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Future of Mythos beta uncertain
Mythos beta testers are experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions as they await official word on what will happen to Mythos. The bad news struck Friday, July 11th. It was confirmed that the ranks were culled as layoffs (over 30 confirmed at VE3D's count) occurred at Flagship Studios, developers of Hellgate: London and Mythos. Staff at PingO, an online services subsidiary felt the impact too. To help shed some new light there is a response from Travis Baldree, Lead developer on Mythos. In a post entitled, "A Fond Farewell" Baldree espouses gratitude to the Mythos beta community, the close relationship between employees, and does not disclose any specific details on the future of Mythos. Baldree is also unsure of how long Mythos in its current beta form will remain operational, but claims he will inform the community when possible. While Baldree did hint at reopening beta testing in the future, the question regarding on who owns the intellectual property and rights is probably going to be decided in a legal battle. Other developers that worked on Mythos also posted their farewells and appreciation to the beta community in the same thread. (We have copied Baldree's post after the jump in case the forums shutdown.)[Via Warcry]
HanbitSoft CEO claims ownership rights to Hellgate:London and Mythos
We're still reeling over the news that Flagship Studios has met its demise. Seeing any hard working development studio with loads of potential go belly-up isn't easy considering all the real people affected from the fallout. Bill Roper hasn't made a public announcement yet, but the closure of Flagship Studios was confirmed. What will happen to Mythos and Hellgate:London is a question that remains on many minds. The HanbitSoft CEO, Kim Ki-young chips away at that answer in a response to an inquiry by TheGames.co.kr seeking clarification about the situation surrounding Hellgate:London and Mythos. In a translation provided by Hellgate Guru, Kim Ki-young of HanbitSoft states: "If we can take intellectual property rights of relevant products from Flagship Studios, we have confidence to develop the games ourselves based on T3 Entertainment's advanced technology' and 'we believe we can service fresh and interesting games to online gamers by getting intellectual property rights and development. This crisis could be an opportunity for us."
One Shots: A Mythos memory
The news coming out of Flagship Studios has been sad. We've heard that everyone was pinkslipped, and that a really good company full of designers has been let go. We've also heard that Hanbitsoft will be taking over on Mythos, which we're curious about. While Hellgate: London got some very poor reviews, Mythos has proven to be a great game, with lots of fun elements and an interesting setup. As our homage to our favorite game out of Flagship Studios, we bring you today's One Shot, which was taken in the first "city" you get to in Mythos. We only hope that wherever Flagship's games land, they continue to be developed for those still interested in playing them. Do you have some screens from a MMOG-that-was? Even if the game is long gone, the screens can live on. Just send those to us here at oneshots AT massively.com along with a quick blurb on what we're seeing. We'll see that they're immortalized (well, as immortalized as anything on the Internet ever is, anyway) here in our One Shots feature for future MMO gaming generations. %Gallery-9798%
Flagship Studios: It's worse than that; he's dead, Jim
Although our previous coverage of Flagship Studios -- creators of Mythos and Hellgate: London -- mentioned that a large, undisclosed portion of the staff were laid off, it was only today that we discovered the true extent of the damage. Our mothership site Joystiq has posted the news that the entirety of the team has been fired with 30-day pensions.So what's going to happen to Hellgate and Mythos? Despite their earlier denial, there is some truth to the Hanbitsoft rumor, except that they'll be receiving the IP rights to Mythos instead of Hellgate, as was previously said. Hellgate will go to Dallas-based Comerica, a financial services company. Hanbitsoft, being a Korean game company, and distributor of the Starcraft license in Korea, might choose to keep Mythos alive, but who knows what Comerica will do with Hellgate? As of this writing, neither title's official sites have posted any information about Flagship's closure. We'll bring you news on the fate of these two titles as soon as we know anything ourselves.
Flagship Studios' entire staff fired, all intellectual property lost
A bit of clarification recently surfaced regarding the closure of Hellgate: London and Mythos developer Flagship Studios -- though we'd heard from an unnamed source that Flagship would be shutting its doors and letting go of "nearly everyone" on the payroll, Flagship community manager Taylor Balbi recently explained that the entire staff has been fired with a 30-day pension, paid for out of the pockets of the studio's higher-ups.The studio's intellectual property has been turned over to two companies who had invested in Flagship throughout its short lifespan, with Mythos going to Korean gaming developer HanbitSoft, and Hellgate: London going to Comerica, a financial services company based out of Dallas. It's expected these two companies will work together to continue Asian development for these two titles -- though it's unclear whether the uber-charming Mythos will ever hit North American shores.
