Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Help me stomp on the ashes
mmorpg1972
Member Posts: 49
Hellgate was the game I looked forward to for a long, long time. I put a lot of faith in the Bill Roper and Co. Needless to say I felt ripped off and cheated by what was released, along with a lot of other people. I'm very happy to see they've been collectively Flagshipped. I hope Hanbitsoft get their end of the deal. Looking forwards to seeing Roper's resume posted on job search sites soon. Lesson to MMO developers: Don't overpromise, overhype, or over-eat!
Vent with me.
Comments
Might not of been the best game, but it was a great idea. You sure have no idea what to look for in the MMo genre when you say over-hyped as everything is over-hyped. Dancing that they closed is just being a dick. No good reason to see a promising gaming company go under like this and be happy.
I agree, it's just another fantastic idea going down the drain. No MMO company is likely to try something similar anytime soon, which is a damn shame because if the game wasn't total rubbish I would play it in a heartbeat. We need more games that don't force you to play with 5 people and a tank/healer.
I agree, it's just another fantastic idea going down the drain. No MMO company is likely to try something similar anytime soon, which is a damn shame because if the game wasn't total rubbish I would play it in a heartbeat. We need more games that don't force you to play with 5 people and a tank/healer.
You mean you need more single player type MMO's?
I have to disagree on some level, I personally dont feel any sort of jubilation about it, however I think its a necessary evil. The more companies that put out sub par products then close up shop, (hopefully) the more other companies will see this and think twice about releasing another low quality game.
again hopefully anyway. What ever happened to minimum standards....
Humm so alot of people lost their jobs, and investors will now be even more leery of investing in a Genre that has had its fair share of failures recently. Yes Flagship tried something different and they failed, but at least they did try, guess you just want more WoW clones, if so your joy is well placed, maybe you could celibrate by going out and kicking a puppy or something? I mean really tell me you have never made any mistakes at work, and that those around you have never made any mistakes at work, as such by your own standards you and your coworkers should all be fired and out of work.
Try a bit of perspective. Going out for a nice meal with your wife / Girlfriend / family can easily cost just as much as a MMO. If ones meal is bad lets say the cook burns your steak or something most would generally just never go there again, and yes tell friends and others the meal was bad. However most would not generally wish the resturant goes out of business and everyone inside be fired
Sad
I agree, it's just another fantastic idea going down the drain. No MMO company is likely to try something similar anytime soon, which is a damn shame because if the game wasn't total rubbish I would play it in a heartbeat. We need more games that don't force you to play with 5 people and a tank/healer.
You mean you need more single player type MMO's?
Just because You don't like single player type MMO's doesn't mean everyone dislikes them. Generally speaking more choices are better. You want investors and Dev's only going the safe route of producing more wow clones then you win here, otherwise perhaps you shculd just allow people with different playing styles then you to enjoy what they want, just as they don't tell you what you should like and should play?
I agree with everyone on this thread, except for the Op and any other dick's that agree with him.
In last few days we really did lose a game that did think out of the box and did try something different, not to worry thou hanbitsoft wants to take over, so don't worry OP you will have your pink and purple poker dotted floating unicorn shaped trading stall soon, yeah for you.
R.I.P. Flagship & Hellgate: London
edit: the op is a troll, anyone looking at his profile can see that he only has posted in the mmorpg.com's hellgate; london forum and by the looks of his posts, they all try to bait people.
Well, the thing of it is, HG:L didn't live up to what it promised.
The first of the problems was its two tiered approach. It didn't deliver onmost of its promises of features available to subscribers that weren't available to non-subscribers. And what it did deliver, wasn't much of an incentive to subscribe. This created feelings of betrayal and dissatisfaction with the people who purchased the Lifetime subscription. (Yes, I am one of them). Even half a year later, they still didn't have all of the features they promised at launch in the game. They are probably lucky they weren't sued for breach of contract.
Secondly, the gameplay didn't really lend itself to long-term playing. It was repetitive, boring, and simply the same thing rehashed over and over. The zones were small and, again, repetitive. You'd seen them over and over along your travels through London. Nothing really made the zones stick out as unique, except for a few exceptions. But once you beat the 'game', then there was nothing to do but try it all over again, except this time it was harder. Ooohh....that's incentive.
The game was never really a MMO. It's a single player game with a builtin group finding feature, where instead of rooms that you browse through to find games, as with Diablo and Diablo 2, you simply interact with other people in the 'safe zones'. This leads to a game that has a short term shelf-life, especially when you think about all of the people who burn through games fairly quickly. That's what they were betting on. Expansions every three months? We saw how that went, with only one expansion being released that wasn't very big and didn't really add much to the game.
