Stonehenge live

[Furiously]

And you have to download it because it's 389.6 MB...

[rattran]

Well, at least earlier today the server side lag was crippling, lots of toons are missing respec tokens, and there's a new ctd bug.

On the plus side... I got nothing.

[Aez]

Le "sigh"

[lesion]

Apparently they were emergency-developing a lag fix, but I haven't logged back in since they shut down the servers for it.

[Ragnoros]

Can't these guys catch a break?

Not that it matters, or anyone cares anymore.

[Simond]

Can't these guys catch a break?

Certainly. Arm or leg? 

Not that it matters, or anyone cares anymore.

Oh, I don't know. I'd imagine that the higher-ups at Blizzard are enjoying a little quiet schadenfreude aimed at the debacle known as Flagship.

[Aez]

They patched the lag.

The actual content is pretty good.  It's worth a try if you haven't played the game in a while.  If they can add the same amount of content every month we'll have a big big winner.  I'm guessing they won't be able to pull it off.  Maybe every 2 months if we are optimist.  Witch mean you are paying 20$ for a new tile set and couple of items.

[rattran]

They're not even shooting for monthly. This is the 'Quarterly Content Patch'

I expect the Quarterly Content Patches to be semi-annual.

[Morfiend]

  If they can add the same amount of content every month we'll have a big big winner. 

It is much much to late for that. I am afraid Hellgates ship has sailed.

[spiralyguy]

They're not even shooting for monthly. This is the 'Quarterly Content Patch'

I expect the Quarterly Content Patches to be semi-annual.

Zomg this man can translate corportate speak!

[Tige]

I got the stonehenge patch the other day with about a week remaining before my sub expires.  I like stonehenge fine enough but what really surprised me was the work done on game performance.  I'm running on high settings and the game looks awesome, no more hitching and inventory freezes.  I haven't experienced the lag spikes which some have mentioned and actually finished it with my level 30 BM.  The loot (and a bunch of other stuff) is still out of whack but I'm considering keeping my sub and give it a go with a hardcore MM.

If they can get a little traction with the 1.0 patch and the 1.1 patch coming this week it might be worth sticking around. 

[rattran]

Hardcore is still at the point of banging nails through your penis, due to instagib mobs appearing.

[spiralyguy]

Ahh stonehenge.  I went into "The Wild" area for a while.  Seemed pretty much the same ol' crap, except now the mobs hide in the #@*&in grass.  ARG.  Anyway, after soloing for about an hour in there I was pretty sick of it, seems like mobs had a billion HP each, was going real slow.

Turns out The Wild is tuned for 6 chars, and the Forboding Wild tuned to 7 chars.  So... that explains the HP.  I don't reallly know anyone to play with.... so yea.

So I went to check out the other area of stonehenge.  However it turns out you need 6 essences (15% chance to drop off any rare/legendary/unique mob) of a certain type to get into one of those new Caste Caves and you have to clear all 4 Caste Caves to get to the last boss.  I think I played for an hour or two... have about 5 essences of random types....  pretty frustating.

I'd like to see the new stuff but I dunno if I have the patience to farm essences from the same ol boring tunnels.

[Jimbo]

Wow, you lived in the wild?  I just went in, saw that the mob was hard as hell and left.  The other dungeon is kinda like this:
Go to the new outdoor area and kill stuff and loot stuff, mobs will be your level and lots of rare and epic mobs there (too many demons though) and some new monsters types.  You can get the new weapons and armor drops in the new outdoor area.  Then there are 4 dungeons inside the new area, one for each type of monster (beast, necro, demon, and spectral), but to get inside that dungeon you need 5 essance of the monsters.  Essance drop of rare, epic, legendary, boss, and named mobs.  The official boards has a chart on what to kill to farm these.  You can go into the dungeon, and kill the boss and get his head.  Now you need all four heads, then take it another dungeon and kill the big boss.  All of this is soloable and repeatable.  It also scales to your level.  I see it as a nice thing to have if you want to grind a level, you can go beat up stuff in stonehenge, get some loot and money, then go about on the main story if you want.

I'm still playing, never had the problems with crashes and stuff, just wish they would do more, especially since I went ahead and bought the founders thingie...  I'll never play hardcore, way too many mobs that can one shot every character except the guardian.

