but they need to seriously figure some shit out before they bite off more than they can chew.
Patch 0Okay, that's all for the "Non-Subscriber Stuff..."
DX10 Update
The build of Hellgate: London which you are reviewing includes both DX9 and DX10 versions of the graphics library. The DX10 version of this build has a few known issues. They include a slow framerate compared to the same scene in DX9 and black loading screens. We’re currently working on a fix for the black loading screens. The slower framerate is due to the fill-rate intensive special features that only our DX10 engine has, including: soft shadows with proper contact hardening, depth-of-field, motion blur, interactive GPU-simulated fluid smoke, texture-array animated rain, and soft particles. The extra fill rate costs are mitigated by an initial depth-only render pass, which is now being tested and will be ready for release. When Hellgate: London hits retail, we expect the framerate of our DX10 target to be as high, if not higher than DX9, including these special features.
Multiplayer Updates – All Players
We are continuing to push both new multiplayer features and bug fixes to the Beta. Things that may or may not be in during their review time (depending on when they do it), but will be in by launch are:
Buddy Lists
Much better and easier ways to organize your friends!
Guilds
While only subscribers can start one, anyone can join a guild. Special name colors and tags on characters show their affiliation.
Buddy and Guild Chat
Special chat channels so you can keep your conversations clear.
Bigger Levels in Nightmare Mode
These increase the time players get to spend in each area, giving the game a more expansive feel at higher difficulty levels.
PVP
Players can both duel and elect to enter free-for-all PvP Mode. To duel, a player invites the person they wish to duel into a group, and heads into an adventuring area. Duelers, then right-click on the portrait of the person they wish to duel and select the Duel option from the displayed list. Dueling can only take place outside of Underground hubs.
Players can also choose to enter into PvP mode which means they can be attacked and harmed outside of Underground hubs by anyone else that has chosen to enter PvP mode. That is, those in PvP mode, must always be ready for PvP. This is a way to have wide-ranging free-for-alls, or create your own “friendly-fire” way of playing the game.
Tuned Game Progression
Level and monster progression is more thematic in nature. While this does not affect the overarching layout of the world map, it does make each act feel more defined and focused.
Gossip
We’ve added loads of additional details on the people and places in the game through various NPCs in the world. This definitely helps make the stations feel more alive and provides players with more of the back-story.
More Quest Information
Quest NPCs do a better job of getting you prepared to know what you’re fighting and why. The overall story flows much better, the named demons that are encountered are given more story weight, and players gain a much better sense of overall direction.
NPC Tweaks
The vocal responses given by NPCs have been tuned so that they tend more towards the serious and “normal”, reserving the twisted commentary for specific player characters or in rare moments for the general populace.
Subscriber FeaturesOkay, that's most of the "Subscriber Stuff"
Elite Mode
This is for those players that always feel a game is too easy. The demons are tougher, deal out more damage, move faster, travel in larger groups, and have more champions at the ready. Numerous tweaks to the overall balance and progression of the game make this an extremely challenging mode.
Hardcore
Hardcore mode takes away the various resurrection options. For the gamer that wants the ultimate test, try playing an Elite Hardcore character!
Guild Creation
Buy purchasing a Guild Herald, a character can form a new guild. Characters can only be part of one guild at a time and should a Guild leader decide to abandon their post, they can pass leadership of the Guild to another subscribing guild member.
Achievements
These are long-term goals for players. The player starts with a few new goals in an Achievement Log. These can be as simple as slaying a certain amount of specific demons to something as difficult as completing quests without the benefit of armor! Players uncover new goals as they start to meet the requirements of that achievement. For example, after 50 zombies have been slain, an “Achievement Unlocked” message displays on the screen. Checking the Achievement Log shows how many zombies must be eradicated to complete the achievement. Rewards for completing achievements can be anything from reputation to tags on the player to special particle effects to items to special skills to – well, anything is possible!
Extra Character Slots
While everyone gets 3 character slots, subscribers can have a maximum of 24 characters.
Larger Stash
Each character’s storage locker is doubled in size with an extra 6x8 section, making the hoarding of all sorts of goodies that much easier. Packrats rejoice!
Founder’s Perks
Name Color
Forum Icon
More to come… (this will be an on-going area, as well)
Themed Events and Items
Halloween (October 31 – November 4)
* Zombot - A special pet just for All Hallows’, this amalgam of meat and metal is sure to frighten and delight those players that are willing to put in the time to find all the necessary pieces in order to construct him.
* All Hallow’s Visage - A Unique Helm that has not only very special properties, but as well a look unlike any other helm in the game. Ghost Rider would be jealous!
* All Hallow’s Treats - Delicious and devious, these different candies do everything from temporarily boosting stats to temporarily altering the appearance of the devourer.
* All Hallows’ Quests - There is a pair of special quests available, including one that is repeatable for continuous fun.
* Nemo ~ Master of Festivities - This special NPC can first be found in Covent Garden Station to greet players and send them on their way with quests specifically crafted for the season.
Interest...dropping.....Same here.
Why can't they just push the release date?
EA?
Why can't they just push the release date?Actually, they kind of did....
EA?
Hellgate London Unlocks Tomorrow?
Oct 23, 2007 at 1:26 PM - Robert "Apache" Howarth - 3 Comments
Well geeze. It looks like if you buy Hellgate London from the EA store, the game unlocks tomorrow. Thanks, Brian Williams.
In other EA store news, if you pre-order Crysis, the game unlocks 3 days earlier than retail, plus you can download the SP demo on Thursday.
The kicker? EA's download service has a somewhat colorful history in terms of quality and support.
Do you feel lucky? Do ya?!
We just made some big announcements about Hellgate: London, and it’s been great to see all of the excited comments regarding what we have in store for our players on day one and onward. On the flip side, we’ve also heard grumblings about the EULA that went out with our DX9 single-player demo.The bold part made me laugh pretty good. The ads arent there to make them money, its there for you, the gamer, to make it feel more like the real London. Sure, we could have just made some fake ads, but that involved work. The fact that the ad companies will pay us had no baring on this decision.
We want to make something very clear. We are in no way scanning your computers for your personal information or taking any personal information without your knowledge. The only time that Flagship or Ping0 would collect your personally identifiable information is when you actually decide to give it to us. Examples are when you create an account for Hellgate: London online or when you provide us your personal information when you enter a contest. The language in the portion of the EULA that has been cited is actually fairly standardized language that is used in the vast majority of EULAs for recent on-line software. It was unfortunately also somewhat broad in scope and potentially ambiguous in nature in an attempt to keep the legalese at a minimum.
This catch-all statement was included so that we have the ability to determine if someone is using hacks, unauthorized mods or other abusive applications while playing the game which spoils the gameplay for everyone else. We also use this catch-all to protect other parties offering technical support, such as our online provider, Ping0. This is a completely legitimate function and other leaders in the MMO space do it in an effort to stop hackers and provide better technical support. In order to stop hacks and cheats, as well as attempts at outright fraud, we may need the ability to scan our player’s computers for applications running at the same time as our game. This paragraph was designed to be able to allow for such functionality. It is also important to point out that EA does not determine what we do in regards to online and offline for our game security.
Also, this has nothing specifically to do with advertisements. EA has nothing do with Massive or potential ad-serving in Hellgate: London. First and foremost, any in-game advertising that would be in Hellgate: London is there to simulate how London looks in the real-world. Ads that represent this have been in the entirety of the beta, and in fact, have been shown in the game for well over a year. The fact is that we did not agree to potentially have ads in the game just to make more money. If we did not work with Massive, we would have to get individual approvals from every single company that we want to feature in the Underground stations. This is simply too time consuming and it’s much better to have the experts to do it, allowing us time to focus on making Hellgate: London better and better while getting a realistic portrayal of London in the process.
Should we elect to serve ads, they must be approved by us, Flagship Studios. We would demand that they be in-context with the game world - aged, weathered, only shown in appropriate areas, just as the static posters you see in the Stations are now. We have no interest in putting giant, bright-white billboard in the middle of your battles or having you wield swords of Brand X Cola.
Finally, Hellgate: London and all of the online play and components are controlled by Flagship Studios and Ping0. We’re all gamers here, and we’re as sensitive to protecting our personal information as you are. This is why we have spent the past six months becoming a member of the ESRB Privacy Online certification program. This means that we’re meeting the most rigorous standards in the industry for protecting your privacy and the information that you provide us.
We hope this helps address the concerns of our community.
See you online!
Do you like my hat? It's made of MONEY!
We at Electronic Arts are shocked and hurt at some of the accusations that have been going around. These advertisements are there for your benefit, and not to increase our revenue.LOL!
But honestly, I don't mind in game advertising if it is done tastefully. Big IF though.Exactly my sentiments on the bolded part there, Pug.
Those lower than expected review scores made me feel surprisingly happy, which kinda shocked me. In the end, I've always put personal dislikes aside and always hoped for the best when it came to a game -- especially a PC game.Acting like EA = big "no-no" to me -- hehe. :P
So yes, for the very first time I felt happiness that a much hyped game got disappointing scores.
Here are a few reasons why I may be pleased:
1. When they initially started development, the developers did an interview where they talked about why they left Blizzard. They didn't seem like a pleasant bunch.
2. They kept making idiotic decisions and then going back on them at the slightest sign of a fan protest. This showed a lack of confidence.
3. They shook hands with EA.
4. Even before they shook hands with EA, they had started to adopt EA's greedy behavior.
5. No LAN play. I have two PCs. No way am I buying two copies to play with my friends on LAN. When I went to the forums to express my unhappiness, I saw the game's fanboys already shredding other protesters to bits. This was years ago! God I hate fanboys. Fuck fanboys.No LAN play seems foolish, to me.
6. This is a selfish reason. It is another game I don't have to buy.Same here, Pug. :) Makes my decision a lot easier on what to do w/ Hellgate.
It almost seems that development focus shifted when they realized how much more money they could make with an MMORPG.
I think Blizzard games do well because...sure they want to make money, but I get the impression that they really, truely care about the quality of the games themselves.
OMG BREAKING NEWS! BLIZZARD SOLD TO ELETRONIC ARTS! (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/youare);D
Exactly. Their games have a soul. Also it helps that Blizzard doesn't charge fees to play online.Oh, we knew that much. :P
EDIT:
OMG BREAKING NEWS! FLAGSHIP SOLD TO ELETRONIC ARTS! (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/youare)
Though I do agree with pug. I think the development started off well enough until they realized they could get a monthly fee out of players. Then it was all about money and not particularly about the game itself. I think Blizzard games do well because...sure they want to make money, but I get the impression that they really, truely care about the quality of the games themselves. Theres that little extra something. Impossible to describe, but you can tell the developers put a little love into the game. Hellgate seems to be missing that.
I think Blizzard games do well because...sure they want to make money, but I get the impression that they really, truely care about the quality of the games themselves. Theres that little extra something. Impossible to describe, but you can tell the developers put a little love into the game. Hellgate seems to be missing that.It's really amazing to see a company like Blizzard still decide every year or so, to pop off another patch for Starcraft.
haha.. It probably is. I'll pick it up eventually.
Given that I don't want EA's prying eyes looking up my rectum, I think I've officially decided that I won't go anywhere near Hellgate until that behavior is removed. If it never is, I'll never play it. Honestly, I can just wait for the *actual* Diablo 3.I just hope D3 will NOT be a MMO Only.
Oh and on the monthly fee thing...wtf? Yea they have one or two things they coulda gave away instead of charging for (character slots being the biggie in my opinion) but lets face it, you get the game same as the singe player to play through for free with friends. Same items, same drop rates, same classes. So what if they wanna charge for extra content they create as extras, I'm willing to bet they need that just to cover the what....4 yearish development time? Not including things like server fees you can play free on? I really don't see it being alot different than guild wars honestly. You can say its not worth it right now...and you're probably right. When they pump out a few new crazy weapon and armor graphics and even a new class or two (yep new classes) then yea it'll be damn well worth it. instead of playing your $30-$40 whateven guild wars expansions here you pay a monthly fee. To some its worth it, others can play the free online game and its still a fun game.I will be honest and say I don't know much about Hellgate, so maybe I shouldn't respond here, but I feel like the issue is that Blizzard never charged extra to play on its servers, Blizzard doesn't charge extra because of their long development cycles. To be honest, the only games that have historically been pay-to-play are most MMOGs, with a few games making an attempt at purchasing micro upgrades (horse armor).
The Guild Wars model is more player friendly, I think. Buy the expansion, play online free as much as you want. Nothing is locked away behind a fee, they can't take stuff away from you if you stop "paying" as it were.Agreed.
