Q&A: Bill Roper opens up about Hellgate: London

[Phanto]

Following multiplayer subscription brouhaha, the Flagship Studios founder and CEO says that his forthcoming game will contain "significant free online play. You can read the Q&A at Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164306.html?tag=latestnews;title;4).
GameSpot: What are the plans for the multiplayer component of Hellgate: London? Will there be free multiplayer gameplay? Are there plans for some kind of subscription content? If so, what would be the difference between free and subscription multiplayer?

Bill Roper: We have always had the intention of providing rich, robust, massively multiplayer online gaming experiences for our players. This means that we will be providing everything from a secure client/server infrastructure to 24/7 customer support to maintaining a complete live team to provide not only balance and bug fixes, but more importantly, continuing, ongoing content updates to the game. And while we are still finalizing the commercial and game aspects of our online plans, we can tell players that there will definitely be significant free online play.

[Hieremias]

I've always enjoyed when people take a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

[Steve_Erhardt]

I've always enjoyed when people take a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.
Wow, you beat me to it, Hieremias... I was thinking exactly the same thing. If I didn't know better, I'd say he writes speeches for politicians, LOL

[Returner]

I thought we weren't going to taint EvAv with anymore crap from ****spot.

[Captain Awesome]

I thought we weren't going to taint EvAv with anymore crap from ****spot.

heh heh, you said taint.

[Johnny Internet]

And then an air of calm exuded from all of the Internet.

[lockwoodx]

Where is Bill O'Riley when we need him to smite that evil SPIN!!!!

[hund_]

I've always enjoyed when people take a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.
god it made my head hurt reading it.

[Wyrm]

He basically said they're going to charge for it without really saying it.

[randir14]

When did this become a massively multiplayer game? I thought it was like Diablo where you could only play online with a couple people.

[Lekon]

Heck at least they said a significant free portion.

[Hemalin]

When did this become a massively multiplayer game? I thought it was like Diablo where you could only play online with a couple people.
Apparently from the beginning...or not...maybe...something...

[grimjoe]

I hope you can at least play this game with your IP address. Theres no reason(besides greed) for you to not connect to my friends game and play this together if we wanted

[Deadend]

It would be kinda funny if the game ended up really sucking badly, thus making all of our debating about it and hunting for info kinda pointless, as who cares if the game is free or not if it sucks?

[Montgomery_Python]

I belong to a reasonable sized guild with intentions to play this, and our internal polling suggests about 1/2 want to freeplay and the other 1/2 want to pay play.

As long as both are fun, I don't see a problem.

It's Bill.

[NELS]

our internal polling suggests about 1/2 want to freeplay and the other 1/2 want to pay play.

Who would want to pay to play when free is an option?

[greenapple]

I've always enjoyed when people take a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

There's a fair amount of info in there, if you can read english.

1) Secure server

2) 24/7 tech support

3) free online play (probably a safe presumption it's free play of Hellgate and not Hearts or Tetris).

Obviously, there's implication that some portion of online play will be pay. Probably the ongoing content updates.

Whether the final product will validate the above, we'll see. But to yammer on how that contained no information is being blind.

[Kem0sabe]

What i would like to know is if the game will function P2P like Diablo did, or will this "secure server" will host the game.

[drakkarim]

with all this yapping/focus on the multiplayer, i'm getting worried that this game will be weak on the singleplayer (the only part i'll play), thus becoming a borrow now and buy when its in the bargain bin kind of game for me.

[dirtbag]

Maybe "significant free online play" means you get to use the server browser and chat in the lobby. :D

[Grimgrock]

with all this yapping/focus on the multiplayer, i'm getting worried that this game will be weak on the singleplayer (the only part i'll play), thus becoming a borrow now and buy when its in the bargain bin kind of game for me.


Diablo and Diablo II had strong multiplayer aspects and a strong single player campaign. Given that this game is essentially coming from the same group of people (albeit from a different company), I think it is safe to say that Hellgate's single player will be at least as strong as Diablo II.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to this.

[Telefrog]

That's what I was thinking. "Significant free online play" does not mean the same thing as "the multiplayer portion of Hellgate is free."

[Rirath]

Diablo and Diablo II had strong multiplayer aspects and a strong single player campaign. Given that this game is essentially coming from the same group of people (albeit from a different company), I think it is safe to say that Hellgate's single player will be at least as strong as Diablo II.

I really can't understand why people keep comparing this so strongly to Diablo 1/2. Team or no team, these games look absolutely nothing alike. I don't think they're going to play even the slightest bit alike.

Personally, I don't get the comparison.

[roboninja]

Yeah, the problem is the distinction. He talks about it being in the Massively Multiplayer realm, but then says there will be significant free online play. That is a very subjective word, which is why people are saying that htere is no real info here.

[Phanto]

I really can't understand why people keep comparing this so strongly to Diablo 1/2. Team or no team, these games look absolutely nothing alike. I don't think they're going to play even the slightest bit alike.

Personally, I don't get the comparison.

Its not about "looking", both games obviously will not be the same but both games have some similarities like the randomized zones that each time you enter a zone will not be the same e.c.t.

[OrangePulp]

I really can't understand why people keep comparing this so strongly to Diablo 1/2. Team or no team, these games look absolutely nothing alike. I don't think they're going to play even the slightest bit alike.

Personally, I don't get the comparison.

Whether they look anything alike or not, from what I've read it sounds like it is going to be very much the same gameplay: slaughtering hordes of monsters in randomized zones as you (presumably) work towards some kind of boss, getting randomized loot and leveling up your character along the way. In interviews, they've made several references to Diablo 2; I recall one where they talked about how the Maggot Lair was supposed to feel claustrophobic and such, but it was something they really couldn't communicate with the isometric 2d graphics, and thus is one of the advantages of making the game in complete 3d.