Pumping Irony

I’d read a few random forum posts concerned that Hellgate: London would vanish into the ether today (or tomorrow, being the first of the month) with all the drama this month over Flagship Studio’s implosion. This morning after I brewed coffee, I decided to maybe make some progress towards level 21 with my marksman but the servers were offline. Uh oh! Turns out it was just maintenance that lasted quite a bit longer than the anticipated one hour. So, the game lives on to fight another day.

Gamasutra (among other sites) has an article today Korean-based T3 Entertainment (creator of Audition) has announced they are setting up a development studio in San Francisco (and are hiring) to continue development on Hellgate: London, Mythos, as well as work on other unnamed titles.

Flagship’s (former) IP’s are getting handed around like hors d’oeuvres…

Turbine posted a huge article with details of the upcoming LOTRO expansion, Mines of Moria.

Remember in early June, Turbine announced they’d secured $40 million in financing, and one of the major investors was Time Warner, parent company of Warner Bros.? Mines of Moria appears to be the first fruits of that labor: Turbine will be self-publishing the expansion, but Warner Bros. is handling the distribution.

For players, the interesting part is that Mines of Moria will be distributed in digital format for existing LOTRO customers, or in-stores as two different boxes:

• The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Complete Edition will include the original The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ game (Volume I), all content updates released since launch, and The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria (Volume II). The Complete Edition will be available at retail stores nationwide and offers new players who wish to journey through the most complete and authentic recreation of Middle-earth the full, award-winning experience.

Very cool! Sounds like this will utterly replace the in-store boxes of Shadows of Angmar, rather than simply being an expansion box. Similar to how EQ2’s Echoes of Faydwer came as the full game and all prior content which I thought was a great decision.

• The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Collector’s Edition will feature the content of the Complete Edition as well as compelling digital and physical items for collectors. Limited quantities of the Collector’s Edition will be available at retail outlets in a unique leather-bound book packaging and will include:
  • 3 exclusive tokens that can be exchanged for the player’s choice of 8 different in-game items
  • 22″ x 22″ premium quality cloth map of the Mines of Moria
  • Special gold-plated ring complete with chain and pouch
  • Mines of Moria poster
  • The Lord of the Rings Online Art and Music Collection with the official Mines of Moria Soundtrack
  • A full color Collector’s Edition Starter Guide

• The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Digital Expansion is a digital upgrade that will allow existing subscribers to The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar to continue the ultimate interactive adventure into the vast, terrifying and unparalleled world beneath Middle-earth.

I am really a fan of digital distribution these days; the clutter from so many boxes gets to be ridiculous. However, I have the Collector’s Edition of Shadows of Angmar, so I’ll likely bite the bullet and do the same for Mines of Moria. It’s a shame companies don’t come to a compromise: charge me half the difference between the digital price and the CE price to gain the in-game items and choose one of the external perks (I’d choose the soundtrack for MoM) and just ship that item to me. That would be a win-win situation — Turbine gets extra income, and I get the important in-game CE items plus the only other perk of interest to me, all the while not having to find space for another video game box.

I said I refused to level until I got into a Fornost group, but I realized two things. First, I was mistaken about Fornost’s level bracket so dinging a level or two wouldn’t trivialize it with all grey mobs and quests. Second, I was so close to 45 I likely would have dinged while inside and been unable to train. So, I got with a kin-mate and we knocked out the last few quests I had in Evendim and completed all those chains. I’m completely through with Evendim quests! When I say that, I’m referring to the adventuring quests. There are still a handful of reputation token quests but Arwellyn isn’t high enough level to actually collect those tokens, so why waste valuable quest log space? The Annúminas instances await as well, but I have another 5 levels before they bring me back to Evendim.

Like many areas in Eriador, Evendim is downright gorgeous but there’s so much running swimming back and forth between quest locations and NPC’s… let’s just say there’s a reason the zone’s nickname is “Everswim.” Turbine already has small boat models built (see the screenshot below) so I really wish they would add craftable boats as the next hobby. Not only would it be great for crossing bodies of water faster than swimming, it could also tie into the fishing hobby we already have. Not to mention the role-playing and other travel opportunities. Look no further than Vanguard to see that players love new means of transportation. Being able to craft or own a boat is such a nice feature, and the ability to give anyone a ride takes the cake. Turbine: do it!

