After a short hiatus while Flagship got its latest single player patch 1.3 straightened out, a new Hellgate: London Underground Communique is finally available. The fifth of these offering covers several different events including patches for the 1.3 patch, e-mail recovery and an interview with Max Shaefer on action RPGs.
There are a few issues resolved on the Test Center. Characters that disappeared off of the server have been restored from a backup. Unfortunately, it seems the team is watching the database closely to see if it happens again because they don’t know what caused the problem. On the bright side, European players will now find they can now receive subscriber benefits on the Sydonai sever.
There’s also a brief mention of the upcoming patch 2 and the “Abyss Chronicles.” You can read all about it on the Hellgate London Underground.
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It appears that the gates of hell have opened yet again as Hellgate:London prepares for the latest content expansion to the pseudo-MMORPG. Patch version 1.3 the patch before the upcoming Abyss Chronicles is set to go live today for multiplayer fans. The upcoming 2.0 patch promises to expand the story of the game much like the earlier “Stonehenge Chronicles” patch did a few months ago.
One of the key features for subscribers of the game includes the ability to share the stash of items between your various toons in the Hellgate world. No longer will you have to scrap that Cabalist Rare item just because you happen to be playing your Hunter. Now you can simply store the opbject int he game’s stash, log out and log back in as your demonic Cabalist and gain the reward. The 1.3 patch also offers some new tweaks to existing skills and gameplay. The patch is expected to go live around noon Pacific time today.
Singleplayer fans will also be pleased to see that the final release of the 1.2 patch has made its way to the Internet as well. Many of the stability improvements from the multiplayer fixes are now live for those who prefer to do their demon hunting solo.
Both patches can be accessed through the game’s launcher by simply connecting to the multiplayer or choosing to update the singleplayer. Note that most of the new content in the Abyss Chronicles is aimed at Hellgate: London subscribers only, so if you are not a subscriber many of these features are not for you.
Flagship Studios has release the long awaited Hellgate: London single player patch v. 1.2 to beta. Players can voluntarily test the patch which contains a huge amount of bug fixes, tweaks and new content from Patch 0.7, Patch 1.0, Patch 1.1, Patch 1.1b, and Patch 1.2 multiplayer.
Those brave enough to test the beta of this patch can download it here and the full patch notes can be found here.
Flagship is asking that players post all bugs in the Single Player Bugs forum and clarify that you’re using the Single Player Patch 1.2 Beta.
The wild and crazy folks over at 1UP are at it again this Friday. This week’s 1UP show runs the gamut of gaming, including all of the following:
Shawn Elliot and Anthony Gallegos going head to head in Company of Heroes.
Shawn, Anthony, and Jay Frechette discussing their experiences in the new MMO Mythos, including an impromptu chat with Flagship Studios lead producer Max Schaefer.
David Ellis and Matt Chandronait talking about the Battlefield Bad Company beta.
Shane Bettenhausen and Ryan O’Donnell checking out the Sixaxis motion contols in the Wipeout HD beta.
Oh, and you can check out Shane arguing with Jeremy Parish over cosplayers. This begs the question: Are cosplayers something worth arguing over?
As always, the 1UP Show is being hosted on FileFront for your downloading pleasure. Check out the links below to get your weekly fix.
The newest video from Flagship Studios shows off not only the different races to choose from in their free MMORPG Mythos, but also goes into detail on three of the different classes to choose from.
The Bloodletter is your typical melee warrior, and if you like a character who is more hands on with their weapons and one that can get in the middle of a fight, then this will be the best melee class to choose. Bloodletters can also summon blood minions to help you do your dirty work in the heat of battle.
Pyromancers are basically wizards or magicians who can summon elementals to help them out in a pinch. Like most classes of this type, Pyromancers are best used at a distance when in battle, but if faced with a surrounding horde of enemies, they can still hold their own, but not as well as the Bloodletter.
Gadgeteers are also a class best used at a distance. Although guns and rifles are their primary weapons, the attacks are slower, and while more powerful the delay when using these weapons can cause an enemy to get close enough to attack. Gadgeteers will probably be better suited to standing in the back like a bowman or a hunter.
Mythos is shaping up to be a great game, especially for one that is free. The graphics are pretty nice compared to other free MMORPGs on the market and I have had a lot of fun so far with the beta. The third chapter was released on Monday and so far it is proving to be a highly entertaining game addition.
For more information on Mythos, check out our previous posts.
Flagship Studios has announced the introduction of the third chapter for the closed beta program of the free MMORPG Mythos along with a new official website.