Flagship Studios confirms layoffs, extent unknown
Someone who is allegedly close to Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios has informed Big Download that "nearly everyone" at the studio has been laid off. The news comes only days after studio co-founder Max Schaefer showed optimism about Mythos, the company's current project.The news isn't exactly surprising following a Flagship programmer's blog post a couple months ago that employees were leaving the company "in droves." Gamasutra has confirmed there have been "significant staff cuts" at the studio, but there's no official word on the extent of the layoffs.[Via GameDaily]
Flagship Studios confirms staff layoffs
Flagship Studios, developer of Hellgate: London and Mythos, has confirmed that it has handed out the dreaded pink slip to an undisclosed number of employees from both the development team as well as from Ping0, an online services subsidiary. While there has been no details discussing the reason for the layoffs, it's likely tied into the issues surrounding the Hellgate: London title.A statement issued by Flagship last month, meant to reassure players, read "All our Directors and Founders are still working at Flagship, and all of them are working on Hellgate: London or Mythos. The team size for Hellgate is as big now as when we shipped." That's not necessarily a positive thing -- are these Directors and Founders having to double up on duties previously performed by the now-unemployed? We'll keep an ear to the ground for more specific information as it appears.
Hellgate:London patch update 1.3d now live
All the scuttlebutt regarding fleeing Hellgate:London developers and programmers didn't stop the 1.3d patch from hitting the servers yesterday. The refreshing patch introduces changes to gameplay, a rebalancing act to the calculations behind rank experience, and further eradications to pesky bugs occurred which will help keep the mean streets of Hellgate:London crash free. The full 1.3d are listed on the official website or you can hit the jump below. Frequent displeasure remains constantly expressed in our Hellgate:London post threads. If you are still looking for an admittance of failures from someone at Flagship Studios, Max Schaefer, operations chief and co-founder recently acknowledged mistakes were made and lessons learned. The main one being the grandiosity in the overall vision for the game and an early launch that more or less turned Hellgate:London into a recovery process. Still there is a fanbase, and it was well received in South Korea. The developers are working hard, and hopefully with enough patches it will prove to be a better experience for those willing to give it a second chance. Have you?
Flagship taking time on Mythos, admits Hellgate mistakes
Max Schaefer, co-founder of Flagship Studios, admits that things didn't go exactly as planned with its first title Hellgate: London; however, he believes the developer's sophomore effort, Mythos, is coming together much better. Schaefer tells Eurogamer (via GI.biz) that Flagship was "probably biting off too much" as a new developer with Hellgate and was rushed at the end, but with Mythos it's focusing on core features and taking time to polish.Schaefer hopes Mythos can "put a dent" into some of the big MMOs out there and he believes the free-to-download-and-play model of the game -- with item sales bringing in money -- gives the developer a chance against the boxed subscription-based MMOs. Gallery: The Mythos Overworld
Flagship holds forth on lessons learned
Max Schaefer, operations chief and co-founder of Flagship Studios, is forthright about the mistakes made on Hellgate: London. In a lengthy interview with eurogamer.net he explains how that game tried to be too many things to too many people, and ended up being rushed to market without being 'kept in the oven long enough.' They simply took too much on for a fledgling studio without any existing technologies to cope with.Flagship is now working on a brand new MMO, the free-to-play microtransaction-driven Mythos, which is nothing like as 'hardcore' as Hellgate. Resemblances to the likes of Diablo or WoW are justified by Schaefer in terms of the relief they give players; the idea is to cultivate a sense of 'familiar novelty', in which the gameplay is comfortable enough to welcome a player in and get them settled, but innovative enough to excite and keep interest.
Your weekly infusion of hot Mythos news
If it's Tuesday, it must be time for more news of Flagship Studios' upcoming free-to-play MMO, Mythos. Lead developer Travis Baldree tells German fan site Online Welten more about their plans for Mythos' future, Coming up are another class and another race. Travis also explains what sorts of things you'll be able to get with their RMT system, such as more slots for your "stash", and the ability to share your stash among other characters. Mounts are coming soon -- hope they're more unique than (yawn) boring horses. Information about new guilds, puzzle boxes, wedding rings and naked foot-races -- it's all there, in elegant English or glorious German -- your choice.In his latest "Almost-a-blog", Travis also talks about their first epic quest-triggered Overworld boss. Everyone who helps take it down gets loot, similar to Warhammer Online's public quests. There's news about particle effects, Zone 2 progress, the consignment house and crafting. There also seems to be a lot of talk about open beta on the forums.
