Hellgate: London v2.0 Patch Specifics

Flagship Studios director of technocracy “Bogustus” stopped by the official Hellgate: London forums to reveal the development team’s plans for the game’s ambitious Abyss Chronicles update. I’m looking forward to this one, actually:

Discover that which awaits you in the Abyss, brave Hellgaters! The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) is rapidly taking shape and form and we’re ready to share some of its most exciting offerings with you. As Hellgate: London’s second major content update, the Abyss Chronicles boasts an impressive and lengthy list of new features including a major class rebalance, new environments, new enemies, new skills, new bosses, and new inventory slots. Then there’s the Consignment House, Attribute Respec Vendor, item linking, achievement rewards, and lots more. Suffice to say, the Abyss Chronicle is big. Very big.

Plans are already underway for the patches beyond the Abyss Chronicles. A small content summary for Patch 2.1 has been included as well. This update will open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London in the form of ranked player versus player (PvP) gameplay. Originally slated for release with the Abyss Chronicles, the decision to release new PvP content as part of a supplemental patch was brought about by a desire to introduce five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture The Flag. Together, these features will provide a robust PvP experience within the Hellgate: London universe.

The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) Content Summary

‘¢ New Abyss Quest Line with Five New Boss Fights:

o Travel to the all new Parliament Square and help Titus of the Cabal fend off the rapid spread of the Abyss, a new Demonic underground that grows in size as Demonkind consumes more of our world. The only way to halt the Abyss is to seek out and destroy those who control it. Lure the five Abyss Lords from their cursed realm by collapsing their Hellrifts (a new Rift for each of the boss types), then confront the masters as they emerge to investigate the problem. Five repeatable boss runs with five new bosses! Features three new environments and some reworked environments.

‘¢ New Shared Stash System:

o The Shared Stash will now feature separate panes for each gameplay mode: Normal, Elite, Hardcore, and Hardcore Elite. Items currently in your Shared Stash will be placed in the correct pane.

‘¢ Major Rebalance of the Blademaster Class:

o The Blademaster class has been significantly rebalanced with changes to almost every skill. Overall, they should do more damage and have many more options than before. Some of the highlights include Strength now stacking on top of the skill percent bonuses a huge boost and Blademasters can now gain a Surge with any melee attack or with any melee skill (rather than just when killing something with a Surge skill).

‘¢ Improved, Configurable Guild Controls:

o Guilds will now have four titles they can assign to members. The titles can be renamed. There can only be one Guild Leader. Non-subscribers can only have the lowest title. The Guild Leader can configure what the middle two titles are allowed to do including invite new members, promote and demote existing members, kick members, and send all-guild e-mail. The lowest title is not allowed to invite, promote, demote, kick, or send guild e-mails.

‘¢ Consignment House:

o Players can place items into the Consignment House to offer them for sale at a set price. All players in the same gameplay mode can see and purchase that item. The Consignment House currently only offers a (buy out) price, there is no bidding.

‘¢ Three New Skills for all Classes:

o Skill Scrolls are new items which unlock the new skills and allow skill points to be put into them. For example, the Spider Mine Schematic unlocks the Spider Mine skill for Engineers. The Skill Scrolls will be tradable and can be used by all players; however, they drop off of boss monsters in the subscriber-only Abyss levels. Only a few of the skills will be enabled in the first Patch 2 build that goes to Test Center. Here are a couple sample skills to whet your appetite:

1. The Summoner will get a melee demon transformation with zombie minions.
2. The Blademaster will get skills that use up Surges to do things like perform a group heal.
3. The Engineer will get Spider Mines.

‘¢ Trinket Inventory Slots:

o There will be two new Trinket inventory slots. The first trinkets will drop as cursed rings which can be cleaned up through the Transmogrifier. These cursed rings will mostly drop in the Abyss levels, but they can be found elsewhere too. These items are tradable and can be used by all players.

‘¢ Attribute Respec Vendor:

o Bob, the Attribute Respec Vendor, will allow you to spend palladium to remove points one at a time from an Attribute and add them to your unassigned Attribute Points pool. The cost to remove each point goes up with character level.

‘¢ Stack Splitting:

o You will be able to right-click on a stack of items and select to split it into smaller stacks using a new radial menu option. A dialog will pop up and let you type in how many items to place in the new stack.

‘¢ Gameplay Changes:

o Character defenses against Secondary Damage Effects have been increased.

o Shield Overload has been removed from sword weapons.

o Strength has a much more significant impact on melee skill damage.

‘¢ Item Linking:

o Players will be able to enter a clickable (link) to an item’s details into the chat pane by right-clicking on the item and selecting the Link Item option on the radial menu.

‘¢ Achievement Rewards
‘¢ New Armor and Weapons for all Factions
‘¢ New Monster Types
‘¢ New Chat Color Scheme
‘¢ Many bug fixes and performance tweaks.
‘¢ A few more features yet to be announced.

Patch 2.1 Content Summary

‘¢ PvP Ranking
‘¢ PvP Matchmaking for Teams and Individuals
‘¢ PvP Points and Rewards
‘¢ PvP Achievements
‘¢ Capture the Flag PvP Game
‘¢ Improved predictability and balance for the attribute feed system.

We are hoping to get a Patch 2.0 build into Test Center next week, but we will see what happens.