be negatives across the board. ver' nebulous!

Pew pew.

Xfire sucks.

Not Steam, but the man from EA, he say Yes. (http://eastore.ea.com/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_US&SiteID=ea&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=81460600)

Sweet.  Any predictions on whether my machine will be able to run it?  It was chugging a bit with Oblivion, and say 'oh hell no' to Bioshock (the video card refused to play nice, I think).  The gameplay videos didn't look all that graphically intense, though. 

What's your machine?

I was wondering this too.  I have an Athlon X2 3800 with a 7600GT and 2 gigs of ram.  I picked up the preorder box this weekend and registered, but have not received my beta code.  I think my video card is the weakest link, as the Bioshock demo made it cry.

developers have mentioned that the game is being designed to scale to most systems and there is :nda: to back this up. also:

Im not sure if im allowed to say this or not but my 600 dollar dell dimension has had zero problems running any games ive played on it lately at medium settings.

My subpar machine doesn't have many problems running this game at settings I don't find unbearable.  I can do without a lot of the shadows and other crap.

I really wish this game was on the 360, but it'll be doable for me on my PC.  Which is nice, considering most OMG SHINY does unnatural things to my PC.  I can post my specs later if anyone's curious.

I  can run Bioshock on about medium settings- sounds like I will be ok for HG:L? That bodes ill for my wallet and free time.

I have an Athlon 64 3200, 2 gig ram, 7800 GT, mostly high/medium settings and have been able to run everything mentioned in this thread fine, whether I have it or not.  And I'm not saying I do.  Or don't. 

Am I the only one planning to take 2 PTO days on Thurs/Friday claiming excessive halloween drinking?  I will be getting smashT on halloween but I fully intend to make it home and be @ bestbuy when it opens to get my copy of HG:L

Did you steal my PC??? If that is not my setup, it is incredibly close.



I am watching you. You have been warned.

We're like sisters!  We should braid each other's... err... ears.

According to the official site: http://www.hellgatelondon.com/system_requirements

Note the XP SP2 part. Not that anyone here would have a pirate copy of XP...

Could please anyone explain to me why at this day and age a beta registration form still:

- doesn't support umlauts or unicode characters. The signup page crashes with a server error if I enter my name with umlauts.

- still requires Usernames to be without Whitespace and only use the Ascii-Character set, every damn free forum software out there can do this for years now

- obviously assumes that every person is from the US even if they keep releasing pre order codes in europe and asia.

It isn't impossible to get SP2 if your key has met with misfortune.  Tedious, perhaps.  I don't avdocate piracy, expecially with how cheap WinXP keys are these days.

 What the fuck is this?  (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;jsessionid=KLEWB1KHUTIHBKC4D3DFAHY?skuId=8546898&st=hellgate&lp=3&type=product&cp=1&id=1188560190792) I'm not sure I understand at all why the "pre-order" is $10, is that $10 for the honor of having pre-ordered that goes towards the purchase of the game?  Do I loose those $10?  God I fucking hate best buy...

Meanwhile you still can't set the shit to pick up in store, and express delivery costs $12-17 and says the game will be there on 11/2.

The local Best Buy has many boxes in the store here. I bought one for $10. The $10 is removed from the cost of the full box when you buy it retail.

I had a long discussion yesterday with Killjoy about how one should never preorder anything, especially from EB but generally anyone.  We reiterated it again today as he was picking up his non-preordered Orange Box at EB (yesterday it was "We're getting a limited amount, you should preorder" and today there is a literal crate of them).  This thread is becoming a monument to our No Preorders policy.

Good luck getting a copy of Disgaea 3 without a preorder. There's a time and place for them.

Just know which is which.

I do.  Basically if it's not hyuh (http://www.rosenqueen.com/), hyuh (http://www.atlus.com/shop.php) or hyuh (http://www.amazon.com/), then I have to get crafty or make some phone calls.  Hell, I'll order it from ebgames.com as long as I don't have to go to the store.  I won't need a preorder for Disgaea 3.  If I do, there's something Rotten in the Prefecture of Gifu.

I have no problem Pre-ordering xbox games at my local EB. As long as they are games I know I will be buying, it doesnt hurt, and then I know I will have a copy waiting for me on release day.

So is that Jëff Kelly or Jeff Këlly?

That's fine.  I won't stop you.  I won't have to worry about not getting my beta keys, or find out that Wal*Mart is including the packin that EB is giving only to preorders (and their employees), or attempt to communicate with a troglodyte that cannot successfully operate the computer terminal, or pick up a box on the shelf and be told that they don't actually have any, etc, and I feel great about that.  It's bitten me often enough that I don't feel the need to deal with the hassle in exchange for zero benefit.

Yegolev has a good point even if he is sporting some Endless Forrest toon as his avatar, You gotta love ATM's vs. Waiting in Line for the Teller.

I'm totally afraid to google Endless Forest, even after psyching myself up all day.

hmmm, as penance for your cowardice I think you should download the client (http://www.download.com/The-Endless-Forest/3000-8026_4-10616450.html) and write up an f13 review.




edt: oh ya hope you like furry land.

We won the war.

I fail to see how the fact that you cannot get a beta key without a pre-order is somehow a wining argument against pre-orders.

:rofl:

He went there.

Also, lol at Jeff "Umlout" Kelly.  No offense dude.  I'm a Soldat.   :lol:

So... now I find out that this game has humor in it? I had it described to me as comparable to Monkey Island. So... wtf?

Hellgate has the same sense of humor Diablo had. It's sparse, but very well done.

I don't know if they're in there, but I suspect we'll see a cow level.

But it's not really an mmpog... it's more like the original Diablo's online play... right?

Uh, it's an MMORPG. Guild Wars like even. You just have the option to play offline. Worthless option imo.

hrm... I'm going to check with my source. I'm wondering if I'm only getting an off line critique.

What is this source crap? It's an MMORPG. This thread is in the MMORPG forum. It's made of fucking angel wings and loot.

Dude.  He's got someone on the inside....

"The source" would be the dude I work with that's telling me all about it. What he's telling me I can not repeat due to not wanting to get wacked by Schild, but I'm starting to doubt my co-workers game reviewing skills because what he's saying does not match what everyone else is saying. Oh well.

Which is not hard... because you can get in with a $10 refundable pre-order. They should just drop the stupid NDA now.

I agree. If I had finally gotten an invite and had been playing, the game could probably be summed up in a single, short sentence.

About time you fuckers?

The part I failed to mention was that I'm not really interested in getting a beta key.  If I was hot for it, things would be different.  I'd also preorder if there was some trinket I wanted that was only available via preorder, but I'm finding that I don't care for that stuff as much as I once did.

Sparse? really, I have a better word (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/everywhere) for it.

Some times I think we are playing different games.

Remember the people playing are under NDA. I have a lot to say when it drops. I dont think Angel Wings will factor in. In fact, remove Angel Wings from schilds post, and its much more accurate.

It's made of fucking and loot?

NOW IT'S EVEN MORE AWESOME SOUNDING

It's made of motherfucking.

INVAAAAADE!

This is so true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5njrLRCImk

Delicious Cake!

According to firingsquad.com H:GL has gone gold with the possibility of a demo tomorrow.

Does that mean someone can tell us if it's the wank I think it is ?

Is it too late to go be a janitor at flagship so I can wear a money hat too?

you think everything is a wank!

That's blatantly untrue.

I do, however, think that the Marketing and PR people on Hellgate should be sacked.

Don't forget the community management folks.

They have marketing and PR people?  I thought it was a company created by gaming devs which ONLY employed gaming devs.

In which case that might explain it.

Look, all I'll say is that if you look at the mainstream gaming press (at least over here) there's no buzz about this game AT ALL.  And worse, you guys all seem to be abuzz but can't actually talk about it.

It's like a veil of secrecy that rings the 'SUCK' bell in my mind.

Also, I've had a look at some minor gameplay videos and I just don't see how it's supposed to 'work' and without explanation I'm going to continue to sit in the yellow puddle beneath my trousies that is my own ignorance.

.
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I do too like some things !

