Fair warning though - 3 days is a joke.  3 days enables people to play the 'worst' part of the game... the beginning; when you are not the least bit specialized as a character.  I suppose in 3 days you could at least get to see graphics, the combat system, base defenses, and general gameplay though...  so it's not a total loss.  But I still think it's a bad decision on their part to limit it to such a short period.

A lot of MMO free trials have that problem imho. Even if they give you 7 days or longer, you still won't get to see enough that's going to make you want to sign up. When I was in COH, I gave quite a few free trials out. Often people just couldn't get to the point where they had Stamina (so they were gasping for Endurance), and most of the more exciting powers in the game were in the maybe L20-32 range, and trial players generally couldn't get there.

I've often felt if they could give trial players pre-made characters at a certain level (at least as an option, and even if limited to certain zones/areas so as not to "spoil" quest/mission content) higher in the game, then they'd at least give them a taste of what their characters could be later in the game as a better carrot for signing up. In a lot of these things the early-mid levels are either tedious, or character skill development limited, and you just don't see what might make it increasingly fun over time if you signed up.

"Lotta Slots."

I just need to save up enough to run it through the Augmentor for some interesting stats first. 

When I first encountered this scene, I didn't see the gun, and I thought there was some radioactive peeing going on. 

The pic I was messing with was a promo for Gametrailers' interview with the one and only Jade:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/28088.html
What are they *doing* to her HAIR????  It's a solid interview though. In part 2 (later this week I guess?) she addresses "all the attention" she gets as producer/spokesperson for the game.

Aaand, got some red (orange?) gloves and a new type grenade launcher thingie. I like the look, even if it's a bit more, uh, Freudian than I'd like.  Actually it looks a lot like a boom microphone...

I just wear the goggles in the lower level town zones to impress the locals. 
I guess I should try saving up and putting the goggles in the Augmentor, maybe I'll get some modifiers good enough to wear them all the time.

I finally got a decent Legendary belt to drop (though the Str requirement is a pain):


Also took a few moments to finally figure out the basic crafting/dismantling stuff, and to use the Augmentor (good for the Vanilla 20mm rifle I mentioned above) though I'm finding it difficult to really pile up the dough at this point (my overhead's too high  ):

Now that I think about it, their calling the upcoming patch "version 0.5" pretty much says it all as far as what state the game is at this point  -- it's about half way to what it should've been at launch.

Oh yeah, forgot those, thanks for reminder so I don't sell them by mistake.

But ya know, I really do have some zones where the graphical textures don't load for like 10 seconds and I get either really dark graphics or "textureless" graphics for a while. Bizarre. Fella I teamed with tonight had a case where his screen went totally White, and he had to log out and back in.

And along with that, do you know why the MP client won't retain my graphics settings? It's like I can change them for one session, but the next time I log in everything is back to "max" in graphical options and it's heck on my frame rate. 

[taste]

What? It doesn't really taste like a PS3 case? Those dang liars!!!! 

The test server was up briefly tonight -- there were some Announcements made in the chat window about it:

Basically they copied over every character from last night's progress point so you could try them on test. Apparently it was a lagtastic disaster in some ways, but some players said drops and some other problematic things seem to finally be working properly, fwiw (from chatter I heard in general chat channel).

Most importantly I finally completed the Mind Mysteries BLEEP BLEEPER!!!!!!! BLEEPING!!!!!!!! And as you can see above I pathetically pleaded for help and got zero. I have to be more self reliant. 

This time I just stayed in the last room of the stupid mind caves, and just took every bit of bullying the swarms of beasties and the Ghosties could dish out. No way was I going to get stuck in the ground again. And I finally broke through and completed it. 

And why does a contact give you such cool... and totally useless "laser eye sight" goggles? (no stats, has no effect from what I can see  ):

Something of a loot extravaganza...

* Finally got a Legendary weapon drop. I ended up giving this Arc rifle to the fella teaming with me has he had been a good chap and we spent a couple of hours in co-op. He mentioned being crazy about Arc rifles so I passed it along.


* Some boots finally of use...


