Hellgate London - Roper Regrets

Interview with Bill Roper @ CVG with fairly blunt and honest answers.

The internet is always going to be an angry, bubbling vat of criticism-spitting piss, but the reaction to Hellgate was especially negative online. Maybe more testing would have offset the nerd rage?

"Our issues when we launched were less about the total months of testing (which were numerous) as opposed to the vast number of issues that came up right at the end," explains Roper. "The game would certainly have benefited from a couple of more months in the oven, so to speak, but we didn't have the ability to do so. The challenges of an independent game studio are drastically different than those owned by a publisher. We're fortunate that the online nature of the game has allowed us
to continue to fix bugs, add content, and respond directly to our player's wants
and needs."

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More information.

That is BS about the issues with the game coming up at the end. I was in the beta for the last few months of the Beta Test and one of the major problems had been discussed for awhile before I got on and never got fixed until after the game was released. The problem was with the customizable robot the engineer uses being totally useless since you would lose all items you put on it quite often and I think there was another problem but I can't think of it right now.

This and (I think) other problems were known for well over 2 months before the game was released and never got fixed. (it was atleast 4 months)

Luckily i waited for reviews instead of buying the game immediately; so i didn't get "flagshipped".

I doubt his sincerity. The single-player portion of the game is full of game-breaking bugs, and it hasn't been touched since last Decemember. They specifically asked him about it during the interview, but he sort of ignored the question to talk about Stonehenge instead, an update only available for multiplayer.

Maybe more testing would have offset the nerd rage?

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That line right there tells you how sincere he is. That is the most dismissive BS he could possibly throw at it. As if only the uber-nerds could possibly have anything to be angry about paying $50 for their steaming pile of crap of a game? Please.

My "nerd-rage" is directed at only the single-player game.

The randomly created areas are BORING after you have seen the half a dozen or so area types. It doesn't matter how many ways you can mix them together...they are the SAME areas and it's friggin boring.

The game was coded for ASS. My PC isn't new, but I can run Oblivion at 1280x1024 with above max settings with no stutter. I can run Crysis as 1024x768 on all medium settings, and CoD4 at 1280x1024 with max settings both with zero stutter. And all 3 of those games look infinitely better than Hellgate London does on MAX settings. Oh, but here's the funny part...Hellgate London stutters horribly even at the LOWEST settings. I turned it down to 800x600 with all details on LOW (so everything is basically a blob) and it STILL stutters horribly and is unplayable. GARBAGE.

The sounds are the absolute worst I have ever heard in any game, period. I've said it before but I honestly thought they had accidentally left in the placeholder sounds they are so bad. You just have to hear it to believe it. Tinny, whiny, high-pitched, brittle, weak, annoying, and pathetic...those would be the words I'd use to describe the sounds. You don't notice how important sound is until it's screwed up as badly as it is in this game.

The stuttering/performance problems *might* have been fixed to some degree with the patches. But I couldn't say since it NEVER let me download the damn patch and they don't give you the option to download their patches from external sites. Stupid. But the sound and content will never be fixed in any patch.

I wouldn't even STEAL this game it's so horrible. I can't imagine what poor suckers are actually paying to play this crap online.

The game runs well now but it was certainly unplayable at release (well it was for me anyway). I had problems with the network as well, which some had and some didn't - the never ending spinning wheel (for example)... Losing contact with the host on an on-line game is not ideal really but it's been cleaned up since then.

WHo ever came up with the term flaggshipped is so retarded.

Majnun said:

That line right there tells you how sincere he is. That is the most dismissive BS he could possibly throw at it. As if only the uber-nerds could possibly have anything to be angry about paying $50 for their steaming pile of crap of a game? Please. .

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That wasn't Roper speaking, that was PCZone. The question...
The internet is always going to be an angry, bubbling vat of criticism-spitting piss, but the reaction to Hellgate was especially negative online. Maybe more testing would have offset the nerd rage?
is yet another great example of what's wrong with gaming media.

Instead of really pushing Roper's back against the wall for the shitty product he released, they go all apologetic and say "yeah, it's the internet, they're way overreacting anyway"

Ugh.

Brother None said:

Instead of really pushing Roper's back against the wall for the shitty product he released, they go all apologetic and say "yeah, it's the internet, they're way overreacting anyway"

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Yeah, I was going to point that out as well. It actually makes it somewhat worse because we now have crappy questions, crappy answers, and a mediocre game. Hey, since it is a crappy interview, maybe we can coin a new term and say that rather then getting interviewed they got Crispy'd

txa1265 said:

Hey, since it is a crappy interview, maybe we can coin a new term and say that rather then getting interviewed they got Crispy'd

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Heh.

You been Crispied!

"Your games are awesome, why is that?"

"How come no one else is as awesome as you?"

"Aren't those guys on the internet stupid for hating your awesome game?"

"What's it like to run the most awesome studio ever?"

"You're independent, that's awesome. What's it like?"

"You're owned by EA, that's awesome. What's it like?"

"Your storytelling/graphics/AI are groundbreakingly innovative. Tell us how you manage to be so innovatively awesome?"

"Your game's name is awesome. Tell us how much we're going to love your game?"

"You're awesome." (wait, that's not a question)

Man, this is easier than I thought. I should do all my interviews like this from now on.

You forgot to ask this one:

"How did you manage to make such an awesomely immersive game experience?"