I haven't played it but I have zero doubts that this game will be good.  The question in my mind isn't if it will be worth playing but how long will I be playing it for.   

My greatest fear for this game is that Hellgate will be as hackable as Diablo. 

I would have said the exact same thing before agreeing to the NDA: if at one point you loved Diablo 2 you will most likely feel the same about Hellgate. this knowledge was implanted in my soul millenia ago by a stooped man with a lisp.

on a totally unrelated matter, D2 worked so well because it didn't require hours of time to get shiny objects. it didn't require a group of non-retarded people to take down a boss. it was easy to chat with friends while tearing through hordes of demonic assholes. no monthly fee was necessary. it was non-fat mindless fun.

D2 was good sure. It had enough addicting crap to make me play it after I got hooked on *actual* MMORPGs.

The question is, will HG:L do the same? The only way that it can do that is with some sort of PvP/co-op gameplay mode that doesn't suck. Scripted PvE in an online environment has been done really, really, really fucking well to date. Sorry but take any 3rd gen MMORPG (aside from the abortion that is Guildwars) and you get whatever fancy form of predictable and reactive AI you want.

The future is either in PvP (like Diablo 2's, except maybe not as an afterthought) or some form of co-op mode (the single selling feature for some POS game like Halo 3).

Give me that and you have me for box+lifetime. Without it, you get maybe my $50 or whatever the box costs.

I would have said the same thing before signing the NDA and actually playing the game.

Now? Well, I d.... wait, NDA.

I can't wait until the NDA is lifted so I can find out whether it still plays like Serious Sam with customizable yet boring guns, shitty graphics, and shittier "level design".

It never played like Serious Sam. Ever.

It's true.  It was a lot slower and shittier.  The main thing they had in common was the hordes of mindless enemies.

Well, there's not much to be said about Level Design in a diablo-type. I happen to find the damn thing great looking - considering what the setting is. My biggest complaint - still - is the animations for melee types. They are poopy mcpooperson.

Assuming anyone actually reads things I post to these forums anymore, there's a new commercial (http://news.filefront.com/hellgate-london-tv-spot/) out for the game.

Also...

This is not just a rumor, and the main HG:L site had the news of the game going gold (http://www.hellgatelondon.com/underground/hgl-gone-gold-demo-coming) up as of Tues.. and the above filefront link with the commercial says the single player demo link should be there sometime later today.

Still confused as to how you can put up a demo while you're keeping people to an NDA.

Heh.

Roper had to deal with the Blizzard crowd long enough to figure out he should keep the NDA after release.

Demo:

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/11298/Hellgate:+London+Demo
http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=46876

Woot!

But seriously, is the NDA still up at this point?

as far as I can tell there has been no announcement changing the NDA status.

If the demo is available, I can't see how we (f13) should respect it. I'm not saying start talking about it, but I'm saying it's worth a discussion to decide where NDAs invalidate themselves - maybe like when ANY MOTHERFUCKER CAN DOWNLOAD YOUR SHIT?

I dunno, i'm under a few NDAs still, sometimes, they simply don't want you talking about the beta experience and what went on in it.

I would assume discussion of the demo is fine, but not the beta.

The demo is only 2 classes, part of Act 1 and I assume single player only. The NDA is probably still in effect for any content not included in the demo.

So... can someone tell me if the demo is worth the download?

Let me get this straight. The people in the beta signed the NDA so they are not allowed to talk about Hellgate London WHILE those who are downloading the demo right now didn't sign anything so they can discuss it. Yeah, makes sense. After all, I heard this game definitely has humour in it.

EDIT: Oh, 2 classes.

W00t W00t!

On GameDaily (http://www.gamedaily.com/games/hellgate-london/pc/game-downloads/hellgate-london-demo/4251/7197/) too.

And Gamespy/Fileplanet (http://www.fileplanet.com/176044/170000/fileinfo/Hellgate:-London-Demo)

My first comments after 30 minutes of non-NDA'ed demo: "oh this is fun. Wowza, a green sword. Oh look, a rare blue relic...".

I don't care if it sucks to have it, I want a gun that unloads thousands and thousands of rounds into an enemy.  If I get that in Hellgate then I'm happy.

Ok 60 minutes impressions, but it's just me or this game is great when gunning while sucks donkeys if you melee?

/correct

See Schild's comments on combat animations blowing.

Once you get the hang of how the melee attack work, specifically that little obnoxious hop if you are moving forward when you attack it's good.  Animations are a bit awkward but it's still fun wading into a crowd.

Lorekeep, you'll be happy.

yeah, after getting used to the melee it's awesome to blast some angry music and go all Blendtec on some suckas. in addition, low-level skills are invading my motherfucking

I have nothing against the melee animations, I am low mainteinance. But the little delaying-hop is murdering my whack-tastic fun, which is completely healthy in ranged mode.

(http://www.hl-inside.ru/images/news/tf2_hgi_03_tumb.jpg)

Running backwards constantly while shooting is not my idea of gunning fun.

I don't remember much running backwards. But then, I played my necro in Diablo the same way. Bone Shield + Amplify Damage + Iron Maiden means a lot of running backwards.

You don't run backwards in Diablo, you run away.

You don't run backwards in Hellgate, you strafe south.

Oh for the love of Jesus.

So... I'm thinking these days that demos just suck.  I haven't enjoyed a demo of anything for many moons.  That said, this was the least unenjoyable demo I have played during those said moons.

Wart: that was pretty funny.

Loot: needs more.  Better than Mythos, though.

I got Shaun's Trusty Cricket Bat off some named zombie. Too bad it was my engineer.

GamersHell (http://www.gamershell.com/download_21548.shtml) Seems an appropriate site do DL the demo from.

Also can I pretend I downloaded the demo and make general statements regarding a game I may or may not have been/currently am beta testing?

Sure, why not.

Mythos just got a huge push. But it won't compare to Flagship. Which apparently has a loot team working around the clock. As they should.

Gaming companies should be based in Arizona. And coders should be provided with meth. Sure, we might end up with spaghetti, but development time will be cut in half.

Didn't enjoy the Call of Duty 4 single player demo?

That's "twitchy" SWG. That is unfun. Here you just mow. Or pick them from afar.

I have to say, I am liking it so far, but somehow I expected more :(

No that's not what you do but the NDA is still up so I can't comment anymore.

I have been so wanting to duel wield cricket bats.  Being as I could not find two I had a great time combining the bat with a grappling gun.  Grapple, Whack, Grapple, Whack.  Teh fun.

Iron Maiden = running free (to the hills).

Ok, so i got the demo last night, granted i only played for about an hours..but this should also indicate the "Stickyness" of this title for me, it was also very late and i needed sleep, take it for what its worth.

The graphics were superb! i really like how the big red guys looked really wet and sticky (you know the ones that look like the skin has been peeled), I loved how the fire swords would set aflame any BITS that the demons/zombies would blast into. The world is nicely detailed, and i was very convinced by the random layouts (They did not suffer from well, repetition).. I couldn't find a seam anywhere and repeatable "Parts" were not easy to spot..  I will be looking at it more closely later. The graphics all in all really impressed me.

The game play... At the risk of being flamed...Sucked. I know i only played for about an hour, but.. Even in the preview videos..i wasn't impressed. The actions are repetitive.. I had gained a few skills before i quit, but they were really more of the same..I am hoping that once i get to a more open area , that the game play improves...But currently i found it really uninspired, repetitive...and while i like the twitchy...not very fun.

The UI also looked, well...Blocky, Clunky, bloated...and..well..huge and not very streamlined.

2c

I will definitely spend more time with the demo...so, this is just a kind of First impressions.

Graphics: 9 (out of 10)

Game play: 4

User interface: 4

More random impressions from about two hours worth of playing the demo.

I am somewhat underwhelmed. Second coming of JesDiablo it ain't, at least so far. Several things make me worry.

First, there's the lack of Blizzard-level polish. The UI feels clunky, I've seen (plenty of) unkillable mobs stuck on a corner or just in the middle of the pavement, the avatar faces are fugly...

