Hellgate: London – London 2038 Development Update #36

A new developer diary for Hellgate: London’s London 2038 multiplayer mod is here, outlining the team’s recent progress on a variety of features serving as stepping stones towards the upcoming community expansion.

Check it out:

Hello, hello!

After another lengthy break since last time 1, another update is finally due. And while I’m afraid there’s been less than stellar progress, the wheel does keep turning – whenever we get some downtime to work in peace.

Progress

In a nutshell, here’s what’s been done since last time.

• Added more community items. There’s never enough gratitude to show to our benefactors, including willing VAs and GameBanshee’s kind souls. This should be the last batch of 1.6, and it’s looking great.
• Failed to solve a pesky bug, again. This is looking less great.
• Polished some early enemies and items. Nothing groundbreaking or meta-relevant, but consistency was due.
• Polished new endgame items. Treasures need to shine to entice explorers and reward their efforts.
• Polished some long overdue skill changes. While not exactly what we intend to have achieved by release, these will likely make 2 classes happy.
• Added another Mythic affix. Our Discord members might know of this affix, but some consistency was due. Pun not intended.
• Made Arcs display in weapon stats. An unexpectedly easy fix, all in all, which attentive players might’ve noticed was seen to recently.
• Applied the new AI immunity affix to bosses. Finally, players will know who they can Challenge or Word of Fear away.
• Saw to Wedding Rings. There will no longer be two to confuse players, and the important one will more clearly state its purpose.

In the meantime, our Shadies have also been hard at work on the wiki. While there’s more to be done, we hope players find this effort useful.

Finally, the immediate plans include recording our own lines, polishing some more skill changes, ironing out a couple of pesky quirks, and finalizing shiny new items. But most importantly, seeing to the big obstacle that is maps. Once there’s enough dev time to remove that roadblock, we’ll be just about done with the bulk of the expansion.

No ETA though, I’m afraid. While I’ve been fortunate enough to have slivers of time to spend working here, I can’t say the same of my colleagues. And, of course, IRL work and duties must come before Hellgate work for us all.

Cheers!

And that should be the gist of it.

As 1.6 is evidently taking its time, I hope these progress reports help bolster your patience and excite you for the future. Hopefully once December ends we’ll be able to present something more solid – fingers crossed.

Until next time then, I wish you all the best brave hunters.