Is it really what you thought it would be?

[TwIs7eD]

Well I’m definitely not chuffed about Hellgate.

I’ve been following development for about 3 years and well the nicest thing I can say is that I’m pissed at FSS.

Really the game lacks so much, I mean I know its buggy (which it should not be to the degree it is!) I mean I’ve been playing with most the characters and continually get stuck on crates and cars even after the single player 0.4 patch (I know MP has corrected this and other SP problems but no SP patches have been released since) and I’m still getting characters stuck.

(Single Player: You can’t get unique items for your own character but u can make them and find them for every other character but your own and still have no way to transfer the items between characters.)

Half the things that they promised aren’t there example random skill booster quoting bill roper "like a lightning shield spell with added fire damage" it’s not in there nor is some of the abilities that cabalists were supposed to have like transformation, I could go on but its pointless seeing as everyone will just say its coming out in a patch which only subscribers get.

I’m from South Africa (WORST BROADBAND FOR YOUR RAND) and I’ve played online and really there is nothing to write home about, really, nothing! I won’t mention names as everyone already knows which MMO’s are better than HG:L community-wise and I know that its still in development but the game is already out so this shouldn't be in DEVELOPMENT, the game should be solid enough that they don’t have to release massive patches in the first week to correct problems that the beta should have cured like getting stuck, crashing on start up and memory leakage, invisible characters, I mean c'mon seriously I know everyone says “wait for the next patch” but bullshit aside when you first loaded Hellgate and started a character and walked into the first group of zombies there’s a good chance your heart broke a little knowing that a game that had all the potential and hype, fell well short of what you hoped for and what they promised.

Remember when asking for a launch date they said “it’ll be ready when it’s ready” well for a game to generate a community website that actually set up a “planes of sorrow” forum header and to receive so many complaints not just on technical problems or bugs but have people feel betrayed and robbed of money that is the height of negligence.

The online community (namely subscribers) will probably be fine with the gross disregard of service but non-subscribers and single players will feel the brunt of their actions the most.

And on a final note, they like to hype that the game came from the creators of Diablo but the main and most positive thing that Diablo did was create patches that were useful and epic like patch 1.10 (One hundred or more unique items and rune words and skill changes – synergies, and 1.11 more free rune words and unique items FOR FREE!!! For Single Player and Multiplayer alike! They cared about every customer and tried to help with every problem as it came and the biggest factor the game wasn’t buggy the only problem with it everyone felt was the graphics could have been better!

[XenPhobia]

Not even close. FSS has let me down by such a great deal. There was no indication (unless you played the beta) that the game would end up a boring MMO ARPG hybrid. And not even a good one at that. They should not have tried to mix those two games together, not to mention the 'optional subscription' mess. Both parties feel ripped off. One will get too much while the other doesn't get enough.

Oh and should I mention vague skills / damage / minigame, along with the worst levels and repetition I've seen in the last five years in any game. No variety in anything, Act one to act five looks all the same. No atmosphere, no story at all. The goofiest thing I've ever seen. I was expecting an epic tale of survivors trying to make it past the horrors of 'the burn' while trying desperately to find food, shelter, and supplies. You know what I would have done with the acts? Here ya go:

Act 1: You're a new recruit sent in to the almost vacated part of the city. The people in the station tell you of shulgoth and the museum. Perhaps the museum holds access to a tunnel leading to the main city, and shulgoth blocks your path, not to mention the amount of people he's killed.

Act 2: Tunnels and sewers, until the main station. They are running out of food, and they need you to go into the city and find others for help, as the station is in disrepair. You head to a mall after many large lots and neighborhoods. You fight off hordes of zombies and then a corrupted Templar.

Act 3: Another station, which needs many medical supplies. You go to a very large abandoned hospital (dark moody atmosphere). After that, you go off to kill a minion of Sydonai, a summoner. He's opening up a Hellgate in a large graveyard.

Act 4: Landmarks and giant battles all the way up to London Tower to fight off an attack from one of Sydonai's main minions, Abbadon.

Act 5: Hellish London, hell with pools of lava, corrupted churches, and then the St Paul's Hellgate. (Edit) And all throughout the game, that girl in the beginning (is her name Lyra?) helps you and gives you info on Sydonai.

You see how much better that would be?

