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http://www.ingame.de/filebase/index.php/?a...id=555&fid=2891
It's a hefty download (a little over 200MB), but worthwhile if you are interested in what Hellgate: London is shaping up to be. It's video of a tech demo showcasing Hellgate using a GeForce 7800 video card, with very interesting commentary about the game and the features.
The video is in .wmv format.
Some things of note:
- Visually, it leans heavily towards the 1st/3rd person perspective
- RPG elements are definitely in there, including customization of equipment, "paper doll" inventory management, and stat/skill point allotment
- Melee and ranged attacks
- On-the-fly randomly generated dungeon levels (I don't know how this works in a London setting, but that's what the speaker says)
- The speaker specifically refers to Guild Wars when talking about the multiplayer model, with common meeting areas and instanced combat locations
One of the questions was about the overwhelming FPS look to the game, but the speaker makes it quite clear that the RPG elements are integral. He emphasizes that Hellgate will not be dominated by 14 year olds with insane "twitch gameplay" skills, but rather by intelligent management of the RPG aspects of it.
I'm hyped by this video, but I'm also a bit worried that I'll need to buy a whole new computer to run Hellgate at any level.
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And what's wrong with twitch gameplay? :)
Hellgate has been on my radar since I first caught wind of it during a PC Gamer feature article.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
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Artega,Jan 29 2006, 02:05 AM Wrote:And what's wrong with twitch gameplay? :)
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I am getting older and my reaction speed isn't what it used to be.
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DeeBye,Jan 29 2006, 02:16 AM Wrote:I am getting older and my reaction speed isn't what it used to be.
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That's what camping is for!
Tents are in aisle 5.
:)
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
The original Heavy Metal Cowâ¢. USDA inspected, FDA approved.
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I hope Hellgate:London does live up to, and exceed, its apparent potential (when it's released in 2009, that is). It does seem to be a real potential successor to the original Diablo, whose repayability and excitment were never captured by the horribly (respectively, somewhat) tedious Dungeon Siege (respectively, Guild Wars), or by the semi-entertaining but cheesy knock-offs Sacred and Divine Divinity --- and DII, fun as it was, never quite managed to do it either.
The concept of fighting through a demon-filled London is wonderful and the emphasis on randomization of items and --- much more so --- of maps is great. (The randomization of levels was one of Diablo's keys IMO.)
But I'm not convinced that the first person perspective is such a big or desirable innovation (they seem to be back peddling there anyway), and perhaps no Diablo successor 10 years hence can ever recapture or replace the original...
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01-29-2006, 05:22 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-29-2006, 05:23 PM by vor_lord.)
Thecla,Jan 29 2006, 01:51 AM Wrote:The concept of fighting through a demon-filled London is wonderful and the emphasis on randomization of items and --- much more so --- of maps is great. (The randomization of levels was one of Diablo's keys IMO.)
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I never played much of the original Diablo (perhaps I will someday -- I couldn't stand the abysmally slow walking pace when not anywhere dangerous). What was it about the level randomization that made it interesting and therefore key?
I played Diablo II heavily, and I don't think the replayability in that game was really keyed by the randomization of levels all that much. Sometimes you'd hit particularly nasty combination of mods on a boss, and sometimes you'd have to search longer to find what you wanted, but that seemed to be incidental rather than key.
It was a nice feature but I thought the replayability stemmed more from the amazing array of interesting options you had when building your characters, and the "uncertain reward" factor of jaw dropping random loot drops.
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I've personally had enough D2 to last me several lifetimes, and if this'll be of similar philosophy to the game, effectively Diablo II 2, you can count me out.
"One day, o-n-e day..."
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vor_lord,Jan 29 2006, 09:22 AM Wrote:I never played much of the original Diablo (perhaps I will someday -- I couldn't stand the abysmally slow walking pace when not anywhere dangerous).
I think it is hard to go back to that once you're used to the pace of DII.
