Posted on October 31, 2011, in Episodes. Bookmark the permalink. 20 Comments.
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Posted on October 31, 2011, in Episodes. Bookmark the permalink. 20 Comments.
MMO Grinder 
but in myltiplayer please!!!!
sory byt they closed the website i dont know how did you regstr
please register me send my details to http://www.aliks@inbox.ru
Direct link is here: http://hellgate.t3fun.com/Home/Home.aspx
Personally I don’t like it when people drone on about WoW in other games. It ruins the mood when you’re all excited about a new game, then to log on and see people bashing it because it’s only another “vanilla WoW ripoff” (this from a chat in LOTRO). WoW exists, it’s probably a good game (if they had a decent f2p/freemium option I’d be all over it), and a lot of other games use the same elements WoW originally developed. I don’t even mind decent, well meaning comparisons such as the similarities of WoW to LOTRO brought up in the LOTRO episode of MMO Grinder. The problem is that people rarely keep it civilized. All it takes is for someone to insult (or perceive an insult to) the non-WoW players, stoking anit-WoW sentiment. Before you know it, you’ve got pro-WoW and anit-WoW people at each others’ throats (something I’ve also seen in City of Heroes, albeit rarely). People have the right to speak their minds in chat, but sometimes it rains on other people’s parades. Unfortunately when I did a free trial for Rift, I kept comparing it LOTRO to the annoyance of my friends who loved that game. So I’m also guilty of comparing a game I love and have played for a while, to a new and popular game.
It’s inevitable. But there’s a difference between, “Man, this game reminds me a bit of WoW”, “This game is just a WoW rip-off!” and “You know, back when I was playing WoW…”
The first is a comparison, which I can understand people being annoyed by, but hell, if I click on an action bar to activate a spell, have the option to pick a human-cow hybrid race, or have incoming quests show themselves as golden exclamation marks, it’s bound to happen, and people will have to learn to deal with it.
The second is an accusation. This I can understand people getting upset over. The term “rip-off” is thrown around way too much these days, and even in games that it’s pretty obvious they were trying to emulate the style or gameplay of a popular game, I can still see what differences are unique to the game itself. I love Eden Eternal to death, but I will unashamedly call it a “WoW-Clone” due the many MANY similarities to WoW. Until we have a better term for it (remember FPS were called “Doom Clones” and “3d platformers” were called “Mario 64 clones” until the gaming industry found a term they liked) it’s a valid, if not blanket term… I just won’t call them a “rip-off” is all. Rip-off implies that intention was made specifically to steal the ideas and cash in on the popularity of something, when a lot of these games simply LIKE how elements of WoW work, and why fix what isn’t broken in their eyes?
The third and final is merely a mention or reference. Mentioning the game exists does NOT equate comparing the game to the one currently being played. If people are unwilling to cope with that, they need to find a new form of entertainment that doesn’t involve social contact. People are going to talk about things other people don’t like. There’s no such thing as “universally loved”. I can’t stand when a football game is on, and trade chat is alight with people ranting about scores, teams and players, but I sure as hell don’t tell them to shut up about it. That’s what the ignore feature is for. Do you know how many time I had friends of mine say the following line when first introducing them to WoW: “They should make World of Starcraft!”? EVERY FUCKING TIME. But I didn’t bother to shout at them for it.
It’s knowing the difference between these three things that makes the difference here. Blindly assuming one means the other makes the complainer look like the jackass, not the person who said it. Save for the whole “rip-off” thing. I really hate when people use that term.
Thanks for the reply, it’s nice to see a producer take time to acknowledge his/her audience. It feels like I’m not just another number listing under “views.” Keep up the good work, I really enjoy the show and the 30+ minute episodes :D ! You go into a lot of detail in these games. Also, if you plan on doing Anarchy online sometime, I can try to get a hold of my Org (Guild), The Independent Rubi-Kans. My friend Randy has been playing AO for the past 10 years, or so, and can probably point out a lot of the more subtle details.
I have an intense aversion to games that only come in brown, grey, olive green, & blood splatter even if I do love Diablo games & soloing.
