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hellgate: London- a raw deal for Europeans?
herennow
Member UncommonPosts: 70
I've been looking forward to this game but have got increasingly frustated. It is set in my country and for months I've been reassured of a European forum. Now a few weeks before release and still nothing.
A beta but you had to pre-order the game to get into. Yet there was no effort to involve a european trading partner in the pre-order. A reassurance that we get A european seperate server so we have to wait until the day we too are invited in... yet nothing.
Then the recent anouncement that (seemingly because of the weak dollar) We are going to have to pay more to get all the added online features than for any other MMO on the Euro market. According to info released what you get seems way less than what you would expect in an MMO. Yes player housing.. er I had that in SWG way back when so that is not exactly new. So a sandbox or fully thought out quest arcs?... er neither but some pretty good random level generators and lots of demons to blow up. Ability to make a clan... er UT, Quake etc had that as does every MMO and FPS game so why is that a deal I would pay for?
possible special online content... er isn't that what you are meant to develop before you release a game and then add to in subsequent releases? This game looks brilliant but I have not been so underwhelmed by the official community support since I left SWG.
It is a real shame. If a game is not a fully immersive MMO but has persistent online content in a futuristic stting I am interested but I feel ripped off to be asked to pay more than I would for EVE, WoW, LoTRO etc on the basis that if enough of us do we might get some great content specially developed for us but the devs are not sure enough of their economic model. Oh and we are Europeans so we have to pay more because the Americans elected the wrong president who screwed their economy.
I've cancelled my pre-order and will now wait and see but I'm really disapointed. i even tried emailing this company to ask them to give non-US citizens a realistic idea of what we can expect a few weeks before launch. No reply. Ransacked the official forum and any other release I could find and still no answer.
I really hope I am disorganised and missed something. But in light of the vagueness about what is happening in Europe and the ridiculously high charges being quoted for the full online package I'll sit and await a few months to see if this is worth spending money on.
Its seems odd to me that such a window is missed. Considering WAR and AoC are pushing back their releases this would have seemed a time to go into marketing hyperdrive- parcticularly as the WAR devs hyped this game in their Q&A earlier this month.
If I was a teacher I guess I'd be writing:
'flagship show good promise but must learn how to treat other nations with respect- could do better'
A shame as the single player download suggests great promise
In light of what I've written above if this game does not make enough of an impact to change the impression they've created then I'll guess I'll save up and try both AoC and WAR when they come out. I hope for Flagship's sake I am the only person feeling like this on this side of the pond.
Comments
2. I signed up for the beta and got an invite, you should have done the same when you had the option
3. Your paying 9.99 euro a month if you subscribe, because of the added european taxes that they cant do anything about. If I recall correctly, WoW is 15 euro a month. The features for this price seem quite appropriate to me, I suggest reading some stuff of subscriber features aswell as the update on hellgatelondon.com. As for the pre-order, I agree, europe largely got shafted but that's EA's fault since there the publisher.
4. Europeans and Americans get the same content at the same time, this goes for new releases also (with exception to Patch 0 or the full release, which is 1-2 days later here depending on which country you live in).
i've double checked as I'd quit WoW for a while and your prices are valid. However other immersive MMOs who have already invested in substantial online content are lower than the quote price for Hellgate. You are repeating months old assertions about a site in Europe and when is the game released? I understand your point about the distributors. If I was a dev and the game is as good as the W.A.R boys were hinting I'd be frustrated too but my point is this
i'm the customer. I've tried hard to find out and the answers are still very vague and the game is a fortnight from release. judging from your reply you are either somebody who enjoyed the beta or work for Flagship. Assuming you are the former I'll revisit these forums as i'd dearly like to hear how my misgivings are unsubstantiated and the views of you and others in the beta will be of real value now the NDA is lifted. And thanks for the tip about the site. Unfortunately it is where I got confused as to what in terms of gaming content you actually get by paying more.
I grew up reading the Hellraiser comic strip. This is the world that would have existed if Constantine had failed to bluff the tiumverate. I'd love to be immersed in it, failed to get ino beta but had this game on pre-order with amazon since the moment I realised you could not get it via any official pre-order. i cancelled 'cos i expect a game of this alleged magnitude to be able to launch when it says and open a Euro site like every other game does- particularly as they said they would a while back. I'm not sure what caused this ineptness but I'll hold my cash back until these guys know what they are doing in Europe.
