We speak with Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper about the future of Hellgate: London, and give him a chance to answer some of the most vocal criticisms against the game.
GamePro Reviews Hellgate: London
Hellgate: Disappointing?
近日我们采访了旗舰工作室的ceo bill，向他询问了地狱之门：伦敦的未来发展计划并听取他关于玩家意见的评论。
Hellgate: London does offer some simple-minded entertainment, but it falls well short of its lofty goals
暗黑之门：伦敦 - 眼高手低，简单杀戮的娱乐快感
GP: Why don't you start by showing us what's in store for Hellgate: London players in the form of extra content and subscriber-only features?
GP：可以跟我们介绍一下，目前付费玩家会得到哪些增值的特殊服务呢？
Bill Roper: Sure. Subscribers get different gameplay modes, perks like extra character slots and a bigger item stash. But right around Halloween we wanted to have things that subscribers could get right away. There are three things. First, we wanted to have a repeatable quest -- trick or treating. There are different kinds of candy you can get, and some of them have gameplay effects. We also have a unique piece of armor called "All Hallow's Visage," a helm that looks like a flaming skull. It's a pretty rare drop. There's also a Halloween-themed pet -- the "Zombot." There's a recipe you can find, and you track down the components and build it.
Bill：当然了。付费玩家将得到扩展的角色创设名额和更大的物品槽。另外，在万圣节附近，我们还为付费玩家提供了立等可取的增值服务，这包括一个可以重复的关卡 称为糖或恶作剧（treat or treating是万圣节时小孩挨家挨户要糖吃时候喊得话）。玩家可以得到不同的“糖果”而其中一些还会对游戏产生效果（orz不产生效果要它干嘛，又没有荣誉系统）。我们还制作了一套独特的头盔，叫做“空虚之相”，它看上去像个燃烧的骷髅头，这可是很不容易打到的。另外还有一个万圣节主体宠物，僵尸娃娃。我们设计了一种配方，只要玩家找到就可以制作这个宠物。
Around the December timeframe, we'll be adding a new town to the game, with new surrounding adventure areas. It's all-new environment artwork. The new town will be set in Stonehenge - outside of London. [Stonehenge] is in this protected mystic bubble, so it still stands despite the demon invasion. The adventuring areas all around it will be outdoors, set in the wilderness. There will be new quests, new story points, and some other things that we'll share later.
大约十二月左右，我们将在游戏中加入一座新的城市，它具有全新的地图，和新的环境设定。新的城市将设定为伦敦之外的Stonehenge。Stonehenge收到魔法结界的保护因此在恶魔侵袭到来之时仍然屹立不倒。这个地图的探险区将设定为室外的荒野。我们还将加入全新的任务，情节和其他新元素。
GP: I've lurked on the Beta forums quite a few times, and I see you have quite a passionate community...
GP：我经常在游戏论坛潜水，发现玩家们狠“热情”啊！
Bill Roper: [laughs] We definitely have a passionate community. That's a great way to describe it - the "passionate response" we get in our forums. If people didn't care about the game, they wouldn't say those things. But sometimes it's hard for us to read some of [those comments].
Bill（笑）：我们的玩家太热情啦！实际上您这么说还挺艺术的——很多玩家的反应非常激烈。如果大家不在乎这款游戏的话他们才不会说三道四呢。但是有时候让我们读起来有点难堪。
GP: I can imagine. I've seen some really withering criticisms in those forums...
GP：我感同身受啊。有些评论真的狠刻薄……
Bill Roper: I think there was some confusion about what the game was going to be initially, [particularly] free play versus subscribing. I think there's still a lot of that. It's honestly confusing to me about the way people react to the subscription option in Hellgate. It's been more of a challenge to us than we anticipated. The whole idea was to give everybody what they wanted. Because we're doing this hybrid model, it's almost like people try to figure out how we're screwing them... but we're not! For subscribers, it's actually less than other MMOs like Tabula Rasa or World of Warcraft [$9.99 versus $14.99]. We're not trying to hose you, we're just trying to give people what they want.
Bill：我想有些人一开始就没有搞清楚游戏的本质，特别是自由游玩和注册玩家的区别。我认为这种情况到今天也没有改变。实话说，我本人对大家对于注册游玩的激烈反应预计不足，这个反应超出了我们的预料。这个游戏的主旨就是满足玩家一切的需要，因为我们采用了这个混合型的游戏设计，需要玩家自己根据其兴趣来决定自己为什么要玩。但事实上并非如此。对于注册用户而言，我们并不是像山口山那样要忽悠玩家，而只是想提供他们需要的。
But yeah, it can be tough to go on the forums. You try to explain things and interact with the community, but there's a small percentage of people that will never be happy no matter what. You could pay them $5 a month to play your game, and they'll complain that they want $10.
但是当然了，论坛上的反应还是很激烈。你想要说清楚一切，但是有少部分人就是很挑剔，难以满足。哪怕你每个月给他们五块钱让他们打你的游戏，他们还是会抱怨你为什么不给十块。
GP: It's pretty common in the games industry.
GP：挑剔的玩家在游戏产业不算新鲜了。
Bill Roper: And I wonder if it's unique to the games industry. I don't see people [complaining about and slamming] TVs and movies on message boards, but it's very much that way for games.
Bill：我不知道这种现象是否是游戏界的专利，因为我好像看不到人们在bbs上对电影电视大批特批。好像对游戏则是很常见。
GP: One of the biggest complaints is about the variety of the levels: despite being in London, you fight in dungeons and basements and sewers an awful lot.