[TwIs7eD]

Look story wise i knew it would not be like a great book or film but, play wise i hoped for a lil more. Tilesets is one thing, i just get a lil upset comparing it to D2 cos its not the same i know but mainly enviroment wise the game lacks.

As for single player i hoped for a lil more fun finding uniques and the hunt for gear but i find myself getting board. Not getting some of the things that interested me like the instances of random quests, it just dosent happen in single player, thats one main reason i bought the game

if you could ask my friends they will all tell you that this was #1 on my most wanted list, but, i dont want to be dissapointed but i am. I was really rooting for this game, I even got my Dad a copy cos he only plays D2 and before that D1 and he just cant engauge with it on the same level.

I know the game is not part of the diablo franchise but i think we can all agree that we all thought it would make the grade and rest our copies of diablo

well im tired i dont want to rant which i have (srry) but plz consider the customers grievences we actually have the best at heart for HG:L really there is potential just make it the way you said you would(tall order or not?)

[Spearthrower]

One of the biggest things to learn from this... is never... NEVER look forward to a game!! :D You'll invariably be disappointed! ;)

Hype is such a counter-productive thing!

I agree with some things that you said, disagree with other parts. Some of it, I am not sure quite what you were expecting, but whatever it was doesn't necessarily reflect badly on this game as you just don't seem to like this sub-genre - that can't be helped. Some parts of what you said are spot on for a lot of people.

As it stands, try to get what you can from it - enjoy the bits you can, then if you are bored, shelve it and play something else. Maybe in a few months you will come back and be pleasantly surprised thanks to patching in the meantime.

Btw, I am also a SP player - and thanks to having the Asian retail version, I don't even have a patch yet.... so don't think that I don't empathise! ;)

[Ave]

Just to address some points which i fell shouldnt remain here without some form of other opinion to counter them.

And to give you some background i played D1 and D2 on release right up to patch 1.10 so i too have followed this like you.


Really the game lacks so much, I mean I know its buggy (which it should not be to the degree it is!) I mean I’ve been playing with most the characters and continually get stuck on crates and cars even after the single player 0.4 patch (I know MP has corrected this and other SP problems but no SP patches have been released since) and I’m still getting characters stuck.

(Single Player: You can’t get unique items for your own character but u can make them and find them for every other character but your own and still have no way to transfer the items between characters.)

The getting stuck thing i dont get, someone else complained of this, and honestly hand on heart im on act 2 NM and have been stuck like twice in the whole game. Maybe thats a SP issue, im not sure.
And the uniques well again that isnt an issue MP. I appreciate that you dont want to play MP but you must accept that for a few months while they get the game more sorted (i know they should have done already but they didnt for whatever reasons no point banging our heads against that wall) that SP will lag a patch or two behind MP, im sure in not too long when they are more about balancing and adding content that SP will catch up but currently resolving the MP stability issues some people still have are their priority.


I’m from South Africa (WORST BROADBAND FOR YOUR RAND) and I’ve played online and really there is nothing to write home about, really, nothing! I won’t mention names as everyone already knows which MMO’s are better than HG:L community-wise and I know that its still in development but the game is already out so this shouldn't be in DEVELOPMENT, the game should be solid enough that they don’t have to release massive patches in the first week to correct problems that the beta should have cured like getting stuck, crashing on start up and memory leakage, invisible characters, I mean c'mon seriously I know everyone says “wait for the next patch” but bullshit aside when you first loaded Hellgate and started a character and walked into the first group of zombies there’s a good chance your heart broke a little knowing that a game that had all the potential and hype, fell well short of what you hoped for and what they promised.

Ive played quite a few MMOs and game wise this beats all of them for fun, community needs time, same with any online game, cant fault it for that.
The memory leak is a thorny issue and too big to discuss here, but i sort of agree it should have been sorted earlier. Invisble characters is cured by some quick rezoning and is gone in next patch apparently, getting stuck isnt that big an issue imo as i said above. Crashes on startup is more than likely hardware compatability problems which all games suffer on release and are a minority, very few people are unable to play.
And no i wasnt dissapointed, quite the opposite i loved it even early on.

Remember when asking for a launch date they said “it’ll be ready when it’s ready” well for a game to generate a community website that actually set up a “planes of sorrow” forum header and to receive so many complaints not just on technical problems or bugs but have people feel betrayed and robbed of money that is the height of negligence.


