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NDA Lifted - Beta Reviews in:
deviantek
Member Posts: 13
As quoted from the beta forums, I tend to feel very similar to this reviewer (note this post in the beta forums has received stars for "good post")
[quote]
This is partially crossposted from another thread, but I felt my thoughts merited their own thread, at least so all the people with join dates of 10-16 can more easily gnaw at my ankles..
On to my thoughts..
I am one of a circle of maybe seven people who religiously play online games together. About five others have played the HGL beta or the demo.
None of them like it, for all the reasons people have been complaining about for weeks....
It's going to turn out shaky for HGL I think. The people who chant " It's beta!" right now will chant " its the first month!" etc... but the anger will never go away until they address the core problems with the game and it finally delivers on it's promise..
They need to reverse their thinking.. Ivan admitted in an interview that the whole setting is just something they created to frame their gameplay desires..
But.. this is 2007... diablo in 3d has been done to death, even from a third person perspective.. by years and years of games out of Korea alone...
The idea of collecting random stuff off mobs you don't even recognize, nothing unique or memorable about them, you just mow through..isnt so novel anymore.. what makes this game appealing is that it's supposed to be stylish demon killing.. with the good things about diablo. World/setting first, game they necro-rised from 2001 with a 3d engine second, gameplay there to support the gameworld.. not be all there is to the game. How many other demon resistance games are coming out this year? None?
Games with stories like films are out now.. innovation has driven the bar upward in so many areas since 2001..you have games like God of War burning whole new ideas of what third person one vs many brawls should play like.. you have games like Bioshock or KOTOR burning ideas of how a game should tell a story...
They need to reverse their thinking and focus on the fact that their game is knights in wicked powered armor fighting the legions of hell in a postmodern apocalypse and stop thinking that their setting is just an afterthought that they can pull off in half assed form. Everything in the HGL gameplay has been replicated elsewhere ad nauseum, it's the world that makes HGL unique right now.. the world is what they can sell... a bucket full of half assed game systems isnt a complete game, it's just a bucket full of left butt cheeks. How attractive is that? We need the full moon.
They've failed to deliver a game whose gameplay has kept up with the rising expectations set by the industry as a whole over the years. It can't be denied when looked at honestly that this game as it is could have been some thing shoveled out the door by Webzen. If they hope to sell this game on gameplay as it stands, the anger will never go away.
this is the important sentance if the rest is too rambly and tl:dr
They need to addressthe core problem that nothing in this game.. not the story, not the myriad gameplay elements.. are complete, and that the gameplay and setting are still completely independant of eachother instead of supporting eachother.
Please think about what I had to say, and I'm sorry it's a bit rambly.. I'm not much of a writer. Please note that if you want to flame me and your join date is 10-05 or 10-16 I probably won't care much about what you have to say until next week at least. Just being polite about it...
[/quote]
Comments
"Games with stories like films are out now"
Well... I'm not sure games are quite that level just yet or if they ever will be.
I haven't played the game enough to comment, but it seems there will be a lot more content on the retail version than the beta.
http://www.hellgatelondon.com/underground
This is an ACTION rpg.
If you basically ignore the story and the writing and the quests and focus instead on the ACTION, it's a fantastic game. If your looking for Diablo 2 action with tuns more depth, you'll find it here. If your looking for a good RP story with some nice action, look ELSEWHERE. As every other part of the game besides the action is pathetic. Thankfully, it's an Action RPG, so what really counts, is really good.
I'm sorry but people calling it an "action rpg" doesn't detract from the fact that the "action" is pretty much just all the same repetitive stuff.
Forgettable environments, forgettable enemies, heck even forgettable PCs and NPCs. All you really do is shoot or hack whatever thing is currently coming at you. I don't feel drawn in or impressed by anything in the game. The monsters are generic, the quests are generic, the settings are generic. The story is hard to even find. The classes are mediocre, the abilities are lackluster.
If anything, it feels more like a mini-game or a "budget title" than a real game.
Oh, and don't forget that there's ingame ads. The ads don't even turn off if you're a subscriber.
