http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=48576

I’m impressed by them folks, some of them do care about us fellow South East Asian players. Here’s a screenie:

Besides that, all existing characters also received the 3 event items as a compensation from IAHGames. Not bad, I reckon. I much prefer these 3 event items than the extra 1 month subscription, which I deemed to be useless.

[IAH News] Patch Notes Update & Goodies Galore!

22/11/2007

Dear Gamers,

We are pleased to announce that Patch 0 & 0.1 has been implemented into our servers successfully.

In light of the recent delay of the patch implementation in our servers, we are thrilled to announce that we will be providing all gamers with 3 special items from the Halloween & Guy Fawkes events as compensation and as a token of appreciation for their continued support and understanding.

Players will find these items in their inventory upon logging in if they have sufficient inventory space.

- All Hallow’s Visage (Helmet)

- Fawkes’ Flameguards (Arm Covering)

- Zombot (In-game Pet)

Please note that this initiative is only available from 22 November 2007, Thursday – 27 November 2007, Tuesday, 0700 hrs (GMT+8). New characters created after this period will not receive the above-mentioned items.

Below is a consolidated list of patch notes and changes made to your account after the implementation of the patches.

(Patch Notes Disclaimer: We make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, but please be aware that occasionally changes are unintentionally omitted)

Buddy Lists
Much better and easier ways to organize your friends!

Guilds (available at a later time)
While only subscribers can start one, anyone can join a guild. Special name colors and tags on characters show their affiliation.

Buddy and Guild Chat

Special chat channels so you can keep your conversations clear.

Bigger Levels in Nightmare Mode

These increase the time players get to spend in each area, giving the game a more expansive feel at higher difficulty levels.

PVP

Players can both duel and elect to enter free-for-all PvP Mode. To duel, a player invites the person they wish to duel into a group, and heads into an adventuring area. Duelers, then right-click on the portrait of the person they wish to duel and select the Duel option from the displayed list. Dueling can only take place outside of Underground hubs.

Players can also choose to enter into PvP mode which means they can be attacked and harmed outside of Underground hubs by anyone else that has chosen to enter PvP mode. That is, those in PvP mode, must always be ready for PvP. This is a way to have wide-ranging free-for-alls, or create your own “friendly-fire” way of playing the game.

Tuned Game Progression

Level and monster progression is more thematic in nature. While this does not affect the overarching layout of the world map, it does make each act feel more defined and focused.

Gossip

We’ve added loads of additional details on the people and places in the game through various NPCs in the world. This definitely helps make the stations feel more alive and provides players with more of the back-story.

More Quest Information

Quest NPCs do a better job of getting you prepared to know what you’re fighting and why. The overall story flows much better, the named demons that are encountered are given more story weight, and players gain a much better sense of overall direction.

NPC Tweaks

The vocal responses given by NPCs have been tuned so that they tend more towards the serious and “normal”, reserving the twisted commentary for specific player characters or in rare moments for the general populace.

Achievements

These are long-term goals for players. The player starts with a few new goals in an Achievement Log. These can be as simple as slaying a certain amount of specific demons to something as difficult as completing quests without the benefit of armor! Players uncover new goals as they start to meet the requirements of that achievement. For example, after 50 zombies have been slain, an “Achievement Unlocked” message displays on the screen. Checking the Achievement Log shows how many zombies must be eradicated to complete the achievement. Achievements are meant to be long-term goals that everyone can shoot for. Some are simple while others are extremely challenging!

UI

Various improvements have been made to the UI & memory usage, thus increasing client stability and reducing ‘memory exhausted’ issues.

Elite Mode (available at a later time)

This is for those players that always feel a game is too easy. The demons are tougher, deal out more damage, move faster, travel in larger groups, and have more champions at the ready. Numerous tweaks to the overall balance and progression of the game make this an extremely challenging mode.

Note:
Elite Mode is currently unavailable to players but will be available to both Subscription & Non-Subscription players at a later time.

- Team HGL

Source:

http://hellgatelondon.com/underground/new-update-coming

 

New Update Coming

We’re gearing up to release what we internally refer to as Patch 0.5. We intend this update to resolve many of the issues players are having with Hellgate: London.
In preparation for our 0.5 launch, we’ll be…
1) Wiping our Test Center tonight.
2) Placing copies of all US characters into the Test Center tomorrow.
If you’d like to see Patch 0.5 early and help us perfect the update, please login to the Test Center over the weekend. If all goes well, the 0.5 update will be made available to everyone next week.
Curious about what you can expect? Here’s a draft of our 0.5 patch notes:

General:
• All players now have 24 character slots.
• Fixed a known issue with the inventory user interface that caused the client to lock up.
• Fixed a bug which caused the Mini-game to sometimes become stuck.
• The Mini-game now resets every 15 minutes.
• Added a /help command to provide assistance using available / commands.
• Some new posters have been added to stations, so check them out!

Connection Issues:
• Fixed known issues which sometimes caused players to be disconnected and receive an erroneous network error message.
• Fixed an issue where some home routers would disconnect a user due to an inactive connection.
• Fixed known bugs which sometimes disconnected players during multiplayer quests.
• Fixed problems with NetLimiter 1.30 and some older versions of Norton Antivirus and McAfee Antivirus which would make the user entirely unable to connect to the game.