Thats way over the top man. Who knows why they released it on Halloween, business reasons undoubtedly, you dont really think the devs wanted these headaches do you. But the planes of sorrow was set up to contain all complaints in a decent place and leave general for game chat, all MMO game forums could use one, i came from Guild Wars last which is hugely susseful but at least 30% of the posts you read are whines, its human nature. And to suggest theyve been negligent is just overplaying it, they haven't, they released a game with some technical issues which didnt meet some peoples expectations, you obviously never played EVE on release my god that was 1 million times worse than this, my character got nerfed every other day with skill fiddling, there were no missions to speak of at all, all you could do was shoot other players buy stuff and mine, that was it. And yet a year on its a thriving decent game. And thats just one example ive experienced let alone the other 300+ mmo which must exist around the world.


The online community (namely subscribers) will probably be fine with the gross disregard of service but non-subscribers and single players will feel the brunt of their actions the most.

And on a final note, they like to hype that the game came from the creators of Diablo but the main and most positive thing that Diablo did was create patches that were useful and epic like patch 1.10 (One hundred or more unique items and rune words and skill changes – synergies, and 1.11 more free rune words and unique items FOR FREE!!! For Single Player and Multiplayer alike! They cared about every customer and tried to help with every problem as it came and the biggest factor the game wasn’t buggy the only problem with it everyone felt was the graphics could have been better!

They have already compensated online non-subs with full 24 slots, and theyve said that tilesets will be added to the main free game in time. They promised nothing more unless you sub. SP ok, granted, lacking right now but it will catch up with MP.

And to compare D2 patch 1.10 to a game 1 month after launch is not only silly but unfair. That was like 4 years odd after its release, and on release it was nowhere near as good as it ended up after 5 years and 1 expansion, nowehere near, it took them about 6months + for every patch they added of any note, if all goes to plan FSS will have (by Jan 2008) released 5 patches and 1 content update, which is a damn good effort.

Basically if you dont like the game, fine thats your taste and i cant change that. But the game is nowhere near as bad as you suggest, in fact i think its bloody marvellous.

[TwIs7eD]

Ave, good points.

I do see the merit in your comments and may have been a little harsh.

Don't get me wrong, I like the setting and hopefully there will be another good patch for single player around christmas to make it a little better.

yes the game is buggy and I'll have to wait for a patch to fix this pesky little problem (sticking) but until then its a restart every hour or so.
Also i managed to finnish the game with a hunter but had loot stuck in a rock that i could not get(that really peeved me off) legendary or unique i'll never know.

as for the beggining of the game, it just diddnt feel scary enough or like the character was desperate, which understandbly is almost expected from RPGs there supposed to be story driven but usally got the cheesest stoylines. It did pick up much later (the pace of the game) but still just misses what i hoped for namely the instances (one major reason i bought the game) so i wouldn't just get bored of the same quests like in diablo.

as for the "ready when its ready" remark, i firmly believe that they wanted to release when it was done but i fear they either A- were strapped for cash and need to boost their resources B- pressure of looming X-mas overflow of games (competition).

I know most forum sites have a C&G area yet I found it rather funny that the majority of posts where about disapointment(POLLs even) and people asking if flagship bit off more than they could chew, though, again I will apologise in the heat of the moment and due to it being 4:00 in the morning i may have ranted a lil which i can see.

and as for what we get for SP/Non-S no one really said what exactly was gonna land on either side of the fence

Ive said before i followed the game for about 3 years ,hell, i worked on the actual underground as a plate-layer/driver, i worked at the stations in the game, during that time last year I remember most of the posts on flagship follower and hellgate guru with the interviews saying that x,y and z things would be in the game it was also said that the SP would get the full game and on going content (like diablo, they mentioned that enough times) and subers would get a premium service.

and as for saying that comparing D2 5 years on to hellgate is unfair let me ask you this :

Did Diablo 2 not better in almost all aspects of Diablo 1 when it was released?
Did not The Elder Scrolls IV better ESIII is every apect?
Does Assasins Creed not better Prince of Persia in every aspect?

See where im going?

when you make a new game it is to improve on it's predecesors and create a product that stands apart from the rest that has more functionallity and enhanced mechanics, this is the point of new games to create more appeal

if it were not this way we would still be sitting in our living rooms playing pong or mario bros

but thats just my opinion

[backfir3]

@the OP:

The only thing that will ruin this game for me is failure to keep up with their current promises.

