Hellgate: London Q&A

Hellgate-spain has conjured up a lengthy Q&A with Flagship Studios' Bill Roper about their highly anticipated RPG, Hellgate: London. An excerpt to follow:
Q: Time to talk about the third and first person views. You had said that Hellgate: London is an RPG, so the resolution of the combat is stat based, also you had said that you are looking a set of skills for a class more FPS playstyle friendly. So, what the first person view can offer to a more RPG focused player apart from a more deeper immersion in the game? And another one, The models of the arms and its armor that we can see in first person view, will change depending on the gender of our character and his/her equipment? As far as i know, we only have seen male arms without any type of armor...

A: The first person viewpoint offers a few things. First and foremost is the one you mentioned immersion in the world. Really being your character as opposed to directing one around the world is very appealing to many players. This perspective also allows us create new types of challenges and experiences for the players, such as playing with altitude, demons that hide and effectively use their environment, and can really surprise the player in a lot of ways.

The arms you see in the game are the base, non-armored ones for make characters. We always concentrate first on getting art into the game that makes a substantive difference to the experience and the game play. This means weapons, particle effects, monsters, armor, mods and so forth all come first. We will accurately reflect the armor you're character is wearing on his/her arms and hands when in first person view we just have not put a priority on it yet.