In Hellgate, if you stop paying the fee you aren't allowed to use any of the extra content. No more hardcore mode, you lose the extra character slots (the characters remain, you just can't play any outside of the 3 you choose), you lose your extra storage space, you cant use the elite weapons and armor you've collected, etc.Which sucks.
Guild Wars doesn't do that stuff. I can play when I want, whatever class I want, keep all my loot, my storage box, PvP...whatever. Its a much nicer feeling.Amen.
It also remains to be seen how long the Hellgate team can keep up the pace with creating new content. People are going to get pissed if the level of content doesn't meet their expectations. Expectations will be high since they are already seemingly paying for it.I also wonder how much BETTER and IMPROVED some of the "new content" will be, given how many game reviews and gamers have said how the questing can get very repetitive and suffers from "too much of the same."
It also smacks of greed because they charge a fee plus have in-game ads.Right on -- preach it, Idol!
I will be honest and say I don't know much about Hellgate, so maybe I shouldn't respond here, but I feel like the issue is that Blizzard never charged extra to play on its servers, Blizzard doesn't charge extra because of their long development cycles. To be honest, the only games that have historically been pay-to-play are most MMOGs, with a few games making an attempt at purchasing micro upgrades (horse armor).
The Guild Wars model is more player friendly, I think. Buy the expansion, play online free as much as you want. Nothing is locked away behind a fee, they can't take stuff away from you if you stop "paying" as it were. In Hellgate, if you stop paying the fee you aren't allowed to use any of the extra content. No more hardcore mode, you lose the extra character slots (the characters remain, you just can't play any outside of the 3 you choose), you lose your extra storage space, you cant use the elite weapons and armor you've collected, etc.
Guild Wars doesn't do that stuff. I can play when I want, whatever class I want, keep all my loot, my storage box, PvP...whatever. Its a much nicer feeling.
Nobody here likes they way they've done things, and when their wallets are on the line, that's all that matters. Personally I hate the Hellgate model, and that coupled with EA's little "let us examine all the programs you're running" bullshit, it's enough to keep me well away from the game. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't matter if the game is the most fun thing ever, because those are the problems keeping me away from the game, and unless those get resolved, I'm not touching it. End of story. It isn't like "well, I'll change my mind if the game totally rocks". No, I don't care about the quality of the game. They can make the best game they want, and more power to them, but I hate the way they handled this and it's soured the whole deal for me. If others are willing to put up with it, fine, but I'm not one of them.
And what the hell is wrong with judging something without playing it? I can look at Love and Flowers Romantic Comedy with Meg Ryan # 673, and I think it's a pretty clear indication given my taste that I'm really not looking to plunk down cash and waste time watching something I'm pretty damned sure that I'm not going to like. So what, now I have to play Halo 3 to be sure that I won't like it? I can't judge from what I've seen, read, and the past experiences I had with the other two games? This doesn't hold entirely true for me because I did get to play it a bit, but there's no fucking way in hell I'd pay 60 bucks for that, and I don't have the inclination to go to the trouble of renting it because I just don't care.
I fail to see why having a negative opinion these days suddenly bans everyone from reason. I don't mean to sound confrontational about it, but it's just sort of getting weird. People make judgment calls. You have to make judgment calls. It's part of life. Plenty of people didn't like Clive Barker's Jericho, and I loved it. I'll tell them why and extol the virtues any time, but do I *really* care if an individual doesn't dig it, or assumes from what they've read and seen that they won't? No. Not everybody likes everything, and generally people make pretty decent assumptions when it comes to entertainment products. Sometimes they might be surprised, and sure, sometimes something might get railroaded in reviews even if it doesn't deserve it, but so too do things get too much praise, so too do people think they'll really love something and find out that they actually hate it.
Xero, personally, I am not judging the gameplay. Like Que and Scottws have said, we are just turned off by the whorish attitude. The game could kick a lot of ass.
Thats perfectly fine. I did however admit to Pyro sometimes I think this board has a very heavy mob mentality. Now that could just be because you all share such close opinions on things you tend to agree or something as far fetched as its just easier to agree. Hell I'll be honest, I've been playing devil's advocate through this just to see someone disagree. At the end of the day I bought the game, I play the game, anyone who wants to run with me is welcome and everyone else can do whatever else they want.
You haven't seen our "serious" boards have you? haha...Hahaha you guys are awesome :D
Que and I have had our angry exchanges, though its all good in the end.. :P
I think we are all in agreement about Hellgate, but we do differ on games a lot as well. For example Que dislikes Neverwinter Nights, Splinter Cell, Halo, most human beings, and cute little puppies. I happen to like all of those... well except for the human beings.
He loves pure shooters like Painkiller, Serious Sam, Pure Puppy Killer 6, and Doom 3. I didn't like those as much as he did, so yea.
In fact if you asked all of us to list things in common you'd be surprised to note that nothing aside from goat pr0n makes the list.
Closing Comments
At the end of the day Hellgate: London delivers an experience that is fun for a few hours but quickly grows repetitive. The stat-driven combat takes the player one step away from the action and the modular levels and peripheral nature of the story keeps players from investing in the world. Balanced against that are levels that are virtually teeming with enemies and a loot and upgrade system that gives you a real sense of progress every minute that you play. Your own enjoyment of Hellgate will naturally depend on your tolerance for the repetitious levels and your overall desire to find the perfect combination of skills and items that will allow you to take on the toughest of the game's challenges with ease. Unfortunately for Hellgate, our tolerance and desire levels just aren't what they used to be.
I'm posting this here simply to make people aware. The HGL subscription service currently has "a bug" that is overcharging some, but not all customers. Those affected are being billed DAILY what should be charged monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. For example I signed up for 3 accounts (2 kids play as well) on the 2nd and have been billed for another $30 on the 3rd, 4th, 5th and today. Some have reported the lifetime subscription being billed repeatedly.
I have been unsuccessful in getting a response from their support team. A call to their number (listed on the last page of the manual) got me nowhere. They said contact my bank. In the support forums they claim they are "working on it".
I'm sure they are but the subscription service is still taking new customers. I made a post like this one in the HGL forums and within an hour over 100 people replied that they had no idea they were being overbilled until reading the post and contacting the bank. The thread was suddenly deleted and my account was banned. Ciest La Vie. Hopefully PC Gamer realizes this is important and allows viewers the opportunity to not let their bank funds be squandered. I'm happy to reword/repost in a different topic if this isn't the right one, but don't just shut it down and let people find out after even more charges.
there are also reports of 90% subscriptions ending right when you cancel them, even if you have 29+ days left to play.
not like we didn't see this coming, beta testers were screaming bloody murder on nearly every public forum - i love how non beta testers were so pepped up on fanboy hype as to flame and dismiss what we said, now they know why we said it.
I don't like this game and have no idea of buying it for many reasons. But The way they are handling it, like deleting your thread and forum account is lame and unprofessional. If anything they should have just given an explanation and apology and just locked the thread. But deleting it like nothing ever happened is just childish. I hope PC gamer will show that it's got some balls and make this very public. Like they did with Bioshock's anti-piracy crap.
It's been a long time since a game inspired so much hate in so many people. It's really quite amazing.
GP: I can imagine. I've seen some really withering criticisms in those forums...If you gave the people what they'd want, there would be no subscriber-fee.
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.
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.Pay me $5 or $10 a month to play Hellgate???
Hellgate: London is a likeable action role-playing game that answers the question "What would happen if you took all the loot lust from Diablo and fit it into a first-person shooter?" OK, maybe you weren't asking that question, but Hellgate is an interesting game. It will probably come into its own after a few more patches, but right now, it has almost as many issues as strengths.Why did EA and Flagship have to ship the game so early???
The game takes place in London, naturally, and it's the near future. A large gate to hell--some might call it a "Hellgate" of some kind--has opened and demons have been spewing forth from it. The storyline has you, as a character in one of six classes, falling into an adventure that puts you on a path to seek out various oracles, kill a whole lot of demons, and eventually penetrate the Hellgate itself. But the storyline is rather limp. It's best conveyed by prerendered cutscenes that play out between each of the game's acts, but there are hours of often poorly written quest dialogue text and flat character exclamations between those cutscenes. The game can't seem to make up its mind as to whether or not it wants to be serious or funny, and the characters that have been placed in the game for comic relief don't work very well, with the possible exception of a guy who, through your actions, ends up having a small demon hump his face for the rest of the game. The game also has a handful of technical issues, including frame rates that randomly take a dive and hard lockups that, depending on when they occur, might make you play through a significant chunk of the game again.Damn....
This storyline plays out the same way whether you play offline or online, which essentially means that the offline mode is useless. The main point of this game is collecting loot and upgrading your character. Considering that you'll find a ton of loot that your character class can't use and that the most important part of tricking out your character is the ability to show it off to other people, there's no good reason to play offline.There's a point to playing it alone -- to play it by yourself and w/out worrying about a need to be on the Net to play the game!!
While you can certainly play the game online for free and experience most of what Hellgate has to offer, you can also subscribe for $10 a month. Right now, the main benefits for subscribers are access to a harder difficulty setting, more character slots, and more room to store gear. You also get to partake in various themed events. There have been two such events as of this writing, one based on Halloween and one based around Guy Fawkes Day. These events add a few quests, but their primary function so far seems to be adding a bunch of annoying little drops to the game, such as apples, potatoes, or blueprints, for pets and stuff. Considering you have limited inventory space, it all just gets a little overwhelming.Sounds like Gertsmann is NOT impressed w/ the subscriber stuff at all -- especially since he thinks there's at least a good deal to do right-out-the-box w/out the subscriber stuff; even if you play offline and alone.
If you love hoarding stuff and don't mind repetition, Hellgate: London is a really neat but often uneven game that will probably keep you busy for at least a month or two, even if you don't subscribe. But, for many, the game's issues will be a real deal breaker. If you're on the fence, you might want to watch the game's patch notes to see how many technical glitches, as well as other annoyances, are cleared up.
Seriously, I am starting to dislike this guy. He sounds like whiny child.Haha he sounds like he's having trouble at home and just taking it out at work :P
From the reviews I read, this game has next to zero storytelling. How does it qualify as an MMO?
Anyway I found an Asian only version for $19. I am going to go for it.
I find the story complaint interesting as well. I mean it sounds like Diablo to me with the video between acts and I've never heard anyone complain about Diablo's story.
So what makes Hellgate worth playing? That's the craziest part. Hellgate: London is saddled with a variety of issues, yet it still manages to be totally addictive and compelling because it expertly handles one of gaming's oldest clichés: new stuff. New items and money are constantly popping out of enemies when you mow them down. Each item--even the ones that aren't suitable for your character class--is also useful in some way. You can, obviously, sell items back to any merchant in the game, but you can also break items down into base components that are the backbone of the game's crafting system. With a blueprint, some runic fragments, and a whole mess of rare tech boards, you can make new items. But you can also use those same items to upgrade your existing gear. When you find the exact type of rifle or a pair of pants with bonus stats that really help out your character, you can use these components to make sure the items remain useful as you (and your enemies) get tougher. This means you never really have to outgrow your gear, though you'll also find plenty of new, useful gear as you play.
Hellgate Asian Character Wipe [November 10, 2007, 6:28 pm ET] - 28 Comments
Kotaku has word on issues applying the update dubbed Patch0 to the Asian Hellgate: London servers run by IAH Games (thanks nin). While the western launch of Flagship's action/RPG has been decidedly rocky, the troubles with the eastern launch have been more dramatic, and it turns out that a complete character wipe will be required to implement the required update. As a result, they are offering free subscription time to impacted players, and they say that future patches will be installed at the same time on eastern and western servers. The character wipe and patching are planned for Monday.
Man, this game seems like a lot of hard work gone to waste for lack of a little more.
Single Player Patch 0.6 - DECEMBER 18, 2007
North America and Europe Only
General
• Fixed a known issue with the inventory user interface that caused the client to lock up.
• Fixed a bug which caused the Mini-game to sometimes become stuck.
Graphics
• Fixed a texture memory leak that occurred when inspecting armor items. This will improve long-term memory usage, especially for players that frequently buy, sell, and analyze items.
• Overall memory usage improved, especially in Stations. This increases client stability, reducing “memory exhausted” crash issues.
UI
• Many new UI sounds for better player feedback.
• New error message/sound when a character attempts to purchase an item without enough gold or room in their inventory.
Skills
Guardians
• Prayer of Healing cannot be used while poisoned.
Blademasters
• Surge of Speed effects do not stack with Adrenaline boosts.
