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The Massively Guide to the Hellgate: London Mini-game
When I was reading the Patch 0.5 notes, I came across a couple of items about the Mini-game. I bought Hellgate: London the day after it came out and have been playing ever since. I even looked at the very small manual. I knew nothing about the Mini-game. Questions to friends produced the same results. What Mini-game?I found nothing official on their website, but I did find a couple of posts on the forums that describe the Mini-game. (If you don't have a Hellgate: London account, you are unable to read the forums.) MSKoSSK summarizes the game and Nocktis has a handy printable cheatsheet. I have further investigated the game and researched the icons, so after the jump, you will find the Massively Guide to the Hellgate: London Mini-game.
IAHGames to implement Patch 0.1 for Hellgate: London
IAHGames have just announced that they will be going ahead with plans to patch Hellgate: London with Patch 0 and Patch 0.1 in just a few hours, starting at 9AM Thursday, Hong Kong time. The whole maintenance process (if all goes well) will take 10 hours, and will run until 5PM Hong Kong time. This will be the first time the servers have run post-beta code, and while we've been assured that Flagship Studios have found a way to convert the characters in the Asia-Pacific region to the production system, we're really not certain what the results will be, exactly.
Patch 0.5 for Hellgate: London coming tomorrow
The Hellgate: London servers will be down tomorrow, November 20th, from 9am to 11am PST to implement Patch 0.5.I'm very excited about the new patch because the game as is has some cumbersome bugs and clunky features. One bugfix that will not be in tomorrow's patch is the Invisible Party Members bug, though they do have some solutions for this and promise it for the next patch. I have not noticed this bug because, like our Soloist, I tend to play alone.Some differences between previously published patch notes and the new official ones are: Because the Guy Fawkes event is ending, there is some more information about "Fawkes Force Five" They are no longer adding an automatic reset to the Minigame, which means the people who were upset about that (which included me) will be much happier. Full patch notes are after the jump.
Patch 0.5 coming next week for Hellgate: London
The people at Flagship Studios have announced that patch 0.5 for Hellgate: London is moving to the test servers and, if enough goes well, they will be releasing it sometime next week. They invite everyone with a U.S. account to help test the new patch this weekend. They've even copied all of our characters over for us.(You're right, the picture has nothing to do with the post. But, seriously, isn't that a great pet name? Khaaaan!)Some highlights for the new patch are:Increased character slots: You no longer have to be a subscriber to get 24 character slots. I think this is a very good change. 3 character slots is embarrassingly few.Chat interface improvements: Thank the gods! How did the current chat system ever get into the "final" build? It stinks in a way that only a trip to the dump can approximate. The chat window is no longer going to cover up other menus (this really should have been a showstopper) and will be open by default when logging into Multiplayer. You'll be able to see whispers in all tabs. Whispers and Admin announcements will automatically open the chat window. It looks like we'll finally have something we can use.Many Quest fixes: My favorite will be the ability to complete an interrupted side quest. There is nothing like running around trying to figure out if I missed something or if it is just another bug. After going through a zone 4 times, I did discover that the rare and legendary/epic mobs have a higher chance of spawning and dropping fun gear. I guess they like to reward the stubbornly optimistic.Full patch notes are after the jump.
Hellgate: London (Asia Pacific) service collapse
IAHgames reports that HellGate: London (Asia-Pacific region) went down at 8:50PM Hong Kong time (about an hour and a half ago) - reason unknown. The operations team spotted the outage and were on the job within a half hour, and are now attempting to determine the cause and bring operations back up. All we know at this time is that this seems to be more than just the login services failure experienced a couple of days ago. It's Friday night in the Asia-Pacific region - not a good time for a mass service outage (actually there isn't a good time for a mass service outage). At present there's no word on how long before the game is expected to come back up. [Update: 10:15PM Hong Kong time - The service is back up, but the cause of the outage is as yet unknown]
IAHgames announces no Hellgate character wipe
IAHgames took their time getting a fresh announcement out today, saying that teleconferences ran overtime, but it's just come through in the last few minutes. The word is no character wipe for Hellgate: London in the Asia-Pacific region. The engineers at Flagship Studios have apparently found a way to migrate from the pre-production (beta) character system to the production (patch0 and later) character system without wiping everything clean. The problem is pinned on the Asia-Pacific region going live 'simultaneously' with the USA servers. Actually, because they're on the Western side of the dateline, they went live the day before the USA, essentially running beta software.
