Ot: Hellgate London

The lack of variety in the randomly generated levels is the only real problem I have with the game so far. It's not as bad as the official forums make it out to be, but it could be better. Part of the problem is that the London Underground really does all look the same, they captured it's soul crushing mundanity quite well:tongue:

The non random areas are a bit more interesting, particularly Piccadilly circus and a couple of others, though I'd really like a bit more variety in the hellgate areas, a few more non-random areas, and a few more room/tunnel types for the random ones.

The other problems, such as the endless "find x of item" quests I can cope with. The difficulty of getting into the story really isn't helped by the lack of voice acting, but then again I didn't even notice D2s story after a couple of times through the game. The story does pick up a bit in Act 3 as well BTW, its not great, but it's good enough. The chat interface is rubbish ATM too, but they've already posted that they're working on it on the official forums, so hopefully that won't be too much of a wait.

Now I just need to find time to finish Normal, so I can start playing on Elite. 1 and a bit acts to go, so it shouldn't take too long hopefully.
 
So can I run this game?

I have a 1.3GB with 1GB RAM and a 64MB Videocard (I know, I know, im gettin a new one lol). Will this game run on my system?
 
@colony

Agreed, personally I really want to enjoy the game, and so far I've found it quite entertaining when I just follow the main quest, the sidequests are a little too... well boring!

For me at this stage the game is on and off, but playing with a party really does make the game a WHOLE lot better! So if anyone is interested in joining my TS (teamspeak channel) we can party up if you play Shulgoth and quest together or something.

Else message me, I'm 'Arid' on the Shulgoth (US) server.

Joosh :thumbsup:
 
Asmodeous said:
They give you stupid quests such as collecting beer making ingredients, delivering IOU notes, Bottling evil?? and killing boss monsters. The rewards are the same each time, a bit of money, some exp and a pick of an item. D2's quests are far superior as they relate to the storey line and offer differing rewards. HGL literally bombards you with a hundred or so useless quests with little variety.
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I agree with just about everything you said 100% and this little note is the big what are they thinking? Diablo had quest that gave your character bonuses, be it stats, skills, or resistances or life. I was expecting a few in here, but all quest are exactly the same boring nothingness, and you hit the nail on the head with your post.

Nightmare is a wash at this point. I got my engineer to 28, finished normal and Act1 in the Covent Station, every mob is 35, and I heard that end boss is 62. I can kill, but am a glass cannon and know I will not survive in later acts -10 levels. So much for the Diablo2 style of play, you have to grind mid game exclusively(And by grind I mean do more than spend an hour doing Baals at end of Normal and NM, more like 6 or so hours from what I'm reading). I was hoping for about 50, and having to work to get to 50 to complete a character not the game. Just my opinion.



 
When D2 and LOD first came out, how long did it take people to get to the 80s? How ineffective were the first builds? Lots of Strength and Energy, medium Vitality right? Didnt understand all the skills and the best way to use them, didnt find the best items till later.

How long from when LoD came out was the first Hammerdin perfected? And LoD came out how long after the original game came?

Im sayin, give it time.. it might seem like you have to grind a million hours to finish the game, but hell.. in 3 years, you might be able to make a build and twink characters so they beat the final boss on Hell difficulty by level 30 or so :P
 
What disturbs me most - to the point of not spending money on the game - is that the 'random' levels in the demo are completely linear. You start in one end of a street or tunnel, then go to the other end. I had very much hoped for a branching out cityscape, with plenty of opportunities to get lost. Is this happening in the full version?

Another thing is the possible moddability of the game. Will people be able to play multiplayer modded versions? The random premise would give some serious pvp, if the levels are complex enough.
 
I suspect, given how D2 evolved over the course of many patches, that we will see soon enough that Bill Roper and Co. are listening, and have changes in store that will address some of the issues people are having. That said, what remains to be seen is whether those changes will ever affect the SP game, which I'm limited to until someone decides that people in the boonies in upstate NY are allowed to have broadband :rant:
 
Could have guessed it. At least there's no need to upgrade as soon as previously thought. I've heard on the forums that some people have been charged multiple times too. Ouch! Sounds like D2 is everything they've got as far as gameplay goes. Too bad. :sad2:
 
kanonfutter said:
What disturbs me most - to the point of not spending money on the game - is that the 'random' levels in the demo are completely linear. You start in one end of a street or tunnel, then go to the other end. I had very much hoped for a branching out cityscape, with plenty of opportunities to get lost. Is this happening in the full version?
Click to expand...

No, most of them are fairly small, from point A to B and then portal back. A few of the areas are larger and you can get lost if you don't use the automap, but overall not to much. There is levels in levels though, via either secret treasure rooms, secret mini-boss rooms, hellgates and extended hellgates within the hellgates themselves. The best instance area I had was one that had a hellgate with the hellgate within, and also a mini-boss area, with a treasure area within it. All in one instance, although rare, but the totaly clear time took about 30minutes, which is a long time for my engineer.