I don't really care whose fault it is but if they cant get the sales guys to segue with the tech people then I'll keep my cash back until they can. Particularly as there is absolutely no advantage at the moment to pre-ordering. Everything I'm saying applies to Europe only. i'll follow US games forums with interest as this game has the potential to really rock.
Subscription fee is getting more and more old school as i see it. Just look at ArchLord, Swords of the New World and RF Online. They all started with subscription fees (optional for SotNW), but now they are free to play.
Of course you can use subscription fee, if you feel you have a good product and the users/players feel they get value for money. In this case I think 9.99 euro is not worth what you get extra.
I could reply very indepth to your points *which on a side note are valid, if a consumer FEELS this way Flagship/EA has done something wrong so I do commend you on letting your frustrations out in such a mature manner*.
Unfortunatly, all I can say, and I know this isn't going to cut it for you, is to wait til' launch. As you said, pre-order really doesn't have a lot of benefits. A single player demo is released, the last wave of people that volunteered for beta without pre-order got admitted 2-3 days back and everyone has the mentality of ''I want to check out this game in depth but not level past 20 because its release is in just a week and a few days and I dont want to waste a higher level on that''.
I know not everyone has the faith in Flagship that I do, but I really really 100% believe that they will make a perfect launch, and if there are flaws in this launch they wont be severe and will be corrected within the first month and a half. That's just my belief, and I understand if you dont feel this way.
It's late, and I am not going to look up the posts about the european site by official flagship staff, and subscriber features on the hellgatelondon.com website, but I will tomorrow and report back here. Just remember that if there isnt a european site by launch time they would already doom themselves easily because you wont be able to register & log in to the game if your european, and tho you may believe they are doing some things wrong, they are far too smart to let this happen.
EDIT: I also didnt hear about a euro hellgate site until 3 days ago, when it was in an official announcement post on hellgatelondon.com that it was nearing completion. I hellgatelondon.com would be the universal site.
on a side note, you didnt have to preorder to get into the beta, you just had to sign up for the beta when sign up was open...everyone that signed up should have gotten in by now.
9.99Euros is a bit rough...thats like 15-17 US Dollars...ouch. I would sit and wait as well if I lived EU side, if the content is not there I dont see the charge being worth it at all. I would not pay 15$ a month for this at all...but 10 I can do...I pay for real MMOs as well and the subs add up
~HappyGaming
I don't think FSS is intentially forgetting about Europe. I just think marketing in Europe is far more sophisticated in that every country has there own rules and regulations. In the patch0 official statement by FSS they mentioned that their focus is on language builds. Since North America speaks English (well a vast mority of it does), I would think that would mean that the focus now is to prepare the game for different languages (rules & regs) of various countries.
Those 3 games were F2P in Korea then they attempted to market them as a new or innovative game change in other places to be turned down and told they won't be charged for 1-2 year old games translated into another language and being slapped with a shiny new sticker and paying for it.
Archlords Beta flopped incredibly hard. They couldn't even get beta testers to stay. RF just realized they ran their course after about a year in the states and did what they could to salvage. Don't know about SotNW's whole story, but it is probly along these same lines.
There is no overwhelming benefit to subscribing over those who do not. I had spent around 200 dollars on D2 of the course of the last 7 or so years since release due to losing CD's or keys being banned for legitimate use of unique game mechanics (Not my fault gheed wanted to sell me SOJ's for a gold a piece!). If I can pay all that up front and make sure the game is always there via digital download through my account I am fine with that, along with having more characters than I can shake a stick at.
hehe Namelessbob, I'm one of the eejits who coughed up for RFOnline and cancelled after two days because scifi/apocalypse/superhero type games are my preferred genres over trad fantasy and I agree with your first two paragraphs.
I think this game might prove to be worth a sub fee if you live in the USA. I just wish the marketing people had looked at a globe and gone 'hmm there seems to be a rather large land mass with a population that has internet connection and a reasonably wealthy population and gives our competition, blizzard a heck of a lot of money. maybe we should think about treating them seriously?'
This is my last post on the topic as I fear I am turning into a troll but I am shocked that a game can be so badly launched over this side of the pond. Even Sony waits until it has you as a subscriber before treating you like this.