Summoners
• The Summon Reaper cool down is now fixed and independent of other Minions.
Hunters
• Escape displays its rate of use.
Engineers
• Drones stats/items now save on logout.
• Drones now properly receive Armor and Shields when equipped with armor using the Armor Retrofit skill.
• Improvements to Haste Bot per-level effects.
• Molotov Assault now has a splash damage component in addition to its field effect.
• Fixed a bug that caused items equipped on an Engineer Drone to be unequipped when the Engineer summoned the Drone after changing levels.
Quests
• PDA quest item no longer drops to the floor.
• Fixed various known issues which prevented players from being able to continue interrupted side-quests.
• Quest items should no longer remain in the player inventory after the associated quest has been completed. Players with old quest items (such as Train Parts) associated with quests they’ve already completed or no longer have should find these items removed.
Items
• Dual Focus and Dual Melee affixes no longer spawn.
• Rebalanced Health and Power regeneration affixes.
• Fixed known bugs that caused players to sometimes lose items.
• Fixed a bug with the Nanoforge that caused it to inaccurately modify the stats of higher-quality items.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Unique items to drop without special properties. Old unique items that did not have special properties are not changed by this fix. We are looking into whether we can fix the old items, but we don’t currently have a solution.
• Items dropped in the world now have slightly lower overall feed requirements.
• Analyzers now work as expected on stashed items.
• Random recipes (including those found at Crafters) no longer produce Unique items.
Monsters
• Addressed numerous sync issues with Ravagers.
Environments
• More chests have been added to the Underground Cave passage set.
World Movement
• Fixed known issues which occasionally prevented characters from being able to load or switch instances.
• Fixed several issues with players getting stuck in the world.
• Fixed a bug causing some players to become stuck at St. Paul’s in Nightmare difficulty.
• Fixed a bug that caused players to be randomly teleported under certain circumstances.
Multiplayer Patch 0.7 - DECEMBER 19, 2007
Memory Usage
* Memory manager rewritten for better performance and stability.
* Fixed a UI-related memory leak.
* Fixed a clothing and armor texture-related memory issue.
User Interface
* New Looking For Group interface that allows players to more easily find each other for creating specific groups.
* Reorganized the De-modificator, Augmentrex, and Nanoforge interfaces to appear in the left-hand panel area.
* Added an auto-transparency feature to the chat window.
* Players can skip all logo splash-screens with a single click.
Nightmare Difficulty
* The difficulty of Nightmare has been rebalanced. More overall experience is earned in Nightmare levels, scaling of group experience and difficulty has been improved, and the overall level progression has been adjusted.
Skills
* Fixed skills being added to and/or removed from Shift activation when swapping weapons.
* Investing a skill point into an Aura skill will no longer automatically cause it to activate.
Templar
* Taunt skills are no longer reduced in effectiveness when in a group.
Blademaster
* Path of Righteousness now applies damage from offhand melee weapons.
Guardian
* Prayer of Retribution can now be used while poisoned.
* Prayer of Healing can no longer be used while poisoned.
Cabalists
* The Summon Ember and Summon Fire Elemental skills no longer conflict when granted through items.
Evokers
* Fixed a bug that caused Drain Power to charge an upfront power cost.
* Tempest’s targeting range has been increased and properly loses targets that move out of range.
* Fixed a bug which prevented Boneshards from having any effect on every other cast.
* Fixed a bug which prevented Evokers from using any other skills for two seconds after casting Boneshards.
Summoners
* Hand of Nostrom correctly adds more beams as the skill level increases.
* Fixed a bug which sometimes caused the Warper minion icon to not display.
* Master of the Flame skill effects now display properly in the skill description tooltip.
Hunters
Engineers
* Engineer Drone behavior improved.
* Fixed a bug that allowed Repair Drone to be used at no cost.
* Drones will now level properly along with their owner. Existing Drones that are below your character’s level will automatically be raised to the correct level.
* Drones now receive correct health bonuses with skill level after they are re-summoned.
Marksmen
* Overshield now gives the correct amount of shields.
* Fixed a bug that prevented Homing Shot from activating properly.
Quests
* Fixed a bug with the Cannon Street Rails quest.
* Fixed a bug in the Helping Hands and Triage quests where Maxim and Arphaun occupy the same place.
* Fixed a bug with the Regular Customer quest where Slaughterbeast occasionally wouldn’t spawn as expected.
* Characters stuck in the Holborn station after completing the game in normal mode should be able to progress.
Items
* Improved the drop rate of analyzers and various recipes.
* New blueprints have been added for Focus Items and Boots.
* Focus Items and Boots can now be made by crafters.
* Fixed a bug where already activated Auras would turn on and off when swapping weapons that grant Aura skills.
Guilds and Groups
* Fixed a bug where players were not seeing Guild invites.
* Introduced new Auto-Party logic to provide better matches.
World Movement
* Fixed additional instances where players were sometimes randomly teleported when other people used portals.
* Players can now use the /stuck command when in Ghost form.
* Fixed rare instances where certain areas were impassible.
Miscellaneous
* Fixed a bug where Founders saw all character names in blue text.
* Fixed rare issues with being unable to properly apply the Multiplayer patch.
* Fixed a bug with mods on weapons not being properly equipped when loading a character.
* Fixed rare cases where the PRD became unusable.
* Fixed a bug where numerous pets would show up in Stations.
---
Special Subscriber Features
The survivors of London are keeping their spirits up by celebrating the season and sharing some Holiday goodies with our subscription members:
The Transmogrifier
This mystic box transforms the junk you put in it into something new and wonderful. When you discover a new Transmogrifier formula, it is automatically stored in a special recipe list.
12 Unique Items
New Unique weapons spread across all three factions.
Patch Notes Disclaimer: While we make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, please be aware that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.
The opening FMV was quite amazing, I must agree.What gets me is the opening FMV is so good w/ everything -- the characters, voice-acting, the dialogue, and everything. It really plunges you into the world and atmosphere instantly, and you begin to care about the characters b/c the presentation is so good. You think the game might actually be this way, as well...
I actually didn't play past the first impressions.Ah, okay!
haha right. All the production values went into the FMV. The gameplay feels dry.I think the action itself is great -- and it better be, since this is the main force driving this game, since they really didn't do too much w/ the story and all.
People say it is like Diablo, but Diablo wasn't just about hack'n slash. Well it was mostly about that, but it had a great atmosphere as well.Diablo II's towns, they all had a different feel and look. Act 1's town had one specific look, while Act 2's town has the Egyptian/Middle Eastern vibe going on. So did many of the dungeon areas, as well -- had different window-dressing. Since you were always hacking, it did help you want to see these new areas. This helped kept the redundancy factor down, to an extent.
Yea that's the problem. Just when you were getting tired of the setting in Diablo II, you moved on to something completely different in the next act. HG:L environments start to get boring.
Well of the 16 posts before the one where I laid out my advise, D had 11. That's 11 out of 16 lengthy posts that belonged to him, on a game that only one other person from this forum has played... me. And I've given it only an hour.That's kinda like when we had our NWN2 Thread and NWN2: Mask Expansions Thread, the only ones really saying anything about these games was you, me, and Xessive. That's it -- after the original NWN here which many found disappointing around here, nobody gave the expansions a chance; even when they got dirt cheap. For that matter, nevermind the NWN2 sequel -- even more of a brush-off. It's kind of a shame, too -- NWN only got better w/ each expansion. And NWN2: Mask was a major improvement over NWN2: Original itself in every regard; especially in the technical performance department. Plus, NWN2: Mask had one of the best stories in a RPG since PS:T.
He is so dedicated. :P
I'm willing to give Hellgate a shot, but according to all I've been hearing it's best to wait for some serious patching.I've got most stuff on Medium -- runs very well in 1024x768. Never below 30 frames. NEVER. Even when the screen's jammed w/ loads and loads of monsters.
Hehe that NWN2 thread is still kicking somewhere in the back pages :PSomewhere. :P
Stonehenge Launch Date Set
HELLGATE: LONDON GOES TO STONEHENGE
Explore New Environments, Conquer New Demons and Find More Phat Loot
in the First Chapter of the Hellgate Chronicles
The fight for humanity is spreading away from the streets and sewers of London and moving all the way out to the mystical areas surrounding Stonehenge – or what’s left of it. The first installment of the ongoing Hellgate Chronicles is going live for subscribers on Monday, January 21st, 2008.
Stonehenge is a huge outdoor hub accessed through a special portal in Templar Base, connecting players to several new and exciting quests. Heroes will find themselves in completely new open, outdoor wilderness areas unlike anything seen within the city limits of London, battling terrifying new demons and bosses and finding new items very distinct in their appearance. This action-packed update includes:
* The Caste Caves – Unlock four unique dungeons, one for each caste of enemy – Beast, Necro, Spectral and Demon – to seek and destroy a powerful overlord that resides in each cave. Defeating them and collecting their heads will allow you to continue the adventure…
* Moloch’s Lair – Only after collecting the heads from the Caste Caves will heroes be allowed entry into the lair, with a chance to defeat the legendary Moloch, one of hell’s most imposing minions who carries very unique items that can only be obtained by defeating him in combat. And because Moloch’s soul is eternal, this quest and it’s rewards can be a never-ending challenge.
* The Wild – These three mini-raid areas present players with difficult obstacles but also huge rewards with three levels that get increasingly more difficult even with the recommended full party size – you will need a small army to get through these challenges.
In addition to the above, The Stonehenge Chronicles also includes many of the other updates the Hellgate: London community has been asking for, including improvements to game UI, a large number of skill balance changes, a PvP dueling arena and more. Hellgate: London subscribers can also now pay for their subscriptions via PayPal and PayByCash. For more information on payment options and a full list of notes for this update, please visit www.hellgatelondon.com.
Q&A: Bill Roper opens up on HellgateNon-linear stuff -- cool. :)
Flagship Studios CEO and cofounder details the first major content update for hybrid action-RPG and addresses the game's rocky beginnings.
By Tom Magrino, GameSpot
Posted Jan 18, 2008 5:23 pm PT
Diablo held a special place for many fans of action role-playing games due not so much to its combat mechanics or storyline, but its addictive item collection system. This concept has been taken to the next level with Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London, a game which seeks to blend fast-paced shooter gameplay with deep RPG-oriented customization and item collection. And that's no wonder, considering the studio was founded by former Blizzard Entertainment brass, including Diablo creators Bill Roper, Max and Erich Schaefer, Schaefer, and David Brevik.
Rather than having the experience limited to how much content was packed into the box when the game shipped, Flagship Studios offers an optional pay-to-play subscription model, which promises regular updates to the game to continue fueling gamers' desire for fancier and more powerful items. For those who have decided to pay, Flagship will be releasing its first major content update for the game on January 21.
Titled Stonehenge, the update extends Hellgate's borders to the eponymous druidic artifact outside London, adding three new areas to the game and a host of new quests, items, and encounters. The Stonehenge update also adds a number of UI tweaks, as well as makes significant skill balance changes ands adds in a player-versus-player arena, in addition to other changes.
For more on Stonehenge, as well as to get an update on how Hellgate has evolved and appreciated in the past several months, GameSpot spoke with Flagship CEO and cofounder Bill Roper.
GameSpot: The Stonehenge patch was initially slated to arrive before the end of the year. What prompted the delay?
Bill Roper: When we started talking about the Stonehenge patch, we wanted to get it out to players because we were so excited about what we were adding to the game. We were pushing to get Stonehenge released before the end of the year, but we realized that we wouldn't be doing the right thing to push it out before it was ready and properly tested. After looking at what we wanted to accomplish, we decided to take the time necessary to make our first major content patch right. If there's one lesson we learned from launching Hellgate: London, it was that our releases should be a question of "what" and not "when." We just felt that we would be doing everyone a disservice to push this out before it was right. We're proud that we still met our original promise of providing a major update within three months of the game shipping, and we'll continue to work on major releases on a quarterly schedule.
GS: What features implemented in this patch is Flagship most excited about?
BR: Adding our first non-linear game play elements in the Essence caves and Moloch's Pit, the first of our raid-type content in The Wild, making our first major class balance pass with the Evokers, and starting to refine our player-versus-player play by adding a dueling arena. There are also a host of tweaks, from animations to items to crafting to skills that everyone will be happy to see.
GS: Hellgate launched with more than a few serious bugs. Was this a matter of staying true to the ominous Halloween date, or were outside forces to blame?I'm glad he's honest about how the game wasn't technically sound, upon its release. Some designers just seem to think they can't do no wrong...
