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

2

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  • EquintinEquintin Member UncommonPosts: 137

    Originally posted by Elidien

    Originally posted by Equintin

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

    Ummm, it is Hellgate London:

    http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/594/view/news/read/20764/Hellgate-Closed-Beta-Coming-June-3rd.html

    OMG yes im so very sorry i was wrong just instaled the game and its still called hellgate london on the install lol sorry bout that my mistake.

    image

  • DaedroDaedro Member Posts: 44

    • Buggy launch (~3 months to fix IIRC).

    • Environment was boring repetitive, even with randomization. Everything was similar, and just blended in (until the expansion).

    • Inventory was too annoying to manage, tons of items and very limited space.

    • It was a $10 monthly fee if you wanted more content.

    • Performance was not great. Loading took a while. It was pretty heavy for its time.

    • You had to finish the entire game in order to even attempt hardcore mode (can't die). Even then, bugs and latency would ruin you.

    • Not a persistent MMO. It's instanced dungeons with gathering areas, like Guild Wars.

     


    After they fixed the bugs and released the expansion a few months later, the game should have survived (think Vanguard but better). I blame it on the bad launch, them borrowing too much money, starting another game/studio when their first game wasn't even profitable yet (Mythos), and bad advertising. Talk about jumping the gun.

  • ThomasN7ThomasN7 87.18.7.148Member CommonPosts: 6,690

    They basically rushed developement and tried to be Blizzard overnight. Flagship had some good ideas but their devlopement process was unrealistic. Not to mention you don't charge a monthly fee for a non mmo.

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  • NeikoNeiko Member UncommonPosts: 626

    Originally posted by maji

    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

    Mostly agree. On #3, you could break down items on the spot though, to save space and get crafting mats.

     

     


    Originally posted by therez0

     




    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.


     

    QFT, QFT, QFT.

  • GroovyFlowerGroovyFlower Member Posts: 1,245

    At the moment this CBT weekend also failed misrable becouse of constant errors bugs lol

    Hellgate:london failed becouse of alot errors bugs

    Hellgate seems going same way errors and bugs hehe

  • ThomasN7ThomasN7 87.18.7.148Member CommonPosts: 6,690

    Originally posted by Groovydutch

    At the moment this CBT weekend also failed misrable becouse of constant errors bugs lol

    Hellgate:london failed becouse of alot errors bugs

    Hellgate seems going same way errors and bugs hehe

    Overreact much ? First day of beta and a weekend failed. Awesome!

    30
  • rik666rik666 Member Posts: 69

    no fail its just called a stress test!

  • majimaji Member UncommonPosts: 2,091

    What annoys me about Hellgate London is: At first, the game was unplayable. Then, after a looong time and many many MANY many patches, it got about playable. And then the company fell (for good reason). And with them, they took the multiplayer mode. I bought the game, THEY screwed up, and once the game was about playable, the multiplayer mode doesn't work anymore, because they didn't enable any way for players to host servers.  If they'd at least have left a playable game behind, but without multiplayer? The money was totally wasted.

    Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)

    Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)

  • NeikoNeiko Member UncommonPosts: 626

    Originally posted by SaintViktor

    Originally posted by Groovydutch

    At the moment this CBT weekend also failed misrable becouse of constant errors bugs lol

    Hellgate:london failed becouse of alot errors bugs

    Hellgate seems going same way errors and bugs hehe

    Overreact much ? First day of beta and a weekend failed. Awesome!

    He's already posted 3 times yelling doom about the new HG:L.

  • VyethVyeth Member UncommonPosts: 1,461

    I don't think it's possible for a previously P2P game that goes F2P to actually fail.. I'm not sure if it's just the P2P label, but any P2P that goes F2P sees a huuge jump in population.. Just take a look at APB.. This is a friggin CBT that everyone couldn't even get into and folks are spilling into it like crazy..

    Had they better servers, i'm positive we'd view this as a "success" in the making for T3Fun..

  • Dark_HUmarDark_HUmar Member UncommonPosts: 200

    Hellgate was an amazing game but there where to many bugs first of all I got disconected many times before I could play and sometimes had to relog 15 times before I could play without disconecting and after that I got stuck in game because of a bug and couldn't reach the end I was a paid member and it would have been worth the money if there wouldn't be a bilion bugs

  • sonicbrewsonicbrew Member UncommonPosts: 515

    Original HgL tester and subscriber and what a mess it was literally. Fast forward to NOW and nothing has changed. Sure, they finally fixed their craptastic servers long enough to log in but nothing has changed. Ugly as sin graphics, same old pathing issues, blahh, blahh, blahh. Sorry folks but a pile of shit doesn't turn into gold it just remains a pile of shit.

    As far as all you pedestal pumpers with your big shit attitudes about how betas work, your all full of it. How about Hanbit has enough balls to call it what it is and then see how many of you actually log in; A STRESS TEST. No, they hyped and hyped and hyped some more and this thing has been running in Korea for how long now? No excuses. Not to mention, RIFT, which I don't play anymore, was one of the most succesful beta and launch programs to date. NO MORE EXCUSES!