 
I've tried to get into HGL but i can't. Im highly dissapointed in most of the aspects of the game.

The animations suck big time. They are extremely stiff and weird. All characters in the game look like plastic dolls, the graphics looks very dated. Especially the inventory graphics are extremely ugly.

Some of the effects are also bad. What about the stars swirling around your char when you complete a quest? Actually, alot of the effects and graphics reminds me of independant 3d games. Or professional games from 2002.

I have not met a single intresting NPC so far. I just skip all the dialouge since it sucks. And i HATE the voice acting. It has to be some of the worst voice acting i have ever heard in a game. There is no immersion what so ever. I dont care about the NPC's, i dont care about the quests, i dont care about the story.

I've been playing a summoner. The skills are boring! And i dont even have to use them since the weapons i fidn are extremely more powerfull then my skills. I just blast everything to pieces easily with my big *** tempest rifle.

Talking about skills, there are not very many of them. And some chars even share the same skills, why? From what i've read from various skill descriptions most skills seems rather lame. There are also no synergies. I would really like to see a more advanced skill-tree system and more interesting skills from new game like HGL. But instead they create a skill system that is inferior to the skill system in D2, and that's a 7 year old game.

It just feels like HGL does nothing new, it's the same things we have seen alot of times before, and we have seen it being done alot better. HGL is mediocre in everything it does. I really thought they would take ARPG one step further, instead it takes it one step back. I hope Blizzard will show Flasgship Studios how to make an ARPG when they release Diablo 3. In the meanwhile i will continue to play a 7 year old game that is better then HGL in every aspect.
 
One thing that people don't realize is that hellgate was designed to be changed on the fly. The code isn't static like DII. They could litterally change the entire storyline in a single patch, and claim they intend to. That's why there's a thin feeling to it... the storyline isn't finished. They've already changed NPC dialog and even lost a few of the more "colorful" NPCs. I think we'll see more changes to this game than even in Guildwars.

What we've got is a fun intro to the game, but the bulk of the game will come later.

Most reviewers haven't played the game yet.
 
Well, I returned my copy of HGL to the EB store that I bought it from. If you don't know, EB australia offer a 7 day 100% money back on any game you buy from them so as of now, I am no longer a HGL player.

That isn't to say I have washed my hands off it completely. I bought my copy on the first day and paid a premium price for it. Imho, I'll only pay new release prices for a game that I can fully enjoy right from day one and get my full money's worth. As the game state is atm, I can't do that so I swapped it for a game that I can, Orange box. You can love or hate steam, but you have to admit, I installed the game, let steam auto patch it and played it 4 hours solid with out a single glitch or stammer. Valve can get it right.

I'll play ep2, a bit of D2/LoD and download the usual several gigs of pRon, then hopefully after a couple of months, roper and schaefer will zeal this game into a playable useful game, and then they can get their hands on my money again. Not before.
 
While we're on the subject of futuristic FPS, has anybody played Jericho? Anything by Clive Barker interests me (especially after playing Undying) but most reviews I've read are fairly poor.
 
So, do you get everything in single player that you get in MP? Thats the thing i'd like to know before i get it.
 
WAY less storage space, and fewer characters allowed, also no extended content which they'll develop over time. Item inflation is inevitable in games like this, so after a while people will probably be developing strategies and builds around weapons you cannot get. Worst case scenario: monsters are recalibrated to take into account the ever-godlier weapons and armor in online play, and some of that spills down into offline play and makes single player characters less effective.
 
I'm usually not one to gawk over graphics in the first place, so as long as they aren't outright distracting, I don't care much (keeping in mind I make the occasional visit back to ancient titles, like Master of Orion, FFI, Tecmo Soccer, Doom etc.). I have quite a lot of tolerance for outdated graphics, especially when they have their own style (especially in the case of NIS games). As far as HGL is concerned, graphical cues, while not as sharp and detailed as they could be, generally aid gameplay. For example, I can definitely tell when an enemy is stunned.

I'm a little bit harsher on game sounds, but I think its because my ears don't have enough to do.

Voice acting is not a necessity for me, I can read.

Having gotten on HGL's melee side, I can definitely appreciate some guardian skills, particulary shield bash and shield spin, which can stun one enemy or multiple enemies, respectively. There's a passive bonus down the tree for improving shield skills. I don't think synergies in D2 were necessarily an improvement. The intent was to make use of lower tier skills in higher difficulties, but in most cases what it accomplished was essentially a way of putting more hard points into a skill without raising the actual skill cap. For instance, pumping synergies instead of putting still more points into Blizzard. HGL uses the pre 1.10 model where skills that needed improvement outside of the skill had direct passive masteries. For our hypothetical sorc, cold mastery.

Still, the difficulty in HGL's normal Act I was not impressive, and often normal attacks sufficed.