Collectors edition preorder: Canceled
Plan to get the Founders subscription: Canceled
Hope for this game: Canceled
I'm really disappointed, I very much wanted the game to be great.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
Just found Sacred: Underworld on my harddisk...diablo-feeling, here i come..
The NDA has NOT been lifted. REMOVE THIS THREAD.
No annoying animated GIF here!
Yes it has, check out the official hellgate london site, and all the fan sites.
--------------------
SWG - Killed by $OE
WOW - Retired
Playing WAR
Beta NDA Lifted
The NDA period for the general Beta test is officially over! THANK YOU all for being as good as you have been on this. Feel free to post, email, phone call, and alert your local news station about your play experiences!
None of that made any sense. Any beta reviews in English?
My bad you are right and stupidly I'm in the beta *doh*. Just got overzealous. Sorry.
Heres a quote from the forum to appease.
"Let me start by saying I'm sorry about all the harsh words I'm about to write and yes, it will get harsh very soon. I feel almost heartbroken having to criticize a game I really looked forward to. I preordered it in good faith believing that even if HGL doesn't turn out to be all I hoped for, I'd still want to try it out and play at least for a while. Unfortunately that is not the case based on what I'm seeing so far. I have canceled my preorder over a week ago, and I think it's only fair that I tell FSS why I did that.
I feel that in its current shape HGL is a random collection of mostly mediocre parts sewn together. In no particular order:
Landscapes: bland and repetitive. While for this specific case I'm willing to believe that more tilesets are coming for the release, based on the tilesets I've seen already I don't think that would help a whole lot. I refuse to believe that London cannot provide a variety of creative backdrops for the action. Seriously... is it going to be metro stations all the way to the end?
Action: unsatisfying. Ranged weapon classes feel like playing a really dumb and basic first person shooter. Evokers don't differ much from MM/Eng - their skills are mostly just another type of "weapons" but other than having limited ammo by virtue of having to use power I'm not feeling like I'm playing an actual mage-type class. Melee action feels horribly off. My sword blows don't really seem to connect with anything and are mis-timed so that there's usually a good delay between me swinging and the swing actually taking effect.
Weapons: this part is actually done quite well in comparison to everything else. Ranged weapons are decently varied and not just numerical variants of the same thing. Haven't tried melee weapons much because I can't stand melee combat.
Quests, writing/story: In general writing feels totally unhinged from everything. If I didn't know better I'd say it was done by someone who had no connection to the rest of the dev team during development. Story is skeletal and that's generous. Side quests are an insult. Even grind-happy MMOs have more interesting quests than that.
NPC voices: so bad I'm not sure what to say. Not just the much criticized horny/insane voices, but all of them feel like they've been done before the actual characters were conceived/written and then the devs sort of tried to match already recorded voices to something that barely fit. End result - really jarring.
Skills: tacked on. I certainly did not expect that not only would I not look forward to getting skill points, but also after getting them I would have no urge to spend them. Whether the game is easy enough to not require skill allocation is beside the point. I would have eagerly allocated skill points and powered through the game quicker... if only there were worthwhile skills for me to choose.
Character/gear progression: missing in action. Most of the things I find end up getting disassembled and I just end up upgrading my weapon. There is no real sense of upgrading your armor to me, either stat-wise or even visually. I just pick up and slap on whatever piece of armor I happen to find and it doesn't feel like it makes much of a difference. I haven't had to make tough choices between various equipment pieces and stat point allocations.
I could probably go on for a while but I'm getting up in 5 hours. My conclusion is, this game is far from Blizzard release standards. "From the creators of Diablo II" has a very hollow ring to it. I see the potential hidden deep inside it. Too bad the game lacks coherent vision and creative execution to really pull it off. Here's hoping that HGL will get better in time. I will not be buying it until it does."
No annoying animated GIF here!
I'm suprised by the negative comments. This game is meant for people that ENJOY the DIablo 2 item hunt fast paced rpg action. I could care less about exploring, adventuring, story or quests in this type of game.
I want to upgrade my character, to kill more and better monsters quicker, to get more and better equipment and skills, to kill more and better monsters - > Circle continues forever. This is the type of game I and I believe many people with me wants.