Chat:
• Made several chat interface improvements and the text entry more intuitive:
• Chat window is now open by default in multiplayer.
• Fixed chat window closing when traveling between zones.
• Fixed several cases where the chat window would obstruct other UI components.
• Chat context (such as Party and Guild) is now more clearly defined in the text entry window, including a color-coded border.
• Chat window is now more transparent.
• Added /g command. This is equivalent to /gchat command (guild chat).
• Whisper text now shows up on all chat tabs.
• Whisper messages and admin announcements auto-open the chat panel.
• Auto-switch to the appropriate tab (such as Party and Guild) if you type text to that channel and are not in a tab that shows the text.
• PageUp/PageDown cycle through chat tabs when text entry is active.
• Chat panel now auto-opens if you type text and press Enter while the panel is closed.
• Chat text entry deactivates after entering text.
• Chat panel no longer closes if you press Enter on a blank line.
• Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.

Items:
• Fixed known bugs that caused players to sometimes lose items.
• Fixed a bug with the Nanoforge that caused it to inaccurately modify the stats of higher-quality items.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Unique items to drop without special properties.

Quests:
• Fixed various known issues which prevented players from being able to continue interrupted side-quests.
• Quest items should no longer remain in the player inventory after the associated quest has been completed. Players with old quest items (such as Train Parts) associated with quests they’ve already completed or no longer have should find these items removed upon logging in.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented players from receiving credit for killing the “5 Lies” in The Hellgate quest. Players should now be able to properly advance in this quest.

Engineers:
• Fixed known bugs which prevented Engineer Drones from saving properly.
• Fixed a bug which caused Engineers to receive an erroneous “unable to meet requirements” message when entering a new instance with a Drone that has a weapon equipped.

PvP:
• Fixed an incorrect modifier causing Special Effect Attack Strengths in PvP situations to be much higher than intended.

World Movement:
• Fixed known issues which occasionally prevented characters from being able to load or switch instances.
• Fixed several issues with players getting stuck in the world.
• Fixed a bug related to St. Paul’s Nightmare mode progression.
• Portals to party members should now automatically close if the associated party member leaves the game.

World Events:
• The Guy Fawkes event has ended. Characters that have completed the NAME Quest that did not receive the Trinket reward should find this item in their inventory.

See you online!

Posted by: Ivan on Sat, 11/17/2007 – 01:41 Talk About This Story!
Filed under: Patch 0.5, Test Center

I find it interesting that Flagship Studios likes to announces its patches before they actually implement them. Do they actually have completed the patch, or it is just a to-do list for them?

ArenaNet implements the updates first, then only they announce the update notes on their site . Kinda like “Do first, talk later” style, while Flagship seems to be like “Talk first, do later”, since they always like to announce what their patches will attempt to fix.

The “fix” that every non-subscriber would be happy with is probably the increase of character slots from 3 to 24.

Engineers:
• Fixed known bugs which prevented Engineer Drones from saving properly.

I thought they already fix this in Patch 0.1? They were supposed to fix this bug in Patch 0!

Read on to find out what Deimos has to say.
(Click here to page down and cast your vote into poll)

Official subscription details here:

http://hellgatelondon.com/subscriber-chart

Flagship Studios’s reason for an “optional” subscription is such that, they can give subscribers better benefits as well as provide new content:

Getting Online with Hellgate: London

Hellgate: London is not only a great stand-alone game, but it’s also a compelling and exciting online MMO experience. Players can get online and play for FREE, as well as take advantage of massive amounts of continuing content through our subscription membership. How you play is up to you, but either way, we hope to see you online soon! Thanks everyone!

X = Live Content
x = Upcoming Continuing Content

Features & Benefits	Standard Online Play	Subscription Membership
Complete Storyline-Driven Game	X	X
Hosted Gameplay	X	X
Nightmare Difficulty	X	X
Elite Mode	X	X
Player vs. Player (PvP)	X	X
Achievements	X	X
Guilds	X	X
Buddy Lists	X	X
Hardcore Mode	–	X
Guild Creation & Management	–	X
Larger Stash	–	X
Themed Events & Quests	–	X
Unique Event Items	–	X
Special Event Pets	–	X
Auction Houses	x	x
In-Game Email	x	x
New Levels to Explore	–	x
New Monsters	–	x
New Weapons	–	x
New Skills & Spells	–	x
New Quests & Storylines	–	x
New Character Classes	–	x
Raid-Level Areas	–	x
More Seasonal / Theme Events & Items	–	x
Additional Difficulty & Gameplay Modes	–	x
Additional PvP Modes & Rewards	–	x
Achievement Rewards	–	x
Advanced Guild Management Tools	–	x
Web-based Rankings & Character Viewing	–	x

However, the problem with this is that whatever extra “benefits” that they are offering for the subscribers, Guild Wars already done the same, without any “optional” monthly subscription, as discussed in this article earlier.

