Rustam
20-08-2008, 01:55
Review, by Archer
I would like to introduce a Diablo: Hellfire mod to you: The Hell. This modification is still in heavy development and might be of interest for any Diablo I - II veterans after Diablo III announcement was made. It was created by Mordor and The Hell Team.
The Project was started on April 14, 2006 by Mordor, and the first playable public version came out in about a year later. Since then the game has expanded tremendously, attracting more and more people, not only to player, but to people who help in the creation of the mod.
The hallmark of The Hell is a very serious approach to development. There are quite few weeks without any news! First and foremost, it is concentrated on getting rid of all the initial bugs of Diablo & Hellfire. It also raises challenge considerably, gives much more variety (monsters, items, spells, boss monsters, unique items, item & environment colors), improves overall difficulty balance of the game, improves monster AI, introduces new character animations, increases replay value and gives full support for Multiplayer experience. Nowadays we have version 1.66+ and it's fully functional, has many bugs of original game fixed, is running smoothly, and on average is working way better than original game. The amount of changes are enormous (trust me), part of them are available in Changes Log file inside the archive.
I'll put it bluntly: not all Diablo veterans will be able to beat the game on Doom mode. It is the HARDEST of Diablo Hellfire mods ever, but we are also sure that it's THE BEST among all!
One of the most appealing features of this mod is the ongoing effort to implement all of the original Diablo 1.09 patch fixes into the game, since Sierra forgot to do this for us. But that's not all of the great things: this mod has the legacy of some noteable Diablo Hellfire mods from earlier game history. Although they are not supported any more and do not have updates, some of their great features and ideas made it to The Hell mod. Nowadays this is the only mod still full of life in the world of the original Diablo Hellfire game. (The only possible exception is The Dark but unfortunately it didn't see a new version for nearly two years now.)
The homepage and documentation of the mod is very user friendly. You can hardly find another mod which supports five languages on its website and three in its readme. There are plans for other languages as well. We have an ever growing community with a lot of contributing people. We think that this mod has an incredible potential besides its already achieved merits. This game is really challenging, but would you require any less from it? Its rock hard difficulty will have you coming back for more, as you try to climb the metaphorical cliff with your bare hands. Nevertheless, some difficulty, character and item balancing did happen recently for the benefit of the starters.
You will (most likely) not be able to beat the game from the first attempt, instead you'll have to CONQUER every area. We recommend playing all 3 difficulty levels one by one. Don't start playing at next difficulty level unless you have finished previous one: not only this will prove way too challenging (or, most likely, impossible) but also will spoil your pleasure from playing. Forget all you've learnt in previous Diablo/Hellfire games. This one is different. Don't make the mistake of playing on Horror difficulty and then stop. Horror difficlulty is basically to get you familiar with this game and give you a taste of it. Real game begins from Purgatory. The game is balanced to reach most fun on 'Doom' mode, so don't quit after beating the game on Horror difficulty (it's only the beginning). Actually, playing on Doom mode will never be dull or easy, because no matter how high is your level or how good is your equipment, you'll always die quickly if you lose attention.
Again, I'm going to repeat it: this game IS hard. Don't overestimate yourself as you venture deeper into the labyrinth. Some of those monsters are VERY unforgiving. While Single-Player allows you to take enemies by one and reload in case of failure, Multi-Player mode almost REQUIRES cooperation. Playing TH in MP alone will be almost impossible sometimes. There are now over 300 bosses in the game. Prepare yourself well against them: the Butcher or King Leoric will not be the same experience again!
We have two new graphics addons and a high quality audio file for everyone's pleasure. The Bard and the Barbarian from vanilla Hellfire became the Assassin and the Gladiator. Gladiator's animation is already completed and it introduces dual wielding graphics in the game. Now we are working on Assassin graphics improvement. Existing monster, item, dungeon and town graphics were improved, dungeon levels became greater, and the quests are tweaked, too.
