Hellgate London weird subscription plan

[HRose]

Copy/pasting:
* Multiplay will be free!
* Elite Multiplay will cost you $9.95 a month
* Secure, closed servers hold your characters, even if you're not Elite
* Elite players get 24/7 phone and online support; plebs get basic online support as with any other game
* If there are queues to get on a server, Elite players go to the front
* Elite players can have 12 characters in total; plebs get 3
* Elite players can store around 40 items in "lockers" spread throughout the world; plebs can have 20. Elite players can also transfer these items to characters on other servers; plebs cannot
* Elite players get unique gear and can wield the most powerful weapons in the game. Said weapons can also be emailed by the Elite to others of their kind
* Elite players can board shuttles that transport them quickly to hard-to-reach corners of London
* Elite players can become officers of guilds and own, enter, or operate player housing and guild buildings; plebs can be members of guilds, but will not be allowed to enter said buildings, or purchase property for themselves
* Elite players get access to more gametypes; plebs not allowed into servers or areas where those gametypes are operating
* Elite players will get new content each month, such as new monsters, new gametypes, new items, and so on
It's not looking really all that well, but the things that surprised me the most is that the characters seem to be server-bound.

Way to take the worst aspect out of MMOs.

[McBain]

Copy/pasting:

It's not looking really all that well, but the things that surprised me the most is that the characters seem to be server-bound.

Way to take the worst aspect out of MMOs.

Uhm...

LOL?

[HRose]

In short the differences are:

- Smaller inventory/character slots
- Lower priority in server queues
- Limited items transfer
- No unique gear
- No fast-travel
- No guild creation
- No custom gametypes
- No monthly content

Imho it's not all that great.

[Coca Cola Zero]

I predict the multiplayer in Hellgate will be a huge failure. They should either go full MMO or standard FPS model... trying to do some half-baked in-the-middle thing is just going to cause confusion, disenchantment and a rapid evaporation of player base (assuming any is generated to begin with).

[Jab2565]

That doesn't sound too good to me. I thought the game was going to be free along the lines of D2. The monthly content seems abit weird. Is it that each month has it's own content and you must be subscribed to get it? Or can you stay in pleb for 5 months for example, pay $10 and get 5 months of content downloaded in one day.

[HRose]

Oh, come on. No one notices the HUGEST flaw?

They speak of goddamn SERVER QUEUES. What the hell. Why a game on the style of D2 should have server queues?

That model worked exactly because you were redirected to the first server with some room. Your character was persistent, while the session volatile, so you could launch a new session with the same character wherever you wanted.

Clumping characters on a single server and triggering queues and all other side-effects sounds utterly stupid.

[stusser]

It's unknown if server queues will be an issue.

The only thing in that list that matters is that only paid players can get the best equipment. That essentially makes the subscription mandatory. If they actually release worthwhile new content, I'm cool with that.

[Equis]

Oh, come on. No one notices the HUGEST flaw?

They speak of goddamn SERVER QUEUES. What the hell. Why a game on the style of D2 should have server queues?

That model worked exactly because you were redirected to the first server with some room. Your character was persistent, while the session volatile, so you could launch a new session with the same character wherever you wanted.

Clumping characters on a single server and triggering queues and all other side-effects sounds utterly stupid.

Having server queues seems to be an optimistic prediction that their game will do so well that they might not have the capabilities to support the huge audience Hellgate: London will surely bring.

[sluggo]

Link?

[Ben Sones]

Sounds awful to me. It's like playing $10 a month for Diablo, with only the promise of yet-to-be-determined content updates to make a monthly fee seem even vaguely worthwhile. And 24/7 phone support? Will I need that with your game? And that's a selling point? What the hell?

I was interested in this game, but this multiplayer model is a big turnoff. Bleh.

[Brendan]

"Elite players will get new content each month, such as new monsters, new gametypes, new items, and so on"

This is what worried me. I miss the days of free bonus content. Anyone remember Unreal Tournament 2004?

(Edited because I'm really going to make an attempt to be more reasonable from now on.)

[HRose]

It's unknown if server queues will be an issue.
No, you don't understand.

They are an issue in ALL games that can potentially have them. From Diablo 2 to Warcraft 3, all other kinds of RTS and FPS. These ALL would have server queues in a server model that assumes the possibility of a queue.

If your character is locked on a server (and it isn't in any of the examples I listed) then you'll likely have queues because the server load isn't automatically balanced.

Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo WERE popular. But they didn't have server queues because Blizzard just had to plug new servers and the system itself would redirect your game session to the first server with some room.

WoW is instead the practical example of the flawed server structure: adding a new server to the server farm isn't anymore enough to cut the queue, because your character isn't automatically moved, so you can have 10 full servers and 10 empty with any fucking way to balance them.

Queues are the direct consequence of that FLAWED structure. The fact that they consider a queue a possibility is already a guarantee that things will go shit.

The only thing in that list that matters is that only paid players can get the best equipment. That essentially makes the subscription mandatory.
In a game with PvP. If it's just PvE, "elite items" would be just another carrot for the goons.

[Kunikos]

Copy/pasting:

FAIL W/O SAUCE

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Who else thinks this aspect was tacked on relatively late in development at the publisher's suggestion?

Edit: Which is not to say that developers don't sometimes have ideas like this too.

[Wholly Schmidt]

No, you don't understand.

They are an issue in ALL games that can potentially have them. From Diablo 2 to Warcraft 3, all other kinds of RTS and FPS. These ALL would have server queues in a server model that assumes the possibility of a queue.

If your character is locked on a server (and it isn't in any of the examples I listed) then you'll likely have queues because the server load isn't automatically balanced.

Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo WERE popular. But they didn't have server queues because Blizzard just had to plug new servers and the system itself would redirect your game session to the first server with some room.

WoW is instead the practical example of the flawed server structure: adding a new server to the server farm isn't anymore enough to cut the queue, because your character isn't automatically moved, so you can have 10 full servers and 10 empty with any fucking way to balance them.

Queues are the direct consequence of that FLAWED structure. The fact that they consider a queue a possibility is already a guarantee that things will go shit.


In a game with PvP. If it's just PvE, "elite items" would be just another carrot for the goons.
I agree with HRose. This sounds like it's being designed to "fail", the servers I mean.

[Kunikos]

This whole thread is a bunch of lies made up by HRose until I get someone to post a fucking source article.

Also, UMG is a tard for saying OMG THE SKY IS FUCKING FALLING everytime someone mentions a payment plan. Look dude, at the top of this purported post (and previously acknowledged by the developers) multiplayer is FREE if you don't want to pony up for the "MMO" experience.

[JD]

Instead of whining you could have made your way to Gametab and looked it up yourself within 5 seconds. It's prominently mentioned at Blue's (http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=77644), VE3D and the like.

-Julian

[Kunikos]

Instead of whining you could have made your way to Gametab and looked it up yourself within 5 seconds. It's prominently mentioned at Blue's (http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=77644), VE3D and the like.

I expect that when people post a whole thread whining about something they don't have to pay for they might bother to source where they got the thing they're copying and pasting from. Shit, what the hell was I thinking? QT3 isn't supposed to be USEFUL, EVER, it's only supposed to just jerk you off for being the first one to cry about something not being the way you like it!

Seriously though, I try to let people know where to find the original source of everything I put in a quote box so I don't look like a total fucking tool.

PS. Bluesnews is for douches.

[Creole Ned]

Will Flagship's servers be the only way to play online? If there's no way to host your own game, it's no sale for me. I have a group of friends I game with. I don't need no steenkin' public servers. The list of "benefits" for paying $10 a month is underwhelming.

[JD]

Will Flagship's servers be the only way to play online?
The game doesn't even offer straight LAN play, so yeah, it should be like that.

-Julian

[SuperHiro]

If only elite members can be guild officers, does that mean that only elite members can even make guilds?

This payment plan isn't all that hot.

Now that I think about it though, I'm MORE interested in it now, since it looks like Plebs won't be getting a castrated version of the game.

[Equis]

If only elite members can be guild officers, does that mean that only elite members can even make guilds?

This payment plan isn't all that hot.

Now that I think about it though, I'm MORE interested in it now, since it looks like Plebs won't be getting a castrated version of the game.

I think so too, since the benefits to elites seem to cater more to the catassers than the casual crowd.

[Mordrak]

That doesn't sound too good to me. I thought the game was going to be free along the lines of D2. The monthly content seems abit weird. Is it that each month has it's own content and you must be subscribed to get it? Or can you stay in pleb for 5 months for example, pay $10 and get 5 months of content downloaded in one day.


Shhh, don't give them any ideas.


Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo WERE popular. But they didn't have server queues because Blizzard just had to plug new servers and the system itself would redirect your game session to the first server with some room.


Diablo 2 had queues to create games with server characters when it first came out.

If only elite members can be guild officers, does that mean that only elite members can even make guilds?

This payment plan isn't all that hot.

Now that I think about it though, I'm MORE interested in it now, since it looks like Plebs won't be getting a castrated version of the game.

If unique items are only available to Elites, more than likely that affects the single player game also. This game now has lost my interest entirely. It's one thing to release new content, including items, that's unavailable unless I subscribe but something else to say, yeah you can buy this game and play it single player but it's gimped unless you pay more.

EDIT:I was thinking uniques in the D2 sense, blue items, set items, and uniques. If by unique they mean just new items then it isn't so bad. The VIP shuttle seems almost insulting.

[cliffski]

Who else thinks this aspect was tacked on relatively late in development at the publisher's suggestion?

Edit: Which is not to say that developers don't sometimes have ideas like this too.

Absolutely. This is one of the side effects of long dev times, in that close to the end of a project, the whole gaming environment has changed and everyone wants your game to change with it. I'm sure a whole pile of games had some terrorist nonsense tacked on to them after 9/11 and the current trend is for everything to try and be like WOW.