Second, in Diablo the fun was in having to be mobile and tactical while laying waste to large packs of mobs trying to swarm you. Here, in the 3D world, large packs of mobs are problematic because of things like polygon counts. Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in the demo tried to swarm me. No packs, no linked mobs, if you cared you could single-pull everything.

Third, balance. At the moment (yeah, yeah, I know, level 4, what do I want) the grenades are ridiculously overpowered -- I can lob them at mobs from outside of the aggro range forever and the mobs just continue wandering around till blown into chunky bits. Unless I want to play Leeroy style, by the time I enter a room or a street section, everything there is already dead or has a sliver of health left. Obviously grenades don't work that well on bosses who *will* aggro, but if I want to hunt bosses other games do it better.

So -- I don't know. The game looks good for spending an hour in mindless mayhem, but I am not sure it will have the staying power.

Kaa

I'm going to try the demo a bit more tonight, but so far it's a mixed bag. It's a beautiful game, that really degrades very well. I had to turn down a number of options to their lowest setting to get a decent framerate, but it still looked fantastic. Not so sure about the gameplay though. The quest box is really annoying. Super super annoying. Too big and blocky and it needs that WoW mod that makes the text appear all at once.

Or Stranglehold? Crackdown?

All the hype in this thread from the beta testers got me interested in the game. I got the demo, played it 'through' with the both characters (I guess it ends near after you get the door open, at least I couldn't figure out anything to do/go after that).

Well, graphics are okay, but the animations suck. First thing people are going to see is the damn walking/running cycle so it wouldn't hurt to make it not suck. Somehow my character feels like he's gliding on the ground all the time. The melee attack animation you do while running forward is really annoying with the pause and flying in mid air. Sounds are lame too. The guns/rifles sound like air-pellet guns, there's no kick to the effects.

Technical aspects aside, the gameplay doesn't convince either. It's boring as hell for sure. You just run around and kill the same stuff which is repetitive as hell. There's no challenge what so ever since everything seems to die from practically one hit. Some bigger mobs take more hits, but you just run backwards and keep shooting until they die. The only interesting thing I found would be to see the different equipment (collecting stuff is always cool if it has a visual impact on your toon), but when the gameplay feels like a brain rotting grind already after an hour it doesn't look good.

As far as I know the NDA is still up. But I sure didnt hype anything.

Reading the demo impressions makes me think they made a shitty demo.

The demo seems to play just like the Videos they host on the site. The videos being the first thing that made me go "Meh", and its now confirmed.

I didn't play those.  Crackdown is a Platinum title now so I'd just buy it, since demos are crappy these days.  Full games, those are awesome, but the demos for them are generally terrible.  The Bioshock demo, for example, used lower-res textures on enemies than the real game did.  Bioshock was awesome (I mean that in the Pre-Portal sense) but the demo was very meh.

The Stranglehold demo convinced me I didn't need to buy Stranglehold.

Which confirms they made a shitty demo.

Or a good demo of a shitty game.  One of those.   :-D

From nurtsi's description above it sounds about like what I played at E3 way back when.  So I guess that answers that question.  I thought they'd at least have made the animations not suck by now.   :|

This has not been proven. (To me at least)

they are freaking dorks for making the demo showcase the beginning of the game! like they're going to spoil the compelling storyline or something if they give a peek at any cool shit whatsoever? god dammit, I need to write a letter.

NDA Lifted...http://hellgatelondon.com/underground/subscribers-and-patch-0

Fantastic...Let the floodgates open.

Let's hear it! I want detailed descriptions of the classes and how they play, as well as some of the phat lewts. And I want them NOW! I don't want to have to resort to working to pass the time for Christ's sake.

Seriously.

Patch Zero is pretty damn hot.

Also, oh, no NDA:

Ten things Hellgate needs to do:
1. Hire new animators.
2. Add some color, even if it's in themed expansions based on other timelines or cities. This, however, I can wait for.
3. Clean up the interface so things you need to read can be read more... easily.
4. Clean up the inventory setup.
5. Differentiate the classes more.
6. Clean up the skill trees. Get rid of useless shit, add more awesome.
7. More, varied particle effects. Cheap way to add color to the world. Lots of it.
8. Tell EA to shove their ads up their ass (big ups to you Lum).
9. Fire all of the PR and Community People. All of them. And start over.
10. Learn how to control the hype machine. Arena.net is good at it. Blizzard is good at it. These people should be good at it.

Is it fun and why? Does it get tedious/repetitive/grindy?

Ok, I have been in beta for a while now. Here are my impressions and such.

Let me start by saying, this is going to be a very negative post. But I want to say first that the game at its core is pretty fun, and VERY addicting. Even with the stuff I am going to say, I still plan on keeping my preorder, and playing the game at release. Subscription, that I'm not sure on yet.

I started playing about 2 months ago. And the game, while having a lot of addicting qualities also has a LOT of problems and errors and bugs and "interesting" design choices. I personally feel this game is really suffering from having EA as a partner. They need another 2 to 3 months in Beta. They really really need it. As it is, I expect a 200mb+ patch for release day. Below are a list of things they are planning on adding by release that where never tested by the beta testers.



Also during beta, the game was so buggy and had so many "wtf" designs, it lead to a huge portion of players hypothasizing that the game we where testing was a "throw away game" and that the "real game" was being tested only in house. Also, I have never seen a forum more full of rabid fanboys and myopic followers. Any word of doubt or negitivity was greated with ether "Duh this is beta" or "GTFO the game is fine". during the early stages of beta, myself and quite a few others posted many threads on the games problems, and gave solutions and possible fixes. After a few weeks as more and more people joined, our threads got buried under waves and waves of Vault like posts.

Bugs. Oh my god is this game buggy. I mean buggy in a "we just started Alpha" sort of way. As of this writing, there are still so many game breaking bugs in the client it is insane. Ranging from equipment disapearing when you try to equip it, to swinging your sword attempting to activate every single skill at the same time but doing nothing and eating all your mana, to crash bugs, and one nasty bug where you lose synch with the server and it stops saving your EXP from that point on.

Classes. The game has 3 parent classes, and each parent class has 2 sub classes for a total of 6 classes. The parent classes are Templar, Hunter and Cabalist. The sub classes are Guardian and Blademaster for Templar, Marksman and Engineer for Hunter, and Evoker and Summoner for Cabalist. Now, each class has 1 skill tree, and they share half that skill tree with the other sub class. So half the Evoker skills, are shared with the Summoner and so forth. Also, several of the classes play a lot the same, the major one being Engineer and Summoner. Gear is also Parent Class specific, so, sorry, no Melee Hunters or Cabalists. Swords are for Templar only.

Gameplay. The general gameplay is fun, and only gets better as you get higher in levels and the mobs start coming in bigger and bigger groups. I have had some VERY fun fights. But there are some problems also. Even more than diblo2, the gameplay is very repetitive. Due to the fact that skills take a lot of mana, you cant spam very many skills. This leaves you with autoattacking for the majority or your gameplay, and doesnt lead to much variance. This is especially true with melee classes. Ranged can vairy it up by equiping different guns. This leads me to the Feed system.

Feed. I feel the Feed system is broken right now. First, the feed system is how equiping items is handled, let me explain. Each stat in the game has 2 uses, a normal stat like use, and it also provides stat feed. The stats are Accuracy, Strength, Stamina and Will. Accuracy gaves you higher crit chance, Str increases the amount of damage you do with melee weapons, will increased your mana pool and mana regen, and stamina gives you hitpoints. Each item has a Feed Cost associated with it, say I found a new gun, this gun would have feed requirements of 2 Str, 5 Stam, 3 Will, 10 Acc. This means it would subtract that amount of points away from your Stat Feed total. All gear has this. So, if I had a pair of pants with a 10 stamina feed also, that would mean I could equip these two items, and be at 15 stamina feed. If I only had 16 stamina, I couldnt equip any more items with Stamina feed cost, inless it was 1 sta feed cost.
The system its self isnt horrible, but it leads to having to put points in all stats as almost every class. Some items require specific types of feed. Armor needs more Str and Stam, guns need more Acc, and all items need a small amount of Will. It is worse for some classes than others. My engineer is pretty much constantly capped in all stats, and I have a bank FULL of items that have dropped for me, but that I cant use yet because I need more stats, in every stat. The Guardian can get away with out putting much in to accuracy, and the hunter can get away with out pumping Str (to an extent, as some guns need str).

