Flagship sunk

Okay, this actually disturbed me enough that I didn't get a good night of rest last night... The whole night I was hoping that the rumors are not true, sigh...

I both sad and pissed right now.

Sad because the folks at FSS really did have a lot of good ideas for the game. I love the randomization, item customization, the great integration of FPS and RPG.
The environment and back stories are excellent too. Not to mention top notch graphics, esp. in DX10.

The game had many humor and subtle niceties too. Like the funny quotes for weapons, subtle change of movements based on weapon equiped, speed and class.

I could go on, but I guess I am biased since bunch of us at work loved the game.

I am pissed, not because I lost quite a bit of money (so much for my lifetime sub, and multiple copies of the game for friends.)

But because ever since the beginning folks at FSS have been taking a lot of sh*t from angry mobs that they don't deserve. Sure they have made many mistakes at launch but they certainly don't deserve to be slammed like they did. It is esp. disheartening to see how some of the sites is handling this closure ordeal, they seem to be happy... (sometimes I wish I had started my own gaming site... ) FSS folks have been working tirelessly for the past months, and have really made great strides towards improving the game, yet all some of the people on the internet seem to want to do is to slam the game, and making personal attacks towards the devs.

Thank goodness we still have sites like GWJ, or RPS.

Sorry for the rant, just had to get it out of my system.

Lethial, I don't think the other news sites are happy, they're just interested. It's a spectacle. A shut down like this doesn't happen every day.

Mex wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

I liked Hellgate's unusual setting. :/

London?

I mean post-apocalyptic with both magic and technology. It feels a little steampunk even, and it was a real breath of fresh air when everything else is just a reworking of Tolkien (usually with progressively longer ears and progressively larger breasts).

polypusher wrote:

Whats so great about Hellgate that should be integrated into Diablo 3?

The departure from standard fantasy for one. There was a lot of creativity put into that game. I mean, a gun that shoots locusts? That alone should've guaranteed success! As far as game mechanics go, there are two things I really liked; the dye kits and the minigame. Each piece of equipment had a color scheme that you could adapt to the rest of your equipment so it all matched or you could equip separate color schemes in their own slot, some of which even had added effects. The minigame was great too; it randomly gives you three criteria to meet, usually involving killing a number of monsters a certain way. Succeed and it gives you a bunch of magical equipment and mods, as well as a new set to try. It got me to try out new weapons and play styles but could easily be ignored.

Anytime you have a development company that's more focused on the revenue model than on the actual game, there's a high chance of a real stinker.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I mean, a gun that shoots locusts? That alone should've guaranteed success!

*cough* AC2 hivekeeper *cough*

Really though, I've followed the game since forever, played alpha beta and lifetime subbed and all that, and lately I thought the game has been coming together reasonably well. I hope they can keep it going in some form or fashion.

It's looking like they will keep it going, but only in Asia.

This all sucks. The game had issues (mostly tech issues) that really bugged me, but overall was a solid and fun game. A good "B+" title. Pity it went down like this.

Absolutely. Mythos was really looking good, and Hellgate, well, it could have been better, but it still had promise, and they were improving things. Sympathies to all the workers at Flagship.

In order to inflate the somewhat erroneous belief that Aliens is more quoted around here than Ghostbusters:

"Game over, man! Game over!"

So what does that do to the copies on the shelves? I actually thought about picking up Hellgate tonight when I was at Target. If I bought the game tomorrow, would I be able to play it?

LeapingGnome wrote:

So what does that do to the copies on the shelves? I actually thought about picking up Hellgate tonight when I was at Target. If I bought the game tomorrow, would I be able to play it?

Single player, yes; multiplayer, for now yes, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Malor wrote:

Anytime you have a development company that's more focused on the revenue model than on the actual game, there's a high chance of a real stinker.

Agreed.

I understand some people enjoy HGL. Different people like different things - not exactly breaking news. However, I think for the majority of gamers HGL was a piece of junk. It's derivative and repetitive.

For me, I'm very happy to see them go under. I feel sorry for the guys in the trenches, but crap developers should fail, in fact, MUST fail so we're not constantly inundated with poor quality games like HGL and Mythos. It's a healthy process.

Mythos a poor quality game? I guess Diablo 2 should've failed too.

MikeMac wrote:

For me, I'm very happy to see them go under. I feel sorry for the guys in the trenches, but crap developers should fail, in fact, MUST fail so we're not constantly inundated with poor quality games like HGL and Mythos. It's a healthy process.