All claims made before the release of any major title are subject to so many variables that they're always a gamble. Some win out, others do not. Whatever the reason this retailed early IDC, the core of this game is so much more fun than any other MMO I've ever played. And I've played a lot

What's gone before I couldn't care less about and neither should you. There's no use crying over history. Instead focus on the fact that the patches are coming thick and fast and what the content scheduled for december promises.

FSS may have screwed up, but they seem to be working very hard to fix a game they (and many of us) obviously care about. Since retail it's been up and up, concentrate on that or just uninstall. There is absolutely nothing good for you about your current mindset.

[Asuka Kazama]

Marketing I'm sure, if they had waited until mid November the publicity would have been drowned out by CoD4, Mass Effect etc...

[Ave]

yes the game is buggy and I'll have to wait for a patch to fix this pesky little problem (sticking) but until then its a restart every hour or so.
Also i managed to finnish the game with a hunter but had loot stuck in a rock that i could not get(that really peeved me off) legendary or unique i'll never know.

On these points just a couple of things.

Is there not an '/unstuck' feature (i think thats the code) in SP ?
I dont play sp so im not sure but in MP that returns you to start of the level from wherever you are.
And the Sydonia loot issue is well known and indeed crappy :)
First time i got there Sydonia fell through the floor and i had to redo the entire thing, which was irritating to say the least.
A good way of avoiding this is to make sure when you kill him hes in open ground and not over any of those annoying outcrops of rock.

For the rest of your post i see you points but i still dont think the D2 comparison is valid. If theyd made D3 and it had been worse than D2 then fair enough, but this isnt and never was going to be D3, its a new beast entirely.

[Spearthrower]

No /unstuck in SP - but really, compared to MP it happens very very rarely. I've seen it maybe once in SP with a lot of play.... but countless times in MP with very little play.

[the_wolf]

It's kinda like what I thought it would be. With a few missing pieces here and there.

[Hannya]

No /unstuck in SP - but really, compared to MP it happens very very rarely. I've seen it maybe once in SP with a lot of play.... but countless times in MP with very little play.

There IS "unstuck" feature - I use it constantly, as being stuck in unlikely places happens a lot to me. It goes simply:

/stuck

After few seconds wait (paralysed and unable to defend - a bad thing, easy to die in the meantime) you teleport to the start of the level, and get additional bonus of fighting for your life against all the respawned monsters.

Never ever played online, so I'm positive it works in SP.

{Edit} And to stay marginally on topic - yes, it is more or less what I expected. This might be because I wasn't really expecting anything (lost interest after reading somewhere it's going to be MMOG - I'm SP exclusive - and only bought the game after playing the demo). It's a good game - perhaps not an all - time classic, but still good. The bugs don't really bother me that much (not many bug-free new games these days...), the final verdict in my case depends largely on the quality of support we get.

The fact SP mode seems to get no real attention is starting to get on my nerves a little though...

[Slimgrand]

Well, the story is good... The idea is good... But the point is, they can do so much more with it than they have so far, but im hoping they will! :)

such as, more items, more drops, more items in general, more classes...and so on :)

[Darksaber]

I thought it would be pretty much like it was. Im finding that the enjoyment is coming with a bit of perserverance.

Playing through the first time, I was very keen to finish the game for the story - I was disappointed with the story when I finished.

Now playing through nightmare, its a lot more fun. Im hooked on the mini game, enjoying the environments, experimenting with weapons and enjoying the experience.

Remember the D2 patch 1.10 came out like 18 months after the game was released, if not later...

[Spearthrower]

There IS "unstuck" feature - I use it constantly, as being stuck in unlikely places happens a lot to me. It goes simply:

/stuck

After few seconds wait (paralysed and unable to defend - a bad thing, easy to die in the meantime) you teleport to the start of the level, and get additional bonus of fighting for your life against all the respawned monsters.

Never ever played online, so I'm positive it works in SP.



Hmmm it must be a patch thing then because I have a SEA version of the game - SP is still on retail patch for us and this doesn't work for me! Sorry for the confusion! :D

[Ave]

such as, more items, more drops, more items in general, more classes...and so on :)

All planned, be patient....

Remember the D2 patch 1.10 came out like 18 months after the game was released, if not later...

Try 3 years +
I think it may have even been 5....

[Hannya]

(...) I have a SEA version of the game - SP is still on retail patch for us (...)

Ouch. And I thought WE had a rough deal...