Hellgate:London

[Thecla]

I'll just mention here that the HG:L beta (it's more or less a stress test, really, so we hope they have the game figured out like they did the original Diablo) is now up, and available to anyone that preorders from the right places. The US release will be Oct 31...

[the Langolier]

There has been a miriad of problems concerning people correctly getting their beta keys, which is a shame considering the release is only a month away and the game must ne packaged and shipped sooner than that. I am one that has preordered and not recieved the key yet. I am really not that excited about the game in the first place and this is not revving my engine, so to speak. I also created an account two months ago that has apparently been deleted (I got tired of waiting for preorder information that never came via email as I had subscribed to). There was an activation link in my original email that only took me to a broken page. I have emailed flagship about it to no response (there is no direct contact info through hellgatelondon.com without an account either). Not impressed.

P.S. I typed this from my new iPhone. Click click click.

[Thecla]

There has been a miriad of problems concerning people correctly getting their beta keys, which is a shame considering the release is only a month away and the game must ne packaged and shipped sooner than that.

Yup I agree entirely that the beta-keys were mishandled, and there was a "last minute feeling" about the whole thing. Even so, I think that FSS will ship a solid game on release, and it will have at least the potential to be a worthy successor to Diablo (in a way that Titan Quest et. al. were not). Of course, HG:L might well fail in that respect, or it might be that WoW has changed the playing field so much that even a worthy successor to Diablo won't be considered adequate. I don't know.

[Monkey]

There has been a miriad of problems concerning people correctly getting their beta keys, which is a shame considering the release is only a month away and the game must ne packaged and shipped sooner than that. I am one that has preordered and not recieved the key yet. I am really not that excited about the game in the first place and this is not revving my engine, so to speak. I also created an account two months ago that has apparently been deleted (I got tired of waiting for preorder information that never came via email as I had subscribed to). There was an activation link in my original email that only took me to a broken page. I have emailed flagship about it to no response (there is no direct contact info through hellgatelondon.com without an account either). Not impressed.

P.S. I typed this from my new iPhone. Click click click.

I'm in the stress test / beta. I'm not sure about what happened with your account from months ago, but the beta keys actually run quite smoothly now. What isn't clear (it's buried in the FAQ) is that they're releasing the beta keys in waves. This results in a really annoying sensation of pre-order (feels like a purchase, even at $5), register your account and ...wait.

In my case, it was three days before the next wave: if I hadn't been leaving on a business trip, it would have been terribly annoying. As it was, I came back and only had to slog through an hour of patching and troubleshooting before I could play;)

In related news: Marksmen are a lot of fun. More on that point as the NDA allows.

[the Langolier]

The pre-order pack doesn't even come with a DVD to actually install the game... have to download that too? Zzzz... Fail.

[Roland]

Today will mark exactly one week since I've "activated" my account. Still no beta key. To say that I am disappointed is... well, a bit of an understatement.

Personally, I think it's because they saw the account name and (rightly) assumed it's the same guy from the Diablo II days.;)Bastards are keeping me out on purpose!;)

I've thought about e-mailing them about it, but to what end? Either I get my key or I don't. I WAS going to use this beta test as a chance to gauge whether or not I'd sink money into the game (it was going to help cement any decision on a Founder's Account), as well as just a usual chance to test things (although I can't possibly imagine how much there is to test this late in the game...).

I must say, even given the very limited interaction I've had with this whole process, it hasn't left a very good taste in my mouth. Bad enough that I had to wait an extra two weeks just to get my Pre-Order Box (since I ordered from a Brick 'N' Mortar Gamestop) from when the Beta actually started.:PNow, after getting the box, all those tales of people getting their keys the next day is just... seaspray in an open wound.:PAh well. I'm trying not to let it negatively affect my opinions of both the company and the game. Yes, it feels rushed. Yes, it feels completely botched. I'm not going to make that translate to a rushed, botched game, just because they may have decided last minute to open up the Beta as a PR move, and somewhere along the way things got messed up.

I'm excited to try the game. I want to have high hopes for it, but I've had too many games just disappoint me (WoW included). If they can keep from falling into the same trap D2 and WoW have (more, more, more from the pinata!), I think I'll have a very enjoyable experience that I won't regret paying for. If not... Well, there's always my 360.;)

Edit:
. . . I just hopped over to the site to try to "log in". Guess what?! It let me in!! See why I have held my tongue for the last week?! I KNEW sooner or later I'd get in. I just had to have missed one of the earlier waves, is all.:DYAY! Off I go!!!:D

BTW Langolier - 3.76 GB. Just so you know.

[Baajikiil]

I'll just mention here that the HG:L beta (it's more or less a stress test, really, so we hope they have the game figured out like they did the original Diablo) is now up, and available to anyone that preorders from the right places. The US release will be Oct 31...

I'm looking forward to this game alot. I've been in since alpha, and am pleased at what I've seen so far. Not everything is perfect, but I do see this as the next diablo. I have yet to see high end content though, and that will be the most important thing to me.