I have no objection to monthly fees if it's worth it, although this isn't my type of game. I play COD 2 every night, and Infinity Ward (is it them?) don't earn a penny from me. This is BAD. Games need to find a way to charge a miniscule amount per game or per day for online multiplayer, to encourage the devs to make online games with lasting appeal. Its mad that a game that gets played for 4 hours can earn the same from me as one I play for 2+ years.
I know some people are opposed to any ongoing fees, but then some people are opposed to even buying games and warez them. not suprisingly, businesses cater for the players who are actually prepared to spend money.

[Coca Cola Zero]

The one cool thing about this is that it is nice to see the PC gamers getting nickel and dimed for once.. not just for consoles anymore!

I'm not opposed to paying monthy for multiplayer, as a Live Gold subscriber and someone who has paid for WoW, Planetside, and other games at various times, but this Hellgate stuff is not very well conceived and I seriously doubt it will generate a long-term player-base. Either be a real MMO or don't be. Trying to be both and neither at once equals squish like grape!

[Mordrak]

I have no objection to monthly fees if it's worth it, although this isn't my type of game. I play COD 2 every night, and Infinity Ward (is it them?) don't earn a penny from me. This is BAD. Games need to find a way to charge a miniscule amount per game or per day for online multiplayer, to encourage the devs to make online games with lasting appeal. Its mad that a game that gets played for 4 hours can earn the same from me as one I play for 2+ years.

Edit: Reading comprehension for the win.

I don't know how COD2 is setup, but if it's on a PC and I'm paying to host a personal server for a game and each player is paying their own internet connection or we are connecting directly, I don't think the publisher or game developer deserve a recurring fee.

[RepoMan]

I don't have a problem with people who pay more money getting more shit. I bet I will burn out on the game long before getting to the Elite level anyhow, and I'll probably get 30 - 40 hours of fun out of it before that point, including both singleplayer and multiplayer. So no Elite for me, I won't miss it one fucking bit. People who get really into it and want to experience every cranny and get regular content hits, fine, let 'em pay more.

Mordrak, yes you are obviously misreading. You can play the single-player Hellgate infinitely many times without ever paying any more. But you want more content, and the leetest content, you pay more. It's as though you bought a chess set and played it forever, fine, no problem -- but you could also spend more money and get more pieces, and they continually invent more pieces to add to your set, if you pay.

Obviously Hellgate wants some recurring revenue, their whole game is structured around dropping in new content. They want to charge for that? No skin off my nose, and not even the TINIEST BIT surprising. Anyone bitching about this hasn't been paying attention to the last five years of the gaming industry.

[Mordrak]

Mordrak, yes you are obviously misreading. You can play the single-player Hellgate infinitely many times without ever paying any more. But you want more content, and the leetest content, you pay more. It's as though you bought a chess set and played it forever, fine, no problem -- but you could also spend more money and get more pieces, and they continually invent more pieces to add to your set, if you pay.


Yeah. I get what they are doing with Hellgate. What I misread was cliffski's post, which I thought he was implying that all games should have a recurring fee to more accurately represent their value. But he wasn't talking about all games, just multiplayer.

That's why I changed my post, to reflect my thoughts regarding online mutliplayer games.

[flyinj]

For what you get, it seems like a one-time fee would be a much better way to approach this. From those features, it's hardly at a level of the maintenence it takes to sustain an MMO to justify charging users $10 a month.

$25 for Elite status. This pays for the servers and additional content until the inevitable expansion pack. Then you can charge another $25 additional Elite fee to go with that.

Also, taking away fast travel unless you pay $10 a month? That's just plain evil.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Also, UMG is a tard for saying OMG THE SKY IS FUCKING FALLING everytime someone mentions a payment plan. Look dude, at the top of this purported post (and previously acknowledged by the developers) multiplayer is FREE if you don't want to pony up for the "MMO" experience.

Yeah, I get that the shitty version of multiplayer is free. Thanks for clearing that up.

[mutt]

Sorry to whoever is making this game, but I'm just not going to read through that long list of weirdness. I don't care enough. If the game turns out to be cool, I'll pony up the sub fees. If it doesn't, I won't. Pretty simple, really.

[Ben Sones]

The one cool thing about this is that it is nice to see the PC gamers getting nickel and dimed for once.. not just for consoles anymore!

The difference is that at least with bonus content on Live, I can see what I'm paying for before I pony up my money, and it's a one-time charge. No game makes me pay $10 a month for a grab bag of undisclosed content that may or may not be worth that fee. If I had to guess, though, I'd say "almost certainly not." I mean, Knights of the Nine costs $10, but it's a one-time fee. Is Hellgate going to be adding that much content every month? I'll believe it when I see it.

The other "features" in the elite service make me nervous about the free service. I doubt they'd throw out "no server queues" as a selling point if they didn't think that there were going to be server queues. Likewise with the support thing. The idea of paying for 24/7 phone support for a game seems insane to me.

[Midnight Son]

BOHICA!

[Ben Sones]

Heh. Yeah, but again, at least people knew what you were paying for when you bought horse armor (assuming that they were dumb enough to buy horse armor in the first place). Better than paying $10 a month for "something great, we promise!" and then having it turn out to be horse armor.

[Gedd]

I don't get it, is this an MMO of some sort that it demands a monthly subscription fee that's equal to 2/3 of what most full-fledged MMOs get?

Elite players get unique gear and can wield the most powerful weapons in the game. Said weapons can also be emailed by the Elite to others of their kind

So if I get an Uber Sword of Smiting and cancel my subscription a month later, I assume I can't use that sword anymore?

Seems like they should just simplify the whole thing, charge some extra dollars for an "Elite" package (like a Collector's Edition) and then charge for each content update.

[Charles]

I sure hope none of these 'elite' changes affect local multiplayer or direct connect multiplayer.

If I just want to play with close friends on my own shit, if I have to pay for it, I think I'll just skip the game on principle.

[drdoalot]

I know it's not quite on subject, but for you guys that are looking forward to this title, is there any videos that actually make this game look fun?

[AndrewM]

I sure hope none of these 'elite' changes affect local multiplayer or direct connect multiplayer.

If I just want to play with close friends on my own shit, if I have to pay for it, I think I'll just skip the game on principle.

According to this (http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3756) there will be no LAN play because it is a "security risk". Presumably that also precludes direct connect multiplayer. You can still play for free, you just have to do it on their servers. For extra fun, read the linked post to see a guy at Flagship deride LAN play as worthless.

[bloo]

Next, it will be $0.25/life. And $0.05/bullet.

I understand the business value in monetizing everything you can get away with, but that invisible hand can fell like it's on the back of your neck. I wonder how much of this kind of thing is pure "maximization of quarterly profits" and how much is "this game cost soo bloody much we've got to squeeze every drop of blood from this stone we can"?

How many games has this been true of:
"We're out of money, have to publish now. Cut that those X unfinished/buggy levels - we'll put them in an expansion pack/Downloadable $ content/etc."

Is creating a new development house (dependent on publishers) even a rational business decision unless you're a name?

[Charles]

According to this (http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3756) there will be no LAN play because it is a "security risk". Presumably that also precludes direct connect multiplayer. You can still play for free, you just have to do it on their servers. For extra fun, read the linked post to see a guy at Flagship deride LAN play as worthless.

Oh, well then. Since the likely outcome would've been that I play remotely with just my girlfriend, I think I'll take a pass on this.

One thing Diablo 2 proved is that server-side characters sucked. They forced you to play on laggy-ass battle.net, they prevented you from playing direct connect when you wanted to, and they were often flushed due to inactivity (though I believe later in the game's life they minimized that). And on top of that, you are dependent on the server being up to play.

Screw it.

[Kunikos]

One thing Diablo 2 proved is that server-side characters sucked. They forced you to play on laggy-ass battle.net, they prevented you from playing direct connect when you wanted to, and they were often flushed due to inactivity (though I believe later in the game's life they minimized that). And on top of that, you are dependent on the server being up to play.

Well, maybe with an actual post-release income model they might bother to upgrade their hardware to scale with demand instead of just half-assing it like Battle.net did. From what I understand Guild Wars is doing just fine with no payment plan, but they release expansions every six months.

[Alan Dunkin]

Just realize that it takes a lot of resources to pull that off--2 dev teams basically.

--- Alan

[Kunikos]

I wasn't aware that Arena.net started with two teams. Heh.

[JD]

Just realize that it takes a lot of resources to pull that off--2 dev teams basically.

--- Alan
In the article Roper says that he expects that about 40 percent of the team will be working on content for the regular updates post-release.

-Julian

[Alan Dunkin]

I wasn't aware that Arena.net started with two teams. Heh.

Well they didn't start with two teams per se (I don't think, Eric can correct me) but to effectively do their release plan of a newly developed product every six months required two teams, and it took roughly a year to do each one.

--- Alan

[Ben Sones]

In the article Roper says that he expects that about 40 percent of the team will be working on content for the regular updates post-release.

Yeah, with that sort of manpower, they'll be able to churn out $10 worth of content every six to eight months, at best. I expect most of the "content" to be the sort of stuff that people make and distribute for free in games like NWN--new items, new skins, random stuff that you likely wouldn't choose to pay for if they weren't already deducting money from your credit card automatically. If you actually want to pay for content in NWN, $10 will get you something like Pirates of the Sword Coast, a full-fledged campaign with about 10 hours of gameplay. Is the Hellgate team going to be adding something like that to the game every month? Color me very skeptical.

[Alan Dunkin]

It depends really on what type of content they are talking about, what they can build in short periods of time, QA, and so forth. Adding different effects and stats to already existing weapons is relatively easy; developing all new ones for use is not.

If they had planned this out nicely, they'd already have a selection of content (or at least, partially complete stuff) already in the bag for post-release so the sudden pressure of a subscription schedule doesn't slam them at the upfront.