BR: Honestly, we tried to do too much with the game. We created our own engine, tools, and online destination from scratch in just a few years. We are really proud of the work we did, however we were perhaps a bit too ambitious.
If we could have waited another three months to ship, we would have, but the challenges of an independent game studio are much, much different than what we had during our days at Blizzard or the guys at Arena.net face (since we often see comparisons with them and Guild Wars) as they were owned by NCsoft before they had to ship. We don't shy away from the fact that Hellgate: London was far from perfect when we launched, but we've also stayed dedicated to the game and our players and have been exerting every effort to make amends and get the game to what we envisioned. We're thankful to our fans that have stuck with us, and encourage people who maybe tried the game when it launched or never checked it out because of early concerns to give us another look with The Stonehenge Chronicles.
GS: Is the game viewed internally as an MMO, or more of a single-player game with online elements?Okay.
BR: Internally we treat the game as an MMO because we're constantly working on improving it and creating new content. The challenge with launching Hellgate: London was that it was both a single-player stand-alone game and an online game. This meant our focus was divided at times, but now that the game is out, we're all about working with the online community to get them the features that they want and making the play experience better and better.
GS: MMOs launching while still riddled with bugs seems to be a recurrent theme in the industry. Do you ever see this changing? Will there ever come a time when an MMO will launch without an oppressive amount of technical issues?
BR: The truly massive amount of design, art, code, balance, and testing required to put out an MMO is far beyond any other type of game. This means that it is practically impossible to catch everything before you launch unless you were willing (or more realistically, able) to have the game in advanced test for six to nine months. And by advanced testing, I mean the game being in a state where the developers think they are close to release quality. Unfortunately, even the best and biggest MMOs launch with serious issues. Being able to basically sit and iterate on a game for over half a year isn't something you can really sell to a publisher, or fans, to be honest. As gamers, we all want great games, but we also want them right now, so it is a difficult line to walk.
Fortunately most players forget about those starting problems after they have been addressed--as long as the core game is fun and the developers have proven that they are willing and able to work on the game experience. We've seen that if a developer shows their commitment to the game experience and their players, the gamers understand the complexities involved in launching an MMO.
The hard part for any MMO launching now is that they are inevitably compared to games that have been on the market for years. People forget that the current reigning champs on the field didn't launch with all of the features and options and polish they have now. All any of us �new kids on the block� can do is to stay dedicated to improving the game, keep talking with our community, and get the word out that the game today is vastly improved over when it launched. That is the upside of creating an MMO. You can keep working to make it the experience that your players want.
GS: It's common rhetoric from MMO developers after the first few months that the game has been out that significant improvements have been made, and people should come back and try the game again. What were some of the most griped about early problems that you all feel you have a handle on now?Cool.
BR: The team has worked incredibly hard to smash the biggest, nastiest bugs that we shipped with. A high-level list (and this is FAR from complete in terms of everything done) of what has been addressed includes:
Client-side crashes due to memory issues
Invisible party members
Improved chat, grouping and general UI
World movement and getting stuck in certain geometry
Quest blockers
Tons of skill fixes, tweaks and balance changes
We've also added a lot of persistent game play features. The top ones on this list being:
Achievements: These are long-term goals that players can work toward which provide completion points. These points will be able to be spent on special perks and bonuses.
The Transmogrifier: An item that allows players to discover recipes which allows the alteration and creation of items. It also doubles as extra inventory space!
And with the Stonehenge Chronicles, here are two examples of what we are adding:
Essence Caves: These adventuring areas off of Stonehenge introduce non-linear game play by offering repeatable quests that can be done across multiple character levels. Unlocking and completing these caves leads to the final confrontation against Moloch the Pit baron who has rich and extremely rare rewards. The best part is, this sequence can be done multiple times and the encounters scale with the level of your character or party.
The Wild: This area attached to Stonehenge Introduces our first party-specific zone, allowing players to go on mini-raids. The difficulty of these areas are balanced for groups only, so players will have a real reason to group up with their friends or guild members to claim new, powerful rewards.
GS: It's often the case that several months after launch, some combat classes simply aren't panning out as expected. Have you all identified any classes that are in store for an overhaul?I'm definitely looking forward to Hellgate moving outside of London and to other locations throughout not just Britain, but also in the entire world.
BR: We are constantly looking at all of our classes and making adjustments, both small and large. The Stonehenge Chronicles sees our first big sweep on the Evoker class, as well as some tweaks on the Guardian auras. We're continuing to give all of the classes in-depth evaluation and will be making everything from tweaks to whole-sale changes as required. We're also very close to starting up a �Team Advocate� program where specific members of our community will be organizing feedback in several areas from our player base and then speak directly with the design team to see these issues addressed. We have a lot of very passionate players in our community, and we think this will be an invaluable way to best get their feedback and improve the game.
GS: With the most recent update, Hellgate will be further expanding its boundaries outside of downtown London. How far do you see this geographical expansion going? Will the game eventually evolve into Hellgate: Britain? Hellgate: Europe?
BR: We've always planned to move the game play into areas outside of London, as well as using some places within the city that we haven't yet explored. We have a lot of ideas on where we think good story and game hooks exist, as well as places that we think would just be cool from a visual and game play standpoint. Other areas within the UK are definitely on the drawing board, including some ideas outside of Britain.
GS: Do you see future expansions delving more into the geographical regions of Earth or the bowels of Hell?
BR: Yes! We have ideas both for areas around the world as well as digging deeper into the realms of the underworld. One of the great things about the universe we've created with Hellgate: London is that we have a massive amount of areas to explore and expand into.
GS: As with Diablo, one of the primary draws of Hellgate is the addictive item collection. Are future item updates simply going to focus on the bigger/stronger aspect of new gear? How do you all plan on keeping players interested in the items?I must admit, the amount of items you can find and do all kinds of stuff w/ in HG: London is crazy. It's one of the main reasons I just couldn't put this game down -- kind of like what I felt about TQ and D2.
BR: Players always want bigger, better, and rarer versions of what they know, so we'll do that. We also have some ideas for all-new item types that we'll be rolling out in the months ahead. It is really a combination of refining the items in the game, creating improved and rarer versions of the existing items, and introducing new concepts. The exciting thing for us is that we really didn't have much a chance to add new item types in the Diablo days, so we can really see how the game will expand in terms of item choice and combinations in Hellgate: London.
GS: One of Hellgate's primary claims to fame is its hybridization of first-person shooter and RPG gameplay. Does the game's current gameplay fit the original concept, or what kind of compromises had to be made to reach the current balance?
BR: We always wanted the game to be an Action-RPG first and foremost. The FPS elements that we added were designed to contribute to that style of gameplay and that goal has been reached fairly well. At the same time, we wanted the game to be very approachable by a large group of people. Many of the current FPS games are difficult for more casual gamers. We were able to maintain the feel of an FPS while still keeping the game RPG focused.
That being said, we have been talking about ways to make our guns and gameplay feel better to FPS players through different sound and animations, as well as looking at some different skills.
GS: Were the hybridization elements a direct effort to break the mold of traditional MMO gameplay? Do you feel there are any specific aspects of the game that break new ground that other MMOs creators will attempt to replicate?
BR: We set out to make a game that would be different and fun. Perhaps we tried to do too much, but in doing so, we came up with some very fun ideas and concepts that are outside the MMO norm. We built a game that is much more centered on action and fighting larger groups of monsters rather than pulling a single creature and fighting it with modal attacks. We elected to make the entire adventuring instance-based to allow players to have the exact experience they wanted, and being able to be more selective with who they play. We chose a setting that was outside the �classic fantasy� that 99 percent of MMOs use, and created a world that blended reality, sci-fi, and fantasy. We also tried to create a hybrid business model where players could buy the game, play it as a stand-alone game, go online and play the game for free, and then subscribe for additional content.
Will any of our ideas be used by other developers in the future? Who knows--but it would be a great compliment if someone did since, as developers, we tend to be the harshest critics of all.
GS: What is the climate like in the MMO industry? What is considered a success in the wake of WOW?
BR: WOW is an aberration in the industry, and you can't base your success on how it compares. To be honest, this has almost always been the case with Blizzard games. We constantly exceeded our own goals and dreams when we were there, and we recognized that we had reached a rarified status. The MMO space is incredibly crowded right now, and to a good extent, that makes sense. It also means that there are a lot of us competing for the mindshare of gamers. If you can get your game launched--a rarity in and of itself--and then get enough players to keep the doors open while you continue to build on the core experience, that is successful. If you look at a game like Eve Online, for example, they started with a very small number of players, but had enough to sustain themselves while they grew the game. Today, they have a healthy and dedicated player base that makes them a success story.
GS: What do you think MMO developers need to do to break down WOW's stranglehold on the industry?
BR: I don't know if anyone can consciously do this. Blizzard didn't set out to monopolize the space with WOW. It became a cultural phenomenon through years of hard work, good timing on the release, having a quality game, and luck. All a developer can do is make the best game they can, stay connected to their community, and iterate on the game to make it what their players want. The publishers have to be willing to put a lot of time and resources into the game--including being willing to let it sit in test for far longer than any other sort of game there is. And even then, there is no guarantee that the game will do well. MMOs are the biggest crap shoot developers and publishers can make, but the potential for rewards has a lot of people rolling the dice all the time.
GS: Is WOW even a competitor? Is Flagship's focus more on bringing in new audiences rather than pulling gamers away from WOW or other MMOs?
BR: We never focused on trying to take WOW players, or to specifically steal players from any game. There is a lot of talk in our industry about stealing players from other games because we all know that there is a limited pool of people that will play an MMO, and that MMO players tend to stick to one or maybe two online games. Our goal was to reach out to the gamers that we felt were under-represented in the MMO space--the action-RPG fans. We also hoped to draw in some traditional MMO players, and maybe even some FPS players that wanted a way into the MMO space that felt more familiar to them. The best thing you can do is try to expand the global player-base for MMOs. It's something that WOW accomplished, and as we've always believed, any game that brings in more gamers overall is a great thing.
GS: What kind of response have you all gotten from the optional pay-to-play business model? Is the paying option proving to be popular or meeting expectations?
BR: In hindsight, perhaps we should have only talked about how Hellgate: London had free online play and not talked about the subscription service until we were announcing the Stonehenge Chronicles. A lot of the misconceptions and uncertainty over what players got for subscribing would have been avoided, and the whole model might have made more sense to people. By trying to offer a delineation of services on day one, a lot of people just got confused or upset because they saw the players in the other side of the fence as having some sort of advantage. We don't see this between MMO players that do and don't buy an expansion set, for example, so somehow we had bad messaging or timing on what we were offering. We really hope that players who experience The Stonehenge Chronicles will understand what we've been trying to do with this since the beginning.
GS: What regions is the game available in? How has adoption of the game in those regions compared to the North American market?
BR: The game is available all across the US and Europe, as well as in Singapore for Southeast Asia. The game has done well in all areas, although PC in general was down this past year. We're working very hard to get the word out about what we've done to improve the game and online play experience in all these regions.
We just started our open beta in Korea, and it is going incredibly well. The numbers we are seeing are tracking very well compared to the top MMOs there, and we are feeling very good about meeting our goals there. The players in Korea are definitely seeing the benefits of all our work on their day one, so we hope that players here are going to give us another look, as well.
Multiplayer: The Stonehenge Chronicles - JANUARY 21, 2008
North America and Europe Only
The Stonehenge Chronicles
Update Notes
Happy New Year!
2008 is upon us, and we’re thrilled to be kicking it off with our first major update – the Stonehenge Chronicles. We’ve got a lot in store for all of our players, so let’s get to it!
In this update, you’ll see the first of the big balance sweeps we’re doing on all of the character classes. Both the Guardian and the Evoker got a lot of attention this time around, and we hope that players of those classes will dig into how the classes play now. We’re making it simple for these players to get a handle on the new balances by allowing them to completely respec their characters.
PvP is starting to get more attention with the introduction of the Dueling Arena. This both makes dueling easier to accomplish and also gives us a better and more accurate way to track play habits and stats – a key to really increasing this section of the game.
There’s also a whole slew of other overall improvements, tweaks, and additions, so take a couple of minutes to go through the release notes and see what’s new.
For our Subscription Members, we’re opening the portal to Stonehenge! This is a completely new area that not only has new items and monsters, but also completely new ways to experience the game.
The Essence Caves are the first of our non-linear style of play. You can repeat this long quest chain multiple times throughout the career of your character as it scales with your character (or party) level. The rewards are rich and many of them are unique to the Stonehenge area.
