Looking for Hellfire programmers

[Jarulf]

Well, as the topic says, I was wondering if anyone has any idea or knowledge on how to find and/or contact any of the programmers (or perhaps other people involved) of Hellfire. Or if not possible, at least some idea on were they went. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Attika]

The listed lead programmer for Hellfire was:

Donald Tsang

Software Engineers were:

Jim Edwards and Gary Powell

********

If you do a search through Ask Jeeves and type in (must have)
Donald Tsang Hellfire
you come up with a number of references. (You could try Google too.)

Using Ask Jeeves if you follow the Usenet Archive reference (about #9 on the list on page one) this one leads to a archive page including his email addy when he was living in Berkeley, California though it appears to be rather old. You could certainly try to use it and see if it works though.

Tsang also did interviews with diabloii.net in 1998; you could ask them if they have a current email.

His "rap sheet" is in Moby Games, but this merely sounds like a compilation
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/v...eloperId,15421/
doesn't sound like they actually would have his current email.

He was employed by
Synergistic Software, Inc. (last published game listed is 1997 Hellfire)
and
Sphere, Inc.(last published game listed is 1993)


There don't seem to be many references about Mr. Tsang after 1998.

Good luck.

[Yogi_Baar]

There don't seem to be many references about Mr. Tsang after 1998.
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Lynched by a mob of angry Hellfire players for doing such a *cough* fine *cough* job? :P

[Jarulf]

Lynched by a mob of angry Hellfire players for doing such a *cough* fine *cough* job? :P
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Rather, lynched by Sierra as an appolgy to a furious Blizzard.... a bit sad story.

[Selby]

Rather, lynched by Sierra as an appolgy to a furious Blizzard.... a bit sad story.
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Really? So the fans weren't the only disappointed with the game?

[Jarulf]

Really?  So the fans weren't the only disappointed with the game?
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My, in part subjective, story can briefly be condensed to the following.

Sierra (I think), under same ownership as Blizzard was set to make some money with an expansion. Tight deadline for Christmas was set, and Blizzard ruled and controlled the development tightly. In normal Blizzard manner, this meant redoing and changing stuff along the way. With Christmas release, there was not room for much and the game was pushed out too soon (Synergistic never liked it but had not much say). The idea was to fix and add with a patch or so later.

The hidden ability to (unsupported) play multiplayer made Blizzard go ballistic and all sort of internal discussion arose. The decided to remove the ability for multiplayer with next patch.

In addition, the hidden Bard was perhaps not so controversial, but when the new patch then added the hidden Barbarian, Blizzard was not pleased, the Barbarian was supposed to be in D2, not D1!!

Donald who was lead, took the responsibility and was basically kicked if I recalled, the rest of the Synergistic was then basically split up and people moved to other places inside Sierra (from being a sort of outside development house).

The Synergistic team really was never happy with how things turned out and wanted to actually finished the game and make it complete instead of the rushed release. But since the game was completely axed after the 1.01 patch, it never was. So I guess we will never see the "wizard" (focused on blood?) as the hidden sorcerer, after all, each patch added a new hidden character. In addition, the stats and abilities for the Bard was not fine-tuned for 1.01 (I actually helped some but my suggestions was just that late for inclusion in 1.01), so she remained to similar to the Rogue in my opinion.

This is a very short condensed story. I think I have read a longer variant (and of course slightly different point of view) somewhere on the net, the main points are the same though. I personally think that if there had been enough time for the team and not so tight whip on them, it could have been a great expansion. Oh well.


EDIT:

I found this hilarious (and quite accurate as well) link:

http://www.diabloii.net/hellfire/hfhistory.htm

[Hammerskjold]

Interesting stuff there. I still think it was a mistake for bliz to shut out b.net multiplayer for HF.

>In addition, the stats and abilities for the Bard was not fine-tuned for 1.01 (I actually helped some but my suggestions was just that late for inclusion in 1.01), so she remained to similar to the Rogue in my opinion.

I'm curious now, do you still remember what your suggestions were?

[Jarulf]

Interesting stuff there.  I still think it was a mistake for bliz to shut out b.net multiplayer for HF. 

