Preview Hellgate ganderings at 1Up

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Hellgate: London

There's a <A href="http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3140410">four page preview</a> of <A href="http://www.hellgatelondon.com/">Hellgate London</a> over at <A href="http://www.1up.com">!Up</a> which covers various aspects of the actiony first person rogue-like that <A href="http://www.flagshipstudios.com/">Flagship Studios</a> is working on. It covers how attacking and aiming works, animal crossing, PvP, and random stuff like:
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<blockquote>Apart from the lack of a dependency on aiming, Hellgate also steers away from most first-person shooters by having a randomly created world. Apart from certain specific underground station areas where players can buy/sell items and meet up with other players, the game world will appear different every time you go adventuring. "The entire game is dynamically generated, except for underground stations, which are kind of like our towns, because you always want people to know where to go to buy and sell items and find NPCs for tasks," says Roper. "But any time you step out into the gameplay world to play, we create a unique version of the gameplay world for you to play in. It's kind of like Guild Wars is, or the dungeons in World of Warcraft -- there's a whole bunch of games that have done it in different degrees. The idea is that every time you go out, you get your own individualized experience, whether it's for you or your group or whoever's in there. It eliminates a lot of the downsides of the MMO environment -- where there's kill stealing, or spawn camping, or you have people of different character class areas trying to play in the same area."</blockquote>
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Not to mention just getting bored with seeing the same maps with the same critters in the same spot over and over and over again.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[space captain]

Roper is careful to note, however, that just because the game takes place in first-person, that doesn't mean it is a shooter dependent on accuracy. "Since we're building an RPG, even though it's primarily played from the first-person perspective, we don't want it to be a twitch-fest," he says. "We're doing things that have soft-targeting, or area effects, or auto-locking, to make it where your success in the game isn't determined on your physical reflexes, or the dexterity of a fourteen year old. It's all about building up a character: your level, your stats, your skills, your equipment, your items -- it's the classic RPG in that sense."

As if to prove this point, when demonstrating the game to us, Roper went with a gun that didn't need to be fired directly at an enemy -- he deliberately fired it nearby but not at an enemy so the weapon would overshoot, only to have the shot turn around in mid-air and come back to attack. Similarly, when Roper used dual fire-shooting pistols later in the demo, he shot at the ground nearby an enemy instead of at the enemy itself -- and showed that the fire attacked a large area, rather than just a few pixels on the screen. Similar to the pitch given for Full Spectrum Warrior where 'it takes place in the battlefield but you never actually pull the trigger,' Hellgate: London takes place in a first-person shooter world, but you never have to have perfect aim. It helps a bit, but isn't key to the gameplay.

man - games just keep getting easier and easier... you gotta wonder how these fuckers decide where to draw the line

im willing to see if it works, but it doesnt sound promising

 

[obediah]

Maybe it will end up like one of those old space shoot'em ups, where you can upgrade to all sorts of weird guns, and if you make it to the end of the level without getting killed, pushing the button once covers most of the screen w/ a bazillion different types of munitions.

That could be kind of cool, of course gameplay would be reduced to wedging down the space bar with a paper clip so that you're always firing, and then walking around til you find the exit.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

interesting. seems like they may make it far too simplified. Also, this escapes me, but wasn't Diablo 2 considered a bit of a twitch fest?

 

[almondblight]

Is every dungeon crawl a rogue like now? Even a futeristic FPS dungeon crawl?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Is every dungeon crawl a rogue like now? Even a futeristic FPS dungeon crawl?

It is when the locations and quests are randomly generated. This isn't even the first commercial rogue-like that's used first person perspective, either. SSI made one with the Eye of the Beholder engine back in the early 1990s called Dungeon Hack.

It's also not the first rogue-like to employ a futuristic setting. There's gobs and gobs of those including DoomRL, Tower of Doom, Gearhead, Xenocide, Mission: Firestorm for the Macs, and so on.

 

[almondblight]

So the only two elements needed are dungeon crawl and random generation? Seems like a pretty big stretch to me.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

So the only two elements needed are dungeon crawl and random generation? Seems like a pretty big stretch to me.

You're not one of those that thinks a rogue-like absolutely has to have ASCII graphics to be a rogue-like, are you?

 

[Sol Invictus]

The randomly generated maps are definitely a huge plus. They're one of the reasons why games like Diablo, Diablo 2, and all those roguelikes feel constantly fresh. You just don't know what you're going to face the next time you head out into the wilderness.

 

[Sol Invictus]

man - games just keep getting easier and easier... you gotta wonder how these fuckers decide where to draw the line

im willing to see if it works, but it doesnt sound promising

What Bill Roper is saying tis that it isn't an FPS. Your l33t skillz don't count. The game is an RPG - with character skills > player skills. Kind of like in Fallout, if you were a bodybuilder in real life but your character had a strength of 2, why should he be as strong as you? Same case in Hellgate London. If your character's poor with guns, why should he be a sniper?