--- Alan

[StGabe]

Sounds fine to me. They're trying to offer a service worthy of a monthly fee. They may or may not succeed at that. Speculate all you want, I don't think we'll know until it's live. Given that, they are actually offering a lot of play, under that service, to test it out and make sure you want to pony up. WoW doesn't let you play a slightly gimped character for free for as long as you want.

When it comes out I'm sure that the single-player will be worth the box price (from what I've seen at E3's past). After I'll check out the multiplayer. There seems to be ample access to that such that it should be pretty easy to figure out whether it's something I want to pony up $10/month for (which while almost WoW pricing, isn't that much compared to other game stuff I pay for).

Anyway, my hope is that they pull it off and that it's worth $10/month.

[Kunikos]

I have to think that it's probably all "subject to change" anyway.

[Quaro]

Why would LAN play be a security risk? In Diablo it meant that you couldn't take that character onto Battle.net. I suppose people could mine the executable to figure out drop tables or whatever, but it would be okay if the best items didn't show up in local play anyway (as in Diablo).

$10 seems high. Likely, I'll get as far as I can in a month and then cancel. Does it come with any free elite time, I wonder?

[StGabe]

I do wonder how they are going to handle people who cancel their "elite" status. Does the guild they started go away? Do they lose all the items in their lockers? Do they lose characters in their extra slots?

[Jab2565]

The preview 1up just did about a week ago got me excited about the game some good info and pictures on their cover story. On the x-play summer review I remembered seeing that EA was the publisher, and thought something bad was going to happen.

I would thing that the GW model would work even with a smaller development team. Make the online portion free and then every few months release content upgrades for $10 or so, or the multiple expansion style. One the main reasons that GW is still installed on my machine is that I know if I ever get the urge to play it again it's just a simple log on back to the server.

edit: Plebs only get 3 character slots, elites get 12, that's just wrong in my book considering that there are technically 6 different classes (2 from each type). Also does anyone know what different gametypes could mean?

[Kunikos]

I know I'm totally going against being useful and everything but... this Flagship employee posted:

Re: HG:L is $9,95 a month!
Ugh, that article totally makes everything way too confusing in my personal opinion and leaves out some important points. Also, I did not read all 25 pages of comments so I apologize if I missed something. Here are some quick points -

- Free Play-

- Does have customer support but it isn't 24/7 premium customer support. Being 'just an artist' I don't know all the specifics here.
- Can join guilds but can't found a guild or use guild officer functions.
- Can play with elite players in all areas of the game that come with the shipped game but not in new areas added post launch.
- Can not use 'elite' items. It should be noted that elite items are not more powerful/unbalanced items but rather have flashier appearances or simply new items that still fit in the overall balance scheme.
- Includes patching/balance updates. (in case that's not obvious)
- On the same secure servers as 'elite' players.

-Elite-
- Regular content updates, small ones every month and large ones every three months.
(ie. new quests, dungeons, weapons, monsters, etc. that can only be accessed by elite players.)
- Elite content will access higher
- Can create guilds.
- 24/7 Cust. Supp.
- More character slots/larger shared stash
- Additional play modes, hardcore, pvp, rp, etc..
- Hopefully there will never be server ques but -if- there are then elites get priority.


maiku- It is my understanding that all elite items (or ones in the additional storage, etc.) will be frozen if you stop subscribing but are not deleted/destroyed. I believe this also applies to additional character slots and any other elite features.

zoner - If you subscribe 6 months after release you get all the new content that had been added during the previous 6 months.

northrop - I think that's 40 slots per character.

- One account per cd key as far as I know.

http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81122&postcount=301

[Coca Cola Zero]

Well, maybe with an actual post-release income model they might bother to upgrade their hardware to scale with demand instead of just half-assing it like Battle.net did.

Or maybe they don't get enough "Elite" subscribers and they shut the infrastructure down 8 months after the game is released, leaving you with a game you can't play in multiplayer anymore.... Which will it be? Who knows! Hooray for surprises!

[Kunikos]

Or maybe they don't get enough "Elite" subscribers and they shut the infrastructure down 8 months after the game is released, leaving you with a game you can't play in multiplayer anymore.... Which will it be? Who knows! Hooray for surprises!

I doubt it... even if everyone was only doing the free multiplayer, that would be different from Diablo 2 on Battle.net how?

[Fugitive]

Sounds like I might just play it as a 'plebe' for a while, set it aside, come back a year later and burn through all the accumulated 'elite' content in one burst, set it aside for a while again...

[Coca Cola Zero]

I doubt it... even if everyone was only doing the free multiplayer, that would be different from Diablo 2 on Battle.net how?

Flagship isn't Blizzard, who were already wildly successful at the point they put battle.net up and have obviously only gotten more so. Will Hellgate sell well enough to establish Flagship enough to do something similar? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not.

[flyinj]

Yeah, the questions of what happens to your character/guild/items when you stop paying $10 a month needs to be answered.

Do they randomly delete items out of your stash when they shrink it to the "non-elite" size? If you founded a guild with 50 members, does the whole thing get disolved immediately? Do all of your "elite" items suddenly disappear?

I just don't get it. It seems like a lot of trouble to extract these things out of the core game to charge a monthly fee for them. A one-time fee makes a ton more sense.

[Kunikos]

Flagship isn't Blizzard, who were already wildly successful at the point they put battle.net up and have obviously only gotten more so. Will Hellgate sell well enough to establish Flagship enough to do something similar? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not.

There are 15 developers who worked on Diablo and Diablo 2 at Flagship, including the lead producer. If that isn't close to being Blizzard's Diablo team, I don't know what the hell is.

I'm guessing they could port this game to the 360 as well, but this subscription model doesn't really translate 1 to 1 in that model, would it?

[Jab2565]

Sounds like I might just play it as a 'plebe' for a while, set it aside, come back a year later and burn through all the accumulated 'elite' content in one burst, set it aside for a while again...

I'm thinking of doing that myself, but do you think they'll make all the new content give out only elite rewards to discourage players from doing it?

The customer service is a sore spot for me, something about charging extra for good customer service doesn't sound right to me.

[Mark Asher]

I think I’d play the single player game and set it aside, and then come back in six months and subscribe. Then for my $10 I’d get to play through six months of updates. (I’m assuming the new content would be stuff to play through and not just new weapons/skills/spells/items. No way would I ever want to pay $10 for stuff like that.)

It does sound too complicated.

[Kunikos]

Mark: Please read my post in this thread, #53 (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=970824&postcount=53). It explains what you get for your $10 content-wise. More or less it sounds like what you get from subscribing to any MMO.

[Euthanasia]

Oh, well then. Since the likely outcome would've been that I play remotely with just my girlfriend, I think I'll take a pass on this.

One thing Diablo 2 proved is that server-side characters sucked. They forced you to play on laggy-ass battle.net, they prevented you from playing direct connect when you wanted to, and they were often flushed due to inactivity (though I believe later in the game's life they minimized that). And on top of that, you are dependent on the server being up to play.

Screw it.

Open Battle.net? And that turned to shit because everyone cheated using character editors.

[Euthanasia]

Why would LAN play be a security risk? In Diablo it meant that you couldn't take that character onto Battle.net. I suppose people could mine the executable to figure out drop tables or whatever, but it would be okay if the best items didn't show up in local play anyway (as in Diablo).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnetd

[Mark Asher]

Mark: Please read my post in this thread, #53 (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=970824&postcount=53). It explains what you get for your $10 content-wise. More or less it sounds like what you get from subscribing to any MMO.

Well you get this for your money:

"Regular content updates, small ones every month and large ones every three months. (ie. new quests, dungeons, weapons, monsters, etc. that can only be accessed by elite players.)"

If I can level without paying, I'm not sure why I'd want to pay a monthly fee all the time. I think I'd just pay it once in awhile to try the new content every three months, and then cancel.

It would be like WoW having a free mode that didn't include the instances and a fee mode that did. Every now and then I might pay the monthly fee for a month or two to run the instances, especially if there were new ones, and then unsubscribe when done.

[pyrhic]

I think one thing people are all overlooking is that they're paying the server fees with this model.

That said, i think this is needlessly complex. A better approach would have been to allow players to put up their own shards/servers, but that those would not have the latest content patches and wouldnt necessarily have any cheating countermeasures/protections. You could even seperate your patches into bug fixes/enhancements and content, with bug fixes/enh going to everyone, but content being staged first to the developers server - and maybe released to the rest 2 or 3 months later. This gives some incentive to paying the monthly fee, while still allowing players choice. This is similar to the way EA sets up BF2/2142 in that you can play/setup unranked for free, but if you want a ranked game, you gotta play on/pay for a ranked server (I'm making the likely conclusion here that EA gets some sort of licensing kickback for ranked servers...anyone know for sure?).

$10 a month for what flagship is offering just isnt worth it, imo. I will only pay one monthly game fee at a time, and it likely wont be for that one.

[stusser]

Blizzard paid their server fees forever with my $50 from like 1999. NCsoft did the same thing. That's not a valid excuse; servers and bandwidth don't cost anything, online support does.

Remember that hellgate is not a true persistent world. It is not a MMO. It's like guild wars; everything is instanced. So you need to look at it as a multiplayer game, which historically have been free. If they offer constant content updates for my ten bucks a month, I'll give it a shot. If not, not.

Either way, I'll be very disappointed if they don't offer a month of "elite" status in the box.

[Kunikos]

servers and bandwidth don't cost anything

ORLY?

[JPR]

I'll be very disappointed if they don't offer a month of "elite" status in the box.

I think that they are unlikely to do that because you would get a bunch of consumers making 10 characters unaware that they will only have 3 slots come next month. If an ignorant customer all of a sudden loses a bunch of characters and equipment that they didn't realize was temporary, you can get a lot of ill will.