I would say that anyone who liked the diablo series should at least give it a chance, and then after the free month trial(or whatever they offer with the box) can decide if they want to pay to play.

[Monkey]

I'm looking forward to this game alot. I've been in since alpha, and am pleased at what I've seen so far. Not everything is perfect, but I do see this as the next diablo. I have yet to see high end content though, and that will be the most important thing to me.

I would say that anyone who liked the diablo series should at least give it a chance, and then after the free month trial(or whatever they offer with the box) can decide if they want to pay to play.

I need to pull out the NDA and read it. After a week, I have a lot to say about the game that is probably not OK to post here. However, Bill Roper did say prior to beta that buying the box will give you access to free online gaming as long as the servers are up. Subscribers just get more content and some other shiny benefits. Penny Arcade summed it up: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/11

[KingOfPain]

Are we all doing US server? AFAIK, people have to be on the same server to play togther and there are only 2 distinctions, US/Europe, right?

KoP

[Roland]

Are we all doing US server? AFAIK, people have to be on the same server to play togther and there are only 2 distinctions, US/Europe, right?

KoP

I'm still trying, in vain, to download the Beta Client. EVERY attempt I make at doing so stalls at 87%. I can eventually complete the download by stopping / restarting the download about two dozen times, but then upon installation it fails due to corrupted files (most notably, but not limited to, the x86.msi executable for the entire game; ironically, the x64.msi executable works just fine:P).

Still no confirmation e-mail, despite having access to the beta client (if you can call broken downloads "access"). I realize this is "just" a beta, and that they are working to solve these issues. Still, it does not look too smooth a start for Flagship. I only hope we don't see a repeat of prior Blizzard issues upon launch day.

[Monkey]

Are we all doing US server? AFAIK, people have to be on the same server to play togther and there are only 2 distinctions, US/Europe, right?

KoP

I'll check tonight--I have never stopped to check which server I'm on. I just click the button and say, "Load faster, ******! Don't you realize there are demons walking around without a thick coating of napalm?!"

I believe I'm on the "Hellgate Alpha Server" (no clue how I got there). My highest is a Marksman named Nail.

Still no confirmation e-mail, despite having access to the beta client (if you can call broken downloads "access"). I realize this is "just" a beta, and that they are working to solve these issues. Still, it does not look too smooth a start for Flagship. I only hope we don't see a repeat of prior Blizzard issues upon launch day.

Did you check your spam folder? Flagship's emails always end up in mine.

[roguebanshee]

Still no confirmation e-mail, despite having access to the beta client (if you can call broken downloads "access").

Roland, if you have access to the forum, check it.

[q4m]

or it might be that WoW has changed the playing field so much that even a worthy successor to Diablo won't be considered adequate. I don't know.

WoW is amazing, but not casual gamer friendly. My hope is this is not the case with HG:L. If it really is a successor to d2...oh...*salivate*

[Thecla]

WoW is amazing, but not casual gamer friendly. My hope is this is not the case with HG:L. If it really is a successor to d2...oh...*salivate*

WoW really had a beautifully created world (which I loved) and a huge amount of content --- I'm sure all the more now with the resources available from it's success. It also presented real challenges and a sense of achievement in overcoming them. But its problem, from my perspective, was not so much that it wasn't casual gamer friendly: more that it (and any other similar MMORPG) made any kind of solo gaming pointless (except beyond collecting stuff to use in a later group effort) after a relatively brief start-up phase, and that any progress required huge investments of time. So, if by "casual" gamer you mean someone who doesn't always want to play in a group, and who doesn't want to block off 5 hours on night x to go on raid y (or, perhaps, engage in prolonged drama about who gets loot z, or even worse managed to wipe raid y), then for sure I'm a casual gamer.

Anyway, I didn't consider the original Diablo to be a necessarily "casual" game, and I hope HG:l isn't either, even without the resources WoW has; but as you say we can only hope and see what happens when it comes out.

[Roland]

Roland, if you have access to the forum, check it.

I have, with no luck.

My download STOPS - just BREAKS - at exactly 87%, when it hits exactly 3.27 GB. It freezes, and takes me an HOUR of finagling to get it to finish downloading, and the same file portion is ALWAYS corrupted. This has been going on for days now, to no avail.

I managed to trick the game into installing, even though technically it didn't. Now, when I connect, the game updates and freezes at 98% on a certain file.

I'm really sick and tired of this. I'm about ready to just blow it off entirely, in all honesty. The forums are worthless, as are the people on there. It's like Battle.Net Forums.:P

I give up. I've wasted too many hours as it is. I'm done.