While it takes guts to try and open a studio and run a successful game, it just appears they overreached, then crashed and burned horribly. Just like they burned their subscribers, employees, and investors. They might be stand up guys, which it sounds like they were when they paid for their employees for 30 days out of their own pocket, but the fact of the matter is, I wouldn't touch another game made by any of these guys with someone else's computer, much less my own.
That is the price of failure and they failed big time. Even Dark and Light is still going, and that was arguably one of the small studios that failed to live up to its hype in recent memory.
They promised and promised and promised, but in the end, they simply failed to deliver on them, leaving them with disgruntled employees and players.
In response to the poster about the restaurant analogy:
Ok, let's go with it. You go out to a restaurant to have a nice meal. You see the menu, you order and you get the meal. It's not what you expected but it's alright and edible. Not the best, not the worst. Sure, they may have messed up the order slightly, perhaps burned your steak more, or undercooked it. Doesn't matter. Stuff happens. People expect that in the /normal/ course of things.
Now, let's put it in the perspective of Flagship Studios. You reserve a table for more money, in order to get the live show, personal waiter, enhanced menu and perhaps some free appetizers that are described very well. You get to the restaurant and find that the table you reserved is suddenly in the middle of a bunch of people who didn't reserve, because they complained they weren't getting enough. The floor show was cancelled at first, then they manage to get a couple of employees to sing. The personal waiter is shared among everyone else who reserved tables, of which it turns out there are many and there is only one waiter. The enhanced menu consists of adding a couple more vegetables to the entrees that people who didn't reserve don't have access to. And it's regular vegetables, not something like truffles or anything. Then, the appetizers which sounded good on the menu, well, they didn't have anything they listed and just gave bread, because that's all they have available, but will give the better stuff when they get it.
That would be more accurate of what Flagship pulled. Sure the food might have been alright, but it's the broken promises that you'll remember. The feeling of not getting what you paid for. That is what creates the resentment and the words that you tell others when they ask you about the restaurant.
It sounds like it wasn't only just Flagship studios who were overreaching there expectations.
But if you really want to put this in perspective, the people at Flagship studios lost there jobs there finical security and all the effort that they put in to making this game, you lost $200 and a bit of your free time, which if your were being really honest, both really didn't hold that much value for you, otherwise you would have spent your money more wisely and done something different with your time, also unless you continued playing right up to the close of shop, then it was you who wasted your life time subscription, because it's lifetime of the game, not your lifetime,(but you already knew that, didn't you)
I think we can all agree that the gameplay was for the most part, spot on: part action/fps, part rpg. However, the problem with HGL was poor level/mission design. The game does a good job of immediately drawing you in, but it quickly wears off when it doesn't get any better than that. If FSS had pushed it more and more(level design, mission structure) at each section, the game would've fared a lot better with critics and gamers.
In essence, at least for me, it was the opposite case of VG - where there was quite a bit of content but the game just hardly worked when you needed it to. Here, the game worked, was playable, but the content was only ankle deep. Another thing is, is that I think we all fell for the hype because it was just too easy to do so. A lot of what was promised seemed simple on paper - Oh, that can't be too hard to pull off - and the sum of all those simple parts would make a very interesting game. But what happens when only half of those "simple" ideas come to fruition and even then, some of those aren't quite functioning as good as they can be?
For all intents and purposes, I do appreciate FFS work on HGL. No, it wasn't what it could've been. But neither is any other game I've played. They're either too short, too buggy, to shallow, etc.... Its kind of like when I see one of my peers share this really cool idea for a project. And then, at the crit, you're more disappointed in the fact that the vision wasn't achieved for whatever reason(time, money, etc....) even though the end product isn't too shabby. Hopefully all those involved learned from their mistakes/mishaps and learned from the successes. While there were many failures(cohesiveness, level design, etc..) with HGL there were a lot of successes(base gameplay, art direction, etc...)
I agree, it's just another fantastic idea going down the drain. No MMO company is likely to try something similar anytime soon, which is a damn shame because if the game wasn't total rubbish I would play it in a heartbeat. We need more games that don't force you to play with 5 people and a tank/healer.
You mean you need more single player type MMO's?
Just because You don't like single player type MMO's doesn't mean everyone dislikes them. Generally speaking more choices are better. You want investors and Dev's only going the safe route of producing more wow clones then you win here, otherwise perhaps you shculd just allow people with different playing styles then you to enjoy what they want, just as they don't tell you what you should like and should play?
