For the second plate of the five course dinner that is their Hellgate: London Week, 1UP.com has shared a three-page rundown of the game’s six classes along with 17 fresh screenshots of each faction in action, demonstrating how Hellgate: London ushers in “A New Era For Action RPGs”.
Author Garnett Lee discusses not only how the game plays but also how playing the game feels with this passage as a quality example:
So it happened that ridding the streets, sewers, and the rest of London from demonic infestation also wiped away any misgivings about Hellgate’s ability to usher in a renaissance for action-RPGs. Our extended time allowed us to really dig in and realize that the game finally seems ready to present a coherent vision of itself, and that’s helped replace our concerns with respect for what appears to be a potential masterpiece from practiced masters of their craft. Where other games ham-handedly overplay inside jokes, or try to hard to interject funny moments, Hellgate effortlessly pulls them off…
…That comfortable confidence permeates every part of the game now. Without even noticing, you slip into it, and are playing like you’ve been doing it for years. And once ensnared, everything moves along so smoothly: leveling, introduction to new areas, acquisition of new gear and weapons, quest structure. It all interweaves into a complex web, but one you never get lost in or feel overwhelmed by. It strikes a remarkable balance of presenting a number of options and layers of depth, while keeping that immediacy of just being able to hop in and start taking out demons. Diablo fans will recognize the familiar pull…and for those who haven’t experienced it before, beware.
Brennan Ieyoub has brought a new, giant piece of media coverage to the fanbase’s attention. 1UP.com has started a major preview series of Hellgate: London, five parts in all. The two-page first part focuses on the game’s visuals and audio and is appropriately titled “The Sights And Sounds Of Hellgate”.
In the midst of a concept art and screenshot collage, two music samples can be found. Here are direct links to Crypt Action and Main Rooms Action. Each day this week, another section of the cover story will be unlocked. Tomorrow we have “A New Era For Action RPGs” which sounds like a write-up of Hellgate: London’s gameplay and overall feel.
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While we’ve seen numerous publications detailing DirectX 10 and Windows Vista with relation to PC gaming, this is one of the first to have a quality Roperquote.
Bill Roper, whose Flagship Studios is developing the action adventure game “Hellgate: London,” said he wasn’t concerned that not everyone has Vista or a DX10-capable graphics card yet.
“As with every new technology, the hardcore lead the way and the masses catch up,” he said. “Not everyone that has an iPod or a DVD player went out and bought theirs on day one. As with previous operating system and hardware advances, the more products that support it and can show the tangible benefits of upgrading, the more widespread the adoption.”
As Flagship Studios has told us, they plan to have the game playable on systems as dated as four years old. That sentiment is echoed in this statement.
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Phrases like “profitability thresholds,” “micro-transaction purchase models,” and “revenue streams” dot this two-page Q&A session between IGN’s RPG Vault and Flagship Studios’ Steve Goldstein, the company’s Director of Business Development and General Counsel. While the article refers to neither Hellgate: London nor Mythos, it does provide an insight into how our developers might be looking at marketing their titles.
RPG Vault
What do you say to people who feel that a free game gives the impression it’s not high quality? How do you get people to play, stay AND pay?
Steve Goldstein
I think that people who assume free or micro-transaction based games are not high quality often do so because they are only looking at graphics. Even if a game doesn’t have tremendously compelling graphics, if it offers strong community components, it can become a huge hit. This is because people seeking out these games are looking for social interaction rather than triple-A level graphics.
Again, even though it’s mentioned a few times, the answers in this piece are with regards to gaming in general and are not statements about pricing models for Flagship Studios’ games.
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Hellgate: London is a featured article in the nVidia publication called “The Way”, featuring games nVidia helped in the making of and part of their “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played” campaign.
The article mainly focuses on the graphics and visuals of Hellgate: London. Thanks to ScytheNoire for the scans. Existing forum thread can be found here.
Earlier today, an interview with Bill Roper was published. Flagship Studios has informed me that the content of the aforementioned interview contains some very questionable (which is to say bullshit) content and speculation that, in the context of the article, make it sound like direct quotations from Bill Roper and Flagship Studios.
Furthermore, Flagship Studios has not decided upon a payment scheme, if there is to be one, in Hellgate: London, at this point. The sentence “Players pay per month to join the server and create a character and from here they can meet up with their friends in towns.” consists of pure speculation and little else.
The section of text that starts “The Multiplayer component of the game comes in a Guild Wars style MMO” consists entirely of speculation on the part of i30. Hellgate: London is not a Guild Wars style MMO.
Bill was asked how much the boxed product of Hellgate: London would cost once it goes on shelves, but apparently i30 saw fit to alter the question upon their publication of the interview with Bill Roper:
i30.multiplay.co.uk: How much does the multiplayer subscription cost?