>In addition, the stats and abilities for the Bard was not fine-tuned for 1.01 (I actually helped some but my suggestions was just that late for inclusion in 1.01), so she remained to similar to the Rogue in my opinion.

  I'm curious now, do you still remember what your suggestions were?
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Yes, I still have the mails back home, so I will toss them up when I get there, have to wait a day or two since I forwarded the wrong mail to were I am now.

I can tempt you with the ideas for a Bloodwizzard though. It was not meant to be a "balanced" char, especially not compared to the others. It was meant to be a mix between a sorcerer and a warrior basically. Ideas tossed arround:

Can not use life or mana potions. Initially only in dungeons but to prevent porting to town to drink, one can't have it there either. Perhaps have Pepin heal and Adria fill mana. An alternative considered was to allow rejuvenation potions, but Adria sells even full ones. Shrines as a source of potions/healing was discussed.

Close combat would rejuvenate him. Basically he would have built in mana and life stealing. Initial idea was 2% of each, but I recall people discussing using Helm of Sprits and no life potions (has 5% life stealing) and that was not enough, especially for spell caser levels, for example lots of succubi. So, perhaps 4% each manafe. In addition, a critical hit could heal him. Either fully, or simply applying the a rejuvenation potion to him when he scores a critical hit.

Spell casting would use half mana, half life as cost!

Relative weak with armor. Definately faster than sorcerer with weapons, but not as much as a warrior.

I had the following sugestions at one time:

Starting and max stats
> Str: 15 45
> Mag: 30 160
> Dex: 15 95
> Vit: 25 160

Possible problem, is 45 Str enough for needed armor in hell/hell for example?

> For life and mana use the 2* multiplier on starting stats, thus:
>
> life: (25+10)*2=70
> mana: 30*2=60
>
> For level up:
>
> 2 mana + 1 life (just like sorcerers)
>
> For added vit and magic:
>
> From stats: 2 life/vit and 2 mana/mag
> From items: 2 life/vit and 1 mana/mag



A level 50 char would have (naked):

> life: 389
> mana: 418

> Character damage bonus:
>
> LIFE*clvl/200

Yes, Life, not str or dex, certainly a difference, but then, he draw his strength from his "blood" :)

> Speaking of weapon speeds. Here are some sugestion for animations:
>
> axe: 14 frames
> sword/club: 11 frames
> bow: 14 frames
> staff: 10 frames
> shield: 10 frames
> bare hands: 10 frames
> spell: 10 frames

> Hit recovery time should be 7 frames and blocking time 5 frames.

Can't recall my thoughts here. But obviously he would need speed/haste weapons, but that means less extra mana and life stealing!

The Blood spells:

> After all, he is a wizard of BLOOD, so blod star should do double
> damage in my opinion :)
Seems reasonable here too.

> Similary, Bone Spirit should remove 1/2 life, not 1/3. Many monsters
> are immune to magic anyway. Also remove the extra life penalty to
> cast those two spells for him.


Also, later I think a much faster Blood Star was discussed. Along the line of arrow speed! I could see it as his two main spells the ones above really.

Perhaps there was some more. No appropriate skill was found. I considered infravision but I think that was too powerfully.

Well, needless to say, it never came much further than the above. Still, would have been interesting I think. Sort of a built in variant :)


I will post proposed changes for the Rogue that I think would have made it to the 1.01 patch had I sent them a few days earlier.

[Hammerskjold]

>Well, needless to say, it never came much further than the above. Still, would have been interesting I think.

Yes, too bad HF didn't get more time. Looking forward to reading your bard\rogue notes. Thanks again for the info.

[Jarulf]

Looking forward to reading your bard\rogue notes.  Thanks again for the info.
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Ooops, forgot :o

The idea was, for various reasons, to make he even more than the rogue "good at everything but best at nothing". Here is a cut and paste from a mail I made. Note that all this was before the existance of my Guide and hence I did not have as much information about many details of the game. I think it realy wasn't as much changes I did propose in the end though, my memory have never been that good :)



