Hellgate NDA lifted

Xantcha · Post by **Xantcha** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:55 pm

So now I can say whatever I want!

Started off a little slow due to starting at level 1, but soon each room I got rushed by hordes of demons and shit, and this game is fucking amazing. I got two characters to level 20 (max is 50) and both resulted in vastly different, but both fantastic, playing experiences.

I started off with a guardian which, depending on the spec, can be a power driven dpser or a solid tank. Either way, the point is simply to wade your way into the crowd and chop them into bits. With the camera in third person mode it was awesome to get a sword with splash damage and watch as you annihilated everything while you stunned with your shield.

My other class was an Engineer, basically a ranged attacker with robot minions. I made my drone into a tank while I ran around dealing damage (I was lucky enough to find an early legendary gun) with the help of my rocket launching robot. I stayed in first person, and you shoot better if you stay still, so the point is to hold your ground as long as you can while demons charge you, hopefully dying before they get there. Some of these guys are huge, especially in first person.

One of my favorite parts of the game is that the loot you collected could be broken down into eight different elements. This resulted in just about never running out of bag space. These elements canbe used to create new items, imbue normal items with magic or even legendary properties, or upgrade the items you already have to become even more powerful. I loved the way my sword looked, so instead of finding a new one, this enabled me to simply keep upgrading it so I could continue to use it for a while.

The skill trees for the most part made sense, but I loved that there were several builds for each character that would be viable in either single or multiplayer setting. No word yet on whether respeccing is going to be in the game or in what form.

I'm not sure if there are going to be multiple servers from the start, but I'm definitely going to be playing from day 1, so contact me if any exiled are planning on playing, Xantcha the Templar Guardian! If you have any questions you want answered before the game comes out post em up and I'll get back to you.

Yeah, I'm excited.

PS Smash Bros Brawl got delayed till Feb. That's gay.

Post by **Kordolin** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 5:32 am

I haven't had much time to look up stuff on Hellgate, but it seems like it's going to be a good game based on other people's reactions. I know very little about the playstyle, from what you describe it sounds like it is hack and slash, or is there more to the fighting?

In my quick search for info on Hellgate, I stumbled across this quote on Wikipedia: "One preview described the game as World of Diablo, a cross between World of Warcraft and Diablo II." How accurate is that?

Xantcha · Post by **Xantcha** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 6:16 pm

It's pretty damn accurate, though at heart its a heavy hack and slash. It's closer to diablo, but there are definite warcraft elements to the control style and talent spec. The skill trees are much more varied than in diablo, but the points you can stack on each talent is high. This results in characters specializing a lot more, which makes a lot of talent builds useful but if not balanced correctly will result in overpowered specs.

With the controls it's basically a warcraft set up. You can drag skills onto your hotkeys and use em on the fly, as well as assigning seperate skills to the right and left mouse buttons. They also put situational skills in when doing certain things that you can activate by hitting ctrl+left mouse. For example, if you're running for a long time a picture of an adrenaline pack will pop up and you can use it to start sprinting wherever you need to go without having to actually go to your inventory and use it. It's handy for that, but honestly I didn't really use it for anything else.

Everywhere you go except the town online is instanced as well, so if they're not in your party you won't see em. The towns are especially small and kinda crowded, but you can get around easily enough. I don't know if that will still be true upon release.

Post by **Kordolin** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 3:34 pm

How many classes are there? And it seems like each class has two different talents builds/specializations they can choose?

Post by **Raix** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:29 am

I plan on picking this up. How does it run? I can't find any info about minimum reqs. Thats my biggest worry thus far.

Xantcha · Post by **Xantcha** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:48 am

There are a total of six classes, two per faction right now, but they already have at least two more coming in one of the big updates they're planning for people that pay the $10/month subscription. There will be minor patches every month and content updates every three months. Current classes for Templar are Blademaster and Guardian, melee fighters. For Cabal its Evokers which are similar to mages, and summoners more akin to the necromancer of diablo 2. For Hunters its Marksman which are ranged shooters, and Engineers which fight at range but have support robots.

I don't know what minimum req's are going to be, but I have a BFG 8800 with 4g ram so I didn't have any trouble. DX10 is sick btw! I just got vista