The Wild is also a new type of game play since it is focused exclusively on group play. You need big groups to have success out there – and the deeper you get, the harder it gets. It’s time to get your friends together!
We’ve got lots more in store, and we’re working on every aspect of the game. Thank you all for your support over the past couple of months. We’re listening and doing all we can to make Hellgate: London what we all want.
See you online!
General
Based on the number and depth of balance changes to skills in this update, certain characters will be provided a “respec token” that allows them to reassign their skill points. This token is automatically placed in the character’s inventory and can be used at any time.
All Evokers and Guardians will receive respec tokens, as will all characters in Subscription Member accounts.
PvP
A Dueling Arena has been built for those who wish to test their mettle against each other. When challenging another character to a duel, the invitation dialogue indicates that the duel will take place in the Arena. When the duel is accepted, both characters are instantly transported there.
When both characters have loaded into the Arena, a countdown begins. During the countdown, characters can move, but they cannot use skills, activate items, cast spells, or attack their opponent. After a duel has been won, the defeated character is reset, as is their opponent and a new countdown clock begins. Players can leave the Dueling Arena by activating their Recall device.
Players can still duel in other areas by joining the same party and activating their /pvp flag as before.
Group Play
* Increased experience and treasure bonus for groups. Characters now receive more experience and treasure on a greatly accelerated scale based on number of players in a group.
* Fixed a bug where grouped players that were separated from the rest of their party were receiving extra experience for all of the other group members.
Graphics
* Templar melee animations have been tweaked for smoother combat flow.
Memory Manager
* Party members will now show up in higher resolutions. Players will not see the change until they move to a different zone and users must have Textures at least set to High.
User Interface
* The Mini Map is now set to the top right of the screen with character state icons appearing below.
* The Chat Window is now scalable. To adjust the size of the chat window, hold down the ALT key. There is a small tab in the upper right hand corner of the chat interface that can be used to resize the window.
* The LFG interface has received new functionality. To activate the LFG Interface, simply press the ‘P’ key.
o The screen has been re-arranged to allow for more information and additional features.
o Party Leaders can advertise existing groups to add new members.
o Individuals can advertise themselves as being available for a group. To instead create an entirely new group, select the CREATE PARTY option. Otherwise, the character is listed as an individual looking for a group to join.
o New search filters have been added to better find the right group dynamic.
o Players can now Invite, Join and Whisper to individuals or groups listed in the LFG interface.
Skills
There are a wide variety of balance tweaks across the Templar and Cabalist factions.
Cabalist:
* Brom's Curse
o This spell now heals a fixed amount based on the attacker's level instead of being based on a percentage of the attacker's health.
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Brom's Curse affects up to 4 targets for 5 seconds at rank 1. The maximum number of targets is increased by 1, the duration increased by 1 second, and the amount healed is increased by 12.5% per rank.
o This spell may now be cast while moving.
o The range of Brom's Curse has been increased to 20 meters.
* Afterlife
o The power cost of this spell has been reduced.
* Elemental Drain
o The power cost of this spell has been greatly reduced.
o The casting time has been reduced by 1 second.
* Word of Fear
o The Fear Attack Strength of this spell now properly scales with the caster's level.
o The base Fear Attack Strength of this spell has been increased by 25%.
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Word of Fear now gains 33% more Fear Attack Strength per rank.
Evoker
Skill Rank bonus descriptions have been updated and normalized to be based on their initial rank 1 effect. For example, Spectral Bolt now displays no Phase Attack Strength bonus at rank 1, but displays a more clear bonus of 25% Phase Attack Strength per additional rank.
* Spectral Curse
o Spectral Curse now also reduces targets' movement speed by 10%.
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Spectral Curse now affects up to 4 targets for a 5 seconds at rank 1. The maximum number of targets is increased by 1, the duration increased by 1 second, and movement speed penalty increased by 5% per rank.
o This spell may now be cast while moving.
o The power cost of has been reduced substantially, and the range has been increased to 20 meters.
o The explosion damage caused by Spectral Curse has been increased.
* Drain Power
o The damage of this spell has been increased significantly.
* Drain Life
o The damage of this spell has been doubled.
* Arcane Shield
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted, providing slightly less shields at lower ranks.
o Arcane Shield is unaffected by the Evoker's movement.
o This spell now lasts for 10 seconds with a 25 second recast time.
* Concentrate Damage
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Concentrate Damage now provides a lower initial damage bonus, but grants a greater bonus per rank. Concentrate Damage's new damage bonus progression surpasses its previous curve damage bonus progression at rank 4.
* Summon Ember
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Additional ranks of this skill now provide 15% more damage instead of 20%, but the base damage of the Ember pet is significantly higher across all ranks.
o The Ember's Health, Damage, Ignite Attack Strength, Critical Chance, Interrupt Strength, Interrupt Defense, and Armor have been increased.
* Firestorm
o The rank progression of this spell has been re-designed. Additional ranks of Firestorm now provide a 5% increase in damage rather than an increase in Ignite Attack Strength. Firestorm surpasses its previous damage at rank 3.
o The Ignite Attack Strength of this spell has been reduced.
o The range of this spell has been increased to 10 meters.
* Flameshards
o The Flameshards spell has been re-worked. The number of shards fired is now fixed at 7, but multiple shards stack with each other. Individual shard damage has been decreased slightly to take damage stacking into account.
o Increased ranks in Flameshards now increases each shard's Ignite Attack Strength by 25%.
o The spells now has a cool-down time of 2 seconds.
o This spell's power cost has been decreased.
o The base Ignite Attack Strength of this spell has been increased by 25%.
o The range of this spell has been increased to 25 meters.
o The explosion delay of Flameshards has been decreased to 1 second.
* Hellfire
o This spell's casting time and initial power cost have been reduced significantly. Additional ranks now provide a slightly smaller decrease in power cost.
o This spell now has a cool-down time of 2 seconds.
o The damage and Ignite Attack Strength of this spell have been increased substantially.
o The range of Hellfire has been decreased to 25 meters.
o The targeting of this spell has been fixed.
* Spectral Bolt
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Spectral Bolt now provides an additional 25% Phase Attack Strength per rank. The initial Phase Attack Strength of Spectral Bolt has been slightly increased.
o The power cost of this spell has been decreased, and the Phase duration has been increased by 1 second.
o The cooldown of Spectral Bolt has been decreased to 1 second.
o The base Phase Attack Strength of this spell has been increased by 25%.
* Spectral Lash
o The damage of this spell has been increased by 35%.
* Spectral Lash Mastery
o The damage of the explosion caused by this spell has been doubled.
o The rank bonus of this spell is now applied to the explosion effect properly.
* Lightning Field
o The damage of the Lightning Field has been increased substantially.
o The power cost of this skill has been decreased.
o This spell now has a cool-down time of 2 seconds.
o The rank bonus tooltip now properly displays a 15% instead increase in radius.
o The splash damage of the initial effect has been increased by an additional 17%.
* Tempest
o The casting time, power cost, and cool-down of Tempest have been decreased.
o The base damage of Tempest has been decreased.
o The strike frequency bonus per rank of Tempest has been decreased to 10% per rank.
o Each Tempest cloud now lasts for 15 seconds and has a range of 15 meters.
o The rank bonus of this spell now properly increases the frequency of lightning strikes.
* Arc Legion
o The rank progression bonus of this spell has been changed. Additional ranks now increase the Shock Attack Strength and Shock Effect Damage of Arc Legion by 25%.
o The range of this spell has been fixed at 18 meters.
o The damage of this spell has been increased.
* Demonspine
o The rank bonus of this spell has been slightly adjusted to a 25% increase in Stun Attack Strength per rank.
o The power cost of this spell has been decreased.
o The damage of this skill has been increased.
o The base Stun Attack Strength of Demonspine has been increased by 20%.
* Boneshards
o The rank bonus of this spell has been slightly adjusted to a 50% increase in Stun Attack Strength per rank.
o The damage of this spell has been increased by 60%.
o The cooldown of this skill has been decreased to 6 seconds.
o The base Stun Attack Strength of Boneshards has been increased by 25%.
o The power cost of this skill has been increased.
* Skullsplitter
o The rank progression of this spell has been adjusted. Skullsplitter now begins with 12 fragments and gains 2 additional fragments per rank.
o Skullsplitter now explodes into a significantly more predictable nova pattern.
o The power cost and cool-down of this spell have been slightly decreased.
* Venomous Spirit
o The damage of this spell has been increased and the power cost has been decreased.
o The Fear Attack Strength of this spell now scales properly with the caster's level and has been increased significantly. Additional ranks of Venomous Spirit no longer provide an increase in Fear Duration.
o The travel speed of the Venomous Spirit has been increased significantly.
* Venom Armor
o Several bugs with which allowed the swarms created by Venom Armor to bypass its intended cool-down time have been fixed.
o The damage of each swarm created by this spell has been increased, and each swarm now lasts for a fixed amount of time on their target.
o The initial armor provided by this spell has been decreased, but the absolute bonus to armor per rank has been increased, reaching the previous maximum armor bonus at rank 10.
* Swarm
o The rank progression of this spell has changed. Additional ranks in Swarm now increase the Poison Attack Strength and Poison Duration of Swarm by 20%.
o The cool-down of this spell is now fixed at 6 seconds.
o The power cost of this spell has been decreased significantly.
Templar:
Aura of Power, Aura of Renewal, Aura of Defense, and Aura of Salvation have been rebalanced. Additionally, their skill rank progressions have been normalized to provide a 33% increase in effectiveness per skill level. Blademasters and Guardians will now see more return on investment in these auras.
* Aura of Power
o The power regeneration granted by Aura of Power has been decreased. At rank 10, Aura of Power grants 94% of the power it gave previously.
Blademaster
* Call of the Chosen
o The Taunt and Fear Attack Strengths of this skill now properly scale with the Blademaster's level.
Guardian
* Aura of Renewal
o The initial health regeneration granted by Aura of Renewal has been slightly decreased. By rank 10, this aura provides significantly more health regeneration than it did previously.
* Aura of Defense
o The armor bonus granted by Aura of Defense has been decreased.
* Aura of Salvation
o The initial elemental attack defense granted by Aura of Salvation has been slightly decreased. By rank 10, this aura provides significantly more elemental attack defense than it did previously.
* Grand Aura
o This skill now provides an equal percentage increase to the Guardian's Holy Aura radius at each rank, ending with the same total increase at rank 5 as it did previously.
* Challenge
o The Taunt Attack Strength of this skill now properly scales with the Guardian's level.
* Denounce
o The Taunt Attack Strength of this skill now properly scales with the Guardian's level.
Quests
* Certain quests that could not be completed after defeating Sydonai because Emmera was no longer accessible can now be turned in to a new NPC named Sammy.
Items
* Unique items that were found before Patch 0.5 that are missing special attributes may now be rerolled for free. The process is as follows:
o All mods must first be removed using a Delux De-Modificator. This is available once at no cost for qualifying items.
o Once all the mods are removed, insert the item into an Augmentrex 3000. Now click any of the three "Add Property" buttons to reroll the item attributes.
o All item attributes will be rerolled and the item balance will be up-to-date. If the item level was previously upgraded with the Nano Forge, the additional item levels will be added to the newly generated base level after the item reroll. This means that the new item level may not be the same.
* The Stun Defense granted by the Gyro Stabilizer has been increased.
* Health and Power injectors now show up in high level stations.
* Fire Extinguishers now give the appropriate Ignite Defense.
Monsters
* Monsters with the Infested ability have had their damage reduced.
Crafting
* The limit on number of times an item can be upgraded has been raised to 10.
* Upgrading an item takes 50% less resources.
* A new, rare salvaged material crafting material called Nanoshards are now required to upgrade items.
o Nanoshards can be obtained from any item, but the chance to salvage one is increased when disassembling rarer items.
o The number of Nanoshards required to upgrade an item increases each time the same item is upgraded.
Fixes
* The mini-game now has a timer. This is partly a fix for characters at level 50 who have finished all the quests and get the quest icon and therefore cannot finish it.
* Fixed a bug where characters would not save when they killed 65,534 monsters in one session.
* Grappler no longer changes a character’s position in PvP.
* Fixed a rare bug where equipping the Cleanser and a shield can delete the shield.
* Fixed a rare bug where Templar could equip both the Cleanser and a shield.
Special Subscriber Features
Stonehenge is a new, non-linear adventuring area that can be accessed through a special portal in Templar Base. The quests and areas around Stonehenge scale in difficulty to challenge characters of any level. This is to allow players to return to this section of the world numerous times and complete the longer associated quests, missions, and raid areas.