Mythos’ third chapter introduces the Umbral Peaks and the towns of Mistglade and Arcled and includes quest content that will allow players to progress to level 30. New features include the introduction of a new Cyclopean character race, a crafting system, in-game mail, socketable armor, trinkets, and stat bonuses for skill tier investment. For the first time, players can participate in PvP dueling thanks to a dedicated PvP world, the Shadowlands. Mythos is an online, action role-playing game that is free to download and free to play. Set in the land of Uld – a fantasy world arising from the ashes of an epoch-long war of darkness – players assume the roles of fantasy heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest through entirely randomized dungeons and environments. With a point-and-click interface and an accessible “isometric” perspective, the game allows thousands of players to interact within the same world while using mostly “instanced” dungeons to create unique gaming experiences suited for both solo and group-minded players.
As players journey into Mythos’ ever-expanding universe, they select one of four races (Human, Satyr, Gremlin, or Cyclops) and opt to play as a particular character class using a huge variety of skills and items. Through heroic quests players search for gold, gems, armor, and weapons, while unlocking the secrets of Uld. The game has a constantly expanding, continuously updated world where something new lurks around every corner.
I have been playing the beta for a few months now, and I have to say that for a free MMORPG, it is pretty neat and is also a lot of fun.
For more information on Mythos, check out our previous posts.
Via: Press Release
The second entry of a Mythos beta journal by an anonymous source is up on TenTonHammer. This free to play MMO is described as a mixture of World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Guild Wars.
The first journal entry focused on installation, character creation, graphics and UI. The second part goes into the multi-player aspects including partying and zone instances.
Flagship Studios’ Mythos MMO is currently in closed beta testing. The latest update, Zone 3 The Umbral Peaks, was released earlier this week. Mythos looks like it’s shaping up to be a good game for Diablo fans to follow closely.
Apparently, so many people have been playing the Mythos BETA that the folks over at Flagship Studios have added some hardware to the server cluster and if you log on tonight, this update should alleviate the lag spikes felt by some gamers. It is no wonder that so many people have been pushing the Mythos servers to the breaking point as cool as it is. I personally played a bit of the BETA some months back, and considering the fact that this game was created by the same people who helped create none other than Diablo, its no wonder it is so popular.
Watching the trailer, you get a great idea of the RPG gameplay mechanics that occur during the game, and if you are into the whole RPG scene, you should enjoy Mythoswhen it is finally released to the public; plus, for a free action RPG, Mythos looks fantastic compared to others in the “free-to-play” market.
Set in the land of Uld - a fantasy world arising from the ashes of an epoch-long war of darkness - players assume the roles of fantasy heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest through entirely randomized dungeons and environments. Being a standard point and click dungeon crawler, it is a great way for gamers who have shied away from MMOs in the past to be able to get on board with because you do not have time constraints as far as gameplay - if you want to play for 15 minutes or 15 hours, you can accomplish just as many feats either way .
For more information on Mythos, check out our previous posts.
Flagship Studios released its first major patch for Hellgate: London yesterday after a short delay. Unfortunately, it appears that it should have waited a little longer before releasing this one into the wild.
I covered the contents of the first edition of Hellgate Chronicles (as it is called) yesterday, so I’ll only briefly sum up the new content. The Evoker and Guardian classes were completely overhauled, and multiplayer subscribers were treated to the new Stonehenge content. After several hours of multiplayer gameplay here’s what I have found:
There’s a new display option to help with virtual memory issues by filtering how many unique characters will be displayed.
A number of tweaks have been applied to the item modification process, such as requiring nano shards to use the Nano Forge to upgrade weapons.
All in all, most of the changes are for the better.
However there are several problems with this patch that haven’t been ironed out even after two weeks in beta. There are sound distortion issues with some sound cards. The lag was incredible on a server with an average population making mouse movements difficult. After I’d been killed by four identical rare MOBs spawned at one point, I found that my video display didn’t revert to color after I revived. I wasn’t able to normalize my display even after using a PRD or traveling via the Station Terminal.
When I first reviewedHellgate: London, I gave it a fairly good rating. I did cite the difficulties with release, but chalked them up to a new company pushing to meet a deadline. Flagship Studios has several veterans on staff, however people still need time to learn to communicate effectively and work together well. Unfortunately, it seems the Flagship Studios’ team may not be functioning as a cohesive unit yet. Despite the firm launch plans and the extra month delay, part of the reason for further delay of the patch was the release had been broken thanks to a developer putting in “some strings (lines of text in skills and such)” that are meant for the next big update. Perhaps Flagship just isn’t ready to sail into the open ocean yet, and should follow the coastline a little longer.