* This isn't legendary, or even anything, but I dig the camo green, it has solid base damage (77) and I'm using it quite a bit for now

I found it useful to put in a "Reduce Tactical skill power usage by 5%" mod.


Not sure what the "B-770" on the side here stands for. 

[Sweet, delicious swag: Sony sends PS3 birthday cakes to the press]

The PS3 lets you have your cake and eat it too! 

Sweet, delicious swag: Sony sends PS3 birthday cakes to the press
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/16/sweet-delicious-swag-sony-sends-ps3-birthday-cakes-to-the-pres/
It's so big, you could hide 2 PSPs in there... 

Still having fun. Learned a few new things:
-Once you add enough extra inventory slots, they can start carrying things like bipods for sniper rifles, assault rifles and machine guns (better accuracy); and various grenade launcher attachments for assault rifles (there are Frag, HE [brief timer delay before exploding] and Smoke variations), with each attachment having 2 grenades innately available (can add more via another inventory slot). The rifle grenades give you a lot more options for tight spaces, or spaces with an overhang ceiling where you can't easily make a grenade toss.

-You can use the up-down arrow buttons to get a zoomed in view or go back to normal view; and to switch night vision on and off (for some reason, this doesn't appear to be explained in the manual).

[General:]

I hear ya - I am venting similarly about being stuck on Mind Mysteries in the bug thread. It's just, I do like the game -- I wouldn't have spend 5-6-7 hours trying to complete one screwed up quest if I didn't. The game just won't *let* me enjoy it. 

At official site, details on the .5 patch they're putting on test and hope to get to players this week:
http://www.hellgatelondon.com/underground/new-update-coming
It's not that long, thought I'd paste here:

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. [This worries me, this happens almost *everywhere* in the game at some point - there's a serious flaw with the engine itself, imho-bj]
    * 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.

This is quite promising, but I really think they should've not waited for an MMO style "mega patch" that fixes 50 things. Many of these things are quest-breaking, game-breaking, "tick the player off so they never play the game again" type bugs -- I would have hotfixed them suckers ASAP and apologized to players to the high heavens. Give them a bunch of moolah for their misery. Something. If they really want people to consider subscribing to this, they should be making things right as quickly as humanly possible.

OK, well I got stuck on a collission bug while battling the end bosses in Mind Mysteries again. This time I managed to take all the "ghost bosses" out. This flipped up a portal to "Meet the Father" 10 feet from Blackjach but since he's stuck, there's no way for him to reach it. When I used the "/stuck" command to flip me back to the start of the quest map, guess what? The portal "to meet the father" was gone, and now I can't complete the quest (I have no way to "Meet the father", but that's what the quest is stuck on now), which means this character has no way of doing any further quests in the game (no other contacts are available, I've checked the Lucius Aldin contacts and none are talking; I can't re-do this quest because the end bosses are dead now, they don't reappear anymore). 

Here's the area I mean (you'll notice all my grenade and special skill attacks are disabled cause of the collision/stuck bug):

I got stuck on the floor two consecutive days. Today they couldn't hide from me but I guess I would be better off if they had.

Can't say I didn't try. 

I'm just angry cause this is bush-league stuff that QA testing should catch long before anyone drops $50 on a game. I can deal with glitches, I can't really be nice about quest-breaking bugs caused by an engine's poor collision detection, an /unstuck command that really shouldn't propel you all the way back to a map's start, and a mysteriously disappearing Quest portal that really shouldn't just vanish like that because the stupid engine forced me to use the /stuck command (Can you say "Catch-22"?). I'm at a loss for words. I'd cuss a storm, but this is a nice forum so I'll just cuss to myself quietly. 

Right now I'd like to run my Hellgate DVD through one of those CD/paper shredders, and mail it back to Bill Roper and say "Here. This is how I felt after spending several days trying to complete Mind Mysteries. I think it's free of bugs now. Good luck, Bill!"

When I calm down, I'll visit the forums and see if they have any suggestions on how to complete this somehow (maybe tagging along with someone else who is doing it themselves or something).

I played some Panzer Tactics tutorials last night. The hex grid feels almost too tiny at first, but within a few minutes, it really did feel like I was playing a ____ General game on a teeny weeny PC.  I do wish some of the tiny control icons were explained somewhere on the interface via pop-up text (some of them are like supposedly universal traffic symbols - I can't for the life of me understand what they indicate without reading the manual). 

