Hellgate : London

[Green_Gloom]

I can't see a subscription based model as a bad thing, if they are going to update the content frequently. Depending on update size and frequency, of course.

[KingOfPain]

For only a little more than $200 USD (less than the cost of half a cup of coffee everyday for a year) you can become one of the beta tester! And get a limited edition sculpture, um, action figure too.

Weta NZ

A little too rich for me, but I pre ordered the CE. OMG Mini Pet Hmm, is it a pet or useless mini pet?

KoP

[soul]

Well, definitely interested in this game, and am going to play it once I've got a computer that has a hope of running it. Hopefully next month or two.

Would be cool to see RB involved with this game. Sounds like it has alot of potential.

Character limits are annoying, but IMO if the game is good, $10 a month isn't that much for some extra features, especially character slots. The 5 person party limit might be annoying too, but on the other hand, its hard enough getting 8 people in a party in GW, so maybe not.

[Zed-F]

Not really interested in a subscription-based model... but if the basic game is good enough and the account restrictions aren't too onerous, I might be interested.

[KingOfPain]

I don't like subscription model either. That was the reason we went with GW over WoW. WoW also cost 50% more than HGL. HGL at $10 per month isn't too bad when comparing to the GW (previously) new chapter every 6 months. If you were (initially) willing to buy 2 chapters per year, the cost/year difference between the 2 games is marginal. The comparison ignores the initial cost of buying HGL, but that cost is spread over an undetermined period of time depending on the expansion model HGL adopts. Otoh, I don't think I am alone in RBGW, who can say we have already spent more money on GW (not including GW:EN, which I am still deciding) than we would have in HGL already.

I don't mind paying a little more (little being subjective) if I enjoy the game. If I am to rate GW now, if Classic Diablo was a 10, GW would get a 7, maybe even less. I am gauging this by how addicted I was over CD. There was a period of over half a year I felt little desire to play GW at all, and that was only months after Prophecies was released. And since then only variants and survivors can hold my interest.

One thing worth noting is HGL's single player mode. Now, I am not sure how it is going to work but I am sure you are not limited to 3 characters without being Elite - as we were able to create almost limitless amount of characters with CD and D2 through save files.

As well, this opens up the posibility for modding, and dare we say, private severs?

PS: got a little 6600q quad-core rig coming my way. Only 10 more sleeps

KoP

[Zed-F]

If you were (initially) willing to buy 2 chapters per year, the cost/year difference between the 2 games is marginal. The comparison ignores the initial cost of buying HGL, but that cost is spread over an undetermined period of time depending on the expansion model HGL adopts.

It also ignores the cost of paying for expansion packs to HGL. Sorry, KoP, given my usage patterns for most games, wherein I play a game extensively for some extended interval, then put it down for a similarly extended interval, and come back to it later, that argument doesn't wash with me. Paying $10 a month for a game I've already bought is bad enough, I won't pay $10 a month for a game I am not even playing at the moment.

One thing worth noting is HGL's single player mode. Now, I am not sure how it is going to work but I am sure you are not limited to 3 characters without being Elite - as we were able to create almost limitless amount of characters with CD and D2 through save files.

I certainly hope that there will be ways to get around the limited character slot problem. 3 character slots seems awful skimpy.

[Thecla]

I think we should support this game here at the RB.

I hope it does attract some interest, assuming of course that HG:L lives up to it's promise, which you never know until it actually appears...but I'm glad to see you put up some forums. http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

Fully instanced, but friends can join game-in-process anytime (by request/invites). This is huge. This is how RBD peeps gel'd in Diablo. I don't have to tell you old RBDers how awesome this feature we took for granted is, but to those who have never played Diablo, it means people can play in the same game even tho they have different game objectives, in different areas, or just jump in to mule, drop off items, help, or just chat.

I also think the fact that you can always play solo when you want and don't have to play in a group is critical --- it will really aid in finding and disbanding groups. According to the uniquitous Bill Roper, monster difficulty will adjust on the fly to player numbers.

Oh, one more thing that would make pack rats like myself HAPPY, it makes muling much easier

One thing I do worry about is that the game is not going to be at all pack-rat friendly. As I understand it, it's one account per cd-key, so non-subscribers get 3 characters and subscribers get 12, period. No creation of additional mule accounts like in DII. That doesn't sound like a lot of space to me, even for subscribers.

To tell the truth, I don't understand why they are so restrictive on the number of characters: Is disc space that expensive? The 3 character slots for non-subscribers seems especially limiting. Maybe they will at least consider some sort of increase for release. (I genuinely believe they are not trying to give non-subscribers a neutered version of the game, but they decided that they need additional funding to continue development in the way they want after it's released.)

