Hellgate: London

[Noah]

For those of you that doesn't know: The Blizzard team that created Diablo left Blizzard and joined Flagship Studios. They've been working on something that's supposed to be very much like a Diablo 3, except that name is copyrighted to Blizzard. This game is to be considered as a sequel to the Diablo series.

I've been very hyped about this, preordered it to get access to beta, with 15 days to go to release.

Because of an extremely strict NDA-agreement, I can't go in details at all. So far, there's something missing and wrong with almost every aspect of the game. However, it has a very good Diablo feel to it, and the concept of its mechanics are good, but as I said, it lacks MONTHS of polish. If this were Alpha with 6 months left to first announced release, I wouldn't worry, but right now, I doubt that this game will be remotely close to ready.

[Kim]

No! It's going to be great!

I'm just disappointed I can't pre-order and get the beta tryout because I'm from Canada =(

[Worr]

It had better be awesome. I'm really looking forward to this one.

[Stabwound]

It's bullshit that you have to pay a monthly fee or you get a gimped game. Fuck that.

[Dameon Angell]

Monthly fee? Well, I'm out.

[Liquid Blue]

Come on guys, what about the immersive experience they promise?

[Dameon Angell]

It was good until you said "monthly fee". Especially for an unfinished product. They expect us to pay $50 for it too? lol.

[Ewan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate:_London#Pricing

[Dameon Angell]

Ahh, so you pay to not be nerfed, gotcha. Classy.

[Noah]

Update:

As I said before the NDA prevents me from going into details.

They patched the game today, and it made a huge difference. Most of the big lame bugs got squashed. Right now this game is worth buying. As I said in the initial post, the Diablo feeling is very much present, and now the bugs aren't there to destroy that.

Paying ~10$ per month for this game? Very much worth it.

I'll update this thread with details once the NDA is lifted, I do NOT want to lose this Beta!

Edit: Just want to have this said, the crafting system is amazing. Innovative, but it's not hard to see the link to Diablo.

[Dameon Angell]

$5 and a beta account on the line would state that nobody playing Hellgate London, who would care about you talking about the beta, would find this and then ban you and sue you.

[Noah]

Yeah, I know, but I don't mind following the rules.

Another thing about the payment. Paying for online games is a good thing, since your money is spent on improving the game you play. 10$ per month is a piss in the ocean for everyone who isn't flat broke.

It's better to let the players choose if they want to pay for more functionality or not, WoW forces everyone to pay. As far as I see it, optional > forced.

[Noah]

NDA has been lifted!

This means I can tell you everything.

The crafting system is BRILLIANT! Like in Diablo, you get randomly generated weapons, with randomly generated properties and randomly modable sockets.

You can disassemble everything you don't need into several different components. You get more components with higher level items/quality. Those parts can then be spent on either:

a) Upgrade the ilevel of an item/weapon. Basically changes the stats from a level x sword to a level x +1 sword. (Level 5 to level 6), and adds that to the damage and properties of the item. This way, you can keep a really cool weapon for a long time if you care to upgrade it.

b) There's a vendor that shows you have to make different items! You can make anything from enchanted (level 1) to legendary (level 3) through her. She has around 6-7 items that is in the same category (mod items, swords, 1h guns). This gives you a pretty neat selection of items, since you can choose to craft anything she has in stock, and her stock gets refreshed every tenth minute, or for each time you zone in. This costs you components, and the big legendary stuff costs you much, but still affordable.

This way, everyone wins, and can get gear suited for their unique stat/talent build.

You can also at any time put mod items into items with socket slots, to get some whooping upgrades for your weapons.

Mods can either be crafted with components or found in instances (everywhere you fight).

AND you can add entirely new properties to the weapons, retaining the old ones as well for good old money. You can even lash out alot of cash to get legendary properties! (You just pay for it to get a property, like all of Diablo, this is random).

The loot drops all over the place, but since you want to get as specialized gear as possible, you'll be able to finely craft/trade your way to your ideal non-set gear.

It's fucking brilliant. You can trade with other players with ease, to further extend the possibilities of what items you get offered.

I bet it sounds easy to get good gear, and in one way it is, a fun way. However, if you take efforts in searching for IDEAL weapons and mods for your build, you still have to quite a bit of work for it.

[Stabwound]

Hopefully the additions you get for the $10/month are pirateable (yes, I made up a word)... but I doubt it.

[Noah]

The only ones who needs to pay that is those who wants to have more than 3 characters. I generally never use many char slots, I just make a main and an alt.

Also, if you want higher difficulty after beating the game you can get both elite and hardcore modes unlocked.

However, it's so little, and what you pay will be invested back into new content/patches for the game.