Hellgate London 'might' be subscription-based [update 1]
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Jan 10th 2007 at 1:12PM }
Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London will share many similarities with the typical MMO, including a subscription fee. Make no mistake, Hellgate's online component won't be a string of PvP deathmatch servers, no, included in the multiplayer experience will be an expansive social system that includes guilds and raid-type gameplay.Online, Hellgate will feature all of the single-player missions, plus additional modes, primarily focusing on group PvE instances -- limited PvP gameplay will be available at launch. Additional content will be continually provided by a dedicated team of developers. Sure sounds like an MMO, no?
Update: Co-publisher EA has stated that the online pricing model has not been officially decided (more here).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sniper @ Jan 10th 2007 1:42PM
Well i was going to buy this game but no thx now
Psaakyrn @ Jan 10th 2007 1:44PM
Not quite, unless you completely ignore the "upgrade over time" aspect that practically all MMOs have. And the reason why they have that is to give people an objective, a goal to chase after (though when you consider it, it isn't THAT important, since games like CounterStrike exists perfectly without it).
It sounds more like episodic gaming, except that episodes would come in really small bite-sized chunks.
However, if you completely ignore the "upgrade over time" aspect, there are other games which play exactly like what it says: PvE wise there's Survival Project, PvP wise there's Rakion.
So no, this is really not that unique... but I don't think anyone cares about that. It's still all in the execution.
squid @ Jan 10th 2007 1:45PM
"Make not mistake, Hellgate's online component won't be a string of PvP deathmatch servers, no, included in the multiplayer experience will be an expansive social system that includes guilds and raid-type gameplay."
What an awkward sentence!
Jonathan Tran @ Jan 10th 2007 1:47PM
bah, there goes two sales that would have been my brother and myself.
Ryan @ Jan 10th 2007 1:56PM
Everywhere I read about this people freak out and say that they are no longer going to buy the game. As far as I can tell there is still a single player game, they have not converted this to a full out MMO, just have added some MMO like items (including a monthly fee) to multiplayer.
While I'm not terribly happy to hear this decision. I think I will hold off on my decision of to whether or not I will buy the game until there is oh any information out on this.
I have been looking forward to this game and got sick of World of Warcraft a long time ago. So if they do this right a game I was looking forward to now has the potential to have more depth and long term play than I was anticipating. Assuming they do a decent job I have no problem paying a monthly fee to get extra content and extend a game my friends and I have been looking forward to.
Hell I have paid $60 for 360 games that have only kept me entertained for 10 hours.
mandarin @ Jan 10th 2007 2:17PM
Wait I thought it's a standalone game? Now it's an MMO?
THAT SUCKS!
crono141 @ Jan 10th 2007 2:39PM
Do you still have to pay the subscription if you only want to play single player?
Collision891 @ Jan 11th 2007 2:01PM
#4...
Same exact thing in my house. I was looking forward to what was being described as a Diablo-like game as Diablo 3 still has not been announced. But the biggest appeal to me was always the lack of a subscription fee for Diablo 2. Me or my brother could easily pick up the game after not having played it for year and start up some new characters for hours of more fun. MMO's just can't work that way.
Blazur @ Jan 10th 2007 2:30PM
I also was very excited to get this game with a group of friends. We're all big LAN partiers and have spent considerable time playing Diablo in the past. This was supposed to be one of our next games to introduce into the LAN parties. After this announcement I know for a fact none of us will be buying it.
Ace TKen @ Jan 10th 2007 2:53PM
I really don't know what to say. I've been following this game's development for over a year and now this? It's like "Hey, remember that girl you had a thing for in High School but never got the nerve to ask out? She has a penis."
Flit @ Jan 10th 2007 3:18PM
Ugh, so a company can't make money on a game anymore unless they milk my teet every month too? It took me a long LOOONG time to agree to pay the WOW fees, but I won't do it for other games with smaller a user base. Give me free servers and no patches, i'll be happy, just quit with the subscription fees already.
Perhaps if they only charged $5 a month, and the game was free, i'd play for 10 months, otherwise, go to hell, not hellgate.
MO @ Jan 10th 2007 6:11PM
Well, they lost another would be purchaser. I have a big aversion to MMOs, especially the ones that require you to pay monthly.
Cosmos @ Jan 10th 2007 4:07PM
I was so excited for this game, and now I suddenly am not. There will be plenty of great Wii games by summer 2007, anyways.
Megaqwerty @ Jan 10th 2007 5:10PM
The gameplay is probably worth it, but what is there that warrants the fee? The bandwidth needed to host an MMO is pretty apparent when you see the large amount of people in a major city or location, but in Hellgate: London, it's just you and a few buddies in your own special world, which one of you will be hosting on your computer. I was in the beta for Dungeons and Dragons Online and while I loved that game, I refuse to pay $15 a month for an experience that didn't readily require a fee (same reason why I refuse to pay for PSO or PSU). Likewise, although I'm not terribly fond of Guild Wars and Diablo 2, the fact that I can pick them up literally whenever and play is the fact that they have never ever been uninstalled.
Hopefully, I'm blowing this out of proportion. I've been waiting for a game like this for far too long. If it is too terrible to bear, well, there's goes my money.
And singleplayer? Yeah, that'll be free. But think of Diablo 2's singleplayer and then compare that to the multiplayer: they'll wholly different experiences.
Sol Invictus @ Jan 10th 2007 5:21PM
Hellgate Guru just got in touch with Flagship Studios' community manager Ivan Sulic concerning the issue of MMO subscriptions, and as it turns out Shacknews which originally reported the news misquoted Bill Roper.
http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2882
Thus far, it looks like Hellgate: London's payment scheme is not set in stone. Far from it, in fact. Don't be so quick to give up on Hellgate: London.