One of the most wanted features for this game was that Search spell is now activated automatically when you set Auto-Map ON. New spell additions include the Hellfire spell which does physical damage (for Immune to Magic monsters), Arcane Nova, Fury, Shocking Blast and now you may even find Apocalypse down there... Some spells do knockback now, which is really great. Another interesting new feature of the mod is "Gillian, the Stasher": she will keep your valuable equipment safe until you need them again. She lifts the burden from your shoulders, you will see! There's a very useful clicker program on the mod's homepage: it can spare you a LOT of trouble down there.
This game has a full support for multiplayer. With its key features, like restriction to Horror difficulty for clvl 30+ characters and Purgatory difficulty for clvl 40+ players, not losing your gear upon dying, etc. it gives you a unique new experience that wasn't available in original Hellfire. There is a multiplayer network for The Hell in Internet. We use the free Hamachi program. Of course, if you want to play with a friend of yours, you can play by directly connecting your PCs to each other, too.
We should mention a little pesky bug here for balance's sake. In Single-player, unique items that you got from doing the quests will morph into useless scrap metal when you start a new game. This might get fixed in the future. A possible solution for the problem exists: if you give your quest items to Gillian before restarting the items will most likely not morph. Bug reports and suggestions are of utmost importance in the polishing of this game. If you like it, help to improve it even further!
There are quite a number of things you should know before starting to play this game. You can check the 'Guide' section on the webpage for this info. If you've got questions, you are welcome to ask them on TH forum. You will find a lot of useful information there.
This is our developer's testimonial: "I have always loved this game for its original taste: dark atmosphere, cold steel and blood. I've been playing Diablo & Hellfire for 10 years. This mod represents all that I ever wanted from this game. This is Diablo's best of the best. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the game or by similarity with Hellfire. It's an absolutely new & improved game under the old mask..."
Check our website regularly for updates!
We wish you happy playing... and see you on Hamachi!
Diablo: The Hell (http://thehell.narod.ru)
TH Forum (http://diablothehell.freeforums.org/)
I would like to introduce a Diablo: Hellfire mod to you: The Hell. This modification is still in heavy development and might be of interest for any Diablo I - II veterans after Diablo III announcement was made. It was created by Mordor and The Hell Team.
The Project was started on April 14, 2006 by Mordor, and the first playable public version came out in about a year later. Since then the game has expanded tremendously, attracting more and more people, not only to player, but to people who help in the creation of the mod.
The hallmark of The Hell is a very serious approach to development. There are quite few weeks without any news! First and foremost, it is concentrated on getting rid of all the initial bugs of Diablo & Hellfire. It also raises challenge considerably, gives much more variety (monsters, items, spells, boss monsters, unique items, item & environment colors), improves overall difficulty balance of the game, improves monster AI, introduces new character animations, increases replay value and gives full support for Multiplayer experience. Nowadays we have version 1.66+ and it's fully functional, has many bugs of original game fixed, is running smoothly, and on average is working way better than original game. The amount of changes are enormous (trust me), part of them are available in Changes Log file inside the archive.
I'll put it bluntly: not all Diablo veterans will be able to beat the game on Doom mode. It is the HARDEST of Diablo Hellfire mods ever, but we are also sure that it's THE BEST among all!
One of the most appealing features of this mod is the ongoing effort to implement all of the original Diablo 1.09 patch fixes into the game, since Sierra forgot to do this for us. But that's not all of the great things: this mod has the legacy of some noteable Diablo Hellfire mods from earlier game history. Although they are not supported any more and do not have updates, some of their great features and ideas made it to The Hell mod. Nowadays this is the only mod still full of life in the world of the original Diablo Hellfire game. (The only possible exception is The Dark but unfortunately it didn't see a new version for nearly two years now.)