For what it's worth, perhaps the ultimate karma and or stomped ashes has come from Ropers old employers.
Blizzard announced Diablo 3, to be released at some point in the distant future... and Diablo 2 box sets start flying off store shelves and selling out at every software vendor.
The demand for this type of gameplay and niche is quite clearly there. H:L just didn't capture it effectively.
Its not a personal affront to the people that lost their jobs, the blame falls solely on shortsightedness of the people in charge. Blame them for the sub par product, not the people that dont enjoy sub par products.
You were warned ... to stay away from the steaming pile known as HGL....
It sounds like it wasn't only just Flagship studios who were overreaching there expectations.
But if you really want to put this in perspective, the people at Flagship studios lost there jobs there finical security and all the effort that they put in to making this game, you lost $200 and a bit of your free time, which if your were being really honest, both really didn't hold that much value for you, otherwise you would have spent your money more wisely and done something different with your time, also unless you continued playing right up to the close of shop, then it was you who wasted your life time subscription, because it's lifetime of the game, not your lifetime,(but you already knew that, didn't you)
And yet they are in a fairly fast-paced field with a high rate of turnover, so it's not as if this were as great a loss as you might think. And with the money an average game software developer makes, if they weren't planning ahead, then that is their own loss. I'm finding it hard to believe they couldn't see the writing on the wall as far as the fate of the company, especially in light of Guy's rant about the state of the game a couple of months ago. People lose their jobs, especially in the field they are in. I've lost mine several times over the years, but due to foresight and some planning on my part, I weathered it well enough that I don't have to worry about it so much anymore. It happens, and with the state of the game they released, as well as the reputation that got shot to hell for such a bad game, it's not that surprising. Unfortunate perhaps, but again, the ball rests solely in their court for anything and everything that happened with the game. Yes, it was the fault of upper management and all that, but even as regular employees, they could have moved on or made preperations for the future. Asking me to feel sorry for them now is ludicrous.
Yes, I lost my $200 and free time, which I actually value quite highly. As to $200, no it wasn't much to me, but the fact that I didn't get what I paid for is quite a sticking point. The lifetime of the game also included future expansions and such as well, for HG:L. If they held up to their original promises, then that could have gone on for some time. As it is, it's just added to the list of broken promises they made.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make other than trying to shoot me down personally, as you didn't respond to any of my points. I spent money on something which I thought was a good investment of my time. It turns out I was wrong and I don't cry foul or anything else. I accept it, but I can't say that I'm surprised or sorry that the developer responsible for it folded.
I knew this game was doomed after reading their Payment/Subscription Plans.
The fact is that the 'subscription' plan was a real con. There was little if any meaningful content for the first couple of months, absolutely no reason to be a subscriber. Subscribers were left frequently wondering what, exactly, were they paying for? In fact one of the early 'events' for halloween was so poorly thought out and implemented, that plenty of people in my guild decided to cancel their subscription because the items it put into their inventory were so damn annoying.
I've not seen a game overpromise on so much in a long time. I stand by my original post in its entirety. I'm not a troll, but this game made me angry, and I'm happy to hear everyone else's perspectives, it helps me deal with the bad taste left in my mouth.
Continuing to support the developers of a game like Hellgate is a slap in the mouth to the rest of the industry who do good honest work, and because of this, in my opinion, is immoral. You're basically saying to publishers; go on, release any old crap, we will take it. Dress it up with a cool print advertising campaign, overpromise on features, and trade on respect for previous accomplishments, and you can shift a whole lot of boxes.
I say, emphatically: NO!
I purchased Hellgate London in mid-November 2007. I was psyched to play a game that was essentially a combination of DOOM with RPG elements.
Then my initial installation was essentially a self diagnosis hell. After much effort and requests on their forums I got NO helpful replies from ANY employees whatsoever. Indeed I eventually self diagnosed a bug in their DX10 programming dumped a bug report into a folder upon crash. Upon restartup the contents of the folder were read as meaningful data for use in the game which would then gimp my program permanently until I removed it. Additionally, successive problematic attempts at using their update/download system additionally continued to half install the game that I would have to remove or delete each time. Even after informing them of these errors, they failed to fix these game breaking bugs for the average gamer with no computer programming experience.
BUT I was finally able to play the game and enjoy it for a time. I even subscribed, looking forward to the promised updates. Delays delays delays. This is nothing new in the game industry. Annoying - yes, but not new. I was patient. They swore they had all this cool new stuff just barely around the corner.
Boy was I a sucker.
