Hellgate Gets A Save – Will Mythos Too?

There was an announcement today that Hanbitsoft, the folks who now own the rights to Hellgate: London, and presumably Mythos, are going to make Hellgate a free to play game. That’s pretty cool for the Hellgate: London players out there, and it’s probably something that Flagship should have done when it became apparent that the game was tanking.

Mythos was a better game though. A well made massive Diablo clone in a world where the Diablo clones never really measured up to the original. Mythos was never really finished, being in a perpetual beta, but it was playable.

Here’s hoping Hanbitsoft, or whoever the owners of the Mythos IP are, decide to do the same and get Mythos back on the air.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Mythos Shutdown

Phil over at Flagshipped has sent word that the Mythos beta servers and forums are going down at 12pm on Friday night. That means it’s already happened. Apparently the Hellgate forums were originally planned to go down at the same time but they’ve been given a reprieve.

The official word is that the Mythos beta is going on hiatus.

That’s similar language that Perpetual Entertainment used when they canceled Gods and Heroes. So I’m not feeling particularly optimistic about the long term chances of Mythos. With a lawsuit looming, it’s entirely possible that no-one will ‘win’ and the drain on Flagship will be the final bullet in the brain.

On the bright side. With nothing being said, or indicated, about any possible shutdown of the Hellgate: London servers yet, it looks like Flagship might try and trade their way out of this.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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: 14% [?]

Signup for the Mythos Beta

One of my readers, Azalus, commented on one of my posts about Mythos asking if anyone had a spare beta invite.

Reading the review makes me want to play this even more, unfortunately I have yet to receive an Invite…

Lucky for Azalus, the Mythos beta was opened up a while back so he can go to the Mythos web site and enter his email address in the signup form provided.

A lot has changed since I took my original look at Mythos. The biggest change, a sort of back to the drawing board level event, involves the de-instancing of much of the world. The areas between dungeons are now open for one and all.

Personally, I’m not all that sure this is a good move. Sure it makes the game more MMO — a lot of folks have commented that Guild Wars isn’t a true MMO simply because it instances the space between towns, something that Mythos used to do — but it removes that Diablo feel. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

Anyway. If you’re still interested in Mythos, head over to the main site and sign up for the beta.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Mythos Zone 3 Imminent

I just received the Mythos Newsletter in my inbox. It doesn’t really have a lot to say, just lists some of the upcoming features and events happening with Mythos. These include a redesign of the Mythos website, the announcement that the Zone 3 release is imminent, and some changes in PvP and Crafting.

There’s also a graphic of a new monster to fight, the Stagkin. The picture has a bipedal humanoid with a reindeer head carrying a nice big polearm. It’s a bit like Rudolph on steriods. A very very angry Rudolph who had previously gone on a rampage slaughtering elves and the Claus family leaving a trail of carnage in his wake…. ooops. There goes my imagination again. Could be a SciFi movie of the week.

The newsletter also mentions that if the Zone 3 test works out well, Mythos may well go into an open beta phase. That’s big news. Mythos has been in closed beta for a long time now. Opening it up will give this game a lot more recognition. Something it deserves.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Mythos Questions Answered

A reader named Jakob has been following my Mythos reviews, and posted a comment with a few questions about the game.

Does the game scale to party size, particularly in instances?

I haven’t grouped up with anyone yet, so I can’t say for certain that instances scale. However, the instances I’ve run have a lot of mobs. The bosses, especially as I’ve increased in level, are reasonably tough and have taken a bit of kiting to bring down. One of them, a bear, must have taken at least ten or fifteen minutes. Coupled with long boss fights, the instances usually taking me forty-five minutes to an hour to clear. A group will be able to clean up an instance far faster than a single player.

For a bigger challenge there are elite maps that have a recommended party size of five. Normal instances recommend just one player. These should be much more challenging for a group.

What is the LFG Mechanism like?