Combat animations are very brisk (unlike Advance Wars they're semi-realistic looking and from a bit of a distance). I don't think this is one of those games where people will be desperate to turn them off.

Bunkers are one of the units (I assume you can't move them) and if you don't approach them properly, they're tough to get through.

I (Blackjach in game) welcome help from anyone, any level with Mind Mysteries. I hate being stuck in the game because of one stupid, bug-ridden (or "engine bugs" make it near impossible to complete solo, I should say) mission/quest. 

Am I the only person still playing? Oh Hellgate, how I hate thee and yet I keep playing. 

Finally got a good vest while doing a co-op mission with someone tonight:


Natch, just as we were finishing his mission (Death's whatever) so we could try to tackle this Tech 314 Mind Mysteries mission that's make me crazy... he got hungry and had to leave. ARGH! 

*Star Trek theme music plays*
Star Trek Away Team. The final frontier. Its turn-based mission, to lie in Dilithium Stasis for 6 years....

Daaa Daaaaaaaaaaa, Da da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.......
*whoosh whoosh*
Daaa Daaaaaaaaaaa, Da da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.......

Alas, I can't in my nightmarish computer room, track down the manual for it. I'm really curious if it would run on XP. I might give it a whirl just to check that (it released in 2001).

Any update on adding any more of our characters to the Guild? I'm desperate for help on Tech 314 mind Mysteries, though maybe you have to solo it.  I'm sick of the quest, but if I don't find some way to complete it I'm gonna go postal. Right here at the Gaming Trend Forums! It won't be a pretty sight! 

Eurogamer has a transcript of a fan-chat interview with Naughty Dog's co-president, Even Wells, about this game:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87721
A few things to arbitrarily highlight :

-Obli asks: How hard would it be to port Uncharted to the Xbox 360? I'm not just talking storage constraints (Blu-ray). Could Uncharted be faithfully recreated without the use of Cell?

Evan Wells: I won't say that it would be impossible, but it would be very difficult and we most certainly would have to make enough concessions that it would start to feel like a different game. One thing that would be particularly difficult would be keeping the game load-free. The HDD really came in handy and allowed us to have pretty big open levels with lots of detail
========================
Phattso asks: Clearly Uncharted has been in development for quite a while, but there are some parallels between the combat/cover mechanics it offers (which are great, by the way) and those from last year's Gears of War. Was this a conscious effort to take what Epic did and hone it to perfection, or was it just a case of two separate development houses arriving at the same control scheme as a logical solution for similar gameplay/control requirements? Also, what's your favourite colour?

Evan Wells: We had been working on our cover taking mechanics for 6 or 8 months before we saw Gears. We were initially attracted to the idea after seeing it in Kill.Switch [I think it's first time I ever saw a dev give credit to Kill.Switch for the cover-fire mechanic  -blackjack]. We felt that it really helped create the feeling of being pinned down and we thought that would suit our pulp action/adventure genre nicely. Of course when Gears came out and we saw what a great job they did with it really raised the bar on what we had to achieve and we were definitely pushed to step our game up. And I like Green.
===============
-mcwildcard asks: Why do you think other developers have seemingly struggled to get to grips with the PS3 dev kits, whilst Naughty Dog has managed to put together what appears to be a polished and seamless game, with no obvious technical faults?

Evan Wells: I don't think it's problems with the PS3. Next-gen game development is tricky business. I think you're seeing a lot of developers struggle with the Xbox as well. It just so happens that the 360 has been out there for more than a year longer and people have had more time to work with it.

Pretty good questions for a fan-Q chat, well, OK, "What's your favorite color?" not so much. And some of them are kind of brown-nosing. OK I take it back, the questions were awful!

It's just sometimes chat Q&As are full of "filler questions" ("Hey, how is your game SO AWESOME?"). 

I'll second KOTOR PC. I didn't get into it initially, and then after getting some tips on developing my character and ideas on teaming up effectively in it, I had a good time with it (though I didn't quite finish it).