Financial commitments convinced me to de-subscribe a couple of months back. I consider myself lucky to have gotten out at about twice the cost of the game.
In retrospect, I should have trusted my instincts concerning troublesome Flagship forum behavior that never bodes well for a company:
They kept the general discussion area of their forums locked from the public. To access them you had to purchase the game. For a company interested in selling their game to me, I typically go to their forum and see how the people like it. Here was a company blocking people from checking out reviews by their own player base - seemed strange then.
Not so much now. There were a lot of complaints of bugs then, and it seems like a tactical effort at damage control.
Infact, there was so much damage to control on the forums that it was well known that they were deleting posts in a whole-sale slaughter approach to anything that remotely sounded negative. Here today, gone tomorrow. Threads would pop up about how other threads had been deleted - along with screenies of said deleted posts - only to have those threads then get deleted. As a witness, at first I thought threads about these deletes were probably concerning some expletive filled garbage post. I found this wasn't the case the more I payed attention.
In the end the game was a great concept, with decent gameplay but poor implentation with the updater that had a too many game busting faults that should have been easilly cleaned up, but weren't.
So Goodbye Flagship!
It sounds like it wasn't only just Flagship studios who were overreaching there expectations.
But if you really want to put this in perspective, the people at Flagship studios lost there jobs there finical security and all the effort that they put in to making this game, you lost $200 and a bit of your free time, which if your were being really honest, both really didn't hold that much value for you, otherwise you would have spent your money more wisely and done something different with your time, also unless you continued playing right up to the close of shop, then it was you who wasted your life time subscription, because it's lifetime of the game, not your lifetime,(but you already knew that, didn't you)
And yet they are in a fairly fast-paced field with a high rate of turnover, so it's not as if this were as great a loss as you might think. And with the money an average game software developer makes, if they weren't planning ahead, then that is their own loss. I'm finding it hard to believe they couldn't see the writing on the wall as far as the fate of the company, especially in light of Guy's rant about the state of the game a couple of months ago. People lose their jobs, especially in the field they are in. I've lost mine several times over the years, but due to foresight and some planning on my part, I weathered it well enough that I don't have to worry about it so much anymore. It happens, and with the state of the game they released, as well as the reputation that got shot to hell for such a bad game, it's not that surprising. Unfortunate perhaps, but again, the ball rests solely in their court for anything and everything that happened with the game. Yes, it was the fault of upper management and all that, but even as regular employees, they could have moved on or made preperations for the future. Asking me to feel sorry for them now is ludicrous.
Yes, I lost my $200 and free time, which I actually value quite highly. As to $200, no it wasn't much to me, but the fact that I didn't get what I paid for is quite a sticking point. The lifetime of the game also included future expansions and such as well, for HG:L. If they held up to their original promises, then that could have gone on for some time. As it is, it's just added to the list of broken promises they made.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make other than trying to shoot me down personally, as you didn't respond to any of my points. I spent money on something which I thought was a good investment of my time. It turns out I was wrong and I don't cry foul or anything else. I accept it, but I can't say that I'm surprised or sorry that the developer responsible for it folded.
Ok just going to ask you this first, "you did actually read the title of this thread?" so if your not here to help stomp on the ashes, then it's you who's in the wrong thread, there other threads that chat about the game and short falls and mistakes, threads where your well written comments would be taken in within the context of what your trying to say and you wouldn't be seen as someone trying to justify why they should be allowed to post here to make fun and ridicule the people who just lost there jobs, as I said if your not here to do that, then your in the wrong thread.
p.s. no one is asking you to feel sorry for them, just asking people to not be vile and nasty.
Please do tell us,( in full) how this game personally affected you and your life, tell us all about how badly you were scarred by this game, how the evil leaders of flagship went totally out of there way to hurt you and steal your fun and wreck your life, tell us how they came around to your house and kicked your dog and stole your kids candy, tell us about what tactics they used to force you to sub.
ether way there gone now and you should be happy, so get over yourself, get on with your life and stop being so VILE, as for your thread," Help me stomp on the ashes" this is just an insult to the fans that did enjoy the game, who did give there support and did want to see it succeed and didn't give up on it and turn there backs on it, who are sad that it did fail, all your thread does is mock us and laugh at us for trying and giving a chance to dev who saw away out of the grinding clone box where 90% of the other mmorpg's come from.
I also believe you are a troll, I think that your login is an alt login that you've been a member of mmorpg.com for a fair while and your to scared to use your real login handle, because you know this thread of yours is Vile troll bait.
"Please do tell us,( in full) how this game personally affected you and your life..."