> Lets go through her the same way I did with the barbarian though.
>
> Stats:
>
> Str 120 (20)
> Mag 120 (20)
> Dex 120 (25)
> Vit 100 (20)
>
> Can't be more well balanced than this :)
>
>
> Mana and life follows the exactly same equations that the Rogue and
> Monk do:
>
> Life: 25+Vit(base)+1.5*Vit(items)+2*(level-1)
> Mana: 15+Mag(base)+1.5*Mag(items)+2*(level-1)
>
> Only difference is a bit more starting mana. You wrote in one mail
> that she had 1.75*magic. Would that be from items? That might be a
> good idea. What she really lacks in the magic department is mana. A
> little more than the Rogue but way less than the sorcerer. With a bit
> more mana she could be a bitter better at throwing spells AND using
> mana shield. After all she will go into more close combat than the
> Rogue or bard. I have no real other idea or objection in this area
> BUT, she also have the mana bonus (75% of mana cost unless already at
> minimum). I first thought she should not have it as it would leave the
> mage alone with the warrior (and barbarian of course) to pay full mana
> cost. It made it almost look like a penalty to the mage. But what I
> like more is to keep the mana reduction (the 75% for casting spells)
> on the "mixture" characters, Rogue and Bard, and just changing so the
> Monk pays full mana cost. I never really understood why he should only
> pay 75%. It makes it over all more "balanced" and motivated and I
> don't think it would really hurt the Monk. Perhaps such an alteration
> of the Monk is out of the question but I think we can't have the
> situation where most characters _except_ the mage pay reduced mana. In
> that case the Bard should pay full mana cost.
>
> AC is good, will end up somewhere between warrior and rogue (due to
> 120 dex) and that will compensate somewhat for the lost AC from shield
> when using 2 weapons compared to a warrior. As for ToHit see below.
>
> Before we look at damage formulas lets see how she handles weapons.
> Basically she can use a one handed weapon in her shield hand too. I
> have not figured out if it has any difference in what hand she carries
> the weapons bit at least for the graphics she appears to be left
> handed (left hand weapon type determines if she is shown with sword or
> club). This raises the interesting question how damage is handled
> against monsters types were damage is changed (for example skeletons
> and swords) when she carries a sword and a club at once. From what I
> have heard from people, the quarter damage only works when both
> weapons are the same. Otherwise the damage just seem to be added and
> treated as one weapon. One interesting thing I noted was that Flails
> and War Hammers are treated like the two-handed weapons when wearing
> at least one of them. Might it be due to occupying 6 slots or?
>
> OK, on to damage:
>
>
> Basic (two-handed bare-handed (or with just a shield): Str*level/100
>
> Just like the warrior
>
>
> With one handed weapons (except flail and war hammer):
> (Str+Dex)*level/200
>
> Like the rogue. But notice that when maxed out her base damage will be
> less than the Rogue due to max Str+Dex being lower. So with sword
> shield she will not be very good at all. She is "doomed" to use two
> weapons at higher levels. In the first few levels she might be better
> of with a shield though. What about ToHit? Should she share the
> warriors ToHit bonus? When maxed she will end up some 30% higher than
> the warrior due to higher dex but still way behind the rogue. Add the
> warriors +20% bonus and they are about equal. Let it be that way. She
> does not need higher ToHit so no such bonus.
>
> Bows: (Str+Dex)*level/200
>
> It used to be /300 and you once wrote me it was changed to /250. I
> think it should be /200 (same as Rogue). She will still be worse off
> than the Rogue due to firing slower (see below and I also think you
> have written you already made her slower with bow). This will make bow
> an alternative at least in lower character levels, especially in the
> caves where monsters can be out of reach behind lava or fences (I even
> tried a bow with my warrior there but it was just to slow and to
> little damage). Yes she could use magic but with this damage she has a
> bit of an alternative. I don't think many people will use a bow with
> her even if the damage was even higher. In the long run she will again
> do less damage than the rogue due to lower max Str+Dex and many people
> already thinks the rogue does almost to little damage with a bow at
> high levels. So I can't see any danger in having the bow damage the
