11-02-2007, 06:12 PM
Quote:It's not crippled! Seriously. Get over it. If you can't enjoy the game that comes in the box for the price you pay, you're seriously looking at the wrong genre to begin with. I have no intention of subscribing, yet, as my priorities are currently elsewhere, but I'm having a ton of fun with my not crippled experience.
Actually it is crippled and seriously so. I did not buy the game; I am playing the "beta" version but aside from not being able to advance into Monument Station the beta version is the full version and it is very lacking. My main complaint is that to get more storage space I would have to buy a monthly subscription. This is very wrong in a game that spams your inventory with useless garbage (you can not select the items you want to pick up; the game does it for you when you hit "F" and it will fill your inventory with so much crap that I spend half my time dealing with that trash. In addition to the regular decon trash those who are playing online will be spammed with many Halloween Event items, some of which stack only to "2".). The only way to create more mobile storage space without visiting town every 5 kills is to de-construct items and this requires, you guessed it, an open inventory. While the inventory is open you cannot attack or defend so pray nothing spawns on top of you while you are sorting through all your "treasures" that the "f-key" got for you. If you want to party with strangers I recommend mastering the techinique of deconstructing on the fly to lessen game play interruptions. This interruption can be a serious impediment to the momentum of the game. Anyone who holds immersion as a high priority in games might want to forgo looting once the inventory is full. Every party member only sees loot drops generated for them; this has pros and cons.
Back in town your storage space will be quickly filled by L16 or so. A game that is so item centric such as this one needs to give players more room without a monthly fee. There is an npc that offers some nice random items for you to craft with all the components you collect from deconstrution but without adequate storage space this is a mixed blessing. I cannot enjoy a game that requires incessant inventory juggling that only gets worse as I level my character. If I bought the game I seriously doubt I would play a character beyond L30. There is no postal service in the game so transferring items to friends or other characters must be done online with the help of someone else.
The memory leak has been improved upon since last Friday's patch but game freezing and crashes are still common. Some people might think this is okay for a new game but I disagree. The scenery is uninspired. Even classic Diablo had better dungeon layouts. Many of the class skills seem to be poorly developed as if the entire class was an afterthought. The inability to see what effect attribute points have combined with no option to change point distribution and only 3 character creation slots further cripples Hellgate for those who want to experiment with different character classes and skill specializations. Deleting a character is NOT a viable option to me.
I have only "beta tested" for one week so my opinions might be based on inadequate play time; however, during that time I have played a blade master, guardian, evoker and engineer all to levels 10-20. I doubt I will buy Hellgate and if I did I would not pay for a subscription. I would rather renew my WoW account.