Furthermore, their monthly subscription cost is quite high, as shown below:

Cost of Monthly Subscription
USD 9.99 per month x 12 months = USD 119.88 per year
USD 27.97 per 3 months x 4 = USD 111.88 per year
USD 51.94 per 6 months x 2 = USD 103.88 per year
USD 149.99 one time = “life time” founders subscription
(Note: The “life time” founders subscription is only available for those who has added a pre-order registration key to their account)

Cost of Retail Boxes
Standard = USD49.99
Collectors Edition = USD59.99

By comparing the above, it is very clear that the subscription costs for a year is enough to purchase 2 standard or collectors edition retail game boxes. If the monthly subscription is for the “new ongoing content” as advertised by Flagship Studios, then subscribers should be expecting the volume of “new content” to be equivalent to 2 times the current release of Hellgate : London.

USD 9.99 per month x 12 months = USD 119.88 per year

Standard = USD49.99 x2 = USD 99.98
Collectors Edition = USD59.99 x2 = USD 119.88

Leasing instead of buying new content
One important factor worth mentioning is that by subscribing to Hellgate : London for “new content”, you are technically “leasing” rights of access to the “new content”. This is very different from ArenaNet’s Guild War’s business model of developing and selling new standalone chapters every year, as players “owns” rights of access to the “new content” once purchased.

Comparing two scenarios
Subscribed from day one
Peter has been subscribing to Hellgate : London for a year since the initial launch, one day he decides to cancel his subscription and loses rights of access to all those “new contents” that he had been paying for that whole year.

Subscribed after a year
Jane who has playing the “basic” non-subscription Hellgate : London for a year, proceeds to subscribe for a month to try out the so called “new contents” and gains access to all the “new contents” that would have been developed in a year.

It would seems that Jane got a better deal when compared against Peter, but they are still technically “renting” the “new content” not “purchasing” and “owning” them.

Someone else is better
The multi-player portion of Hellgate : London is setup in a way that is very similar in nature to Guild Wars, there are instanced stations / chat channels where players can hook up and group together to explore instance explorable areas as a party of 2 to 6 players.

In fact, whatever Hellgate : London is trying to achieve, Guild Wars did a whole lot better and does not charge a monthly subscription, check out this article for a detail comparison between Hellgate : London and Guild Wars.

Purchasing and owning rights of access to new content
As of now, in order to completely “purchase” and “own” rights of access to any of the so called proposed “onging new content” is through the founders offer subscription, which is only available for those who has “pre-ordered” the game earlier.

Leap of faith
The USD 149.99 would sound like an adequate offer for a “life time subscription”, if the game is really that great and one is a great fan and supporter of the company, however Hellgate : London does not seem to be doing that “great” if one takes a read at the following reviews:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/hellgate-london-subscription.php
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3164383

For normal people, it would be a giant leap of faith if they do decide to “invest” that USD 149.99 into Hellgate : London.

No value for money
Economically speaking, Hellgate : London is not worthy of the monthly subscription, as highlighted above. Unless one considers oneself to be a die-hard, hardcore loyal supporter of Flagship Studios, one should avoid the Hellgate : London monthly subscription at all cost. Other than that, one could also be an individual who does not mind spending the meager amount of USD 9.99 per month to support Flagship Ship Studios.

As a conclusion to this article, I would say that the subscription model is definitely not value for money, as it is just not worth it to “rent” the so called “on going new content” as advertised by Flagship Studios.

Online Petition
Anyway, here is an online petition called “End Hellgate : London Subscriptions Petition” which managed to gather 1000 signatures to date.

http://www.petitiononline.com/hglsubs/petition.html

So, would you subscribe to Hellgate : London monthly?

[poll=3]

Tried to log into the game server = fail

Tried to access the official forums = fail

The time period which I tried to login was from 9:30pm till 9:40pm

What gives?

“Server Eror” – “The server name or address could not be resolved.”

Source: Hellgate Alliance

[IAH News] Good News from our developers – No Wipe

14/11/2007

Message from IAHGames CEO, Roland Ong:

IAHGames made an innovative effort, together with our partners Flagship and Hanbitsoft, to bring about successfully a World Wide sim-launch in South East Asia (SEA) of a large-scale Triple-A title, Hellgate London. This has never been done by other game operators at this scale and comes with challenges. Last week on our official forum we announced that due to difficulties in implementing the latest upgrade to the Live Game Service the upgrade could result in a Character Wipe, which would have deleted all in-game experience earned by gamers over the past 2 weeks. The problem was a result of SEA going LIVE simultaneously with the USA servers in Calendar time — but due to the actual time difference, SEA actually released 1 day ahead of the USA. This resulted in a slightly different software build than the USA servers. The upgrade, known as Patch 0, intended to bring our servers to the same level as the USA. The complication arose because our database was already being filled with in-game data from our gamers, and this in-game data was a risk for corruption. However, because gamers were earnestly requesting us to avoid a character wipe, we delayed the upgrade patch, worked round the clock, and around the globe, for the solution. We are pleased to announce the solution today.

Message from Flagship Studios CEO, Bill Roper:

“Flagship Studios, together with IAHGames and Hanbitsoft, remains highly committed to finding the best possible solution for the South East Asian Hellgate: London game service. By having the interest of our HGL fans as our top-most priority, we have refused to accept a character wipe as a viable solution. Hence, we are pleased to reveal that Flagship’s engineers are currently implementing solutions that will not require a wipe of player characters. We are simultaneously upgrading the SEA servers to the latest patch 0.1, which is equivalent to what is currently on our US and European HGL servers. Flagship Studios will ensure that these solutions are implemented systematically within the shortest possible timeline. To top it all off, we will be working with IAHGames to provide rewards to our players in appreciation of their understanding and support during our launch.”