> same as the rogue. What about here ToHit. I don't know really how
> ToHit is calculated with bows and what influence it. Is it just the
> same ToHit as for melee but with some other hidden ToHits? If so, she
> should have a bit less than the rogue but better than others. Remember
> her max Dex is lower than the rogue so she will later on be even more
> behind the Rogue but more ahead of the others.
>
> Now for how quick she swings the weapons. Again I included all other
> characters for comparison:
>
>
> Weapon Warrior, Rogue, Sorcerer, Monk , Barbarian - Bard
>
> Swords/Clubs:
> Normal/Readiness 0.45, 0.50, 0.60, 0.60, 0.45 - 0.50
> Swiftness 0.40, 0.45, 0.55, 0.55, 0.40 - 45
> Speed/Haste 0.35, 0.40, 0.50, 0.50, 0.35 -40
>
> Same as rogue. No other alternative actually as she can't be faster
> (same as warrior) or slower (would just be to slow)
>
>
> Axes:
> Normal/Readiness 0.50, 0.65, 0.80, 0.70, 0.50 - 0.60
> Swiftness 0.45, 0.60, 0.75, 0.65, 0.45 - 0.55
> Speed/Haste 0.40, 0.55, 0.70, 0.60, 0.40 - 0.50
>
> I increased it one step. A bit quicker than rogue (she is a bit more
> physical and combat type) but still far from a warrior or barbarian.
>
> Staves:
> Normal/Readiness 0.55, 0.55, 0.60, 0.40, 0.60 - 0.50
> Swiftness 0.50, 0.50, 0.55, 0.35, 0.55 - 0.45
> Speed/Haste 0.45, 0.45, 0.50, 0.30, 0.50 - 0.40
>
> Quicker than both warriors and rogues but far from the monk. Notice
> that she is quite a bit quicker than the mage. Perhaps someone would
> like to try her out as a "battlemage" and use some arch-Angel staffs,
> who knows. After all she shall be good at most stuff.
>
>
>
> Bows:
> All 0.55, 0.35, 0.80, 0.70, 0.35, 0.80 - 0.45 or 0.50
>
> Slower than the rogue. This is where she in the end will be worse than
> the rogue at bows even if the damage formula is the same. Even with
> same stats she will be worse off. Together with worse ToHit also she
> just isn't as good but still better than any other class.
>
> Other:
> Shield 0.45, 0.50, 0.45, 0.45, 0.50, 0.50 - 0.45
> Bare-handed 0.45, 0.50, 0.60, 0.45, 0.50, 0.50 - 0.50
>
>
> Just like the rogue
>
> Spell 0.70, 0.60, 0.40, 0.65, 0.60, 0.80 - 0.50
>
>
> This is quite fast although still a bit behind the sorcerer. Again I
> have not really any idea how ToHit for magic works but I think that
> magic is the determining factor here. Is it? Are there any hidden
> modifiers? She should be better than Rogue at hitting but worse than a
> sorcerer. A sorcerer seem to hit about anything a warrior misses
> anything (don't have a clue for the rogue as I have not played her
> much). Anyway, make sure she does miss sometimes both on normal (lower
> character level and not yet maxed) difficulty and hell difficulty
> (high character level with maxed magic).
>
> So now lets look at some other parameters:
>
> Critical Hit. As far as I know warriors can do it with melee weapons.
> Can any one else do it? Is it possible with a bow? With magic? She
> should in my opinion have the possibility with melee weapons. If
> possible with bow, she should also have it. Same goes for magic.
>
> How about blocking. I understand everyone have the same blocking
> ability. But warriors can do a fast block. The bard should block
> normally with a shield, like a rogue and sorcerer.
>
> She already have the ability to do quarter damage with two swords.
> Does it work with two clubs? Should do. With one club and one sword?
> Should not as one should be forced to use equal weapon types (if one
> want clubs more of an alternative, give it to the bard when she uses
> one of each too).
>
> Hit recovery/Stun. I think every character (except possibly the
> Barbarian see below) works the same. So should the bard do.
>
> I might have missed some areas but can't think of any. Now lets look
> at general things and compare a bit to other classes. I compared a
> warrior, bard and barbarian at different levels (took what seemed to
> be OK weapons and stats for the level and also checked how a maxed
> level 40 person with max damage weapons do). The bard does about the
> same damage as a warrior except at around 20 levels when she does
> more. The reason I think is that her base damage is less than the
> warrior and all the time the gap gets larger to end up at about half
> when all stats are maxed. Weapon damage on the other hand start at
> about the same but for the bard ends up at about 4 times the possible
> damage. This weapons damage climbs faster at lower level meaning the
> bard will go past warrior in mid levels and later on when the base
> damage from a warrior catches up they end up about equal at level 40
