What The Hellgate?

Some interesting news from Massively.

It looks like Hellgate: London has a knight in shining armor coming to it’s rescue. Bandai-Namco has apparently put up a page on its website — though I just had a look and it wasn’t there — which indicates that they will be running the game.

I did read somewhere else, that a transfer of the Hellgate: London IP to Bandai-Namco would be problematic since the IP was used as collateral by Hanbitsoft. That makes sense. If Flagship default on the loan, the IP passes automatically to Hanbitsoft.

But does that stop Flagship entering into a partnership with Bandai-Namco (herein referred to as B-N) where B-N operate the game in North America and Hanbitsoft continue operating the game in Korea?

If B-N are coming to the party with some cash, it could allow Flagship to service the loan to Hanbitsoft and escape the default situation. One thing though, if Hanbitsoft saw a good opportunity to grab the Hellgate and Mythos IPs, they ain’t gonna be happy. They’ve already threatened legal action to claim the IP, will they do the same to prevent the B-N deal?

Hmmm. Not sure what the legalities of this situation are. Does anyone know what the deal is with this?

Popularity: 10%

Flagship Studios Lawsuit Looming

Hellgate Guru has once again posted a translation of Korean company Hanbitsoft’s latest tirade against Flagship Studios. You can read the full post here.

This time they have accused the founders and management of Flagship of being selfish and irresponsible for:

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…

There’s certainly a lot of hubris by Hanbitsoft here.

I’ve been around long enough to know that businesses will fire their employees when they cut costs. That’s just the way things are; it’s not personal — even if it feels that way. I know it’s happened to me enough times. It does sound selfish, yes. But if Flagship are trying to save their business then it’s anything but irresponsible.

I also guessed right the other day, though it wasn’t much of a stretch. Hanbitsoft is planning a lawsuit against Bill Roper and the other founding directors. Presumably that is intended to take control of the Hellgate and Mythos IPs, but there looks to be a desire to punish the founders as well. Especially since it sounds like the lawsuit is being directed at the directors as well as the company.

Since I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t even play one on TV, take this with a grain of salt. It’s possible that this is a tactic that Hanbitsoft is using to ‘encourage’ the directors of Flagship to settle. A lawsuit can be a risky thing, it’s not at all certain that Hanbitsoft can win the IP, let alone win judgements against the directors, and it will cost a bundle for them to try. It’s probably a lot easier in fact to win against Flagship the company. To get a judgement against the directors, since the Flagship corporate structure would limit liability, Hanbitsoft will need to prove the directors met the legal standards of corporate negligence. I believe that’s a lot harder.

One thing is certain. If Flagship Studios management are aiming at getting the company back on track, this lawsuit will make that a lot harder.

I wonder if that is Hanbitsofts intention?

Popularity: 15%

Flagship Studios Update

After a few days of announcements, claims, and speculation, there is finally an official, if not somewhat obscure, statement from Flagship Studios posted on the Hellgate: London forums.

“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.

So what does this mean?

I expect that first of all, this will mean a lawsuit of some sort. Hanbitsoft has made claims on the IP of both Hellgate: London and Mythos, and despite the confusing ping pong game played with those properties, obviously really wants one or both of them. If this is all a bluff, then perhaps they won’t sue for the rights. I suspect though that Hanbitsoft see a tremendous opportunity here and I doubt they’ll let it go.

While it appears that the announcement from Flagship Studios is simply putting on a brave face pending the final closure of the business, I’m wondering if the founding team and core management are hunkering down for a last ditch effort to keep the company alive. These guys created a company, and while some commenters have questioned the motives of the founders, I’m pretty sure they don’t want the company to die. Entrepreneurs put a lot of themselves into their projects — time, emotions, even health — it can be hard to let it go.

There’s a couple of possibilities.

1. From what I understand, most of the founders have a background in development. If they dust of their skills, there is probably enough of a team to continue development on Mythos and fix bugs on Hellgate: London.
2. They could do a fire sale. Sell some or all of their assets and IPs (dependent on any legal action by Hanbitsoft) to cover their debts. Hypothetically they could sell of the rights to Hellgate, sell their subsidiary Ping0, move to smaller offices selling the current building if they own it, and use the funds to finish off Mythos.
3. Get Flagship Studios back into shape and sell the entire company in an attempt to recover as much of their initial investment as possible. The founders and core team would probably have to stay on after this happens, but at least they’d be able to start rebuilding the team.