__________________________

Dear Gamers,

We are elated to announce Flagship Studios has given us a green light to implement Patch 0 with NO character wipe.

Flagship Studios has investigated the major character issues, including missing skills and statistics, and have found methods to resolve them. They will also be performing a server upgrade to Patch 0.1 for our game service, making it equivalent to what the US gamers are enjoying now.

The process of implementing these improvements should be complete by 22^nd November, 2007.

We are also working closely with Hanbitsoft and Flagship Studios on a program to reward our gamers for the patience and perseverance shown during the recent turn of events. Please stay updated to the forum and website for more news from your community manager, Angelace.

Thank you for your attention and have a good day ahead.

Sincerely,

Team HGL

Whether or not they will change their decision again, wipe or no wipe, server updated or not, we will have to wait until 22 November 2007 and see what happens. Already there are people who are quited concerned that IAHGames would once again bring empty promises to the gamers.

http://forum.iahgames.com/hellgate/showthread.php?t=2732

Gamers voice out their concern in the above thread, in the official SEA Hellgate : London hosted by IAHGames.

Very hilarious review by somethingawful.com! Must read!
Came across this yesterday while browsing the internet.

The many points highlighted by them are in fact, very true.

http://www.petitiononline.com/hglsubs/petition.html

As of now, it has more than 600 signatures now. I’ve signed it, of course.

Another online petition worth mentioning is “Bring back LAN play in Hellgate:London”, and the link:

http://www.petitiononline.com/hglan/petition.html

Well, compensate my foot! An extra month worth of subscription is worthless to me, as I have absolutely no intention of subscribing to Hellgate : London @ IAHGames, or any other monthly subscription based games.

Nonetheless, I have started a poll at the official Hellgate : London IAHGames forum and amusingly, quite a number of people responded. They are probably frustrated by the fact that their characters would be wiped by this coming Monday, and it would serve no real point to continue playing until the server upgrade and player database wipe is completed.

Flag Ship Studios should have put in more effort into this game, after all it is their first release. There were so much hype behind this game and personally, I think this game is over-hyped.

Gamespot PC gave Hellgate : London a review score of 7.0 and well, I think that a suitable score for them. The game has its funs, but it still has its fair share of technical issues that needs to be tackled.

Comparing this game with ArenaNet’s Guild Wars, which was released 2 years ago back in April 2005, Gamespot PC gave it a review score of 9.2 and this is way higher than the newly released Helgate : London by Flag Ship Studios.

Both the founders of these companies, ArenaNet and Flag Ship Studios are originally from Blizzard North, the Blizzard division that created Diablo 2 in the first place. ArenaNet appeared to be doing better with their first game, if we compare these scores, of course. Furthermore, I certainly do not recall experiencing that many game breaking bugs when I first started playing Guild Wars back in May 2005.

Anyway, it is a shame that the initial launch of Hellgate : London seems like a blunder, well, to me, of course. Especially Hellgate : London @ IAHGames, just downright disappointing, paid to beta test their servers. Just bloody incredible! Brilliant!

Original Link here.

However, you can only access the forum if you have an account there. So far, only beta testers and US game box Hellgate : London retail purchasers have access to the official Flag Ship Studios – Hellgate : London Community Forum.

Anyway, the following is what I wrote in there:

Dear Flag Ship Studios, Hellgate : London Community,

I would to suggest Flag Ship Studios to consider an “Alternative Business Model”, possibly to earn more income from the non-subscribers.
But how? One method is to “Sell” Hellgate : London “Packages” to the players, for example:

Allow players to purchase and add the following features to their account, for a reasonable monetary amount as approved by Flag Ship Studios:
- Additional Extra Character Slots
- Ability to create a Guild
- Ability to participate in a particular special event
- Ability to create an Elite character
- Ability to create a Hardcore character
- Ability to access new areas
- Ability to access new professions / classes
- etc

This “alternative business model” would [b][u]not replace[/b][/u] the existing subscription based business model, but instead give the currently non-subscribers a chance to support the software development company behind Hellgate : London – Flag Ship Studios.

Besides allowing the non-subscribing Hellgate : London player community to support Flag Ship Studios in monetary terms, the non-subscribing Hellgate : London player community should also be satisfied and happy, as they are able to experience some of the benefits that the subscribers are currently enjoying.

Thank you.

/Signed most sincerely, FSS please consider and implement this proposal in the near future, thank you.

Signed! / Yes! / Support! / Agree! / Hoorah!
=================================
DeimosTelArin,

Not-Signed! / No! / Object! / Dis-Agree! / Boo!
=================================

Perhaps I should start an online petition at www.petitiononline.com, for those who are unable to access the official forums.

No point playing it again until they do the bloody server upgrade and database wipe.
Back to fraggin’ for XP in Enemy Territory : Quake Wars I guess.

On the other hand, I just installed Bid for Power 2.1 on my gaming rig. Perhaps I will try it out and post the results here.