> but later on the warrior will probably get higher. Not that the bard
> can compensate for this by better magic. The warrior will have a bit
> better AC from shield (although higher dex somewhat compensate) and
> can block which the bard can't with two weapons. The barbarian will
> (with an axe) always do way more damage. This also is compensated for
> by the bard by way better magic and also by better AC (see some
> additional comments about barbarian below). In all calculations I
> compensated for weapon speed as well. Note though that this is all
> theoretical, no real game experience as I don't have barbarian and
> correct bard. I noted though that when I started up Hellfire today to
> play the bard a bit, that I had great problems. I first tried
> Nightmare/Hive, I could almost not hit anything (had about 105 ToHit
> though). So I went for normal/Hive and normal/crypt. Still quite hard
> to hit and monsters took an amazing number of hits to kill. I did
> about 40-50 damage and yet Bone demons could take some 8 hits to kill
> !!! I thought that maybe using the command.txt messed things up some
> way (almost thought I was still in nightmare) so I deleted it and
> restarted a new game. Now I noted that all my number of monsters
> killed was gone !!! A bug? I still though I should hit monsters a bit
> more often as it was nightmare and although I had 180 AC monsters hit
> me surprisingly easy. Are there something strange with the bard I
> started to wonder? I then experimented with different weapons
> (club/club, sword/club and sword/sword). I noticed that with
> sword/sword I killed most monsters quite easily with 2-3 hits (satyr
> lords, rats, devil kin brutes, biclopes). The I changed to sword/club.
> The satyr lords now took about 4 but sometimes up to 8 (!) hits to
> kill. Devil Kin Brutes 3-6 hits and so on. Changing to club/club
> seemed to be a bit better but far from sword/sword. This arouses a few
> questions.
>
> Does the rogue get penalized when using sword/club? As opposed to
> club/club and sword/sword?
>
> Is clubs really that much worse against most monsters? If so, the
> damage for clubs on the Barbarian must be increased a lot to be an
> alternative to swords.
>
> I can't seem to recall having any such strange behavior with the Monk.
> And having 180 AC in Crypt (should be equivalent to the caves right)
> in normal should make you almost untouchable. Am I missing something?
> Is it really the missing blocking ability that makes so much
> difference? Some other strange things I noticed. While holding two
> weapons, when you then wanted to switch one weapon for another one, if
> you clicked to the right the left weapon changed and if you clicked on
> the left one the right one changed. Shouldn't it be the other way
> around? I also notice that it was the left hand weapon that determined
> what graphics that was shown. I final notice on the Crypt. I have seen
> NO monster that open doors. You should add that ability to many of the
> monsters in my opinion. On other thing. When Satyr Lords die, a small
> part of their body graphics ends up about one or two squares up to the
> right.
>
> Back to the Bard. I then compared the Bard with the Rogue and found
> that except for using a bow, the Bard was better at everything! Except
> for a bit lower AC and ToHit due to lower max Dex. She have more mana
> and life too. Perhaps there should be some other drawback. I just
> can't figure anything out to change about her though.
>
>
> Some more comments on the Barbarian. I really think that there should
> be no bonus AC at all for him. It is much better tweaking with the
> stun/hit recovery if necessary. I do also think that the barbarian
> should have a possibility to do a critical hit with melee weapons but
> (and this might be a big but), it might produce a to big damage with
> axes together with quarterdamage also. Have to be tested though.
>
> Well. This mail about the bard was not as structured as the one about
> the barbarian and doesn't have so many new ideas but to some extent
> the Bard is already quite finished in my opinion. Can't really see
> many new things to add (especially not bad things). And I don't think
> she need more advantages, rather the opposite. It would be nice to
> hear what you think about this and my other follow up to the barbarian
> I posted yesterday evening. If I can think of more things I will mail
> you again. Perhaps I can find more small things to change if I hear
> how the other changes are doing when you play test them.
>
>

[Hammerskjold]

Interesting stuff yet again. :) Thanks for that read.