Hellgate: London Interview
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GB: Are you introducing any new unique items with The Abyss Chronicles update? If so, will these items only be obtainable in the new zones or will they also have a chance to drop in the original and Stonehenge zones? Tyler: We have a large set of new items in the Abyss Chronicles. There are new armor lines for each faction which look pretty cool and have some interesting plus and minus choices for the player like Cabalist armor that adds to power but removes health. There are also some new weapons for every class like a massive mace which has spinning blades when you swing it. With the exception of the new focus items designed for a melee Summoner, all of these items can only be found in the Abyss areas. All of them have unique versions which mostly are set to drop off of specific bosses.
We have also added a couple new kinds of magic items: Mythic and Double Edged. The Mythic items are really, really rare, have one extremely powerful Mythic property and a random number of Legendary properties. The Double Edged items are a much more common, and they have one powerful Mythic property and one negative property. These will drop everywhere.
GB: After rolling out the 2.0 changes to the Blademaster's skill tree, will you be turning your attention to another class for a future update? If so, any hints as to which class it might be?
Tyler: We've been working our way through the character classes adjusting their balance, fixing bugs and remaking skills that didn't work out as we had intended. Now, there are only two more classes that we haven't addressed yet: the Engineer and the Summoner. Now, this is mostly because these two classes have needed the least (help.) Which one will we work on next? I'm not 100% certain, but we've recently hired a designer who is quite passionate about the Summoner class.
GB: Patch 2.1 will focus almost entirely on PvP. Can you give us an overview of how the expanded PvP system will function? What sort of rewards and achievements are planned for those who participate in PvP?
Tyler: I can't give a lot of details here because frankly, we are still brainstorming about it. I can say that we have been working on a ranking system for PvP, automated matchmaking, drop-in-drop-out games, some PvP achievements, and a few other reward ideas. We also have a Capture the Flag game which should be ready for players in our Test Center to try out soon.
GB: Also included in Patch 2.1 is a (much needed) rebalance to the attribute feed system on items. What can we expect from these changes? Will feeds still be dependent on which enchantments are present on an item (ie. critical bonuses requiring accuracy), or will they be calculated in another manner?
Tyler: Patch 2.1 will include a careful rebalancing of the feed system. We have a few ideas about how to approach the problem. One thought has been to make the enhancement's feed requirements match your faction's more common attributes. We are still talking about a few other ideas as well. To help players until Patch 2.1 comes out, The Abyss Chronicles has an NPC that will charge you palladium to redistribute your attributes.
GB: What's next after The Abyss Chronicles and Patch 2.1? Can you give us a rundown of features and changes you'd like to implement into the game with future content updates?
Tyler: We've got a few different directions that we can go with Hellgate: London after Patch 2.1. I can't really commit today on which path we will take there are some high-level debates about this going on right now.
Thanks for your time, Tyler!
