Dev Diary #4 – 05/19/2017

London 2038: Status as of 05/19/2017

Hey guys! It has been a long time since I last wrote a dev diary! Thankfully, this is due to how full our hands have been with big improvements, progress, and excitement with the project, as well as managing the bustling alpha test server (more on that later ;)). Sadly, the dev diaries have been neglected a bit in favor of using the Discord channel for announcements and general communication. Feel free to join us if you want to get closer to realtime updates!

In the time that has lapsed since the last dev diary, we have received a lot of press, a ton of interest from both former players and those new to Hellgate, fixed many bugs, released many updates, started and exited pre-alpha, and gone full-steam into a closed Alpha phase.

As you will see and read below, the development team has made major strides towards a stable, rock-solid, classic Hellgate experience. We are super excited for the future of the project, and are encouraged by the thanks and appreciation we receive every day for our hard work on London 2038.

As the community has grown (for example: we have a few thousand members in the Discord server now), we have also grown the London 2038 administration team. So towards that effort, I would like to formally welcome to the team our newest Community Managers: UniqueRelic (you may see her with some variation of “Meow” in her name, she likes to change it constantly), HeWhoHunts, and ToshiNyan. They have been great additions to the team and we couldn’t do it without them! Just don’t get on their bad side, they are worse than me with the banhammer! :D

I mentioned in my last dev diary that we had added SanGawku to the development team–he has since made some great contributions and continues to be an asset to the team. Additionally, the venerable NiteHawk, steward of hellgateaus.info himself, has lent his skilled hand and mind to the development team and achieved great things! We are lucky to have such a dedicated, passionate, and funny team, and I am grateful to be surrounded by smart people while we bust our butts getting Hellgate multiplayer back to where it deserves to be.

But enough textwalls… Here are some awesome screenshots and videos by testers and community managers. Big thanks to Alternalo, ZuranOrb, Justin, Dreez, UniqueRelic, Bryan, VampQ, and all the others for these images and videos!

Endgame Moloch and Desiccator
Fire Rift

Squadro in the Abyss

The Abyss Tower

Electrical Rift

Bone Pile

Champion Mobs

Party In Stonehenge

Red Rover in Holborn

The Alpha Test

You may be wondering at this point, “Who are all those people who get to play Hellgate?!”. Well, since late January we have been slowly ramping up a closed Alpha test. As of last weekend, we have over 800 registered Alpha test accounts! We have carefully chosen these testers to help us rigorously test our server, including all its warts, and help us hunt down hard-to-reproduce bugs and glitches. Their characters are temporary, and are wiped clean whenever a patch is made. Their progress will not carry over into the Beta stage, and most certainly will not carry over into the game when we go live. We truly appreciate the time and effort our testers have put in (even when I have to spank them occasionally for testing boundaries ;)) and we look forward to growing the testing family as we continue to deliver a stable and enjoyable multiplayer Hellgate server.  You can find the alpha application here. There is some responsibility that comes with testing, so please read the form and the agreement carefully if you intend to apply!

What has changed/been fixed/released since last dev diary

The team has been working at a furious pace on fixing the major bugs that still exist in the game, and has made major strides forward. The lists below are not exhaustive, because we have made so much progress and have had amazing alpha testers reporting previously unknown issues. MarCNeT has finished a marathon of programming to get some tooling finished which allows us access to the inner workings of the game data; MMan lent his massive brain to help solve many tricky issues; NiteHawk got Champion Mobs working, continued work on the Consignent House, and helped massively with the readiness of the Abyss expansion; SanGawku added changes which massively increased stability and single handedly developed a tool to make my life 100x easier when inviting Alpha testers; and last but not least, mcenal dug in to the server to work on tools around server and player management.

One of SanGawku’s fantastic contributions since the last dev diary has been to write a tool for us to easily select and invite alpha testers–it generates the invitations, accounts, passwords, emails, etc. As I mentioned in the last dev diary, we are working on a dedicated london2038.com website. This is still the plan, and now we plan to migrate the features of the account management tools into the new website, so going forward testers (and eventually all players) can apply, be accepted, and manage their accounts in one place online (including changing their passwords; yes, I have heard your cries about long auto-generated passwords ;)). In addition to some account management tools, the new website will feature an up-to-date skill tree/skill calculator which will accurately reflect the state of skills in 2038 so players can experiment with builds. Furthermore, we will be launching a wiki so that testers (and all future players) can collect knowledge and tips about the game in one place.

  • Champion monsters now spawn perfectly (elite, epic, rare, etc) – Big thanks to NiteHawk!
  • No known errors crash the server or cause instability – Awesome work by SanGawku
  • The Abyss is now open and being actively tested (rifts work, bosses spawn, quest works) – This was a great feat of teamwork, great job everyone!
  • We can now completely unpack and decrypt all game data into plain text (quests, items, mechanics, skills, NPCs, maps, models, etc). This is a HUGE accomplishment and means we can make data modifications to fix bugs, address balance, add content, and so much more. – This was an absolutely Herculean effort taken on single-handedly by MarCNeT–hundreds of man hours and many thousands of lines of code went into this feat, and it is going to be the basis of our team truly mastering the game and making it the game we all want to play. Cheers Mark!
  • The attribute retrainer merchant now offers the correct price (he no longer wants 1.3 mil palladium to retrain an attribute at level 1 :))Thanks to MMan for this fix
  • Skills no longer cause NPC lag
  • All known quests are totally completable without issues (including our arch nemesis from the last diary, Embankment Redoubt)
  • Named monster quests no longer cause issues when partied
  • All Stonehenge quests and mechanics work properly
  • The Desiccator and Moloch function correctly with the correct loot tables
  • The server handles dozens of testers playing normally without any noticable hiccups
  • Many, many small improvements – overall stability and playability is very high

What Doesn’t Work/Is Being Worked On

What’s Next

We are hot on the trail of an open alpha. We need to address some of the biggest known issues, and nail down some existing issues in the recently-released Abyss expansion, as well as continue to improve our tools, but overall the server is extremely stable (very, very high uptime and generally good ping/latency for players in both Europe and the Americas). We expect playability to accelerate, as well as our overall insight into the mechanics of the game to improve due to our ability to decrypt the game data and assets completely. Please keep your eyes peeled both here on hellgateaus and especially on Discord to keep up with the latest developments. Thank you all for your support!