Quote:What was it about the level randomization that made it interesting and therefore key?
Well, it's a good question, and I'm not sure I can really put my finger on it. But, certainly, DI had relatively small levels and it would have had very little replayability without randomizing the layouts, stairs, shrines, monster combinations, bosses etc --- even if the loot had benn randomized completely. That concentration of levels in D1 and the fact that you could return time and again with different topography and different challenges until you knew how to master them (almost like a game of chess or solitaire) was IMO a key part of D1 success.
The other extreme is a game --- like Dungeon Siege, say --- with a huge long linear pre-scripted world, which in the worst case-scenario has the same monsters appearing every time at the same place (even if they drop random loot). There's no limit to the size of a virtual world one can create these days, but give me a small part of an interesting and unpredictable world over a large part of a boring and "immaculately crafted" world any day.
Quote:I played Diablo II heavily, and I don't think the replayability in that game was really keyed by the randomization of levels all that much. Sometimes you'd hit particularly nasty combination of mods on a boss, and sometimes you'd have to search longer to find what you wanted, but that seemed to be incidental rather than key.
I played plenty of DII as well. ;) But I'm convinced I wouldn't have done so if it wern't for the randomization of the maps (even if a non-random short cut through the jungles of Kurast would have been a vast improvement). Even though randomization in DII wasn't as effective somehow in DI (maybe because the emphasis on DII's outdoor areas over DI's entirely dungeon-based crawls didn't quite come off, I don't know).
DII also differed from DI in that is wasn't as tactically rich as D1 in the actual fighting (in part because of the lack of friendly fire in multiplayer --- needed to avoid pk problems --- and maybe in part because the demands of configuring DII for server side play --- with the laudable aim of reducing cheating --- removed some of the immediacy of D1's client side combat). In DII, the main strategy was simply to smash everything in your path, while looking out for the very occassional real threat, like a msleb in earlier times.
Quote:It was a nice feature but I thought the replayability stemmed more from the amazing array of interesting options you had when building your characters, and the "uncertain reward" factor of jaw dropping random loot drops.
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Do you think if every level in DII was exactly the same every time you played it, and --- say -- you knew exactly the shortest route to Mephisto every time, after your first time through, that you really would have played it as much as you did, character building options and random drops notwithstanding? (And perhaps you would have --- I'm not trying to tell you what you enjoy!)
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SwissMercenary,Jan 29 2006, 05:24 PM Wrote:I've personally had enough D2 to last me several lifetimes, and if this'll be of similar philosophy to the game, effectively Diablo II 2, you can count me out.
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I don't understand this. If you liked DII enough to play it that much, why wouldn't you want to play a game that shares the same design philosophy? I don't know if you watched the gameplay video, but I can assure you that Hellgate will not be DII v.2. It looks nothing like it, other than the RPG aspects.
To me, Hellgate looks more like Deus Ex on speed. And considering how good Deus Ex was, that's definitely a good thing.
I am a bit worried about the usage of weapons as "spell delivery devices". Call it what you want, but a gun is still a gun. Outside of a very few titles, I am not the biggest fan of pure FPS games. I dearly hope that Hellgate is more "action RPG" and less "FPS with RPG elements".
I thought it was click to aim?(I didnt download the big link though, was I wrong to think that?)
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I too saw Hellgate: London when it was featured in the PC Gamer aritcle that Artega was referring to. I think it looks incredible. If it is made as well as it is being hyped at the moment, then I think it will be fantastic. Diablo II had limitations at the time it came out, but for this game, they can really go nuts with the randomization, graphics, gameplay, etc. I look forward to its release.
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Ghostiger,Jan 29 2006, 09:50 PM Wrote:I thought it was click to aim?(I didnt download the big link though, was I wrong to think that?)
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It is not click-to-aim. It's described as a "soft-targeting" system. You have crosshairs, but many of the weapons assist you (i.e. guided missiles) or do not require accuracy (i.e. area of effect).