The bigger question I see on the game’s website is “Is this worth $10 a month to subscribe to?” and unfortunately the answer at this point is wait a little more. Let Flagship pull out a few more content updates and see if you want those. The current crop - Stonehenge included - is not even as much content as free MMO’s like Guild Wars pushed out shortly after launch and definitely isn’t on par with 1st tier games like Lord of the Rings Online or World of Warcraft.
Personally I hope this product survives and thrives, but it is becoming unfortunately clear that Flagship Studios may not quite be ready to support all their grand plans.
The Flagship team is working to deliver on its promise of quarterly expansions for Hellgate: London. the studio just sent out a letter from Bill Roper giving details about the first expansion, Stonehenge. What better setting for additional content than one of the the most mystical sites in the world.
Here’s the scoop for those of you who missed it.
“We’ve decided to take the time necessary to make our first major content patch right. If there is one lesson we’ve learned from launching Hellgate: London, our releases should be a question of “what” and not “when.”
We were pushing to get Stonehenge released before the end of the year, but we realized that we wouldn’t be doing the right thing to push it out before it was ready and properly tested. We’re still on our schedule and meeting our original promise of providing a major quarterly update. We just felt that we would be doing everyone a disservice to push this out before it was right.
We are, however, going to have the first in our continuing Hellgate chronicles, entitled Stonehenge, into Test Center before the holidays. This is so we can get a lot of people finding the issues and getting us feedback over their holiday breaks.”
There reason for rejoicing for Hellgate: London fans. The latest single player patch (0.6) is ready for download and the multiplayer patch (0.7) will be released later this week.
Here is a summary of what players can expect from the single player patch:
Some major fixes include issues with the mini-game, quest items, and unique drops. Fresh content includes rebalanced skills, more chests in secret areas, and user interface tweaks. These adjustments match SP to MP 0.6 and shall greatly improve your single player experience.
The multiplayer patch will be launching for both the Shulgoth (US) and Sydonai (EU) servers.
Big additions in this patch include a massive memory usage fix, Nightmare difficulty rebalancing, and a new “Looking for Group”
interface.
A number of notorious bugs were also squashed in this build. Impassible maps and quest monsters that refused to spawn are a thing of the past.
With 0.7 subscribers can enjoy additional content in the form of the Transmogrifier — an item used for extra inventory and recipe
crunching — and twelve new unique items.
Flagship Studios has released new update for Mythos has been released that adds tons of new features, improvements, and bug fixes. With this new patch, there is no need to to reinstall the game or download anything, because as soon as you log in you will be automatically patched and ready to go. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mythos, it is an online, action RPG that is free to download and free to play. Set in the land of Uld - a fantasy world arising from the ashes of an epic-long war of darkness - players assume the roles of fantasy heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest through entirely randomized dungeons and environments.
FEATURES
Guilds have been added! Speak to the Guildmaster in Tulin’s Hope to start one at a cost of 5 Gold.
Hardcore Mode has been added, for extra challenge! In Hardcore, when you die - your character is gone forever, so be careful!
Elite Mode has been added. In Elite mode, monsters are faster, more aggressive, and tougher. Champions appear more often. You can only sell items for half of regular price. - Note that Elite and Hardcore players cannot party or trade with players who do not match their setup, to preserve the economies of these different play styles.
Re-specs are now allowed (although not in Hardcore or Elite mode) - speak to a Skillmaster in Stonehill or Tulin’s hope. Re-specs are free from level 1 through 5, and above that, cost starts at 1 Gold and increases from there. There is a maximum of 3 re-specs beyond level 5
Quests are now Trackable - check them in your log to view them onscreen at all times
Maximum Questlog size increased to 8 quests.
Hardware Mouse Cursors! This should make mouse response lightning fast.
Achievements system has been added - complete goals to earn equippable achievements that give you extra bonuses! Unlock a new achievement slot every 10 levels
Emotes - there is an emote button above the chat pane that will show you the options
Zivia’s Puzzle Box
Party Finder – post your party and description and meet some new friends! You can also post yourself as looking for group to the list.
Ignore List is now account-based and actually saves.
