Hellgate: London Online Scheme to be Determined, Includes Free Mode

One time fees are a lot more friendly to me and many of the other players that are vocal against the monthly subscription. I'd much prefer they take the Oblivion route and make these extra quests and MMO content a one-time fee, or develop it further into an expansion pack. Would they be hesitant to take this route because it might not get off the ground?

As much as I would like a 'everything for free' world, I think Roper is looking at it from a logical and business oriented perspective:

- The initial fanbase and buyrate will not be a huge Blizzard-like mass sellout even with their names attached to the development. How many 'instant buy' posts would we be seeing here if this was called Diablo III instead of Hellgate?
- Upkeep of servers will cost money, free service or not.

Think back to Diablo II... It's easy to look at the game with rose-tinted glasses on, but that was the fastest selling computer game ever shipped and Battle.net was already established with Diablo and Starcraft at the time. Basically, Blizzard had moneyhats to throw at a no-fee online service.
Flagship, even with the help of EA and Namco, is just getting their feet wet with their first major release. They may be able to support an exclusively free service in their next game if its sells great, but it's obvious they need extra income to offset the costs of mass multiplayer requirements right now. I think he realized there's no way they could create a free online service just getting off of the ground.

Hopefully they do include P2P, LAN, or some other free matchmaking service alongside the MMO portion for those who only want that, but like I've said before if the gameplay is fun and it recreates even a small amount of the Diablo II feel of mass enemies and chopping them down clicka clicka style (which it appears to do in the videos), then I'm all for paying a small fee for new content.

Sure.. you can do free multiplayer, but it can turn into a mess if it's not done right. Just look at Titan Quest. Horrible interface, very hard to organize games with friends, connection and lag problems galore, hacked attributes in the initial release.. just a very bad setup.

I think once Roper and Flagship fleshes out this final major piece, the only thing which needs to be proven is the gameplay itself. If it holds up well and surprises some gamers, there may be more than just a few people here and there like me who would consider the MMO content.

It also brings up another interesting question you must ask yourself.. If Starcraft 3 or Diablo 3 takes a similar stance and goes beyond Battle.net to offer a fee based system for new content or multiplayer support, would you pay for it? If yes, is there any difference between them and Hellgate?

Just give it a chance. This new interview sounds promising for free gameplay, but who knows what's going to happen until the final word is given.

"additional monsters, areas, all the community and economy things, you'll be able to form guilds, auction houses, all those things you expect from MMOs."

All these things mentioned, do not make a game an MMO. They are bonuses/features we've come to expect IN a MMO, they do not in and of themselves make it one. It would seem that Bill keeps forgetting that one little niggling ingredient, the Massively Multiplayer part. Small parties playing in instances do not a massively multiplayer world make.

You can call a dog a duck as many times as you want, but it's still not going to quack. Mass repetition of a misapplied term is not going to change it's meaning. What it will do is piss people off who see the obviousness of the attempt.

No, I don't expect it to stop; it's the only real justification they have for trying to milk a subscription fee out of it.

You can't please everyone and it's not worth trying to. To me this just sounds like the kind of feature creep that will push the game back until at least late 2008. Hopefully I'm wrong...

On paper this game sounds amazing, like everything I could want rolled into one game. After seeing some of the gameplay videos, it wasn't nearly as appealing as I thought, in fact, I had that cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. Now after hearing about their attempt to get on the MMO bandwagon, and no LAN, well, I'm moving on to other things. This doesn't target me as a gameplayer at this point.

I loved Diablo2 as did millions.. I mean I was hopelessly addicted and I thought Hellgate:London was going to be the answer to many Diablo2 fans prayers as the evolutionary sequel in game design to Diablo2.


I am also a proud faithful player of WOW. I thought for sure Hellgate:London was going to be the game that would rest control of my time from wow.
I thought the fact it was going to be a free to play online experience and the addictive random elements would = a no-brainer.

But when the MMO buzzward was used to describe Hellgate:london All that good feeling went out the window.

IN comparison to wow Hellgate:london doesn't offer enough content to even remotely be worthy of the mmo tag.
WOW = 8 classes.
Hellgate London = 3.
WOW has races/factions. Hellgate london you just have the human race.
Since hellgate london is a randomnly generated type of game. Cool for hellgate. does it equal out to the sheer content in wow and now soon to be bc? No way.

Hellgate:London monthly charge better be in the 4.95 a month range. because if it is not Hellgate:London as a popular online game is going to have its legs cut out from underneath even before the game is released.

And that would be a damn shame.

you know

rofl @ being published by both EA and Namco Bandai

it's like he's trying to concentrate all the evil in the world into a supermassive blackhole of concentrated liquid hate

I don't think they've been very honest with us. The game has been advertised up until now as a multiplayer fps/rpg with very little in the way of MMO connotations. With the game scheduled for release this year, either this has been on the table the whole time and they weren't telling us or this is a last minute cash grab. In either case I am very unimpressed. Even their latest clarifications have put a significant damper on my enthusiam - what I was looking forward to most was setting up a private server to play with some friends, but it doesn't even seem like that will be possible. I've had my eye on this game for over a year, but if there are monthly fees I definately won't be buying it.

gotta love this outraged sense of entitlement from people when they find out that the developers won't be paying for huge infinite amounts of bandwidth and server maintenance.

Those rotten evil bastards.

Good news, this puts my interest right back in the title.

However, I must say, this new trend of providing "continuing content" just doesn't appeal to me, regardless of how the cost is distributed. I buy games, and I play them for what's in the box.

There's simply too many games, and too little time, for me to be interested in spending extra money on one title with "new content" rather than playing a new game.

If they wanted to, they could set it up so that the people who participate in the pay-for service get non-critical/essential content months ahead of those who opt to play for free. For instance, they release an update on the pay-for servers that adds new weapons, dungeon maps, quests, etc. to the game. Then, three months later, they drop the content on the free servers, while (possibly) releasing new content to the pay-for servers. I think most folks would not have any real objection to this sort of model, and it would help keep the dev team funded for more work down the pipe. Then again, it might be crazy, rational, common sense ideas like this that keep me from being corporate trend-setter.

I like this clarification. It sounds like they were definetly listening to what will be their playerbase.

I don't think they had quoted a monthly fee, if they go that route.

Would there be less outrage, if acknowledging the gameplay they have to offer, the fee ended up something like $3-5/month?

"What you're getting with that service is you're getting"
"24/7 customer service" - No thanks, don't need it.
"secure servers, databases" - No thanks, I'd rather play on private servers with friends.
"and [...] continuing content" - No thanks, it's already a big-ass randomized game anyway. The stuff from SP in MP will be just fine.

Just give us simple matchmaking and the ability to run our own servers (like every other PC action game). No charge, not a trial, not time limited, not gimped, no additional content.

With that, I'll buy a copy, and so will everyone else that was looking forward to the game. All that MMO-lite stuff? I'm not interested, but some people will be - just be sure to have both.

This shouldn't be going back on anyone's 'must buy' list.

Nothings changed people. He just found a way to say the same thing a different way. Come on.

His quote - "Actually, right when you buy the game, when it launches there will already be content available that you can't get in the single-player"

Umm. No. I, along with, thousands of others are not giving you my $50, and you withhold content I'm PAYING for so you can charge for it?

No. that's not gonna fly. You lost my purchase rope-a-dope.

Create download packs like Bethesda then, where I have a choice in purchasing it, but withholding items that are built, ready and should be in the single-player game, but you won't?

One, word. No.

wow Namco and EA...could they find a worse publisher?

Yay, back on the want list.

Has there been a mention of costs yet? $15 is out of the question, but for $5 a month it might be worth it ... maybe. I'm still not convinced the single-player element isn't going to suck but we'll see.

I'd rather have a free online game like d2 than have updated content forever.

I wouldn't be surprised if the subscription push is coming from EA. This is the company that is selling cheats on XBL, after all.

Time for damage control!

Go go Roper!