Just tried out Bid for Power, graphics are too dated, can’t seem to load bots into the game. Failed to impress me, uninstall-ed and deleted.

Official Link here.

Gamers,

Thank you for your patience while we worked to upload Patch0 onto our local servers. For the past two weeks, IAHGames and our partners have worked overnight almost everyday as they attempted to implement Patch0 onto our existing servers.
In the end, it has been determined that there is no way to implement Patch0 onto our Hellgate: London servers without also discarding relevant player data.
Because of this, when Patch0 is installed on Tuesday, there will be a complete character wipe.

We understand this event is frustrating for you, and we are sorry for the problems in implementing Patch0. As compensation, we are providing all gamers who purchased both the Standard and Collector’s Edition Box Sets 4 weeks of free subscription benefits. Each box already includes 30 days of free subscription benefits, meaning all of you will be entitled to 60 days of free subscription when the service becomes active around the end of the year.

IAHGames and our partners have taken this event very seriously, and yesterday our CEO and Deputy CEO flew to Seoul to discuss the issue with the CEO of HanbitSoft. As a result of the meeting, HanbitSoft has graciously agreed support IAH Games’ decision to provide free subscription time as compensation. HanbitSoft and Flagship Studios have also agreed to provide all further patches on par with US patching time lines, to ensure the SEA version of Hellgate: London stays up-to-date.

The implementation of Patch0 and subsequent character wipe will occur at 1200hrs(GMT+8) on Monday, November 12. After the Patch is implemented, a comprehensive test will be run to ensure there are no further problems. The process will take about 8 hours.

We would like to repeat we are sorry for the delay and the frustration it may have caused you. Please accept the game time as compensation, and thank you for your support until this point.

Sincerely,
Team HGL

Given that ArenaNet was also founded by former employees of Blizzard, why don’t we compare the two offsprings and see who got the better genes -

Hellgate : London vs Guild Wars, let the showdown begin!

vs

(Click here to page down and cast your vote into the poll)

The List of Rounds involved:
Round 1 : Gaming Sites Review Scores
Round 2 : Business Model
Round 3 : Multiplayer
Round 4 : Player versus Player – PvP
Round 5 : Skills
Round 6 : Respecs (Re-specification)
Round 7 : Inventory System – Item Management
Round 8 : Emotes and Dances
Round 9 : Stability – Server, Build Updates, Initial Launch, etc
Round 10 : Environment, Explorable Areas, Towns, Outposts, etc

_____________________________________________________

Round 1 : Gaming Sites Review Scores (Back to the list)

Gamespot
Hellgate : London | Released : 31 October 2007 | 7.0 – Good

“Hellgate: London has plenty of neat ideas, but many of them aren’t executed as well as you’d like.”

Guild Wars | Released : 26 April 2005 | 9.2 – Editors’ Choice

“It’s a very impressive game that’s rewarding on many different levels and can be tremendously appealing for any number of reasons.”

If we just compared Gamespot’s scores and editor’s notes alone, we already have a winner here, but let’s be fair and take a look at review scores of some other notable gaming sites.

Average ratio based on Gameranking.com :-

89% – Guild Wars | 74% – Hellgate : London

For various comprehensive player written reviews, check out gamefaqs:

Guild Wars | Hellgate : London

Guild Wars has 37 user submitted reviews in gamefaqs, highest score 10/10, lowest score 5/10, and an average score of 8.57/10.00

Hellgate : London has 7 user submitted reviews in gamefaqs, highest score 8/10, lowest score 3/10, giving an average score of 5.86/10.00

It ain’t gonna take a genius to figure out who is the winner for this round aye? I hereby declare the winner of Round 1 to be – Guild Wars! Hip! Hip! Hoorah!

_____________________________________________________

Round 2 : Business Model (Back to the list)

Guild Wars - No monthly subscription fees, not now, not ever

- Releases new standalone chapters playable right out of the box for recurring income (Released 2 standalone chapters: Factions & Nightfall, 1 expansion: Eye of the North)

Hellgate : London - “Basic” online multiplayer gameplay is playable free right out of the box, while the monthly subscription is “Optional”.

- Subscribers gets more “benefits” (Click here for more details)

- Limited “Lifetime” subscription offer at a cost of USD149.99

Personally, I detest online games that requires a monthly subscription. Hellgate : London is slightly different as its subscription is purely “optional”.

Anyway, let’s analzye Hellgate : London’s subscribers’ benefits in detail and compare it against Guild Wars:

• Hardcore Mode
  • [The "Survivor" title which is similar to "Hardcore Mode" is certainly better than it, as you do not lose access to your character permanently.]
• Guild Creation and Management
  • [In Guild Wars, you only need to pay 100 in game gold in order to create a guild. No reason to further bill the players for such trifle matters, right?]
• Larger Stash
  • [Guild Wars have shared stash, capacity of stash is greatly increased following a recent stash update.]
• Additional Character Slots
  • [Both Hellgate : London and Guild Wars have 6 different classes / professions, initially Guild Wars only offered 4 character slots, but later ArenaNET introduced the Guild Wars Online Store, which allowed players to purchase additional character slots at a cost of USD9.99 whereby Hellgate : London only offered 3 character slots to non-subscribing players while subscribers get 24 slots, as long as they continue to subscribe, of course.]
• Themed Events and Quests
  • ["Themed Events and Quests" in Guild Wars are freely available to all players without any further charges of any kind.]
• Unique Event Items
  • [Same as the above, "Unique Event Items" in Guild Wars are freely available to all players without any further charges of any kind.]
• Special Event Pets
  • ["Special Event Pets" are "purchasable" through PC Gamer magazine, i.e. CD-KEYS distributed in certain issues of the PC Gamer magazine.]