On muling, it will depend how the item system works. Indications are that it may be similar to Mythos where characters only see their own drops. This took a little getting used to: in the first few Mythos-beta multiplayer games I went through, I left all the magic items on the ground for other people as I would've in Diablo, and only after a while realized I was the only one who could see them anyway. What this means for muling is that if one of your Mythos characters drops an item on the ground in town, and you quit and rejoin with another character, that character can't see the item. So you need to use the trade interface and get help from another player to transfer items (unless you own two computers and two copies of the game).

There is some talk of a common stash in HG:L that would be shared between different characters on the same account. I hope it's implemented, but I haven't seen it confirmed.

LoL, I might need a new rig to play this game, but its about time I get one anyway.

There are no system-specs released right now, but --- depending on the degree of eye-candy --- HG:L is supposed to be playable on a wide range of systems, from ones that are 3 years old to the latest DX10 monster.

One thing worth noting is HGL's single player mode. Now, I am not sure how it is going to work but I am sure you are not limited to 3 characters without being Elite - as we were able to create almost limitless amount of characters with CD and D2 through save files.

As well, this opens up the posibility for modding, and dare we say, private severs?

I'm also assuming there will be no limit on single-player characters, though I'm guessing you'll need some sort of 3rd party utility to transfer items between them.

But I think multi-player modding and private servers are going to be more-or-less out of the question for HG:L. It has no LAN support and everything is set up so everyone (subscribers and non-subscribers alike) plays multi-player games on the official servers. I'm sure that anything different will be absolutely against the HG:L EULA. I guess the hope (for subscribers, at least, and maybe non-subscribers too if things eventually filter down to them) is that the officially provided additional content from FSS will be as good, or better, than what was provided by the Diablo-modders.

[KingOfPain]

Heh, I meant to cover that point. Of course I am only hoping paid expansions will be rare or not-at-all. But we can only trust them so much...


More at source: http://hellgate.incgamers.com/wiki/index.php/HGL_Online

• Flagship is considering packaging up the regular content updates and selling them as expansion packs every 6-9 months. Elite players would not need to pay for these, since they'd already have the content.
  

• Elite characters will not be deleted if your account goes in-active. You do not need to keep paying $10 a month to keep them from being deleted.
  

• Elite accounts will in some TBD way rank their top three characters, so if their subscription lapses they can choose which three will be accessible as part of the free online play.
  

KoP

[KingOfPain]

According to the uniquitous Bill Roper, monster difficulty will adjust on the fly to player numbers.

I have only read monsters difficulty will adjust (bump up) as sson as a new players joins, but havent seen any mention of it getting dumped down when players leaves. Maybe that's a given. But then it may not be such a good thing either. Imagine when you make a full group and try to get some power lvling then half of your party decides to leave in the middle of it...

I wonder if there is going to be a PlayerX feature.

I read monster diff also adjust to your clvl. That's a good thing in general, but would make some testing harder.

To tell the truth, I don't understand why they are so restrictive on the number of characters: Is disc space that expensive?

Future cash cow - Selling character slots, or more accounts for slots, or more slots as incentive to buy expansions. Cost for storage is about as much as the shrink wrap your game comes in.

On muling, it will depend how the item system works. Indications are that it may be similar to Mythos where characters only see their own drops. This took a little getting used to: in the first few Mythos-beta multiplayer games I went through, I left all the magic items on the ground for other people as I would've in Diablo, and only after a while realized I was the only one who could see them anyway. What this means for muling is that if one of your Mythos characters drops an item on the ground in town, and you quit and rejoin with another character, that character can't see the item. So you need to use the trade interface and get help from another player to transfer items (unless you own two computers and two copies of the game).

There's got to be a timer when all items become lootable by all (like in GW). I guess theres no drop when in town either.

There are no system-specs released right now, but --- depending on the degree of eye-candy --- HG:L is supposed to be playable on a wide range of systems, from ones that are 3 years old to the latest DX10 monster.

This one is almost 6 years old. It's time to get a new comp anyway. I have been watching the price for almost 2 year now and promise myself when quad core comes down to dual core price I would grab one.

KoP

[WarBlade]

This one is almost 6 years old.

!!! !!!

And here I thought mine was getting a little long in the tooth at three years!

Sadly, even that machine got fried in a surge last week, so I've pulled the ancient PIII 850 out of retirement for web browsing and... Tetris. 'Tis painful using museum exhibits for personal computer purposes.