London 2038: Status as of 12/06/2016
Hey guys! A lot has happened since my last dev diary. The team is still working hard, we’ve garnered some press attention for the project, and a name has been chosen for the project as well!
First, some housekeeping: after opening a poll to name the project, the favorite choice by far was London 2038! From now on, that is the official name of the Multiplayer reboot of Hellgate: London Look for a new website at https://london2038.com soon!
There are some updates on what has been fixed and new bugs discovered, but first, a teaser…
Work has continued on the main issues remaining; namely our data woes. We, mainly through the genius of MMan and MarCNeT, addressed many of the bugs in the first development diary entry and have a much more stable build to test with. However, issues still remain which can crash our server, cause unexpected behavior, or otherwise make the game unplayable. All in all though, we are moving at a slow but steady pace towards an Alpha-testable state of our server. Here is an updated list of what does work and what needs work:
What Now Works In Addition to Previous Update
- Stonehenge (see above screenshot)
- Stonehenge quest-related essences drop
- Trinket slot for Abyss-era rings
- All issues with traveling between zones seem to be resolved
- Guild formation and management
- The Transmogrifying Cube
- Friend System/ignore system
- Item linking in chat now works
- Power now regenerates
- Shields now regenerate
- Subscriber status and subscriber-only features are now unlocked and working
- Boss fights now have no known issues
- Skills seem correct, but further testing is needed
What Doesn’t Work/Is Being Worked On
- Remaining data alignment issues causing most known problems
- Power and shield regeneration rate calculation is incorrect
- Rare random server pauses caused by bad data related to merchants and items
- Party member health is not shared correctly
- Game client crash when exiting inspect window
- Rare and random error related to AI path scripting
- Auction house still has one bug
What’s Next
In addition to addressing bugs in our current build, we are also working on some developer tools related to the game data that should provide some boost in productivity around fixing data-related bugs. We will be continuing our work trudging through the data alignment issues we have faced, as well as addressing and documenting any other bugs that crop up during test sessions. We are also working on automation and standardization to make our lives easier and to ease the transition out of closed development to a pre-alpha stage.
We can’t promise that there will be enough progress to share every week but we will keep the community updated as milestones are reached on the project. As always, you can stop by Discord with any questions, and also please see the FAQ here for common questions.
Something to note: London 2038 will NEVER cost money, will NEVER have anything for purchase, will NEVER have a subscription, will NEVER have a cash shop or money transactions of any kind, PERIOD. This is a passion project for fans, by fans, and has 0 money involved. We are all volunteers, and we want everyone to enjoy the game we remember with out any cost EVER. No one will EVER make money off of this project.