Skills. The skills are pretty crappy. They really dont add that much to the game, and are one of the biggest complaints of the testers. There have been hundreds of threads about them. Lots and lots of constructive posts and ideas and such. Just 2 weeks ago FSS totally changed the way the skills worked with skill points, but it didnt help much, except for mean you had to put more points in to a skill to make it viable. Also, a LOT of skills suffer from diminishing returns. Lets that a Hunter skill. Tactical Stance. When you use this, your character crouches down, and gets increased range and crit, and more accuracy when shooting. Now, one point in this skill gives you 25% increased range, 6% increased crit. You can put this skill to 10. Each level bringing 2%crit or so. And thats it. Basically every gun user should take this skill. But putting more than 1 point is mostly a waste, as more points dont give very much increase. This same type of thing is repeated over many of the skills.
Many skills also lack power. Several people actually played all the way through the best, from level 1 to 22(the cap in beta) with out putting a single skill point. Also, many skills have really stupid prerequs. As an engineer, if I want to get their pet "Haste Bot" I need to put 3 points in to Inhibitor bot, and then 3 points in to "concussive Crash" than make the inhibitor bots explode. Then I can take "Haste Bot" but i the majority of Engineers are not going to use Inhibitor Bots, so thats 6 points out of 50 total that I have to spend just to get to the skill I want. This is repeated with just about every class.

Level design. Up to level 22 you have the ability to play through Acts 1-3 out of a total of 5 acts. If some one hadnt told me I was playing Act 3, I never would have known. The levels are identical and there are mostly the same monsters. There is no visual difference between the acts. Also, the levels are random, but the majority are very linear. So if your playing Destroyed Street level, the random part is weather the street has a left turn then a right turn, as aposed to a right turn then a left turn. You basically have one way to go, and it all looks the same. This leads the random levels to not really feel random. There is also no real big zones like in Diablo2, where you left town and went outside to a big land zone. You basically leave town, and go straight to a linear random dungeon. They have a very limited amount of random tilesets also. Streets, Sewers, Warehouses will make up the majority of your playtime. There are a few unique zones thrown in, but this is what you will see most of the time.

Their upgrade system is overall pretty awesome. In Hellgate you should NEVER, EVER sell an item to the NPC shop keeper. You can disassamble items you arnt going to use. This is equilivant to disenchanting an item in WoW. When you disasemble an item, it gives you parts, you can then use these parts at different machines in town to create new items from a list that is randomly generated every time you load in to a station (town) or upgrade your current gear. You can also pay money to add "magic" abilities to your current weapons and armor. Now, the only problem is that the upgrades and abilities are random. When you add an ability to a weapon, it has 3 options, Common, Rares and Legendary. Adding a Legendary property to your item will cost most of your current money, and you wont know what your going to get. It really sucks to empty your bank to add a legendary property to your weapon, and then have it be a skill bonus for a different class. This is minor in the long run, and I really like that you can upgrade an item. This was if you dont get a good drop as you level up, you arnt totally screwed.

The backpacks are also way to small. during the course of one instance, you usually have to stop between 1 and 3 times to disassemble items. If you could have a setting to auto disassemble "white" as in none magic items, it would be very very cool.

This game could really use another 3 months in beta, and it could be a very great game. As it stands right now, I think its going to go down as a fun game with a huge amount of wasted potential. I will buy it, and I will play it, but its just to repetitive, to buggy, and the classes dont offer enough difference for me to want to level more than a couple classes. Also with the way the skill tress are set up, you are going to have a limited amount of builds, but due to spending more than half youor time auto attacking, different builds are still going to play a lot the same.

EA hasn't been involved enough to hurt it.

Blame Namco Bandai all day though. They had no business being involved for 3/4 the development.

EA one would assume is pushing for the Oct 30 release date. The game is not ready.

Also I forgot to mention. This game has the WORST FUCKING CHAT INTERFACE EVER. Oh my god. Its horrible. Really really horrible.

Yea, I can't really stress how much the UI needs a work over. But the UI is moddable, rite? Can cope.

I think the Halloween date was decided long before EA was involved. THere's too much content ready for the holiday.

Morphiend, I hate EA more than anyone on this board, if I felt I could blame them, I'd be waving that flag higher than most could see.

schild can we get a new post started in the NEWS section for post NDA commentary, maybe move morf's wall of text there too.

hm yes maybe one sec

No, the UI will NOT be moddable. They have stated they didn't have the design resources to allow mods. What you see is what you get.

Also, I forgot to mention also, about the Quests. They are more dull than WoW quests. So far they consist of "Go kill (Named Mob) in (specific dungeon)" Also, "Bring me 10 (mob body part) from (unnamed mob) in (specific dungeon)" or "Explore (specific dungeon) and report back".

There was SO much possibility for cool, unique and awesome quests. But for me, that is par for the course when it comes to Hellgate. Missed opportunity.

I like the game but it's nowhere near great, I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed honestly.  Unless they are pumping out new items and levels every month I really don't think it deserves a monthly subscription either.

I enjoyed playing all of the classes and can easily see getting to fifty with each of them, it doesn't feel like you're doing the same levels over and over because the layouts are dynamic and change each time.  The game definitely gives you that really powerful feeling from Diablo, you just wade into enemies and start slaughtering left and right.  You might actually be too powerful because you rarely have to worry about dying unless you stumble onto an elite while in the middle of a fight.  The skill system is good but not great, there is some (arguably understandable) over lap between classes as well.  The gunners share some skills as do the sword wielders.  The loot is pretty good although quite often the blue stuff isn't better than the green and with six different classes you don't often see something you can actually use, but that's not a complete loss because of the crafting system.

The NPCs are great, I actually read the quest dialogue because I enjoy it.  They are either crazy or rude or fawning all over you, quite a bit of character.  The quests are well laid out in that you always just happen to get half a dozen of them for the area that you're about to enter as part of the main plot line.  They have a system where instead of being an FPS a mission gets turned into an overhead command a squad type game, it has a lot of potential and is a nice break when they use one (rarely, and it was quite short).  You can call in air strikes, tell them who to attack, where to take cover and so on.

There are quite a few augmentations and systems as well.  Most weapons have slots in which you can put ammo mods, magic mods, etc.  All loot can be broken down into their components and used to build new items at crafting stations, you can also buy items with the components from another NPC.  Each piece of gear you get can also be upgraded using the components by adding a random tiered effect (stuff like +38% chance to crit or +9 health regen).

On the bad side - as most people point out the UI isn't exactly clean.  This was also one of the worst betas I've ever played when it comes to bugs, and not little bugs either, big ones.  Entire stations (the towns of the game) disappear for hours/days at a time, if you are at the point in your progression where you needed to get to the next station and it's down you might as well roll an alt.  Some stations have warping bugs in which everyone in the station is pulled to the exact same point and you have to run back to wherever you were.  This is the only beta I have played where entire characters would bug out and be completely inaccessible, I had to roll alts because my mains were stuck in limbo after crashing while porting to a station.  I dared not use the equivalent of the Diablo town portal because half the time I would crash and lose all of my progress.  They had to manually distribute files over the forums because the patcher screwed up and couldn't complete the file.  These are mostly core system type bugs, I'm not even going to bother mentioning all the little bugs like display and game play... except for one, ravagers.  I only mention it because I hate them so much, they are the only enemies which "jump" at you and they are frustratingly screwed up, they either disappear or get stuck in mid air or land nowhere near where they were headed.  Hopefully most of the worst bugs will be fixed by release and things will be more stable.

