All Posts by redcap036

Originally posted by twhint

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.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39866/Flagship-Studios-Closure-Confirmed-All-Staff-Fired-All-I-P-Lost

Hi here's new game it's in close beta at the moment, not sure if anyone has posted about it before, here's a link for it, I think it looks nice and I thought you some of you guys might be intrested in it, enjoy!

site; http://www.runesofmagic.com/en/content,20,features.html

Here's a list of feature from there site;

1. Free2play: no monthly fees, free download
2. Regular updates with new content, e.g. classes, races, game modes and much more
3. Extensive dual class system with six primary classes and a selectable secondary class.
4. Versatile spell- and attack-combinations
5. Over 600 quests and comprehensive quest series with continuous storyline
6. Integrated into an enthralling background story
7. Already over 600 quests and level comprehensive quest series on launch
8. Freely accessible game world in atmospheric 3D
9. Instanced and persistent dungeons
10. Individually developed skills and spells
11. Armor sets with special bonuses
12. Dynamic item system: Upgrades with hundreds of runes
13. Activatable PvP system (Player vs. Player duels) with arena battles and guild wars
14. Server vs. server PvP
15. Ranking system: ranking lists
16. Mounts: various unique mounts
17. Epic crafting system with the chance to improve existing items
18. Housing from the beginning: personalization of houses through individual furnishing
19. guild houses in special zones
20. Reputation system
21. Scalable user interface based on the users preference (development of own add-ons possible)
22. In-game map and radar system to find dealers, resources and quests easily
23. Auction house: auction off and purchase in-Game items
24. Teleporting possibilities per runes
25. Controlling with mouse (point & click) and/or keyboard (WASD or arrow keys) is possible

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.

Was one of those 57 Entropia Universe?

Originally posted by Alekhin

kotaku.com/5024558/flagship-sunk-whos-in-charge-of-hellgate

 

"HanbitSoft's attorneys said that while they're an exclusive licensee of Hellgate and Mythos, it's been pledged only the Mythos IP. Secured lender Comerica gets the Hellgate IP as collateral on the loan. Either way, Flagship does not own either"...

"[I]t is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos."

 

 

Dang!.. there goes one of my favorite games.

Anyway I hope this helps. :)

Exteel, Wofteam, AirRivals, GunZ just to name few, use google to track them down, some have links in the gamelist already, hav fun there all free to play.

Originally posted by M1sf1t

 

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Originally posted by Beatnik59
Sooner or later, there is going to be a Congressional hearing on the legal status of virtual property ownership in MMOs.  You can be pretty sure that Smed will be there.  Microsoft will be there too.  IGE will be there, as well as Linden.  But who is going to be there for the players?  Who is going to talk about the different perspectives (plural, mind you) that players possess about this sort of thing?
And what about scams?  Do you know how easy it is these days to create an MMO scam, and how effective it can be?  The scams are so easy to do, they look like legit games in every way, with official forums, screenshots, beta tests, participation in gaming conferences, and the like.  The scams are so good, that the people here at MMORPG.com cannot tell the difference between scams and legit games..until it's too late.  If the folks who run this website cannot tell which game is a scam and which isn't, how are players supposed to be able to research and tell the difference?
Yes, it's a hobby.  It's a pasttime.  It isn't as important as world peace, but it is important enough to all of us here that we want our pasttime to grow and thrive just as much (if not moreso) than the publishing and development houses want it to thrive.
But getting burned by scams, unfinished buggy software, wholesale redesigns post-launch, potentially slimy things like RMT and pre-order perks, draconian refund policies, and fly-by-night operations isn't making our hobby enjoyable.  In fact, it's ruining it.  Seeing how the publishers and development houses aren't doing anything to fix it, someone has to.  Otherwise, we may not have our hobby for much longer.

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Yeah right congressional hearings on gold farming...Wow if that ever happens I would vote out any member of congress from my State who went along with that stupid ass idea and wasted my tax dollars on that meeting. I can safely say that 95%-99% of the US population would be seriously pissed off at the wasting of our tax dollars on what amounts to pointless nerd rage internet issues.
 

So M1sf1t, althou your tax dollars are important to you and others, I would like it if you could please highlite the text in Beatnik59's comment's,( seen above) where he say that the congressional hearing is on gold farming.

So if you want to call me a fanboi, that's up to you, my opinion of this game is my own as is yours, but considering this thread was about Flagship closing down,( if this is your wish or not) it is not, nor has anyone said so from any of these links.

Originally posted by nethervoid

I didn't even get through the first page, but it's real simple...don't buy a game when it first comes out.  Wait at least a month to hear how people like it.  It's really that simple.

Ok, but what about if you got banned without warning and the gamesite wouldn't answer any of your questions or even acknowledge you at all, what then?

Hi I was Snooping around the net to day and tripped over this one and thought you guys might be intrested, I haven't seen anything posted on MMORPG.com about it, at the moment I can't download it to check it out for myself,( till monday midnight when I can get full download speed again and also finish downloading the last 150mb of the LotRo client) anyway check it out for yourselves, here's the link.

http://www.apoc-online.net/index.php?id=1

maybe it's a new one for the list.

EDIT# - I will download the client tonight and see if I can get a better Idea what this game is like and post, the more I look at this site and game the more I like, there only a small indi game company from Canada..I think.

Originally posted by altairzq

Originally posted by Mackerni

Originally posted by altairzq

So why MMO is the only industry in the world where you actually have to be able to make the same thing you are buying to have the possibility to defend your rights as a consumer?

You are over-assuming. All I'm suggesting is that you use empathy and think about the producer for once. It takes years of work and millions of dollars to make a good MMOG - and it's very risky too.

 

Let me remind you what you wrote, and conveniently deleted from the quote:

 

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Originally posted by Mackerni

 

 

Next time you buy a car that doesn't work as promised... think about how much it takes to design and create a car and don't use the guarantee or call the consumers association, ok?

 

Game Players Union?

What is this, US vs THEM? Sounds really silly to me. The fact is, you don’t even know what it’s like to make a video game – not to mention a MMOG, until you’re the one making it. MMOGs are the hardest games to develop, because not only do they require the most content of all video games, but you have to host them on your own servers after you’re finished with it. Let’s see you make a MMOG company and try to deal with all the shit you’ll have to face afterwards.

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Ok guy's, please stop with the quotation's at each other over and over, someone's going to lose an eye!

I do understand what altairzq was trying to get at, If I had to hazard a guess, I think is that the dev's will become the one's in the middle between the union and the companyline, the small independent developers would most likely find support from the union in the form of volunteer helpers and beta testers, even training and business advice even legal information, the union would more likely be dealing with the bigger guns in the industry when it come to player protection, arbitration, reviews of game services, etc...

please remember, I'm just hazarding a guess at this.

Originally posted by thamighty213

is it actually a MMO though???

As in social elements to it other than just being able to chat.

It's an mmorpg, with guilds, play solo or play in group, there is a trail version or demo somewhere, the full version will cost, i got mine on eBay for $30Au, it's free to play online, you can also sub for extra content, the game also comes with a singleplayer version as well, but the game also lets you solo in the mmorpg side very nicely, it also uses Xfire for voice chat, check out the Hellgate London thread;

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/314

Originally posted by thamighty213

yeah FOM did fold just as I was about to try it :)

 

few months without a MMO for me but  looks like some great Sci-Fi titles on the