Wait, we’re not finished yet:

• New Levels to Explore
  • ["New Levels" in Guild Wars are available for purchase as new standalone Chapters or Expansion, once purchased, the player basically "owns" access to the said "New Levels" while in Hellgate : London the player loses access to these "New Levels" if they happen to suspend their subscription at any time.]
• New Monsters
  • [Same as above.]
• New Weapons
  • [Same as above.]
• New Skills and Spells
  • [Same as above.]
• New Character Classes
  • [Same as above.]
• Raid-Level Areas
  • [When Guild Wars was first released back in 26 April 2005, these so called "Raid-Level Areas" are already freely available to all players, basically "The Underworld" and "The Fissure of Woe".]
• Seasonal / Themed Events and Items
  • ["Seasonal / Themed Events and Items" are freely available to all players.]
• Additional Difficulty and Game Play Modes
  • ["Additional Difficulty" in Guild Wars, the so called "Hard Mode" was made available to all players as an update, as mentioned earlier above. At its initial release in 26 April 2005, there are already several different game modes available to all players.]
• Additional PvP Modes and Rewards
  • [At its launch in 26 April 2005, Guild Wars already offered various PvP Modes. The PvP "Rewards" are made available to all players later as an update.]
• Achievement Rewards
  • [In Guild Wars, "Titles" were freely introduced to all players as an update.]
• Advanced Guild Management Tools
  • [I have no idea what kind of "Advanced Guild Management Tools" that Hellgate : London has to offer, can't really comment much here.]
• Web-based Rankings and Character Viewing
  • [Initially, Guild Wars only have web-based rankings for Guilds who participated in ranked Guild vs Guild PvP Battles. Since the release of Guild Wars : Nightfall, individual players who participate in ranked "Hero Battles" are able to access their web-based rankings.]

As we can clearly see, what Hellgate : London has to offer to its subscribers, Guild Wars offers to all its players who purchased the game.

Obviously, Guild Wars is the better choice here, in terms of economics, Guild Wars would allow fellow gamers to spend less and at the same time, play more. Now ain’t that a good thing?

Hellgate : London, on the other hand, requires players to fork out USD9.99 monthly for the so called “benefits” where Guild Wars is already providing to the players free of charge. Oh, and don’t forget that if you ever stop subscribing in Hellgate : London, you will lose access to all these so called “benefits” immediately. Neat feature aye?

Therefore, the winner of Round 2 is indeed Guild Wars! Again! As expected! Woot!

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Round 3 : Multiplayer (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London – Maximum of 6 players in a party, i.e. you can only invite up to 5 players to join your party.

Guild Wars – When Guild Wars was first released in April 2005, up to 8 players per party in PvE. As for PvP, the “Tombs of the Primeval Kings” PvP Mode (Now known as “Heroes Ascent”) allows up to 6 teams of 8 in a single battle field! That’s a bloody 6 times 8 equal 48 players multiplayer mayhem in a single instance, and that’s 8 times the current max party size of Hellgate : London.

Let’s sum it up aye?

Hellgate : London – Max 6 people per combat instance

vs

Guild Wars – Max 48 people per combat instance

Note: “combat instance” basically means an instance where players are able to attack, activate skills, spells etc.

We all play online games because we want to play together with other players, right? Obviously, Guild Wars is doing a better job than Hellgate : London.

Folks, this is a no brainer! Guild Wars win the 3rd consecutive round! Awesome! Yeah!

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Round 4 : Player versus Player – PvP (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - In order to participate in Player versus Player (PvP) combat, players must either type “/duel <insert player name>” or type “/pvp” to “activate” PvP mode.

Guild Wars - During its initial launch in April 2005, the various PvP modes available to the players can be easily accessed by map traveling to the various PvP Outposts, where players can engage in Random or Team 4 players versus 4 players Competitive Matches, organize a party of 8 and test their worth in the tournament style PvP-Mode “Tombs of the Primeval Kings” or participate in the ultimate PvP mode – Guild vs Guild.

Again, Guild Wars offers various better PvP options while Hellgate : London’s PvP is quite lackluster in comparison, not to mention that its max player per combat instance is only 6 players! Need I say more?

So Guild Wars kicks Hellgate : London’s rear end real hard in Round 4! 4 Consecutive wins! Marvelous! Stupendous!

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Round 5 : Skills (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London – The Cabalist Evoker, Cabalist Summoner and Templar Guardian have a choice of 27 skills while the Hunter Marksman, Hunter Engineer and Templar Blademaster have a choice of 26 skills.

Guild Wars - Each of the 6 core professions (Warrior, Ranger, Monk, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist) have a choice of 75 skills, not to mention that your character can have a secondary profession, adding up to a choice of 150 skills. Did I mention that your character can also change his or hers secondary profession? That’s oh-my-gosh 450 skills for your selection leisure!