I realize that trial subscriptions are packaged with products all the time, but I think that Blizzard-style games made by Blizzard guys are aiming at the mainstream in a way that a lot of other products don't. If the product is touted as being "from the people who brought you Diablo and Diablo II", I think you can't risk alienating the lowest-common-denominator game-buyers those titles might appeal to.

[Quaro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnetd

Oh so they mean piracy risk. Hopefully this means they can skip the disc check protection since you need to be online anyway.

[Euthanasia]

This is similar to the way EA sets up BF2/2142 in that you can play/setup unranked for free, but if you want a ranked game, you gotta play on/pay for a ranked server (I'm making the likely conclusion here that EA gets some sort of licensing kickback for ranked servers...anyone know for sure?).
Is this model you dont have developed characters with items that took significant time investments to aquire. These characters and items sell for real world moneys, making them targets for poeple who would steal them.

Having "player run" servers and "dev" servers introduces the possiblity that a "dev" server acct/password could be compromised much more easily.

[Charles]

Open Battle.net? And that turned to shit because everyone cheated using character editors.

Only retards played publically. If you stuck to playing with friends, there was no need to worry about cheating. That was true in the original Diablo and it worked just as well in Diablo 2. Passworded games, friends only.

[unbongwah]

servers and bandwidth don't cost anything, online support does
Really? Sweet! Time to call Verizon and tell them I should be getting my Internet access free: I'll gladly give up tech support for free broadband. Also, the next time my IT guy comes `round looking for funding for servers, I'll tell `im to scram: that shit comes free!

[Euthanasia]

Only retards played publically. If you stuck to playing with friends, there was no need to worry about cheating. That was true in the original Diablo and it worked just as well in Diablo 2. Passworded games, friends only.

My point was that Open B.net allowed you to use your single player chars online (with D2). And you could also use these same characters on TCP/IP games.

[Euthanasia]

servers and bandwidth don't cost anything

ORLY?
Pushing 200mb patches to a million players is what costs money.

[Tom McNamara]

I think that they are unlikely to do that because you would get a bunch of consumers making 10 characters unaware that they will only have 3 slots come next month. If an ignorant customer all of a sudden loses a bunch of characters and equipment that they didn't realize was temporary, you can get a lot of ill will.

I realize that trial subscriptions are packaged with products all the time, but I think that Blizzard-style games made by Blizzard guys are aiming at the mainstream in a way that a lot of other products don't. If the product is touted as being "from the people who brought you Diablo and Diablo II", I think you can't risk alienating the lowest-common-denominator game-buyers those titles might appeal to.

I think if you included a code in the box, on a piece of glossy paper with some bullet points and fine print, most people would get the hang of it. Rather than giving the player Elite status right off the bat. In fact, considering how they're handling the multiplayer aspect, I would be surprised if they didn't actually do this.

[Kunikos]

Pushing 200mb patches to a million players is what costs money.

I could have sworn they stopped doing this with their torrent system which hijacks user bandwidth. Besides, wouldn't it be cheaper to just mail a mini-CD with a very large patch on it to all your subscribers?

[stusser]

ORLY?
YA RLY!

That stuff is just amazingly cheap these days. Conservatively speaking, bandwidth cost has dropped 80-90% in the past 7 years. Linux boxes are so cheap they come in cereal boxes, and are incredibly powerful. Only rack space and power costs anything these days.

Now I don't mean to say that infrastructure is free, that's obviously hyperbole, but it just isn't a major concern compared to support.

[Alan Dunkin]

Okay well I need to input here -- "servers don't cost anything" is very much an inaccurate phrase. If this were true, buying new servers and accounting for them ought to be a cinch and adding more servers should never, ever be an issue. Of course that's all crazy, it takes weeks and months to buy, build, deliver and integrate servers into your data center, and there is a continual cost in maintaining them, powering them, and making sure they don't go boom. It's not really the same thing as buying an XPS and plugging it into your network.

--- Alan

[Euthanasia]

I could have sworn they stopped doing this with their torrent system which hijacks user bandwidth. Besides, wouldn't it be cheaper to just mail a mini-CD with a very large patch on it to all your subscribers?
I assume you are speaking of WoW...? You can turn off the torrent style download.

And just exactly how long do you think it would it take or the pipe required to push 200mb of data to a million users simultaneously? Are you willing to give up a day of play time while you do this?

And I am sure that most users wont mind the 3-7 days that USPS takes to deliver to your patch on CD.

[Kunikos]

And I am sure that most users wont mind the 3-7 days that USPS takes to deliver to your patch on CD.

If you send them out two weeks before it goes live and then prompt the user for the disc when it's needed, then I don't see it being too big of a problem. Well, other than for gold farmers in China playing on US accounts, or other "legitimate" foreign countries playing other territory accounts.

[stusser]

I work for a MSP; we host thousands of enterprise servers. Solaris, HP, windows, linux, AIX, you name it, we host it. We're going to be managing and hosting a big name MMO in the near future, so I know that side of it too. I know exactly how much it costs.

Management and maintenance can be expensive, if inadequately automated. Rack space and power cost something, depending on where you host. But servers and bandwidth are incredibly cheap.

Finally, if it takes weeks or months to integrate new servers into your datacenter, your sysadmins are incompetent and/or lazy.

[Euthanasia]

If you send them out two weeks before it goes live and then prompt the user for the disc when it's needed, then I don't see it being too big of a problem. Well, other than for gold farmers in China playing on US accounts, or other "legitimate" foreign countries playing other territory accounts.
So you are going to tell everyone "ok the new patch with the uber dungeon of many cool drops is ready to be patched in, but we need to wait 2 weeks while we send out patch CDs to everyone that doesnt want to download the content using our shiny torrent system in less than an hour"?

[Kunikos]

So you are going to tell everyone "ok the new patch with the uber dungeon of many cool drops is ready to be patched in, but we need to wait 2 weeks while we send out patch CDs to everyone that doesnt want to download the content using our shiny torrent system in less than an hour"?

No, I meant in the absence of said torrent system, which everyone seems to assume doesn't work or is disabled on most people's computers.

[unbongwah]

servers and bandwidth don't cost anything
That stuff is just amazingly cheap these days.
Your estimates are creeping up; at what point are we talking about real money? :-)

If you're saying the cost of hardware and bandwidth is nothing compared to how much it costs to pay people to maintain them (presuming that's what you mean by "support"), I'm willing to concede the point. [Not so much because I believe it as I don't care enough to look for actual numbers.] But that's a far cry from saying that Blizzard can afford to run Battle.net indefinitely using residual profits they acquired 7+ years ago. I think they still sell a decent number of copies of Diablo II & Warcraft III even now, despite their age, and it's the profits from current sales which help pay for maintaining the infrastructure.

It's funny how we went from hourly fees for online games in the bad old days to free play to monthly fees; seems like we're actually losing ground there. I wonder at what point fee-based services like XBL and MMOGs will be all we have?

[stusser]

Yes like I said obviously it isn't free, that was hyperbole. But it's pocket change compared to management. I won't give exact numbers, but I can say that 100Mb of dedicated bandwidth right off several backbones only costs a couple grand per month.

[EFlannum]

Well they didn't start with two teams per se (I don't think, Eric can correct me) but to effectively do their release plan of a newly developed product every six months required two teams, and it took roughly a year to do each one.

--- Alan

We don't have two teams but we do have one pretty large team which is really only a difference of structure. We found that we worked better as one team than as two.

[Kunikos]

I wonder at what point fee-based services like XBL and MMOGs will be all we have?

On the 360 it's *now*. :P

[unbongwah]

On the 360 it's *now*. :P
Obviously, I meant on the PC. I mean, duh. :-)

[Mordrak]

* Elite players can become officers of guilds and own, enter, or operate player housing and guild buildings; plebs can be members of guilds, but will not be allowed to enter said buildings, or purchase property for themselves
* Elite players get access to more gametypes; plebs not allowed into servers or areas where those gametypes are operating


These two lines are interesting. If I'm Elite, does that mean I can be a post-apocolyptic slum lord?

The second one is worrying, but probably is garbled by marketing. Does that mean there's pleb servers and elite servers? If so, the contradicts Roper's comment that plebs will know who are Elites when they walk by, presumably because of gear.

If not, does that mean I can be shut out of multiplayer on a closed server if someone is playing an elite gametype but still play an included direct connect system? Then why would plebs ever try to play on the closed servers?

And game areas are blocked off? Even though the game is instanced? That makes no sense. If they are using something similar to the D2 model, they must mean you can't enter equivalent of Elite games, not that you can't defeat the last boss because someone else on the server somewhere is playing hardcore mode at the moment.

The problem is they created a convoluted system.

[AaronSofaer]

but still play an included direct connect system

No such thing.

[Mordrak]

No such thing.

Please clarify. Are you just getting into semantics now?

[AaronSofaer]

According to this (http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3756) there will be no LAN play because it is a "security risk". Presumably that also precludes direct connect multiplayer. You can still play for free, you just have to do it on their servers. For extra fun, read the linked post to see a guy at Flagship deride LAN play as worthless.

Quoted by request.

[Mordrak]

Quoted by request.

Thanks. Sometimes I swear I'm blind. That makes me a sad panda.


Why?
It's a security risk. We have closed servers. We don't want other people learning how to circumvent our laser grid of defenses. We don't want other people running their own fake HG:L servers and ripping people off.


By people they mean Flagship, way to leave it ambiguous. I don't understand how including LAN play will allow people to hack the closed servers. Can anyone offer an explanation for a layman?

[AaronSofaer]

Here's your explanation.

They think they will make more money from subscriptions this way than they will lose from not having LAN play.

[Mordrak]

Here's your explanation.

They think they will make more money from subscriptions this way than they will lose from not having LAN play.

That's what I thought, but I figured I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Oh well.

