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I just installed and played the first two maps on this great FPS RPG. I don't know what steps are necesary for the game to show on the working or test games list but doing a manual installation works very well. SInce the game is OLD, you should take into consideration to run it under "winxp" or "win98", on a 32bit partition.

Didn't need to install nothing extra, BUT playonlinux said the program crashed when pressing SinglePlayer on the launcher (just close the message window, the game will run very well). I had a crash on my first attempt when choosing OPTIONS in the menu, but I didn't try it again later. I always play on virtual windows (in this case I opted for a 1024x768, since the game obviously doesn't have support for widescreen).  ;)

Anyway, the game runs, with the great (yet outdated) graphics it had. As I said, I played a couple maps, with a char lvl 3 (almost lvl 4).  ;)

Enjoy.  :)

Awesome!
What are your systems specs?
Are you able to change graphical options in-game?

Honestly, I don't really use scripts anymore because there are so many and very hard to update with all the various distros, updates and Wine versions.

I mostly do Manual Installations too!

Sigh. A script can always be written for it. If a manual install can be done, then a script can be written for it. If we have those specs from him, now we have the info we need to write a script and add it to our repository, so others that are not tech savvy enough to do manual installs can enjoy the application as well....

Ok, I don't know anything about scripting, but I guess it has something to do with "autoinstalling" the games through POL. Now, about the questions booman asked:

Ubuntu 12.04 64bits, Phenom II x4, 8 GB ram, GForce GTX 550 Ti (1 GB).

No, you can't access the options menu ingame (either before loading a char, or after you did). Trying to enter the Options menu at any time crashes the game as I said before. The game works flawlessly (I made a 1024x768 virtual window for this game in particular, and it looks great, yet outdated), the only problem is with the Options menu. There is a Settings file in "home/My Games/Hellgate", but it doesn't show any options so I'm not sure how to change anything from there (it's an xml file, so I guess it has some similarities with other games that use xml files for their settings...).

What I tried to do and couldn't anyway I searched, is to install the 1.2 patch (the only patch Flagship released before dissappearing). It complains about not finding language.dat in certaing directory and then closes. The file itself doesn't install (it's a bug in the game, not related to Wine), but you only need to create the file yourself and write a certain line inside (found the info searching on the web). The problem is even after that, the game won't recognize you have that file in the folder, so, it probably needs something else that points to that file (I searched around the xml files in the data folder, but couldn't see anything about it). :(

Too bad, because that patch has some serious bug fixes and skills redone that are worth the effort of finding the file. What I didn't try is to install the game on a windows machine, patch it and then port it and see if it works.

Hope all this helps. :)

Just solved it. As indicated HERE: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=13048&iTestingId=61460&bShowAll=true
You MUST create the "language.dat" file using NOTEPAD. Using gedit or another linux based text editor won't work. The game doesn't complain about the missing file anymore. :)

Ok, this might be my last post in this topic, as far as I'm concerned, this could be considered a platinum rate as is. Once I installed the 1.2 patch (yes, once I solved the language.dat issue, the patch installed with no fuss), I finally could open the options menu without a crash (as a matter of fact, I played for another hour and didn't have any problems at all), but I must admit, I didn't install it with POL, but with Wine directly (just copy the Hellgate folder somewhere Wine can reach and then apply the patch. After that, just move the folder back to it's original place inside POL's folder and the game will work). Hope this helps people with this game. :)

BTW, inside POL, I'm running the game with wine 1.5.24, and I don't know if it will work with older or newer versions.

Great job! Thanks for investigating and posting your results.
I've found that newer Wine versions are working better than the older ones.
I normally test with Wine 1.5.25 for now...

Thats pretty funny, you can just create a fake language.dat with notepad (or gedit) and the game thinks its the real file.

Sounds like the patch is the way to go. So now can you crank up the resolution?

Happy to help the community get the best out of this tools. :)

Ah, remember what I posted a couple post before: You MUSTN'T create the language.dat with Gedit. You MUST create it with Notepad. Using Gedit will fail and the file will be ignored by the game, but with Notepad, it works. Creating the file with Notepad gives a 16kb file, while creating it with Gedit gives you a 17kb file... that 1kb of difference must be what makes the game ignore the Gedit version.

And for some reason, no, the game is stuck with 1024x768. All other options are selectable, but resolution has an empty combobox. :( Not that it really matters, since I don't think you could play it with higher resolution or widescreen. :)

Oh, just so everyone knows, language.dat has only 1 line, with no enter at the end, and must say (without quotes): "Language=English" (or Spanish, French, Chinese, or whatever language you use and is included with the game). :) Remember: Don't press ENTER at the end of the line. Just save and exit. :)

Cool tips, thank again