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01-30-2006, 05:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-30-2006, 05:26 PM by vor_lord.)
Thecla,Jan 29 2006, 08:01 PM Wrote:The other extreme is a game --- like Dungeon Siege, say --- with a huge long linear pre-scripted world, which in the worst case-scenario has the same monsters appearing every time at the same place (even if they drop random loot). There's no limit to the size of a virtual world one can create these days, but give me a small part of an interesting and unpredictable world over a large part of a boring and "immaculately crafted" world any day.
I attempted to play the demo of Dungeon Siege. It just seemed that game had horrible non-interactive gameplay, and very little variation between characters. Didn't even notice the static linearness of it ;)
Thecla,Jan 29 2006, 08:01 PM Wrote:Do you think if every level in DII was exactly the same every time you played it, and --- say -- you knew exactly the shortest route to Mephisto every time, after your first time through, that you really would have played it as much as you did, character building options and random drops notwithstanding? (And perhaps you would have --- I'm not trying to tell you what you enjoy!)
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I won't disagree that the randomization of levels did add needed variety. I guess it's just a question of how important it really was. After all, what made me do Mephisto runs wasn't the levels or the combat, it was the hope for the next drop, and what new character build that drop might create if I twinked it to a new character.
As far as the tactics in D1, I've definitely heard about that before -- one of the reasons I wish I hadn't lost my CD. Despite how much I loved DII, it really didn't seem to be designed with much thought. Everything was very ad-hoc and didn't necessarily mesh together well.
edit: extraneous characters -- where did they come from?
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DeeBye,Jan 30 2006, 04:44 AM Wrote:I don't understand this. If you liked DII enough to play it that much, why wouldn't you want to play a game that shares the same design philosophy?
I did like it. After enough time, I just got sick of it to the point that... I don't want to think about it.
First-person view and pseudo-targeting aren't going to be enough of a difference if the underlying gameplan (Not play. Plan. You know. "Character Progression (I feel dirty using that word)." "Difficulty progression." "Skill/Spell acquisition.") is of a similar cut. Now, if they go in a different direction with that, that'll be another story.
"One day, o-n-e day..."
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SwissMercenary,Jan 30 2006, 06:01 PM Wrote:I did like it. After enough time, I just got sick of it to the point that... I don't want to think about it.
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As far as I can see, the irony is that Flagship studios claimed they were creating a completely new type of game, but the basis of that claim seems to be that the game was sort of an FPS/action RPG combo --- and they're downplaying the FPS part. No problem with me if they make a really good action RPG (as it seems likely they will -- I would be very happy with something that really did improve on the original Diablo) but it may not be as revolutionary as they claim, and I can certainly undestand that many people may be burned out on such games.
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vor_lord,Jan 30 2006, 01:09 PM Wrote:It is not click-to-aim. It's described as a "soft-targeting" system. You have crosshairs, but many of the weapons assist you (i.e. guided missiles) or do not require accuracy (i.e. area of effect).
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Personally, I'd love to see a PC game modeled after the GCN's Metroid Prime. It's one of the best FPS games I've played, and it doesn't even require true aiming! The lock-on system Retro developed is incredibly intuitive.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
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Thecla,Jan 30 2006, 10:22 PM Wrote:As far as I can see, the irony is that Flagship studios claimed they were creating a completely new type of game, but the basis of that claim seems to be that the game was sort of an FPS/action RPG combo --- and they're downplaying the FPS part. No problem with me if they make a really good action RPG (as it seems likely they will -- I would be very happy with something that really did improve on the original Diablo) but it may not be as revolutionary as they claim, and I can certainly undestand that many people may be burned out on such games.
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I don't know about it being a new type of game, but assuming the multiplayer model works out well it might well be a new type of online game. This is something we have yet to see though. None of the gameplay demos show any multiplayer features. So far it looks like a FPS with RPG aspects.