The more the merrier they say, its very clear that Guild Wars offer much more varied choices in selection of skills compared to Hellgate : London.

Winner of Round 5, Guild Wars! FIVE CONSECUTIVE WINS!
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Round 6 : Respecs (Re-specification) (Wikipedia defintion) (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - No respecs option, characters are unable to change their attributes or skill ranks, meaning if you messed up your build, that’s it. No experimenting different builds either, you would have to create a new character to accommodate that desire. And yeah, did I mention before that non-subscribers only have 3 character slots?

Guild Wars – Respecs option available via “Attribute Point Re-assignment“, players are able re-assign their attribute ranks to suit their current needs and desires. Players have 24/24 “Refund Points” that they can use to alter the ranks of their Attributes, spent “Refund Points” can be earned back through gaining a certain amount of experience points. It is worth noting that the “Refund Points” system was abolished after a certain build update, players are able to re-assign their attributes with much more freedom.

When it comes to flexibility of attributes and skills, Guild Wars wins this round hands down! Yawn. 6 wins already aye?
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Round 7 : Inventory System – Item Management (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London – Very crude grid inventory system, characters’ inventory is made up of 6 columns by 12 rows grid boxes, while the “stash” is made up of 6 columns by 10 rows. Weapons and Armors come in various sizes, say Body armor is made up of 2 columns by 3 rows of grid boxes, head gear is made up of 2 columns by 2 rows of grid boxes, true to the very primitive stone age Diablo 2 inventory system. Now if you try real hard, you might be able to squeeze in about 10 to 15 items on your character and in your stash.

Guild Wars – 45 items per character, 20 items in shared stash. Through various build updates, the size of the shared stashed increased significantly. Now players are able to store up to 80 items in the shared stash, as well as 250 of each of the 33 common and rare crafting materials.

Ladies and gentlemen, more items is always good they say, especially the ability to horde more items. Apparently, Hellgate : London does not seem to be doing very well in this area. Again, I announce the winner of Round 7 – Guild Wars! Gosh, this is so predictable already!
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Round 8 : Emotes and Dances (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - None. Nada. Nothing.

Guild Wars - A variety of emotes that your character can perform by typing /<insert emote command here>, for a complete list check out the following url:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Emotes

For a complete list of various dances, check out this url:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Dance

When you just owned your opponent in a spectacular match and would like to dance over his or hers fallen body, then you realized that you are unable to do so, because you are playing Hellgate : London. Sorry, no dances, no emotes in Hellgate : London, move along now, nothing interesting to see here.

Now that would have pretty much sucked eh? Guild Wars, on the other hand, would not let you down as you many emotes to perform. Another no brainer. Guild Wars win this round. Enough said.
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Round 9 : Stability – Server, Build Updates, Initial Launch, etc (Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - Too many bugs, memory leaks, memory exhausted, character getting stuck in areas. Check out the following review by somethingawful.com if you don’t believe me, what’s even more shocking is that everything they wrote is so true!

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/hellgate-london-subscription.php

Its not even a month since its official launch and there are already server down times because they need to “update” their server.

Besides that, the South East Asian is seriously messed up. Check out the following url for the official wiki link for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate:_London#Delay_of_Patch_0_and_Complaints
_of_Poor_Support_for_South_East_Asia_.28SEA.29_Server

Basically, SEA Hellgate : London players paid to play a beta build of the game online, as the SEA Hellgate : London game servers hosted by IAHGames are running the game servers on a beta build instead of a retail build.

By the way, head over here: http://forum.iahgames.com/hellgate/forumdisplay.php?f=65 to check out the angry mob of SEA players flooding the official forums for the SEA version of Hellgate : London. They certainly ain’t happy and they ain’t stopping until the issues are rectified, so far the issues still exist and IAHGames have yet to solve the problems.

However, this does not mean that the US / EU servers are doing much better, the official “Patch 0″ still contain many bugs that it was originally intended to fix.

Obviously, Hellgate : London current build is still very unstable and not reliable, check out their official forum here:

http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/forumdisplay.php?f=25

Note: You can’t access the official Hellgate : London Forums unless you have a valid US / EU Hellgate : London cd-key or you were a beta tester back then.

To sum up what’s in that particular forum section, basically it contains 43 pages of 846 topics where players reported that their Hellgate : London game client suffered random freezes and crashes, i.e. anything else that seriously messes up your gaming experience.

I wonder how does one enjoy their gaming session if it is constantly plagued by random freezes, crashes and all sorts of gaming breaking issues?

Guild Wars - I experienced a very smooth launch back in May 2005 when I first played Guild Wars, no major bugs experienced for myself. The game engine and net code is very optimized, the game even played out very smoothly on my ancient rig! I was a using a Pentium 4 1.5Ghz, 512MB PC133Mhz RAM and a nvidia Geforce 4200Ti back then.

Absolutely no server down times when they updated their build, when you connect your client to their server, it will automatically download all the files and decompress all the files that your client is required to run the game. The only real downtime I encountered was only once, when they have to do some database maintenance or something like that.