Afterwards, I decided to take a trip into Evendim’s northern neighbor, Forochel, which was introduced back in Book 13. Just like going from Rivendell into the Misty Mountains, entering Forochel is quite a climb, giving a valid reason for the zone’s climate and perhaps providing some sense of immersion as well. I will say that LOTRO is very impressive for its vertical terrain. LOTRO and Vanguard are the only games I ever recall playing that have this degree of vertical development the player can actually traverse, and it packs more punch that one would think. I used to be impressed with how high Ironforge was. Now, after climbing Weathertop and other places in LOTRO, as well as Vanguard which has some impressive locales at incredible heights, Ironforge is merely a foothill.

So, we ended up in Korkea-järvi which is the first Lossoth camp with quests and a stable master. Grabbed a few quests, even managed to complete one, but Arwellyn’s quest log is full once more. Sigh. I’m looking forward to adventuring in Forochel, but in addition to seeking a Forochel adventure, I’m already getting continued pressure to finish Lore of the Blade so it looks like I’ll be adventuring in Angmar and the Misty Mountains first.

Oh, the skating Lossoth? I want skates! After boating, skating can be the next hobby… And, am I the only one who thought the Forochel stable masters should have given rides on dog sleds rather than horses? Oh, I am? Hmph!

Turbine has hinted in interviews recently that they are interested in exploring sensible means to include User Generated Content (UGC) into their games. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be seeing a LOTRO UGC SDK (Holy Acronym, Batman!) any time soon; indeed such a system could be reserved for a new game which was built from the ground up to accommodate UGC. Although, if any MMO screams for such an SDK, it’s DDO. [SDK? Or UGCDK? Ugh... I'm getting a headache.]

In any event, Turbine just put up a job posting for a UGC Engineer position:

Job Summary

The User Generated Content Engineer will play a key part on a small team dedicated to inventing new technologies and approaches to letting users create content for MMO worlds. The ideal candidate will bring a strong background in C++ programming, a passion for creating polished and intuitive user interfaces and the entrepreneurial drive to help us create a new paradigm for how users interact with virtual worlds.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Hellgate: London lives once more, thanks to a new and mysterious savior: Namco-Bandai.

A Senior Director of Business Development for Namco-Bandai posted in the official Hellgate forums about this recent twist in Hellgate’s fate:

Hello Hellgaters,

I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we’d love to make one — but right now, many things are in flux and we don’t have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we’ll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.

In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.

I’d like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.

Lo and behold, Hellgate is also already posted on Namco-Bandai’s game list as well, though no mention of it is on their front page. Initially I thought it was strange to have age verification to reach the game description page when the official site does not, but after browsing their site it seems they merely use ESRB ratings as a guideline and all M-rated games use the age verification. The site does set a session cookie however, so visitors only have to play the age verification mini-game once per visit.

After burning out after my furious, failed, and misguided attempt to push to level cap in May, I’ve been on break from LOTRO. I am beginning to feel the heat wear off though, and I logged in Sunday evening to check things out. Several of my favorite kin-mates were there to greet me, and we immediately fell right back into that comfortable camaraderie I missed so much. I love my kinship! Anyway, since I’ve been out for two months (has it been that long already?) I barely touched any of Book 13 other than a quick visit to Forochel to look around and discovering first-hand just how deadly the cold waters of the ice bay truly are. So, upon my return I’ll have so much content available I won’t even need to “push” myself the additional 5.5 levels. Goal #1, however, is Fornost! I refuse to level any higher until I get in there and properly complete that instance.

LOTRO’s Book 14 content update was pushed to the live servers this morning. Since I’ve been on break since late May I haven’t been paying attention to what exactly Book 14 would contain. Needless to say, after reading the rather lengthy Release Notes, I’m quite pleased and looking forward to resuming my journeys through Middle Earth.