There is a Party Finder dialog that is accessible by a button on the Chat interface. It seems to be pretty much standard fare for this sort of feature. The LFG dialog has a list of players looking for groups, and allows players to list themselves, or find a party.

There is also a LFG chat channel available, which I’ve seen a number of party requests on.

What is the ratio of persistent to instanced areas?

For each main town, for instance Stonehill, there are a number of persistent areas, farms, temples that are essentially mini-versions of the towns. There are a couple of vendors, several quest givers, and some other NPCs hanging about.

Other than that, all other areas are instanced. Apart from the clearings around cave or dungeon entrances these areas have lots of mobs just waiting to be killed.

Does the game offer the option of AI assistance, like henchmen in Guild Wars?

I haven’t seen any henchmen for hire yet, but to be fair I haven’t really been looking for them. As Jakob mentioned in another comment, there is mention of Hirelings being added in a recent patch.

If the intent of the game is to be free, what will the purchased content be?

I asked this question when I recently interviewed Max Schaefer. The idea is to sell luxuries to paying players. These won’t necessarily effect gameplay – though they may enhance adventuring, not sure what that means. The RMT model also won’t result in players not being able to enjoy the full game because they haven’t paid, unlike other games such as Dungeon Runners.

There could be some similarities to the subscription model used by Hellgate: London – they are both produced by Flagship Studios – which provides for additional storage space and some other features that also don’t affect gameplay. Though I’d have to say having lots of storage is almost essential to enjoy these sorts of games. Especially for an old hoarder like me.

Don’t forget, if you have any questions that you would like answered, about Mythos or MMO games in general, please ask. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll try to find out.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Mythos Preview: Six to Twelve

It’s been a few weeks since I posted the previous installments of my Mythos adventures – apologies for that – the last few weeks it seems that every time I’ve sat down to do this report, there’s something else fun to write about.

I was going to title this post Mythos 6 – 10, but I got a bit carried away and leveled up to twelve. It’s not hard, Mythos is one of the games where I can easily get to the end of a quest and tell myself I have time for one more.

Speaking of leveling. At this stage it remains reasonably consistent. My experience seems to be that it takes two or three dungeons to crack each level. Part of this is because the mobs you encounter appear to be locked to your around your level if you are in an appropriate level dungeon. Generally there are also one or two outdoor areas that you have to travel to to reach the dungeon.

Each dungeon is set to a level range which you see when you are in the world travel view. I actually haven’t tried a dungeon who’s level range I have exceeded yet, but I suspect the maximum level of the critters would be the maximum level of the dungeon.

I noticed that at around the level seven and up dungeons a few things started changing. First, there were more tough mobs in the dungeons. These weren’t the bosses that had to be defeated for the quests, but were random orange, blue, or named mobs. They were also quite a lot tougher to take down.

At around level eight or nine, these ‘elite’ mobs were also starting to appear more often in the outdoor lead-up areas. My Gadgeteer didn’t have too many problems with these guys, she’s getting pretty good at kiting. It’s the other ranged mobs that she has a problem with. Fortunately I haven’t run into any ranged elites yet. I suspect I will at some point soon.

Unfortunately, these elites don’t always drop the loot according to their difficulty, which can vary quite dramatically. I’ve had a number of fights that were long and drawn out and quite difficult, where only a couple of pieces of vendor trash were dropped. A little disappointing after the effort.

The second thing that I’m now seeing is master chests. There are chests dotted all over the place in Mythos. Some of them are locked and need a small key to get into, but most are ordinary chests that don’t need a key.

The master chests sit at the bottom of dungeons and drop some really nice loot. They also need a master key to be opened. The master key will drop off a mob somewhere in the dungeon.

I found out the hard way, that you need to clear all the levels of the dungeon. I didn’t for one quest because it was getting late and I wanted to finish. I got to the bottom level, killed the boss, and then came upon the master chest, and no key. I didn’t end up going back to look for it, but I kicked myself anyway.