Well, it is time to announce the winner of this round, which is Guild Wars, of course.
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Round 10 : Environment, Explorable Areas, Towns, Outposts, etc
(Back to the list)

Hellgate : London - Randomly generated areas to give you an unique experience every time! Infinite re-playability! Sounds good, right? However, after going through a few rounds, I discovered that there are only a few tile sets that keeps repeating itself. You will find yourself constantly wading through corridors, sewers, streets, hell rifts, etc and after some time, you find all of them extremely repetitive. Even all the stations look and feel similar, well, after all, they are in fact – underground stations.

Guild Wars - Beautifully rendered landscapes, towns, outposts, explorable areas, etc. None of those randomly generated crap that is plentiful in Hellgate : London.

Okay, this marks the 10 consecutive wins for Guild Wars.

Like so we’ve seen how the reviews, business model, multiplayer, PvP, skills, respecs, inventory, emotes, stability and environment of a 2+ years old game like Guild Wars beat the hell out of Hellgate : London, which is a new game released a week ago.

We can go further with this but why bother? Hellgate : London has taken enough of a beating for one article.

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[poll=2]

Where do you stand?

Would you join the ranks of Guild Wars supporters and proceed to stomp Hellgate : London into the ground?

Or would you rather take up the challenge and speak out for Hellgate : London?

Have any new ideas to contribute to this epic showdown? Do feel free to voice out!

I myself reached Level 9, playing as a Hunter Engineer. Overall, the gaming experience has been okay for me. I tried out “multi-player” by partying with a couple of players, the result? The action is fast and furious! Many demons! Many explosions! Many fireworks! I think it is too much for my gaming rig to handle, or perhaps things could be better when the famous “Patch 0″ is finally implemented in IAHGames’s server.

Even though I told myself that I would split time between Enemy Territory : Quake Wars and Hellgate : London, I ended up playing Hellgate : London again. =p I think it is due to “Patch 0″ not being implemented yet, the upgrading cost using the Nano Forge is much cheaper, and the 5 upgrades limit is not implemented yet? But with level 22 as the level cap, I doubt that I can make any “uber” weapons or armor by using the Nano Forge. At least I can give it my best shot though. ^_^

The ping with IAHGames’ Alliance server is quite okay, from my 2 hours plus playing experience. Ping ranges from 60ms+, 90ms+, or 150ms+, sometimes even hitting 200ms+, 300ms+, but 300ms+ is quite rare and not much lag spike encountered so far. Except for a couple of “server time out errors”, that would result in me getting “kicked” out of the server. No big deal, I guess, just log back in and continue with the demon hunt!

I think I will discard my previous insane urge to sign up for the bloody USD149.99 “Founders’ Subscription Offer” and stick with the “basic”, “free”, “playable online right out of the box” non-subscription basic account. One should always maintain one’s ideal, mine is avoid subscription based games, and personally I still feel that Hellgate : London don’t quite deserve that USD9.99 monthly subscription.

ArenaNET with their Guild Wars series can survive based on a business model that does not requires any monthly subscription fees from its player base, why can’t Flag Ship Studios do the same with Hellgate : London? Different people, different ideals, I guess.

However, I noticed that the instancing in Hellgate : London does seem to be a bit different from Guild Wars. In Guild Wars, each instance is “reset” when a character or party exits that instance (explorable, mission). In Hellgate : London, this is not the case, the instance is “remembered”.

How is it so? For example, say my character – DeimosTelArin, is currently fraggin’ demons in an explorable area called “Leicester”. I invite 2 players into my party by typing “/invite <insert their names here>”, I am able to open a “Party Portal” for them to enter directly into my vicinity, or they can just take the normal town exit into the area my character is currently in. Neat feature eh? It is like some sort of “Open Instance” technology.

Anyway, I think I will need to split time between 2 games now. Maybe I will frag Stroggs or GDF fools during night time, as the servers will have more people, or should I say, it is easier to join servers with more people. In the morning, say 6am till 8am, there is usually one server, and its FULL i.e. 24/24, no room for me, and I hate to wait for an open slot!

So be it then! Night time = Enemy Territory : Quake Wars, Morning = Hellgate : London

Still patching the bloody client…

Can’t believe that the SEA players are actually paying money up front to “beta test” the servers! I strongly believe that we are actually playing a beta build of the game.

>_<

Unbelievable!

Don’t believe me? Check out this link!

[IAH News] Patch 0 update for IAHGames servers

01/11/2007

Patch 0 will be implemented into the IAHGames servers soon.

Once the patch is implemented, only the top 3 character slots for players will be accessible while the 4th to 21st character slots will be disabled.

The patch will also raise the current level cap for players from 22 to 50.

“Raise current level cap for players from 22 to 50″. Bloody beta restrictions all right, during the US beta test, the level cap for the characters is level 22.

Just bloody great.

For example, Enemy Territory : Quake Wars started to crash to desktop for no good reason, same goes to Guild Wars. Guild Wars was so nice and even suggested that my processor could be faulty.

After discussing with bro, I suspect that the RAM could have died. Bro commented that the heat from the processor and graphics card probably cooked the RAM. After taking out the RAMs piece by piece, and experimenting with individual RAM pieces, I came to the conclusion that the pair of 256MB mushkin RAMS that me bro bought for it is faulty.

Bloody Flagship Studios made a beta game client that killed my RAM, brilliant aye?