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Hellgate Review: A Great Action-MMO - Edit
8
| Pros |
 Great end-game content changes Great hack 'n' slash combat Interesting take on crafting |
| Cons |
 Dated visuals Limited content for non-paying customers No real open world |
When originally asked me to review Hellgate: Global, my mind went back to a very dark, murky place. Let’s go back to Halloween 2007. Hellgate: London was being released after years of development and was compelling to say the least. Originally built by at least part of the ex-Diablo team, it was a twisted and dark MMORPG based off the novel as well as comic books of the Hellgate London series. The teaser trailers were glorious. It is the only game, other than SWTOR, that I have ever pre-ordered.
My friends and I even went so far as to sit down to discuss whether the almost $200 lifetime subscription fee was worth it. We talked about our World of Warcraft days, thinking if someone had offered us this same deal we would have been fools not to take it. We’d be fools seeing the countless times over the past four years we had gone back to WoW like addicts. In the end, we decided to stay away from the lifetime subscription fee on the small off chance that it didn’t live up to our high hopes.
We know how that turned out.
The game was a train wreck. Graphically, it was okay which was about the only thing it had going for it. Load times were horrendous. It had then very high system requirements. The looting style was basically a Diablo grab-for-all, but each player at least had their own items to grab. The game lacked any type sandbox or real world to play in. Classes were severely unbalanced. Parties would split into different instances mid-combat. There lacked an economy and auction system worth any damn and the global communication between players was iffy at best.
However, everyone deserves a second chance and Hanbitsoft has taken advantage of this. In this review, we will focus on the mediocrity of an original game and its phoenix-like reincarnation from Hellgate: London to Hellgate: Global. HG:G has made much needed improvements turning it from a wannabe MMO into the real deal.
Aesthetics - 9
Hellgate London takes place in the aftermath of the Apocalypse. The gates of hell have opened up and humans have to flee to the subway system. You play through one of six classes in an effort to defeat all the demons and drive them back, and in this much the game is very story oriented. As is no surprise, it’s cast in a dark and crippled Earth. This planet has no sign of life and is adorned with fiery cracks from hell opening. The user interface is an amalgamation of Diablo and World of Warcraft: standard hotbar setup, while keeping some abilities mapped to the left and right-click. The music is annoying and combat sounds are intermittent and somewhat bothersome. Voice acting is on first click only: the NPCs say “hi” to you and nothing else. The UI is pretty decent, and keeps you informed of what’s going on in the game and around your character. In case you didn’t see the 20 foot tall flaming demon with bad breath casting a giant shadow over you, the game will tell you he spawned. Overall the aesthetics give the player a dark and bleak feeling as they explore a post-human Earth. On high, they really do shine.
Gameplay - 9
The combat is your somewhat standard third person view, so get ready to enjoy your character’s backside. Your have crosshairs and the game detects which NPC/player you are targeting, though hits are still done via dice-roll not straight FPS mechanics. Grouping is standard. There are raids for the super demons throughout the world. Combat may appear easy, however, much like Diablo there are three difficulty settings: Normal, Nightmare, and Hell. There are six classes to play: Evoker, Summoner, Blademaster, Guardian, Engineer, and Marksman. They give enough options to give players a match to their play-style. Do you want to carve through demons like a hot knife through butter? They have the class for you. Do you want to summon an army of demons to march through a battered and forgotten Tokyo? They’ve got you covered.
Crafting is unique in Hellgate. There are no skill points. You do not choose which profession you are. All you get are recipes and parts. Most gear can be broken down into its parts through right-clicking on it allowing you to turn useless gear into your new unique blade. Along the way you find recipes and once you find the parts you need for it, you put it together and have a new item. Recipes are randomly dropped. If you are up to your elbows in cash, then you can feel free to get it on the auction house.
There is a tutorial which gives you the basics. It is short, sweet, and gets you on the right track. Let’s be honest: pro gamers don’t need an introduction. Our l33tness will carry us all the way to the top. Right guys? Guys? Where’d you go?
The game keeps you informed of what is happening and what your quest progress is as you go in a way that is user friendly to any level of player. However, the map does not get marked for where to find things, which is either a plus or a negative depending on who you ask.