GP：玩家抱怨的一大焦点是，地形层级过多，身处伦敦却时不时的上天入地，一会儿钻地沟一会儿下地下室一会儿是下水道。
Bill Roper: We re-flowed the level layouts in the final version, with a focus on theming the Acts, so that should help. We probably have as many, if not more, level variations in Hellgate as we did in Diablo 2. The reason it feels different is because the game takes place in London or Hell. I think the Act changes in Diablo 2 were more striking - desert, forest, jungle - but if you look at the individual areas, it pretty much boiled down to forest, graveyard, underground caverns, and the Rogue's headquarters. That's pretty much Act 1 of Diablo 2.
Bill：我们在最终定版的时候重新修改了层级设定，将不同的地形按照章节来组织起来，这样使得这一问题大大减轻了。暗黑2里的层级设定也很多，甚至比地狱之门还要多。而玩家感觉不同，只是因为游戏设定在伦敦而不是地狱。我觉得暗黑2里的章节切换更加ming明显，从沙漠到森林，但如果你看每个小的任务区域，你会发现无非是些树林子啊乱坟岗啊地洞啊土匪窝啊，暗黑2第一章不就是这点东西么？
But I don't wholly disagree [with the complaint about a lack of visual variety], and I think it came off that way because the levels weren't themed really well [in the earlier versions of Hellgate]. Theming Acts really helped things feel different. We didn't add any areas, but the game now feels far more thematic because we tweaked the layouts and graphic look for each Act. That's one of the big changes we made in the last month of development.
但对于缺乏视觉效果的多样性这点，我并不完全反对。我认为这种抱怨是来源于地形设定与游戏章节在早期版本里没有很好的统一起来。章节的设定大大的解决了这一问题。我们没有加入什么新地形，但是现在的游戏看起来好多了吧？就是因为我们在每一章都修改了地形设定和美术效果。这是我们出版之前最后努力的一大结晶。
GP: Here's another popular complaint: In Hellgate, weapons are far more useful than skills -- my Marksman mostly used his gun, not his skills and abilities. Will you further tweak skills to make them more useful? Would you ever consider totally re-doing the current skills?
GP：另外，玩家还对武器过分重要诟病不已。有人说，他练得狙魔手总是直接开枪扫怪而不是使用技能。你们会修改技能系统使之更加有效么？或者干脆重新设计现有的技能系统？
Bill Roper: We will never completely re-do skills, but we will always look at them. The final version has a seen many skill changes. What we wanted to do in Hellgate was to make the weapons into spell-delivery systems. Skills in Hellgate alter the way you use your primary weapon, such as the Marksman's grenades.
Bill：我们绝对不会重新设计技能，但是我们会一直关注技能系统。最终版比起demo已经增加了很多新的技能。我们在地狱之门中想要尝试的，是如何将武器纳入法术系统之中，技能会影响你使用武器的方式，比如狙魔手的榴弹技能。
The other thing is, players have had a long time in Diablo 2 to figure out all the different character builds. Honestly, players haven't had much time to [experiment] in Hellgate with different skills and builds. In Diablo 2, a lot of the skills outright sucked. It's also very different in Hellgate, because skills grow with you as you level. In Hellgate, we didn't want people to regret putting points into early-level skills. Obviously we'll continue to tweak and balance the skills, but Hellgate uses a very different skill system from D2 and people will figure it out.
另外，暗黑2发行时，玩家化了很长时间去理解技能系统和人物职业。坦率的说，对暗黑之门而言，玩家还没有时间仔细尝试各种技能和不同的加点方向。暗黑2中，许多技能就是很垃圾。另外，地狱之门的技能会随着角色变强而变强。我们不希望玩家因为加错点而后悔。当然了，我们还会继续修改和完善技能的平衡，但地狱之门的技能系统与暗黑的完全不同，大家会明白的。
GP: You guys deleted some of the zanier humor from the characters for the final version. Was that in response to complaints from Beta players?
GP：你们好像删除了beta版中的一些粗俗幽默。玩家对此也有意见，你们如何看？
Bill RoperYes, that was definitely in response to people saying "this is too wacky and out of place" and "it doesn't feel as urgent, it feels too goofy." I've definitely pushed for the storyline to [go a certain way]. There's been Hell on Earth for 18 years...their perception is pretty twisted at this point. But there were some characters that were over-the-top. The way we handled it was to dial back the [crazier dialogue] from the NPCs so they are less likely to say them.
Bill：对，玩家觉得有的npc说话太疯狂了。尽管地狱已经现世十八年，身处其间的人们肯定很崩溃，但有些npc的说话确实过分了。因此我们只好把他们删除掉了，和谐是王道。
GP: Finally, what will Hellgate look like in six months or a year?
GP：最后，你如何看待地狱之门的未来，比如将来六个月或者一年？
Bill RoperIt's going to continue to grow. For the first time, we have the opportunity to produce ongoing content and not say "let's wait a year for the expansion." It's been a lot of work...but in six months or a year, we'll have longer windows to produce [bigger] subscriber content. [For example], this December we'll be releasing a 300MB or so patch.
Bill：地狱之门将会不断发展壮大。我们第一次可以不断的更新一个游戏，而不必去等一年的时间去等什么资料片。任务量很大，但在半年到一年内，我们将有足够的时间去为付费玩家开发更多的游戏内容。比如说，12月我们就将发布一次大约300M容量的补丁。
GP: Thanks, Bill.
GP：谢谢，Bill。