Mythos wins over another fan in new hands-on
We have to concede, we were probably won over by Mythos, Flagship's free-to-play hack and slashers, months ago. We're not sure whether it happened before our interview with Max Schaefer or after they implemented the fairly ambitious Overworld, it's hard to say exactly. In any case, we're aware that not everybody is as excited about the title as we are, which is why we recommend taking a look at Eurogamer's new glowing hands-on report of the game.Among Mythos' many design choices, the author seems most impressed with the way Flagship has managed to make even the simplest of level one fireballs feel both satisfying and significant. For our part, we're still baffled that they plan to offer this as a free title, because the spit shine and polish they've been putting on this thing is more typically befitting of a full retail release. Then again, World of Warcraft was planned as a free title once upon a time...
Mythos adds "MMO View", more, in latest patch
Flagship's forthcoming free-to-play MMO Mythos, patched their closed beta with lots of bug fixes and new features. The camera has been completely re-done; it now has four-options -- Isometric Style (the original, far-overhead view); Isometric Orbiting Style, where the camera turns with you; MMO Style, which is the over-the-shoulder view common to many MMOs, and MMO Outdoor Only, which reverts to isometric view when you enter a dungeon. Ambient (non-attackable) creatures have been added to the Overworld to make it more lively; other Overworld creatures have had their aggro range increased and respawn time decreased to make the Overworld more ... deadly.Why not take a look at the full patch notes, after the break?
Cinemassively: For the Living
DeafeningTheDaisies did a great job with a game not particularly known for machinima, Hellgate: London. Deafening has an entire series planned out, with most of the first episode almost done. While there isn't a plot in this video, it's certainly heavy on the scare factor! The biggest problem with For the Living is the aspect ratio, which jumps back and forth between text and gameplay. However, that's easy to fix. We look forward to seeing the full series!If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Why exactly is Hellgate:London so bad?
Earlier today we brought you word that there has been some unrest in the ranks at Flagship Studios, makers of Hellgate:London. Though Kotaku's discussion with studio representatives makes it sound like much ado about nothing, it's worth wondering where from Mr. Somberg's angst originated. In this the games blogger Shamus, of the site Twenty Sided, may be able to assist. Though Shamus is a dyed-in-the-wool tabletop player, he also regularly plays PC titles. Intrigued by Hellgate's terrible reputation, he dove in expecting to find that the negative hype about the game was likely just as insubstantial about the pre-launch positive. Instead, he found himself sinking into a quicksand of strange design choices and poorly documented subsystems.In what he's calling an autopsy of the game, Shamus lays out what makes Hellgate:London the yawning disappointment it is. His first analysis post centers around the fact that there's almost no reason to care about the world or its inhabitants. An unnecessary amount of snark and in-joking sucks all the veracity out of the setting. His second post is all about the game's unapproachable crafting system. Think "undocumented black box" and you'll have some approximation of what's involved here. From there you can look to his site for future discussions of the game, or head back into his archive for previous discussions on the genre.
Hellgate: London programmer claims staff leaving 'in droves'
Things are not well at Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios according to Guy Somberg, an audio and gameplay programmer at the fledgling studio. Somberg wrote on his personal blog a month ago – which was recently dug up by GI.biz – that people are leaving the company "in droves" following the poor sales and negative feedback of its post-apocalyptic jaunt.Somberg does have some hope for the future (wait, isn't London occupied by demons in 2038?), saying that the game is doing well in Korea and has yet to start in China. He concludes that he likes the job, but that all the artists and programmers leaving the company is taking a toll on the future of Hellgate: London and Flagship as a studio. Well, we're hearing good things about Mythos ...
