So I’m jonesing for a real mmorpg to play. I thought I had one to play. No not fucking Hellgate: London. I had purchased Tabula Rasa from GoGamer.com when it was on sale for $29.90. Me and Gawain both tried it out when it was in beta. It was an enjoyable game. It a nice change from the fantasy type mmo I usually play. It has a nice sci-fi guns thing going on.

The problem is that I ordered this on the 9th and I have yet to get the game. Damn me for being a cheapskate. The USPS tracking number is no good at all. It makes me wish I would have picked UPS or something other than the damn USPS. Here is the info I get with my tracking number:

• Electronic Shipping Info Received, November 09, 2007
• Processed, November 10, 2007, 2:01 pm, BELL, CA 90201

Since the 10th there has been no update. With UPS I could always check daily and see what was going on. I’m starting to think the package is sitting somewhere in Bell, California, perhaps it fell off the truck. Maybe I won’t ever get my game. Give me an update USPS!

Back to Hellgate: London for a moment. I feel foolish for wasting 10 bucks to subscribe only to get some lame Halloween shit and even lamer Guy Fawkes stuff. I’m canceling on next friday which is payday. I’m waiting because I don’t trust this assholes and their billing department. The game is fun, 10 bucks a month is not worth basically only extra character slots and a bigger stash.

Next Mass Effect. A Xbox 360 Bioware rpg. What more do you need to say? It could be said that Mass Effect is the spiritual sequel to the great Knights of the Old Republic. The 20th just can’t get here fast enough.

Hellgate: London flavored chat log:

[05:01] Turk: HELLGATE!
[05:02] Gawain: I’m not as crazy as that.
[05:02] Gawain: thats fucking crazy ass crazy.
[05:02] Gawain: I saw that and I was like.. oh, hes just fucking with me.
[05:02] Turk: sorry
[05:02] Gawain: no.. you really did buy it.
[05:02] Turk: yes
[05:02] Gawain: so then I was like… well, they must have fixed a bunch of shit.
[05:02] Gawain: and then I was reading and you’re like “they haven’t fixed shit”
[05:02] Turk: I’ll update later with the current status
[05:03] Gawain: the extra funny comes in when you see that post right above the post with the forum pic on it.
[05:03] Turk: yeah yeah
[05:03] Gawain: jesus you’re not… subscribing… are you?
[05:03] Gawain: oh my god.
[05:03] Gawain: you’re subscribing.
[05:03] Turk: just to for a month
[05:03] Turk: to see, it’s only ten bucks
[05:03] Gawain: jesus christ you are sick. you need help.
[05:03] Turk: yeah
[05:03] Turk: the december patch sounds nice
[05:03] Turk: stonehenge as a hub
[05:03] Turk: outside areas
[05:04] Turk: again if they can fix shit
[05:04] Turk: and that is a big if
[05:04] Gawain: I don’t know you anymore.
[05:04] Gawain: fucking subscribing to hellgate.
[05:04] Gawain: jesus.

It gets worse. Below are two entries from my online banking statement:

11/05/2007 POS PURCHASE 11/03 20:55 HELLGATE PING0 800-346-3425 CAUS VCP 9.99
11/05/2007 POS PURCHASE 11/03 02:40 HELLGATE PING0 800-346-3425 CAUS VCP 9.99

So I’m already in for more than I wanted. Though the official website makes no mention of this billing issue (why scare away more suckers?) in the private forums the do at least admit they are aware. They offer little help. You can fill out an Ask a Question form. I received an email with this very unreassuring message:

Your inquiry has been received. You should receive a response from a Hellgate Customer Service Representative within 24 hours.

By my clock 24 hours have passed and I have yet to hear back from them. My bank account has not been credited. Perhaps Gawain is right and I’m sick and need help. But I hope they get the game in order. The glimmer of fun is there. The december patch also sounds like it has potential. I’ve heard mention of Stonehenge as a hub and the inclusion of more outside areas like forests. I just hope it doesn’t take longer than a month or two to fix these issues.

Here are some links from the game sites with more on this billing fuck up: Hellgate Billing Issues, Hellgate Subs Gone Wild?, and Hellgate London Subscribers Report Extra Charges, Restricted Access to Membership Benefits. Also worth reading is the Shacknews review of the game. Which gives a honest dead on review on how the game really is.

