Tiggs, who is now sporting a Namco logo posted this today regarding the status of the Hellgate: London Test Center:
At this time we have decided to keep Test Center out of service and encourage all players to return to our “Live” servers. We will ensure that Publish 2.0 is kept safe should Test Center return to service in the future.
Thank you for all your testing and bug reporting.
Read what you will into it, but it may not do much to help the game’s dwindling population. With that said, it’s very reassuring to see Tiggs and many other Ping-0 community managers sporting a new Namco logo. The Namco logo is however noticeably absent from the profile of Flagship’s community manager, Scapes.
The latest issue of PC Powerplay, an Australian Gaming magazine (Issue #155) has featured a cover story on Blizzard a feature a main report on Diablo 3 that consists of a a five page write up, with exclusive screenshots and information about the game.
Blizzard Guru has uploaded scans of the magazine on their forums, which include an interview conducted some time after WWI about the game’s art direction, the implementation of health globes and some general talk about how the game is shaping up to be. There’s also a separate article on item randomization and talk about the new classes, and a snippet of rumors on what the new Battle.net 2 will bring to the table.
Zack “Ozuri” Karlsson, Senior Director of Business Development at Namco Bandai Games America posted the following announcement on the official forum regarding upcoming support for Hellgate: London and a bail for Flagship Studios from its current predicament.
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.
Just before the official Mythos forums went offline, Max Schaefer posted a personal thank you to all the fans and players of Mythos:
They say it’s not so much the destination as it is the journey that’s important. We’re really hoping that’s the case around here these days. I can’t really believe I’m writing a post like this, but here we are faced with the unpleasant task of taking a hiatus from this crazy project. Unlike most games, Mythos has been running with our testing community for almost its whole life. I really feel like we’ve all done this together. And despite this bump in the road, I think we’ve succeeded wildly. This is undoubtedly the best game community I’ve ever seen. This is the best game development team in the world, in both Seattle and San Francisco. The things we’ve learned here, and with you all, will be with us forever.
PC gaming is changing, and I believe we’ve had a sneak preview with Mythos. With any luck, this will not be a long hiatus, and Mythos will be back. But even if it’s not, and even if we all move on, we’ve taken a lot of important steps forward. Game development is in many ways a continuum, and we all build on what came before. I know neither Travis, the great Mythos dev team, nor myself are planning on doing anything but make games into the future. So no matter what, we’ll pick up where we left off and you’ll be hearing from us shortly. We may not be the best business people on the planet , but we know how to make games. And once the dust settles here, that’s what we hope to get right back to doing as soon as possible. So until then, aux revoir Mythos community! It’s truly been a privilege to have experienced this with you.
Diane “Tiggs” Migliaccio contacted me with the following news on behalf of Flagship Studios with regards to Mythos.
Travelers of Uld,
We, the ancient elders of Uld are issuing this warning to all citizens and travelers. Hurry! The great darkness that once plagued Uld is returning. Everyone is ordered to close down their shops and prepare. We predict the when night is at its peak the darkness will arrive. The ancient elders of Uld will be leaving immediately in order to preserve the lore of this wonderful world. Citizens please prepare thyself and know that the elders will be back from their travels some day.
From the team:
We regretfully announce that on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 11:59 CST the world of Uld known as Mythos will be going on hiatus. On behalf of all of the Devs and Community team we want to say thank you to everyone for their support and assistance with Mythos Alpha and Beta testing and we will see you soon.
Tiggs made a post on the Official Forums stating that both the official forums of Hellgate: London and Mythos will be shutting down.
On Friday, July 18th at Midnight (CST) the forums will be shutting down. We would like to thank everyone for being a part of this wonderful community and we hope to see you all again soon.
-Tiggs
See it for yourself. Thanks for the news tip, Swordplay. You shame me with your news finding abilities sometimes.
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.
Travis Baldree, Project Lead and Programmer on Mythos created a thread on the official Mythos forum to bid his farewells to the Mythos community and other members of the Mythos team have since added their heartfelt goodbyes to the thread.
Well, it’s an interesting few days here for all of us. It’s just been killing me not to post until now, but I really needed to wait until some things were settled and announced. As you may or may not know Flagship Studios laid off almost all employees effective friday - you should be able to see the press release in the Announcements. Now, on the face of it, that really does sound like the end of Mythos as we know it - but we have a tight-knit team that feels like family and hopes to stick together. Unfortunately, I can’t speak at any real length about our immediate plans just yet - but let’s say that we hope to have you back up and Beta testing for us in one way or another sometime soon.
You’ve been an incredible community that we’ve all felt priveleged to be a part of, and we’re not quite ready to let go of that little family just yet. No matter the outcome, this has been a fantastic experience, and I and the team would like to thank each and every one of you for the tireless hours of testing and discussion you’ve undergone, and the uniquely friendly community spirit that you all helped foster. It’s been a treat every step of the way.
So, I’m not exactly sure how long Mythos in its current form will remain up, since it is effectively a testing server. I’ll try to get you that information as soon as I can.