As someone frustrated by Hellgate and its bugs at about every other turn, I've started to wonder if the Diablo II boys are actually working on Mythos, and that's why Hellgate doesn't really have Diablo II's feel, personality or relative (Lord Knows, Diablo II got patched often post-release, but I recall it being more about balanacing than fixing) polish.

If Mythos has FPS movement controls and can be played without carpal tunnel/tendinitis setting in from clicking everything in sight, I'll want to give it a look.

Maybe we should look at Hellgate as a "dry run" for Mythos, and Mythos will gain the benefit of learning from all of Hellgate's mistakes. That's my glass half full view.  

I don't know anybody testing Mythos alas. When I mentioned playing Hellgate at my fading COH SG's forum, a bud mentioned that he was hearing far more positive things about Mythos than Hellgate.

I'm interested in Dark Star One, but I'm not willing to part with Hellgate (even if it made me so mad I stopped playing for now). 

-(PSP) SOCOM: Tactical Strike (not turn-based, but very tactical and thoughtful still )
-(DS) Panzer Tactics (traded in some PSP titles towards it today)

Bring on more military themed turn-based games -- the market already has plenty of JRPG/Medieval/Fantasy TBS games. Variety is the spice of life, so give everybody something to choose from, mr. game publishers.

The German fan site HellgateLondon.de seems to have a good classes section, including many player-created class guides but... it's in German. You can try running it through Google, Babelfish etc. lang. translation tools:
http://www.hellgatelondon.de/klassen/klassen.php

There's a budding Hellgate Wiki at:
http://hellgate.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fansites
Though not a whole lot listed just yet.

This is looking more like a rent-first type game to me.  Fwiw, Gamestop's schedule has the DS version down for a Dec. 17 release.

I traded in some PSP titles and picked this up at lunch.

The Gamestop clerk gave me printouts of upcoming DS and PSP titles. fwiw, the "new look" (it's cel-shaded, somewhat like the Ubisoft shooter XIII from a few years ago) Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/15/joystiq-hands-on-advance-wars-days-of-ruin-ds/) is listed as Jan. 21. The DS version of Warhammer 40K: Squad Command seems set for Dec. 17. I didn't see much else turn-based as far as DS stuff. There's something called "Drone Tactics" April 2, but I couldn't find any info on it yet. 

As far as grids, there was a much maligned PC game called Odium (turn-based, soldiers vs. invading alien bugs) that I liked in the late 1990s. It used a square, checkerboard like grid. The problem was you couldn't find weapons diagonally in most cases, and that really turned people off (it was meant to encourage you to use a variety of weapons, but it just seemed goofy).

I just like the hexagon idea cause it brings back some fond memories of beer 'n pretzel type wargames I was really fond of in the mid 1990s. I think on a larger scale type strategy game it helps make diagonal movement/attack a little more graceful, but I'm not a big defender.

"Well of COURSE the game isn't as great as we said it would be! How would you get any work done with Jade Raymond hovering over your shoulder all day long!!!!"   

Let's see. Just now, I tried Mind of tech 314 for the second time. This time I got to the end room in a timely fashion. Took out beasties in there. Took out Tech 314's ghostly whatever, then it breaks into three separate ghostly thingies. And I take out two of them. THEN, I get stuck on a point in the floor (never have I played a game where you get stuck on things so often with no rhyme or reason). Not only does the "stuck" bug stick me, it renders all my grenade attacks unusable. Then the last soldier of course backs away from me when I can reach him every time i get him near the point of dead. Then I use the /stuck command and get warped to the beginning of the level, and of course every room in the stupid Mind of Tech 314 has completely respawned.

I enjoy this character, but I can't progress any further in the quests without completing it and so far it seems utterly impossible given the bugs in the game and the general nastiness of the quest (and no interest in co-op online or anyone remotely interested in being helpful in the chatrooms).

How is this fun? Don't answer that. I've had enough of this game. I think maybe Tabula Rasa looks like a better bet afterall.

[Interview with Hellgate music composers Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco]

Something sort of positive (German site, but the interview is English):

Interview with Hellgate music composers Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco
http://www.hellgatelondon.de/szene/musik/sascha_cris_zwei.php

I just don't recall much music in the game.  It's mostly silent, aside from my screaming in certain situations. 