The last thing I noticed was that the drop rate of green, blue, and purple items has increased. That’s only to be expected though I wouldn’t have thought to see any blue or purple items at this stage of the game. Not a problem though. I’ve now got a lot of blue armor equipped.

As is normal with these things, the rarer drops tend to be for other classes. That’s not so bad since they sell to the vendor for a lot more than the white items. That alone has boosted my wealth, I’m up to around 70 silver now. It’d be a lot more, but I bought a couple of blue items which at the time wiped me out.

I only have one beef with the way items work for the Gadgeteer. I’ve come across a few dexterity weapons that have much better stats than my existing weapons. (Gadgeteers focus on the dexterity attribute, Bloodletters on strength, and Pyromancers on wisdom.) I picked up a very nice and deadly bow, and a couple of single wield pistols that combined would be better than my trusty rifle. However, for some reason, the Gadgeteers offensive spells – including Piercing Barrage and Napalm – only work for rifles.

The word on the forums is that there are other classes in the wings that bows and pistols are meant for. That certainly gels with the information Max Schaefer provided in his interview – new classes are on their way. The problem is that it does seem to unduly limit the Gadgeteer. It would be nice not to be confined to a single weapon type and have range of weapons to choose from, as the Bloodletters and Pyromancers do.

Aside from that single issue, the beta still seems to be shining. I haven’t really found any more bugs. The only occasions have been where a mobs AI seems to have gotten its knickers in a twist and the mob has continually advanced and retreated on my position until I got its attention or killed it. Oh, and there was one time when I killed one of these confused elites and it dropped its loot in a place I could not access. Some nice gear dropped too. Doh!

I’ve also finally moved on from the starting zone, Stonehill. There were a ton of quests there, and I picked up at least a couple dozen maps as well. I reckon I could have stayed there for another four or five levels, but I was getting itchy feet. So I hopped on the transport and ended up in a new town, looking at three NPCs with yellow question marks.

And that’s where I am now. I’m probably going to pull back a little on my Mythos game time for a bit, but that’s not due to any fault in Mythos. I’ve got a few things I’d like to do in other games over the next couple of months. I’m definitely going to step back into Mythos, it’s a really great game, and one I’ve been having a lot of fun in.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Mythos Interview with Max Schaefer

A few weeks ago I received an eMail from Max Schaefer, who is the executive producer of Mythos, in response to a post I published requesting an invite to the Mythos beta. At the time, Max kindly provided a beta key to the game. As part of our conversation, I asked Max if he wouldn’t mind doing an interview for Stropp’s World to which he agreed.

Max is one of the original co-founders of Blizzard North, which developed the Diablo series of action RPG games. In 2003 Max resigned from Blizzard, along with a number of other employees including Bill Roper, to pursue new opportunities. The opportunity turned out to be the start up of a new game company called Flagship Studios.

Stropp: Hi Max, welcome to Stropp’s World. Why did Flagship Studios decide to develop a Diablo style game?

Max: Originally, the purpose of the Mythos project was to make a small free game that would be a test-bed for the Hellgate: London network infrastructure. It didn’t take long before we realized it was turning into a real project. We were fortunate enough to get Travis Baldree, who made Fate almost single-handedly, to lead up the project, and he and his team have made Mythos into not only a real game, but one that all of Flagship Studios is very proud of.

Stropp: Will Mythos have a story arc? Will there be larger story of the world told in the game?

Max: Mythos will have a history, a setting, and a lore, but not so much a "story" that you play out as you level. Instead, you will learn about the world of Uld, about why the various players are there, what happened in the past, and what challenges there are for the future. But in Mythos, you are the story – you write it with your character’s exploits, and the interactions with all of the other players. We plan a very full suite of community-based gameplay features.

Stropp: I understand you are working on the up coming crafting system. Can you tell us how it works? And will the items that are crafted ultimately be useful, or will they be overtaken by loot drops and quest rewards?

