After consuming many worlds, the Abyss has acquired and retained magic secrets from many extinct civilizations. Only the strongest artifacts have survived within the Abyss. However, due to the omnipresent demonic taint of the Abyss, these trinkets have been corrupted and lost their original powers. The only device known to humankind to expel such corruption is the Transmogrifying Cube.


One of the new features introduced in the Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) is the ?trinkets? equipment slot, the first types of which are rings. Of the seven types of rings available, one drops from Champion monsters anywhere in Hellgate: London, two can only be found off of monsters in the Abyss, and four are specific drops from Abyss boss monsters. All rings drop as Cursed rarity items and need to be cleansed of their demon taint using the Transmogrifying Cube in order to be properly identified.


Each of these rings grant at least one point in two skills of a single class. The Abyss-only rings have an additional affix and the boss-specific rings have one or two additional affixes. While all seven rings can drop as Enhanced, Rare, or Legendary rarity, the boss-specific rings can also drop with Unique rarity. The higher the rarity level, the better the properties of the ring. All rings are tradable to all players.
-- Scapes

__________________
[ community manager | Hellgate: London | Flagship Studios ]
[ in-game names | Scapes, Scaper-X, ScaperX, Scaperilous, Scapesalicious, Hellgaters ]
[ quote | "Nothing reveals humanity so well as the games it plays." ]

Underground Communique #7
Week of June 2nd

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But First, A Word From Our Sponsors

This seventh issue of the Hellgate: London Underground Communique is brought to you by the War Drive for a Better Tomorrow Through a Tougher Today. Your kind and generous donations to this most noble of funds have no only yielded this installment of the Underground Communique but also helped produce the second lesson of the SAFE Video Series, "Humans and Zombies". Even if you already can differentiate between the heroic survivors of humanity and the reanimated undead when out and about, be certain to fortify your knowledge by partaking of this educational video.

Also available in this Underground Communique are new patch notes for Patch 1.3c and 1.3d, an announcement on Test Center transfers, and an update about the Abyss Chronicles' progression from development to "bug stomping mode".


Hellgate: London Patch 1.3c Now Live

After a brief stay on the Test Center server, Patch 1.3c has launched. This interim patch fixes a number of German and Italian translation errors and introduces some new in-game messaging.

Patch notes for 1.3c can be found here.


Test Center Updated to Hellgate: London Patch 1.3d

Updated yesterday afternoon, the Test Center server is presently playing host to Patch 1.3d, the presumptive final iteration of the 1.3 line. This patch introduces a few significant adjustments to gameplay, character creation, and one vendor NPC in particular. Players can now create Elite Mode characters (and subscribers can create Hardcore Mode characters) if their account has a character that reaches level 20 or above. The update also fixes a PRD bug and a character options issue.

Patch notes for 1.3d can be found here.


Test Center Transfer Complete

We received thousands of requests from players wishing to transfer their characters to the Test Center server in order to have up-to-date versions of their characters to participate in testing. The characters have finished copying from both the Shulgoth (US) and Sydonai (EU) servers and are now available on Test Center.

Players may find that some of their characters' equipment is missing. This occurred if the identical item was in the possession of another character on Test Center via trade, in-game mail, or shared stash. The item wasn't copied over in order to prevent item duplication. Players are encouraged to log into Test Center and determine which items are missing due to this before the server is updated to Patch 2, the Abyss Chronicles.


The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) Coming to Test Center on Monday

The Abyss Chronicles boasts a long list of new features and fixes and as such has required a long internal testing process. The studio is currently in a ?bug squashing? stage with regards to the major content update meaning that development of Patch 2 is complete and we are now working on cleaning it up and making it pretty (and balanced). As part of the path of all our patches, the Abyss Chronicles will first be enjoying a good stay on our Test Center server where it can be poked and prodded and picked at by you, our thorough Hellgaters and brave test subjects.

The Abyss Chronicles is slated for Test Center launch this coming Monday, June 9th. The update will be applied via a standalone patch (1.3 gigabytes). We will have more information on this big move first thing next week.


ATI Catalyst 8.5 Fixes Hellgate: London Display Issue

Released late last month, the latest version of ATI?s Catalyst driver suite has solved a flickering problem experienced by Windows Vista users. From their release notes for Catalyst 8.5, ?flickering is no longer noticed when quitting and then relaunching [Hellgate: London] when the in-game settings are set to their maximum levels.? ATI users can find the latest update here. The full release notes are available here.


Hellgate: London Patch 1.3 Trailer Now Showing at a Website Near You

Informative, funny, and just a little bit macabre is certainly one way to describe Hellgate: London?s Patch 1.3 trailer entitled ?The SAFE Video Series - Lesson Two: Humans and Zombies?. This bit of machinima serves to outline a few of the new features that Patch 1.3 introduces including the War Drive Donation System, Premium Item Merchant Ko, and an expressive collection of performable character emotes, all while extolling the importance of being able to differentiate your fellow man from the walking dead.