Now the part we all care about: Endgame. To be fair, this is my favorite part. You get to see the true power of a game in its end game: the true power of classes and min-maxing, the testicle-crushing difficulty the developer has created, and so much more. Fear not young Padawans, for Hellgate: Global has much to offer you. First and foremost, the game comes equipped with an economy. Unlike the original Hellgate: London, there is an auction at every (or almost every) station throughout the social hubs, allowing players to customize their gear. Most of the gear, as you level up, has options to socket or modify it with other items.
Secondly, what is more fun than tearing apart other players? Well, now Hellgate has a fully fledged PVP/arena system. Thirdly, there are new expansions with new dungeons, monsters, gear being added on a regular basis (about every six months) which gives new and difficult content to the player base. Some examples of this are where you must hunt down a powerful demon in the Abyssal tower instance. The newest expansion is where you follow the journey of an ancient warrior through the ruined city of Tokyo. Overall, the gameplay brings back the one against many combat players such as myself long for while creating brutally challenging scenarios for both the single player and multi-player adventures.
Innovation - 7
Frankly, Hellgate Global doesn’t do anything new. The majority of mechanics aren’t new. The idea of a futuristic demon world is definitely not common but is a new spin on an old idea. The game is doesn’t deviate too far from other hack and slash MMORPGs that we have come to expect from a large portion of the genre. Its biggest innovation is trying to blend the shooter with Diablo mechanics, and other games have done that better since.
Polish - 8
Hellgate Global has come a long way since its predecessor. The game has been finely polished from the rough gem it used to be. Load times are down while mechanics and targeting are far less buggy. The graphics aren’t as cutting edge as much of the player base would like to see, but still quite decent for a game getting on in years. Like it did before, Hellgate flows from one act to the next very well. My only real gripe is that I’d have liked to see more directed group content in place earlier on. Still, Hellgate of today is way more polished than Hellgate of yesterday.
Longevity - 9
There is plenty to keep players active constantly. With three difficulty settings, the gameplay lasts plenty long for even the most hardcore of players (assuming you are good enough to beat the hell difficulty setting). Each one of these opens up after the easier one is completed. It includes additional content such as the new Tokyo release, a Stonehenge zone, and a wide variety of interesting content all of which will keep players around. The game is story-driven so you will follow your characters progression throughout the narrative. At the end, there is a decent blend of endgame content as well as a PVP arena system to keep you matched against the player base. There is enough game content to keep you hooked and adequate new content to keep you playing. And of course there are the seasonal events and items to look forward to.
Social - 8
As far as social aspects go, Hellgate Global performs as well as expected. The chat system works well with an easy to use item-linking system. The auction system keeps players connected to the in-game economy. Players can purchase clan-creation tokens and create their own guild/clan. Although there is no guild house or player house, the social system allows players to stay connected to each other with an in game mail and friend system. There is even a group finder for various zones and encounters, a much needed addition. Most of all, the players are really helpful, and despite the odd duck here or there, the playerbase is friendly.
Value - 6
Hellgate Global, in this writer’s eyes, is a great value… at first. It runs on a Freemium model with an item mall. The item mall has both gear and items, including tickets to get you into the new zones. Without paying you cannot make it past act 2 (there are five acts plus additional content). The first two acts keep you interested thereby giving you an opportunity to explore the current content and letting you know whether or not you want to pay for the rest of the game. However, crippling players to not allow them additional content I found to be frustrating.
In conclusion, Hellgate Global creates a great sense of both horror and sci-fi. After its reincarnation, the developers have added all the extras that keep players both interested in the content and close knit as a player base. It’s a great Action-MMO, and right up there with the likes of Vindictus. If you are the type of player who finds themselves saying “I like those odds” and want a game that has testicle-crushing difficulty ™, this is the game for you.
i wish mmorpg.com would stop writing useless fluff articles like this just to fill space. The single biggest problem that caused hellgate london to fail originally was it's instability and bug ridden release to the point of unplayable.
1) How stable is the game now exactly? other than a one liner "it's more polished", does the game still crash from zone to zone? do you still get stuck in the doors? lag? network stable?
2) What is the price structure now? How much exactly do you have to pay after act 2, what is offered in item mall are they game changing items or just visual?
I agree with everything you just said. Sometimes I feel like some of these companys are slipping them some money for there reviews while not brining up well known problems.
Alex may come in to the topic later, but I will say that he and I talked a lot about HG while he was writing the review, and all he kept saying was that it's really gotten a lot better since the Flagship days. His honest opinion is that the game is worth this score, and that's enough for me. I'm likely going to be checking it out again myself soon, based on his opinion. But that doesn't mean he's "right". It just means that an 8/10 is what he thinks of Hellgate: Global.