Dev Diary #3 – 12/27/2016

London 2038: Status as of 12/27/2016

Hey guys! It has been an exciting 3 weeks since my last dev diary. We have had our hands full working on London 2038 and celebrating the holidays with our families :)

First of all, I would like to welcome a new member to the team, SanGawku! He comes to us with experience in private server development and has already contributed to bugfixes and process improvements. We are glad to have him!

I mentioned in my last update that https://london2038.com would be coming soon; this is still the case–look out for an announcement of the new website with dedicated places for information on the project.

There are some updates on what has been fixed and new bugs discovered, but first, a little home movie I made…

Shulgoth Eats Lead

All of us have been hard at work addressing the issues that were known at the time of the last dev diary. Many small issues were fixed since then due to the hard work and dedication of our development team. Some additional issues have also been discovered since then as well, mainly due to our ability to test in a more in-depth way.

What Now Works In Addition to the Previous Update

  • Party members’ health displays properly
  • Power/shield regeneration rate is now correct
  • Inspection no longer crashes the game and works as expected
  • Auction house (Consignment House) now functions correctly
  • AI pathing is now correct
  • Achievements/achievement bonuses function correctly
  • Stonehenge essences (beast, spectral, etc) now drop correctly from bosses
  • Abyss-era rings can be purified in the Transmogrifying Cube
  • Zone portals now use the correct text color (allowed, quest, locked, etc)
  • Party finding/party listing system now works correctly

What Doesn’t Work/Is Being Worked On

  • Data issues causing some remaining problems
  • Issue with certain skills causing NPC lag (see video of Shulgoth above when the summoner uses Meatshield)
  • Issue causing occasional crashes related to merchants and items
  • Party member inspection from the party member portrait does not function
  • Embankment Redoubt quest cannot be completed due to bug in handling AI for the NPC soldiers in the quest.
  • Some item affixes are show twice but applied only once
  • Some specific named monster hunt quests cause issues in parties
  • Item linking has known bugs and is being fixed/improved

What’s Next

We are at a point where a few bugs remain which can cause the game to be instantly unplayable and are working hard to fix them. This means we are not quite to an Alpha state stability-wise, but at the same time our server is playable enough to get some productive testing done. So going forward, our main goals are to address the remaining known game breaking bugs, and attempt to thoroughly test the server in preparation for a small closed Alpha stage. I will update the community as soon as we are ready to take applications to become Alpha testers.

We are also working on strengthening our tooling and processes as we work towards accommodating more and more players as we expand our testing efforts.

As always, 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.

Dev Diary #2 – 12/06/2016

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 :D 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… ;)

Stonehenge in all its glory

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.

Dev Diary #1 – 11/29/2016

Hey guys! This is going to be the first of many developer logs and status updates on the ongoing effort to reboot the Hellgate multiplayer experience… but first, a teaser ;)

Hellgate Multiplayer Working On Development Server:

Status As of 11/29/2016

As seen above, we have a working Hellgate: London multiplayer server running. At this point, Hellgate multiplayer WILL be returning to the community. It has taken months of work, dedication, blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point, but we are at a point where development is accelerating and we are able to actually debug a running MP server.

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.

We currently have 4-5 developers actively working on this project; myself, MMan, and MarCNeT being the principal developers at this point. Things are still at a very tentative stage where bugs are both discovered and squashed daily (sometimes hourly 8)). See below for a rough list of what works and what doesn’t:

What Works

  • Logging in
  • Character Creation
  • Multiple Players
  • Combat
  • Monsters/Bosses
  • Quests/NPCs/Merchants
  • Treasure, including items with effects
  • Mail system, including attachments/money
  • Stash/shared stash
  • Party System*
  • Portals Between Dungeons/Stations/Station Terminal*
  • PvP Arena*
  • Chat System
  • Augmentrix, nano forge, etc
  • Pretty much anything else that isn’t listed below :P

* Working… most of the time, see items below

What Is Being Worked On/What Doesn’t Work

  • Managing the data we have to work
  • Power does not regenerate/powerpacks do not work
  • Shields do not regenerate
  • Auction House is somewhat broken
  • Health data is not correctly shared with party members
  • Occasionally moving between zones will crash the server
  • Some skills do not have the correct effects/do not work
  • Some boss encounters cause some glitches
  • Subscriber status is buggy
  • item linking in chat is broken
  • Random issues with monsters/bosses pausing the server due to data errors (see first item)

What’s Next

We are actively working on fixing the known bugs, testing the current version, reporting bugs, and recruiting developers. Check back on this subforum for more dev diaries, I will post as appropriate. Development on the issues listed in the “don’t work” list above are our #1 priority–there is a consensus that the work being done on the data will alleviate a lot of current bugs/weirdness. Keep your eyes peeled for more info to come! :D

Please feel free to join the discord server, especially if you are a developer (and if you are, check out the wiki).