Be ever-vigilant! Educate yourself! And watch the trailer here.


SneakShots? Second Installment Sneaks to Next Week

SneakShots, our new article which offers screenshots of upcoming ongoing content, never-before-seen, will be focusing on the subject of ?trinkets? in its next installment. This new inventory slot was outlined briefly in the Lowdown on Patch 2.0 and 2.1 article, posted last week. The first type of trinkets will drop as Cursed rings which can be cleaned up through the Transmogrifier Cube. These items will mostly drop in the Abyss levels, but they can be found elsewhere too. These items are tradable and can be used by all players.

Be sure to keep an eye out this coming Monday for images of the new inventory slot, sample rings, and a more detailed description of the types available!


The Days Are Just Packed

?Busy? is certainly the word of choice these days at Flagship Studios. ?Nonstop? is a popular one, too. Mind you, these are not complaints, they?re proud statements. The Hellgate: London universe is expanding rapidly and we are very glad to have you all be a part of it.

Be well, Templars, Cabalists, and Hunters. And good hunting to you all.
-- Scapes

__________________
[ community manager | Hellgate: London | Flagship Studios ]
[ in-game names | Scapes, Scaper-X, ScaperX, Scaperilous, Scapesalicious, Hellgaters ]
[ quote | "Nothing reveals humanity so well as the games it plays." ]

Discover that which awaits you in the Abyss, brave Hellgaters! The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) is rapidly taking shape and form and we?re ready to share some of its most exciting offerings with you. As Hellgate: London?s second major content update, the Abyss Chronicles boasts an impressive and lengthy list of new features including a major class rebalance, new environments, new enemies, new skills, new bosses, and new inventory slots . Then there?s the Consignment House, Attribute Respec Vendor, item linking, achievement rewards, and lots more. Suffice to say, the Abyss Chronicle is big. Very big.

Plans are already underway for the patches beyond the Abyss Chronicles. A small content summary for Patch 2.1 has been included as well. This update will open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London in the form of ranked player versus player (PvP) gameplay. Originally slated for release with the Abyss Chronicles, the decision to release new PvP content as part of a supplemental patch was brought about by a desire to introduce five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture The Flag. Together, these features will provide a robust PvP experience within the Hellgate: London universe.

The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) Content Summary



? New Abyss Quest Line with Five New Boss Fights:

o Travel to the all new Parliament Square and help Titus of the Cabal fend off the rapid spread of the Abyss, a new Demonic underground that grows in size as Demonkind consumes more of our world. The only way to halt the Abyss is to seek out and destroy those who control it. Lure the five Abyss Lords from their cursed realm by collapsing their Hellrifts (a new Rift for each of the boss types), then confront the masters as they emerge to investigate the problem. Five repeatable boss runs with five new bosses! Features three new environments and some reworked environments.

? New Shared Stash System:

o The Shared Stash will now feature separate panes for each gameplay mode: Normal, Elite, Hardcore, and Hardcore Elite. Items currently in your Shared Stash will be placed in the correct pane.

? Major Rebalance of the Blademaster Class:

o The Blademaster class has been significantly rebalanced with changes to almost every skill. Overall, they should do more damage and have many more options than before. Some of the highlights include Strength now stacking on top of the skill percent bonuses ? a huge boost ? and Blademasters can now gain a Surge with any melee attack or with any melee skill (rather than just when killing something with a Surge skill).

? Improved, Configurable Guild Controls:

o Guilds will now have four titles they can assign to members. The titles can be renamed. There can only be one Guild Leader. Non-subscribers can only have the lowest title. The Guild Leader can configure what the middle two titles are allowed to do including invite new members, promote and demote existing members, kick members, and send all-guild e-mail. The lowest title is not allowed to invite, promote, demote, kick, or send guild e-mails.

? Consignment House:

o Players can place items into the Consignment House to offer them for sale at a set price. All players in the same gameplay mode can see and purchase that item. The Consignment House currently only offers a ?buy out? price, there is no bidding.

? Three New Skills for all Classes:

o Skill Scrolls are new items which unlock the new skills and allow skill points to be put into them. For example, the Spider Mine Schematic unlocks the Spider Mine skill for Engineers. The Skill Scrolls will be tradable and can be used by all players; however, they drop off of boss monsters in the subscriber-only Abyss levels. Only a few of the skills will be enabled in the first Patch 2 build that goes to Test Center. Here are a couple sample skills to whet your appetite:

1. The Summoner will get a melee demon transformation with zombie minions.

2. The Blademaster will get skills that use up Surges to do things like perform a group heal.

3. The Engineer will get Spider Mines.

? Trinket Inventory Slots:

o There will be two new Trinket inventory slots. The first trinkets will drop as cursed rings which can be cleaned up through the Transmogrifier. These cursed rings will mostly drop in the Abyss levels, but they can be found elsewhere too. These items are tradable and can be used by all players.

