Hellgate London - More Clarification on MP Pay-to-Play @ HG London

Kalia

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Over at HGLondon.net , Flagship Studios co-founder Max Schaefer posted a bit about the information and misinformation that has been communicated lately about Hellgate London and an MMO-type fee structure:
Hello,
It's time to start participating in forums again! I used to participate all the time back when I worked at Blizzard, but haven't since we started Flagship.

Now that we're getting closer to shipping, and now that there's lots of information (and misinformation) out there, it's time I start getting familiar with our community again and communicating our message of love and happiness.

Obviously the topic of the day is the news from CES, and the controversy on pay models. We want the best of both worlds: free play for both single- and multi-player, AND an ongoing revenue model to fund the expansion of our world through ongoing content - something we never were able to do with the Diablo series at Blizzard. Exactly how we get there is the subject of ongoing discussion, but rest assured we're committed to significant free online multi-player play!

Anyway, this is a subject that will continue to be discussed and quoted and misquoted as we go. In the meantime, greetings to everyone, and I hope we are able to fulfill your expectations for Hellgate: London!

Max Schaefer
C.O.O. and co-founder, Flagship Studios
We'll keep you posted on further developments.

More information.
 
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I think the bottom line is that we know we need to wait another several months for the game ... so we should be patient and let these guys figure out what they're doing ...
 
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Patience is probably wise, but I'd bet this comment is backpedalling and spin control. Roper probably said something very close to the truth. It will be interesting to see if they change the plan in response to the furor.

I'm still disappointed that they plan to emphasize MMO. I really thought they were targetting single player and including LAN-type functionailty. Instead, it's an MMO with an extended single-player training campaign thrown in.
 
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Patience is probably wise, but I'd bet this comment is backpedalling and spin control. Roper probably said something very close to the truth. It will be interesting to see if they change the plan in response to the furor.

Yeah - I wasn't really clear. I think that based on the information we had been getting, the furor over some form of WoW / Guild Wars setup with monthly fees was quite appropriate - and probably sent them back to reassess things.
 
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It's really not backpedaling, as much as it looks that way. Shacknews and subsequently GameSpot misunderstood Bill's MMO reference and jumped to the conclusion that the game would be pay to play.

While it is true that the game plans to have an extensive "MMO"-ish mode of play, single player remains free, and free multiplayer is also a part of that deal. The MMO mode will require some sort of revenue stream, but how they plan on doing it has yet to be decided. It may be that they will opt with a subscription-based service, but it's only one of the possible considerations. There's no reason why they couldn't adopt a Guild Wars based service or a guaranteed monthly update that you subscribe for, as opposed to World of Warcraft's erratic update schedules.
 
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It seems very clear to me.

There will be Battle.net-esque free online play.
There will also be pay-to-play online content.
 
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It's really not backpedaling, as much as it looks that way. Shacknews and subsequently GameSpot misunderstood Bill's MMO reference and jumped to the conclusion that the game would be pay to play.

I'm not sure it was the MMO reference as much as the word "subscription", which was quoted. Of course, whether that was accurately quoted verbatim, I don't know. Seems to me that Bill should have shut up until they could properly announce their plans, so this still looks like back-pedalling to me.
 
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I think the concept is clear:
open games (player data on client) are free.
closed and hardcore games (player data on server) are pay-per-play.

doesn't sound too harsh for me, diablo did it all for free but ... 'twas the age of innocence
 
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