[Supersport]

Yes like I said obviously it isn't free, that was hyperbole. But it's pocket change compared to management. I won't give exact numbers, but I can say that 100Mb of dedicated bandwidth right off several backbones only costs a couple grand per month.

$400 per month: T1 - 1.544 megabits per second
$1500 per month: T3 - 43.232 megabits per second (28 T1s)
$3700 per month: OC3 - 155 megabits per second (84 T1s)
$15,000 per month: OC12 - 622 megabits per second (4 OC3s)
$60,000 per month: OC48 - 2.5 gigabits per seconds (4 OC12s)
Get a quote: OC192 - 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s)

www.usaccess-llc.com

Yeah chump change....

[AaronSofaer]

For a company making bank like a successful subscription game makes, that is chump change indeed.

[stusser]

Well it's more expensive than that to get bandwidth into a tier1 datacenter, but it's in the right ballpark.

It is chump change. Were you being sarcastic?

[malphigian]

For a company making bank like a successful subscription game makes, that is chump change indeed.

Probably, but I've always wondered about the old D2/battle.net model. How many hours of D2 did I have to play, I wonder, for Blizzard to have lost money on my copy of the game. Probably an extremely high number of hours, but I'd be curious.

Of course, you'd need to know how much bandwidth is consumed per hour, and what kind of rate Blizzard was getting.

[AaronSofaer]

If I remember right, Battle.Net was mostly between peers, wasn't it? This led to stuff like maphacks because your computer was sent all the information since there wasn't a server figuring out what you were supposed to know and what you weren't.

As far as DII goes, dunno, but obviously they made some pretty good money off it, since they kept, I dunno, making games?

[stusser]

Diablo2 was all serverside.

My old network of gaming websites cost $2200/month to host back in 1998. We had two colocated dual pentium-3 linux boxes with 1GB of RAM each, SCSI disks in RAID1, and like 3TB of metered bandwidth. That was expensive. Today you could get that for like $200. It's not like webpages got any bigger since then or anything, hardware and bandwidth got wildly cheaper.

[Supersport]

Well it's more expensive than that to get bandwidth into a tier1 datacenter, but it's in the right ballpark.

It is chump change. Were you being sarcastic?

Yes.

Also...This isn't a SAN (EMC SANs run around a couple of hundred grand) but a single tricked out Dell Server will run around $23k.

Where you are going to pay costs are in personnel to maintain said servers. Take their salary ($65K for one sys admin) and tack on 110% of their salary on top of that for overhead, medical benefits, workmen's comp, education, pension, 401k matching, unemployment insurance, life insurance, etc etc etc.

Add in network folks, developers, designers, customer support, marketing, and god knows what else.

eissh.

[malphigian]

D2 battle.net definitely had a significant amount of server side checking going on -- you couldn't create a hacked client to give yourself items on battle.net (except via server crashing dupe exploits), for example. You could play "open" games as well, that were total hack fests.

Anyway, I wasn't questioning that D2 made bucketloads of cash for Blizzard, I'm just saying when you look at the life of the game, might they instead have made cartloads by charging a monthly fee? Maybe. Maybe they'd scare too many people off, I don't know, but the Flagship guys probably have a pretty good idea how D2's economics played out.

[stusser]

I know what EMC storage costs, and I know what dells cost. SANs are expensive, dells aren't. You can get a pretty loaded PE2850 for like $6k. Not sure where SANs came into this discussion in the first place; only production DB servers need a SAN, and then only if they go with a monolithic data storage model and didn't decentralize their processing properly into various appservers, which of course they would. Blizzard uses oracle RAC clusters for their backend, which I always thought was a bad idea.

Management is extremely expensive, no doubt about it. But if you know what you're doing and have the right automation and monitoring tools, you can manage one hell of a lot of equipment with surprisingly little manpower. That's how I make my living.

[Fugitive]

The D2 realm mode was added in post-release though, and probably would have been unpopular and really bad PR if they'd tried to charge for it, since it was a response to all of the cheating and hacking.

At least with Hellgate they're being up-front about it and are concerned about cheating even for free players.

[malphigian]

The D2 realm mode was added in post-release though, and probably would have been unpopular and really bad PR if they'd tried to charge for it, since it was a response to all of the cheating and hacking.

It was? Are sure you aren't thinking about Diablo 1? I'm nearly positive I had a realm character shortly after launch.

[stusser]

Diablo2 "closed" mode was available on release. It was a major selling point at the time.

[Euthanasia]

As was mentioned, closed b.net was available when Diablo II released. There was only one realm though. They broke it up in to East, West, Asia and Europe a few months after release.

[Fugitive]

Er, I guess it was. I don't know what the hell is up with my memory...

[Chowhound]

Closed realms were available at launch - I had the highest Barbarian in the world for about 6 hours. :D

[Kunikos]

By people they mean Flagship, way to leave it ambiguous. I don't understand how including LAN play will allow people to hack the closed servers. Can anyone offer an explanation for a layman?

It doesn't. This is just a way for them to prevent people from making private Ping0 servers ala bnetd and allowing pirated games to still play internet multiplayer.

[mono]

Aside from this bizarre pricing scheme, is there anything engaging about this game? Every Hellgate gameplay video I've ever seen features nothing but typical Serious Sam-type circle strafing around hordes of monsters. What's interesting enough about this game to warrant any concern about their pricing?

I will say that the CGI movies looked cool, but the gameplay seems fairly dated unless they're hiding something fantastic in the wings.

Edit: Never mind. I just checked out some screenshots. Even if the gameplay is staid, the art direction and graphics look ridiculously good, and I'm an eye-candy whore.

[stusser]

Well, two of the three classes have autoaim. Only the hunter class plays like a FPS. Hellgate is the spiritual successor to diablo2, basically. Read through a couple of previews, and see if you don't get excited. It's one of my most anticipated games of 2007.

[HRose]

I don't know about the gameplay but one of the major factors that made Diablo 2 successful (as with WoW) was the fact that the game ran on every computer.

It looks like this isn't the case with this game, I've read that the engine is rather cumbersome and demanding.

An arcade-ish, mindless game with tons of monsters and lots of mayhem that doesn't move smoothly can get tiring quickly.

[Aszurom]

I predict that the game will be fun for 30-60 days, then fade into a dark corner and never be heard from again. I also predict that the screams of the frustrated will be heard for weeks as the servers crash, have giant queues, go down for frequent patches and generally goatse, will be legendary.

In the end, you'll get 30-60 days of fun out of it before you'll log on and hear crickets.

[stusser]

In the end, you'll get 30-60 days of fun out of it before you'll log on and hear crickets.
30 days of fun for $50 seems like a great deal to me. I certainly wouldn't complain.

[pyrhic]

I'm excited and hopeful for it...STALKER gave me a glimpse of what a wide open FPS might be like - where you can go where you want, loot, and rebase - and i liked that glimpse. Here's hoping Hellgate has at least somewhat capable ai..

[Jab2565]

There's a QandA with bill roper on gamespy now. I agree with the idea in principle regarding normal/ elite versions, but I'm not really interested in a MMO style game like that. Also he said that major content upgrades are planned quarterly.

[Charles]

Diablo2 was all serverside.

Only if you played on closed battle.net. If you played Open Battle.net or Direct Connect/LAN, there was no server required.

[Charlatan]

I gotta say that I'm not enthusiastic about the elite pay plan. And I figure I'll do what most everyone else will do, which is start playing without paying extra, and pony up if it looks like the game has any staying power.

I resent the fact that you can't head or be an officer in a guild without paying. That smells.

I predict this revenue model will not be successful, as it seems to have engendered a lot of hostility.

[quatoria]

I resent even more the fact that you can't even enter your guild's buildings. That's seriously fucked up.

[fuzzyslug]

I'm not enthusiastic about purchasing part of a game and then having to decide whether or not I want the rest, a problem that has really infected Xbox Live as of late.

Back in the day, the purchase of a game was much more of a binary decision. Do I want this game? Yes or no. Now, it's closer to an investment strategy. I need to consider how much time I have to play while I'm throwing money into a subscription pot. I need to determine if I'll be interested in those downloadable maps that everyone will be playing.

The whole excercise has a short history of leaving me a little frustrated (can't I know what I'm buying?) but lately it's led to a different sort of emotion: apathy.

[Xaroc]

I'm not enthusiastic about purchasing part of a game and then having to decide whether or not I want the rest, a problem that has really infected Xbox Live as of late.


For me this is different though. This is just such a mishmash of differences tied to a monthly payment model that might even extend to the single player experience. On XBL at least I got a ton of fun out of Gears before any map packs came out and if I was still playing it a bunch I wouldn't care about dropping a few bucks every once in a while to get new maps. This whole setup seems squirrley and ill defined. XBL seems to be a lot more straight forward to me.

[Jab2565]

Another thing I'm not sure about is that what do you do with the elite content in the single player mode. Once downloaded can I play it offline for free? That would suck if you can only play elite stuff in the single player mode if your online account is up to date.

In the interview he mentioned that if you download an elite character class and then take off elite, the game won't let you play that character until you resubscribe. That sounds horrible to me, if they design completely new character classes having to keep my account elite just to try them out is a bad idea.

[fuzzyslug]

This whole setup seems squirrley and ill defined. XBL seems to be a lot more straight forward to me.

This is probably Hellgate's biggest problem. I have to read a page of text to understand what the subscription entails. I have to analyze that text to try figure out what comes in the box and what costs extra. As a consumer, this is a pain in the ass, enough of a problem that I may choose to avoid it entirely.

Side note -- Current plan for Hellgate: wait for reviews. Previous plan: buy on day one. They've convinced me to not buy their game with this announcement or, at the very least, wait for reviews. That's a big risk and one that might cost them a whole lot of money, money they may not make up with subscription fees.

