Auf der E3 zeigten die Flagship Studios einige neue Level aus ihrem Action-Rollenspiel Hellgate:London. Folgen Sie Heiko Klinge in das Gehirn eines verrückten Wissenschaftlers, mitten hinein in einen spektakulären Endkampf. Hellgate: LondonHellgate: London

Danach zeigen wir mehr oder weniger freiwillig was passiert, wenn man stirbt. Außerdem geben wir einen kurzen Einblick ins Crafting-System. Zum Abschluss erleben Sie eine gewaltige Schlacht gegen riesige Monster, die der Spieler mit Hilfe von Laser-Türmen und verbündeten Soldaten zur Strecke bringt.

First, a big shout out to all of you. You're an incredible bunch of testers, and this 'soft-launch' of the Beta was a HUGE help to us - you all managed to shake out a bunch of starting problems for us to iron out, which has allowed us to put together a much nicer build for our 'real' Beta launch. THANK YOU ALL!

That patch is imminent tonight. We've finished our smoke tests, and it should be coming very soon, barring any unforseen hardware issues.

So, the Bad News first - there's gonna be a character wipe. I know I said we really, really want to keep those to a minimum - and we do! But the big ol' XP rebalance actually required moving all the XP leveling gates, and that's just too much for your poor characters to withstand during the transition. They can TECHNICALLY survive to work in the new build. But they'd be so horribly gimped compared to new characters, you wouldn't be happy about it. And we're about to start emailing folks, so we really want to do that BEFORE so we can affect as few people as possible.

The much more minor bad news - 3 things we thought were fixed really weren't quite, but they're pretty minor, and we're probably more broken up about them than you will be.
1) Wisps aren't going away properly. We HAD the fix for this, but somehow it didn't end up in the build. And we didn't want to delay until friday to keep it in. It'll be in the next one. So, for a while, you get super-duper wisps. They DO do better damage now. Which makes them even more super-duper.
2) I halved base poison duration - but it turns out it was 2 minutes before, not 1. So now it's 1 minute, instead of 30 seconds like I thought. But hey.
3) Wolves are maybe not as reduced in population as we might like.

The GOOD NEWS!
Tons and tons of fixes. And 2.0 shaders should work now. Yay!

*Geometry issue on Gremlin Male robe - overlapping faces ( DONE )
*Pet names on Gadgets need to go( DONE )
*scrolling up with scrollup button on chat sometimes makes text permanently disappear until resolution change( DONE )
*Items dropping up high - ( DONE )
*wand attack range a little off ( DONE )
*Cull the Weak text bug - 2nd paragraph, first line - When you have ten of each sort "bting" them to me. Should be bring.( DONE )
*Mayor's quest Typos ( DONE )
*Church clearings did not have vendors/portals(DONE)
*Cooldown overlay box not drawing right in widescreen ( DONE )
*Levelup button doesn't go away after opening char/skill sheet( DONE )
*non-working thermal screen( DONE )
*Level range on bought maps does not correspond to the displayed icon number ( DONE )
*Removing skills from hotbar while cooling down leaves cooldown number ( DONE )
*Misfortune doesn't stack properly anymore ( DONE )
*Anchorstone icon WAY too similar to recall charm icon - maybe make it purple?( DONE )
*Items not increasing in value after identification? ( DONE )
*1 minute poison? Ow!( DONE - 30 second baseline now ) ( OK, so it was 2 minutes, and I made it 1 )
*The Spirit Teller Bosses had insanely damaging missiles( Done )
*Pistoleer AOE attack too slow ( Done )
*Scale up chat and bottom bar at higher resolutions ( Done )
*Rewards REALLY need to sparkle or something so people know to click on 'em ( Done - the text sort of pulses )
*Tutorial clarity - where do you go? Need breadcrumbs to lead you out or something. ( Done )
*Anselem needs some new text after his quest is complete( Done )
*Map needs zoom in/out buttons ( Done )
*Skill tiers now only require 3 points to unlock a tier, allowing greater diversification, and less 'pity points' ( Done )
*Gadgeteer Toggle skills now act like auras - they have NO mana cost, but only one may be active at a time. ( Done )
*Long Shot Gadgeteer skill is now a passive skill, with no mana cost ( Done )
*Gadgeteers start off with a bomb crawler, instead of hail of bullets ( Done )
*Rifle Bash converted to Flashbang, for quick area stuns of monsters. Hail of bullets moved later in the tree ( Done )
*Start with Boom Zipper instead of Hail of Bullets for Gadgeteer( Done )
*Stashes close on movement ( Done )
*Fixed missing ring slot ( Done )
*2.0 shaders fixed ( Done )
*Full XP rebalance ( Done )
*Full gold rebalance ( Done )
*Monster spawning fixes ( Done )
*Fixed some pyromancer skill layout issues ( Done )
*Less gadgets allowed at start for Gadgeteer ( Done )
*Some improved anims for Gadget Turrets ( Done )
*Various skill balances everywhere ( Done )
*Socketed items shouldn't get lost now ( in theory )
*Potion costs & droprates adjusted ( Done )
*Minor health potions a little more powerful ( Done )
*Wolf population reduced! ( Done )
*Drop rates adjusted ( Done )
*Champion drop rates adjusted for better champion loot ( Done )
*Sprint skills fixed to properly reflect what they do ( Done )
*Various string fixes ( Done )
*Fix for a targeting bug that sometimes prevented hits ( Done )
*Trinkets now not so darn expensive at base ( Done )
*Burning Colossus not worthless ( Done )
*Ignite should work ( Done )
*Various trade issues fixed ( Done )
*Some warping issues fixed ( Done )
*A bunch of other stuff I forget

NEW GOODIES
* 3 new quests - makes level 4-7 feel a lot nicer.

