There’s a new patch out for Hellgate: London, so I gave it another whirl today. The major new feature is a shared stash for all of your characters, which is much more convenient than having to mail stuff between each of them. It also added some ‘ranks’ you can earn for extra bonuses, much like the alternate advancement points in Everquest, but I can’t use those until I hit 50 anyway.

On the downside, my drone’s armour has been reduced somehow, and he was only getting 81% damage reduction instead of the 92-93% he was getting before, so he’s essentially taking twice as much damage now.

I cleared the way to Liverpool Street Station, giving me a new higher-level place to check the crafting merchants. I then went and did Moloch again, gaining two levels in the process (halfway through 44 now), and confirming that leveling is much faster if I stick around monsters the same level as me rather than higher ones. The only really notable difference in Stonehenge is that they made Moloch harder, and he didn’t drop nearly as fast as he did the first time. I was starting to think I might not be able to beat him at all, since he’d occasionally get healed by some priests faster than I could damage him. Eventually though, he kept attacking without summoning more for long enough that I could finish him off. They made it tougher to hit him with Ignite, but it still kicked in often enough to make the battle a fair bit quicker.

And I finally spent some of the nanoshards I’d been saving up to upgrade the drone’s armour pieces, putting him back at about 87% damage reduction. It’s not quite back to where he was before, but it’s better than nothing.