An exciting discovery was unearthed today. Archaeologists uncovered an entry from the journal of one of the survivors of Hellgate: London:
When the demons came they turned everything we loved into ash and dust. A small sect of religious fanatics, long ago relegated to myth and legends, became very real to all of us that survived. They called themselves Templars, inheritors of a sect of Christian knights, an order believed dead in the middle ages. The Templars took us in, got us organized and taught us how to fight back. Some took naturally to the sword, others began to manifest abilities that could only be described as magical. These magic wielding survivors came to be known as Cabalists, summoners and evokers who seemed disposed to wield the evil magics that the demon invaders brought with them through the Hellgate. A third group soon formed among the survivors as well, collectively known as Hunters they used technology and science to combat the arcane threat. I’m no good with a sword like the Templars, and have no innate magic talent like the Cabalists, but I can turn a pile of junk into a bot in no time flat. I’m a pretty good shot too, so I signed on with the Hunters as an Engineer.
Mythos is an online, action RPG that is free to download and free to play. Set in the land of Uld - a fantasy world arising from the ashes of an epoch-long war of darkness - players assume the roles of fantasy heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest through entirely randomized dungeons and environments. Flagship Studios has released a trailer showing some in-game footage of Mythos which they feel will entice players fond of Diablo. While you do see some footage from the game, the video is mostly Producer Brock Jones talking about what they are trying to accomplish with the game, and how he feels that even with a more instance style of MMO gameplay, gamers should find Mythos something fun and less daunting than the majority of MMORPGs on the market.
Jones describes Mythos as “A game people are instantly familiar with, but is also new to them. I think we are coming close to getting that, as it has the familiarity to anyone who has played Diablo or Diablo 2 - they know how to play it and they come straight into it. The feeling of it is updated and it is a little less dark, but it still has enough interest to hold people, and I think it is something people can get really excited about in a short time span; ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there rather than epic long games that require hours and hours at a time.”
So basically what he is saying, is that Mythos is a MMO Diablo clone where if you want to run into a dungeon and kick some ass, it will not take you hours and hours to do so. Being a standard point and click dungeon crawler, it sounds like it might be something that gamers who have shied away from MMOs in the past may be able to get on board with. This being said though, it is no wonder that Brock kind of got a dig in at WoW when he mentioned “epic long games” and stated that his game is nothing more than a Diablo clone masked as an MMO, when Flagship Studios is comprised of Blizzard defectors.
They are still accepting emails from people who want in on the Mythos beta, so get on over to the website and sign up if you are interested.
Due to popular request, Flagship Studio’s offer for Hellgate: London Founder’s Lifetime subscription membership has been extended through the end of the year. Flagship is also working on creating new payment options online as well like Pay by Cash and Pay Pal. The European crowd will appreciate that soon debit cards should be accepted as well. Happy hunting.
Play Digital has a video preview of Flagship Studio’s Hellgate: London. Katherine does a good job of introducing the background and basic character types and classes to those who that haven’t been following Hellgate closely. Having been involved with the beta testing, I feel she manages to give a fair assessment of where the game really shines and where it falls short. She also selected in-game footage that does a better job illustrating the look and feel of Hellgate than words alone can convey.
Xfire held a chat yesterday with some of the developers from Flagship Studios, responsible for Hellgate: London, which also released yesterday. The entire chat transcript is now available online, but it’s a fairly lengthy read, so I’ve taken a choice excerpt and included it below. One noteworthy item was how the game handles subscriptions ending and your characters that might be in extra slots that subscription status granted you.
Question: What will happen to characters located in slots 4 to 12 (subscribers only) if subscription runs out or is terminated? And we also see similars problems for items located in the extra part of the stash…
Answer: If you cancel your subscription, then those characters will become unavailable. They’ll still be saved on our servers, so if you should get your subscription back, your characters will be waiting for you. Similar situation with the extra stash space.
Question: What are you planning to do to keep both subscribers and standard players happy?
Answer: Bill Roper: We have a LTO of things there for our free players that are so far beyond what we’ve done in the past.
Bill Roper: In fact, we opened up some areas to our free standard players that are more than they get in single player and were also going to orignially just be for subscribers.
Bill Roper: Our Elite Difficulty mode is a great example of that, as is making PvP available to everyone. Dave Brevik was also a champion for gettinf Achievements into the game for th dya one patch and making them available to everyone.
Bill Roper: For subscribers, we’ve already started themed events and special content, and we’l be rolling out a lot of stuff in December.
Bill Roper: The goal is to strike a great balance so that people who want to get more content can do so eaily and contantly while still providing an incredible online experience for no extra charge.
[Flagship] LeeDot: In regards to Evoker Balance - One of the interesting things about HG is that each of the classes offers a distinct play experience from one another and the Evoker is at the extreme end of one of those play styles. We ill be trying to continually balance any areas that seem out of whack but I would expect that each class will always have some areas of the game that they struggle with more or less based on their nature.