I'll admit my problems with XBL downloadable content probably have to do with my limited amount of time to play games. Paid downloadable content fractures the playerbase and adds a financial barrier every time there's a new map or mode or whatever. You either choose to chase the content or choose to play with the limited set of other people who didn't. Neither is a great option in my opinion.

[Ben Sones]

Side note -- Current plan for Hellgate: wait for reviews. Previous plan: buy on day one. They've convinced me to not buy their game with this announcement or, at the very least, wait for reviews.

I'm with you, except that instead of waiting for reviews, I'm going to wait until the game has been out a few months. Reviews will come out the week the game ships, and their insight into multiplayer will be limited at best. At this point, I'd need to see how ther first few content updates pan out and hear some serious praise from people who've played online for a while before diving into this mess. Definitely off my day one purchase list, though.

[Mark Asher]

Yes, it's too confusing. It's like trying to buy Guild Wars expansions if you're new to the game -- too hard to figure out what to get. The longer you make a consumer think about a purchase, the less likely it is to be an impulse purchase.

[Kunikos]

There's a big interview on GameSpy with Bill Roper on various topics including the subscription stuff.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/hellgate-london/786714p1.html

What happens when you cancel:

GameSpy: What if someone subscribes to Elite, but chooses to end their subscription? Does their gear undergo some Back To The Future effect where it just fades away?

Bill Roper: [chuckles] Nothing will ever disappear. We don't want you to suddenly lose items. Your worst-case scenario in those events (and granted, we haven't figured out every nuance of what happens to items like that) is that you would lose access to things. For example, as a "value player," you have three character slots, while the Elite has twelve. So you'd keep your three top slots, and we might have a way to choose who your top three guys are. So if you stop or cancel for whatever reason, you have access to those three, but not the rest. Those other characters won't get deleted, you'll never lose them, you just can't use them.

Same things with items, or extra stash space. We'd just gray those things out; close that part of the bank. The basic idea is that you don't lose things, you just can't use them. We know people say things like, "I'm going to be gone on vacation for a month, maybe just not pay for that one month." You can come back and get all your stuff when you pay again. I have a friend who's in a WoW guild with my wife, and he went over to Iraq a few months ago, and he asked "hey, can you keep playing my character?" He's still paying because he didn't want to lose his character status. Stuff comes up, and we want to be friendly with people. We want to say, "we'll keep your stuff, you won't lose anything." Being an Elite gets you a lot with us, and we don't want to just dump your gear and make you lose your work.

GameSpy: So what if you made a new character with an Elite-specific character class as your main, and then cancel?

Bill Roper: Okay, it depends. Maybe that's simply tagged as Elite content and you're simply told "you can't play as that guy anymore." That would be turned off as elite content. But it depends. We may decide "yea, you can keep playing", but it really depends. We don't want people to feel like "oh man, that sucks, I lost everything. I never want to go back." If people need time off or can't pay for a couple of months, whatever the reason, they can always come back and pick up where they left off. On the other hand, we don't want someone to just pay for a month, get a buncha cool gear and loot, and cancel saying, "Wahoo, look, I have all the stuff you guys get" to other players still paying for Elite. It's a fine line and there are things to work out, but the goal is that when you're an Elite player, you're getting a lot of stuff that other people don't get. So if you don't do that anymore, you won't lose things, you just can't get to them anymore.

[Kunikos]

I predict this revenue model will not be successful, as it seems to have engendered a lot of hostility.

Hostility in 1% of potential players doesn't mean much when you can still capture 99% of the potential market.

[McBain]

The thing that bothers me is that guild functions are tied to your account type. So while I might not necessarily have any interest in the "ELITE SUPER UBER WEAPONZ," I'd still probably want to start up a guild with some friends.

It is, to borrow a phrase from a gaming buddy of mine, "some cheesedick shit."

[Charlatan]

Hostility in 1% of potential players doesn't mean much when you can still capture 99% of the potential market.

That's taking a big step there bubba.

If people are drawn to HGL by comparisons to Diablo and then find out there is an optional pay component, they're gonna be turned off. I haven't met a single person who is more than lukewarm on the idea. Granted, I haven't done any kind of a survey, and the people I hang out with aren't joe mainstream, but I just don't see this kind of a confusing pricing scheme working. Consider Dungeon Runners, who has a similar model. How're they doing?

[Kunikos]

If people are drawn to HGL by comparisons to Diablo and then find out there is an optional pay component, they're gonna be turned off.

I don't get this leap of logic. It's optional, so don't pay extra if you're not interested in a monthly fee. I could see a lot of FPS players taking a look at Hellgate and deciding to check it out, play the single player and some multiplayer and if they enjoy the multiplayer they might pull the trigger and go for the subscription. I don't necessarily think that Diablo is their only target demographic, in fact I think it's really more similar to the target demographic of Painkiller or Heretic.

[Mordrak]

I hate all the false comparisons to Diablo II and fake security concerns. Make it an instanced MMO already and stop comparing it to Diablo II. The Gamespy intro claimed the pleb version's level cap will be 35-40 and the Elite version cap will continue to be extended.

Taking level 35-40 in comparison to Diablo II, that's the equivelent of being able to play Normal difficulty right out of the box but not Nightmare and Hell.

If the levels advance at an MMO rate, level 40 isn't bad. If they advance at the typical single player rate, WTF? So is it an MMO or not?

That's taking a big step there bubba.

If people are drawn to HGL by comparisons to Diablo and then find out there is an optional pay component, they're gonna be turned off. I haven't met a single person who is more than lukewarm on the idea. Granted, I haven't done any kind of a survey, and the people I hang out with aren't joe mainstream, but I just don't see this kind of a confusing pricing scheme working. Consider Dungeon Runners, who has a similar model. How're they doing?

It's probably doing better than you expect. Look at Runescape, that has a bunch of subscribers and non-subscribers. I have no idea if Runescape is a good deal or not, but gamers are suckers generally, so Hellgate will probably do well. However, when the Diablo II comparisons were going around and then they announced a premium service, I figured the price would be closer to Runescape's five dollars a month not ten.

[Jab2565]

If the levels advance at an MMO rate, level 40 isn't bad. If they advance at the typical single player rate, WTF? So is it an MMO or is it not?
.

I think this is where they are shooting themselves in the foot, I think if they're planning on continuing with the idea of elite paid content they should unlock everything for single player and use it as a means of showing it off to the player. The description on gamespy is making the non elite version of the game as the basic trial, to actually continue your character you have to pay the $10 a month.

Now I'm pissed off, this game was on my day one buy list now it's wait and see for me.

[flyinj]

The thing I find most disturbing about this is that actual game design has been comprimised to shoe-horn in subscription fees.

First, from the GFW radio podcast:

Bill Roper:"We set out to make a game that was more engaging, not try to figure out how to make you ride on a griffon for x number of minutes to extend the gameplay... we get you out into the mix as fast as possible"

From the subscription press release, it says that fast travel will only be available to $10 a month subscribers. So, what he actually meant was:

"We set out to make a game that makes you ride a griffon for x number of minutes to extend gameplay... unless you pay us $10 a month to get out into the action as soon as possible."

Also, the size of the inventory stash is definitely a game design decision. It comes down to how many items you feel the player should have at their disposal for overall balance issues. To artificially cut it's size to give incentive for a customer to pay you $10 a month is blatantly compromising design.

Are they giving us a demo for the $10 a month subscription game? Is it an MMO? To put it bluntly, they need to shit or get off the toilet. Either make the only option $50 up front and $10 a month, or charge $50 once and get money for expansions later.

[mouselock]

I don't get this leap of logic. It's optional, so don't pay extra if you're not interested in a monthly fee.

It's optional in that, you know, you buy the boxed game, but then if you want the whole game, you have to pay more. That tends to not sit well with consumers in general. Especially when the game is (demonstrably) playable without whatever it is that they're charging you for. (IOW, I think MMO's make out okay because you can never play any bit of an MMO without paying for it; the ongoing fee seems integral. Here it seems tacked on, which I suspect comes off as an additional money grab to many folks. That's a turn-off.)

[mutt]

Back in the day, the purchase of a game was much more of a binary decision. Do I want this game? Yes or no. Now, it's closer to an investment strategy.
Amen, brother.

[Ben Sones]

Are they giving us a demo for the $10 a month subscription game? Is it an MMO? To put it bluntly, they need to shit or get off the toilet. Either make the only option $50 up front and $10 a month, or charge $50 once and get money for expansions later.

They don't want to call it an MMO because it isn't. It's basically just Guild Wars with a monthly fee. If they wanted to make an MMO, then they should have just done that. Guild Wars is free, though, and I doubt anyone is going to be interested in paying a monthly fee for this sort of game. Look at Planetside, which legitimately was an MMO, but had problems because the public's perception was that it provided an inferior value compared to similar games. And Planetside was a fantastic game, too. But people get very wary when you start throwing monthly fees at them. Better be sure your game is worth it, and that people understand why. In the case of Hellgate, it sounds like it's totally not, and they don't.

[stusser]

Guild wars is free, but they don't really add free content. Yes, I seem to remember them adding a dungeon or two over the past couple of years, but Flagship is promising much more than that.

[McBain]

Really, I think they can easily get away with this payment scheme if Hellgate is a fucking amazing game.

If it's not . . .

[mutt]

At the very least, they should've gone the DOOM route and offered the non-pay version as a kind of shareware, try-before-you-buy kind of thing. Even if they had to charge a (ahem) "nominal fee" for the "non-pay" version, that would sit a lot better than charging what people consider to be full price and then piling monthly fees on top.

As Ben suggests, by not going the MMOG route, which has an established and more or less accepted pricing structure, what they're telling consumers is that their game isn't worth the same fifty bucks all the rest of the best games out there are; it's worth, say, a couple hundred. To which most gamers reply, "Yeah, right."