All your tomorrows
IAHGames, you may recall, pushed off the planned Hellgate: London character wipe and downtime and were going to make an announcement 'tomorrow'. Well, today now is tomorrow, and the announcement just got made. Apparently, the announcement is: We're making our announcement tomorrow. We are also additionally thanked for our patience - which might come as some cold comfort to those of you wondering how long before your characters get wiped - or even if they will be. It looks like IAHGames might be trying to find ways to avoid deleting the character database. If they are, I wish they'd just say so - even if they ultimately don't succeed. The new, new announcement is scheduled for 1PM Hong Kong time tomorrow. We'll be waiting. Patiently, as they say.
IAHGames postpones Hellgate: London Patch0
IAHGames has abruptly postponed the implementation of patch0 for the Asia-Pacific Hellgate: London servers a scant 90 minutes before implementation. This maintenance would have seen the servers down for eight hours and all characters wiped completely. IAHGames has not offered any explanation for the sudden postponement, but apparently there will be a new announcement on Tuesday Hong-Kong time. We don't know if they've found a way to proceed without wiping the characters, or if the wipe is going ahead anyway. We'll be watching and will keep you informed, as soon as there's more news to hand.
Hellgate: London extends Founder's Offer
Like Pirates of the Carribbean Online, Flagship Studios has extended their Founder's Offer for Hellgate: London. Previously the Founder's offer ended this month, but has now been extended until the end of the year.What is the Founder's Offer? For $149.99 you can have a lifetime subscription to Hellgate: London. What's the catch? You have to have pre-ordered the game in order to be eligible for the offer.Well, there are other catches, too. The game is patched daily and is far buggier than anything with the name Diablo was at this stage. Who knows if they're going to have to extend character wipes to more than Asia. Also, as much as I loved Diablo 2, I only played it for a couple months as did most of my friends. I'm not sure that they are going to offer enough content in Hellgate: London to warrant spending a minimum of 15 months-worth of subscription fees.Are you a Hellgate: London Founder? Do you think it's worth it?
Hellgate: London - character wipe for Asia
After some general issues worldwide, and some bonus issues with the Asian rollout particularly, Hellgate: London players in the Asia-Pacific region are in for a bit of a shock. Come Monday at Noon Hong Kong time (GMT+8), all characters are to be wiped completely from the Asian Hellgate: London servers. Been having fun with your character? You have a few hours more to say goodbye to it before you lose it.
Flagship addresses the subscription issue, finally
Yesterday all hell broke loose in the billing department at Flagship Studios. Now they are responding to the subscription debacle with Hellgate: London and trying their best to calm everyone down. According to the Flagship, the issue arose with 3% of subscribers, and they are working around the clock to fix the problem. What exactly was said problem? Only the fact that those canceling their subscriptions to the game were losing all the content they paid for immediately, instead of at the end of the month.Yes, it's a top priority, getting this ironed out, but I am more concerned about the supposed response to the forum posts created about the problems yesterday. As some players were reporting the issue, their posts were being deleted without so much as an explanation. Now, it's hard for us to verify this, since the Hellgate: London forums are private, which is in and of itself sort of odd. But if the poop hits the fan again, will they start deleting before they start dealing? It all sounds a little suspicious to me.