I want instant gratification when I'm slaying mobs left to right. I want the floor littered with loot and I want to always look forward to identifying the rare item that just dropped.
I keep seeing things like "Diablo 3 has been done to death" well, it hasn't. Name one morpg that has had randomized items, randomized levels and hack'n'slash combat, with enforced anti-hacking/duping.. Hellgate: London has the unique ability to continue in the spirit of Diablo 2 but this time with subscription based play they will have the resources to ensure a competitive environment without hackers, dupers and botters.
Personally I don't think a game like this feels right if you have infinite ammo, you can pretty much get one of those programmable gamepads stick it on auto fire then just focus on movement. I never fought more than a dozen enemies at a time.
No annoying animated GIF here!
My summary:
The Good:
-I find this game to be amazingly addictive because everyone can get great items, without becoming overpowered, and without having to give up there life for it
-The gameplay, the combat. Finally I dont spend 3 minutes killing off a single monster. Rather im spending 3 minutes hacking through 20 of them, teleport slashing from one mob to the other with my Blademaster, making a highly stylish look.
-Grouping really does make a difference to the scaling of monsters, loot and exp. Grouping might be a choice instead of a necessity in this game, but I'm going to group until the end because I like the social play, and the extra loot =D
-Modifications, crafting, dismanteling. If you dont need an item, no need to drop it, just break it and make something worthwile out of it.
-Best MMORPG (im just gonna call it that for now) graphics to date, for me.
The bad:
-Memory leakage. This issue has been resolved but has not been implemented into the current beta build. It causes me to crash every hour or two =_=
-I havent seen every enviroment, tho there are quite a lot of variations in the dark setting, I would like to see something else than just a dark setting.
-Chat panel sucks, I cant scroll up or down with it, which makes things said dissapear after about 30 seconds.
-I haven't found Wirt yet >_<
andymkay, you may be disappointed when you find out some of the stuff you're looking for is some of the stuff we're disappointed with.
Monsters are bland, boring, and forgettable. Equipment is mediocre uninteresting (most of it looks the same at each "level", and there's usually a "best weapon" type for each class, which makes it less exciting because you're ignoring half your loot just cause it's not the best type). Skills are boring and unimpressive, to sometimes downright awful. (Anyone who tells you the engineer drone looks cool is lying, lol). Then you go back to the monsters which, while harder, are still just random looking generic stuff, except maybe with different colours.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I had high hopes for this game. In the end, what they branded it as is what kills it. They wanted an easily identifiable story/setting in order to make a great action rpg and get a huge audience. But it fails miserably because there's so little to identify with, you have to make a huge leap just to care about the game.
The action is mediocre. There is little to no difficulty. I've tried blademaster and marksman and for both classes I never spent a single skill point, because I didn't have to. I was expecting a tactical diablo 2 or something, but this is just a rehash with less cohesive story and skills. In D2, you had three trees for each class with identifiable themes. In HGL you have one panel with a very limited skill tree and no organization. In fact, its easiest just to ignore it because compared to the demons you kill, trying to plan any type of skill set or specialization is more of a hassle than backpeddling with potions holding down autoattack.
D2 starts with an informative cinematic and puts you right in the game's first area with speaking NPCs to make absorbing the game easier. The story is engrossing enough to make you care about it before you get bored of reading. HGL is just useless, single sided uninteresting NPCs. The quest text is seperated nearly by the sentence and you have to click next 308 times reading useless chatter that takes forever to scroll into view.
I was hoping for D2 in the future with tactical combat. Instead, its D1 without any story in 3D. Wish I could find a way to like a game with such a simple gameplay, but compared to many modern titles, it falls short.
--Palum
seriously...
bwahahahah
priceless.... reality calls you my friends, she feels lonely
i love the game, it's FUN to me, and that's what matters. Sure the combat may be easy, but it's FUN. Also they have difficutly settings, so you can make it as hard as you want it, but it doesnt force people into playing a super hard game. Some people like to come home late from work and just blow up a bunch of stuff
I had an option between HG:L and Fury. Having played in the Fury challenge I liked it, but was waiting for the HG:L demo so I could try it aswell.