Bit harsh to assume Mythos is a poor quality game before the majority of us get the chance to try it out. By all accounts it is(was?) actually quite fun.

I also don't believe that hellgate was a total disaster either (as far as the actual game is concerned) my problem with it stems from the blindingly stupid subscription model (which is best summed up by this penny arcade strip):
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/5/11/disparities/

MikeMac wrote:
Malor wrote:

Anytime you have a development company that's more focused on the revenue model than on the actual game, there's a high chance of a real stinker.

Agreed.

I understand some people enjoy HGL. Different people like different things - not exactly breaking news. However, I think for the majority of gamers HGL was a piece of junk. It's derivative and repetitive.

For me, I'm very happy to see them go under. I feel sorry for the guys in the trenches, but crap developers should fail, in fact, MUST fail so we're not constantly inundated with poor quality games like HGL and Mythos. It's a healthy process.

So developers shouldn't be allowed any margin for error? If they make one mistake they need to be shut down? Seems excessive to me, how many developers have never, ever released a boring or buggy game?

I never played HGL, but from all the praise coming out of Beta Mythos was/is very good. I think it was a mistake for them to make such sweeping changes when the game was to all intents and purposes ready, doesn't mean they deserve to be shut down.

After all, these are people trying to do something that gamers will enjoy, I'm actually quite horrified that someone is happy to see these people out in the street.

KingMob wrote:

Honestly - I feel like a complete (expletive deleted) now that I never subscribed.

I don't think you should. You had good reasons (bug concerns, game play issues, etc) to not bother subscribing to the game monthly. Presumably they failed because (among other reasons) not enough people were subscribing monthly. I would posit the failure of Flagship Studios was at least in part because they released a buggy game without enough content that felt similar to many other games.

I know it's not looked upon as good form to speak ill of the dead but let's call a spade a spade. HG:L had a lot of promise, some good art design, and many other good points. It also had some game-killing bugs, server wipes, somewhat tired game play, and issues with randomized levels. I'm not happy they're gone but I'd like to point out the key word in saying their game had a lot of untapped potential is "untapped."

MrDeVil909 wrote:

After all, these are people trying to do something that gamers will enjoy, I'm actually quite horrified that someone is happy to see these people out in the street.

I think you're exaggerating a bit here. Yes, it sucks that they've been laid off and I'm not pulling out the party hats but they're workers in a currently booming industry that as a good amount of turnover even in normal circumstances. These people aren't going to become hobos overnight because they lost their current jobs, riding the rails and drinkin' hooch from a paper bag. They're going to be picked up by some other company; hell, the beginning of this thread even stated there's a recruiting effort by EA!

beetfield wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

I mean, a gun that shoots locusts? That alone should've guaranteed success!

*cough* AC2 hivekeeper *cough*

Also that one hive gun from the first Half Life game. Or was AC2 before that?

Okay, fine they weren't really locusts. But they did seem to be bugs.

bnpederson wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

After all, these are people trying to do something that gamers will enjoy, I'm actually quite horrified that someone is happy to see these people out in the street.

I think you're exaggerating a bit here. Yes, it sucks that they've been laid off and I'm not pulling out the party hats but they're workers in a currently booming industry that as a good amount of turnover even in normal circumstances. These people aren't going to become hobos overnight because they lost their current jobs, riding the rails and drinkin' hooch from a paper bag. They're going to be picked up by some other company; hell, the beginning of this thread even stated there's a recruiting effort by EA!

Yes, I am exaggerating a little, but it was a response to someone who did seem to be pulling out a party hat.

While I'm sure that most, if not all, the staff will land on their feet you just need to read the occasional 'I got laid off today' thread in the Everything Else forum to know that it doesn't seem to be a pleasant experience, and to say that someone deserves it just strikes me as cold.

I think you can feel for the individuals while also holding a feeling of contentment or elation at the company as a whole going under. If telemarketing was made illegal tomorrow I'd feel pity and sympathy for those laid off who now have to find a job in unrelated fields or face significant financial troubles. I'd also be absolutely ecstatic that there were no more telemarketers out there to annoy me.

Yes, it's an extreme example but I can see where MikeMac is coming from. If I felt their games were little more than rehashed game play that added nothing to the industry I loved I'd probably be content to see them go too. Would you really be upset if Nintendo dropped some employees because they weren't going to make Mario Party games anymore?