All of the above is just speculation. What will happen from here on in, is anybodies guess. For one thing, the whole situation isn’t at all clear and there will probably be details emerging in the next weeks that put the situation in a new light.

Personally, I’d like to see Flagship Studios survive and go on to fix up HG:L and release Mythos.

Popularity: 13%

Hellgate: London Review

The other day as I was in the kitchen area at work making a coffee, I noticed a postcard pinned up on the notice board. It was instantly recognizable as Piccadilly Circus in London. There was only one thing strange about it. No hordes of Zombies milling around, waiting to chow down on some fresh brains.

Piccadilly Circus is one of the locations that I had visited in the game, Hellgate: London. That Piccadilly Circus was overrun by the minions of hell, who had broken through the Hellgate years earlier. The date now is 2038 and those denizens of darkness have begun the process of terraforming, or should that be hellaforming, the Earth into a demons paradise. The only thing standing in the way of achieving this goal is the human groups fighting for survival in the London Underground.

You see, for centuries the Knights Templar knew of the threat that the Demons posed to Humanity. Even as the average person forgot, the Templars remembered and prepared. Part of this preparation involved the building of the Underground. Each of the stations was warded to make it safe from demonic incursions. These stations are now where the last vestiges of humanity prepare, trade, and receive their instructions in the ongoing fight.

As a member of one of the three factions, sword wielding Templar, magical Cabalist, or tech-savvy Hunter you will engage in combat with the forces of darkness. The motto Remember the dead, Fight for the Living will be on your lips.

Hellgate: London is developed by Flagship Studios and published by Electronic Arts. Flagship Studios was founded by a number of ex-Blizzard employees, notably including Bill Roper, who had been involved in the development of Blizzards Diablo 1 and 2. That pedigree shows up quite strongly in Hellgate: London as it closely emulates much of the gameplay of Diablo 2.

The big difference between Diablo 2 and Hellgate: London is that Hellgate: London is a fully 3D game. It can be played, like most MMOGs, using a first person view or a over the shoulder third person view. The other difference is that Hellgate: London is a Science Fiction themed game as opposed to Diablos medieval fantasy style. It’s set in the future, there are guns and grenade along with the magic, and the Hell of Hellgate: London isn’t the Hell of Christianity.

Other than those differences, the Diablo fan will see lots of similarities. Each time you venture out of a station into a zone, except for the fixed locales like Piccadilly Circus, the map will be different. Inventory management is handled in much the same way, and the items you collect will have different stats and some pieces will make up sets with better bonuses.

The game essentially comes in two versions. There is the single player version of the client, and the multiplayer version. The multiplayer client will allow you to connect online with other players. You can team up with other players and then go into the instanced areas and fight demons, or complete quests. This operates in much the same way as Guild Wars. You will only encounter other players in the stations, and not when in the fight.

You also have two multiplayer subscriber options. The first is the free sub. You get to play with other players. The second option is to pay $10 a month. This gives the ability to create a guild, increased storage space (double) and a few other perks like being involved in subscriber events.

The Good
Hellgate: London is a great looking game. The graphics are very well done, and look great on my widescreen monitor. The visual effects are really well done. Explosions and spell effects look good.

The character models look great too, and there are a lot of them, or seem to be at least. While I haven’t done any verification, it feels like there is a much bigger range of monsters than there were in Diablo 2. And some are particularly nasty. I speak of the Grotesque. The Grotesque looks like a giant frozen chicken with chock full of zombie stuffing. Part of its attack is by flapping it’s giant flabby wings. When you kill it, it explodes and belches out a bunch of zombies and giant maggots. Absolutely brilliant.

The Grotesque is only part of the humour present in Hellgate: London. Early on you will do a questline with Techsmith 314. The dialog here is priceless, and at one point you’ll have to catch the poor terrified chap so that he can dunk his head into the fiery cauldron of eternal happiness… or something like that.

As I previously mentioned, Hellgate: London plays much like Diablo 2. I count this as one of the good things about the game. I found the gameplay to be quite addictive. There were a few nights when I finished up only to realise the time. When are game developers going to put clocks on their games ?!?

The Bad
All is not fire and brimstone in Hellgate: London.

The worst problems I encountered were in the Multiplayer game. Lockups, crashes, and stuck in levels. Oh my!

There seemed to one station, Charing Cross, where every second or third time I attempted to enter, either by going through the portal, or by recalling back, my computer would hang. Completely. Unable to ctrl-alt-delete. The only option was a hard reset. The story in the forums was that this is being caused by a memory leak. I say is, because at the time of writing this, I understand that the problem has not been fixed.

There have also been a few times when I have got to the end of a level and have attempted to go through a portal into a new level and find myself unable to do so. Attempting to recall will also fail. The only way out is to quit the game and start again. I don’t know if this is a server failure, or a fault with the client. But it’s damn frustrating to almost finish a mission and have to start again after I restart the game.

There are also reports of some broken quests, skills not working, and other admittedly more minor annoyances. There’s one quest I won’t take again simply because I can’t get it to work. The last time I tried, I ended up just killing the boss and abandoning the quest.

The Ugly
Inventory management. Arrrggh. There I am killing monsters and happily picking up their loot until I can’t pick up any more. Then when I check the inventory, I find plenty of room, it’s just organized badly. So… I spent the next five minutes reordering my bags to fit the loot. This is one of the things I hated about Diablo too.

The User Interface doesn’t help much here. All the screens for inventory management, skills, and the like open full screen and you don’t get to see what around. So there I am rearranging my inventory and all of a sudden I start getting attacked. Doh! It would be nice to be able to have a window open and still be able to move or fight. Especially since the game doesn’t pause.

Lack of help. There is so much stuff in this game, but no in-game help. Skills are a case in point. Each class has a large number of skills and a very limited number of skill points to put in them. Aside from many of them being useless (or so I’ve heard) there is minimal description when you hover over them. The only way I’ve been able to find out about some of them is by visiting the forums. Not good.

Skills. Personally, I think each character has too many, and not enough points to put in them. There’s also no way to respec and the devs have said that they are not going to implement one. Now while leveling in Hellgate: London is much faster than other MMOGs, this means that if you stuff up your skills, the only option is to reroll. I tend to think that, especially these days, it’s a bit unfriendly.

Conclusion
Hellgate: London is a fun game, if you are playing the single player version. Unfortunately, at this time the multiplayer game is not ready for release. In fact I became so frustrated with it, I have stopped playing it altogether and have gone on to another game. It’s Vanguard deja vu.

When Flagship fix the issues, as Arnie says, I’ll be back. If bugs bother you and you want Hellgate: London for the multiplayer, my advice is to wait. If you can handle the problems, as many other players do, then by all means get into it.

If you just want to play the single player version, and you enjoyed Diablo. I’d say go for it. It is a fun and addictive game and I reckon you’ll get many hours of enjoyment. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but nothing is.

For this review, I’m going to split the score.

Hellgate: London Singleplayer gets 85/100.
Hellgate: London Multiplayer gets 65/100.

Popularity: 21%

Hellgate London EULA Ruckus

I was just reading Blues News and came across a item about the EULA for Hellgate London. Apparently, accepting the EULA gives Electronic Arts the right, amongst other things, to collect personally identifiable information about the customer, the customers computer and IP, and all the applications on the computer. Not surprisingly the comments on the news are less than complementary.

EA also came under fire for using the Securom software (which acts like a rootkit) with Bioshock, and I expect that they will be using the same software for Hellgate London. The EULA though, in my opinion, really takes the cake for instrusiveness. I honestly don’t mind some copy protection on software, even if lately it is getting out of hand. But to insist on having access to all the information on my computer is a bit much.

3. Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play. EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

Also not surprisingly, there a bunch of the commentors are saying that they will no longer purchase Hellgate London. I wonder how much of an effect this will have on game sales. If history is anything to go by, it probably won’t have much of an effect.

How about you?

Do unreasonable EULAs or onerous and intrusive copy protection mechanisms like Securom determine your final decision to purchase a game?

Or do you just decide to trust the publisher?

Popularity: 28%