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Why did Hellgate London fail in the first place? And why the Relaunch?

HrothaHrotha Member UncommonPosts: 821

I missed to play that Game when it was first released. Got scared away by it's horrible Rating and so on...

Maybe anyone here played it: Why did Hellgate London fail in the first place - and why is there a Relaunch now?

 

Rgrds.

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Comments

  • alextodoalextodo Member UncommonPosts: 236

    You had to buy the Game and pay a monthly Fee to get full access to the Game and that alone turned off many people. The Game is just not a full fledged MMO to warrent a monthly fee. Add imbalance , bugs and repetition to the mix and poof ... game over.

     

    It was a good game , dont get me wrong , but it did not justify its price tag.

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  • mesmerisemesmerise Member UncommonPosts: 200

    I remember playing the single-player part of the game for a bit.  It was a very Diablo-esque game mechanically - skill trees, itemisation, demons - but I did enjoy the FPS elements as playing a sniper.  It was not a bad game but I think that the developers must not have had a good return because Flagship Studios is now defunct.

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  • HrothaHrotha Member UncommonPosts: 821

    So if it only comes down to the price, alex, then there must be a Rush for their Free2Play Relaunch now. Guess I will take a look, once in a while

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  • rik666rik666 Member Posts: 69

    i loved hellgate london, for me it was worth more that the price tag.

  • revy66revy66 Member Posts: 464

    Originally posted by crunk001

    So if it only comes down to the price, alex, then there must be a Rush for their Free2Play Relaunch now. Guess I will take a look, once in a while

    The bugs played a big role cause the game was bugged as hell when it came out but it has been running all this time in Asia so they must have fixed them by now. I'll keep an open mind.

  • rik666rik666 Member Posts: 69

    Originally posted by revy66

    Originally posted by crunk001

    So if it only comes down to the price, alex, then there must be a Rush for their Free2Play Relaunch now. Guess I will take a look, once in a while

    The bugs played a big role cause the game was bugged as hell when it came out but it has been running all this time in Asia so they must have fixed them by now. I'll keep an open mind.

    Yes, most where fixed even with patches, that's also why they didn't sell to much, and that leads to why flagship gone bankrubbed.

  • RalsarRalsar Member UncommonPosts: 305

    I loved the game, but the subscription model was poor.  This isn't an MMO so paying a full MMO price for a co-op game was a turn off.

    And the Elite vs. Non-Elite, Subscriber vs. Non-Subscriber split up the community so much.  So annoying.

    The buggy launched also sucked.

  • rik666rik666 Member Posts: 69

    Originally posted by Ralsar

    I loved the game, but the subscription model was poor.  This isn't an MMO so paying a full MMO price for a co-op game was a turn off.

    And the Elite vs. Non-Elite, Subscriber vs. Non-Subscriber split up the community so much.  So annoying.

    The buggy launched also sucked.

    yup, but i think people learned from mistakes so there wont be a subscription model.

  • RednecksithRednecksith Member Posts: 1,238

    They charged too much for online play, and restricted free players too much. That, and the idiot known as Bill Roper made some horrifically bad business decisions which resulted in the loss of all Flagship Studios' IPs to Hanbitsoft.

    Also, working on two games at once with such a small crew (Hellgate and Mythos) most likely contributed to the failure as well. They simply overextended themselves, and paid the price.

  • RobsolfRobsolf Member RarePosts: 4,607

    Originally posted by revy66

    Originally posted by crunk001

    So if it only comes down to the price, alex, then there must be a Rush for their Free2Play Relaunch now. Guess I will take a look, once in a while

    The bugs played a big role cause the game was bugged as hell when it came out but it has been running all this time in Asia so they must have fixed them by now. I'll keep an open mind.

    For me, it was the randomization of the map.  Those sorts of things don't keep a game fresh, IMO(it was my least favorite aspect of Diablo).  It just makes the design philosophy (that maps don't matter so long as they're slightly different and there's stuff to shoot at) more apparent.  It just got old as level after level was pretty much the same thing as the last.

    Some people dig that, however.  So I'd guess it was the price model, particularly for a game with its lack of depth.  Going F2P may do the trick, but keep in mind, Dungeon Runners was similar in philosophy and concept, and had a better sense of humor, to boot.

  • rik666rik666 Member Posts: 69

    And the relaunch is because the game didn't fail as mmo in asia, so they are bringing it back here,

    lucky me i missed oldtimes :D

  • reb007reb007 Member UncommonPosts: 613

    Hellgate was a good game. Flagship studios is the reason Hellgate failed.

     

    There's info about what happened if you don't mind searching. Essentially, Flagship borrowed too much money, couldn't pay their loans, and then had to give up Hellgate and another IP (Mythos I think).

  • NethermancerNethermancer Member Posts: 520

    I played hellgate right to the end. It was a lot of fun but had many problems including payement method, horrible launch, bad story, cost the company to much money to make, horrible management, lieing to customers etc. etc.

    I highly doubt hanbitsoft will do anything great witht the game i actually expect it to be pretty much intact with some new content. Which is fine with me,

    Hopefully see you in game.

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    Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

  • adam_noxadam_nox Member UncommonPosts: 2,148

    It was too heavily instanced, too bland in it's environments, the humor it attempted with character dialogue only annoyed people, the gameplay was subpar and quirky with odd powers and abilities in an unsuccessful attempt to be 'different'.  It was only moderately fun for a first week.

  • adam_noxadam_nox Member UncommonPosts: 2,148

    Originally posted by gigat

    Hellgate was a good game. Flagship studios is the reason Hellgate failed.

     

    There's info about what happened if you don't mind searching. Essentially, Flagship borrowed too much money, couldn't pay their loans, and then had to give up Hellgate and another IP (Mythos I think).

    If it was good it would still be around and so would flagship.  It suffered from poor sales and very little residual income from optional features.

  • Panther2103Panther2103 Member EpicPosts: 5,777

    Originally posted by adam_nox

    Originally posted by gigat

    Hellgate was a good game. Flagship studios is the reason Hellgate failed.

     

    There's info about what happened if you don't mind searching. Essentially, Flagship borrowed too much money, couldn't pay their loans, and then had to give up Hellgate and another IP (Mythos I think).

    If it was good it would still be around and so would flagship.  It suffered from poor sales and very little residual income from optional features.

    That isn't necessarily true. Flagship was terrible at advertising, and a lot of the people left the game at launch due to problems with how it ran. There were still a lot of people playing the game when they decided to close it down, but the whole thing with subscriptions for more content threw people off. If someone borrows and owes too much money, that can close any game down, even if income is good. Owing more than you can pay off with money coming in is signs of bad management.

  • jpnolejpnole Member UncommonPosts: 1,698

    Originally posted by alextodo

    You had to buy the Game and pay a monthly Fee to get full access to the Game and that alone turned off many people. The Game is just not a full fledged MMO to warrent a monthly fee. Add imbalance , bugs and repetition to the mix and poof ... game over.

     

    It was a good game , dont get me wrong , but it did not justify its price tag.

    That about sums it up. Add in that "He who shall not be named" who left Flagship Studios to help sink Cryptic and you have the final peice of the puzzle.

    And yes I loved the game and can't wait for it's relaunch!

  • MMO.MaverickMMO.Maverick Member CommonPosts: 7,619

    I think they wanted to make Hellgate London sort of a Diablo-style game, with random maps but then in true 3D style.

     

    The idea is nice, but they should have done it like GW, B2P, since it's more of a CORPG than a full MMORPG.

    Still looking forward to giving it a try again image

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  • jpnolejpnole Member UncommonPosts: 1,698

    Originally posted by Robsolf

    Originally posted by revy66


    Originally posted by crunk001

    So if it only comes down to the price, alex, then there must be a Rush for their Free2Play Relaunch now. Guess I will take a look, once in a while

    The bugs played a big role cause the game was bugged as hell when it came out but it has been running all this time in Asia so they must have fixed them by now. I'll keep an open mind.

    For me, it was the randomization of the map.  Those sorts of things don't keep a game fresh, IMO(it was my least favorite aspect of Diablo).  It just makes the design philosophy (that maps don't matter so long as they're slightly different and there's stuff to shoot at) more apparent.  It just got old as level after level was pretty much the same thing as the last.

    Some people dig that, however.  So I'd guess it was the price model, particularly for a game with its lack of depth.  Going F2P may do the trick, but keep in mind, Dungeon Runners was similar in philosophy and concept, and had a better sense of humor, to boot.

    Ehh Dungeon Runners was pretty much crap. HGL will do a lot better. Better graphics (on max with DX 10 features enabled), more action, mix of third person and FPS style play, better boss fights and group play, etc. Plus millions of gamers in Asia standing behind it!

  • therez0therez0 Member Posts: 379


    Originally posted by Panther2103

    Originally posted by adam_nox

    Originally posted by gigat

    Hellgate was a good game. Flagship studios is the reason Hellgate failed.
     
    There's info about what happened if you don't mind searching. Essentially, Flagship borrowed too much money, couldn't pay their loans, and then had to give up Hellgate and another IP (Mythos I think).
    If it was good it would still be around and so would flagship.  It suffered from poor sales and very little residual income from optional features.


    That isn't necessarily true. Flagship was terrible at advertising, and a lot of the people left the game at launch due to problems with how it ran. There were still a lot of people playing the game when they decided to close it down, but the whole thing with subscriptions for more content threw people off. If someone borrows and owes too much money, that can close any game down, even if income is good. Owing more than you can pay off with money coming in is signs of bad management.

    I will also say that it was a good game. Mismanagement is what sank the flagship, not the game's quality.

    The launch was seriously ill advised. As a beta tester (screw their NDA at this point) I can say that most of the bugs it launched with were known months in advance. Most of the bugs were not even hard to fix--pathing issues, obvious balance problems, sticky AI--but most of them went unfixed in order to rush the game out the door in time for a Halloween gimmick launch. The most troubling and ignored bug was a known issue with the newbie district/quests; it was a serious deterrent to reviewers and new players, yet the game launched with it anyways. If they had only held off for 2 months...

    But if you had pushed past those initial bugs to the later levels and the Stonehenge patch that came in December, it was an awesome game that had so much potential. So much potential that I bet the bank on a lifetime-sub. But even that got squandered--you would think that the 2,500 lifetime subs that they sold out (at $150 a pop IIRC, sold mostly to beta testers) would have been enough to buoy the company long enough to make returns on the game.

    So as was said above, the game was good, its just He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named's fault.

  • therez0therez0 Member Posts: 379


    Originally posted by jpnole

    Ehh Dungeon Runners was pretty much crap. HGL will do a lot better. Better graphics (on max with DX 10 features enabled), more action, mix of third person and FPS style play, better boss fights and group play, etc. Plus millions of gamers in Asia standing behind it!

    I hate to be the rain-cloud, but no Dx-10 in the F2P version for some strange reason.

    The reason was mentioned by a moderator in the T3 forums. Their layout is just so bad on those forums that I don't want to try to find the thread right now.

  • rik666rik666 Member Posts: 69

    Originally posted by therez0

     




    Originally posted by jpnole



    Ehh Dungeon Runners was pretty much crap. HGL will do a lot better. Better graphics (on max with DX 10 features enabled), more action, mix of third person and FPS style play, better boss fights and group play, etc. Plus millions of gamers in Asia standing behind it!




     

    I hate to be the rain-cloud, but no Dx-10 in the F2P version for some strange reason.

    The reason was mentioned by a moderator in the T3 forums. Their layout is just so bad on those forums that I don't want to try to find the thread right now.

    Well at the first launch it didn't had Dx-10 to.

  • JennysMindJennysMind Member UncommonPosts: 869

    I liked the game a lot and still play SP from time to time. There were many reasons HL failed. First   the game was released way too early and there were multiple bugs. To me the worst one was the memory leak where the game kept eating memory to the point it frozem and you would have to reboot the pc.

    Flagship did overextend credit. The creditors were pressuring Flagship for a return on their investment. That's what caused the game to be released early and  was a major factor in Hellgate's demise.

    Flagship also tried to do way too much at one time. They worked on the SP game, multiplayer game, new monthly content, expansions,  and Mythos. Plus they were developing the game for directx 9 and directx 10. Add to that all the different languages they developed for, and you can see why the game was so buggy. They should have worked on one part at a time, and gradually added more.

    Torthlight is a good example of this. The developers were formerly from Flagship who learned their lesson. They didn't over extend themselves and polished the SP game first. Then sold it to gain revenue needed  to development the game further, expecially  MP.  If Flagship had used this model, they probably would still be around today.

  • EquintinEquintin Member UncommonPosts: 137

    Ummm this isnt Hellgate London relaunch this is a new Hellgate so...yeah

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  • majimaji Member UncommonPosts: 2,091

    Hellgate London failed for several reasons.


    • it was extremely buggy. I tried to get it working, but then gave up until they had pumped out some patches over the course of months. It was that buggy that it was unplayable. And I mean REALLY unplayable. It was crashing constantly, and when it wasn't crashing, it had huge performance issues. And not just for few people, but for most people. I was truly a nightmare

    • game design issues. Like, to respec, you needed a respec potion, which you couldn't find until you would be paying some subscription money. I mean the game wasn't for cheap anyway, and there was no reason for this "optional" subscription. So there was no way to try out a certain talent from the talent tree, for example. You read through it, you wondered if it would be good. Do you pick it? If you do and it's crap: time to delete the character and start a new one. Especially since you weren't showered with talent points. It wasn't like "ok, I spend 2 talent points of 100 talent points in not perfect skills". They all mattered. Waste one: And restart the character

    • more design issues. You had to constantly rummage around in your inventory, because it had no auto-sort function. If you picked up some item, you could be sure that the game would place it in your inventory at a spot, where it would take up the most space so you couldn't pick up more items, unless you'd sort it out by hand

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