Stonehenge itself is a new hub that holds a larger number of players than most Underground Stations. There are new NPCs, new quests, and most importantly, new adventuring areas that are unlike anything within the confines of London.
Quests
A new series of non-linear quests introduce the area surrounding the great druidic monument of Stonehenge.
The Caste Caves
These mystic caves can be found in the wilderness areas outside of Stonehenge. Each caste of demon - Beast, Necro, Spectral, and Primus – has a powerful overlord that resides in these caves. The caves themselves are sealed by the essential aspect of their master’s caste. These caves cannot be entered until the essence of five (5) Champions of the matching demonic caste has been collected. Essence can be collected from any Champion, so adventuring above and below the streets of London may gain you the keys to unlocking these special areas.
Once a character has gathered the required essence of a single Caste, they can either solo or lead a party into the caves and battle against the resident overlord. Not only are there great and special riches to be won, but the head of the caste overlord is also claimed. Once a character has collected the heads of the Beast, Necro, Spectral, and Primus overlords, the adventure continues.
Moloch’s Lair
A great and powerful Demon known as Moloch resides in the rough countryside surrounding Stonehenge, and only the worthy may enter his domain. Characters that have collected the heads of the Beast, Necro, Spectral, and Primus overlords can then make their way deep into the realms of Moloch, the Pit Baron.
Moloch has very unique items that can only be won by defeating him in combat, so the journey to his defeat can be well worth the effort. His soul is eternal, however, so the process of opening his sanctum and destroying his corporeal form is a never-ending challenge.
The Wild
The other main area that lies outside of Stonehenge is known only as The Wild. The challenges here are far greater than anywhere else in or around London, requiring raiding parties to properly navigate them.
The Wild is divided into three increasingly difficult sections that are balanced for parties of six, seven, and eight. This is regardless of the number of characters that enter The Wild, so while you could try to make your way slowly with a smaller group, the going will not be easy.
Items
There are new weapons and armor that can only be found in the areas surrounding Stonehenge. These new items have very different appearances from those found within London, so keep a sharp lookout for them.
* 13 new base weapon types divided amongst the Templar, Cabalist, and Hunters.
* Each faction also has two all-new Helmet types.
Environments
Apart from the settlement that has secreted itself at the Stonehenge triliths, there are numerous new areas to explore. Chief amongst these are the various Caste Caves and grand expanses and dark forests of The Wild. There are also new undergrounds and interiors to explore scattered throughout the countryside.
Monsters
The areas around Stonehenge also have spawned new Demons. The Winged Imps rain death down from the skies and swoop in to sever heads of those foolish enough to seek them out. Burning Fiends move amongst the underbrush and between the windswept trees. Moloch, the Pit Baron, also makes his fiery presence felt for the first time.
Patch Notes Disclaimer: While we make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, please be aware that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.
Multiplayer: Patch 1.1 - JANUARY 31, 2008
North America and Europe Only
Patch 1.1 Notes
January 31, 2008
Stonehenge has launched and we’ve been busy cleaning up a handful of issues, as well as listening to the feedback from our players on the Stonehenge Chronicles.
Thanks to everyone who has posted issues and suggestions. And in fact, you’ll notice that a lot of the fixes and features in this patch are linked to posts in our forums. When we’ve addressed something you’ve brought up, we want to acknowledge your contribution to the betterment of the game!
See you online!
The Hellgate: London Team
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Genera
* All Guardians, Evokers, and characters on Subscription accounts will have one Skill Retrainer when logging in after this patch goes live.
* The timer and quest requirement have been removed from the mini-game.
* Fixed a bug where chat entry became visible in the Character Select screen after logging in and then logging out of the game.
* Fixed a crash bug associated with exiting out of the Character Creation menu.
* Players that had beaten Normal mode with a character but then were unable to access Elite mode (and Hardcore mode for subscribers) with a new character should now have access to that game mode by logging in once with the character that completed Normal Mode.
* Fixed a bug which caused audio and sound effects to sometimes stop playing.
* Party and PRD Portals created by a character in a group will now properly close when that character leaves the group.
Monsters
* The Beast of Abbadon, Oculis, and Sydonai will now re-spawn normally, even if the player has previously completed their associated quests.
* Fixed a bug which would sometimes prevent Oculis or the Furuncle from spawning properly.
* The loot algorithm for Ash (Beast Caste General) has been adjusted to drop better items.
* Errgoth (Demon Caste General) now does less damage.
* Stalkers and Burning Fiends are now part of the Beast caste and Tortured Souls are now part of the Spectral caste (to balance a disparity of Essence drop rates between castes). This applies to all types of Stalkers, Burning Fiends, and Tortured Souls.
User Interface
* Offline friends are now properly displayed in the Friends List.
* The “Player Requests” confirmation buttons have been reordered to [accept] [decline] [ignore].
* Skill Retrainers now have a confirmation dialogue to help players from accidentally using them.
Items
* Armors with the “minion damage bonus” affix now work for the Engineer.
* Restorative injectors are usable when either health or power is below the player’s maximum since they can help recover both health and power for the user.
* Increased the amount of Shields found on items and affixes, ramping up after level 10. Note that this change is not retroactive and will not apply to existing items; however, newly dropped items and existing items upgraded through the Nanoforge will receive the adjusted amount of shields.
* Guild Heralds can now be sold back to merchants for full price.
Skills
* Increasing ranks of Drain Power now work properly at all power ranges.
* Increased the amount of Shields granted by skills that provide Shields.
* Engineer Drones now come with a base armor rating.
Stonehenge Bug Fixes
* Players may now Recall or Party Portal out of the Hell’s Heart level.
* Party Portal limitations have been removed from the Stonehenge levels.
* Stonehenge now appears as a destination on the Station Transit Terminal.
* Stonehenge weapons can now have Mod slots.
* The stash in Stonehenge now properly detects collision.
* Fixed a blocking bug in the Essence Caves which prevented a portal into that specific Caste General’s Lair from opening.
* Essence drop chance increased from 15% to 20%.
* Fixed rare cases where Essence Caves were not connected to the next level.
* Fixed bad pathing around the Stonehenge wilderness huts.
* Fixed a bug causing additional Skill Retrainers to spawn when they shouldn’t have. Duplicate Skill Retrainers should now be removed.
Patch Notes Disclaimer: While we make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, please be aware that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.
Yea the game went from record sales in its first week to absolute tank fest.
Seeing as how you are the only one here who has finished the game, I doubt you'd get any meaningful responses. That will eventually change when I get around to the game.
The Lowdown on Patch 2.0 and 2.1
Discover that which awaits you in the Abyss, brave Hellgaters! The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) is rapidly taking shape and form and we’re ready to share some of its most exciting offerings with you. As Hellgate: London’s second major content update, the Abyss Chronicles boasts an impressive and lengthy list of new features including a major class rebalance, new environments, new enemies, new skills, new bosses, and new inventory slots . Then there’s the Consignment House, Attribute Respec Vendor, item linking, achievement rewards, and lots more. Suffice to say, the Abyss Chronicle is big. Very big.
Plans are already underway for the patches beyond the Abyss Chronicles. A small content summary for Patch 2.1 has been included as well. This update will open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London in the form of ranked player versus player (PvP) gameplay. Originally slated for release with the Abyss Chronicles, the decision to release new PvP content as part of a supplemental patch was brought about by a desire to introduce five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture The Flag. Together, these features will provide a robust PvP experience within the Hellgate: London universe.
---
The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) Content Summary
* New Abyss Quest Line with Five New Boss Fights:
o Travel to the all new Parliament Square and help Titus of the Cabal fend off the rapid spread of the Abyss, a new Demonic underground that grows in size as Demonkind consumes more of our world. The only way to halt the Abyss is to seek out and destroy those who control it. Lure the five Abyss Lords from their cursed realm by collapsing their Hellrifts (a new Rift for each of the boss types), then confront the masters as they emerge to investigate the problem. Five repeatable boss runs with five new bosses! Features three new environments and some reworked environments.
* New Shared Stash System:
o The Shared Stash will now feature separate panes for each gameplay mode: Normal, Elite, Hardcore, and Hardcore Elite. Items currently in your Shared Stash will be placed in the correct pane.
* Major Rebalance of the Blademaster Class:
o The Blademaster class has been significantly rebalanced with changes to almost every skill. Overall, they should d
o more damage and have many more options than before. Some of the highlights include Strength now stacking on top of the skill percent bonuses – a huge boost – and Blademasters can now gain a Surge with any melee attack or with any melee skill (rather than just when killing something with a Surge skill).
* Improved, Configurable Guild Controls:
o Guilds will now have four titles they can assign to members. The titles can be renamed. There can only be one Guild Leader. Non-subscribers can only have the lowest title. The Guild Leader can configure what the middle tw
o titles are allowed to d
o including invite new members, promote and demote existing members, kick members, and send all-guild e-mail. The lowest title is not allowed to invite, promote, demote, kick, or send guild e-mails.
* Consignment House:
o Players can place items into the Consignment House to offer them for sale at a set price. All players in the same gameplay mode can see and purchase that item. The Consignment House currently only offers a “buy out” price, there is no bidding.
* Three New Skills for all Classes:
o Skill Scrolls are new items which unlock the new skills and allow skill points to be put into them. For example, the Spider Mine Schematic unlocks the Spider Mine skill for Engineers. The Skill Scrolls will be tradeable and can be used by all players; however, they drop off of boss monsters in the subscriber-only Abyss levels. Only a few of the skills will be enabled in the first Patch 2 build that goes to Test Center. Here are a couple sample skills to whet your appetite:
1. The Summoner will get a melee demon transformation with zombie minions.
2. The Blademaster will get skills that use up Surges to do things like perform a group heal.
3. The Engineer will get Spider Mines.
* Trinket Inventory Slots:
o There will be two new Trinket inventory slots. The first trinkets will drop as cursed rings which can be cleaned up through the Transmogrifier. These cursed rings will mostly drop in the Abyss levels, but they can be found elsewhere too. These items are tradeable and can be used by all players.
* Attribute Respec Vendor:
o Bob, the Attribute Respec Vendor, will allow you to spend palladium to remove points one at a time from an Attribute and add them to your unassigned Attribute Points pool. The cost to remove each point goes up with character level.
* Stack Splitting:
o You will be able to right-click on a stack of items and select to split it into smaller stacks using a new radial menu option. A dialog will pop up and let you type in how many items to place in the new stack.
* Gameplay Changes:
o Character defenses against Secondary Damage Effects have been increased.
o Shield Overload has been removed from sword weapons.
o Strength has a much more significant impact on melee skill damage.
* Item Linking:
o Players will be able to enter a clickable “link” to an item’s details into the chat pane by right-clicking on the item and selecting the Link Item option on the radial menu.
* Achievement Rewards
* New Armor and Weapons for all Factions
* New Monster Types
* New Chat Color Scheme
* Many bug fixes and performance tweaks.
* A few more features yet to be announced.
Patch 2.1 Content Summary
* PvP Ranking
* PvP Matchmaking for Teams and Individuals
* PvP Points and Rewards
* PvP Achievements
* Capture the Flag PvP Game
* Improved predictability and balance for the attribute feed system.
We are hoping to get a Patch 2.0 build into Test Center next week, but we will see what happens.
Flagship Shake-up - Hellgate Takeover Attempt? [July 11, 2008, 4:45 pm ET] - Viewing Comments
First the confirmed story: Layoffs Confirmed At Hellgate Developer Flagship on Gamasutra has word that a Flagship rep has confirmed that "staff at both the Flagship development team as well as online services subsidiary Ping0 were let go." They also report contact from "source close to Flagship" that the company has been "going through internal turbulence."
Now for the part that's less clear, in what may or may not be related news: Hellgate Guru has a report based on a translation of a Korean news story saying that Korean operator of Hellgate: London, HanbitSoft, claims co-ownership of the Intellectual Properly for the game, and is looking to take full control of the IP to "properly manage and develop Hellgate: London into a good game with proper content." Their report quotes HanbitSoft's statement on their reasoning: "It is hard for us to accept Flagship Studios’ requests for continued support in capital and funding any longer and because Flagship was being difficult." They also have a response to the story from Flagship Studios calling the story an "outright lie," except they don't appear to be refuting the accuracy of the Korean news story, but rather HanbitSoft's rights to take over the IP, seemingly indicating that such an attempt may actually be underway. According to Flagship:
This story is an outright lie. We have no idea where they are getting their information from and have asked legal counsel to pursue the issue. We are mystified by Hanbitsoft’s conclusions and any attempt to take over the IP will be met with a strong and swift response, to “illegally take over the IP”. All right title and interest in Hellgate; London resides in Flagship Financing, LLC a wholly-owned subsidiary of Flagship Studios. We are outraged that Hanbitsoft would attempt to completely tarnish the reputation of its most vital developer. Hanbitsoft’s new management clearly does not understand the terms of its relationship with Flagship.