[spiralyguy]

Wow, you lived in the wild?  I just went in, saw that the mob was hard as hell and left.  The other dungeon is kinda like this:

Well... sorta.  I guess I skipped a part of the story.

First time I went into the wilds, I immediatly saw a mob that looked like a Rash clone (Rash is one of the 5 lies at the end, tall guy, blades for arms, teleports around).  Tried to engage that guy and it was going ok until he teleported a ways away and woke up 2 more of his bro's.  The 3 of them basically pushed my face in 

I logged off for about an hour after that.  When I went back in it was a different mob set.  I think I just got lucky spawns, most of the enemies were slow moving ranged attackers or even slower moving giant sized melee mobs (Vast Empryan I think they were called, huge doods, wobbly head, dmg aura).  Since I was playing my marksman all it took was some strafing of projectiles and some kiting of giant sized uber melee mobs and a hell of a lot of shooting.  There's no way I could have killed the melee mobs with my guardian, I would have gotten owned too badly.

[Aez]

Ahh stonehenge.  I went into "The Wild" area for a while.  [...]

I will never understand this, you remind me of Taolurk(something like than anyway).  You talk about this game like it's the deepest pit of hell yet you actually subscribe?  Or did you take the bait on the founder offer and now try to "get back" your money by doing some negative word of mouth on the intarweb?

[Dren]

They added group only content?  Seriously?  Amazing.

They might want to make the game a bit more friendly to people buildling guilds and groups to support such a thing.

As it is now, I'd have to just PUG around for groups every night.  That, to me, is anti-fun.

[Tige]

Heyas Dren.

HG:L could definitely benefit with a decent guild/party management system.  Stonehenge is predominately group play which compounds the problem but I've gotten into Hell's Heart a couple of times solo just for the blue and orange mob drops.  Trying to drop the boss that drops the head is suicide.  Right now I'm starting in nightmare mode with my BM.  At first I thought there would be no way I'd ever get through the first couple of quests but I have to admit I'm becoming a bit of a loot whore which is keeping me logging in.  It's just so damn shiny.   Now that I'm equipped with mostly legendary +att gear it's easier to either equip, break down or sell the stuff I find and move on.  The biggest problem I'm running into is finding really good gear for my marksman but can't get it him due to the lack of mail or shared stash.   

There are still a few things in game that make me cuss like a sailor but I think if the game was released at the point it is at now more people would still be playing.  That sounds a little fanboish but they have made some improvements which allow you to actually focus on the game.  I was in a good p.u.g. last night at St. Pauls hellgate and then later into hell, everyone actually remained visible, did not get kicked out of the party, engineer drones operated as advertised and the lag was a non-issue even with all the effects firing.   

If anyone has a summoner/evoker I have Sydonai's Mantle (breastplate) that I'll trade for the BM or MM equivalent.      

[Dren]

It sounds like they are doing what needs to be done, but it just is too slow for my liking.  At this rate, I'll probably wait to give it a go again until summer perhaps.  Who knows?  That seems like forever away.

I really do want this game to be what it can be.  That's why I even bother coming back here to read.

Although the one big issue I have is that they are seeming to hide all of their improvements behind the subscription.  I WAS going to just keep logging in to see if it was ever at a point to subscribe, so if they continue to do it this way, I'll never see the improvement.  Otherwise, they better advertise and explain what a subscription is going to give me very very well.

[Aez]

They will probably do a "come back" deal,  10 free days of subscription or something like that.

[Phred]

They will probably do a "come back" deal,  10 free days of subscription or something like that.

Appearantly non-subscribers can't get any part of the 1.21 patch and cant l log in without it.

Has there ever been such an example of a previously skilled dev team paying so little attention tp how their original games worked?

[Simond]

Well, if you remove the 'previously skilled' part of the equation there's always Sigil Games. 

[Furiously]

I've been playing in Stonehenge a lot lately, since I finally completed elite mode on my marksman.

It's actually pretty good gameplay for just logging in for 30 minutes and doing something. I definitely think the game is a lot more fun with a full party.

Of course getting the heads and killing the named can be a 2 hour adventure. Talk about a fight you almost get bored during.