If you played the demo I hope you really liked the enemies you saw, because you are going to see the exact same ones for at least the next twenty two levels and probably further (the beta was capped at twenty two).  By the time you've gone past the second or third station you have seen all the enemies in the game, they just get stronger and change colours/armour.  Flying enemies really suck for melee because you can't bloody well reach them, you have to constantly switch weapons to a grapple, which takes a few seconds to charge up, then hook and pull them to you, then switch back to your sword and kill them.  Ranged classes should get used to running backwards.  I'm also already really tired of the gray/brown.  Yes, I know the game is being fought in the ruins of London but there are always imaginative ways to travel to different places, with some fucking colour in them.

Basically I'll buy it but I'm a consumerist whore for these types of games.  I mean I bought Vanguard even though I knew it was going to be a disaster so it would be unwise to go by what I purchase...

Oh yeah, in game ads...  At least they fit in, I ignore them in the subway stations just like I do in real life.

Edit: Typos...
Edit 2: My lava dye kit really sucks, the wasp ones look great.  Mostly because they are beautiful yellow and I'm desperate to look at colour.

Thats not a bug, its a feature. If a station gets to full, its dumps a bunch of the people to a new instance of that station. Why they didnt just cap the numbers of players in a station and have any over that cap just enter in to a new station, I have no idea. I think its pretty stupid also.

Yeah, thats kinda bass ackwards.

SO is this like GW, where the towns are common areas and the countryside is instatized?

AND randomized.

Sweet NDA gone... ok well.... i guess i liked it.  It was addicting as hell when it worked, the loot system is everything you could possibly as from a diablo clone and more.  The skills were horrible though and had very little impact on gameplay.  There is no such thing as "builds" or "specs", you simply pick a buncha random powers that have very little if anything to do with each other.  I'm not about to complain about bugs in a beta, specially since i stopped playing weeks ago, but ill say for me they werent that bad.  I never experienced inaccesible characters or stations.  I'll probably buy it and play it for a while and the whole time think about how the skill system of the last diablo clone (Titans Quest) was a million times better and if they could somehow combine those skills with the loot and graphics from this game that would be perfect.

They are both instanced.

Non sequitur:  Holy crap they added my favorite smiley in the whole world :awesome_for_real:.  God damn that little guy makes me happy no matter how bad I feel.

Each patch it got worse and worse for the last 2 weeks or so. Thats worth noting, when the game is 2 weeks from release.

They are preparing for the secret fun working build that they've been hiding.

Yep. Instanced in all the non-station areas.

There are some really nifty levels, and the variety of loot is decent. As a Marksman, one of the 'guns' is a bladesaw, pretty much a chainsaw with a different look. Quite fun, and a nice change for when you're getting swarmed. Which happens fairly often later on.
The gameplay could use some work, and the game desperately needs better character animations and colors. The wasp dye kit looks nice, but without it, all my stuff for both Blademaster and Marksman is either brown, dark brown, or black. The UI is fairly awful, but other than a ferocious memory leak, I've had few major bugs. No crashing on portalling, no lost sync, never lost a weapon. I'm using the x64 dx10 client, so your mileage may vary. Your backpack is too small, the chat window is atrocious, and the 'rating' for weapons is worse than useless. A better variety of mobs, and an easier way to deal with special effects would be nice.

As for the demo, Holborn is fairly weak. I don't remember any of the quests there standing out at all.

edit: I'll believe in the 'secret gold client' when I see it. I suspect it'll be much like the one from AO... imaginary.

So...the two big questions:
1) Is it worth $15/month?
2) Is it more fun than Diablo 2?

That remains to be seen.

No. Not right now. Addicting? Yes. But fun? It could be on the same page, if they keep adding content on a regular bases for about a year.

I'm pretty sure it's $10 a month not $15, I'm hoping the first month is free so that I can see if it is worth losing the extras.

Impressions from the demo:

• Oh god the movement lag and mouse lag. I mean, for a MMORPG it might be fine, but with Blizzard, not so much either.
• Talents, er skills. You just had to copy Diablo and ignore any improvements made since then? I didn't use any points at all because I was saving them for a level 5 talent (which I never got).
• I ran out of quests 1 hour in, so they outdid Diablo there.
• Don't end your demo with a dead-end and then make your players double-back wondering if they missed something. Compare and contrast with the Bioshock demo. Are you not even trying?
• Your world map is 5 small white boxes connected with different colored bars. Enough said.

All in all, it's your average shooter. But, unlike your average shooter, your levels are randomly generated, so you won't have the cool in-engine scripted sequences or hidden goodies off the beaten path other shooters have. No, your content consists of pumping dialogue out of NPCs one line at a time.

Loot, you say? I got one rare gun that I couldn't equip for no reason at all.

Playing as a melee char is horrible. It's the typical FPS melee char, just replace the gun with a sword and pretend you are done. The animations are awful, I swing and hit a guy I missed by 3 feet, etc. Run and gun style just does not work well with melee combat, I wish PC game makers would play games with decent melee before they try to make one of their own. The ability to turn and strafe and run backwards while your upper body swings a weapon just looks goofy and the whole feel is unsatisfying.

Basically to me it's a bad Phantasy Star Universe.

You know, the whole time, i had wished it was a skill based game, no classes. So then you could swap between swords and guns...

I want Diablo 1 back, your skills/spells are based on class but you can wear whatever you have the stats to support.  I miss my platemail wearing fireball tossing wtfpwn sorcerer. 

quick (?) overview of classes--I didn't have time to really play all of them so some are not quite fleshed-out. in addition I will refrain from making comments about the game quality in general. I was going to embed images but now they are just shit-small links.


Templar
Templar are the melee fighters of choice. They have a few ranged weapons available but you definitely won't be killing things from across the map. The melee system is a bit odd and takes a bit of time to get used to (unless you're a connoisseur in which case you might vomit). In sticking with what seems a popular theme in HGL the combat remains simple and becomes almost chess-like later on (if chess included swarms of flying pawns). They also get swords that shoot bees.

Guardian
If you don't immediately get an idea of this class from the name it's okay to feel ashamed. Guardian features shield specials, carebear auras and horrible pants. Note that Hellgate auras do *not* work like in most games; they only affect you unless otherwise indicated. None of them, for either class, are particularly exciting. Guardians get a defense boosting aura, a passive heal aura, +max health aura, etc.  Moreso than Blademasters it may be viable to use guns, although with the Feed system that limits equipment based on player stats making things mesh might be tougher.

Why would you play a Guardian? Maybe you are dumb. I don't know. They certainly have the means to take more damage than other classes, so if you like being wailed on this may be appropriate. Also you can beat people with your shield.

Blademaster (http://zombiehof.com/goor/hgl/hgb.jpg)
I don't know why more people weren't running around as these--oh wait, I do. They start off as perhaps the most boring class aside from Cabalists. Blademasters cannot dual-wield until level 5 and don't get many of their kickass attacks until 10+ so you're stuck just whacking shit like a rube for a bit. When you get to the later game you'll still be whacking shit, but there will be more particle effects and mid-air somersaults. Auras include thorns (yes, those thorns), projectile stopping/reflecting and improved criticals.

They are the more offensively-inclined Templar. Shyeahduh. "Surges" serve very much like Assassin charges in D2, only they require kills to build up and cannot be used to enhance other attacks (while active you can get things like passive healing, improved critical chance and movement speed increases). You can "charge" enemies which, put technically, is teleporting into their face and fucking up their shit. There's a line of skills dealing with group attacks and a line for massive damage to a single target. Pretty straightforward, but I found it more engaging than guns once I got used to the jump-step melee attack timing.


Cabalist
The casters of the game, which essentially means guns that actually have ammo in the form of power (mana).  Weapons are divided into focus items and crazy ol' guns including swarm launchers (that fire homing clouds of buzzsaw insects), chemical throwers and pistols that immobilize enemies.  If you like wearing helmets that look like hollowed-out demon heads leaving enough of your lower face to look ridiculously stupid, Cabalist is the way to go.

Evoker
I have less info for this than any other class. I guess you fire off big spells and revel in barbed-wire inspired design. The use of focus items in place of guns (necessary for casting said spells) mean you will also likely have scary shit covering your hands throughout the game. See here (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10653.msg356064#msg356064) for a more accurate description.

