stonehenge-chronicles
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Sweeping changes to Hellgate: London in Abyss Chronicles
Hell is about to get even hotter, as Flagship Studios prepares to unleash fresh content for Hellgate: London. Our sister blog Big Download has some posted new screenshots of the upcoming Abyss Chronicles for HG:L, as well as info on the 2.0 and 2.1 updates to the title. Patch 2.0 will be Hellgate: London's second major content update, and brings with it a host of new features and changes to the game. The build is likely to go live on the Test Server in the next week, but until then, here's Big Download's breakdown of the 2.0 changes: A new quest line that covers the spread of the Abyss through Parliament Square and the survivors' efforts to fight back A major rebalancing of the Blademaster class A complete PvP overhaul, including achievements, rankings, rewards, and a new CTF team gametype Changes to the Shared Stash, such as a separate pane for each difficulty Addition of two new trinket slots for players to add rings and such to their characters An attribute respec NPC that allows players to remove points from an attribute for a fee-per-point Three new skills for each class A consignment house (read: auction house) where players can sell stuff to other players without direct trading Beyond rolling out The Abyss Chronicles with 2.0, the next area Flagship Studios is focusing on is PvP through Patch 2.1. The patch will 'open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London' by introducing five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture the Flag. The end result is what Flagship describes as 'a robust PvP experience.'
Hellgate: London giveths and takeths away
Flagship Studios announced some changes to Hellgate: London in the form of Patch 1.3b, which should resolve issues with the ill-fated Patch 1.3a. Indeed, the month of May has turned out to be HellPatch: London for Flagship and HG: L fans, with the patches even being patched. Some players who logged into the Test Server recently found that their characters were gone and, fearing the worst, assumed (incorrectly) that a character wipe had taken place. This was not the case at all; a Test Center database crash was the culprit, and a restore from backup solved the issue. Now that the updated patch has been rolled out, nightly restarts of the live servers have ceased, as of May 20th. The reboots were a precaution to prevent server instability while issues were being resolved. A notable change in Patch 1.3b is that HG: L now blocks non-subscribers from party portaling into subscriber-only areas. Although this change will likely disappoint the gamers who play for free, a quest NPC previously available only to paying players is now available to non-subs. Whether or not this balances the scales for the non-subs remains to be seen, but portaling into restricted areas would seem to be an exploit. The other changes and fixes in Patch 1.3b are numerous, and affect non-subscribers and subscribers alike. The complete breakdown is found after the jump:
Stonehenge is open for business
Those of you who've been waiting for Stonehenge Chronicles -- the first major content update for Hellgate: London -- to finally be released can stop as of yesterday. The content went live for players yesterday morning after being delayed a day over some technical bugs. Aside from all of the new content featured in and around Stonehenge, all players get to taste some brand new features, game tweaks and the newly redesigned Evoker class. Among the new features are scaling interface elements -- something everyone appreciates, a streamlining of the crafting system and the addition of account-based buddy lists.We're glad to see that Flagship Studios is also addressing bugs as well as improving some player texturing. However what would really help in the future are instability updates for the game engine and maybe an improved chat window. More content is a good start, but while you're busy working on new stuff for those subscribers it would be a good idea to make sure new players have reason to pick the game up as well.
Hellgate: London gets its first content update
Mark your calenders for January 21st, 2008 because that's the date when you can expect Flagship Studios' first content update to hit for Hellgate: London. The update -- titled Stonehenge Chronicles -- is expanding the game world beyond London itself, opening the areas around Stonehenge. Expect lots of open, outdoor wilderness as the developers wanted something different from the main game's locales. Players can expect three areas to explore, The Caste Caves (not to be confused with other caves), Moloch's Lair and The Wild. There are four dungeons within The Caste Caves and each dungeon will contain a spectral overlord to blast, slice and bludgeon into pieces.Upon completion of The Caste Caves, players gain entry to Moloch's Lair, wherein a great battle with the demon Moloch -- the great dropper of unique items -- ensues. Finally, The Wild has three mini-raid areas which progress in difficulty and eventually require players to form full-sized parties.Also, this update will add improvements to the game UI, a "large number" of skill balance alterations and a PvP dueling arena. Lastly, Hellgate: London subscribers will optionally be able to pay for their subscriptions through PayPal and PayByCash.We have to say that definitely seems like a lot of content, but we'll have to wait and see what players think after January 21st rolls around. It's barely been three months since the game launched in North America, so it seems the developers are keeping their promise. It all depends on how often these updates come out in the end. If they continue at the pace of three months between updates, Hellgate: London could become a game to watch for a future purchase.
The Stonehenge Chronicles delayed for Hellgate: London
Hellgate: London's Patch 1.0 aka Stonehenge aka The Stonehenge Chronicles has been delayed until January. This will be the first major quarterly update and, if released in January, will still be on schedule. Bill Roper, in a letter sent to registered players, said that they want to take the time to make this patch right:If there is one lesson we've learned from launching Hellgate: London, our releases should be a question of "what" and not "when".Huzzah.In other patch news, Single Player Patch 0.6 is live and available for download. Multiplayer Patch 0.7 has been live since December 14th on US servers and went live December 19th on EU server Sydonai. Subscribers who login to Patch 0.7 will find that Nemo in Holbrook Station has a goodie for them. My first try to receive it got me the much treasured Server Error, but after restarting the game I received the even more intriguing Transmogrifying Cube which, as promised previously, will look familiar to Diablo II fans.Patch 1.0 notes from the Test Center are after the jump.
