Been a little while since we’ve seen Gamasutra generating Hellgate: London content. This time it’s in the form of an interview with Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper on the topic of the company’s formation, as all as that of its first concept title.
Gamasutra: Has the reaction to the Hellgate: London revenue generation model been a surprise?
Bill Roper: Somewhat, but that is mainly because – like the game itself – the model doesn’t fit neatly into a prescribed paradigm. We’re offering an amazing amount of value with Hellgate: London. Much more, in fact, than we did with the Diablo games. For the price of a single-player game, you also get a free secure online experience with many more features than we offered with Battle.net. Not only do you get to play the game with your friends for free, but we have guilds, auction houses, and a host of community and game play features we’ve never offered in the past.
Unfortunately, I think some people believed they were somehow getting a lesser experience than subscribers out of the box, and that simply isn’t true. The subscription model is there for players who want more and are interested in enjoying a steady stream of continuing content. Our intention is always to over-deliver to our players, and with a subscription model we can constantly keep developers on the game and provide the long-term experience that they’ve shown us they want.
Oh, and if you get the Content* reference in this entry, you’ll be awarded one Scapes Point.
– Scapes
Before people protest, yes this one’s little dusty, if only by ten days. But then again, this is Contentpalooza, a celebration of our reserve crop of news.
Electronic Arts, publisher of Hellgate: London in the United States and employer of Bobby Tunick, friend of the site, has opted for a new company structure to “[bring] teams closer to customers and [speed] new products and services to market”.
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 18, 2007–Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced that the company will organize its business into four Labels: EA Sports, EA Games, EA Casual Entertainment and The Sims. Each Label will operate with dedicated studio and publishing teams focused on consumer-driven priorities. The new structure is designed to streamline decision-making, improve global focus, and speed new ideas to the market.
Hellgate: London falls under the EA Games section. The effect of this restructuring is likely to be largely transparent to us consumers. Kotaku’s commentary on this news was humorous. And, to liven up this rather dry news entry, here are some new pictures of Hellgate: London found on nZone by Sp3tSnAz.
– Scapes
Well, you all asked for insight into the content we’re brewing behind the scenes so Krazy Kaution thought up a way to do just that. He and the rest of the tech crew team have been putting together some very shiny skill trees for the six classes. However, Krazy charged through his current project, the Blademaster, and also offered an NDA-free version that we can share here and now.
And yeah, -palooza needed a breather and this seemed big enough to warrant -bazooka. Krazy’s suggestion. Exclamations of thanks can be shared here.
– Scapes
“Mythos Testers,
In preparation for our imminent Beta test, we have officially closed the Alpha and shut the game down as of noon, June 27 PST. We hope you enjoyed the Alpha over the past weeks as we are looking forward to your feedback and reactions when we roll out our Mythos Beta very soon. You will all be automatically included in the Beta, and you don’t need to take any action. You will get an email in the near future that will announce the date the Beta will start. Things to be aware of are: 1) we will be wiping all the characters and all current forum posts, 2) you will need to uninstall Mythos and reinstall a new game client. Detailed instructions will be posted on the forums and the self-help pages. 3) you will need to claim a new forum name due to database maintenance. We apoloigze for the down time but cannot thank you enough for you patience, your help and your feedback in completing a very successful Mythos Alpha test!”
Off the official Mythos Site
Woot, Mythos Beta on it’s way, then HGL soon :), can the world get any better
Ping0 Community Manager Kaiser Hwang posted this over on Kokeeno’s Flagship Forums last night:
We will absolutely have our own forums. Actually, we’re the process of a new site design right now, which is why the current site hasn’t seen too many updates. The new site will have, among other things, a dedicated forum. That doesn’t mean we’ll only post on our own forums, but as already mentioned, it will make it easier for folks to have a dedicated official forum to turn to if need be for support, feedback, etc.
And here I thought that we’d only have minor news entries during this week’s event. Before people get overly concerned about our forum’s future, follow this link to hear from some long-time members of ours whose experience in this and other communities ought to stave off many of your worries.
– Scapes
Just a tiny update, Hellgate Guru member Carbonite has found a vote currently happening on MMOsite.com between two games, Hellgate: London and Aion. Hellgate: London is winning by heaps
Currently, Hellgate: London holds 95.52% or 320 votes while Aion is at 4.48% or 15 votes.
Infocomm Asia Holding’s Hellgate: London Community Manager, Angelace, has been given the Cabby treatment by Flagship Studios’ Art Director Phil Shenk. Her reaction could be heard from all the way across the interweb — all fifteen “e”s of it.
And yay for the perpetual motion of content this week! Might actually make Contentpalooza a weeklong event.
– Scapes
Media news site TwitchGuru.com (no relation) has posted up an image preview of Hellgate: London. An impressive 52 samples of Hellgatey goodness are available for your viewing pleasure here.
There are rumors, once again, of a Diablo III announcement coming at Blizzcon in August, but even if the game is announced it could be several years before it comes out. Rather than drumming your fingers waiting, Bill Roper and Flagship Studios would have you slaying demons and waging war in order to save the world from a marauding demonic horde. It may not be called Diablo III but you can bet that the founding principles and spirit of Diablo are there. Flagship Studios was created by a group of executives from Blizzard North, who were the original developers of Diablo, after a disagreement with the parent company Vivendi. Hellgate: London is their first release, but already the buzz is strong and things look to be shaping up in time for an October 2007 release.
This, also, wasn’t planned to be part of Contentpalooza. Isn’t it nice when things just work out?
– Scapes
Hellgaters, we have reached and breached 100,000 posts and 4000 threads on our forums. Quite a milestone, one fitting of a birthday contest. Congratulations to the ten winners: Hazar, Blackfish, BurningSheep, dirtiestdamhip, Destructis, zoner7, SpartanMarine88, BrigAce, WiseWolf, and Super! Please contact me via PM with your mailing address to receive your prizes: a Hellgate: London issue #0 comic book (E3 exclusive version) and a Hellgate: London poster of your choosing (pending available selection).
Some rather serendipitous timing, what with it being the middle of Contentpalooza and all. Wasn’t planned as in planned-planned, was more like “huh, it’d be neat if the contest ended during this event thingy I just coined”.
– Scapes
Another literary update! Some might recall Flagship Studios telling us they’d arranged with Tokyopop for a Hellgate: London manga. Its release date, April 8th of 2008, has been announced along with 37 other mangas that have nothing to do with HG:L (although there are StarCraft and WarCraft ones coming out as well).
There’ll clearly be a healthy, wide selection of Hellgate: London merchandise available for purchase in the future.
– Scapes
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