Max: There are enough different types of desirable items in Mythos that crafting will give access to items and benefits that aren’t simply more of what you find from loot drops and questing. The crafting system under development now has elements of a skill system hybridized into it, and we’ll be releasing more and more information about it as we get closer to the Zone 3 push.

Stropp: How about PvP? Will this be included in Mythos? Can you give us any details?

Max: We’ll be starting out with basic dueling, and also with a very exciting concept: the Shadow World. This is basically a copy of the entire game of Mythos, accessible through portals, that has PvP everywhere, all the time. It’s very exciting the way it’s turning out. Additionally, we plan other PvP and group vs. group modes like Capture the Flag-type games and other non-PK competitions.

Stropp: How is the beta progressing?

Max: It’s going extremely well. The response from gamers has been fantastic, and we work closely with Beta testers to uncover bugs, and discover player preferences and issues. Travis and the team have a great relationship with the players, and are very motivated by the response so far.

Stropp: Mythos has been in beta for quite some time now. How close are you to a release date?

Max: The Alpha/Beta period has been fairly long, as we really did use it to test features for Hellgate: London. Therefore we opened it before we might have otherwise done so, but this has allowed us get more input from our players and spend more time iterating on the design based on real data. Our release date has not been set but I can tell you it will be this year.

Stropp: What are your plans for Mythos when it is released? Will you be regularly patching in content? Or will you be doing bigger expansions less frequently?

Max: We plan on regularly patching in content. Our plans for Mythos extend well beyond what we will be commercializing with, and the Seattle team is committed to expanding the universe for the foreseeable future. Since Mythos is a free download, we’ll probably not do larger expansions, but just keep adding chunks of content that will be automatically patched in when players log on.

Stropp: How about new races or classes? Will we see any Frost Mages or Necromancers in Mythos?

Max: Not those specifically, but yes, both new races and classes are on the way.

Stropp: It’s been previously announced that Mythos will be free to play. Can you tell us what revenue model you will be using? What incentives will there be for players to pay extra?

Max: We will be using an RMT model. Our goal is to provide a wonderful, robust free experience, but offer attractive options for people who are willing to pay to get extra luxuries, or enhance their adventuring. We don’t want to simply sell the best items – even paying players will have to go kill monsters to find the best loot. Also, we plan to let players trade the in-game cash currency for items with non-paying players. This way, even the cash items will be available to free players, and we’ll avoid splitting the community into the haves and have-nots.

Stropp: There’s been quite a lot of discussion around the MMO blogging community recently about RMT. How do you intend to deal with third party gold and item sellers?

Max: It’s very difficult to stop item selling. Instead, we are investigating actually allowing players to sell items though a secure in-game marketplace rather than resorting to Ebay. We don’t think gold farming will be a huge issue in Mythos, however, since the RMT currency cannot be farmed, and the in-game gold doesn’t buy you everything you need. Nevertheless, we stop gold farming whenever we can.

Stropp: Finally, is there anything else that you would like to tell us about Mythos?

Max: Mythos is all about good fun. We made it easy to approach – we expect many players will never have to look at a manual – and have aimed for a wide audience of gamers. At the same time, we want players to have a deep, rich game experience, the kind you don’t usually get from free games. Basically, we want to bring AAA production values and depth to the casual game space. We don’t expect to take over for giant epics like World of Warcraft, but rather to enhance such games with an alternative that’s a bit lighter, a bit less time consuming, a bit easier to play, and is always just a free download away for everyone.

Stropp: Max, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Good luck with the rest of the beta.

Max: Thank you for the opportunity!

Popularity: 43% [?]

Mythos Beta – Day Two

I spent a good chunk of today experimenting with Mythos.

One of the goals of today’s play was try out the different classes and modes. So I put Durkin on the backburner and created a Pyromancer.

