Hellgate London

[krizalllid]

While it was overhyped and had several bugs, why all the hating?

I got the game recently and it's a decent time killer in short bursts (30-45 minute sessions).

[Twoflower]

It was in a terrible state when it came out. So bad that they lost most of their players in the first 3 months and even had to shut down the servers. Do you play online ? I wonder if there are any servers left. Lst i heared, some korea company bought the rights and promised online support.

[Leopold Stotch]

It was in a terrible state when it came out. So bad that they lost most of their players in the first 3 months and even had to shut down the servers. Do you play online ? I wonder if there are any servers left. Lst i heared, some korea company bought the rights and promised online support.

wow. i heard it was bad, but didn't know it was THAT bad. whoa.

[SoulSpectrum]

Yeah.... it looked like fun.... however hearing the information from employees just turned me off. For instance, someone once said (would like to know if anyone has a link because I'm lazy!) that they'd talk about cars and non related information about after the release n success (haha, funny?) as opposed to the game during meetings.
The atmosphere looked spectacular, the graphics weren't bad (reminder, previews/trailers), at it was from the same people (or some) of /diablo 2.... how could that go wrong?.... well.....

[krizalllid]

They lost most of their players for 2 reasons: they made out the game to be a MMO and it isn't; so they got a lot of flak from loltards looking for a new game to grief in.
Secondly, said loltards couldn't get online due to the overpriced subscription charge on a game that had singleplayer.

Personally, I rarely play with other people. And normal people usually tolerate bugs anyway.

[pancakeman]

I wanted to like it so bad, but even on low settings it was so buggy my computer could barely run it. It literally took 5 minutes to load some areas. Truly a shame, some of the gameplay was very fun.

[Silverfang]

[...]
The atmosphere looked spectacular, the graphics weren't bad (reminder, previews/trailers), at it was from the same people (or some) of /diablo 2.... how could that go wrong?.... well.....
Simple answer: The necessity to rely on third parties money (and the need and ambition, to strip out off this dependencies as soon as possible). If the game would have been developed (still) under courtesy of Blizzard and the bucks behind that name, we would have had a new king on the throne of arpg.

At least that's my 2 cents.

Silverfang

[DoW Fanatic]

The Revival project has done it justice. If you haven't already, google it.

[Doctrinaire]

Bought it. Got severe memory leaking and rubberbanding on top of sloppy, unfocused gameplay and bland visuals. Returned it.

That was the extent of my experience with Hellgate: London.

[Dacar92]

This is a nice summing up of the events that occurred up to the cancellation of the game support by Namco.

http://www.incgamers.com/Columns/44/the-return-of-hellgate

The game is coming back this year apparently. Check out our forums here

http://hellgate.incgamers.com/index.php

[Dacar92]

It was in a terrible state when it came out. So bad that they lost most of their players in the first 3 months and even had to shut down the servers. Do you play online ? I wonder if there are any servers left. Lst i heared, some korea company bought the rights and promised online support.

Not so fast there. The servers were shut down because Namco decided they didn't want to support the game in NA and EU. This was way after Flagship closed and way more than 3 months after game release. Flagship remained viable 10 months after the game was released and Namco kept the servers running until sometime in Q1 2009. Well over a year after game release. The Asian servers (Korea) have remained online since. Single player is still a great way to enjoy the game and if you get the Revival Patch it is even better. See my post above.

[Zarniwoop]

I fired this up last weekend, and I have to say, I don't understand how this failed.

I guess their mistake was releasing it buggy as heck and with the monthly fee (or at least a 10 dollar monthly fee).

I'm having a good bit of fun with it. I always wondered why no one had made a first person diablo. I'm sure its not for everyone, but I really like it.

[DoW Fanatic]

I'm still having a lot of fun with the game myself. Beating it with a BM is my current challenge and it's been an uphill battle at times. I'm nearly done with normal though and looking forward to NM sword/gear drops.

[Zarniwoop]

I'm running a summoner on elite and he's up to level 30ish.

Honestly, I don't see the difference too much. However, all the mobs have lots of hp and AE mobs are really, REALLY dangerous.

I can see a blademaster getting really crappy in some places since they take damage like Oprah falling down a well from what I've heard. And yes, that was the worst metaphor in history.

[DoW Fanatic]

I have to play more and more defensive as I progress. Leech is pretty much non-existant. The one taunt you get let's you focus on the enemies(especially ranged enemies) one at a time, when it works. Bosses haven't been a problem, so far, but coupled with their mobs they can be a pain.

[Johnny]

Hellgate London was the first game in 18 years where I went back to the store and demanded a refund.

I'm thinking the fact that the company who made it went out of business and the servers closed where no coincidence.

[Zarniwoop]

Probably not. I'm just not having the experience with it that you seemed to have.

It was horribly buggy out of the box apparently.

I still say that if blizzard made a first person style diablo game, it would be epic. They sort of already did (WoW would have been a great world of Diablo with a lot of changes and tweaks).

But, even on the Hellgate London scale, I'm convinced that game would work in the right publisher/developer hands (I.E. Blizzard's).

[Johnny]

The problem is that the diablo "platform" was good "for its time" You can't replicate it today and hope for the same success. Static worlds. A single city and then the whole world as one long dungeon doesn't work any more.

It's like if they made Tetris today where all the blocks where in 1500 polygon 3D but the platform was still in 2D.

[Zarniwoop]

I agree.

That's why world of diablo was the game I wanted to see. Without the clunky cartoons anyways.

They'll never make a super dark game though. It wouldn't be sellable in china.

They ride the line pretty well.

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

I just bought the Collector's Edition for Hellgate: London today for $15. It was too good of a price to pass up.

I'm assuming I got it at a right time, because the Revival Patch is awesome?

/crosses fingers that it works for Windows 7

[Zarniwoop]

Supposedly, Namco is going to reintroduce the live servers in Europe and North America sometime this year.

Still waiting to hear more.