iahgames
Latest
IAHGames changes Granado Espada model again - returning to free-play
After announcing that Korean MMOG, Granado Espada, would be commercial on 30 August, 2007, Asia-Pacific operators IAHGames have announced that the MMO will be free-to-play at some (as yet) unannounced date in the Asia-Pacific region in the very near future (The game is, as we understand it, already free-to-play in North America, having gone free-to-play on 21 August 2007). That's Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. Granado Espada (also known in North America as Sword of the New World, where it is operated by K2 Network), won the 2006 Korean awards for Best Graphics, and for Game of the Year. Reviews and responses in North America have been more mixed, but Granado Espada does provide some interesting departures from more regular MMO fare.
IAHGames makes you elite
A side-effect of IAHGames bringing Hellgate: London out of beta code quagmire yesterday and up to patch 0.1, is that nobody who had completed the game was able to access Elite mode. A few hours ago, the service was taken down for the whole region for 3 hours, while IAHGames did some custom patching. The result is anyone with a character of level 30 or above in the Asia-Pacific region (at the time of the patch) now has access to Elite mode. Anyone with a character below level 30 who completed the game before the upgrade and wants access to Elite mode will need to submit a support ticket with the name(s) of their characters. You have until Tuesday's maintenance window to get your requests in.
IAHGames to implement Patch 0.1 for Hellgate: London
IAHGames have just announced that they will be going ahead with plans to patch Hellgate: London with Patch 0 and Patch 0.1 in just a few hours, starting at 9AM Thursday, Hong Kong time. The whole maintenance process (if all goes well) will take 10 hours, and will run until 5PM Hong Kong time. This will be the first time the servers have run post-beta code, and while we've been assured that Flagship Studios have found a way to convert the characters in the Asia-Pacific region to the production system, we're really not certain what the results will be, exactly.
Hellgate: London (Asia Pacific) service collapse
IAHgames reports that HellGate: London (Asia-Pacific region) went down at 8:50PM Hong Kong time (about an hour and a half ago) - reason unknown. The operations team spotted the outage and were on the job within a half hour, and are now attempting to determine the cause and bring operations back up. All we know at this time is that this seems to be more than just the login services failure experienced a couple of days ago. It's Friday night in the Asia-Pacific region - not a good time for a mass service outage (actually there isn't a good time for a mass service outage). At present there's no word on how long before the game is expected to come back up. [Update: 10:15PM Hong Kong time - The service is back up, but the cause of the outage is as yet unknown]
IAHgames announces no Hellgate character wipe
IAHgames took their time getting a fresh announcement out today, saying that teleconferences ran overtime, but it's just come through in the last few minutes. The word is no character wipe for Hellgate: London in the Asia-Pacific region. The engineers at Flagship Studios have apparently found a way to migrate from the pre-production (beta) character system to the production (patch0 and later) character system without wiping everything clean. The problem is pinned on the Asia-Pacific region going live 'simultaneously' with the USA servers. Actually, because they're on the Western side of the dateline, they went live the day before the USA, essentially running beta software.
All your tomorrows
IAHGames, you may recall, pushed off the planned Hellgate: London character wipe and downtime and were going to make an announcement 'tomorrow'. Well, today now is tomorrow, and the announcement just got made. Apparently, the announcement is: We're making our announcement tomorrow. We are also additionally thanked for our patience - which might come as some cold comfort to those of you wondering how long before your characters get wiped - or even if they will be. It looks like IAHGames might be trying to find ways to avoid deleting the character database. If they are, I wish they'd just say so - even if they ultimately don't succeed. The new, new announcement is scheduled for 1PM Hong Kong time tomorrow. We'll be waiting. Patiently, as they say.
IAHGames postpones Hellgate: London Patch0
IAHGames has abruptly postponed the implementation of patch0 for the Asia-Pacific Hellgate: London servers a scant 90 minutes before implementation. This maintenance would have seen the servers down for eight hours and all characters wiped completely. IAHGames has not offered any explanation for the sudden postponement, but apparently there will be a new announcement on Tuesday Hong-Kong time. We don't know if they've found a way to proceed without wiping the characters, or if the wipe is going ahead anyway. We'll be watching and will keep you informed, as soon as there's more news to hand.
Hellgate: London - character wipe for Asia
After some general issues worldwide, and some bonus issues with the Asian rollout particularly, Hellgate: London players in the Asia-Pacific region are in for a bit of a shock. Come Monday at Noon Hong Kong time (GMT+8), all characters are to be wiped completely from the Asian Hellgate: London servers. Been having fun with your character? You have a few hours more to say goodbye to it before you lose it.
Hellgate: Petition - IAHGames demonic?
Keen Hellgate: London player, Paul Chor, has put together a petition to Bill Roper and Flagship Studios, asserting that IAHGames (responsible for servers in the South-East Asian regions) are screwing things up. "Patch 0 has been delayed; whilst there are explanations on why it have been, there is no official ETA on its deployment." There's a list of complaints, including potentially game-unbalancing changes, vague and unhelpful community management, delays and fears that all of this will lead to the region being the poor cousin, poor sales, and a disaffected community. "The company is resorting to potentially harmful stop-gap measures, such as just raising the level cap to 50, but not implementing patch 0." Ultimately, the (so far) 31 signatories want better management for the region and a review of IAHGames operations and policies by Flagship Studios.