The Pyromancer is essentially a fire mage. However, there are a lot of different builds available. You can choose these builds by using your skill points to buy different skill sets. Usually there are several skills associated with a primary skill.

For instance the Flamecaster page for the Pyromancer has a skill you can learn called Flaming Dart. This allows the Pyro to fire a flaming dart that passes through multiple enemies doing damage to them all. Flaming dart has six levels that increase damage each time the skill is raised.

Two tiers down, there is another skill called Dancing Flames. This causes the darts to ricochet of walls and other obstructions. The player can invest eight points in this to increase its effect. The final tier skill related to Flaming Dart is Burning Fragments. This causes the darts to split into secondary projectiles to do yet more damage. Six points can be invested here.

The concept of Tiers deserves some explanation. Each skill is assigned to a tier. The first tier in our previous example has the Flaming Dart and Flaming First skills. Tier two has Flame Serpents, Restorative Flames, and Ignite. Tier three has more skills and so forth, all the way to Tier six. In order to get the second tier skills, the player must invest some skill points to unlocking it. Three skill points are necessary for tier two, all the way up to a total of 30 skill points to unlock tier six.

I got the Pyromancer up to level six before I called it a day on that class. I did die a couple of times, lucky I wasn’t hardcore. For the most part, taking down ordinary monsters was pretty easy. Two or three shots dispatched them handily. It was with the bosses I had more trouble. This class seems to be fairly squishy, though I’m certain I wasn’t playing it fully right.

In anycase my day wasn’t done. I wanted a bit more of a challenge. So I created an elite Bloodletter. I called him Darkin and he was a Gremlin too. Oh the Pyro, I can’t remember her name offhand, but she was a Satyr.

Elite mode, as it sounds, is somewhat harder. Darkin had a tougher time dispatching mobs than did Durkin. The damage the mobs did was increased, and they were tougher. The only other thing I noticed was that the loot drops were improved. I received more greens and blue items. I also received a yellow item on the next character, a named spear. This, I believe was a set item. Pity I couldn’t use it.

The Bosses were much harder. I was able to take down all but one, the end boss in the white caves. Durkin had no problems whatsoever, Darkin lost health rapidly and died trying to escape. Also happy I was not in hardcore mode.

Speaking of which. I mentioned in the Mythos Preview: One to Five report that players were able to respec their skill points at a special NPC. This is only applicable to normal mode characters and not elite or hardcore characters.

There’s a long running debate on the beta forums on the whole respec is good/evil theme. One group of players wants the ability to respec, the other doesn’t.

My final task for the day was to make a Gadgeteer. This time I chose to make a Human character, and once again chose the Elite mode. The Gadgeteer relies on ranged weapons much like a hunter, but they are also able to use grenades and other gizmos. My perception after playing it was that the Gadgeteer is tougher than the Pyro but not as tough as the Bloodletter. Makes sense doesn’t it?

So far this is my favorite class. There’s a lot of kiting involved, especially in the case of the bosses. In one dungeon I had to take on three nasty spider queen sisters. There was no way to stand still since they poisoned and burned me down really quickly. The only way to deal with them solo was to kite them back to the entrance room and lead them around the room stopping occasionally to shoot back.

These were the hardest I encountered, and I was able to take them on successfully.

In light of this, I figured I might look again at the Pyromancer. I believe my problem there was in kiting the mobs and bosses. With a bit more practice and a different allocation of skill points (I was still figuring things out at that point) the Pyro might be a fun class to play.

I’m not so sure about the Bloodletter. Since he has to get up close and personal, there’s no way to kite unless he uses a ranged weapon or a minion. Darkin would never have stood a chance against the Spider Queen Sisters.

For those of you interested in finding out more about the skills. A very helpful fellow named Matt Hall has set up a website to allow players to experiment with their skill builds. The site is called Mythos Calc and is worth a look, if just to check out the skills in the game.

Stay tuned for more on the Mythos beta.

Popularity: 23% [?]