No.
"ether way there gone now and you should be happy, so get over yourself, get on with your life and stop being so VILE, as for your thread," Help me stomp on the ashes" this is just an insult to the fans that did enjoy the game, who did give there support and did want to see it succeed "
The release of Hellgate was insulting to ME, as I WAS a fan. I gave Flagship my financial support, I wanted to see Hellgate succeed. One of the reasons I'm angry, as an ex-fan, is that Flagship behaves now as if it has contempt for its community, it doesn't treat them with any respect.
1) Where is the announcement, communication to its community? (actually this has been its standard behaviour). DISRESPECT TO THE COMMUNITY
2) Why did they remove financial account access, and not even give notice, an explanation, or any communication as to this very worrying development. DISRESPECT TO THE COMMUNITY
3) Why do they allow rumours of two independent entities taking over their IP to flourish without any proper response. DISRESPECT TO THE COMMUNITY!
So you can dance up and down and ask me to go away, but I wont. I'm enjoying seeing a group of people who once had my respect get some comeuppance, and I will not be deterred from my enjoyment of watching their sinking ship.
Anyone else, grab a drink, get in your evening wear, and watch the flames with me.
I won't even bother with the self serving tripe which is the first part of your post, but for anyone interested I will try and give them some answers to the three numbered statements,
1) Where is the announcement, communication to its community? (actually this has been its standard behaviour).
-if it all closed down the way I suspect it closed down, then it's most likely happened when flagship studios was closed down for the day, so if the take over happened during the night, then it's quite possible that everyone was denied access to the building next morning, security access denied and access to there computers, which means no communication, no announcements and no disrespect.
2) Why did they remove financial account access, and not even give notice, an explanation, or any communication as to this very worrying development.
-the cancelling of the subscribers page was most likely by the new owners, I believe all who were subbing now have free access, all who were lifetime members, life time is up and you are now riding on the good will of the new owners, for was long as they feel like leaving the servers up and running,( also FFS did manager to finish and update the game with the 1.3d patch, a few days before they closed there doors.)
3) Why do they allow rumours of two independent entities taking over their IP to flourish without any proper response.
- most likely they really didn't see it coming, remember this type of take over is usually done in secret up until the last minute and the first sigh of anything happening is the boss walks into the main work area and starts asking for everyone's attention please and would you all mind grabbing your personal belongings and vacating the building.
to the OP; the only disrespect to the HG:L community and even the mmorpg.com commuinity, is you and you efforts with this thread.
I think I'm going to have to ask you to calm down there buddy.
Sorry, but I do feel a little festive at Flagship sinking below the waves. Why? Because for months I was afraid that HGL was the wave of the future - developers charging monthly subscriptions for "new" content not worth the price. As a former Guild Wars player, I felt a little put out being forced to pay for such basic conveniences as shared storage between all your characters. I can understand a monthly fee for games that are constantly evolving or adding content, but I don't like it when developers get greedy or act downright dishonestly.
If Hellgate was a success, I could see companies across the board charging fees for any multiplayer experience, no matter how lame. Want to reload while playing Team Fortress? That will be $7/month. Want to play any race besides the humans in Starcraft 2 mutiplayer? That will be $10/month.
And yes, I was once one of the idiot early adopters who pre-ordered the collector's edition, played in beta, and bought several of the books/comics. Hellgate had a great IP that was really badly implemented. I knew the writing was on the wall when Diablo 3 was announced, but didn't realize the game would die this fast.
PS - I'm not here to flame other fans or spit on the vast majority of the dev team. Having been laid off at times in the tech industry, I know how much it sucks to lose your job overnight. But let's face it - content like Stonehenge should have been in the game from the get-go. And premium content should have been just that - cool extra features instead of basics that make the game experience feel gimped unless you subscribe.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Sorry, I can't help you stomp ashes. Your story is just too sad. I'm sorry that HGL wasn't the game that uplifted your life and made all your dreams come true. It's just a game, after all. Has everyone stomping ashes learned their lesson yet? Stop breathing hype and start breathing oxygen again. The next game you are waiting for is also going to be just a game so don't spend all day dreaming about it.
Sorry if I sound a bit harsh. I really do hope you enjoy your next mmorpg purchase. I suggest you wait a couple of months after release before buying it though. That way it will have had its first couple of patches and the price will drop from $50 to $30. That's what I do and I've never been disappointed. I paid $20 for HGL, played it for a few weeks and consider myself a satisfied customer.
Best wishes and good luck to all the former Flagship employees.
this game wasnt a fucking mmo