[Ben Sones]

Guild wars is free, but they don't really add free content. Yes, I seem to remember them adding a dungeon or two over the past couple of years, but Flagship is promising much more than that.

Yeah, they're promising the moon! Well, they're implying that they are promising the moon; they haven't really been all that specific about the content that you'll actually see, and in what quantity. Of course they'll already have your money in hand if it turns out to be a ripoff. Which it almost certainly will.

I'll believe that they can churn out enough content to justify $10 a month when I see it. I think the odds of getting the moon (as in actually receiving the deed of ownership for Earth's largest satelite) are probably higher, though. I mean, anyone that plays games has a rough idea of how long it takes developers to produce new content for them. Even something like NeverWinter Nights, which has the world's easiest-to-use toolset, has only seen a small handful of developer-produced content over the six years that it's been out. If BioWare could churn out a $10 module every month, don't you think they would do it? Blizzard probably has more people working on new content for WoW than Flagship has in their entire company, and yet WoW doesn't produce a quantity of content that would justify $10 a month--not even close. Maybe Flagship are wizards of speed production who will prove me wrong. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Euthanasia]

I'll believe that they can churn out enough content to justify $10 a month when I see it. I think the odds of getting the moon (as in actually receiving the deed of ownership for Earth's largest satelite) are probably higher, though.

Actually you can get the moon for a one time fee of about $30...

http://www.lunarlandowner.com/

[stusser]

Of course they'll already have your money in hand if it turns out to be a ripoff. Which it almost certainly will.
It's ten bucks. I might have to sell my sweet ass to make ends meet, but I'll hang in there somehow.

I guess the difference here is that I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

[Ben Sones]

Right. I just don't understand why. On what reasonable basis would you assume that they are going to churn out content that is actually worth $10, every month? I am not aware of any other developer than has done that with any other game, ever. I suspect that what you are really going to get is horse armor. Lots and lots of horse armor. That sort of stuff is easy to churn out on a tight schedule. Not worth paying for, but I guess that's why they are charging a monthly fee instead of releasing content packs. If people actually got to see what they were buying before they handed over their credit card number, they wouldn't do it.

[stusser]

Turbine did it with AC1. It's not impossible.

Will flagship do it? Beats me. If they do, I'll pay. If they don't, I won't. Either way, life will continue.

[Kunikos]

It's optional in that, you know, you buy the boxed game, but then if you want the whole game, you have to pay more. That tends to not sit well with consumers in general.

It's had some success in Korea though, and Bethesda and other companies make a lot of money off XBLM and PC DLC.

[Ben Sones]

Turbine had monthly updates. Turbine did not produce content worth $10 every month. They charged $10 a month for their game, but you got additional value for that money (like an actual massively multiplayer world) that Hellgate doesn't have. If we're talking about handing over money just for content (and frankly, nothing else in their elite features list justifies any sort of fee), then I expect to see the equivalent of a Pirates of the Sword Coast, or a Sam and Max episode, every month. Sam and Max is probably a little on the light side for content (they charge less than $10 an episode, too). Even so, they haven't quite been able to put out new episodes on a monthy basis.

And that's basically my stance on this. Flagship is promising something that seems, at least to me, almost certainly impossible to deliver. I guess we'll see, but I'll give them my credit card number after they prove that they can do it, not before.

[BobJustBob]

From the above-linked interview:

GameSpy: I heard you mention "quarterly," is that the content schedule? It's not monthly?

Bill Roper: I don't know where monthly came from. I read that, but that wasn't us, maybe it's in a doc somewhere that I missed. But our push is always to do a big content update once a quarter (with smaller, incremental updates each month). Monthly would be really hard. The most difficult thing about a monthly push is QA. We talked with EA and they were all "no way we can do monthly, that's going to kill everybody." We talked about the best way of creating meaningful content, getting it through the testing process, and releasing. We also don't want to slam out buggy content and hear players talk about quests that don't even work.

[mouselock]

It's had some success in Korea though, and Bethesda and other companies make a lot of money off XBLM and PC DLC.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it'll work here. In many Asian countries you don't pay the up-front box fee, either. While I'm not particularly fond of that model, I can see where 'Hellgate:London - Pay $10 a month to play, no other fees' would be a lot more compelling than 'Hellgate: London - $50 up front, and $10 a month in perpetuity.' (EA Games.. we screw harder!)

As for XBLM and DLC, I can't think of a single instance other than MMOs where you have to keep paying to play what you bought. Microtransactions are one thing; paying to maintain the status quo that you already payed for would seem a lot different to me. If it was a $50 boxed fee and then $10 adventure packs every 3 months or whatever, it would seem a lot more reasonable and a lot less like a money-grubbing whore type maneuver. Maybe games really are this expensive to make now, but it sure feels like they just figure that people can be forced to cough up a whole lot more money if they take it out in smaller chunks ad infinitum. I'm not sure why I should pay Flagship $10/month to play a game I already bought for $50 when I can pay BigFishGames $8/month to get a brand new game each time. The gameplay time isn't as front-loaded, I'm sure, but the overall value in the end would seem to favor BigFish, especially in the long run.

[Ben Sones]

Quarterly, I believe. Even then, they'd need to be big updates to be worth it. Like, full game/large expansion pack-sized updates, since you are paying $30 for each one. Shivering Isles costs $30. Will their quarterly updates be that large? Seems very unlikely.

My guess is that what you'll actually get is the equivalent of an $8-10 NWN module and some filler (new items and the like). It's likely that they can produce that much in three months, if they have a good sized team working on it. Still, not even close to being worth the fee.

[mutt]

EA Games: Charge for everything.

[Mark Asher]

Quarterly, I believe. Even then, they'd need to be big updates to be worth it. Like, full game/large expansion pack-sized updates, since you are paying $30 for each one. Shivering Isles costs $30. Will their quarterly updates be that large? Seems very unlikely.

My guess is that what you'll actually get is the equivalent of an $8-10 NWN module and some filler (new items and the like). It's likely that they can produce that much in three months, if they have a good sized team working on it. Still, not even close to being worth the fee.

Yeah, I tend to go along with this. Still, you could reup a couple of times a year and enjoy the new content for a month and then cancel again. That might be the way to enjoy it.

It just strikes me as being a bit too confusing. That $10 per month is probably too high for a non-MMO also.

[Kunikos]

In many Asian countries you don't pay the up-front box fee, either.

No, that's only if you are playing at a baang (ie LAN cafe) and that place has purchased licenses for all those games for each computer. You then pay the LAN cafe the money for each block of session time, and it's nowhere even close to what you could get for $10 a month unlimited. This goes for both China and Korea... if you want to play at home on your computer, like most people in the US will do, then you still have to buy a copy of the game and pony up for any additional monthly fees.

Quarterly, I believe. Even then, they'd need to be big updates to be worth it. Like, full game/large expansion pack-sized updates, since you are paying $30 for each one. Shivering Isles costs $30. Will their quarterly updates be that large? Seems very unlikely.

People pay $15 a month for WoW and you can bet that you don't get anywhere near full expansion sized content for your monthly fee. Yes, it's more of a real MMO, but the point is that the money goes more for smaller fix packs and the occasional new dungeon. You then have to shell out full-price expansion for actual expansion-sized content updates.

[pyrhic]

If nothing else, Roper's general tone is starting to get concerning. Lots of 'maybes' and 'depends' and 'ifs'. In the above quote, almost in the same line he says he doesn't know where monthly came from and that they wanted to do monthly incremental patches. Granted, they are still likely working things out, but ffs if you can't comment on a situation, stfu already and talk about what you DO know or what you can talk about.

[Mordrak]

People pay $15 a month for WoW and you can bet that you don't get anywhere near full expansion sized content for your monthly fee. Yes, it's more of a real MMO, but the point is that the money goes more for smaller fix packs and the occasional new dungeon. You then have to shell out full-price expansion for actual expansion-sized content updates.

You shouldn't dismiss the fact that WoW is more of an MMO. A typical MMO experience cannot be had in a single player or small group multiplayer game. That sense of shared space does not exist in single player and smaller group games and that's a significant part of what people are paying for in an MMO. That experience is probably overpriced, but it's an experience that can't be had without it being online.

If they are trying to sell me the equivalent (or close to) of Diablo II's multiplayer experience for 10 bucks a month, forget it. I don't pay 10 or 15 dollars a month to an MMO only for expansion like updates, but rather that MMO experience and updates.

[Equisilus]

Discussions like this make me happy I'm an offline single-player exclusively.

That is all. Well, except that I'll be playing Hg:L without the extras. Push something out for us in an expansion pack. Now, that's all.

[Kunikos]

You shouldn't dismiss the fact that WoW is more of an MMO. A typical MMO experience cannot be had in a single player or small group multiplayer game. That sense of shared space does not exist in single player and smaller group games and that's a significant part of what people are paying for in an MMO.

MMO wise the only real aspect I like is I can be in the world and with my friends or new acquaintances, and an ample amount of people to keep the AH going and get people to craft shit that I need RARELY (I could care less for e-peen waving shit like running around in IF with your new tier 99 armor). None of which is impossible to do with the scheme they propose with their subscription based model, which has an item trading system, guild housing, common areas for both pay and free players, etc.

I think I'll add that I played Diablo 2 online only so that I could have the *option* to play multiplayer if I wanted and usually played by myself in a passworded game, but the experience was laggy, so I think I'll probably just end up playing single player with Hellgate.

[Ben Sones]

People pay $15 a month for WoW and you can bet that you don't get anywhere near full expansion sized content for your monthly fee. Yes, it's more of a real MMO, but the point is that the money goes more for smaller fix packs and the occasional new dungeon. You then have to shell out full-price expansion for actual expansion-sized content updates.