Summoner (http://zombiehof.com/goor/hgl/hgs.jpg)
So, you like pressing buttons repeatedly at the beginning of every map? In a strange twist Summoners have about 70% of all their skills dealing with summoned underlings. I am floored. There are elementals which provide around 4-5 different damage types as you go up in levels and three demon types: one a melee tank, one a healer and one an offensive...thing. Each can be enhanced with two different skills that define the previous roles. There are also support skills that improve health of summons, allow you to heal them, blah blah blah.

If you've played a Warlock in WoW and/or a Necromancer in D2 you'll likely feel at home with this class. Sacrifice health to top up your demons, suck magical red beams from corpses to heal yourself, or drain life from opponents still on their feet. While this is going on you can unload with a variety of guns, which is always family-approved fun.


Hunter
Hunters are the all-out ranged classes, except for that gun that just spins a blade on one end.  Long-range attacks are choice but when faced up close rocket launchers, beam weapons and handheld miniguns can do the trick. While the regular enemies are usually easier due to one-shot kills bosses can provide some trouble because of their habit of getting up close and unloading dump-trucks of fist.  Both classes can learn the "Escape" ability which cloaks them for a short period of time allowing a safe retreat. Easymode.

Marksman
I played this class briefly but ended up switching to Engineer. While it wasn't un-fun per se a lot of the skills are typical badass sniper dewd fare. Both classes get a "Tactical Stance" that roots you in place and increases gun-related dickery, but Marksman has a unique "Sniper Stance" that zooms your view a bit and gives you a scary ol' reticle. I found as an Engineer I'd sometimes have trouble hitting things because they were too far-off to see, so it's more than just visual fluff.

The class also has a large amount of grenade-type-things and air-strike tomfoolery. I didn't even pay attention to them because I was busy being a badass sniper dewd. The Marksman has a number of targetable debuffs (sharing one with Engineers) that all increase damage taken by the target/group.

Engineer (http://zombiehof.com/goor/hgl/hge.jpg)
While similar to the Summoner in that it's a pet class there are some variations to how said pets work. There are "bots" and the "drone". Bots are apparently untargetable, which means they cannot generally be killed. There are bots that debuff the speed of enemies, buff your group's attack speed, fire rockets, drop bombs or suicide on a hapless demon causing a variety of unhealthy outcomes. Not all bots can be out at the same time so it's not always a convention like Summoners.

The drone is a customizable weapons platform, healer and buffer. All skills add or enhance functionality in those respects, from being able to equip your drone with a gun or sword to having it emit a healing nova or repair shields. In an interesting twist totally not related to D2, it uses player items. You can stick a rocket launcher on the top and giggle. The downside to this is that the drone (much like friendly NPCs) is shit-horrible at aiming projectile weapons since it can't seem to rotate in increments less than 45 degrees. Makes for an okay item-free healer though.

The class plays a lot like Marksman only it'll be prudent to keep your drone alive and stay on top of party health.  As far as this game is concerned it's got the most group-buffs available and will likely be the cleric of HGL, at least for Hardcore groups. Or something. What the hell am I talking about?

Hellgate is a pretty damn good game. The problem is, the client itself and the servers are in terrible shape. Patching has been a nightmare for many. Including but not limited to, having to re-download and install the entire client and clean your rig's registry after a failed patching. DX 10 right now is also in pretty sorry shape. Massive memory leaks, textures swapping from high end to absolute low for no reason, black loading screens, extremely long load times, sound going completely out at random times requiring a client restart. Yeah, from a stability and dependability standpoint, it's in sorry shape.

Now the game itself, when it's running, has everything an action RPG guy wants. A massive loot table, extremely nice looking models at the high end, massive amounts of baddies, tons of random events like hell rifts, passages, NPC quest givers and vendors etc. In this regard, it's kept me quite entertained. The skill tables leave quite a bit to be desired, especially in variety. Many of the skills are just simple upgrades of the original. So the amount of actual unique skills is pretty slim overall.

The classes themselves, skill trees withstanding, are all pretty fun for me to play minus the blade master. Not really my style, but I could see how other people would enjoy it. Evoker / Engi are my 2 faves at this point and will be my first two roll ups. Over the long haul I could definitely see myself maxing every class save the blade master.

My prediction for Hellgate? I smell an abysmal launch for this one, on the technical end. Beta up to now all points to it. A nasty, unstable client with serious technical issues and a complete crap shoot patching system less than 2 weeks from launch reeks of disaster. Super magical happy fun secret build be damned. If they pull it off? Hot, the game is defintely solid enough to stand on it's own if the technical aspects can be taken care of.

I am keeping my pre-order, I'll be there at the midnight server ups with bells on come Halloween, but I'm expecting the worst.

any feedback on grouping?  How many can be in an instance, good combos, etc...  How about PvP?

PvP has been basically non existent the entirety of beta so unfortunately there won't be a lot to hear on this end.

Grouping is a blast. Again, the technical issues become even more profound with a full group of 6, but mechanically it's a good time.

A few comments.


Ummm. Dumb? Are you kidding. Guardians are one of the most powerful classes right now. They combine a very very powerful aura (Health Aura) with a lot of hitpoints and armor, with about 95% of the Blademasters damage output. To put it simply Guardians are walking tanks. And not DIKU tanks, but tanks like the army has, that are very fucking hard to kill and do massive damage. It was a known fact in beta that two of the main developers of HG:L played Guardians, and people joked that that was why they where so powerful.



Yeah, that would be wrong. Evokers are sort of lost and looking for a place to live. Their autoattack pretty much sucks, and their spells can deplete your energy very quickly. They are fairly late bloomers, but their AE ability is very lacking. The level 30 skill Arc-Legion is supposed to be very good, but I cant find a playstyle that I like with the low level Evoker skills.

thanks for clearing up Evoker stuff. I rag on Guardians because I play a BM. :sad_red_panda:

I played a BM also, my roommate played a Guardian. It was sick the difference in what he could do compared to what I could do at levels 15+.

He speaks the truth here. The HGL beta boards were much like the WoW general boards. They might even have had the WoW forums beat in douchebags per capita.

Downloaded demo, played it, holy fuck... this is the great hope everyone was waiting for? It's so... average. Walk three feet, go into tactical stance, shoot thing down, walk a step, go into tac... you get the idea. I got a piece of armor and a lot of money. Graphics are average, no fully destructible environments... man, not seeing it.

Seems like they blasted out a bunch of beta invites yesterday as well.  Instead of downloading the demo I just went ahead and downloaded the beta last night, looking forward to trying it out this weekend.

Yes it's just like GW except that you don't have control (or didn't, I still have to redownload the entire fucking beta because they don't have a fucking patching system for the fucking game so they may have changed it) over which common area instance you are in like you do in GW.

?  From the NDA covered impressions, I tough most of you liked the game.

My impression :

Bugs:
There's allot of bug.  Up side is that they fix them fast enough.  They could use a 2 months delay.  Ironically enough, I think the closest "release state"  I can think of is diablo 2.  Go read some Diablo 2 reviews, it will put things in context.

Difficulty:
I heard allot of complains about the game being too easy.  This game IS a diablo sequel, the mechanisms are the EXACT SAME with some small evolution.  Of course the first difficulty is a joke. I just read about the elite option to crank the difficulty up from the start, should be great but will probably be terribly uneven since it's rushed.
 
Loot:
The loot system is everything I ever tough about for a perfect loot system and more.  Of course more armor graphics would be nice.