Like I said, Hellgate London is ROGUELIKE INCARNATE some time ago. It is not an FPS.

 

[almondblight]

You're not one of those that thinks a rogue-like absolutely has to have ASCII graphics to be a rogue-like, are you?

Ever hear of gameplay? Or is Morrowind a "Fallout-like" just because they have an openended map system (wait, fallout has random placement...guess it's a "rogue like").

 

[Sol Invictus]

Diablo and Diablo 2 have roguelike gameplay. Find loot, kill monsters, do random quests, pursue main story (if there is one). Hellgate London is being touted as a first person "Diablo 3", so it stands to reason that it too is a roguelike - a first person one like Dungeon Hack.

Irrelevent bullshit like "openended map system" doesn't constitute Fallout, either, almondbright. The importance of the openended map system in Fallout is not equal to the importance of randomly generated maps, quests and locations in roguelikes, which is the very core of a roguelike.

 

[Elwro]

As for aiming, Demise was a roguelike-alike, was a first-person game, didn't require aiming, and still was a breathtakingly difficult game. Excluding the aiming requirement needn't make this new game any easier.

 

[PennyAnte]

I loved Animal Crossing, and any similarity is good. But I still think Hellgate is Diablo 2 reskinned.

After D2 I wanted to sleep with Bill Roper. But Hellgate doesn't rekindle the flame.

Hellgate's like a marriage when the sex is always the same. Every play time gets to be loveless, bland and short.

 

[almondblight]

Diablo and Diablo 2 have roguelike gameplay. Find loot, kill monsters, do random quests, pursue main story (if there is one).

Oh cool. Throw in a random map generator and GTA III or Mario World is a roguelike.

Hellgate London is being touted as a first person "Diablo 3", so it stands to reason that it too is a roguelike - a first person one like Dungeon Hack.

Assuming Diablo is a roguelike. I suppose The Fall is a Wasteland like.

Irrelevent bullshit like "openended map system" doesn't constitute Fallout, either, almondbright. The importance of the openended map system in Fallout is not equal to the importance of randomly generated maps, quests and locations in roguelikes, which is the very core of a roguelike.

While I'll give you that it's somewhat of an important feature to the game, it's not nearly as important as the gameplay itself (to me at least). Playing through the two games is very different. Sure, you have similar goals if you want to simplify it down, but if you want to simplify everything down you sound like that dumbass that said there were only 5 catagories of games. Maybe there's only one. "Press controls to try to achieve goal."

And besides, I would argue that the importance of a random map is a lot more important in Rogue than in Diablo. In Diablo it dowsn't change the game a hell of a lot, besides making it less monotonous. In Rogue it can kill you if you get lost somewhere without food, or if the random drop is a cursed item or something that makes you sick.

And wasn't everyone talking about how the appeal to this game would be going around with a group of friends online blowing through hordes of demons? Unless they changed Rogue (actually Moria and Andband, but I assume they're close enough), a lot since last I played it, this sounds nothing like it. It does sounds a helluva lot like Gauntlet though. But oh, random maps. Right. Must be like Rogue.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

And besides, I would argue that the importance of a random map is a lot more important in Rogue than in Diablo. In Diablo it dowsn't change the game a hell of a lot, besides making it less monotonous. In Rogue it can kill you if you get lost somewhere without food, or if the random drop is a cursed item or something that makes you sick.

And wasn't everyone talking about how the appeal to this game would be going around with a group of friends online blowing through hordes of demons? Unless they changed Rogue (actually Moria and Andband, but I assume they're close enough), a lot since last I played it, this sounds nothing like it. It does sounds a helluva lot like Gauntlet though. But oh, random maps. Right. Must be like Rogue.

Well, I think the problem is that in the mainstreaming of rogue-like elements, the YASD stuff gets cut because most players don't like dying a lot. That said, Gearhead lacks YASD stuff but it's clearly a rogue-like.

Diablo had much more in common with the older school rogue-likes than you're suggesting, stuff Diablo 2 dropped. For example, in Diablo, all your spell abilities were basically up to the random drop generator. Shrines and alters in Diablo, while not as complex as what you can do with them in Nethack, were still a mystery as to what they did before you used them and could directly and indirectly cause you to die. Diablo 2 put names on them so you knew what they did before you selected them, which was a mistake IMHO.

 

[almondblight]

I doubt Hellgate is going to be moving back in the direction of the first Diablo. The focus looks like it will be mass mayhem. At a certain point you are so removed from the starting point that you're somewhere else completely.