UPDATE #3: Someone claiming to be a lawyer representing HanbitSoft has requested for us to remove the story. We are ready to comply, but only if other websites and news sites reporting the story agree to do so as well:
We are U.S. attorneys for HanbitSoft. Your story is a repeat of a quote that is not accurate and we request that you pull it down. At the request of Flagship’s attorney, we must correct the record:
Please understand that the facts are (1) HanbitSoft is an exclusive licensee of both Hellgate and Mythos in Asia, with rights to sublicense the games; (2) in addition, HanbitSoft is a secured creditor who has been pledged the Mythos (but not the Hellgate) intellectual property as collateral for a loan; (3) Comerica, another secured lender, has been pledged the Hellgate intellectual property as its collateral for a loan; (4) Flagship Studios does not currently own the intellectual properties to either game, which are held in separate companies subject to the security interests of lenders, and Flagship Studios’ interest in those companies is also pledged to its lenders; (5) it is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos.
IGN’s VE3D is also reporting the news. (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39851/Hellgate-Developers-Made-Redundant-Korean-Distributor-Takes-Control)
What a clusterfuck. This game was doomed to fail from the moment it released.
Update #2: Subscription options have been removed from account areas, as has the ability to unsubscribe. On the forums, the lock-happy mods have yet to touch a fifty-seven page complaints thread (http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?t=106599) that has spiralled out of control since the news regarding redundancies was released.
Balbi went on to reveal that three of the studio's top brass dug into their own pockets to provide 30 days of pay to all employees.
Update: A Goon by the name of GLC, who claims to be a former Ping0 employee (thanks Hellgate Guru), said the following on the SA Forums (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2900440&pagenumber=2#post346121956):
Former Ping0 employee checking in here. I feel bad for some of the talented guys on the staff who busted rear end to try and get a game out on a ridiculous schedule, but I think we all kind of saw this coming after the game came out and basically bombed. Flagship bit off way more than they could chew and made a lot of development and structural mistakes in how they went about things. They had a lot of big dreamers on staff, but not enough nitty-gritty people who knew how to get poo poo done. It sucks, but that's life I guess. I didn't always agree with the decisions of the leadership, but it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that three of them (probably Roper and the Schaeffers) dug into their own pockets to pay people. Nothing about them, Max Schaeffer in particular, ever made me think they were less than standup guys.
I think it's less that they aimed too high than that they tried to aim that high and do it quickly, and they didn't do anything the easy way. They had their own server architecture, their own client, their own chat, their own graphics engine, their own everything basically. Plus they wanted a game that could support thousands of concurrent connections with no downtime, had an engaging single-player campaign, and could support an ongoing, persistent world. It was like picking everything that's hard to do in a game, and then putting it on a brand-new company (two of them, really) with people who hadn't worked together before.
Plus you had Ping0 doing the back-end and multiplayer, working off a forked codebase, and trying to make sure that what they were designing was open enough that it could be marketed to other companies. And then Mythos, with a team working out of Seattle under Travis Baldtree (who is a loving genius, by the way), which had to fit into things somehow even though it wasn't as much of a priority. It was just a really chaotic situation all around. Hopefully the talented guys I met there will bounce back quickly, it's a lovely time to be unemployed in the bay area.
Update #2: Guy Somberg, Flagship's final programmer and the Guy who wrote that infamous tirade (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39266/Flagship-Gets-Flagshipped), has modified his employment history on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/2b7/2a7), which now reads as, "February 2005 — July 2008 (3 years 6 months)." Thanks Flagshipped.
Update #3: Kotaku's closure story (http://kotaku.com/5024558/flagship-sunk-whos-in-charge-of-hellgate) contains further confirmation from their own anonymous source.
Update #4: Amol Deshpande (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/292/7a9), Chris Schillinger (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/2b5/815), Jesse Jones (http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessejones) and Ray Li (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/6/770/4a4) all list their Flagship-Ping0 positions as having ended July 2008.
Update #5: Producer Patrick Harris (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/304/616) is no longer employed by Flagship.
Update #6: Eric Liu (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/666/67a) is no longer in the employ of Flagship-Ping0. Having served for seven months as a QA Manager and Automation Engineer, he was promoted in October 2007 to International Producer, a position he held until the studio's closure.
Update #7: Flagship-Ping0's IT Manager, Brent Shinn (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/6a8/914), is the latest staffer to officially leave the firm's employ.
Update #8: Grant Watters (http://www.linkedin.com/in/cowsrule), Greg Brown (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/b41/437) and Jonathan McEvoy (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/716/a59) are the latest Flagship-Ping0 employees to have listed their positions as previous experience on LinkedIn.
Update #9: Flagship-Ping0's Project Manager, Jack Wood (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/446/164), is now also an ex-employee. Jack had many important responsibilities, including: stakeholder, investor and regional distributor liaising; final say on all patch and product launches; and oversight of day-to-day end user support.
Update #10: Lead Graphics Engineer, Chris Lambert (http://www.linkedin.com/in/clambert), is the latest to go. Chris was with the company for four years.
Wow, it's like watching the TItanic sink live or something.Basically. Yeah, it's quite crazy.
I feel bad for the actual individual people involved, but as a group I'm sort of glad it's happening. No one at all liked the retarded subscription crap they were trying to foist on gamers, and basically what a piece of crap the game was when it released. Now they are burning in effigy for it.I didn't like the "optional" subscription idea, Since they pumped out very little new content for "subscribers," it didn't look very attractive. Lifetime Founder subscribers got to keep their content on the MP side; while if you paid for a monthly subscription and quit, you lost the new MP content until you re-subscribed; what crap. Now, it looks like -- Founders are screwed period, since the MP Subscriber content don't rollover into the SP.
I second what scott said: feel bad for the folks, but they sort of had this coming. I wouldn't hold it against them personally, as I'm sure they're all fine people, but this was poorly planned with bad business decisions from end to end.Agreed w/ all of that.
IMO, their biggest mistake was allowing EA anywhere near them, and while I have no confirmation of anything, I could easily see how EA's involvement might have driven the nails into the coffin, depending on how much rush they were forced into.
Oh well. It's a shame, but that's life, I guess. They should have been smart about not tried to make this grand thing out of what was essentially just another Diablo game with pretty graphics.Agreed.
It would have worked fine if they'd just given us a standard package of stuff and not tried to tack on a lot of useless bullshit.
Flagship Studios Still in Operations
San Francisco, CA (July 14, 2008) -- Flagship Studios has announced today that despite rumors to the contrary, the company is still operating.
“It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees. However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship.” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain the size of the company any longer.”
Flagship Studios owns the rights to all its technology and IP, including Hellgate: London and Mythos. Due to the current situation, Flagship will not be taking any new subscribers for Hellgate: London, and all current subscriptions will not be billed.
Flagship wishes to extend their heartfelt thanks to those that have supported the company and games over the past five years.
About Flagship Studios
Flagship Studios is a creator of innovative entertainment software, designing games that focused on ease of play, replayability, and fun. The studio was formed in 2003 by former executives and developers from Blizzard North® and represents the creators of the worldwide, best-selling Diablo® franchise. With members that are renowned within the gaming industry, Flagship Studios and its Flagship Seattle division embodies a team that has worked together for over a decade and have numerous #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards to their credit.
HanbitSoft: “Flagship Is Selfish And Irresponsible”
Written on July 16, 2008 – 7:17 pm | by Sol Invictus |
HanbitSoft has lashed out against Flagship Studios in the Korean press, in the wake of the recent turbulence at the San Francisco-based game development studio calling them “selfish and irresponsible”. Details are as follows:
Bill Roper and Directors of Flagship Studios Bear Responsibility
- HanbitSoft making good progress in securing intellectual property rights for Hellgate: London
- HanbitSoft is preparing for a lawsuit against Bill Roper and the founding directors of Flagship Studios.
Last weekend, Flagship Studios announced that former employees were fired and HanbitSoft mentioned that all measures were proceeding as planned to the benefit of players (in Korea) to ensure that continued service of Hellgate: London would be seamless despite the current problems at its development studio. In addition, HanbitSoft holds the executives of Flagship Studios fully responsible for the incident towards the rights and interests of the users and stakeholders, including shareholders and other parties involved. HanbitSoft is considering taking strong legal action against Flagship Studios in order to take them to task for their responsibilities.
HanbitSoft does not expect to have any difficulty in securing the exclusive intellectual property rights related to Mythos. HanbitSoft is prepared to deal with Comerica bank in a local visit to them next week in order to secure and acquire the intellectual property rights of Hellgate: London. HanbitSoft believes that the game has nothing to do with the aforementioned bank as HanbitSoft already holds the rights to the game in Asia. HanbitSoft believes it has a strong possibility of acquiring the intellectual property of Hellgate: London in the United States and the rest of the world.
HanbitSoft stated that they will be devising a plan to continue work on the games with local (Korean) game developers in order to see the game through.
HanbitSoft’s CEO Kim Ki-Young stated, “Hellgate: London has a strong possibility of being ‘reborn’ into an excellent game with an outstanding product life,” he continued to say that “With more than 500 people at its disposal, both in-house and outsourced contracts who are veteran developers of every genre ranging from casual games to hardcore MMORPGs, we are ready to recreate Hellgate: London into an excellent game.”
He continued, “We don’t have to recruit existing developers, however if we could do so, we could shorten the time for analysis and developing for users. Although we are trying our best, since Flagship Studios doesn’t want to cooperate, we have no choice.”
According to HanbitSoft, they offered several methods and the means to keep Flagship alive in consideration of the users, but Flagship majorly lacked in effort. Hanbitsoft already has offered large amounts of investments but Flagship replied with ridiculous counter-offers and the negotiations went south. Even so, HanbitSoft continued to make investment offers which were all rejected, leading to the lay-offs of all of the Flagship employees.
HanbitSoft also stated, “Flagship not only lacked effort, but were only looking for personal gain. Firing all of the Flagship employees in order to protect the personal interests of its founding members only shows how selfish and irresponsible they are.”
Flagship Studios is an incorporated company. Hence if any problems occur within this company, it doesn’t affect the finances of any of Flagship Studios’ founders.
HanbitSoft said they are going to take legal proceedings as Flagship Studios is legally responsible for a serious breach of duty in not protecting their stockholder’s rights. The legal proceedings will be done against Flagship’s founders and management people for their intellectual property. HanbitSoft currently owns a 9.5% stake in Flagship Studios.
Korean source: ThisIsGame
Yeah, that's what I'm more sad about. Mythos could have been quite nice when it was done.
Hello Hellgaters,
I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we'd love to make one -- but right now, many things are in flux and we don't have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we'll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.
In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.
I'd like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.
Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.
__________________
Zack "Ozuri" Karlsson
Sr. Director, Business Development
NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Inc.
GFW: Back to the involvement of these other companies...
BR: Sure. The other major component of that, on the Asia side, is Hanbitsoft. It's been really kind of discouraging to read some of the press that's coming out of Korea. We worked with Hanbitsoft for a long time. Back in the Blizzard days, we launched StarCraft and Diablo with them. Together, both companies had a huge amount of success. When we started Flagship Studios, there really wasn't any doubt we wanted to work with Hanbit. That was our known, comfortable, go-to company, because I'd known them for a long time and had a very good relationship with them. The real challenges started when T3 came in as an investor, and pretty much everything changed overnight. Obviously, when companies are dealing with each other, there's a lot of NDAs, especially with publicly traded companies involved. So we didn't really have any kind of heads-up that that was happening. We literally read about the investment from T3 online.
GFW: So T3 made the deal with whom?
BR: They made their investment in Hanbitsoft, and as part of that investment, they took over a lot of the management there. So when we were in Asia on a business trip and talking with different companies about investments, we took the opportunity to go by Hanbitsoft's office and meet the new people. It was very evident, immediately, that this was the new management of the company. The first day [we were there], we probably spent about four or five hours talking with them and getting to know them, and they sounded excited about working with us. The thing that really upsets me now is reading where Hanbit's saying that they made numerous offers to us, and that we rejected these offers -- almost kind of implying that we were greedy and lazy or something. The second day we were there, they did present us with an offer...
GFW: And this would be for what? For them to actually buy the games? Buy the IP? Buy you...?