[Monkey]

WoW really had a beautifully created world (which I loved) and a huge amount of content --- I'm sure all the more now with the resources available from it's success. It also presented real challenges and a sense of achievement in overcoming them. But its problem, from my perspective, was not so much that it wasn't casual gamer friendly: more that it (and any other similar MMORPG) made any kind of solo gaming pointless (except beyond collecting stuff to use in a later group effort) after a relatively brief start-up phase, and that any progress required huge investments of time. So, if by "casual" gamer you mean someone who doesn't always want to play in a group, and who doesn't want to block off 5 hours on night x to go on raid y (or, perhaps, engage in prolonged drama about who gets loot z, or even worse managed to wipe raid y), then for sure I'm a casual gamer.

'Casual' should really be determined by the capability of a player to drop into (and out) the game easily and without preplanning. "Oh, hey, my business trip got canceled, I'll play some [foo]" or "My [appropriate gender]friend has to work late, I'll play some [foo] until they call and then meet them at the restaurant," or (like I did last night), "Well, I'm not tired yet, I think I'll play some [foo] before I go to sleep,"

WoW's complex dynamics (which can be a LOT of fun) make this very difficult for anything other than solo play out in the 'world'. The LFG tool has improved this, making it easier to put together teams, but you still handicap your team if you need to leave before they're done.

Conversely, if you signed onto D2 and your friends were already running, you could drop into a dungeon with them and the game would adapt. If you need to leave a group early, you can drop out without adversely affecting the group you're leaving.

[Baajikiil]

I need to pull out the NDA and read it. After a week, I have a lot to say about the game that is probably not OK to post here. However, Bill Roper did say prior to beta that buying the box will give you access to free online gaming as long as the servers are up. Subscribers just get more content and some other shiny benefits. Penny Arcade summed it up: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/11

Yeah, the NDA is why my post was so nebulous. There are certain areas of the game that need cleaning up IMHO, but it has a lot of potential, and only time after release will clear all questions up(since even the people in beta are probably not seeing the current internal build). I just figured this game hasn't had much attention here, so I should put in a mention.

[Thecla]

'Casual' should really be determined by the capability of a player to drop into (and out) the game easily and without preplanning.

That's certainly one way to define a distinction between "casual" and "hardcore" games, and by that definition, clearly Diablo is "casual" and WoW is "hardcore". But to me, anyway, "casual" also carries with it connotations that a game is somehow not very interesting or involving, and can't be particularly challenging. Now perhaps you could also argue that WoW, or EQ, is more challenging than Diablo; or perhaps you could argue that anyone with enough time and guild support can grind their way through the game eventually and it's less so.

Now, I'm not trying to say one thing or the other about WoW vs. Diablo ---- they're clearly both great games on their own terms. But personally I think it's a great pity that Blizzard followed the MMORPG template so closely and made WoW so "hardcore" in its time and multiplayer components. I don't think it had to be that way.

[RTM]

Demo is out, and much to my relief it seems to be getting panned. I really don't need another game addiction on the scale of D2 or WoW.:P

I got into the beta and futzed around a bit last night. I'm not too terribly impressed. Now granted, I played for maybe an hour with a single class so I don't have nearly the amount of data necessary to declare the game "crap" with any authority, but little things like lack of NPC dialog, music, loose movement, and the suprisingly un-visceral feel of the weapons don't help much. I plan to play around a bit more with some of the other classes but at this point it looks like I can save myself $50 on October 31. I said the same thing after playing the D2 open beta though, and 4 years later I was still playing the same game.

[ima_nerd]

NDA is lifted!

I got into the Beta only a few days ago and haven't stopped playing since.

Likes:
-Hack n slash, hack n slash, hack n slash. I love it. None of this pansy roll-a-dice stuff! Well, not as much of this pansy roll-a-dice stuff!
-Item drops. They're everywhere! It feels more like Diablo with every mob I kill:D
-Level randomization. 'Nuff said.
-NPC voice acting. They say some of the weirdest stuff...
-The mixture of sci-fi, magic and melee weapons. A friend of mine scoffed at swords being used in 2038 but he soon changed his mind after playing my Blademaster for a bit. They make it work well.

Dislikes:
-Does it ever get hard? I was level 9 and had just gotten to Charing Cross Station and as a Blademaster (a class that perhaps need to be nerfed?), I never really felt challenged. In fact, I didn't die once and I never got a HC D2 character past 22 (ie I am not a cautious player.)
-Melee weapon collision. It seems way to easy to hit stuff with swords. I often swing at something then swing again, assuming I missed only to swing through the air over the corpse (or, more often, into another mob that has run up:P).
-Random bugs. Disappearing tooltips, perma-attacking, getting stuck in terrain.

Looking back on my likes, I see that I like HGL mostly because it's like Diablo... I'm ok with that:lol:A question I have for anyone who played more than me: are there ever bosses that are challenging or require a group? For instance, I could go start a single-player D2 game and get to Andy but would probably not be able to kill her until I got a few more levels. Is there anything of that level in HGL? Also, on that note, do the surroundings ever change? Maybe not as drastically as between acts in Diablo but... anything? Perhaps something coinciding with aforementioned challenging boss?