I can't answer #2, however #1 was resolved long ago even in the original hellgate client so it's likely that it was never an issue if they started with the same codebase.
Call me skeptical (why not, I am). It's a rework of one of those spectacularly bad launches from which games rarely ever recover.
Still...IPs can be resurrected. I wouldn't bet against it, but I can see a long, slow haul of reputation recovery.
My apologies fellas
The game is network stable. In about twenty game hours and in mutliple zones I never once had any weird door problems, zoning crashes, there was no lag (even in pvp) and there was no disconnects. I was very pleased with it. I apologize for not addressing those exact specfics.
I only explored the XP + items. There do exists items for things that absorb damage from elements when you get hit (obviously not just an aesthetic item). As well as additional skill items (up to a maximum). I am not exactly sure on pricing.
I guess u guys ran out of things to right about....
That game will never be a big hit...it could very well have a score of over 9000 ...
Cons: Dated visual
Aesthetics: 9
Dated but awesome, he meant?
=/
My biggest problems were the d/c on zoning and pvping with people from diff countries. It was like playing gunz on iggy and fighting somone from brazil. They just randomly apeared and you just had to "guess" where to attack. Glad to hear some of it is fixed thou.
I guess you also forgot how to spell "WRITE". Dont worry, we all no the american education system is going to pot.
I see what you did their.
Aesthetics has more to do with art style rather than just the raw number of polygons. So the game looks dated in a technical sense, sure, but the art style is so beautiful (according to the reviewer) that it makes up for it.
Nice review. Sounds like a good review and I might check it out
That'll be "KNOW" then, best use spellcheck before Criticizing me thinks. =P
Completely missed the point.
I would disagree with this. The art style of the cut scenes and intro movies is cool, even though they are dated. The art style in the game is just dated, in both style and implementation.
I think had the original game actually stuck around, didn't charge a subscription and had gotten updated, it would have been something fairly cool. It just seems like it's too little, too late for this game to do anything great.
I played it through till its dying days, and the re-release was just as buggy as the first release, but once all the constant disconnects and the pin-code annoyances got toned down, it actually reminded me of the good times from Hell Gate: London, although this was a problem, I may not have maxed out my rank in the old game(Stopped at 50/42), but I already knew what this game was going to have me do after I clear through London, Hedge, and Tokyo, and that is doing boss runs over and over again to look for perfect items and to farm exp. This is definitely something I'm no longer interested in, and thus I never made it passed level 12 the 2nd time around.
I recently installed Hellgate Global (resurrection, whatever) with a huge anticipation and great hopes, AS I THINK I WAS ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ENJOYED the game back than.....
But boy, oh boy, was I wrong!
GRAPHICS!! Its the ''NEw'' graphiczzzz!!
Back in the day (if memory serves;D) we could run Hellgate in dx9 and dx10 versions, and there were several bugs plagueing the game, and the memory leaks etc were especially bad in the dx10 version, SO I USED TO RUN THE GAME (more often than not) in DX9 and it was still a shweet looking game.
BUT NOW!* :(
Yeah, sure, u cant run the game at all now in dx10, AND ITS OKAY, BUT* the problem is; even in DX9 THE GAME LOOKS MUCH, MUCH WORSE THAN IT EVER DID BEFORE... dang....
At highest settings, the current hellgate global looks like the original hellgate londons lowest settings that were available.
Because of the reasons mentioned above (graphics bugs, performance issues, memory leaks etc) i-do-understand the reasons behind why they have taken down the dx-10 options etc,
BUT TO MAKE THE GAME (ALMOST) LOOK LIKE THE ORIGINAL DOOM? Devs, r u freaking nuts!? Its such a huuuuge downgrade even i (a fan of the original game) couldnt play it anymore:(
Hope it gets fixed soon, i think its still beta or something,,,?
I have a really hard time taking this review seriously, the scores just seem bloated and it feels like they're contridictions in the review. The only score that feels honest is the Value. I mean, just look at the Innovation review:
Frankly, Hellgate Global doesn’t do anything new. The majority of mechanics aren’t new. The idea of a futuristic demon world is definitely not common but is a new spin on an old idea. The game is doesn’t deviate too far from other hack and slash MMORPGs that we have come to expect from a large portion of the genre. Its biggest innovation is trying to blend the shooter with Diablo mechanics, and other games have done that better since.
