Hellgate London - Servers Shut Down

Looks like the free-to-play workover of Hellgate:London hasn't worked out, at least for now, according to BluesNews:

Hellgate: London Website now returns a DNS error, so while there have been recent indications the game might continue in free-to-play form, it looks like Flagship Studios' action/RPG is out of action for now. The Hellgate Guru Forums have a write up of the last days of the game, and there's a bit more on the closure onHellforge.

More information.

The fact that they never made an attempt to make even small amends to their player base by offering a patch to carry over some of the online perks to single player pretty much says it all. Playing SP with an inventory the size of a shoe box is fairly unsatisfying.

I'm very sad to see this die

Best action RPG since D2, and one of the best games I played in the last couple of years.

Too bad they messed up and had a horrible launch. People were never able to get past that, and I guess you can't really blame them.

I would characterize it more like 'best action-RPG since Loki'

Missed opportunity - not as bad as some make it out to be, but I am certainly glad I wasn't on who got screwed on the 'lifetime subscription' deal. Hamsters live longer.

(they were released 3 weeks apart)

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I'm very sad to see this die

Best action RPG since D2, and one of the best games I played in the last couple of years.

Too bad they messed up and had a horrible launch. People were never able to get past that, and I guess you can't really blame them.

Horrible launch, broken promises, and a terrible business strategy is what killed the game. Roper himself said after the demise of FGS that he knew their free to play/monthly/Lifetime subscription model was the wrong one to use even before they launched the game. That's right, FGS was still glad to take the lifetime sub money knowing that they were starting off with a bad idea.

They were supposed to release new small content every month, and large ones every 3 months to justify the lifetime fee/monthly fee, but instead they had 1 content patch in the year it was open.

Originally Posted by Eisberg
Horrible launch, broken promises, and a terrible business strategy is what killed the game. Roper himself said after the demise of FGS that he knew their free to play/monthly/Lifetime subscription model was the wrong one to use even before they launched the game. That's right, FGS was still glad to take the lifetime sub money knowing that they were starting off with a bad idea.

They were supposed to release new small content every month, and large ones every 3 months to justify the lifetime fee/monthly fee, but instead they had 1 content patch in the year it was open.

Yeah - they failed - but I still think the game was great and had amazing potential. Sadly, the developers were more passionate about games than business, and they tried to please too many people without the proper resources. I've followed the game very closely, so your claim about them knowing it was a failure from the start is false. They just didn't know exactly how to handle it, and there were many bad judgement calls along the way.

Oh, and they had a content patch basically done a while before shutdown - so it's only a 3 month delay overall. Not that bad, really.

Anyway, I know I'm in the minority about this game - but I still think of it as one of the saddest events of the gaming industry. Diablo 2 really needs a proper evolution - and I don't see Diablo 3 as the best candidate for that job.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Anyway, I know I'm in the minority about this game - but I still think of it as one of the saddest events of the gaming industry. Diablo 2 really needs a proper evolution - and I don't see Diablo 3 as the best candidate for that job.

Diablo 3 is the only candidate for the job imo. And knowing Blizzard's 'polish until it shines' it's gonna be one hell of diamond.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Anyway, I know I'm in the minority about this game - but I still think of it as one of the saddest events of the gaming industry. Diablo 2 really needs a proper evolution - and I don't see Diablo 3 as the best candidate for that job.

I agree. I liked hellgate but im not really interested of diablo at all. Luckily there is atleast borderlands to wait for.