Well I still have the original version of the game and this version is kinda similar to it, only they have changed things like some of the characters have a different hairstyle and Lucious not being batshit insane as he was in the original and Tech 314 is not an emo so to speak here either.
All in all, it still is fun and it can get really interesting when you play as the Marksman and have access to a minigun rifle.
I am willing to look over the bland level designs, as I have played a lot of games with not too impressive level designs.
Yay rusty hearts is next! I can’t wait for it. Personally I think it’s a solid game with only a few major problems, but to each his own, right?
Ah I remember playing this game on original release, as mentioned the humour was a lot darker, the storylines/characters more interesting and the game a lot harder. However the chat system was just as awful back then as it is now, infact was one of the key things driving people away from it.
The one thing I’m curious about but you probably stopped playing before getting to it, was if the original ‘Subscriber’ content is still there. I distinctly remember Stonehenge related stuff being purely for Subscribers back then with free2play people unable to get at it
Its weird how when it was originally released, non-subscribers could play the ENTIRE GAME free with the above mentioned subscriber only content being the only thing limited.
Oh something odd but not related to Hellgate:London. With Rusty Hearts I’ve noticed that a lot of US people have been waiting on Natasha (the dual pistols lass) to be released yet and for the game to be out of Beta. We in the EU have had access to her since the game got released on Steam. Is this a strange case of some kind of anti-Nexon cropping up, where a game is actually more ‘further in’ in the EU than it is in the US?
If there’s a company I hate more than anything it’s Nexon purely because of the way the don’t bother with the EU (Dungeon Fighters) or it takes them ages to do anything (Vindictus).
Yeah, Nexon aren’t exactly the greatest company in the world.
They still haven’t done anything to improve the anti cheating and hacking system for the European version of Combat Arms.
Almost every match I play, somebody blames another for hacking when they’re just playing fair and square.
Thanks for giving this a look. I had an awesome time playing the original Hellgate: London. When I went to play the free-to-play version, I JUST COULDN’T CONTINUE. In my opinion, the free-to-play version nowhere near compares to the greatness of the original game.
Or at least the first few hours of it.
Once I got about halfway through the story, I met a guy in the middle of one of the maps who essentially told me to go all the way back to the beginning of the game for a quest. I got back there, and whaddaya know, there are more quests to do from the other NPC’s! And not only THAT, THERE WAS AN ENTIRE CHAIN OF LOWER-LEVEL QUESTS THAT I THEN HAD TO GRIND THROUGH TO GET EVEN REMOTELY BACK TO WHERE I WAS BEFORE. I was going for completion, and as a mop-up for any left-over experience that I could get. To say that I was pissed would be an understatement. And mind you, THIS WAS THE ORIGINAL SINGLE PLAYER GAME. No other game, before or since, has totally sucked out its enjoyment by mid-game due to the developers simply not structuring their side quests correctly.
And yes, HanBit Soft did in fact make the game much, much easier than it was originally. I see the original game as far more of a challenge and a test of your combat skills and your character build. If you want a true challenge, pick up an old copy of the original on eBay and have at it. Just make sure to check back from time to time in the lower-level areas and mop up any leftover side quests. You’ll need the XP, because there were areas in mid-game where I was under-leveled and essentially surviving by the skin of my teeth.
With all that said and done, it is a good game in its current iteration. But it was a great, but flawed, game in its original iteration. And, honestly, I’d prefer the original flawed goodness of the game over the decent shadow that it is now.
Sincerely,
Mr. Album.
Awesome review as always.
I have to give you props for those big, red and black extending batwings you used in the intro. I was more surprised that it was purely a practical effect and wasn’t some kind of Adobe After Effects trick to make your grow wings. In fact, all the props used in your reviews (T-shirts, posters, etc.) are pretty cool and work well with the style of comedy you use for the MMO Grinder. I find that even if I dislike the game being featured (Hellgate: London… such a waste of a perfectly good idea!), I really enjoy you reviews just for entertainment sake. A special mention has to go to that one Otaku mega-spazz moment you had before. I remember thinking “ Wow, were did that caffeine, fueled insanity come from?”