And yet it is scored a 7.
Unless there was some recent super patch to the game, the game is dated and shallow, though you can see some gleams of potential of what could have been if the game was ever fully produced. If you want to pick up an old game or reminisce of what the title could have been I think you could have fun for a couple of days messing around. Unless you pay though, your just not gonna get much though and I think you can spend you dollar on something more worth your while.
I'd give it a 5, a nice idea but just doesn't hit the mark. Not bad for a quick time killer or just to check out for old times sake.
Back in the day, I might have agreed with the scores given. But now... sorry, no. There have been other games which do the whole shooter/ARPG thing much better since Hellgate's initial release. I did enjoy the game in its initial form quite a bit, until Roper Flagshipped all the fans & employees by selling out to the Koreans. Such a pity.
BTW Mr. Roper, if you should happen to read this by some miracle, I haven't forgotten about the $100 refund you owe me and every other lifetime subscriber you ripped off. Pray we never meet on the street.
I think this game is super freakin awesome. Love it.
It is not great game. Maybe 4/10 deffo NOT 8/10...
There are gamebreaking bugs with this game that t3fun/hanbitsoft aren't even concerned about fixing. There is a bug with the ragdoll physics (some of us believe it to be the cause) that will drop your fps to less than 1 fps until the culprit(s) fade. Still plenty of lag and bugs running around, and t3fun is only really concerned about putting new items in the mall. When they pulled the "bait and switch" with the revenue model, I knew they weren't a good company and all their intention for this game was a cash grab. I mean, stating the game is completely f2p, then 2 days before release say that only up to the end of act2 (very early in the game) is completely free then you have to pay to access the rest of the game is shady in my book. That is more of an unlimited free trial than f2p. Personally, while it's being run by this company, I would suggest not even giving it a try. It's worse off now IMO than it was before. If you want to play it, I say get the flagship version and play the single player. At least that way there are some mods out to enhance your gameplay instead of hinder it.
After seeing the Giantbomb.com intern footage of HG I cannot believe this article - video for reference - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pyf_t7ZYjo&feature=plcp&context=C39c29cfUDOEgsToPDskLPNfrc_Tfg2duU-sP0cMmy
Just saying but...
8/10 sounds far too kind, specially with a "F2P" game that charges you for content, specially for more than half of the game's content. It sounds more like a desperate attempt to "normalize" the cashflow from a F2P title than it does a favor to the players. Hence why you NEVER see a true F2P game doing it.
At least, the dozens upon dozens of F2P titles that I've gone through never did such a thing. And before anyone brings it up, no. Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and other Abrupt F2P titles don't count.
I cant comment on much of the extra stuff in the cash shop, but by the time I had to "pay" for the new content, I had enough in game cash to buy it from another player in the auction house.
I find it amusing that the video posted in the review has gold spam in it which if posted on the forums would be removed...
LOL as the pot calls the kettle black. Perhaps you should practice how to spell know?
They also don't teach sarcasm in American schools. Though they do teach mocking, so I'm not sure why it wasn't more clear what he was doing there.
Way, waaaay too kind on the score there. Also, one of the cons is the dated visuals and yet aesthetics gets a 9? When you lack a graphic score, it gets lumped in with aesthetics since that is indeed part of the package. You can't give a high score to something then say it's one of its faults.
And 6 on value is...mmm....well, I won't even touch that. If I have to pay out my bum to play the game, it doesn't even get a mediocre on the "value" level. It would have been cheaper to keep it p2p, except no one found the game good enough to pay monthly for. And the solution for that, somehow, became to make it even more expensive to play through the item mall.
Brilliance.
Oh come on, this game has zero replayability. Complete waste of time if you ask me. Anyone thinking they captured even an inkling of the magic of Diablo would be soon be disallusioned with it.
Using the word "Great" when referring to this game immediately makes the reviewer look foolish.
All ratings are subjective. I happen to agree with the review. I should mention that I enjoyed the original versional as well. Most of the updates are real improvements. Unfortunately they removed the permadeath option which I enjoyed the first time around.
The cash shop price for unlocking the restricted content (act 2 or 3, don't remember which) was a whole four dollars last I checked. I can't comment on the price of anything else because I never felt the need to buy anything else (although you will need to spend at least ten dollars just because that is the minimum for a purchase).