Heh, HGL has really improved by leap and bounds over the months, but it seems that people rather slam it then giving it another chance.

As to the game being derivative or repetitive, what ARPGs isn't? HGL actually added a lot more unique stuff for an ARPG.

Not only ARPG, aren't all the games in the Sims or Mario series "derivative and repetitive?" (Heck, in every genre there are many games that are derivative and repetitive.) How come those devs deserves all the praises? Don't they "deserve" to fall too?

Edit: spelling

Its kinda funny as last week Hellgate was a large conversation piece with a group of friends over dinner. We had a long discussion about lifetime subscriptions when a friend had mentioned he bought the lifetime offer for LotRO recently. My girlfriend was not to happy to find out I bought a lifetime sub to Hellgate when it came out and then did not sink much time in the game. I defended my decision pointing out all the changes that have been made to the game and the things promised down the line. I'm sure it will be a ton of fun going home tonight and telling her the news about flagship.

I had high hopes for Hellgate and even though it was not everything I would have liked I truly enjoyed what time I did spend in the game. I feel bad for those at Flagship and Ping0 and wish them the best of luck.

One thing that always disappointed me about Hellgate was the lack of LAN and small group Multiplayer. It is a whole different playing field online compared to small LAN games with friends. I have found memories of Diablo 2 and Dungeon Siege with a small group of friends with pcs setup from on end of the house to the other. It makes me sad whenever I hear about an ARPG without LAN support. If the decision is ever made to take down the the Hellgate servers I would love to see the subscriber content patched into singleplayer and an option to host multiplayer games.

It's become common practice for many game companies to release games that should, for all intents and purposes, still be in beta. I understand that there are financial pressures to release a game and start generating revenue. But there are also risks to that business strategy and it appears that Flagship has become the prime example of those risks. I just hope that future game companies use this as a lesson of what-not-to-do and that the overall quality of games hitting market increases. That may be asking for too much though.

lethial wrote:

Heh, HGL has really improved by leap and bounds over the months, but it seems that people rather slam it then giving it another chance.

So, 4 years of development time wasn't enough to release it in a playable state, but a few months of patches and it's perfect?

I admit I haven't played Hellgate since I bought it at launch, but I have trouble believing that they fixed all the problems I had with it. Broken collision detection, broken enemy and item spawns, broken missions, one of which stopped me altogether from proceeding in the game (I suppose I should thank it for that), random levels that were built out of what seemed like only two or three repeating tiles leading you on mazes through the world's most generic landscape and dropping you at dead end after dead end, crappy voice acting, a completely perfunctory story. I assume the combat gets better as you build up your character so I won't insult that, but the FPS combat that I played at the beginning of the game was pretty bad. It was one of the worst experiences I've had with a game that seemed like a big release.

It's sad to see talented people out of a job, but they had everything going for them from a hype level, and if they had delivered a good game it could have been a huge event. In the end, their product didn't live up to their self-promotion and the market correctly called them on it.

lethial wrote:

Heh, HGL has really improved by leap and bounds over the months, but it seems that people rather slam it then giving it another chance.

As to the game being derivative or repetitive, what ARPGs isn't? HGL actually added a lot more unique stuff for an ARPG.

Not only ARPG, aren't all the games in the Sims or Mario series "derivative and repetitive?" (Heck, in every genre there are many games that are derivative and repetitive.) How come those devs deserves all the praises? Don't they "deserve" to fall too?

Edit: spelling

Very few games get a second chance at making a first impression. HG:L was unfortunately not one of these. It really left a quite horrible first impression (that big CTD bug being the biggest culprit IMO. It took months for them to fix that one alone), along with a demo that while serving the functional purpose of teaching people the game, it did little to energize potential players. The announcement of the subscription system wasn't much of a help either. On top of that, it was heralded as being the second coming of Diablo, already giving it one hell of an expectation. There were too many factors working against this game that didn't get removed as time went on.

I genuinely liked Hellgate for what it was, even being aware of the issues. It would be interesting to note that even in some of the worst reviews, there was not much in the way of denying the game was fun, but I also think the 'problems' (derivative, repetitive) were magnified with the issues already plaguing the game.

Darth Nader wrote:

Very few games get a second chance at making a first impression.

And that is it. Blow the launch and your game is dead.