Skill:
I feel like I'm loving an art piece while everyone else think it's shit. My minor gripe is why do you need to put more than one point on some skill to access the next one up the tree.  I don't understand people who complain on lack of builds or diminishing return on skills. There is easily 4-5 possible effective builds per class righ now and some of them are quite original.  It's way, wayyy more than diablo... where you would pick 3-4 skills max.  I'll keep the different builds for the class description.
The way it works is that most skill get 70% (out of my ass number) of their effectiveness with one point and you can spend up to 9 point to get the remaining 30%.  I know it sounds dump but it actually has some great effect: jack of all trades are actually viable for once.  You can still think about skills and weapons synergy's that maximize the additional skill points spent if you want to specilaze.  For example, a Markmans can heavily invest in a few skills to get an additional 20% critical chance, then double the dmg of it's critical, then add a ricochet effect where a bullet will hit multiple mobs and finally dual wield miniguns (with huge bonus to critical of course) at close range.  That's a lvl 50 builds and you used 5-6 skills out of 25.
You also have to remember that we don't have access to lvl 25 and lvl 30 skills rigth now.  What would you think of Diablo2 with out the lvl 30 skills?  Most builds were based on them.

Class:

Guardian: the strongest at low difficulty, not sure the armors will scale for higher difficulty.  They share a sweet Scorpion "get over here" gun with the blademaster.  For weapon variety, sword and shield is has viable as sword and gun.  You can also dual wield gun effectively with the right skills.  For build options: you can either charge/stun/kill, anchor(planetside heavy armor) and taunt/grapple/kill or simply hack away with boosted dmg and armor.  On top of that, you chose one aura(self buff) that defines your main defence mechanism: torn, regen, pure armor, etc.  So you can pretty much combine 3 weapon options, with 3 skill builds with 3+ auras or just use a jack of all trade build and switch your weapon settings at will.

Blademaster:  similar to guardian.  Add surges (an other self buff).  Switch the sword and shield option for dual wield.  Remove the stunt/kill option and replace it with whirlwind.  More dmg, less defence.  Looks like ninjas instead of knights.  Still no pirates.

Summoner: pure pet class.  You support the pets.  You can still shoot things to past time, if you want...  It's really specialised.  You chose your main summon out of 3 options which are pretty much the 3 builds : one tank protect your smaller nuker summons, one buffer/healer support your smaller summons and a scrapper kill shit.  Low player involvement at lower difficulty, I'm guessing you have to optimize your summon support on higher difficulties.

Evoker:  Nuke from short distances or close distances depending of your taste.  An original build came out where you teleport in a group of mobs, activate some mana shield, torn dmg and then drain life everyone.  Rinse and repeat.  A late bloomer class for sure.

Marksman: the build choices is mainly about specializing on an optimal range (short, medium, long) or being polyvalent. You can call airstrikes and throw grenade (weird physics on the grenade).  You can also cloak (invisible mode).

Engineer: hybrid pet call.  The pets support you.  You can make a non specialized marksman with some bots (non-targettable pets, basically a debuff) or heavily invest in your stronger pet the drone( bugged).  It's also a great jack of all trade class.  On the down side it's the class that suffer the most from the diminishing return skill system since it doesn't have any skill synergy.  I'll still play it because the gameplay is diverse and involved.


General

Levels design is repetitive, the randomisation is limited.  It's quite dark overall(needs color).  Not a game breaker for me but definitely not a selling point.

UI is weak.  The quest tab is especially painfull.

Graphics are great and performance is quite good (a nice change from D2...).  Too much loading time for 2007.

It's a great coop game, call your old D2 pals

Need a compelling loot drop sound.  Sound is weak in general.

I have hopes for episodic content and updates.  The development was fast.

Complete failure on community management.

thought.

Umm. I'm sorry man, but unless you've invented some new branch of mathematics, you really can't beat the WoW forums' impressive tally of 1 douchebag per capita. The WoW forums had like 3 people who weren't rabid fanboys total over their entire duration. And they all got banned for starting intelligent posts about fixing stuff and then getting flamed until the original point was lost behind 20+ pages of ad hominem.

Once again, I'm glad I have that spider-sense thing.  I wish it worked on more than just games.

HGL forum posters are simultaneously anal and urethral douchebags.

I do like the game. Quite a bit actually. The problem is that right now, it is in a state technically that is far from release quality.

As it stands, the situation is a game full of people preaching that we haven't seen the end game content, they have a super secret build for launch day, the promise of many long touted features being implemented "soon" after launch, and a monthly subscription fee for public beta.

Hey wait, this all sounds familiar somehow...

Yeah, like someone dropped Diablo 2 into a pile of steaming MOG.  I do hope that it lasts another six months so that I can start playing it.

Yep, it needs another 6-12 months of polish. It's nowhere near ready for release, and their golden patch explanation seems far fetched.

I think that the problems many of us have with HG:L is that we were expecting an instant classic, a clear 10/10. We were expecting another diablo2. And HG:L just not anywhere near that level of quality or certainly polish. If it were released by anyone other than the team behind D2, we would have played it and moved on. But we bought the hype, and when we actually played the game, were disappointed. HG:L isn't an instant classic. It's a solid 8/10.

Hey look. We managed to catch one of the HG:L forum posters.

HI. THERE. LITTLE. FELLA.

If you speak slowly, some times they understand you.

So if this game never receives the polish that it needs, does that pretty much make Too Human on the 360 the next big hope for a successor to Diablo?

Oh boy, here we go again. The only thing missing is Schild dredging up a new game with Diablo-style loot to deliver us to MMOG nirvana.

Here's your problem: by today's standards, Diablo 2 is not polished. It has a repetitive gameplay and a clunky interface. The world is unimaginative and monotonous. The plot is totally forgettable. Their villain screams wasted potential! By today's standards, Diablo 2 is a shitty, shitty game, so you can take any Diablo 2 clone, polish it as much as you like and you'll still have a clone of a shitty, shitty game.

 :awesome_for_real:

I'm tellin ya, it looks like Too Human is blending some of the better aspects of Diablo and PSO.  I'm skeptical still, but the recent coverage of it on some of the news sites has been pretty positive.

Sweet Jesus. I'd say Engrish wasn't your first language, but I'm not so sure. You at least tried to vary your sentence structure a little bit. Is anyone not sure that this isn't Grunk?

Do what now?

Never mind that shit.  I've been in the beta for almost 2 months.  The game has come a long way since I started testing.  It still needs some work and I'm unsure as to how things will turn out come release day.  I'm hoping for the best and expecting the worst.  What I do know is that in 6 months, if the servers are still up, it has a very good chance of delivering the digital crack I have yearned for.

Indeed.

I hate it when people think good games somehow 'date'.  They don't.

I like the game a lot.  I wish it was better made.  I'll play but I don't think I'll subscribe unless I'm confident there will be not only interesting new content but improvements to the game overall.  I can't spend money willy nilly like I used to... I have two kittens to support now.  Life has become serious!

This thing runs like shit on my machine.  I can't decide if it's my vid card (which I know needs an upgrade. zomg it's a year old!) or the game.  I've turned down all settings, models, shadows, textures, etc so it looks like shit, and still runs at a 'mediocre' level.  Bleh.
He wasn't saying it's dated, he said D2 is a shitty (well, "shitty, shitty" to be exact) game.  That's the bulk of his problem.  If you didn't like D2 at all, there's no reason to play HG:L.  I'm not a huge fan of D2, but I didn't think it was shit.  So far, my apathy towards HG:L feels about the same as my apathy towards D2 8 years ago.  I suppose that's a good thing for the D2 folks.

The rest of his complaints are pretty much par for any modern game.

Oh boy, the NDA's gone?  Finally!

This game is fucking boring.  Seriously, grinding up my magic skills in FFXI by chain-casting heals on myself was scintillating compared to Hellgate's gameplay.  Walk down a run-down street, oh look demons, now I click on them to shoot them with my infinite-ammo gun.  Click click click!  Okay they're dead.  Wait, more.  Click click click!  Okay, they're dead too.  And look, boss fight!  Click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click.  Okay, it's dead.

Diablo II's skill trees were head and shoulders better than the skills in Hellgate, none of which have seemed particularly interesting to me.  I'm pretty tempted to say that Tabula Rasa was at least as good as Hellgate.

THAT WAS A JOKE. HAHA. FAT CHANCE.

Zing!  Bonus points for pulling Portal into a Hellgate thread.

