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Tag: Hellgate
Impressions: Hellgate London Is Lazy And Incompetent
What else can I say? A whole lot.
Incompetence is a word that has dogged Hellgate: London from the day when Electronic Arts and Flagship thought that a subscription on a Diablo clone would be a guaranteed money maker. Following the completely timely demise of Flagship Studios and the departure of Bill Roper, Hellgate traded hands over to the less incompetent grasp of T3Fun and publisher Hanbitsoft, continuing support in Korea and even releasing expansion content. Hanbitsoft relaunched Hellgate in the west in 2014 and almost immediately put the game on life support until 2016 when the servers finally shut down. It wasn’t ideal, but for those looking to play online at the time, it was their only choice.
With 2019 just around the riverbend, Hanbitsoft has finally brought back Hellgate: Global for what is now the third attempt at resurrecting this dead horse. In spite of the general public attitude, I don’t actually blame Hanbitsoft for not bringing the game back online with functioning multiplayer. This game has failed about three times already as an online service and while launching as a single player only title might burn some bridges, it overall reduces costs on what is guaranteed to ultimately be a failed project and means Hanbitsoft won’t have to go through the process of shutting down servers again when this game inevitably becomes a ghost town in two months.
I know Hellgate fans don’t want to hear this, but the game has as much widespread appeal as a Milli Vanilli reunion, and probably not as much as that. There isn’t any notable commercial success to be had with this IP, and I say that as someone who owns all three novels.
While it is no secret that T3Fun took the Korean Hellgate: Global (see the character’s haircuts) and basically lobotomized its online play to re-release as a standalone single player game, they didn’t so much add a new coat of paint as they did cross out the “multiplayer” in Sharpie and write “singelpleyur”. The online play may be gone, but the intrusive chat screen is still there and boy does it like popping up every time you change levels even though you keep hiding it. Also present are the achievements tasking you with killing and being killed by other players of specific classes and that 30% experience boost that never seems to go away. The ability to fail in your equipment forging is still there, I don’t know why and I hope someone hacks the game and releases a patch to fix it. This feature only exists so shady publishers like Hanbitsoft can push cash shop items, and it doesn’t make sense in a single player game that doesn’t have a cash shop.
One positive of this is that all of the microtransactions (what few there were) from Hellgate: Global have been removed. Many of the cash shop items that were in Global are now available for purchase from in-game vendors. You’ll definitely want to keep a large number of auto-dismantlers on you as they are cheap (20ea) and stack by the thousands, and there is that guy in the Greenwich town hub that hands out daily one-hour auto-dismantlers.
But let’s talk about the big issue:
Hellgate: London also suffers from a massive, game breaking bug right now where the game drops to 1-2 frames per second and will stay there for extended periods of time. I’m talking minutes at length. I played this on a desktop computer loaded with an Nvidia 1080 FTW, an i5-4460 3.2ghz, and 32gb of installed ram. I’ve also played through every iteration of Hellgate: London and have never seen this before, although I have seen people claiming that this issue was also present in the prior iteration of Hellgate: Global specifically on Windows 8 and 10 computers.
I kept an eye on the game as it stuttered and found that it never went outside of the general 1.1-1.3 gigs of ram usage, so it’s not an issue with my hardware. I did find a post on the forums mentioning that running the process in compatibility mode for Windows 7 should help. It didn’t.
The problem seems to stem from specific enemies that are causing the game to chug to a halt, because it isn’t remedied by looking at the ground as is a popular fix for games where certain textures being rendered on screen can slow everything down. I have also come across a few other game breaking bugs, including one where certain equipment slots will blank out and keep the item equipped, but you can’t see or use it and the game won’t let you equip anything in that slot until it just randomly fixes itself, which can’t be done by rebooting the game.
If you’re a fan of Hellgate and don’t mind missing out on the expansion content, take this suggestion: Get yourself a copy of the original retail edition and install London 2038, which reenables online play and is currently in open alpha.
If you really want to play Hellgate with Global’s added content, sit this one out until T3Entertainment fixes it, which there is no guarantee they ever will. Until then, give this a pass.
Hellgate: London Launches To Steam, No Tokyo Content For Launch
Hellgate: London is back, again, again, and this time it is hitting Steam as a single player only game with the Tokyo expansion that Hanbitsoft added on after Flagship Studios went bankrupt. There are no microtransactions or cash shop items, and the game is available for a single purchase of $12.99 with a launch sale of 25% down to $9.74.
There is one caveat, and that is that the Tokyo content will not be available right now. The team is working on stability in the main quest and will release it as a free update.
As it was mentioned before, HELLGATE: London Steam Version has the latest update client of the Tokyo Version, which has all improved UI / UX / Content. However, due to internal circumstances, Tokyo content is temporarily unavailable in order to provide you with a smooth gameplay. Once stability of the Tokyo Main Quest is settled, you will receive a notice for FREE UPDATE. Until then you can still enjoy playing London, Stonehenge, Second Attack and Abyss maps.
