There is nothing more satisfying in a shooter than a one shot kill. Which is why I think I am liking the marksman ****so well. My play time has been limited thus far this week to a few hours here and there and I am still getting the "lay of London" so to speak, but I have reached level 9 and level 5 or 6 on many many alts. The game is just too much fun not to test the waters on other ****s, especially engineers with their bots.
Once our guild one shotted the first four bosses in Karazhan in World of Warcraft, I logged out for some good shooter time in Hellgate:London and then hit the sack Tuesday night. Wednesday night I ran a few guildies through Shadow Labs which was almost too easy, then hit the streets of London again with a buddy of mine that just picked up Hellgate. After getting him used to the idea that as he played his engineer he had to hang back and let the droids do the work, he finally stopped getting owned and I teamed up with him with my female Guardian character. Yep, I made a female, mostly because of the awesome opening movie cinematic that comes with HG:L. She is now level 4 and plays almost exactly like your typical tank in an MMO, minus all the garbage and crap you have to put up with to have actual fun.
(/sarcasm on) Before I get into the party aspect of the game, lets talk about in game advertising and the fact that some said it would ruin their game or make it a no purchase. Well its terrible let me tell ya. Yup, its so bad I had to look real hard to find it. Posters on a subway wall. Posters on a subway wall for Mythos, Nvidia, and some other stuff that only Europeans would understand. My game is now ruined forever. Because we all know that in 2007 human beings would never put posters on subway walls (/sarcasm off)
The video above shows the damage I can do with range and the ability to enter tactical stance. Also in the video I make liberal use of grenade throws by rebounding them off walls and I also use my trusty napalm strike. My gun is fully modded out now and has a slight knockback factor built in plus a ton of + damage against various demon types. This was the firepower I was taking in to help my level 3 friend with and we really tore up those early instances in an attempt to get em caught up and ready to go on to the next few stations (or cities). One of the weapons I got last night was an orange rarity electricity firing gun called a "Proficient FS Volt Rifle". This orange dropped after I completed the built in mini game, which I can go into detail on in a later blog post. Basically the mini game gives you in game tasks like hunt X type of mob or use X type of damage to kill mobs and when you complete a whole ton of loot drops off the monster. I also cleared some in game achievements last night with my main character and got rewarded some AP Points. Only problem is: no one knows what they are for, but I guess they will come into the game later. One of the achievements I unlocked was the "I Hate Boxes" reward, I guess I have been really busting up crates and barrels. I also unlocked "Destroyer" which is rewarded for breaking down items into component parts. I usually stash them all in my storage bin for later.
So my friend got online and he is playing an engineer, at which point I got on my guardian and we proceeded to lay waste to many areas. One thing I like about the guardian is the really quick response times for the attacks. The shield bash is awesome, does not come with some gimpy rage mechanic, and really does the damage. Plus it can be modified for knockback and other damage types. So I jumped in and had my aura on, which heals me additionally for the more mobs I am in contact with, and we advanced through the maps. I know my friend improved his gun because by the end of the night he had switched from dual wielding pistols to using some napalm throwing rifle that was really killing most demons before they approached us. With his slow droids and my ability to rough things up, the maps really stood no chance.
We ran into one bug that always makes me grimmace. It is very important in this game to exit out of an instance before you log I have noticed. Sometimes it may not save your progress or if the server crashes you can lose quest progression. Also, the chat system is by far the most 
annoying thing about the online game. The window does not stay open, it is very clunky and the chat channels are all over the place. Luckily I found a guide on the main forums on the Hellgate website or I would not know what the heck was going on. I found it best when grouped to just use party chat and always hang out in that tab and just hit enter then type to respond.
A few other niggles to look out for: I seem to cannot get the hang of the inventory system. For example I would love to drop a mod on a weapon without having to unequip it and drop it in my inventory space, then re-equip it. Also I do not understand why a summoner can use a dart pistol and the other special cabalist weapon (the one that covers the forearm) dual weild, but cannot dual weild two dart pistols. At least I have not been able to get mine to do that.
The trading interface is a little weak as well, I would prefer to just be able to drop an item on another person and have it open a trade window. Not sure if this can be done but I usually right click their icon and do "trade with player". If you are trying to accept a trade and want to chat and hit enter, it cancels the trade effort. Very frustrating.
I have however found a huge amount of useful posts on the main Hellgate forums that offer some good tips and here are some I picked out and rewrote them to make them a little clearer:
- Use shift+rightclick to buy and sell without having to drag the itemwhen you have your item, skill, quest log, etc screens up, simply hit the spacebar to close them quickly
- Right click on a party members's icon to create a portal right to that person. Hit "P" to turn on auto-party, helps to find groups easily. Also you may not see your friend when you both first log in. It is usually because you have not been matched on instances and you need to portal over to his instance.
- Chat guide: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=23212
- The yellow ring around your health that goes up and down is your current SHIELD value
- The big number you see when looking at the tooltip of the weapon is NOT the damage. Its the over-all rating of the weapon, mods and other attributes included.
- If you want to see the damage, right click the weapon. It will say what kind it is, how much it does, weapon speed and the radius of any AoE effects.
- If you get stuck (this has happened to me once) Enter the message /stuck. Last night this did not work for someone that tried it so I am not sure the status on this
- If you leave the area a vendor is in then instantly pop back in, the vendors items and engineers items have changed. It's randomized.
- Crafting Thread: http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=23158
So far Hellgate: London has been pretty much what I bought into it for. If you liked Diablo 2 and were seriously addicted to boss runs, the cool atmosphere and the loot drops, you will love this game. Despite the appearances it is a very deep game. The mods, crafting and the skill trees are some of the things I haven't even touched on yet. There just isn't enough time for me to go into depth with each post so I will have to split them up and do that over time. Hopefully with the patches and the content that can be added to an online game it will only grow from there. Well so far it is a blast for me and I have to say it is the setting also that particularly draws me in. I also like the random factor, especially when I zone into a map and get zombies. Nothing is more fun than shooting a zombie, watching the upper half blow off and having the legs continue to walk toward you. That kind of detail gets me hook line and sinker. Despite the naysayers and the anti "OMG I HAVE TO PAY 10 dollars A MONTH" crowd you owe it to yourself to check the game out if you like this kind of genre. You don't have to subscribe, it is optional. There are some bugs yes, and I have had it crash a few times. The thing is, unlike something like Vanguard, I find myself logging right back in for more goodness.
Bill Roper was right when he said he wanted to create Diablo 2 meets Half Life 2 and I think they pulled it off for the most part. The game seems like it assumes that Diablo 2 fans will be playing it and that they will just pick up on what needs to be done, which is why I feel the documentation is sorely lacking. One week in I have already seen level 35 people with some really decked out gear and I know I want to get that stuff. I also wouldn't mind being totally crazy and trying hardcore mode (a mode where if you die, your character is gone). There is a lot to look forward to and uncover, and hopefully Flagship can shake off a rocky launch and get things rolling ahead.