If Hellgate is indeed the "next big thing", the multiplayer aspect will have to be amazing. The thing that separates Diablo and Diablo II from other dungeon crawlers is/was multiplayer, and Battle.net in particular. If Flagship can wrap Hellgate up in a fantastic multiplayer model they might be able to say it's a new type of game. They'll need to create a true online world, with things like a quest/reward system, player rankings/fame, online economy, and the other stuff that makes persistant world multiplayer gaming a lot of fun. If they half-ass the multiplayer model, the game will probably suck. Looking towards Guild Wars is definitely a step in the right direction IMO.
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DeeBye,Jan 30 2006, 08:40 PM Wrote:I don't know about it being a new type of game, but assuming the multiplayer model works out well it might well be a new type of online game.
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They've made it very clear that Hellgate will be integrated for multiplayer games (along the Guild Wars lines, I guess), and I'm sure it will be done well (unlike Dungeon Siege I, for example ;) ). Does that make Hellgate a new type of online game though? I don't think so --- even if DI wasn't the first online game, and the multiplayer parts were tacked on almost as an afterthought, it's multiplayer aspects were truly inno vative. DII added some server-side security, which had its own costs, but apart from that didn't really change things. Guild Wars simply replaced theb.net "chat-lobbies" by in-game towns. I don't think Hellgate will be much different from that, though I could be wrong.
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Thecla,Jan 31 2006, 01:14 AM Wrote:They've made it very clear that Hellgate will be integrated for multiplayer games (along the Guild Wars lines, I guess), and I'm sure it will be done well (unlike Dungeon Siege I, for example ;) ). Does that make Hellgate a new type of online game though? I don't think so --- even if DI wasn't the first online game, and the multiplayer parts were tacked on almost as an afterthought, it's multiplayer aspects were truly inno vative. DII added some server-side security, which had its own costs, but apart from that didn't really change things. Guild Wars simply replaced theb.net "chat-lobbies" by in-game towns. I don't think Hellgate will be much different from that, though I could be wrong.
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I can't really disagree with anything you've said, but I submit that a FPS/RPG hybrid with battle.net style online gaming in a persistant world could be classified as innovative.
Let's be honest though. Nothing Blizzard ever did was purely innovative. They were great at resurrecting dead genres and polishing them for the masses. Dungeon crawlers existed before Diablo. RTS existed before Warcraft and Starcraft. In my opinion, the thing that elevated those franchises above all others was the polish and the ease of multiplayer. Blizzard brought those franchises to gamers in such an easy way it was hard to ignore.
I don't pretend to say that Hellgate will be "blow your socks off!" innovative, but if Flagship can produce a quality FPS/RPG with awesome multiplayer capabilities I'd say they would have done what lots of game companies haven't even attempted.
So far I like what I see with Hellgate, but ultimately it will be the multiplayer model that will make or break it.
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DeeBye,Jan 30 2006, 09:39 PM Wrote:Let's be honest though. Nothing Blizzard ever did was purely innovative. They were great at resurrecting dead genres and polishing them for the masses.
I agree with you also --- though, personally, I would claim that both the original Diablo and Warcraft II were really innovative games, even if they weren't the first dungeon crawl or RTS. On the other hand, if I have a complaint against WoW, it's that it didn't really break new ground, even if it was the most polished, well-developed, and user-friendly MMORPG ever made.
Quote:I don't pretend to say that Hellgate will be "blow your socks off!" innovative, but if Flagship can produce a quality FPS/RPG with awesome multiplayer capabilities I'd say they would have done what lots of game companies haven't even attempted.
So far I like what I see with Hellgate, but ultimately it will be the multiplayer model that will make or break it.
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Don't get me wrong --- I am really looking forward to Hellgate, and hope it will be a great game. I guess the multiplayer model will be a really well implemented b.net-type system, and I don't think it will break it.
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