MMO Fallout will have an impressions piece up in the next couple of days.
(Source: Steam)
Hellgate Multiplayer Is Coming Back: Again!
Hellgate has had a rough past, developed by Flagship Studios, released in October 2007 and shut down in February 2009 by Flagship Studios before being picked up by eastern publisher Hanbitsoft and relaunched in the west only to be shut down again at the beginning of this year. Thankfully this time around the game is being revived by the community, meaning that players can rest assured that certain aspects won’t be changed to support a cash shop.
The first developer diary is available at the link below, along with a list of what is currently working. Before you do, check out the MP test video below. While the multiplayer is currently offline, those of you lucky enough to find a copy of Hellgate (or who still own yours) can play the single player game improved massively thanks to its community.
(Source: Hellgate)
Hellgate On Steam Greenlight
For a game that has been in maintenance mode since 2012, Hellgate Global is a very fun title and completely free now that the full game and Tokyo expansion are available for free. In an effort to expand the game’s audience to those who have never heard of it or assumed that the game was still offline under Flagship Studios, T3Fun has put Hellgate Global on bid for Steam Greenlight. You can head on over to the game’s Greenlight page (linked below) to vote on bringing the title to Steam.
Or you can just go over to the official website and play it now.
(Source: Greenlight)
Whatever Happened To: Hellgate 2
I know what you’re thinking: There was a Hellgate 2? Technically no, which is why we are here in the first place. I had absolutely no idea that a Hellgate 2 was in development, partly because it was announced way back in 2011 and we haven’t heard anything about it since. Set to appear on the Unreal 3 engine, Hanbitsoft announced that the sequel has been canned for a myriad of reasons, not least of which being an inability to work with the Unreal 3 engine. The game was originally supposed to launch in Winter 2013, which again flew right over our heads here at MMO Fallout, and naturally missed said deadline.
Hanbitsoft took over global development of Hellgate: London following the demise of developer Flagship Studios, and even managed to put out an expansion pack called Hellgate: Tokyo. There hasn’t been any further development in the last couple of years.
(Source: MMO Culture)
MMOrning Shots: Go To Hell
Today’s MMOrning Shot is a very old screenshot from Hellgate: London, circa 2005. I could be wrong, but I’m not entirely sure that the demon pictured above ever made it into the final game. Is Hellgate even running anymore? The website says yes but the forums appear to be offline constantly.
Check out MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Hellgate: Global Act 3 And Tokyo Are Now Completely Free
One of the issues that comes with working alone on my website is that occasionally I don’t come across news on games that are not frequently reported on until later. MUCH later in fact. Ever since Hellgate Global first reluanched under T3Fun, I’ve given an update on ticket prices every year or so. Tickets to Act 3 and the Tokyo Expansion were available for purchase on the cash shop for a combined total of approximately $7, while players could purchase and then sell them on the marketplace, making it entirely possible to play Hellgate’s content without paying a dime.
Granted, that alternative became extremely expensive. The Act 3 ticket was around 1.8 million palladium with the Tokyo expansion somewhere around 1 million last I checked in, making them more economical to just buy from the cash shop. In July 2012, however, T3Fun updated the game to make the tickets completely free:
As the forces of Hell ever grow stronger, more and more recruits are needed every day to help stave off the impending demon invasion of our world. Starting on July 5, 2012 (after regular server maintenance), the Act 3 and Tokyo Entrance Tickets will be given to all players at no charge.
So if you’ve been holding off playing Hellgate: Global because of having to pay for Act 3 and Tokyo, the good news is that you can pick up both tickets at the Greenwich Headquarters (first location) completely free.
Hellgate: Global Shutting Down In Japan
Editor’s Note: Please note that the information is based off of a translated Japanese announcement. Some details may have been lost in translation.
I know what you’re thinking, “Omali, didn’t Hellgate Global shut down like three years ago?” No. Hellgate Global doesn’t make much news nowadays since Hanbitsoft hasn’t done much following the launch of Hellgate: Tokyo way back in September 2011. In a post on the official forums, player Lustar noted an email sent out to players of Hellgate: Global’s Japanese servers. The email discusses Hellgate’s history, from its creation at Flagship to the eventual move over to Hanbitsoft. The notice points out that they did not have full control of data from Flagship Studios, and were unable to upgrade the game to a proper level, and are thus shuttering service.
The game will officially end in Japan on February 27, 2013. You can find more details at the link below, but beware of very poorly translated Japanese.
(Source: Hellgate Forums)
Making Memories: Low Cost Tickets Round Trip
At one point, as shown above, you were able to select from a huge supply of Act 3 tickets on Hellgate: Global. Nowadays you’re lucky if there are even any on the marketplace, and the prices above are just a fraction of how much they’ll cost you.
If you have a game memory you want posted, send your screenshots to contact@mmofallout.com and we’ll pick the best ones to post.
MMO Fallout 