? Attribute Respec Vendor:

o Bob, the Attribute Respec Vendor, will allow you to spend palladium to remove points one at a time from an Attribute and add them to your unassigned Attribute Points pool. The cost to remove each point goes up with character level.

? Stack Splitting:

o You will be able to right-click on a stack of items and select to split it into smaller stacks using a new radial menu option. A dialog will pop up and let you type in how many items to place in the new stack.

? Gameplay Changes:

o Character defenses against Secondary Damage Effects have been increased.

o Shield Overload has been removed from sword weapons.

o Strength has a much more significant impact on melee skill damage.

? Item Linking:

o Players will be able to enter a clickable ?link? to an item?s details into the chat pane by right-clicking on the item and selecting the Link Item option on the radial menu.

? Achievement Rewards
? New Armor and Weapons for all Factions
? New Monster Types
? New Chat Color Scheme
? Many bug fixes and performance tweaks.
? A few more features yet to be announced.


Patch 2.1 Content Summary

? PvP Ranking
? PvP Matchmaking for Teams and Individuals
? PvP Points and Rewards
? PvP Achievements
? Capture the Flag PvP Game
? Improved predictability and balance for the attribute feed system.

We are hoping to get a Patch 2.0 build into Test Center next week, but we will see what happens.

Update: New build.

These patch notes are for the build of Patch 1.3 currently deployed on the Test Center server.


New Features

• Ranks and Expertise:
  • After characters hit Level 50, they can start earning experience towards gaining Ranks.
  • There are 50 Ranks, each of which will take an increasing amount of time to earn.
  • Rank is displayed under the character?s level and is visible to other players.
  • Each Rank grants you one Expertise Point which can be spent on an Expertise.
  • There will be 15 different kinds of Perks with four levels each.
  • Expertise will be displayed in a skill-tree-like fashion ? with icons and pop-up text describing what the benefits are of the Expertise. Hit U to view the Expertise screen.
  • The first level for each Expertise will cost one Expertise Point. An additional Expertise Point will be needed to increase each level after the first, much like with upgrading an item using Nanoshards, for a total cost of 10 Expertise Points to max out an Expertise.

• Shared Stash:
  • Now all characters on subscriber accounts can share their items! Current trade conventions do apply: items will not be able to be traded across play modes. Also, ?no trade? items can not be placed in the Shared Stash.

• Hide Helmet:
  • Players can elect to hide their headgear and show their characters? faces without removing it. This toggle can be found at the bottom of the character screen.

• Emotes:
  • A host of emotes are now at your disposal including beg, bow, cheer, cry, flex, kiss, laugh, point, stop, taunt, and wave. While others are also available on Test Center, these are being reserved as rewards. Type ?/? and the word, then hit enter to perform it.

• Inspect Players:
  • Players can now inspect other players? equipment. Right-click on a nearby character and select the ?Inspect? option to bring up a ragdoll interface showing the character and its equipment.
  • Players can prevent their characters from being inspected by toggling the Inspect option at the bottom of their character screen.

• Premium Item Merchant:
  • Presently located in Stonehenge, Premium Item Merchant Ko has items for sale which are unidentified and do not reveal their actual rarity level. Players can risk their hard-earned Palladium to take a chance on these mystery premium items.

• Optional Chat Bubbles:
  • Chat bubbles are now an optional chat feature and can be toggled in the Game Options menu. Different chat channels will appear as different text colors.

• Donations:
  • The medics in our stations are now collecting donations to help the overall cause against the demons. When enough palladium is collected, all players on the server will gain the same random temporary buff. When a player gives a large single donation, an announcement across the entire server will herald their generosity. The overall collection goal might change occasionally. If everyone pitches in some palladium, we all will benefit. So give often. Give generously. For the living!
  • The Donation amount resets when the limit is reached. Over-donating does not add anything.
  • You can stack Donation-gained buffs by reaching the Donation limit multiple times.
  • Buffs persist through death and log-off/log-in.

General

• The maximum Palladium a player may carry has been increased to 100,000,000.
• The in-game mail database system has been rewritten, please provide feedback on it!
• Premium Item Merchant Ko has been moved Covent Garden Station. He is subscriber-only.
• Weapons will now hide when performing emotes.
• Since many players enjoyed doing Oculis boss runs, we've done some work to allow these runs again, but this time in a more complete fashion. The portal from Monument Station to Angel Passage is now permanently blocked. Players who would like to fight Oculis after reaching Monument Station may use the Station Travel Terminal to return to Temple Station. Any player who has activated, or completed, the "Scrub the Deck" quest and does not have a Cleanser, may speak with Ser Sing in Temple Station to get another one. The Cleanser is no longer removed when the "Scrub the Deck" quest is completed.
• The change which scaled proc damage to be based on weapon speed was inadvertently left in this build. Please ignore this mechanic as it will not be implemented. Proc-on-hit mechanics and damages will remain the same as they did in Patch 1.2 - they will not be changed in Patch 1.3.

