Hellgate London: The Gates are Open

2) Phat lewts

A large part of the appeal for this kind of game hinges on the loot bonanza that occurs when you're slaughtering monsters. So far, it seems on par with what I was expecting. If I had to get mathematical, I would say that I'm getting item drops at a rate of approximately once per minute, with enhanced loot (WoW analogy: green items) every five, rares (blue-colored) every 20, and legendaries (a tier above rares) about once per hour. Most of time, of course, it's stuff I can't use that I end up breaking down for components, but what I'm guessing is the intended effect remains salient: I'm motivated to kill enemies in order to get more stuff.

I do have one complaint though: I can't really find anything resembling an in-game economy, which by nature devalues my loot. I can't stand spamming chat with items (and I haven't figured out how to link them, if that's even possible), so trading isn't really an option. There's a trade forum on the game's official site, but in this day and age, that seems like an incredibly lame solution. The best solution would be for Hellgate to establish an auction house.

3) Community

I haven't partied with anyone yet simply because I haven't found the need to. I've been able to solo everything I've encountered. I'm sure this will change as I progress and this worries me. I haven't encountered any features that facilitate the partying process, unless I'm not looking in the right places. I have the feeling that it's all going to revolve around spamming chat, and I couldn't be more against this. Diablo had the Battlenet lobby and any traditional MMO worth playing has a suite of features designed for this. Hellgate needs this kind of thing, too.

4) Payment for playment

The business model that Flagship is implementing for Hellgate is one where games can play for free, or pay a subscription fee that comes with valuable benefits. For 10 bucks a month subscribers will get some in-game perks, like bigger storage lockers, more character slots, and the ability to skip-ahead of non-subscribers in login queues when the servers are real busy. The big advantage is that they'll have access to exclusive subscriber-only content. I could see this having a pretty serious effect on the community; primarily, it's foreseeable that subscriber-only guilds will emerge due to this.

Though it may all be part of Flagship's master plan, prospective Hellgate players should mull over the possible ramifications of this before they decide to take the plunge. There are plenty of arguments as to whether a game that's primarily instanced (which Hellgate definitely is) warrants this kind commerce model. I guess it's up to Flagship to prove whether or not there's enough to Hellgate to justify this sort of move.

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment