The Community was recently given an opportunity to get up close and personal with Flagship Studios, the developers of Hellgate: London.

View the exclusive interview with Phil Shenk, Art Director of FSS below for answers to some of the Community's burning questions!

Discuss this topic on our forums here!
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By SirLuke:

1)      Is there going to be an underwater area in Hellgate: London?

Not in the immediate future, for sure. It’s funny, but we’ve actually talked about it a little bit… more for Mythos though. Personally I think that an underwater level would be pretty cool, but it brings up SO many issues.

There are so many things we’d have to do differently. How monsters behave and how movement works are the two biggest ones I can think of. We would need swimming animations, and fighting-while-swimming animations. To do it right would be a huge undertaking. Something like that would probably be more along the lines of an expansion than an update. It’s a good idea, but I’d place it more in the “dreams” category than “plans”.

2) Will there be underwater equipment such as diving suits?

Haha… well… put it this way… considering what I said above, IF there was an underwater level, then yes, there would be underwater equipment like diving suits (or else you couldn’t breathe ;)

By Valtonis:

3) Are there any plans for gamers to be able to change the colors of their weapons like they can with their armors?

We’ve talked about it. There is some new technology that would have to happen first, and that’s a medium-sized project. So… it’s not a big priority for us at the moment. The way weapons work is different than the way suits work, so it’s not like we can just turn on that ability and have it just work. We would also have to change the way textures were created for the weapons.  

We don’t have plans to do this in the short term… but it would be cool for sure. If we do end up doing it, it would probably be for new weapons only, at least at first.

4) Are there any future plans to rework the map generator so that the maps feel more different?

Yes and no. The map generator depends more on the way the rooms are created than the code. Every level type is laid out differently. A big part of what makes the maps feel the way they do is the way the artist sets up the rooms. Another big component is how many variations or the rooms we make… and this is all about time and money. So, what I’m saying is that it’s not really about tweaking the map generator, it’s about making different level types, or adding more variations to the rooms in the existing levels. 

What we’re mainly working on now is making more types of levels that feel very different from the ones that we shipped with. For example, in Stonehenge Chronicles (the latest subscriber update), we have a new town set around Stonehenge that looks completely different than the urban or underground levels we had in the base game. We also have some new forest levels that mix it up.

We realize that a lot of people feel like we had a limited variety of levels in Hellgate: London, and we’re working to address that.

We are also going back in to the levels we’ve already shipped, and updating them with new variations. Our hope is that we’ll be able to enrich the levels that we’ve already created. Expect to see these new variations added gradually in the coming updates.

5) Are there any plans for set items and if so, would they unique designs/models/textures to them or would they just be rehashed normal items? 

Yes, set items are on the list. They are something we always wanted to do, and we just ran out of time. Expect to see them in one of the next Chronicle updates.

We’re talking right now about what we can do to make them look different and special. Ideally, we’d make new models for everything, but that takes a lot of time. Haha, ALL the art in Hellgate takes a lot of time because we shot for the “next gen” normal-mapped look. Sometimes I wish we had gone the “hand-painted” look and then we could make more stuff!

But anyway, for set items, we’d have to make something for each gender of each faction at least… and ideally for each class. That’s a lot of stuff! And we don’t want people to have to wait too long to see them.

So, we might mix it up. We can do fancier, special textures for them, or at least color sets. Maybe a few pieces will have special models. We’ll do what we can. :) Is having unique models super important to you? Even if it meant waiting longer to see them?

By The_Punisher:

6) Will there be more melee weapon models?

Yes, expect to see new melee weapons for most of the Chronicle updates we do. There are several in Stonehenge Chronicles, and we’re working on some new ones for the next.

Lee just showed me some of his new designs, and I think they’re going to be really sweet! We’re also starting to put more animations into the weapons, so expect to see some cool things in that department.
 

By Hobtuse:

7) Will unique items be revamped to have more unique models/textures? Currently, unique items don’t have much differentiation from normal / white items. 

I sort of addressed this in the question above, about set-piece items. Uniques fall into the same category… We all know that it would be superior to have a unique look, well, unique. When we shipped, we just ran out of time to make new models or textures. Going forward, we’re going to try and do more of that… either make new textures for them, or figure out a way to change their colors, or ideally make new models.

Again, the more work we put into making them look special, the less of them we can do. It’s always a tradeoff between spending time to make new art, and putting in lots of cool stuff that improves the game-play.

It’s funny, because in D2, it *seemed* like we had a lot of unique looks because all we had to do was make a new inventory art for it. You didn’t really notice that it didn’t change your character, since it was so small on the screen.

We’re in a different world now… a modern world of high-end graphics that take forever to make :) But know that it would definitely be cooler to have unique looks, so we’ll do our best!
 

8) Will there be any improvements done to the design of Hellgate: London’s atmosphere & environments? 

Yes. This touches on the question above about the map generator. We are doing a few things to improve the atmosphere of the game. First, we’re doing new variants for the existing levels… new rooms and set-piece areas to flesh those levels out and create more variety. Second, for the new Chronicle updates, we’re focusing on very different types of levels, like forests, Hell areas, and other outdoor scenes. We want to get some variety in the game, so it’s not all urban decay and underground tunnels. Expect to see a lot more variety in our future level types!
 

By Tombstone:

9) Will emotes (ie. enabling players to sit down, wave, dance, ect) be introduced to Hellgate: London? This will boost the social aspect of HGL and encourage a higher level of interaction between players.

Yes! We know emotes are huge for socialization, I really miss having them in the game. We’re working on them right now… expect to see them in one of the next few Chronicle updates.

10) Will there be new faces and accessories for characters introduced soon?

Yes! We are working on both of these things. Hopefully we’ll have them out in one of the next Chronicle updates.

 
- Phil Shenk,
Art Director, Flagship Studios