Comments on: Flagship: “We ended up rushing Hellgate”

By: Dominic White

Dominic White — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:30:22 +0000

As has been mentioned, Hellgate was rushed out early, but the patch that just went up on the test server (which everyone should play on anyway, as it has double XP gain) weighs in at an almighty 1.3gb, and really does make it into the game it should have launched as.

Here’s hoping that they can rebuild the subscriber base after some time. Other games have done it – Everquest 2 was a trainwreck at launch, and now it’s excellent, and has a very healthy playerbase. I figure Hellgate could well do the same. Sure, it’ll never be as big as Diablo 3, but it’s a different game, by a much smaller developer.

By: Redford

Redford — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:31:51 +0000

If you ever saw the old videos of hellgate, it looked awesome. It was an FPS, except with custom weapons and many, MANY more monsters then what you might expect. The sad part is they tried to turn it into diablo. Why didn’t they just stick with an FPS which swarms monsters at you with upgradeable weapons and limited RPG elements? Think Serious Sam with a shotgun that can be upgraded to shoot lasers.

We may never know.

By: GeorgeR

GeorgeR — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:16:51 +0000

I admittedly had high hopes for hellgate, and kept playing through the server problems and bugs. But two months ago I uninstalled it and haven’t thought about putting it back in since. It was fun for what it was, and had a lot more potential, but sadly the ball was dropped way too hard.

By: Hmm-hmm.

Hmm-hmm. — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:10:57 +0000

Although I never purchased it, I followed the game for a bit. Reading reviews, waiting trailers, etc. It was disaster, mostly. And every time I think of the game I think of this trailer ( http://www.gametrailers.com/player/6193.html ) and what might have been. Then again, maybe it will be (or is) worth a second look, regardless of the awful payment scheme. As long as the gameplay is good.

By: Phil H

Phil H — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:24:47 +0000

Founder and fairly regular player of Hellgate here, I’m personally enjoying it, but if you had fits with it right off, I’d wait for the upcoming 2.0 patch(currently living on their test center) to hit before attempting to jump in as it is definitely bringing about some huge rebalances to the game.

Primarily- stat feeds, along with armor and damage calculations, have been completely overhauled, the Blademaster’s skill tree has been totally reworked, smaller tweaks to the other class’s skills, adding 3 skills for each class, more weapons and armor, a new item class- trinkets, new weapon/armor grades(Double-Edged, Mythic), a half dozen or so new zones(including a party-oriented area that goes ~10-15 levels deep), Achievement bonuses, new mobs and bosses(with new models), along with a host of other small tweaks and additions. Some of it is sub only, some items only drop in sub areas but can be used by anyone, and some is for all.

By: Chiablo

Chiablo — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:15:51 +0000

I played it in Beta and loved it… when it went retail I lost interest and never actually picked it up.

Once it hit the $30 mark, I bought it (this was almost 8 months after launch)… it has come a long way and is a ton of fun with a group, but overall it failed to keep my attention for long.

Mythos is amazing though, definitely worth playing if you’re a fan of fast paced action.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:58:06 +0000

Hellgate is what it is. Meanwhile, Mythos is shaping up pretty well. I don’t know whether it will compete with Diablo III when that comes out (except on price, of course), but it and Titan Quest are, I think, the best inheritors of the Diablo legacy to date.

By: Optimaximal

Optimaximal — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:03:57 +0000

Too think, if it had been released without the ‘lifetime sub’ option, or even as a free MMO supported by more micro-payments and advertising (like, say, Mythos!), people would have cut them some slack…

But asking for £100 up-front based on some members of the teams contributions to another companies game released 8 years prior with nothing else to show for it other than a shit-load of empty promises (most of which turned out to be lies) was tantamount to piracy – and the bad form, at that!

Flagshipped, indeed!

By: Noc

Noc — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:56:33 +0000

Yeah. I hear Blizzard’s just putting out another Diablo clone, though.

By: Shadout

Shadout — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:49:41 +0000

Hellgate isnt as bad as it was received at launch, and it has certainly improved. Something like a 1GB patch should be released soon too, with major game balancing (for better or worse, havent tried the test server).
Still, its not exactly a super great game, lots of game design mistakes, and it will likely never be a great game. But a decent Diablo clone “while we wait for the real deal” none the less.
Unfortunately not worth a subscription and not good enough without a subscription.The subscript-model was surely their biggest mistake for the game.

By: Pseudonym

Pseudonym — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:56:04 +0000

I nominate this post for the ‘Best Alt Text of the Month’ award.

By: Chris R

Chris R — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:47:15 +0000

I still have Hellgate installed… maybe I should fire it up to see if anythings changed… I have a level 50 Evoker using mainly the Arc Lightning skill along with some other lighting spell… can’t remember now.

It seemed like an all right game at the time… but didn’t hold me for more than a month and a half sadly. I was a non-sub by the way, and SO glad I didn’t get suckered into that “Founders” nonsense.