BR: Unlike Hanbit, I'm hesitant to violate my NDA and disclose information, so I can't get into all the details with you. The new Hanbitsoft hasn't had much of a problem disclosing confidential information to the press, which was pretty shocking to see. I take a poor view of business partners, former or current, breaking contracts in that way. So I'm always very sensitive to that and don't want to do that. Basically, they presented an offer on how we could work together. We couldn't pull the trigger on a deal just like that, though. I had to go back, talk to the rest of the board of directors, our investment bank, [and] the employees -- those types of things.
The timeline to do so that was presented was very short. And basically, the offer wasn't competitive with two other offers we had on the table. We really wanted to work something out, so we came back to Hanbitsoft and were very honest with them and said the deal wasn't competitive. But as originally intended, the loan we had received from Hanbitsoft, to which Mythos was the collateral, was designed to be a bridge to finding a studio investment. And that was regardless of whether it was with Hanbitsoft or another company. Now, granted, that loan was with the old Hanbit. That was the deal we worked out, and the new guys said we should do this deal with them. And I said that I appreciated the fact that they've made an offer, but at the same time, my fiduciary duty to the shareholders is to find the best deal for the company -- and also to find the best deal for the team.
I think Hanbit was in a difficult situation from that standpoint, because they were approaching us as a publisher who wanted to cut a deal with us, but they were also a shareholder in the company. I tried to explain to David Kim, who's the CEO there now, that it almost feels like a conflict of interest. A) I don't have the power to do this deal; there are other people involved. And B) we can't just say we'll do the deal with you because it's you. I've got to try to find the best deal. I've got to do right by you as a shareholder in Flagship, just like I have to do all the other shareholders in Flagship. That, I think, made it exceptionally challenging. Unfortunately, when we came back to them and said their offer wasn't going to be competitive, but that we had some other ideas and laid out a plan of how we could work with them to reach a deal with a different investor that would have benefited them greatly as a shareholder, they were...wholly uninterested. At that point in time, they informed us that their deal was non-negotiable -- which they had actually never told us, verbally or in writing. And they pulled their deal off the table and pretty much refused to talk to us about anything else, other than another deal that they put on the table a week later that was untenable. It didn't even make any sense.
GFW: Was it worse?
BR: Markedly, and it was one sentence.
GFW: Deal or no deal...
BR: Yeah. That may be how they were used to doing business. I'm not sure. But it was nothing that we could do. We went to them a couple of times with different proposals. Each time they basically refused to talk to us about anything involving that. Again, it was really discouraging to see that after the relationship started to fall apart.
GFW: So they were basically saying...we're going to be your investor, or nobody is?
BR: Well, we're not going to help you get anybody else to be the investor. They didn't really have the ability to block somebody else from investing, but they certainly held some keys in regard to us being able to do a couple of deals that, again, would have been incredibly beneficial to them.
GFW: So why would they do that? Again, just in your opinion...
BR: I don't know. I honest to god wish I knew. I don't want to believe that their offer was disingenuous, and it was just designed to be something that we wouldn't be able to accept. The end result, regardless of why it was done, is that because we did make the loan with them, they currently, to a degree, control Mythos, because that was the collateral for the bridge loan.
GFW: OK, so they can now say, and I'm just putting this in laymen's terms so we can all understand it, is: "You owe us money. You don't have it. You offered Mythos as collateral, so now we're taking that collateral."
BR: Right. That's the simplified version. They haven't taken that final step, actually. But that is where it's at. We don't have the money to pay back the loan. I think right now, which is pretty evident by some of the things they've been doing publicly, they're trying to figure out what to do with Mythos. They have it free and clear, and they're looking to start up, apparently, some U.S.-based studio to do something. [Read more about T3's new studio. (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169105)
GFW: Who has the Hellgate IP right now?
BR: Right now, Comerica does. It's basically held by the bank. If Flagship could come up with the money to pay back the loan, it's ours again. But we don't have that money. We've been working with Comerica to provide them with anything and everything they've requested to be able to properly represent the IP, represent what's being held in escrow, and working with them to try to identify people that might be interested in that. Even if this means that we can't work on it anymore, which is pretty painful. You spend four years working on a game and then to not even be able to do anything with it -- it's pretty rough.
GFW: Does that only affect any further stuff that would be done with Hellgate, or does that include the game as it exists now?
BR: Both.
GFW: OK, because right now, isn't Namco involved...
BR: Well, Namco and EA are continuing to operate the game. But, for example, they can't do any development on it. They can't make new content.
GFW: So Comerica's control is the IP...
BR: IP, code, tech, and tools. So to be honest, if I personally had the money, I'd buy it back out. The technology and the toolset that we built is a really powerful platform for creating titles. That was really the goal of what we were going to be doing at Flagship. We were going to be using the tech and tools -- using the platform -- [and] creating games based off of that as our core moving forward.
Interesting stuff. I kinda' feel bad for the Flagship people, but I still don't know quite what to make of it all...I'm with you, bro.
Yeah. I saw Hellgate in the store today for $30 and just kind of sighed thinking of what it could have been.Man, here it's still stacked at about $50! Its price just refuses to go down!
Man, here it's still stacked at about $50! Its price just refuses to go down!Personally, I bought it for both. heh.
It's too bad about its multiplayer going down. I symapthize with anyone who bought it specifically for that.
I hope the singleplayer is at least decent. Can anyone comment on that?I only did the MP -- which I actually did enjoy. The MP side was pretty patched-up, by the time I played it. A lot of the major issues were gone there.
File this one under rumours and speculations as based on my own findings.
While we do know that FSS has died, as per yesterday's post about Hanbiton acquiring Hellgate: London, we do know that the IP is owned by T3 now.
What we didn't know however, is what would happen to the US version of the game. A new post (http://hg.hanbiton.com/News/EventView.aspx?eid=170&etype=0) went up today on the Korean Hellgate London website. It is a post talking about Halloween events and the "re-opening of the Hellgate", however what is interesting about it, is that it has a section written in English on a usually Korean only website.
The post also sounds like they are getting ready to re-launch the game (could this mean transferring the old players over?) and the company in charge appears to be Redbana. Further research leads to the Taiwanese MMO company called Redbana, which appears to have quite some experience in gaming. Further research leads to findings of a new San Francisco office for the company, which is where Hellgate offices were located previously.
So take this news with a grain of salt, but until we have more news, there is possibility that the game might come back in some way.
Enjoy
Santa Clara, Calif., (October 24, 2008) - NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.
NAMCO BANDAI Games appreciate the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.
For questions regarding the shut down or additional information about Hellgate: London, please visit the game’s official website at www.hellgatelondon.com.
Heh, yeah. Thats their spin on things. Its closing down Feb 1, 2009.
But in interesting news: Hellgate expansion coming. (http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=55698) HanbitSoft has the rights to the game now and they are making an expansion. No word yet on them putting servers up.
But Namco Bandai community manager Diane “Tiggs” Migliaccio says that HanbitSoft's updates and promised Hellgate expansion won't see a stateside release, posting on Hellgate's official forum, "Let me explain things a bit to see if it clears up any issues for you. Hanbit owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other [than] the US and EU, and I think the other territory is Japan. Namco owns the rights to publish in the US and EU."I don't like Namcos attitude here. There is a company that apparently wants to keep the game running and even add new content. But Namco seems hellbent (har har) on not letting any of that come out to the US/EU players.
Namco Bandai, who co-published the game through an agreement with EA Partners, revealed that it would shut down its Hellgate servers on January 31, 2009. "The servers will never exist in the US and EU again. Hanbit aka Redbanana can not have servers in the US or EU," says Migliaccio.
She adds, "People are speculating, and I don't want anyone shocked on January 31, 2009 when the server and forums shut down and there is nothing."
Does it really D? This isnt some diamond in the rough or some sleeper hit. The game got to this position for a reason. Sure it had tons of potential, but its delivery couldnt quite live up to that.
If nobody really plays it anymore theres no point.Well, the Test Center 2.0 MP new content into the SP would make the SP live on as long as the gamer wants to play the SP side -- plus, the SP still is far behind the MP Live patches even without Test Center 2.0, when it comes to being patched.
Does it really D? This isnt some diamond in the rough or some sleeper hit. The game got to this position for a reason. Sure it had tons of potential, but its delivery couldnt quite live up to that. If nobody really plays it anymore theres no point.
January 26, 2009
HanbitSoft: Hellgate London To Continue As Free-To-Play Title
HanbitSoft: Hellgate London To Continue As Free-To-Play Title Although it is slated to stop operating in the West on January 31, multiplayer online title Hellgate: London will continue on here as a free-to-play game, according to comments from Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft.
Although it is slated to stop operating in the West on January 31, multiplayer online title Hellgate: London will continue on here as a free-to-play game, according to comments from Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft.
The announcement comes in spite of a decision by Namco-Bandai, which co-published the game through an agreement with Electronic Arts' EA Partners, to terminate the game's servers.
HanbitSoft has asserted that it owns the IP, engines and source code for the Flagship Studios title worldwide, and will maintain Hellgate: London for its global community. HanbitSoft had previously been responsible for only the game's Korean operations.
The switch to a free-to-play model was the first official announcement the company has made regarding the fate of the title, which during its lifetime suffered from perceived quality issues, and an insufficient userbase, playing a key role in the closing of Flagship Studios in July 2008.
HanbitSoft also says in an official press statement seen by Gamasutra that future updates for Hellgate: London are in the works, with a focus on "strengthening community features" while maintaining the core gameplay as is.
The next "large-scale" patch, according to HanbitSoft, will be released "soon," and will combine the game's two play modes to unify its communities. The company also plans class balance improvements and further distinction between the game's five acts.
Why Hellgate: London Failed and How Developer Flagship Got Flagshipped
by Nick Breckon Mar 26, 2009 12:15pm CST
"For all intents and purposes, everyone was flagshipped."
"I'm sure some of you are familiar with that term," said former Flagship business developer Stephen Goldstein. "For those of you who are not, the term 'flagshipped' literally has no less than five definitions in the English language."
An illustrative slide appeared on screen:
Tim: "I just bought a new table tody and one of its legs broke."
Mike: "Man you got flagshipped."
Goldstein spoke at length this morning on the demise of Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios, highlighting specific areas that he feels lead to the ugly end of a studio with tremendous promise.
"Everything we did, the entire corporate setup, was meant to swing for the fences," said Goldstein. "Everything was solely plan A. There was no plan B."
In particular, Goldstein noted that the company should have raised more money when they had the chance, saying that it was the "company-killing moment."
"We had a title a year from launch, with a team that had sold 17 million units worldwide from their previous franchise," he explained.
"It's my guess that we could have probably raised 25 to 30 million dollars to just stick in a coffer and wait. It would have provided us the ability to delay the launch of the title. We needed another four months, possibly five, to get things polished. And we just could not take it."
Goldstein also zeroed in on the highly publicized Hellgate billing errors, which lead to some users being billed multiple times during the first days of the launch.
"[Billing] got left to the last minute. We ran out of resources, we ran out of time," he said. "Which lead to a situation where, a very small, small percentage of users got charged twice. That's very bad."
"Imagine how bad this if you're giving everything away for free, and you're trying to get people to pay you. Because then they hear that the billing is screwed up. And they say hey, I can get all this stuff for free. Why would I pay for it?"
Hellgate: London's multiple business models was also a significant problem, according to Goldstein.
"The issue that we had with Hellgate London was that it was a boxed product, it was sold at retail, it had a free singleplayer version, and then it had a subscription," he said.
"What we probably should have done is just piss off our community up front and say you know what, it's going to be a subscription. All of us were very concerned about consumer perception, rather than if money was going to be coming through the door."
As it turns out, Hellgate sold a respectable amount of copies in the US and Europe. But the game's business model depended on subscription revenue in the long term, and not enough of those sales translated into subscriptions.
"The problem wasn't that we sold 500,000 units," said Goldstein. "The problem was we weren't getting subscription [revenue] from those units."
Goldstein guessed that if the game was subscription-only, it would have sold around 250,000 copies less, but the subscription revenue would have kept Flagship afloat.
Goldstein also noted that Hellgate also represented too many "firsts" for the company, including the first 3D game, first FPS, and first subscription-based game.
"This game wouldn't be made today," he said, while turning that particular failure into a testament to the team's resiliency.
"The fact that it was in the box really is a testament to the team that we had. They didn't get the credit that I think they deserved, because with the amount of challenges that we faced, they pulled through."
*sigh* Just let it die D, let... it... die...
*sigh* Just let it die D, let... it... die...