Great job, and good luck with Rusty Hearts.
I still have Hellgate installed on my computer, but come to think of it, I never played it for long. For me, the tutorial glitched and locked all of my keys, so I couldn’t move or shoot, just open the menu, and the only fix I found was quitting and restarting, so, I just kinda gave up on it.
I might pick it up again, but I’m still trying to play Rusty Hearts and level up my new Natasha. Thanks for the good review, it actually got me to consider starting to play Hellgate again
@Marco
Ok, reading those examples has the game making a LOT more sense. I think now Lucius immediately states it’s a hellrift, and a lake of fire, well before you get there. Techsmith 314 runs off because he “changes his mind” and I was wondering why I was having to catch him. Changing the story like that not, but keeping the events the same made the whole thing really odd for me, and I think I would have loved the turn of events had it played out like the original story.
I did find it strange that 314 seemed kinda whiny in the fight against his “Id, Ego, and Superego” when he didn’t give of that vibe beforehand. I used to have a video of the fight but I already deleted the footage to make way for the next game’s footage. Oops.
Ahh Hellgate. Such a sordid affair, this game. I actually agree with everything you said here, though I hear the repetitiveness of the game goes down once you reach the later acts.
As for WoW bashing, its cool to hate because it is popular, nothing more. It was a fun ride while I played, but it isn’t for me anymore. Though I will say, Blizz deserves the hate it is getting over Mists of Pandera.
The Two-Messengers-Spawn thing is one of the randomly-generated abilities of the Messengers, and one of the nastiest.
I played this game about a month before you set up the Halloween poll, but I also had the original copy once in a blue moon ago. I wish I still had my original copy of Hellgate: This release changed many of the graphics and pretty much all of the quest dialog of the original content–and in my opinion, it was generally for the worse. This release also feels too easy compared to the original–but that may have just been because my old computer could barely run the game back then, and so I was usually facing down hordes of demons at a tooth-wrenching framerate.
I’ve been tempted to find an old copy of Hellgate around e-bay or my local Gamestop. I’ve heard that the single-player still works correctly, so it’s possible to recapture that original experience. At the very least, I could experience the demented joy of the original Lucious Aldin and Techsmith 13. (Do look it up, these characters were much more terrible and awesome in their previous dialogs).
I’m glad to know the game WAS just trolling me, then. I love that you need to exude a bit of skill to play as a Cabalist or Hunter, but Templars just slash their way to victory. Guardians becoming MORE powerful the more enemies they have attacking them? That doesn’t even seem remotely fair.
I forgot to include just how engrishy a lot of the dialogue in this game was. I am baffled why they would re-translate their re-translation. Hell, the description of the death penalty debuff has “Need trandlation.(sic)” written on it.
Oh, it’s not just engrishy. T3Fun almost completely rewrote the storyline of Hellgate for their release. In the original storyline, the whole Five Truths was as much a mystery as it was a quest. There was no “Redemption” group hunting for them; just you, Main Character, by following Faust’s surviving notes, taking the advice of mad cabalists like Licious Aldin, and trying to decipher the cryptic, heraldric messages of each virtue fellow you found.
The original characters portrayed in Hellgate were also much darker and prone to gritty or black humor. The two NPC sounds you mention in the review are some of the last surviving vestiges of that humor, and it was one of the best parts of the game.
For another example, in this release, Lucius Aldin is a repentant cabalist with a dark past, and Techsmith 314 is the bitter heir to a powerful legacy. In the original version, Lucius Aldin is mad as a hatter, and the clinically depressed Techsmith 314 earned the role of “Lucius’ Babysitter” by being the worst techsmith in London. The way the two characters played off each other in the original Hellgate was the stuff of legends–here is a post from Escapist with a few sample quotes.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.73472-Quotes?page=2#797761
There was no special book only Techsmith 314 could read–Lucius Aldin helps the player get answers by attaching a symbiotic Oracle to Techsmith 314’s brain, knowing it would probably reduce the guy to a vegetable in the process. It’s terrible and hilarious all at once, and that was what made the original Hellgate so enticing to me.
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