Bill Roper: It’s not been set yet, but there’s not going to be any surprise in the pricing - it’ll be matching what’s currently around.
To clarify once more, Bill Roper was responding to a question regarding the price of the boxed game. He was not referring to the multiplayer subscription cost, if there even is one. We do not know why i30 chose to edit their article to reflect this falsehood.
Here is the chat transcript from Community Manager Brennan Ieyoub on the subject:
Brennan: Have a small issue with the Bill Roper Presents HG:L at i30 news bit that went up on Guru. Brennan: Got some clarification from bill. Ian: Yeah? Brennan: First off the section of text that starts “The Multiplayer component of the game comes in a Guild Wars style MMO” Ian: Which is of course, wrong. Heh. Brennan: Makes it seem like Bill is directly quoted when all of that is speculation from i30. Brennan: Whom I will be contacting shortly, btw. Ian: I’ll change it accordingly. Brennan: Also, the Multiplayer subscription part. Brennan: The original question to bill was, “how much will the boxed product cost?” Brennan: It has nothing to do with a multiplayer subscription rate. Ian: And they took it out of context? Damn.
File this one under “still developing” but a numberofsources online have reported that Electronic Arts is buying or has bought a 19% share of Chinese online game distributer The9 for $200M USD. The9 is best known for its distribution of World Or Warcraft in China; it accounts for 99% of the company’s revenue. Of course, then there are those that claim EA doesn’t have any plans to do either. And then there are those that speculate EA might be looking to purchase The9’s remaining shares. Funny thing, business news. This in from Bill Bishop, an MMO executive from Shanghai:
EA and Vivendi Universal Games (owners of Blizzard, developer of World of Warcraft) are direct competitors. Perhaps the Blizzard-The9 contract does not have any protection for Vivendi in the event that a competitor takes a significant stake in The9, but that would be surprising. The new President of EA Asia, Hubert Larenaudie, was previously President of Vivendi Universal Games Asia, so if there are any loopholes in the Blizzard-The9 contract he would know where to find them. In addition, EA’s new head of China Corporate Development was previously an executive at The9.
This is pertinent to the Hellgate: London world in that Electronic Arts is one of the game’s publishers while The9 has secured a contract to host Hellgate: London in a number of Asian countries.
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We’re certainly entering the convention season. Kicking things off early, Bill Roper spoke at i30 this past week, discussing all things Hellgate: London. A nice-sized audience was gathered and in addition to the summation some salient questions were posed, covering subjects ranging from multiplayer to minimum specs. However, the most remarkable bits of this article are as follow:
The Multiplayer component of the game comes in a Guild Wars style MMO. Players pay per month to join the server and create a character and from here they can meet up with their friends in towns. From the towns they enter instanced areas - also generated randomly like the single player game. Not all areas are randomly generated however as some are based on real-world landmarks - Bill showed us Covent Gardens and the British Museum.
And then this from the Q&A session:
i30.multiplay.co.uk: How much does the multiplayer subscription cost?
Bill Roper: It’s not been set yet, but there’s not going to be any surprise in the pricing - it’ll be matching what’s currently around.
Now, before we see the return of P2P doom’n'gloom on the boards, keep in mind that we’ve contacted Flagship Studios to see if there is clarification to be had.Earlier Update: Community Manager Brennan had this to say regarding the article.
Brennan: The online plan isn’t in place yet. That being said, there will be fees associated with the ongoing content in the game. Whether that’s a monthly subscription or microtransactions, nobody really knows yet.
Scaper-X: So the section in the summation part of the article where pay-per-month is mentioned can be called a preemptive guess on the part of the author?
Brennan: Def.
No doubt when decisions regarding how the pay aspect(s) of the game are finalized, Flagship Studios will be the first to inform us.
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It’d seem Hellgate: London made a few more magazine appearances in addition to PC Gamer this month. MMO Games, a bimonthly periodical formally known as Massive Magazine, has published a cover story on the game.
However, the article feels rather familiar and its information sounds dated as its author, Tom Chick, borrowed heavily from the massively popular Hellgate: London cover story that Computer Games ran back in December of last year, coincidentally also written by Tom Chick. Regardless, there’s a previously unseen Roperview on the topic of multiplayer plans to be had and even if the scoop it offers is no longer a scoop (and some of the info is no longer accurate), it’s still a decent read.Many thanks to Mendax for the scans. Existing forum thread can be found here.
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Hellgate Guru was founded in mid-2005 and has ever since been one of the most popular fan sites and forums devoted to Hellgate: London, catering to a wide range of interests, as well as having a dedicated team of staff members who keep the website full of constant updates, news and generate activity and hype around the game. More