Hellgate staff abandoning sinking ship
We never like to see a developer start to go on the down and out. Even in the rare event where we find few redeemable things about a game, we understand that the developers behind the project are generally good people and we hope that they continue to be fruitful in their endeavors. That's precisely why we were sad to read an old blog post from Hellgate: London programmer Guy Somberg describing how much of the Flagship staff, including their founders, is abandoning ship for less choppy waters.Although developers usually present a united front of optimism when their games are struggling, and indeed there is still some hope to be had with Hellgate's release into the Chinese market, you know that the individuals behind the game have to suffer when they're subject to so much heat from online vultures. After all, we've seen people on the developer side crack even when their game is a success. It's a very high pressure environment. We hope Somberg hangs in there and that Flagship manages to turn a corner.[Via GI.biz]
Sweeping changes to Hellgate: London in Abyss Chronicles
Hell is about to get even hotter, as Flagship Studios prepares to unleash fresh content for Hellgate: London. Our sister blog Big Download has some posted new screenshots of the upcoming Abyss Chronicles for HG:L, as well as info on the 2.0 and 2.1 updates to the title. Patch 2.0 will be Hellgate: London's second major content update, and brings with it a host of new features and changes to the game. The build is likely to go live on the Test Server in the next week, but until then, here's Big Download's breakdown of the 2.0 changes: A new quest line that covers the spread of the Abyss through Parliament Square and the survivors' efforts to fight back A major rebalancing of the Blademaster class A complete PvP overhaul, including achievements, rankings, rewards, and a new CTF team gametype Changes to the Shared Stash, such as a separate pane for each difficulty Addition of two new trinket slots for players to add rings and such to their characters An attribute respec NPC that allows players to remove points from an attribute for a fee-per-point Three new skills for each class A consignment house (read: auction house) where players can sell stuff to other players without direct trading Beyond rolling out The Abyss Chronicles with 2.0, the next area Flagship Studios is focusing on is PvP through Patch 2.1. The patch will 'open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London' by introducing five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture the Flag. The end result is what Flagship describes as 'a robust PvP experience.'
A first look at Mythos' Overworld
What do you call it when the developers of a hotly anticipated free-to-play Diablo-esque MMO decide at virtually the last minute to entirely redesign their game? You could call it crazy, or unwise, but developers of the upcoming title Mythos went ahead and did just that. Many of Flagship Studios' beta players said the game was more than ready to ship as it was, but it wasn't good enough for the developers. They combined all the instanced, single player overland zones into one massive continent, shared among all players. Instead of being reached by maps that led players through narrow paths to dungeons which looked identical from the outside, the devs placed the dungeons, Oblivion-like, through the world. For the past week, the folks at Flagship promised the Overworld Real Soon Now. A deathwatch was kept on the forums. It was going to be the next day, or the day after, or in a few hours. Players gathered on Mythos' IRC channel where devs tossed out tantalizing hints of what was to come. Then around 9pm EST dev Taylor Balbi advised everyone to re-patch and log in to the Test Center to see the Overworld. He gave some advice as people hurried to be the first into the new world. Test Center will be a separate server. Test Center and Beta Server will be online at the same time and require the same client. To tell which version you currently have, the login screen screen will make it obvious (two different ones). Test Center will start lagging after like 800 people, Mythos Beta won't. Taylor Balbi is Awesome. We think the other Flagship devs are pretty awesome as well. Though there were more than a few glitches with patching, we were able to eventually get in and take a quick run around some of the Overworld, its dungeons, the villages outside Stonehill, and the city of Stonehill itself. All we have left to wait for now is the open beta, expected in the next several weeks. Take a first look at Mythos' Overworld with us %Gallery-10781%
Hellgate: London giveths and takeths away
Flagship Studios announced some changes to Hellgate: London in the form of Patch 1.3b, which should resolve issues with the ill-fated Patch 1.3a. Indeed, the month of May has turned out to be HellPatch: London for Flagship and HG: L fans, with the patches even being patched. Some players who logged into the Test Server recently found that their characters were gone and, fearing the worst, assumed (incorrectly) that a character wipe had taken place. This was not the case at all; a Test Center database crash was the culprit, and a restore from backup solved the issue. Now that the updated patch has been rolled out, nightly restarts of the live servers have ceased, as of May 20th. The reboots were a precaution to prevent server instability while issues were being resolved. A notable change in Patch 1.3b is that HG: L now blocks non-subscribers from party portaling into subscriber-only areas. Although this change will likely disappoint the gamers who play for free, a quest NPC previously available only to paying players is now available to non-subs. Whether or not this balances the scales for the non-subs remains to be seen, but portaling into restricted areas would seem to be an exploit. The other changes and fixes in Patch 1.3b are numerous, and affect non-subscribers and subscribers alike. The complete breakdown is found after the jump:
