Tristram is like a second home to many of us who played the original Diablo.
Within this article, entitled “A Nostalgic Return to Tristram” I write about a return to the iconic, but ill-fated town of Tristram. The town that defined the world of Diablo and what we, as players of Diablo III can hope to expect when we step foot back into the town with which we grew familiar so long ago.
This is the first of many Journal entries to come of my forays into Diablo’s place and setting, which hopefully serves to compliment our growing anticipation for Diablo III.
As many of us awaits more Diablo III goodness to be trickle down Blizzard’s milky teat, there are more than a few games out there to provide us with our Diablo “fix”, as I like to call it. I’ve written up a list of 5 of what I think are the best Diablo clones.
Dungeon Siege II
Let me say right off the bat that I hated Dungeon Siege. It wasn’t a bad game by any means, but nonetheless, I did not enjoy it. It played itself and all you had to do was click to move and spam the heal potion button every once in awhile. In stark contrast, Dungeon Siege 2 does not in fact play itself. In fact, I’d say that Dungeon Siege 2 is a lot of fun.
It’s set in a fantasy-steampunk world with clockwork devices, Uruk Hai-like legions of bad guys, crossbows, dryads who live in trees and elves. The story’s pretty run of the mill, but the locations are varied enough and the NPCs are somewhat interesting, though they are nowhere close to reaching Bioware-levels of character depth.
Titan Quest
Titan Quest is arguably the one Diablo clone that manages to capture the visceral feel of Diablo’s combat and take it to a whole new level. **** goes flying when you hit it with a bat. The only problem with all this hilarious brutality is that there’s no blood or dismemberment, so they feel like little more than indestructible ragdolls.
On the one hand, it’s very satisfying to see a monster go flying after you swat it with a maul, but on the other hand it’s very disappointing when they don’t explode into a fine bloody mist or have body parts flying away when you throw a fireball at them. It’s simply not vicious enough.
With the ‘death’ of Hellgate: London and Mythos, the collective staff of Hellgate Guru have shifted our focus to the one game that holds the most promise in all of our hearts and minds: Diablo III.
With that in mind, we’ve created Hellforge — It is not your average Diablo III fansite. To us it’s all about the community. At Hellforge, you tell us what you want to say and share your views with our innovative blogging system. It’s easier than posting on a forum, and we have those, too!
You can also share your own videos and images by uploading them for all to see. Writing your own blog, responding to one, or simply posting on a traditional forum? It’s all up to you.
Be a part of something special and join the Hellforge community.
Tiggs made a post on the Official Forums stating that both the official forums of Hellgate: London and Mythos will be shutting down.
On Friday, July 18th at Midnight (CST) the forums will be shutting down. We would like to thank everyone for being a part of this wonderful community and we hope to see you all again soon.
-Tiggs
See it for yourself. Thanks for the news tip, Swordplay. You shame me with your news finding abilities sometimes.
Travis Baldree, Project Lead and Programmer on Mythos created a thread on the official Mythos forum to bid his farewells to the Mythos community and other members of the Mythos team have since added their heartfelt goodbyes to the thread.
Well, it’s an interesting few days here for all of us. It’s just been killing me not to post until now, but I really needed to wait until some things were settled and announced. As you may or may not know Flagship Studios laid off almost all employees effective friday - you should be able to see the press release in the Announcements. Now, on the face of it, that really does sound like the end of Mythos as we know it - but we have a tight-knit team that feels like family and hopes to stick together. Unfortunately, I can’t speak at any real length about our immediate plans just yet - but let’s say that we hope to have you back up and Beta testing for us in one way or another sometime soon.
You’ve been an incredible community that we’ve all felt priveleged to be a part of, and we’re not quite ready to let go of that little family just yet. No matter the outcome, this has been a fantastic experience, and I and the team would like to thank each and every one of you for the tireless hours of testing and discussion you’ve undergone, and the uniquely friendly community spirit that you all helped foster. It’s been a treat every step of the way.
So, I’m not exactly sure how long Mythos in its current form will remain up, since it is effectively a testing server. I’ll try to get you that information as soon as I can.
In the meantime, I know the rest of the team would love to post their farewells and thanks to all of you. We’ll try to keep you as up to date as we can in one way or another.
Thanks again to all of you - and I hope to be seeing all of you online again very, very soon.
Travis
Others of Flagship Studios who have contributed their farewells and goodbyes to the thread include:
Greg Brown
Thanks everyone.
It has been a pleasure to be a part of this game and this community. Like Travis said, it has been very difficult to sit aside and read these forums and not be able to comment or shed light. Thank you for your dedication to helping us create and improve this game. We will miss it.
This is not the last you will hear from us. Take care and good gaming.
-Greg
Jason “Grimby” Beck
I definitely want to echo Travis’ sentiments about this community. It’s truly amazing how friendly, helpful, and open it was. It’s been a very rare experience and one that we all enjoyed tremendously.
I really can’t say enough about this team, either. I’ve known some of these guys for years now and it’s a real joy to work with friends everyday. The entire team is easily the best I’ve been apart of. It’s just a cool group of people who happen to be both easy to work with and really good at what they do.