Flagship Studios has released a third Hellgate: London Developer Diary featuring Factions and Classes. The piece describes how the original character concepts for Hellgate evolved into the three factions and six character classes players will choose from in the finished game.
Players can choose a member of the Templar faction which uses short ranged and melee weapons. These include the duel wielding Blademaster or the traditional sword and shield paladial class, the Guardian. For those who prefer magic users and splash weapon, the Summoner and the Evoker classes of the Cabalist faction would be a better choice. The Hunter faction is most like FPS play. The Engineer and the Marksman classes both wield high-damage long range and hightech weapons.
For the full details on these character classes, read the Hellgate: London dev diary on Pro-G.
Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper recently told CVG that there were many more stories to be told within the Hellgate Universe. With Hellgate: London demo up and beta in full swing, Roper is hopeful that the game will not only be a success, but inspire more titles within the Hellgate Universe.
“For us, one of the reasons that the game was Hellgate: London is that we wanted to talk about… Well, it’s two-fold. One, the city itself is very important to the game, the architecture of the city and what lies beneath the streets of London - giving elements of London itself that are part of a story and part of the gameplay as well.”
“But for us we’ve been looking and saying, ‘Well, these are the stories we’re telling in London, this is what’s happening now in this place’. We would love to be able to then explore what’s happening in other places during this time.”
Roper uses WWII as an example of a conflict that takes place on many fronts an can be viewed from different perspectives.
“For us it’s that same type of idea. Hopefully we’ll get that opportunity through games, through other properties - like books and comics - and be able to look at those things, and look at other parts of the world and explore what happened”, Roper said.
“And we really do hope we get that chance to do it with more games. If the game’s [Hellgate: London] popular, if people like it, then I guess there’s a chance we can do more.”
Based on my beta experience, I believe we will definitely see more of Hellgate in the future. In my opinion the game is as fun and addicting as Diablo.
Look for the full Bill Roper interview to be posted on CVG soon.
Here’s a short 30 second video clip on Break that could possibly be part of a Hellgate: London TV spot as hinted here. Don’t know about you, but that guy looks pissed. Here’s what Scapes over at Hellgate Guru had to say about the video:
Matching the style of the print ad series found in the November issue of PC Gamer, this 30-second spot is part of the same campaign and was produced by a genuine horror movie production house… …I’ve a feeling there might be two others as well.
W00t! More goodies to pump us up for the Halloween release of Hellgate: London. That’s right folks; we’re less than 2 weeks away from all of Hell breaking loose.
Be on the lookout later today for the Hellgate: London demo here at FileFront.
After a short hiatus while Flagship got its latest single player patch 1.3 straightened out, a new Hellgate: London Underground Communique is finally available. The fifth of these offering covers several different events including patches for the 1.3 patch, e-mail recovery and an interview with Max Shaefer on action RPGs.
The wild and crazy folks over at 1UP are at it again this Friday. This week’s 1UP show runs the gamut of gaming, including all of the following:
I covered the contents of the first edition of 
The Flagship team is working to deliver on its promise of quarterly expansions for Hellgate: London. the studio just sent out a letter from Bill Roper giving details about the first expansion, Stonehenge. What better setting for additional content than one of the the most mystical sites in the world.
There reason for rejoicing for Hellgate: London fans. The latest single player patch (0.6) is ready for download and the multiplayer patch (0.7) will be released later this week.
When the demons came they turned everything we loved into ash and dust. A small sect of religious fanatics, long ago relegated to myth and legends, became very real to all of us that survived. They called themselves Templars, inheritors of a sect of Christian knights, an order believed dead in the middle ages. The Templars took us in, got us organized and taught us how to fight back. Some took naturally to the sword, others began to manifest abilities that could only be described as magical. These magic wielding survivors came to be known as Cabalists, summoners and evokers who seemed disposed to wield the evil magics that the demon invaders brought with them through the Hellgate. A third group soon formed among the survivors as well, collectively known as Hunters they used technology and science to combat the arcane threat. I’m no good with a sword like the Templars, and have no innate magic talent like the Cabalists, but I can turn a pile of junk into a bot in no time flat. I’m a pretty good shot too, so I signed on with the Hunters as an Engineer.
Due to popular request, Flagship Studio’s offer for Hellgate: London Founder’s Lifetime subscription membership has been extended through the end of the year. Flagship is also working on creating new payment options online as well like Pay by Cash and Pay Pal. The European crowd will appreciate that soon debit cards should be accepted as well. Happy hunting.
