Self-hatred age: Should I install Hellgate again?

[TVC15]

There was just a big new patch and I am bicurious.

[Fragamemnon]

I voted 'y'. I heard that they fixed some of the rougher, buggier edges. The design mistakes of the game are still there, though, so keep that in mind too.

[y2kev]

I'd do it. It's probably near respectability, no?

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I voted yes because I want to know if it's playable now

[Smooth Groove]

Is there a monthly fee?  If not, then go for it. 

[Joe Molotov]

I voted yes because I want to know if it's playable now

Same here. Take one for the team, TVC!

[FatalT]

I own it and have it installed but its not updated. I haven't played it since before the first v1.1 patch.

[TVC15]

You know, it's actually not so bad now.  I'm going to start over to see if they've fixed the game being too easy/unbalanced, but perf is satisfactory now and it doesn't feel like the game is going to crash at any given moment.

As frag said, the design flaws in the game run pretty deep, so I'm never expecting greatness. The rather linear room-corridor-room design will never be fixed, and having a missile weapon-based Diablo clone with no restrictions on ammo kind of dooms the game to always being easy. 

But if the game that I'm playing now had come out, with NO years and years of hype, it would have been a pretty nice and cool surprise.  From listening to people in game, it sounds like Flagship has been doing a decent job of supporting the game, too.

[TVC15]

You know, I'm playing with an Evoker, and I'm actually enjoying myself.  Mind you, this is no better than a C or a 7, but as someone that likes mediocre Diablo clones, this is pretty good now. 

My recommendations:

1) Don't play as one of the two easy classes, the marksman or the blademaster.  They make the game WAY too easy.  Keep in mind that the game is still pretty easy with the rest of the classes, but the pew pew classes are really really really the win button.

2) The game has been fixed up well and good, and it runs just about equally well in DX9 and DX10 mode.  The only killer in DX10 mode is setting shaders on extreme.  It looks FUCK AWESOME that way, but kiss stable performance goodbye.  As long as you avoid extreme shaders, the game runs fine now.  The net code has also been polished up.

3) Don't go in expecting a great game.  It's merely good at this juncture, but they have really done a good job of addressing the fixable issues.  So yeah, it's not great, but we don't get so many games in this mold.

The next patch is also due out really soon.  While 1.2 focused on fixing up technical muckups, the next one apparently is going to be adding gameplay requests, including an auction system.

I don't think Flagship can undo the damage of the terrible release--the public will always think of this game as a glitchy mess--but they've come through on the support side of things.

And as a bonus, here is Morrissey in the game

[Van Cruncheon]

nice. i'll finally check this out.

[TVC15]

It's at the very least more fun than Guild Wars.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Guild Wars

[Van Cruncheon]

i bought and installed this. i can't seem to make the textures look like anything but dog vomit, the character models are kinda suspect, and the whole interface feels janky, but it's actually pretty damn fun in spite of these flaws. loot is fun, demons are cool, and i like shooting with my magic arm laser.

[TVC15]

I don't understand why the textures look so bad to you.  They are as sharp as they are in that screenshot above for me, even at 1680.

[Van Cruncheon]

mine are big blurry masses of yuck, like ps2 quality, on every setting. i will take a screen tomorrow

[Fragamemnon]

I wonder if it goes shitface with older drivers.

I am waiting to get this in the summer when it is $10 in a target clerance rack.

[TVC15]

I have the latest nvidia beta drivers installed.  Are you playing in DX10 mode, Prole?

[Van Cruncheon]

yup, dx10 mode.

[TVC15]

Take a screencap and post it via tinypic.

Print Screen key.  Screenshots autosave to Documents -> My Games -> Hellgate -> Screenshots

[Smooth Groove]

Is there a monthly fee or a free trial?

I tried the beta and thought it was OK.  The beta had very lackluster graphics so it's nice to know that it looks better now, at least, for some people. 

[TVC15]

http://files.filefront.com/Hellgate+London+Demo/;8828967;/fileinfo.html

The graphics aren't great or anything, but they more than get the job done.  For me, the environments have mostly sharp textures, although the texture-work is uneven, just like every other aspect of the game.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I would probably give DX10 mode a 7.5.  It's nothing groundbreaking, probably about Source quality, but it does some fun things with shaders and post-proc effects.

[Smooth Groove]

I'm downloading the demo right now.  Hopefully, it will have some of the newer features. 

[Smooth Groove]

So apparently the demo only has DX9 graphics.  These are taken at 1920 x 1200 with everything maxed out. 

Framerate is around 40-60 fps so performance is pretty good.  Overall, the game wouldn't have looked impressive even if it were released 3yrs ago.

I'll like to see how it looks like in DX10.  Perhaps TVC could post some caps. 

[TVC15]

That's about as good as it looks as far as models and environments go, but the full game, in DX10 mode, goes nutso with post-proc and shader effects.  So it may not make the game look like Crysis, but it's a nice bit of gravy.