I’m quite certain you’ll be hearing from us soon. It’s very sad to see Mythos (as we know it) go…I got pretty attached to them Ramalos …, but we’ll be doing something again.
Thanks for all the cool comments. It was rough reading up on everything without being able to respond.
It’s been a treat!
Cheers,
Jason
Kyle “Skycrickett” Cornelius
I am just going to quote Jason since he pretty much hit the nail on the head. It sucks having to leave without finishing this project up… but I guess thats how things happen sometimes. I am proud to have contributed to Mythos, and really hope that you guys see us in some incarnation in the future. As a former member of the community - turned professional scribbler, I can say it was a pleasure to have you guys testing our game.
-Kyle
Adam Perin
It is a sad day to lose such a great community. I hope in the future we will be so lucky as to have such a great community again. I personally will miss seeing such great community interaction (with us and with eachother) and genuienly helpful people on teh interwebs that are trying to help us make something even better than what we planned.
-adam
Taylor Balbi
I’ve said it a million times. You guys are the best. In all the years that I have worked with communities, paid and for fun, this is by far the greatest group of people ever. You guys were always very supportive, very kind, and seriously…. it killed me that I didn’t get to ban anyone lol. You guys were always ready for new stuff and rarely complained about bugs and features, great group of supporters. There were just so many people who loved Mythos and helped make it the game it is today. Whether Mythos picks up in the future or not, you guys rock. I will be around in one way or another.
If the opportunity arises I would love to have the chance to work on Mythos again. The main reason is you guys. Thanks for being there and always supporting us. It really meant a lot to us every time you sent in e-mails or messages about how much you love the game and can’t put it down.
No matter the future of Mythos, you know that you can count on me to be around any project Travis and the gang works on. See you around guys, it was a good run and the best job I ever had.
History will, perhaps, remember Mythos as one of those “great games that should have been”, along with Black Isle Studios’ Van Buren and Troika’s post-apocalyptic RPG. Hope may yet exist for the game, so we’ll be crossing our fingers for a miracle.
Mythos Guru has gotten together with Flagship Studios to give away 10 hot new accounts. All you have to do is register an account on our forums and send a PM to me, Sol Invictus, entitled “CONTEST ENTRY” with your e-mail address within it to be eligible to win an account! In order to participate, you have to have 20 posts on Mythos or Hellgate Guru’s forums here. That’s right, it’s that easy!
And remember, your 20 posts CAN’T be spam! I’ll check on you.
Hey fellow Hellgate and Mythos Guru members. We know that many of you have been with us for a long time through our coverage of games by Flagship Studios and we also know that many of you came to follow their games because of them being ex Blizzard personnel. To cater to a wider audience, we’ve decided that it’s the right time to unleash our newest creation Blizzard Guru!
With the possible announcement of Diablo 3, or what is most undoubtedly going to be a new game from Blizzard at the upcoming Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate it than by launching an entire website and community in dedication to Blizzard’s hard work and effort.
If you have any interest in all the is Blizzard related, you will surely come down to our new website that looks at everything that’s Blizzard including Starcraft 2, a possible Diablo 3 release looming over us, Blizzard’s old franchise’s as well as anything new that they can come up with!
We will not only deliver all the up to date news on these issues, but we’ll provide you guys with a place that has friendly staff, the most relevant information, a great community as well as lots of new features on our forums that you’ll surely love!
So come pay us a visit and start contributing, because in the words of a Space Marine… “Hell, it’s about time!”
Hey everyone, incase you haven’t noticed yet, we’ve made a number of improvements to the front page of the website which should make it much easier to read now and provide a layout that seems more professional and modern. It also means that all of our sites across our network now share a common theme.
To go with the change, there is also a new background design, as well as a whole set of new smileys you can use on our forums.
Are you tired of having to pester Flagship Studios for small tidbits of news about the game?
Are you bored of not having any recent exclusives?
Are you eager to hear about some new and exciting information about Mythos?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you’ve come to the right place!
That’s right! We here at Mythos Guru have gone out of our way to do the job for you. You won’t have to wait in line to get one measly question answered. You won’t have to leave your kids alone in the car, baking under the hot sun, as you dash to your news press to find the latest goss on the game only to find a police officer waiting for you with a warrant and a pair of silver handcuffs when you return. You won’t have to sit there doodling words and pictures on your wall hoping they will be the new exclusives for Mythos.
All you simply have to do is feast your eyes upon our wonderous interview with the amazing Max (Note: Max may or may not actually be amazing, but the interview is indeed wonderful!). Not only do you get exclusive new information at Mythos Guru about the game’s upcoming new modes of transportation, brand new ways to live and die, new ways to dress and express, as well as the secret race that was going to be put in until Max was abducted!!!
You will see the answers to these questions and more by read not one, two, or even five, but twenty four whole questions that will make you wish that you could hibernate until open beta!
Hellgate Guru was founded in mid-2005 and has ever since been one of the most popular fan sites and forums devoted to Hellgate: London, catering to a wide range of interests, as well as having a dedicated team of staff members who keep the website full of constant updates, news and generate activity and hype around the game. More
…, but we’ll be doing something again.