Pretty much sums up my thoughts when reading this.... eh... "review". It's getting harder and harder to take anything from the staff writers seriously. Been a loot of silly articles in the news section over the last year too, written by clueless authors that appearently barely knew the name of the game they talked about.
Mmmorpg.com, hire professionals, not cusins, sons, daughters, whatever...
It stays at 6/10 for me like value i won't use item shop so its way to limited so uninstalled it after a few days. I never had the feeling it was a mmo not back in 2007 and not now. Its just a diablo hack and slash nothing more. Game is also downgraded from DX10 back to DX9 LOL.
It's just so funny how people regard their own opinions as the "right and most superior" opinion of all. Anyone with a contrary opinion is a fool.
Why can't just people accept that some people like some games, while some people don't. If you don't like it, then don't play it. If you don't agree with the review, then shut up and read another article. Or better yet, make your own review and show us how "good" you are.
When the op mentioned that they were a WoW veteran i had to pick myself up off the floor from laughing, for they must be a formidable gamer to quote thenselves so.
Anyway, i will list some points about Hellgate Global that the op (kindly) missed out.
Graphics:
Graphics are/look like crap for they reverted to using dx9 instead of dx10 for online stability reasons. If you close one eye and max all details then it is not to bad.
4/10
..
Grouping:
Op mentions the ability to form a group now, but this feature was in from the original release, theres still a max number of 6 in a group.
Playing with others can be a pain for you will find numerous bugs in group content eg 1fps bug, loading screen bugs. If any group can stay together for any ammount of time without a bug happening then they are very lucky.
3/10
..
PVP:
PAY 2 WIN games are never really fun to play pvp in.
1/10
..
Content:
New content has been added, Weldone!. Extra zones / bigger maps / more baddies / bosses .. pls keep the extra content coming.
6/10
..
Free to Play:
Yes this game is free to play, Hanbitsoft does'nt ask you to part with any money at all. OP stated that you need real money for the act3 ticket but this is wrong, you just buy it from the market place, there are always players that will spend real money on these games and they buy the items everyone needs then sell then for in game currency.
If you want to try this game then now is the best time to do it, for you get 7million in game gold and 1000 nanoshards (crafting item) for free when you level to 45.
I have all content open on my account and i am Free2Play.
As f2p games go then Hellgate is not bad at all.
6/10
..
Bugs:
All the bugs that were in the original release are still there.
Loss of Frames (for no apparent reason your fps will drop to 1 for a short time)
Loading Screen bug .. your game will hang when you try to zone to a new map, only way out of this is to alt del out of game and close it down.
Server side lag .. Yep the curse of all online games, but Hellgate suffers more than others .
To many to list.
..
Overall:
I still play Hellgate now and again for i do like Action mmos.
Hanbitsoft needs to sort out the worst of the game breaking bugs to really have a chance at getting a few more players to play.
Constant stopping to dismantle items makes for frustrating play.
Hanbitsoft needs to tell the community of there game update plans.
Loads more things can be added but others can add their input too.
..
I would give the game a 5/10
..
Wow. A review of my current game.
Hellgate is good for ARPG-loving people (like me), and currently it is the only MMO-ARPG around. Fans of other games may not understand us ARPG players, and why we are addicted to it. It uses the same formula of ARPG games - replayability and randomness.
I don't know about you guys, but I play it for what it is, an ARPG.
I might take another look at it but I can't find any info on "freemium" stuff or the shop on their site. Weird, I know.
Can someone enlighten me how much it costs to unlock all content, do they charge a sub somewhere down the line and does the item shop include stat-chaniging items?
Thnx guys in advance.
Whatever happened to MMORPG introducing some consistancy in scoring and reviewing? I seem to remember it being on the agenda some while back..
Personally I just don't trust all those 9's, it certainly gives you know where to go if Torchlight II or Diablo III are game of the year materiall? 9's really? Come on now, if 10 is perfection (or at least 'as good as it gets')......
You know what? I was going to go onbut tbh I don't think it's worth it. It seems to me that MMORPG just do not take there reviews seriously or assume any sort of responsibility for any sort of real consistency or objectivity. Truly sad and a wasted opportunity.
Sure!! But if you are writing an editorial review for a commercail site, I personally feel you have a duty of care to your readers. It's not a question of whether you enjoy the game it is a question of accurately representing it.
"we all no the american education..."
1. How better to fail at pointing out someones mistake then to make the same mistake yourself? it's "we all KNOW"
2. Who ever said i was american? i am not actually and i am not from a native english speaking country....what's your point? or even better how exactly did your post counter my post which was related to the topic at hand?