There is far too much entertainment out there for folks to spend discretionary income on. Why should I spend my hard earned cash for broken software? If you are going to launch at game based on shareholders because you absolutely have to have it out for the fourth quarter then reap the whirlwind. Its been said a million times here, but I'm tired of being your paid beta tester. Patch it later at your peril. My leisure time is limited and precious.

HGL wasn't the only one in recent memory to do this. Frontlines had a terrible launch, Quake Wars wasn't all that stellar, and I'm getting the sense that Age of Conan is headed in the same direction.

Switchbreak, most (if not all) of those shortcomings that you mentioned have been fixed (though ravagers still have some collision detection issues.)

But you guys are right, this day and age, with the abundance of choices first impression is all that matters. I just hope the folks at FSS will all end up in good places.

The official word posted Friday on the Hellgate forums:

"... All our Directors and Founders are still working at Flagship, and all of them are working on Hellgate: London or Mythos. The team size for Hellgate is as big now as when we shipped. We are putting all of our efforts into these projects and I think it will show in the upcoming Hellgate Abyss Chronicles.

Sincerely,
David Brevik
CVO
Flagship Studios"

http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/sho...

Somebody's prevaricating. I don't know who, but I sure find it disturbing that so many people around the 'net want to dance on Flagship's "grave".

RichyRambo wrote:

Its been said a million times here, but I'm tired of being your paid beta tester. Patch it later at your peril. My leisure time is limited and precious.

Here here. It takes events like this to make the industry react. They rarely respond to Female Doggoing and moaning if you're still buying up the game in droves. But a studio pushing out an unready game gets mediocre sales (I assume) and ultimately fails? That will perk up a few game dev/pub ears.

One thing that killed the game for me was always playing alone. Here you have a diablo wannabe, who knows that the game is most fun in groups, and they launch with an incomplete/nonexistent guild and communication system.

BadKen wrote:

The official word posted Friday on the Hellgate forums:

"... All our Directors and Founders are still working at Flagship, and all of them are working on Hellgate: London or Mythos. The team size for Hellgate is as big now as when we shipped. We are putting all of our efforts into these projects and I think it will show in the upcoming Hellgate Abyss Chronicles.

Sincerely,
David Brevik
CVO
Flagship Studios"

http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/sho...

Somebody's prevaricating. I don't know who, but I sure find it disturbing that so many people around the 'net want to dance on Flagship's "grave".

That was posted on June 11, not July 11. It was in response to some rumors that surfaced last month but isn't relevant to the current situation.

BadKen wrote:

The official word posted Friday on the Hellgate forums:

Uhm that was posted a month ago, not Friday, and as it turns out now they were clearly in trouble despite those claims. It's already been confirmed the rumors are true.

MikeMac wrote:
Malor wrote:

Anytime you have a development company that's more focused on the revenue model than on the actual game, there's a high chance of a real stinker.

Agreed.

I understand some people enjoy HGL. Different people like different things - not exactly breaking news. However, I think for the majority of gamers HGL was a piece of junk. It's derivative and repetitive.

For me, I'm very happy to see them go under. I feel sorry for the guys in the trenches, but crap developers should fail, in fact, MUST fail so we're not constantly inundated with poor quality games like HGL and Mythos. It's a healthy process.

i disagree with this. If we punish developers for taking chances, then we'll be stuck with games that are all the same because no one will be willing to accept any risk with their ideas.

London?[/quote]

I mean post-apocalyptic with both magic and technology. It feels a little steampunk even, and it was a real breath of fresh air when everything else is just a reworking of Tolkien (usually with progressively longer ears and progressively larger breasts).

polypusher wrote:

Whats so great about Hellgate that should be integrated into Diablo 3?

The departure from standard fantasy for one. There was a lot of creativity put into that game. I mean, a gun that shoots locusts? That alone should've guaranteed success! As far as game mechanics go, there are two things I really liked; the dye kits and the minigame. Each piece of equipment had a color scheme that you could adapt to the rest of your equipment so it all matched or you could equip separate color schemes in their own slot, some of which even had added effects. The minigame was great too; it randomly gives you three criteria to meet, usually involving killing a number of monsters a certain way. Succeed and it gives you a bunch of magical equipment and mods, as well as a new set to try. It got me to try out new weapons and play styles but could easily be ignored.[/quote]

So true, such promise flushed. I hope it can be picked up down the read by someone who will pleasantly surprise us. Such a bummer.