In the meantime, I know the rest of the team would love to post their farewells and thanks to all of you. We’ll try to keep you as up to date as we can in one way or another.
Thanks again to all of you - and I hope to be seeing all of you online again very, very soon.
Travis
Others of Flagship Studios who have contributed their farewells and goodbyes to the thread include:
Greg Brown
Thanks everyone.
It has been a pleasure to be a part of this game and this community. Like Travis said, it has been very difficult to sit aside and read these forums and not be able to comment or shed light. Thank you for your dedication to helping us create and improve this game. We will miss it.
This is not the last you will hear from us. Take care and good gaming.
-Greg
Jason “Grimby” Beck
I definitely want to echo Travis’ sentiments about this community. It’s truly amazing how friendly, helpful, and open it was. It’s been a very rare experience and one that we all enjoyed tremendously.
I really can’t say enough about this team, either. I’ve known some of these guys for years now and it’s a real joy to work with friends everyday. The entire team is easily the best I’ve been apart of. It’s just a cool group of people who happen to be both easy to work with and really good at what they do.
I’m quite certain you’ll be hearing from us soon. It’s very sad to see Mythos (as we know it) go…I got pretty attached to them Ramalos …, but we’ll be doing something again.
Thanks for all the cool comments. It was rough reading up on everything without being able to respond.
It’s been a treat!
Cheers,
Jason
Kyle “Skycrickett” Cornelius
I am just going to quote Jason since he pretty much hit the nail on the head. It sucks having to leave without finishing this project up… but I guess thats how things happen sometimes. I am proud to have contributed to Mythos, and really hope that you guys see us in some incarnation in the future. As a former member of the community - turned professional scribbler, I can say it was a pleasure to have you guys testing our game.
-Kyle
Adam Perin
It is a sad day to lose such a great community. I hope in the future we will be so lucky as to have such a great community again. I personally will miss seeing such great community interaction (with us and with eachother) and genuienly helpful people on teh interwebs that are trying to help us make something even better than what we planned.
-adam
Taylor Balbi
I’ve said it a million times. You guys are the best. In all the years that I have worked with communities, paid and for fun, this is by far the greatest group of people ever. You guys were always very supportive, very kind, and seriously…. it killed me that I didn’t get to ban anyone lol. You guys were always ready for new stuff and rarely complained about bugs and features, great group of supporters. There were just so many people who loved Mythos and helped make it the game it is today. Whether Mythos picks up in the future or not, you guys rock. I will be around in one way or another.
If the opportunity arises I would love to have the chance to work on Mythos again. The main reason is you guys. Thanks for being there and always supporting us. It really meant a lot to us every time you sent in e-mails or messages about how much you love the game and can’t put it down.
No matter the future of Mythos, you know that you can count on me to be around any project Travis and the gang works on. See you around guys, it was a good run and the best job I ever had.
History will, perhaps, remember Mythos as one of those “great games that should have been”, along with Black Isle Studios’ Van Buren and Troika’s post-apocalyptic RPG. Hope may yet exist for the game, so we’ll be crossing our fingers for a miracle.
Flagship Studios’ TRICIA GRAY, Director of Global MarComm, sent over an official press release to me, which states the following:
Flagship Studios Still in Operations
San Francisco, CA (July 15, 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.
Regardless of the press release, it’s anyone’s guess as to how Flagship Studios will be able to support Hellgate: London or Mythos at this point in time without its developers.
Korean news website TheGames.co.kr got in touch with HanbitSoft chief executive, Kim Ki-young regarding the recent reports of Flagship Studios’ demise and asked him to clarify the situation with Hellgate: London and Mythos.
As it’s known to the general public that Flagship Studios dismissed developers of ‘Hellgate: London’ and closed down the office, HanbitSoft is trying to prepare countermeasures.
According to game industry news on the 14th, HanbitSoft is checking whether the rumor is true that Flagship Studios has determined to dismiss employees. HanbitSoft announced that this incident is totally unrelated with ‘Hellgate: London’ and ‘Mythos’ services.
HanbitSoft owns intellectual property rights of ‘Mythos’, and ‘Hellgate: London’ is also provided to investors of Flagship Studios and HanbitSoft, so it’s impossible that Flagship Studios receives investments from third parties, or sign contracts with any other companies regarding these products.
HanbitSoft said they have been preparing various business models, required game development and other improvements to compensate for Flagship Studios’ crisis.
According to Kim Ki-young of HanbitSoft, he said that ‘if we can take intellectual property rights of relevant products from Flagship Studios, we have confidence to develop the games ourselves based on T3 Entertainment’s advanced technology’ and ‘we believe we can service fresh and interesting games to online gamers by getting intellectual property rights and development. This crisis could be an opportunity for us’.
HanbitSoft is about to start thorough examination to get intellectual property rights for ‘Hellgate: London’ and ‘Mythos’ once Flagship Studios petitions for bankruptcy
HanbitSoft said although they have suggested mutual conditions regarding investments in Flagship Studios, Flagship requested that HanbitSoft provide better terms, leading to hesitation on HanbitSoft’ part in aiding Flagship.
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
…, but we’ll be doing something again.
