redbana
Latest
Mythos releases first developer diary: Getting Started In Uld
Remember Mythos? The game has been largely under the radar, but still progressing. Since being picked up by Redbana, Mythos has seen a newly-revamped website with a lot of new information and has begun taking signups for closed beta. Even more recently, the folks at Redbana spent some time with us, discussing Mythos' development. New information continues to emerge regularly, and now we have a brand new developer diary added to the mix. Dev Diary 001, hosted at Warcry, is entitled Getting Started in Uld, and is pretty much what you'd expect: a guide to your first visit in the land of Uld. Dev Diary 001 will give you an overview of your first mission in the game as well as some tips on traveling, crafting, and personal achievements in-game. It's a great peek inside the game, and offers a feel for how the basics will work. Take a look at the diary here, and we'll keep our eyes peeled for more!
Massively's interview with Mythos: gearing up for launch
Today marks another milestone for the almost-forgotten Mythos MMO. As we mentioned a few months ago, the Diablo-esque game has been resurrected and we can now report that it has been picked up by Redbana US. New closed beta registration was started in August and we're well on our way to actually getting this game launched. With this new information, we assembled some questions (thanks to former Managing Editor, Michael Zenke for most of these questions) for the Mythos team on this special occasion. So the milestone at this stage of the game's life is a newly-revamped website, just released and announced today. Check it out for a teaser video, lore entries, their brand new forums and much more!
HanbitSoft plans Hellgate: London relaunch and new expansion
The Hellgate: London IP saga continues. While we had some dire news that the servers will go dark at the end of January, we also know that development for the title is still being done in Redbana's California office... just not for which region. The latest word we've received on this seems to indicate the continuity of Hellgate: London, but to date this is only confirmed for service in Asia -- so we cannot (yet) offer a definitive, "Yes, HG:L will continue for North America and EU." That being said, Gamasutra has picked up on company blog posts by HanbitSoft's Global PR Manager, Janelle. One is a definitive announcement that HanbitSoft owns both the Hellgate: London and Mythos IP, while the other is more telling. Janelle republished an email sent from Hellgate: London's Product Manager about the future of the title.The message in its entirety, as shown on the Game Espresso site for HanbitSoft, is reprinted below the cut.
Are all MMOs just extended vaporware?
Massively multiplayer online games can be a difficult industry to break into and succeed. For every Blizzard or Sony Online Entertainment, there are several smaller companies brimming with ideas about how to inject change into the MMO market. Some succeed by breaking from the World of Warcraft paradigm. Most do not. Writer James Matson writes about these titles that begin full of promise but ultimately meet a chilly reception by MMO gamers, in an article at Atomic. He touches on the fact that the sometimes high price of the box sale paired with monthly MMO fees, sustained over some months, leads to some serious disappointment when the MMO fails and the servers go dark. Matson specifically cites the examples of Auran's Fury and (what is currently Namco-Bandai's) Hellgate: London. "This would appear to the be the first tendrils of a new kind of gaming plague that's arrived with MMOs, games that can be rendered useless due to mismanagement, poor sales or just bad luck," Matson writes.
Hellgate London status: Purgatory
There have been so many twists and turns with the future of Hellgate: London (and Mythos) that it's hard to know what will happen next. We've heard on a few occasions that Hellgate: London was about to face its demise, only to be saved. Adding to the confusion was the dispute over who even owned Hellgate: London, Flagship Studios or HanbitSoft. After Flagship folded, HanbitSoft's claims seemed to be genuine, and the IP was left in the hands of T3 Entertainment. Subscriptions, however, were then suspended. Shortly afterwards Namco-Bandai swept in, prominently featured HG: L on its site... and subsequently removed it. Despite this, the game has been kept running ever since, although Namco-Bandai's stated that the servers will shut down at the end of January, 2009.Gaming site HellForge has picked up on what we're not ready to call anything more than 'rumor' at this point, but something that perhaps bodes well for the future of the game. Another company name has been thrown into the mix: Redbana (based in Taiwan, connected with the aforementioned T3 Entertainment). HellForge writes: "Further research leads to findings of a new San Francisco office for the company, which is where Hellgate offices were located previously." This seems to be in line with what we reported about the future of both titles in August. While we hope this information could be a positive sign for Hellgate: London and perhaps Mythos as well, at this point it's still largely conjecture. [Via Blue's News]