    I been testing games for 35+ years and the "its a beta this is what betas are for, are, is crap" is getting really old. No excuse for it in today's day and age. Last but not least, F2P with a horrenodus cash shop. You all enjoy that now you hear.

    “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” ~ Italian proverb   

      

  • jpnolejpnole Member UncommonPosts: 1,698

    Originally posted by Groovydutch

    At the moment this CBT weekend also failed misrable becouse of constant errors bugs lol

    Hellgate:london failed becouse of alot errors bugs

    Hellgate seems going same way errors and bugs hehe

    Don't believe this. I was on it for hours last night and the Friday night kinks were all worked out. Didn't get booted once over about a 5 hour gaming session. Other than some odd English translations, I thought it was ready to go.

  • jpnolejpnole Member UncommonPosts: 1,698

    Originally posted by sonicbrew

    Original HgL tester and subscriber and what a mess it was literally. Fast forward to NOW and nothing has changed. Sure, they finally fixed their craptastic servers long enough to log in but nothing has changed. Ugly as sin graphics, same old pathing issues, blahh, blahh, blahh. Sorry folks but a pile of shit doesn't turn into gold it just remains a pile of shit.

    As far as all you pedestal pumpers with your big shit attitudes about how betas work, your all full of it. How about Hanbit has enough balls to call it what it is and then see how many of you actually log in; A STRESS TEST. No, they hyped and hyped and hyped some more and this thing has been running in Korea for how long now? No excuses. Not to mention, RIFT, which I don't play anymore, was one of the most succesful beta and launch programs to date. NO MORE EXCUSES!

    I been testing games for 35+ years and the "its a beta this is what betas are for, are, is crap" is getting really old. No excuse for it in today's day and age. Last but not least, F2P with a horrenodus cash shop. You all enjoy that now you hear.

    Again, don't belive this. Unlike in late 2007, many of us now have PCs that can handle HGL maxed out with Trilinear, Anisotropic, Dynamic Lighting, etc. With everything maxed out I thought it looked pretty darn good for a 3.5 year old game. Pathing issues? Not quite. And finally, to cover your last paragraph - it is completely excusable for Hanbitsoft to have had some server connection issues Friday because let me tell you - there were players everywhere on Saturday which indicates that they were probably getting swamped on Friday. F2P also isn't necessarily bad. AOC, LOTRO and EQ2 all still allow you to sub in lieu of nickel diming yourself in the cash shop. I feel confident in saying that this is the version of HGL that all of us die hard fans were close to getting before the shut down. Clean up the English translations and GTG!

  • PalebanePalebane Member RarePosts: 4,011

    I was thinking about this earlier today, as I bought the game when it first released and never played it online. I like the game, but it always seemed sort of half-baked to me;  like a cross between Diablo 2 and Fallout 3, but not nearly as good as either. I assumed that was one of the reasons it didn't do so well. To me it didn't feel like it would be worth paying a subscription for.

    Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.

  • sonicbrewsonicbrew Member UncommonPosts: 515

    Originally posted by jpnole

    Originally posted by sonicbrew

    Original HgL tester and subscriber and what a mess it was literally. Fast forward to NOW and nothing has changed. Sure, they finally fixed their craptastic servers long enough to log in but nothing has changed. Ugly as sin graphics, same old pathing issues, blahh, blahh, blahh. Sorry folks but a pile of shit doesn't turn into gold it just remains a pile of shit.

    As far as all you pedestal pumpers with your big shit attitudes about how betas work, your all full of it. How about Hanbit has enough balls to call it what it is and then see how many of you actually log in; A STRESS TEST. No, they hyped and hyped and hyped some more and this thing has been running in Korea for how long now? No excuses. Not to mention, RIFT, which I don't play anymore, was one of the most succesful beta and launch programs to date. NO MORE EXCUSES!

    I been testing games for 35+ years and the "its a beta this is what betas are for, are, is crap" is getting really old. No excuse for it in today's day and age. Last but not least, F2P with a horrenodus cash shop. You all enjoy that now you hear.

    Again, don't belive this. Unlike in late 2007, many of us now have PCs that can handle HGL maxed out with Trilinear, Anisotropic, Dynamic Lighting, etc. With everything maxed out I thought it looked pretty darn good for a 3.5 year old game. Pathing issues? Not quite. And finally, to cover your last paragraph - it is completely excusable for Hanbitsoft to have had some server connection issues Friday because let me tell you - there were players everywhere on Saturday which indicates that they were probably getting swamped on Friday. F2P also isn't necessarily bad. AOC, LOTRO and EQ2 all still allow you to sub in lieu of nickel diming yourself in the cash shop. I feel confident in saying that this is the version of HGL that all of us die hard fans were close to getting before the shut down. Clean up the English translations and GTG!