I’m weak. I picked up my preorder of Hellgate: London.

While it is buggy, I can’t help not enjoy the game. It has pretty much what I want in a rpg. Hack and slash light on the story. So far the two hours I can play at a time are a blast. I even joined the SA Goon guild Londen on the US server Shulgoth.

Which brings me to the new poll. Simple question with two possible answers.

Are you Playing Hellgate: London?

• Yes
• No

View Results

 Loading ...

Hellgate: London is live.

A view of the crashes forum courtesy of Gawain. It should be noted you have to be registered and logged in to see the Hellgate forums. They would not want people to see all of the problems still present in the game that may stop them from buying the game. The Blue text is more or less a hodge podge of developer quotes.

Update 11/01/2007 1:53am

Hellgate: London has a shitty launch worthy of the mmo wannabe it tries to be. I maybe sick perhaps because I enjoy this. Bad press anyone? Hellgate London Live, Subscriptions Not, Hellgate-gate 07: Subscription Servers Down As Game Launches, and Hellgate Servers Might Be A Go, But The Subscription Services Aren’t are all articles describing how launch day went. And if you go into the Hellgate Account Page it greats you with this message even now:

Subscribing is currently disabled

In red no less. My two favorite Technical Support Forum threads are Memory Exhausted and Single-Player Patch. I love how that developer build that was ahead of the multiplayer beta is shaping out.

There is a new Star Trek movie being made. With new actors playing the parts. CNN has an article talking about the news of the casting of Captain Kirk. Here is the breakdown:

Here are the IMDB links to these people:

• Chris Pine as Captain Kirk
• Zachary Quinto as Mr Spock
• Karl Urban as Doctor McCoy
• Simon Pegg as Scotty
• John Cho as Sulu
• Zoe Saldana as Uhura
• Anton Yelchin as Chekov

I don’t even know what to think. It’s hard to imagine some of them as these characters. In costume and on the set will give a better idea how they will do. Just wow though.

I bought the Orange Box. I’m playing through Episode 2 because I’m too dumb for Portal. But then I hit a brick wall in the form of the driving shit in Episode 2. And again I’m apparently to fucking stupid to figure out what to do. Here is a visual history of what I’m doing. This is the wrong way obviously:

I won’t even get into Portal. I’m completely dead in my tracks. It’s fun enough. I have yet to try Team Fortress 2 online and with people. I played around with the commentary mode to look at the levels. Halo 3 has made me scared of playing online again with the young people.

Hellgate: London just went gold. Me and Gawain had been playing the beta. The nda has been lifted now that it’s gone gold. First let’s take a look at one of my favorite bugs from the beta. The goddamn portals. Jesus they were everywhere. They did eventually fix this one. But there are so many more.

Here is a movie of the portals. Keep in mind this is footage from a beta build. Also keep in mind supposedly the beta build players played was not the up to date build the developers had. Why one would have people test an old build of the game still baffles me.

[drain file 50 show]

And on top of retarded bugs like the above the performance is shit on my pc at times. You can find more screens shots from this old beta here. And then some newer old beta shots can be found here.

The best bug yet though has to be one Gawain has been suffering since we started playing this game. His chat window is fucking broken, patch after patch and new builds came and gone nothing ever fixing his problem.

He couldn’t even get one dev to reply about the problem. If you have beta access you can see his forum post right here. The game is a train wreck if you want to play over the net with a friend. The single player is supposedey in better shape. I don’t know myself because I saw that the just released demo has adware built in. And on top of everything else wrong with this game they finally announced what you get if you pay the ten bucks a month (cut and pasted from VE3D):

• Elite Mode – Tougher mobs, tougher all round
• Hardcore Mode – Perma-death mode for your character
• Themed events and items – First begins on day of release, Halloween
• Guild Creation – What it says on the tin!
• Achievements – Slay 6,000 zombies, get a pat on the back, and maybe a bonus item too
• Extra Character Slots – 24 for you, 3 for non-subscribers
• Larger Stash – Twice the space as non-subscribers
• Name Color – Get a colored name, wooo!
• Forum Icon – Makes you stand out on the official forums when bitching about the in-game ads

And that is it. What a great deal. Pass on the game and pass on the cheap ass shit you get for ten bucks a month. I’ll look at this one again in a years time. Just to see if it lasted and is finally playable.