More and more publishers are interested in "micro transactions" and "play the basic for free, pay for premium" (a la Dungeon Runners), so I'm afraid we'll probably have to get used to it. 

Even though I generally like the game and have been playing quite regularly in the evenings, I still just don't get the idea of shipping the game with the subscription stuff not in place and no major content updates on the near horizon. They had years to plan this game's release. Blizzard would never ship a game this way (something like this they'd almost certainly have bumped to February, and not given a set-in-stone release date in the first place), so it just will always boggle me that Flagship would've learned nothing from their years in the Blizzard fold. I never dreamed Bill Roper would have to spend every other day defending the game, promising fixes, explaining or justifying why the game was designed this way or that way or didn't have such and such at launch. It's just bizarre.

My mom usually lets me pick out a couple games as Xmas gifts (we just go to Best Buy or something and she'll let me get a couple), so I'm pretty sure you'll see me aboard sometime in mid to late December. 

We had been talking about this when it was first announced, at a military games forum I hang out at. I'm puzzled though. It was announced as a "value priced" title but it's going for $39.99.  I guess they meant in relation to the full-price console versions.

Previously, we had intended to end the beta grace period on November 14. But, we don't want to cut your game off prematurely, so please make sure you enter your retail registration key as soon as possible.

Again, no beta players without registration codes will be able to login and play Hellgate: London after November 21, 2007.

Ha! See? The game is *still* in beta! That explains everything!  I'm kidding, but it does sound as if a lot of beta players haven't been convinced to actually buy it yet so they just keep pushing the cutoff date back and back.

I don't take back all the negative things I said about this - because I said them at a different message board.  I had a lot more fun with Jam Sessions on DS (everyone I've ever let play with it fell in love with it), but because it's not a Guitar Hero clone, it found little audience.

I rented Elite Beat, and for me it was way too frustrating to make any sort of progress with. I think it's a clever concept, but that doesn't make it any fun to play when it's so unforgiving in terms of tapping everything with perfect precision.

I'm still grouchy from Hellgate last night btw, so take this with a grain of salt. 

Another pretty enthusiastic review, from Pocket Gamer UK:
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/SOCOM%3A+US+Navy+SEALs+Tactical+Strike/review.asp?c=4820

Overshadowed by countless other high-profile PSP games in the run up to Christmas, an understated release for this portable tactical-action fest belies an amazingly entertaining experience. Ignore the lack of buzz and astonishing widespread critical disdain [bit of an overstatement - reviews have generally been solid -bj] for Tactical Strike because, in our view, this is one of the best PSP titles of the year.

The effort to craft a console-quality experience has succeeded, then, yet ironically serves as the game's primary flaw. Tactical Strike brilliantly deploys its strategic gameplay in huge, challenging missions that simply aren't tailored for portable play [most are 30-60 mins].

But that doesn't prevent it from being an enjoyable experience. On the contrary, this in fact turns out to be one of the system's finest and it's not difficult to see why: it looks great, plays just as well, and gets an exceptionally solid job done with remarkable style.

One thing I belatedly realized -- the "job skill" skill affects how quickly and well an individual soldier does things like pick locks, heal fallen soldiers and breach doors.

Garriott said in interviews players should be able to team up with level variations as wide as 5 or 10 levels without having problems earning experience (read that in a PC Gamer print interview recently). I don't know how the game handles sharing quests/missions you don't have though. In beta most players were racing around like drugged monkeys, and there was little interest in teaming formally (just informally for the base attack/defense stuff), dunno how it is now.

Oh I just spent about 90 minutes crawling through an endless ear canal in "314's" brain, finally found the end, died, rezzed as ghost, but no headstone was left, and as a ghost i can't use the portal that was supposed to indicate the mission was done. I don't know if that's a bug, but I'm so angry, I don't think I'm going to play this for a while.  If I thought the demo was too easy, well, that 314's brain crap is like the devs rubbing my face in a pile of dog poop for 90 minutes saying "SEE? SEE? It's NOT too easy!"