Turned out HG:L was a big disappointment for me. Some may like it, it may be a good game... but my opinion is that its bland and boring.
Fury is not perfect either, but its keeping me busy and im enjoying myself
well that makes sense hehe. Fury = ALL PvP. HGL = NO PvP...atm anyway, that will change on release tho.
This is the first game I've ever pre-ordered that I cancelled. I had high hopes for it, but it just doesn't deliver. I think I uninstalled the beta after about a week.
there are two kinds of people.
Those entertained my a mere piece of string, and those that are not. I can say right now, if you think HGL is the best thing since sliced bread, you are entertained by a piece of string.
FSS already said they do not want the game to be epic. The lack of an epic approach to an epic situation (demons taking over the world) is a bad design choice. Thus all alienating and bad humor they are trying to squeeze into the game itself.
I'll first comment and say that the game is not the best thing since sliced bread or chocolate nor is it a WOW/EQ/Lineage killer. I will say though that if you are tired of boring mmo games then this is the game for you. While I was playing in beta there was never a time I was bored. You are always busy killing demons,crafting mods for your weapons,exploring new area (which are randomized so you see a different map most of the time) and yes finding that elite weapon or uber gear that every gamer loves to have.
There is no such thing as the best class. Each class is well rounded so that you can do damage. Each class has its pros and cons.For example, the Guardian has the best amor rating but does less damage than a blademaster. Ranged/caster classes may do more damage than melee but their armor rating isn't as high as melee classes.
Grouping in Hellgate is fun. The more people in your group the harder it gets. I believe you can have up to 5 people max in the group though in the future it can change. The game is also very soloable but I found grouping with people to be more beneficial loot and money wise.
Overall it is a very good and fun game to play. Can this game be better ? Yeah it can but if you're looking for a perfect game then you will be looking forever because there is no such thing. about 9 mill play WOW and it is probably the least innovated game out there today but there is this thing called the fun factor. No matter how many flaws people can point out in this game or any other game for that matter, as long as you have fun and you enjoy your game then that is the most important thing. Overall I give Hellgate a 8/10 with room for improvement as time rolls on. I can't wait for the release because it is going to be one hell of a fun time playing this game.
I dont really understand your point here. Can you name another game in the same area that does what you are saying? How should it be epic in the sense of the story? Yes demons are invaiding london...we're killing them off, what else can you think of that would make it more epic?
In MMOs, when you kill a boss, like say, Illidan, who is the ruler of outland and we need to kill him to restore peace to the world...um...ok so we kill him, and he respawns a week later, and the world doesnt change. This is how MMOs are.
Are you are talking in terms of difficulty? They have "nightmare" mode for ALL users, which makes the mobs harder. They have "elite" mode for subsribers, which again makes it harder, and oh ya, nightmare and elite stack...so you can make it super hard, and then theres hardcore mode, where once you die, you start over, and you can play nightmare elite hardcore mode if you so choose to.
I don't really understand what you mean by epic. What MMO do you play that has this epic storyline in which the world changes and when you kill an evil boss its a one and done deal, never to see him again because you have epicly killed him. As for your string comment....all MMOs are all pieces of string =p
Just wanted to also mention that this game does not have the full staff that previously worked on Blizzard's Diablo series. The lead designer for the diablo series works with Perpetual Entertainment (Steig Hedlund) and alot of what i consider the major other players work with Arena.net. It seems to me Flagship is using the "creators of Diablo" just to market a game, when they really didn't create as much as people think. This is not to say that they dont have ex-diablo series people. Just not what I consider to be the major players, but then again I could be wrong, just wanted to mention this little fact. Anyways, I really wanted to pre-order and get this game. But after I read that this game will have in-game advertising and possible ad-ware, I decided not to. Its sad to see EA owning yet another game. Is it just me or is everything EA touching turning to crap. They better not screw up WAR, although I doubt Mythic would let that happen. Seriously, can you guys imagine WAR with in-game advertisement. Weaksauce!
we'll start seeing more of it im sure...also the in game ads...i havent even noticed one. You have to REALLY look for them. But ya, you'll start seeing more of it im sure, as much as companies say they are about the players and whatever...everything comes down to money.