Are u that self-centered as to think americans are the only ones posting on these forums? How is your geography? does it extend past the borders of your country? does it have preety colors?
in all fairness, I have to add something to defend this article.
this version of Hellgate is based on the Korean Hanbit version which has been quite successful in South Korea. When the international version was shut down, Hanbit spent years updating and developing the client, so it's really quite polished now!
It's been going strong for 4 years now and though not as popular as Vindictus or C9, it still has a stable playerbase in South Korea.
Also, T3fun will probably keep this game going until the playerbase gets too low. This is what happened with T3fun's version of Aika. They were doing great, until a SEA version of Aika was released in Singapore and all of the asian players left, leaving T3fun with a few odd European players that were not enough to keep the game going. So they had to shut it down and focused their energy on Hellgate.
As for this being f2p, it's not really, it's a mandatory freemium model, meaning that just like in LOTRO, you HAVE to buy expansion packs to continue. At the moment, you have to pay something like 7$ to continue past act 2, but after that payments are optional.
Lalartu:
Hellgates client has not been updated, the same bugs that were present in Flagships release are still in Hanbisofts.
This is the North American server version.
Once again i will state that at no point do Hanbisoft ask you for any money to buy extra content, the Hellgate game and ALL the expansion are Free To Play.
If you play the game then you would know this, all items can be purchased with in game currency including the Act3 and Toyko expansion.
"When originally asked me to review Hellgate"
Please edit your work, there should be no 'me' in that sentance.
Both the review and the critque by posters did give me a good feel for the game, so job done.
If Hanbit spent so much time refining the client, how come the bugs from the original game are still there. And there are not a just a few of them? Giving kudos to Hanbit for not fixing known bugs, especially the grouping ones is misguided.
Hanbit has done very little with this game beyond taking the original code and perhaps adding some features that were close to being added at shutdown.
Hellgate Global, in this writer’s eyes, is a great value… at first. It runs on a Freemium model with an item mall. The item mall has both gear and items, including tickets to get you into the new zones. Without paying you cannot make it past act 2 (there are five acts plus additional content)
You do relize you can buy act tickets from other players for ingame currancy.
It's F2P so who cares? Every video had non stop gold spam in the chat box. There's your community.
8/10?
Sure.
So did you intentionally misspell "there" for his benefit?
Hm. After buying this game not long after it's release, I gave up on it due to technical difficulties (lag,disconnects, slow loading, overly repetitive level layouts) and not having a good enough comp to run it well. Years later with a different computer I installed it and gave it another try after patching, and boy am I impressed and having a blast with it!
It's not Crysis level graphics, obviously, but it is very detailed and does have certain armors, certain weapons, certain monsters and areas that really look great! IMHO, the gameplay is fantastic as an ARPG/FPS hybrid, really satisfying action watching monsters explode and bloody flying chunks across the screen, getting ambushed, having to figure out how to tackle a room overflowing with bad guys. The controls are solid, the UI fine, the monster AI quite clever at times, certain enemies hiding behind obstacles, circling around you, strafing, teleporting, stealthing, and some of the best death cries of any game.
The weapons are quite brilliant, so many different kinds and uses, loading them up with mod items, augmenting them, levelling them up, trying different ones for different enemies and situations.
The skill trees are well thought out and offer lots of great choices.
There's even a story and plot that are interesting.
At the end of the day though, it makes me so sad that Flagship Studios ran out of money, didn't have another year, or 6 months even to polish the game up, have a closed or open beta, work out all the bugs and glitches, and come to the realization that an MMO subscription based pricing system doesn't work for a regular game without all the MMO features such as an open, perpetual world. This game could have been huge instead of a legendary failure. It could have had big content updates, expansions, new characters, new areas, maybe even a sequel, fighting the demon invasion in other worlds, and become a franchise like the Diablo series. I wish I could go back in time with 10 million dollars to give them and have it all turn out different.
I'm extremely skeptical about this new effort by Redbana/Hanbitsoft. I tried downloading it just to see and the download crashed my computer before completing. I tend to think of them as the room full of monkeys with typewriters, give them 1,000 years and they might come up with Shakespear.
I just viewed some screen shots from their site and the graphics in them looked like pure crap .. So, before I waste 5 precious gigs of bandwidth, did they like dump down the graphics and textures or something??