As I said in my comments about Asheron's Call, when people pay a fee for an MMORPG, they aren't just paying for content updates--those are just part of a package that includes other, more important things (like the ability to play in a persistent world populated by thousands of other players). I know that Flagship wants us to believe that content updates are just part of their package, too, but as far as I can tell, everything else in their package consists of shit that every other game gives away for free. People are not going to pay MMO monthly fees for a game that isn't an MMO. Period. They just aren't. But hey, if you don't believe me, wait and see!

[Mordrak]

MMO wise the only real aspect I like is I can be in the world and with my friends or new acquaintances, and an ample amount of people to keep the AH going and get people to craft shit that I need RARELY (I could care less for e-peen waving shit like running around in IF with your new tier 99 armor). None of which is impossible to do with the scheme they propose with their subscription based model, which has an item trading system, guild housing, common areas for both pay and free players, etc.

I think I'll add that I played Diablo 2 online only so that I could have the *option* to play multiplayer if I wanted and usually played by myself in a passworded game, but the experience was laggy, so I think I'll probably just end up playing single player with Hellgate.

Well, I play MMOs for the ability to run into just about anybody anywhere. It's the happenstance stories and adventures that I enjoy and that generally isn't provided in a D2 style environment. Guild/Player housing is the only thing I find interesting in the list since I've yet to find an MMO that I both like and has housing implemented. However, Guild/Player housing isn't even going to be in at a launch, so I'll at least wait until that's put in if I choose to subscribe or even buy the game at all. It really depends on how maligned the game design has become because of the generally two disparate styles associated with single player games and MMOs.

Hellgate will probably do well, since like I said, gamers can be a bunch of suckers. Horse armor anyone?

[Balasarius]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20070511.jpg

[Jason Cross]

Maybe I'm just some kinda doofus missing something critically important, but it seems to me that the free Hellgate is basically offering at least everything Diablo 2 and Titan's Quest does (the LAN play issue - a separate debacle - aside).

I mean, you can play through the whole single-player game, and you can play through all that online in parties and stuff. That's what D2 and Titan's Quest and Dungeon Siege offers. In fact, they let you be part of an in-game guild for free in Hellgate, just not be the leader of it. And voice-chat is for everyone (yay!).

So why all the griping? If you want what D2 and TQ offer, just don't pay. They'll have special unique equipment for paying subscribers, but that doesn't mean they're gimping free people - still every drop in the single-player game, including rares and named items (what you'd have called a "unique" in D2 though it's best to avoid that term so as not to confuse) will be available to free players.

I mean I played the CRAP out of Diablo 2. Imagine if Diablo 2 had said "for $10 a month you get an account-wide bank slot so you don't have to juggle mule characters, and player housing, and some new PvP and PvE game modes, and we're gonna add in some cool new weapons and maybe some new runes and rune words, and eventually new areas and monsters..." I mean sign me the fuck up, right?

There's some confusion with the Hellgate model, like what exactly happens when you stop subscribing, but I just don't see what the huge deal is. It sounds like what they'll offer for free is perfectly within the whole "what we expect for free" limits.

As for the "MMO" ish aspect of it...I think it works like Guild Wars does. The towns and hub centers are large-scale instances with dozens of random people, but then you party up and go adventure areas that are instanced just for your party. And that's available for free with Hellgate.

[mouselock]

Maybe I'm just some kinda doofus missing something critically important, but it seems to me that the free Hellgate is basically offering at least everything Diablo 2 and Titan's Quest does (the LAN play issue - a separate debacle - aside).

D2, as a single player game had no staying power until I started playing on B.net so I could swap gear between my characters. TQ is similar in a lot of ways without the expansion.

Much of the appeal of this type of game to me (and I suspect a lot of other players) is being able to store up nifty crap in mid-late game found on character X in order to kit up character Y and try different builds. The elite vs. pleb setup runs directly counter to that. And we still don't know if the single-player game has the elite features or the pleb.. I don't relish playing even a single go-round of a gear-collection-fest like D2 or TQ with a crippled inventory because I'm not willing to pay Flagship $10/month.

[Kunikos]

Well, I play MMOs for the ability to run into just about anybody anywhere.

This just isn't realistic at all with the vast majority of MMOs that require segregating the community into shards/realms/servers. In fact, I run across people who play WoW all the time at my workplace (it's a HUGE workplace) but when they say or ask what server inevitably we cannot really play together because nobody wants to start over again and nobody wants to pay (or can pay, since there's a "cooldown" on xfers) to transfer their character.

As for the "MMO" ish aspect of it...I think it works like Guild Wars does. The towns and hub centers are large-scale instances with dozens of random people, but then you party up and go adventure areas that are instanced just for your party. And that's available for free with Hellgate.

Right, that's what I see as well but I guess the good argument that nobody is saying here is why do they have to pay $10 for just about the same thing that GW does for free. So what if we don't get rolled out content updates? Some people are fine waiting six months and paying $29.99-$39.99 for an expansion pack.

[Ranulf]

EA Games: Charge for everything.

and make you watch that damn startup logo screen EVERY DAMN TIME I start a game. I can skip out via the time honored esc key on the actual game's intro/logos but not the vaunted EA one.

[Jason Cross]

D2, as a single player game had no staying power until I started playing on B.net so I could swap gear between my characters. TQ is similar in a lot of ways without the expansion.

Much of the appeal of this type of game to me (and I suspect a lot of other players) is being able to store up nifty crap in mid-late game found on character X in order to kit up character Y and try different builds. The elite vs. pleb setup runs directly counter to that. And we still don't know if the single-player game has the elite features or the pleb.. I don't relish playing even a single go-round of a gear-collection-fest like D2 or TQ with a crippled inventory because I'm not willing to pay Flagship $10/month.

In the free Hellgate you'll still have 20 inventory slots and you can still make a mule and transfer stuff between your characters the hard way. You just won't have an account-wide bank to make it easier than it was in D2. I guess the real restriction for players like you that want to have a lot of alts and mules is the limited character slots for free play. But the free setup certainly isn't "directly counter" to D2's...it's much the same, in fact. You make a mule, you store stuff on it, you transfer between characters. The pay option just makes this an easier, mule-less affair.

[mouselock]

I guess the real restriction for players like you that want to have a lot of alts and mules is the limited character slots for free play.

Yeah, I'd say that's a significant restriction, considering it gives me slots for one mule and two characters. Compare that to Diablo's "Oh, I had a good day for paladin crap.. think I'll make a paladin now." coupled with "And I still had all that necro stuff from the last run... maybe I'll try one of them too."

It feels to me like Flagship is doing the minimum amount it can to make the talking points you're spouting true, while not actually trying to be of much service to fans in general. (BTW, there was no non-hack way to "mule" stuff between characters in D2 without Battle.net which is what I was talking about in the first place. I have no idea what "20" inventory slots represent in the non-pay stash, but even if it's 20 distinct pieces of gear that's a pittance of storage space if this game has any commanality with Diablo 2's gear model. Moreso when you only get a total of 60 or so across all the characters you can possibly have without paying.)

[quatoria]

But the free setup certainly isn't "directly counter" to D2's...it's much the same, in fact. You make a mule, you store stuff on it, you transfer between characters. The pay option just makes this an easier, mule-less affair.

You make a mule? With what, one of your THREE character slots? That sounds real handy. Did you miss the bit where you get a grand total of THREE slots if you're not an elite player?

[BobJustBob]

You guys realize the 20/60 slots are referring to the non-character-specific bank that any character can access, right? It has nothing to do with the inventory size of an individual character.

[quatoria]

Nice. Twenty slots spread out among three characters. That's real damn generous, right there.

[Balasarius]

Those database pointers take up lots of space.

[Mordrak]

This just isn't realistic at all with the vast majority of MMOs that require segregating the community into shards/realms/servers. In fact, I run across people who play WoW all the time at my workplace (it's a HUGE workplace) but when they say or ask what server inevitably we cannot really play together because nobody wants to start over again and nobody wants to pay (or can pay, since there's a "cooldown" on xfers) to transfer their character.


You took that way too literally in the context of an MMO, that means on a shared server of course, not every single subscriber. The point was that an MMO is more about sharing a world that influences your game play than the D2 style of clearing maps. That's the difference between a mostly single player/small group game and an MMO. And that's the part I pay for in MMOs that can't be had in non-MMO games.

You make a mule? With what, one of your THREE character slots? That sounds real handy. Did you miss the bit where you get a grand total of THREE slots if you're not an elite player?

Does that carry over to my single player experience? Can I have as many single player characters as I wish? If not, that's bullshit. It's my hard drive space at that point, not theirs.

[Jab2565]

While playing Titan Quest over the last few days I've been thinking more about HellGate since both games are action rpgs. Even though I want Hellgate to succeed, the more I think about it the more this sounds like it's going to fail.

Titan Quest is one of my favorite games in a long time and even with that said, I couldn't possibly play it MMO style (one game being played all the time), due to the limitations of the genre. There are three things you do in these types of games, you fight, you level up, and you get loot. Even playing thru TQ again with a brand new character I can't play it for more then a hour or so at a time for a day before I start feeling bored and burnt out again.

These types of games are meant to be played either in marathon type runs, every day for a week to explore a new area, or as in small times over a long period. Like 2 hours a day and not everyday some times. Unless Hellgate ships with Wow or EQ2 amount of elite content on day one I can see alot of people including myself get tired of playing within a few weeks. Also from the interview it seems that new content will not be monthly which leaves alot of time that people will be using the same content. No matter how great the new content is, your still going thru it doing the same 3 things over again and eventually it won't be enough of a motivation I think to keep paying.

The idea that any content that I buy will be locked the second I cancel really stings, and locking out characters you already leveled is bad move. I think arenanet made a smart decision to allow players to pick and choose which expansions if any they want.

Hellgate is starting to sound like a great game with so many bad decisions that it's going to take the game down. From reading about Age of Conan, a difference of 5$ a month to go from Hellgate to a full fledge MMO, I'm going to go with the MMO.