Under The Hood: Pseudo-MMOs, Part One
The world of MMO-making is more and more competitive by the hour, with many big-name developers throwing their hats into the MMO development ring as time goes on. But where does this leave us? Are all of these games requiring subscription fees? Will I be left out in the street playing Star Trek Online because I'm paying hundreds a month in fees? Not if the "pseudo-MMO" has anything to do with it.The pseudo-MMO is a game which is similar to an MMO, but lacks things that an MMO often has, such as subscription fees, a truly massive environment (as opposed to a very large environment), a centralized server, or non-instanced zones. They aren't "real" MMOs, but they come very, very close. By offering persistent worlds, large amounts of players on a server at any one time, and sometimes even single-player, these doppelgangers can capture the "feel" of an MMO without (or with, in some cases!) a subscription fee. So let's walk down the list.
Hellgate: London, demons in the system
Just a warning to those of you with an active Hellgate: London subscription, or those considering getting one. The moment you unsubscribe to the service, all subscription benefits are terminated instantly -- regardless of how long your subscription was due to last.The cancellation page warns you this will happen immediately, but it's still annoying those who have encountered it.As one of our tipsters put it: "so in reality you aren't paying for one month of subscription time, you can't cancel and still play out the month you PAID for, they cut you out at the instant you unsubscribe". That means it's entirely possible to start a monthly subscription one day, unsubscribe the next, 27 days deleted from your account. Is this "fair game" to you, and just count the days manually before you cancel? Or more than a little discourteous? To me, if you pay for a month, you should get a month -- no exceptions. On the back of the recent billing problems, this doesn't make HG:L the most user-friendly of launches. Or the smoothest.Has this affected any Massively.com readers?[Thanks, RandomEngine & Anonymous!]
Massively's massive giveaways: Hellgate: London
Hellgate: London hit retail shelves last week, providing all of us with some great old-school Diablo-esque gaming goodness. And for day seven of our massive series of giveaways, we want to give you a copy of Hellgate: London -- so if you've been unfortunate enough not to have a chance to try it out, now's your chance to give the game a spin on our dime! All you have to do for a chance to take home a copy of this fine game is leave a comment on this post (please, just one!) between now and 12:00 PM EST tomorrow (that's Friday, November 9th, for those of you keeping score at home). We'll pick three commenters at random to receive a copy of Hellgate: London. To be eligible to enter, you must be a US resident of age 18 or older -- and please check our official rules for full details. And remember, be sure to check our giveaway page for other great prizes!
Hellgate: London subscription problems
Hellgate: London subscribers are reporting that they're being double billed for subscriptions to the online game, says Shacknews. Apparently not everyone has been double-billed, but some subscribers report that even after being charged the subscription doesn't show up in their account. It's not clear just how many users have been affected by either issue. The support forum thread has grown - err - massively (so to speak) though you have to log in to see it. Memory leaks, subscription problems, regional management issues and so forth - Is this just all part and parcel of getting rid of the new-car smell on an MMO, or do you personally think developers should be trying harder?
Hellgate: London class overview
I am having a blast playing Hellgate: London, but it took me a while to sort through the different classes and choose one for playthrough. After dabbling with them all, I have settled on the Summoner as my current favorite. Following is a very general breakdown of the different classes to help you choose which one to try.The TemplarsThese are the melee classes. They have some good survivability skills, especially when surrounded by mobs.Guardians: This is the standard tank class -- sword, shield, the best armor, etc. They can also do a decent amount of melee damage and can acquire a healing aura at level 2 which heals the Guardian more as the number of mobs attacking increases.Blademaster: DPS Melee. If you like dual wielding blades, the Blademaster is your class. They can also carry shields if you like and get auras of their own like the Guardians.
Hellgate: Petition - IAHGames demonic?
Keen Hellgate: London player, Paul Chor, has put together a petition to Bill Roper and Flagship Studios, asserting that IAHGames (responsible for servers in the South-East Asian regions) are screwing things up. "Patch 0 has been delayed; whilst there are explanations on why it have been, there is no official ETA on its deployment." There's a list of complaints, including potentially game-unbalancing changes, vague and unhelpful community management, delays and fears that all of this will lead to the region being the poor cousin, poor sales, and a disaffected community. "The company is resorting to potentially harmful stop-gap measures, such as just raising the level cap to 50, but not implementing patch 0." Ultimately, the (so far) 31 signatories want better management for the region and a review of IAHGames operations and policies by Flagship Studios.