Other gripes:

Chat interface isn't readily noticeable, and it's a tad clumsy. I have a feeling a lot of players have no idea how to chat.

Wart's Peg Leg is cheap. Best templar weapon for like half the difficulty.

First skill point is already invested, and it may be a skill that is not desired.
(Not counting sprint, but I think giving that skill to each player is a good idea.)

Quest rewards aren't that good usually.

The salvage command has no shortcut to bypass confirmation.

High marks:

Individual loot while adventuring with a group.

Equipment base level upgrades.

Only items your class can use appear in the shop.

Flying monsters.



I'm getting the impression that HGL is farther along in its refinement than when d2 came out and is close to the 1.10 benchmark, and as HGL just came out a week ago, there's definitely room for improvement. I don't mind paying FFS on potential when it's their breakout title and a likely possibility that the development was rushed by higher orders. I know EA games have a habit of needing polish after release.
 
Originally Posted by kanonfutter View Post
What disturbs me most - to the point of not spending money on the game - is that the 'random' levels in the demo are completely linear. You start in one end of a street or tunnel, then go to the other end. I had very much hoped for a branching out cityscape, with plenty of opportunities to get lost. Is this happening in the full version?
Click to expand...
No, most of them are fairly small, from point A to B and then portal back. A few of the areas are larger and you can get lost if you don't use the automap, but overall not to much. There is levels in levels though, via either secret treasure rooms, secret mini-boss rooms, hellgates and extended hellgates within the hellgates themselves. The best instance area I had was one that had a hellgate with the hellgate within, and also a mini-boss area, with a treasure area within it. All in one instance, although rare, but the totaly clear time took about 30minutes, which is a long time for my engineer.
Click to expand...

Less linear maps start showing up later on. They also start to grow a bit. I believe they become bigger in nightmare as well (as they did in D2). I'm not sure if Elite mode does that as well.

So, do you get everything in single player that you get in MP? Thats the thing i'd like to know before i get it.
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Right now... mostly, yes, but eventually, no. Ongoing content is for subscribers only at this time, which is online only. Single player is still getting bug fixes and game re-balances, and all that is available to the free online players. Remains to be seen what is going to be done about this, though. A few ideas were tossed around unofficially, early in beta, but nothing concrete.

The online experience is much better than battle.net imo, though. But even so, I'd like to see the future content in single-player somehow.

There are heaps of problems with the game right now. Most haven't been affecting me, as I haven't been having any of the game ruining bugs that some have. The weak story, and bad immersion isn't really much of an issue for me, because frankly, i wasn't expecting much. I didn't think there was much of a story, or atmospheric immersion in D2. But it could use some attention, to be sure. I would still probably recommend that people hold off a month or two before purchasing the game, as it really does need to work out a host of kinks that hurt the enjoyment of it. It was definitely released pre-maturely.

That said, the key parts of the game... enjoyable combat, items and characters... I think they have accomplished very well indeed. The skills sound rather lackluster a lot of the time in their descriptions, but almost all the ones I've tried have been fun, had neat tactics/uses for them and some depth to them. The descriptions really don't do the skill justice. I'm finding the itemization to be just as enjoyable as it is in D2, if not more so. There's no ridiculous "i'll never find/get it legitimately" runewords, and such. Skillpoints have been implemented better, as well, I think. you don't need 40-80 skill points to make just one or two skill useful (as in 1.10+ D2), often one point suffices, allowing early skill choices to remain useful throughout the game. Usually skill points boost secondary effects, such as use rate (cooldown), power costs, or the strength of status effects attatched to the ability. So it's still worth pumping your main skills, but it isn't absolutely necessary in order to have a skill remotely useful. So there's more forgiveness here. boosts to individual skills on gear is much more common as well, so there is some definite encouragement to experiment, and to not stress too too much about skills. This is further helped by the fact that gear is just as important (and in the cases of some classes more important) to your play style. The weapons and gear you choose affect your play style as much as your skill trees.

The variety of the tilesets really isn't as bad as most people make it out to be. There are nearly as many (if not as many) types as there were in D2. The problem is, that they aren't as heavily contrasted, so it's harder to notice. They tend to blend into each other fairly easily (and in fact, some tilesets do just that in one zone). Also, it is pretty much limited to London. Given that, I think they've done an amazing job. I'm not sure what people are expecting...
Here's my post about it in a thread related to this on the incgamer's HGL forums, goes into a bit more detail: http://hellgate.incgamers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=27611&postcount=10

Truth be told, all in all, I feel better about HG:L's release so far than I did about D2 when it first came out. It wasn't until LoD that it really came into it's own imo. HG:L has potential to become GREAT. they've made some innovations upon the ideas started in the roguelikes and D1 and D2, and it's certainly sucked me in. The bugs and uncertainty of it's future is what is really holding it back atm, but I'm hopeful that things will work out wondrously.
 
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