The homepage and documentation of the mod is very user friendly. You can hardly find another mod which supports five languages on its website and three in its readme. There are plans for other languages as well. We have an ever growing community with a lot of contributing people. We think that this mod has an incredible potential besides its already achieved merits. This game is really challenging, but would you require any less from it? Its rock hard difficulty will have you coming back for more, as you try to climb the metaphorical cliff with your bare hands. Nevertheless, some difficulty, character and item balancing did happen recently for the benefit of the starters.
You will (most likely) not be able to beat the game from the first attempt, instead you'll have to CONQUER every area. We recommend playing all 3 difficulty levels one by one. Don't start playing at next difficulty level unless you have finished previous one: not only this will prove way too challenging (or, most likely, impossible) but also will spoil your pleasure from playing. Forget all you've learnt in previous Diablo/Hellfire games. This one is different. Don't make the mistake of playing on Horror difficulty and then stop. Horror difficlulty is basically to get you familiar with this game and give you a taste of it. Real game begins from Purgatory. The game is balanced to reach most fun on 'Doom' mode, so don't quit after beating the game on Horror difficulty (it's only the beginning). Actually, playing on Doom mode will never be dull or easy, because no matter how high is your level or how good is your equipment, you'll always die quickly if you lose attention.
Again, I'm going to repeat it: this game IS hard. Don't overestimate yourself as you venture deeper into the labyrinth. Some of those monsters are VERY unforgiving. While Single-Player allows you to take enemies by one and reload in case of failure, Multi-Player mode almost REQUIRES cooperation. Playing TH in MP alone will be almost impossible sometimes. There are now over 300 bosses in the game. Prepare yourself well against them: the Butcher or King Leoric will not be the same experience again!
We have two new graphics addons and a high quality audio file for everyone's pleasure. The Bard and the Barbarian from vanilla Hellfire became the Assassin and the Gladiator. Gladiator's animation is already completed and it introduces dual wielding graphics in the game. Now we are working on Assassin graphics improvement. Existing monster, item, dungeon and town graphics were improved, dungeon levels became greater, and the quests are tweaked, too.
One of the most wanted features for this game was that Search spell is now activated automatically when you set Auto-Map ON. New spell additions include the Hellfire spell which does physical damage (for Immune to Magic monsters), Arcane Nova, Fury, Shocking Blast and now you may even find Apocalypse down there... Some spells do knockback now, which is really great. Another interesting new feature of the mod is "Gillian, the Stasher": she will keep your valuable equipment safe until you need them again. She lifts the burden from your shoulders, you will see! There's a very useful clicker program on the mod's homepage: it can spare you a LOT of trouble down there.
This game has a full support for multiplayer. With its key features, like restriction to Horror difficulty for clvl 30+ characters and Purgatory difficulty for clvl 40+ players, not losing your gear upon dying, etc. it gives you a unique new experience that wasn't available in original Hellfire. There is a multiplayer network for The Hell in Internet. We use the free Hamachi program. Of course, if you want to play with a friend of yours, you can play by directly connecting your PCs to each other, too.
We should mention a little pesky bug here for balance's sake. In Single-player, unique items that you got from doing the quests will morph into useless scrap metal when you start a new game. This might get fixed in the future. A possible solution for the problem exists: if you give your quest items to Gillian before restarting the items will most likely not morph. Bug reports and suggestions are of utmost importance in the polishing of this game. If you like it, help to improve it even further!
There are quite a number of things you should know before starting to play this game. You can check the 'Guide' section on the webpage for this info. If you've got questions, you are welcome to ask them on TH forum. You will find a lot of useful information there.
This is our developer's testimonial: "I have always loved this game for its original taste: dark atmosphere, cold steel and blood. I've been playing Diablo & Hellfire for 10 years. This mod represents all that I ever wanted from this game. This is Diablo's best of the best. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the game or by similarity with Hellfire. It's an absolutely new & improved game under the old mask..."
Check our website regularly for updates!
We wish you happy playing... and see you on Hamachi!
Diablo: The Hell (http://thehell.narod.ru)
TH Forum (http://diablothehell.freeforums.org/)