The Digital Continuum: Don't Fear The Re: Console
Massively Multiplayer Online Games have always been the slaves to their PC masters, rarely able to exist on anything other than the PC platform. That isn't to say there haven't been partial attempts in the past such as Final Fantasy XI, but since launch that game has been developed for three different platforms including the PC. Developers still have yet to create a console MMOG that becomes as financially successful as some of the more popular PC titles. In all reality, it still remains easier to make and maintain MMOGs for PCs. The reason MMOG developers find creating and sustaining their games on the PC easier is the very problem with a console exclusive. When creating any Massively Multiplayer Online Game for the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 that problem happens to be that as advanced as those consoles are they do not offer the flexibility of a PC. A large part of Blizzard's longterm success with World of Warcraft comes from the depth of the community tools and game customization. It's the wonderful ability to alter your user interface and the incredibly addicting habit of alt-tabbing back and forth from game window, forum posts or online game guides. I'm personally unable count the number of times I've been playing City of Heroes windowed while listening to various albums, simultaneously browsing news, guild forum posts or maybe just checking my email. You may be able to get a browser onto your PS3 and you might manage custom music on both the 360/PS3 but in the end would it be as easy as a keystroke to flip back and forth between both of those functions?
Hellgate: London 0.1 patch today at 6-9am pst
You would think London 2038 would have no lag, but so far, the future could use some upgrades: there's bugs; memory fits; extreme imbalances; demons that eat other demons, who knows? Hell isn't always pretty, but someone must be answering some prayers since the developers aren't candy arsin' around and getting down to business before they lose it. The servers are coming down between 6-9AM PST to make way for the 0.1 patch. It's always possible the server may blowup when the patch goes live and there is a little forewarning in effect that one server may be up before the other or the patch will require extended downtime. It happens, anyone remember Diablo 2's release? I'm still losing sleep over that. The biggest problem a few of my voraciously addicted Hellgate: London friends had over the weekend was their computer becoming exhausted from memory leaks. I do not recommend pouring water on your computer in an attempt to alleviate said exhaustion -- I bet someone tried it. One interesting part to this morning's patch is that subscribers are already getting exclusive content in the form of Guy Fawkes Day: A remembrance holiday still celebrated in England, celebrating Guy Fawkes' failure to assassinate King James I in what became known as the Gunpowder Plot. Yo b, them be crazy times in 1605, a history lesson for those not in the know. This exclusive content for fancy pants "subscribers" is ticking off the "free-grazers" who believe there are plenty o' bugs that need to be fixed first. I think Hellgate: London should implement a new in-game holiday, the day the battle for the Hellgate: London haves and the have-nots began. In case you want to avoid the official forums I got the full patch notes after the jump. Look them over, free your mind, roleplay, or tell us how your Hellgate: London weekend went.
The Daily Grind: WRUP?
Our good friends over at Xbox 360 Fanboy have an awesome weekly feature that we're planning to steal from them for Massively. It's called WRUP, which stands, in a cool, acronymic way, for "What are you playing?," and it's just a weekly question of what their readers (and soon, you readers) are putting their game time into each week.It'll probably officially start up this coming Thursday or Friday, but for this Sunday morning Daily Grind discussion, I'll kick it off-- what are you going to be playing this week in terms of MMOs? Me, I've been rolling on EVE Online lately-- my (now former) corp just got flooded with war declarations, so I split from them earlier this week, and I plan to use the newfound peace and quiet to get some good mining and skill training done. I was also thinking of jumping into Hellgate: London, but the reviews haven't been as great as I'd hoped, so I may just fall back on WoW and try pushing my 68 rogue the final stretch to 70.What are you playing this week, and what goals in those games are you aiming for?