NEW PROBLEMS THAT WE'RE AWARE OF AND WILL BE DOING STUFF ABOUT
* You get a little TOO much money now. That's partially because the base prices for some of the lower-end items are higher than we want them to be.
But you probably won't waste too much sweat on this as we slowly ratchet it to about the right level.
*You got some of the higer-tier magical items a little bit too early. We're going to be tiering these a little more by level so you aren't seeing greens on your first dungeon.
*There's an ALT-TAB issue now, with it not restoring properly or screwing things up that we're looking into. I'm not sure if it was in the previous build or not.

THE REST
We have a list so long of things we want to fix, change, and add, you wouldn't believe it. Even though these are Beta releases, they always somehow FEEL like final releases, and we always agonize about the stuff that didn't quite make it in.

Anyway, again, a huge thank you to all of you, and your patience and continuing help as we fix, tweak, alter, and tear to shreds things we don't like. We love you guys!

Travis

Gamertag bekam die Gelgenheit, Flagship Entwickler Tyler Thompson in einer Radiosendung zu interviewen. Unsere Partnerseite, HellgateGuru, bietet den Mitschnitt im mp3-Format zum Download an. Neue Informationen jedoch gibt es darin nicht, dennoch ist es, wenn man des Englischen mächtig ist, hörenswert.

Update: Wie bei den Kollegen zu erfahren ist, ist auch die Messe China Joy 2007 jetzt gestartet, und eine chinesische Webseite bietet erste Photos von Hellgate: London. Wir haben den Link unten eingefügt, und wünschen viel Spaß beim Betrachten!

One of these missions really was crazy. In fact, it was about diving into the neural synapses of a crazy engineer named 314. The Mind of 314 charges players to dive in and bring the wayward engineer out of his doldrums and into his pool of happiness. Yes, very loony, but it definitely adds character in a world overtaken by demons. The mission takes players into the mind where they'll have to battle their way through a bunch of enemies, including some invisible ones, to fight the boss of the area, the Ego of 314.

But even though Mythos might've been designed to be a sort of videogame equivalent of a crash test dummy, somewhere along the line the game sprouted wings and Flagship decided to run with it. No longer shackled to the shadows of its Hellgate brother, Mythos will eventually take flight on its own via digital distribution later this year.

IAHGames is thinking of planning a Hellgate: London Road Trip across South East Asia which we're calling, "The Trail of Fire” Road Trip, and we'd like to get some input from everyone out there before we proceed with the event - You speak we listen!

The trip will start from Singapore and head its way north towards Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and then South East towards Vietnam, and then north into China and finally Hong Kong. The trip may cover a total distance of 8500KM to 9200KM, which will take place over a period of 2 -3 months. - Can you say, Road Trip!

[...]Die erste Etappe des Tages führte uns zum Shutters Hotel, in dem wir die neuesten Spiele aus dem Hause Sony Online Entertainment begutachten durften. Neben dem neuesten und mittlerweile schon vierten Add-On zu Everquerst 2, Rise of Kunark, standen auch Entwickler von Pirates of the Burning Sea und The Agency in der gemütlichen Lobby, um Fragen zu beantworten. Leider konnten wir beim Gespräch mit Corey Dangel keine InGame-Szenen abfilmen, da der Working Progress wörtlich noch nicht „filmreif“ ist.[...]

Auch am zweiten Tag der E3 ist OnlineWelten natürlich vor Ort, und berichtet von der E3. Den Anfang für heute macht ein Screenshot-Paket mit 10 Screenshots zu Hellgate: London, welches ihr unter dieser News verlinkt findet. Weitere Artikel sollen folgen, und werden dann in dieser News ergänzt.

Update: Wir haben für die aktuellen und vielleicht noch kommenden Bilder von der E3 eine Galerie erstellt - Ihr findet sie ebenfalls unten verlinkt.

[...]For starters we play as an Engineer. This character class reminds us of being a Necromancer in Diablo II. Rather than doing all the fighting directly, Engineers build attack bots and drones that hover around them and dish out ranged damage to bad guys. The level we played had us running around the synaptic passageways of an NPC's mind. As we journeyed through his mind we had to fight different aspects of his personality such as his id and his ego.

The drones and bots will do most of the fighting, but the Engineer is also able to wield a number of ranged weapons that can be upgraded with a dizzying array of options. You can add electric or fire damage to their attacks and make other tweaks to enhance their performance. Your drones can also be upgraded to become tougher and deadlier. Most of these improvements will come from components found by scavenging leftovers from your kills, but there are weapons dealers you can go to as well.