Stonehenge

• Whenever a player enters a level, all monsters (and their equipment/treasure) are scaled up to that person?s level and the monster?s health is filled, if both: the level is one that is supposed to scale to the player?s level, and if the player is higher level than the player who created the level.
• Change to the new Monster Scaling mechanic: Players now have a 3-level buffer before monsters are upgraded. This means that monsters will only be re-scaled if a player 3 levels above the level of the monsters enters the adventure area.
• Characters must now be level 15 to enter Stonehenge.

User Interface

• Party members? names now show up on the automap when the Alt key is held down.
• The name of the recipient of a trade request is now displayed in the trade window.
• Players may now choose to abbreviate the names of other players in the chat window down to a maximum of nine letters. This option can be toggled under Game Options.
• Fixed a bug causing items to register as not equippable if they give enough of an attribute to make up for the amount of feed they will cost.
• Fixed a bug causing some items to unequip when the player enters the game or zones.
• Improved the accuracy of attribute and feed changes in the character panel when hovering over an item.
• The ?Hardcore? indicator icon now shows up to the left of the player?s name.
• Fixed a bug causing clicks in the server list drop-down menu to sometimes click through to buttons underneath it.
• Buttons have been added to the chat interface allowing for quick access to chat commands and emotes. They can be found in the lower right corner of the chat panel.

World Movement

• Players can now warp to any friend or guildmate who is in a town by right-clicking on the person?s name. The buddy list and guild list will have the player?s current location noted.

Combat

• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused shields and/or power to decrease in larger chunks than they should when getting hit or using a skill.
• Fixed a bug which caused proc effects to not be properly normalized based on the weapon?s speed.
• Fixed a bug which caused proc-on-attack effects to never trigger.
• Fixed a bug which would sometimes cause skill cooldowns to not trigger.
• Fixed a bug which caused fields to often not damage monsters in indoor areas.
• Fixed a bug which caused Armor Percent bonuses to be applied twice during damage reduction calculations.

PvP

• Players with PvP enabled may no longer open party portals.
• Consumable items other than Medpacks are no longer usable in PvP.

Skills

• If a player removes an item that grants them the only point in a summoning skill, or otherwise forgets a summoning skill, all pets summoned by that skill will now be dismissed.
• The Phase Elemental?s (Summoner) spectral nova particles have been redone to improve performance.
• Monsters now receive damage from Rebounder Rounds when they are aimed at ground.

Ranks/Expertise

• Active Expertise has been removed. All Expertise is now passive.
• The ?Perks? tab has been renamed ?Expertise?.
• Various Expertise skills have been renamed.

Items

• Gyro Stabilizers may now be used while stunned.
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused a crash when the player attempts to drop a quest item.
• Fixed a bug which caused many skill-group related properties to not properly provide their bonuses.

Fixes

• Expertise bonuses have been updated.
• Fixed a bug that caused players to be unable to assign Expertise Points when all of their Skill Points had been spent.
• Premium Item Merchant Ko now sells items that are closer in level to the level of the player.
• Fixed a problem with the character?s paper doll after inspecting a player.
• Fixed a bug causing various characters to fail to load.
• Fixed a bug (introduced in 1.3) that was causing grouped players to not receive the proper group benefits to experience and treasure.
• Perk icons are in.
• Many new skill and status icons.
• Fixed a bug causing Rebounder Rounds to not do damage if the missile/bullet hits the ground first.
• Fixed a bug which caused monster nameplates to not always update the level of the monster.
• Fixed a bug which caused Moloch to sometimes not drop loot for players in the area.
• Fixed a bug which was allowing Nanodyne Ballistic Cannons, including The Exterminator, to make multiple attacks on a single target much more quickly than designed.
• Fixed a bug which caused the quest reward dialog to not always disappear when multiple people receive their rewards at the same time.
• Fixed a bug causing the New Email icon to flash upon logging in, even when there were no new emails.

Known Issues

• While Rank experience is not being saved, Rank is. If you log out, experience gained towards your next Rank will be lost.

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Patch Notes Disclaimer: While we make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, please be aware that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.

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Happy testing, Hellgaters!
-- Scapes

__________________
[ community manager | Hellgate: London | Flagship Studios ]
[ in-game names | Scapes, Scaper-X, ScaperX, Scaperilous, Scapesalicious, Hellgaters ]
[ quote | "Nothing reveals humanity so well as the games it plays." ]