The point of D2 or HGL is not the clicking or the repetition, it's the loot.  The problem, if there is one, is that the loot system is so awesome that no one needed to bother to make the rest of the game incredibly entertaining.  That said, plenty of people get into the D2 combat.  I guess this is a good place to mention that I installed the latest version of Mythos (Hellgate Junior or Fate 2, depending on how you look at it) and JEEZ-LOUISE they have improved the hot shit out of that game.  Mostly in looks and monsters, but it's smoother and easier to see and the skills may mostly work.  The combat is still D2 combat, this being my point, but it's plenty entertaining for those that enjoy it.  Mythos is giving me hope that HGL will be shit-hot in a few months.  For those who enjoy simple clicky D2 combat.  And those who are still alive.

The shop owner in the demo, his voice is certainly Roper.   :awesome_for_real:

Yay!  I was worried I'd have to get this game.  I have too much on my plate as it is. I've never been so excited for a game to not be worth playing at release.

I'm sure I will be checking it out in 6 months once they've cleared out some of the suck though.

Well after playing an Engineer to level 10 in the Beta last night I have to say that the "Out of Memory" crashes and other oddities still make HG:L a much better game than Tabula Rasa and that's saying something!

Personally, Even with the bugs I have an addictive personality and this style of gameplay fills that missing spot in my gaming life. It's like Dungeon Runners crashed into Tabula Rasa and Hellgate:London is the result of that accident.

Playing a game just for the loot sounds to me like a small variation of Progress Quest.

Maybe I'm going soft, I just don't have a bunch of angst towards hgl.  I've been having fun for the past couple of months.  I just can't get too worked up over stuff like the ghetto buddy list procedure, chat window and a few other things I would rather have been done differently.   But that is what it boils down to, I would rather have a few things done differently, mostly it's just preferences over the way they've implemented some stuff. 

I'm all for a auction house and the ability to link loot to chat though.

Ok, played all of seven minutes.  No need to repeat what is already above.

So, where does grouping come in, or is the whole thing just solo play with a leader board?

I played a Marksman up to 15, awesome gameplay.  Really loved it, running and gunning and tossing grenades around corners blasting the crap out of everything.  Getting the Sniper skill and a rigged out SNPR with the escape skill was just like, "I win".

People who play four levels of a demo limited to the newbie area and think they got the inside poop are a bit deranged.

Undoubtedly the game would benefit from 3-5 more months of polish.  Give the UI a nice shine, get those mem-leaks taken care of, figure out the other annoying bugs and take another pass at the skill trees and voila.  Classic.

The difference between HG:L and Tabula Rasa is that HG:L actually has a solid core game that just happens to be currently hampered by bugs and minor issues.

Uh?  Join a group or form your own?

So does the 20 minute rule apply to true MMOs only or games like HGL which are sort of MMOs but not really?

I am starting to warm to the game a bit more. Somehow all the quests in my log got deleted and they won't fucking come back but I can cope. I may buy it, depending on how many of my friends do. I can see this being a hoot at a LAN party.

Maybe it's possible that it was a single player demo Oban played?


The UI cannot be fixed, no amount of shine will eliminate the fullscreen inventory/skills or horrible choices they've made with it. The memory leak, crashing, and server issues will not help make multi-player be anything but frustration, plus it's clickiness with bland colors and pale quests will make it worse. There's too many annoying bugs, no patcher or server status, and nothing really that appears solid at it's core. Taking another pass at skill trees won't happen with all that crap to fix, so voila.. Classic junk.

I say stop paying for shit on a shingle games, or we will continue to see even worse half-assed, unfinished games than this one. The people who pay for this deserve to suffer, and likely have a masochistic bent, which is destroying the game industry slowly plus giving us more rushed games forced to release before they're done.

I did read your review on corp and I don't want to start a muck fight but, seriously.  Half the points you make are just wrong and the other half are your opinions that you are putting in absolute terms.

The UI's only real issue is that it's not intuitive that you can hold down alt to get mouse control.  The full screen inventory is fine and doesn't bother me in the least nor does the knowledge tree.  It's full screen?  Big deal, not like you can't see what's going on in the world (the screens are transparent) and there is no reason to spend ANY time on those screens in the middle of combat.  Non-issues for the most part.

The mem-leak has gotten better with every patch and even WoW shipped with a horrendous mem-leak.  Meh, it will get fixed, I can still play for 3 hour sessions even with it.  Crashing, for me, is tied to the mem-leak, once the system performance has degraded then a crash is inevitable, otherwise it's fine.  Other server issues are just the normal growing pains that EVERY game has suffered, that doesn't excuse their existence but are hardly world shattering, every now and then you get reset to a 0 point in the stations, Big Fuckin' Deal, the station crashing and locked zones went away weeks ago.

There is patcher and server status and yes, the patcher works as intended.  They had issues with it for about 2 weeks but now it's back in order.  Meh, non-issue, again. 

There are good skills and most of the ones I've used are fun and interesting even if I think some of them need to be tweaked/expanded for effectiveness.

I agree that the game shouldn't be forced out the door for the Halloween date but you are pretty much dead wrong in stating your opinions as facts and not even taking the effort to verify if your more outrageous claims are even true.


If Oban is too stupid to put single player demo and no grouping together coherently he really deserves no excuses.

Of course it applies, and they will pay the price for a poor demo and poorly implemented starting experience but some of the statements are very all inclusive for people who know they only experienced a tiny portion of the content.

So how long is the grind until you get to the good parts?

It's not just that you can't see through the UI windows for inventory and skills, it's that I can't even move when I'm looking at them. Yah, you can sort of see through them, and I didn't spend time looking at them in the middle of combat, it was that I couldn't actually run around (or type, or see chat) or anything while accessing them. MMOs depend on their chat window, and without the ability to customize the chat window at all, and not be able to see it when doing either inventory or skills is a big deal to me. Making quest chat into individual sentence click throughs? Totally time wasting, and heck the combat is enough clicking.


There's noticable lag almost everywhere in common areas, the mem-leak may be improved, but it still doesn't fix the fact that you lose experience, items, quest progress and whatnot when you go LD or crash due to out of memory errors. Lots of posts are complaining about lost or locked items, quests that disappear, things that are world shattering. No matter whether it's getting better or not, there's been no stress test, no optimizations they do are near where it should be at release, so having massive bugs and dupe issues associated with them will only piss off the people who are early adopters.


If I open the game and the servers are down, the game should tell me that. Also when I open the game it should check files like a normal MMO patcher, and resume where it left off downloading. If it can't patch and compare versions like it's supposed to, and from what I experienced with it stopping halfway for 2 days and me needing to go manually fix things for it, then yah it's not working as intended. Maybe I had the bad timing to join the beta exactly when the patcher took a crap, but still under a load, at release, with un-optimized code and no stress test, evil things are gonna happen.


/shrug

Hey, it's your money, but I also think you're just being a little too fanboish about this. I'm not being outrageous, I just can't see wasting money on things until they are stable, reliable, and make sense without bugs at every turn... But, I also can't see myself clicking my way through more than 2-3 weeks of this game anyway. It screams single-player game, so being horribly rushed and highly unpolished equals me not liking it. We have different opinions, and when it launches I hope you have fun watching the servers crash.

You can chat while in inventory, there's a little button that brings the chat window out. And I'm using the x64dx10 client, I crash when the memory leak hits the wall, but have never lost items, quests, or experience. I've also not heard bitching about lost items, except one person who couldn't get that there are 3 different weapon slots.


And I think that takes anti-fanboiness to it's illogical outrageous extreme. "The game sucks, and if it didn't, I wouldn't like it anyway."

 :geezer:

Actually, have not downloaded the demo, was just giving some feedback about the  :nda:.

I do not see why anyone would need to group, is there something I am missing?

I saw zero need to group at the default difficulty, i assume that might change at the harder settings.

I totally agree, having only played the demo I wouldn't feel comfortable making such definitive statements. Of course the purpose of a demo is to, well, demonstrate representative gameplay, so you can hardly blame them from making judgments based on it.

That said, I played the full beta, comprising 3/5 of the final game sans voice and cinematics, and I pretty much agree with the demo players. The demo does accurately represent real gameplay. If you didn't like the demo, you won't like the game.