     

    What are you talking about? I can play current games at max settings including AOC, LOTRO, witcher 2 and crysis 2. Furthermore, there is zero DX11 and tesselation let alone DX10 in this game. DX9 is it so you can forgot about dynamic lighting, trilinear, etc.. Have you actually played this beta because as of now your talking out your back side. HGL has nothing graphically impressive at all. If your going to play this at all play it for the loot and action because graphically its ugly as sin.

    However you answered this for me as well when you stated "die hard fans" because that is what its going to take to like this as far as I am concerned and I am far from new to it.

    “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” ~ Italian proverb   

      

  • LoboMauLoboMau Member UncommonPosts: 395

    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.

    I was very excited about this game! But when in the Demo I saw the randomization maps it was like a cool shower!! I lost interest about this game in a second...

  • markfromindymarkfromindy Member UncommonPosts: 36

     Geez, they keep bailing out and relaunching all these crappy games..Bring Back Tabula Rosa!

  • NeikoNeiko Member UncommonPosts: 626

    Originally posted by markfromindy

     Geez, they keep bailing out and relaunching all these crappy games..Bring Back Tabula Rosa!

    If they brought back Tabula rasa you're putting in the group with crappy games =p.

    They should bring back Auto Assault.

  • jpnolejpnole Member UncommonPosts: 1,698

    Originally posted by markfromindy

     Geez, they keep bailing out and relaunching all these crappy games..Bring Back Tabula Rosa!

    I also liked TR but HG is far from crappy. HG was my favorite game along with AoC for most of 2008 & 2009. With it being F2P and the kind of game that you can play in short sessions, I think it will do well. Plus it's a ton of fun to group up and destroy monsters. None of this tab targetting BS, no holy trinity, just pure mayhem and ass kicking! 

  • bakagamibakagami Member UncommonPosts: 152

    Originally posted by Neiko

    Originally posted by markfromindy

     Geez, they keep bailing out and relaunching all these crappy games..Bring Back Tabula Rosa!

    If they brought back Tabula rasa you're putting in the group with crappy games =p.

    They should bring back Auto Assault.

    Both those game popped into my mind, especially TR.  that game didnt get a fair shake IMO.  AA was kinda fun & had a decent community in beta but once it went live...ghost town.  you didn't actually play TR did u @Neiko?

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  • zWolfzWolf Member Posts: 88

    Originally posted by Rednecksith

    ... and the idiot known as Bill Roper ...

    you mean THE Bill Roper, as in Legendary Bill Roper founder of that 'lil ole company' called Blizzard?  The guy that made Diablo?  The guy that was a huge part of World of WarCraft?  that guy?

     

    um.... idiot?  I think not.  HellGate might have had some mistakes, but one tarnish an idiot does not make.

     

    a few tidbits from the wiki on Bill:

    ...played a key role in the success of the WarcraftStarCraft and Diablo franchises...

     

     

    Roper has worked on the following titles:[12]


     


    oh... I just noticed your name... 'rednecksith'  I shouldn't have wasted my time feeding the trolls here - but the cut n paste has already been done, heh, I'll let it stand.

     

    Thank you,

    zWolf -out.

  • DensetsiDensetsi Member Posts: 62

    I heard it was a pretty likeable game from my friends but there a lot of problems with servers  and people getting doubled charged for subs at launch.

    I never actually tried it but I've heard nothing but good things not counting the launch problems.

  • zWolfzWolf Member Posts: 88

    Originally posted by crunk001

    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.

    I remember at launch, one of the things that I think killed them, was that right when all the hype was at it's highest, right when all of us that were 'fans' were ready to sign up for a year, the billing system failed them.  

    In my case, where I WOULD HAVE signed up for a year, but was un able to for that first week, and then after playing it, and not seeing that the advantages of a subscription would really justify it's cost, I didn't sign up. 

    They 'did' get the price of the game box out of me, and I really enjoyed the game... but where they would have had my money for a years subscription, due to the company that they went with being unable to process my desire to pay them money, they lost out on what would have amounted to 3 times the 'box price' from me, and  from many others I am sure.

    I think that was one of their BIG fails on this one, that they weren't able to take money from customers that were ready to sign up for a year of service on trust alone.

    I'm sure that  I and all the others that signed up, wouldn't have felt 'ripped off' and it's just possible, that the extra 'bump' in cash flow would have been enough to make it a succesfull endeavor, instead of one that ended up folding the company.

    So the inability to actually 'pay' them money when exitement was at it's highest point, combined with bug's and like I said, a subscription system that didn't really seem to justify it's cost, I think those were some of the causes of it's failure.

    Overall it was quite a fun game, and I for one am looking forward to a re-launch.

    Thank you,

    zWolf -out.

  • ikyle620ikyle620 Member Posts: 41

    Originally posted by sonicbrew

    I been testing games for 35+ years

    That's so completely relevant, because beta testing for pacman is relevant to hellgate server stress testing.

    According to dictionary.com, the meaning of a beta-test is:


    Computers:. a quality-control technique in which hardware or software is subjected to trial in the environment for which it was designed, usually after debugging by the manufacturer and immediately prior to marketing. Compare alpha test.


     


    Under that definition, a server stress test can also be a beta test.

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