I had thought that Book 14 would bring the Volume I: The Shadows of Angmar story to a close, but Deeds have been expanded to show a Book 15 now. Turbine has not stated (that I recall) how future Books will be labelled, however. Will they continue to enumerate from here, or will it become Volume I: Books 1-15, Volume II: Books 1-15, etc.? I’m rather hoping for the latter, as I’m really enjoying the “living literature” feel of the game’s layout, so continuing to liken the game to writing appeals to me on many levels.

Rather than quote the entire Release Notes here, I’ll just touch on a few of the ones I will enjoy, both as a player in general and as a Lore-master and Scholar in particular.

• Epic Quest: The epic quest continues with world events that open up the adventure to every player across all servers!
• Moria Prelude Quests: Aid the Fellowship of the Ring as they prepare to leave Rivendell and make their way toward Mordor.
• Dungeons: The loot dropped in all instances and raids is being upgraded, and bosses and mobs are being adjusted to make for even better play experiences! Now is the time to prepare for the dangers that dwell in Moria! [Full details in this Developer Diary entry. This is great!]
• Animation Improvements: LOTRO continues to polish the experience! [3 bullet points were listed, but reading through the rest of the notes shows many more animations as well.]
• The Dressing Room UI now supports dye color previewing! You can alter the color of any visible equipment slot to preview how you will look once you’ve applied Dye items to your gear. [Thank you!]
• New dye and wall paint recipes have arrived! Scholars should keep an eye out for ten new dye and wall paint recipes that can now be found in treasure. [More colors, thank you! We can paint our walls? Maybe if I had a house, I'd have known that.]
• You can now Ctrl+right-click on many of the item icons in the game to create an item link in your chat window instead of dragging them to the text entry field. [It's about damn time!]
• Lore-master skills “Light of the Rising Dawn” and “Cracked Earth” - Fixed a rare error that left a book stuck in the Lore-master’s hand when the skill failed to execute completely. [Rare? RARE? Either you guys don't play Lore-masters enough or I use those two skills too much, because I get this constantly.]

Many, many more awesome changes and updates are in this Book, so I’m very much looking forward to jumping back in soon! Sounds like the Monsters got some cool new features, as well as emotes, and I’m really interested to hear what Turbine has planned for the future of PvMP in Volume II and beyond. As far as “meaningless PvP” goes, I find PvMP far more entertaining than WoW’s battleground’s ever were. Here’s hoping in the future, more “meaning” gets added to that sphere of game play.

I was once again invited to be a guest on Darren and Karen’s Karen and Darren’s show, Shut Up. We’re Talking. (Or as my girlfriend calls it “Shut Up and Stop Talking.” Cute.) Thanks to (way too much; sorry self, we never took a mixology class) Captain Morgan in my drink, I was quite relaxed this time around! Show #30 is up for your listening pleasure!

The Crew:

The Amazing, Awesome and Excellent Karen: Journey’s With Jaye
Darren: Common Sense Gamer
John: The Ancient Gaming Noob
and Yours Truly

The Agenda:

Introductions
Listener Mail
What We’re Playing
Game Project Management: a look at Mythic’s cutting of 4 cities and 4 classes from Warhammer Online.
Long in the Tooth: is WoW officially “old” now?
Blog of the Week
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: An unscripted “behind the scenes” conversation that Darren decided to include in the show.

I had a blast recording the show, and I hope everyone enjoys listening to us ramble! With Karen and I both traveling home Saturday, we agreed to start the show later than originally scheduled. With the late start plus Darren recording with his air conditioning off for better audio, we mostly kept on-track with not as much off-air goofing around as last time so our gracious host co-host didn’t suffer a heat stroke or a perspiration-induced electric shock.

After the drama this weekend of Flagship Studios closing down (in full denial, however) and both the Hellgate: London and Mythos IP’s being taken from them, Tiggs put up a statement to the contrary on HGL’s official forums:

Flagship Studios Still in Operations

San Francisco, CA (July 14, 2008) — Flagship Studios has announced today that despite rumors to the contrary, the company is still operating.

“It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees. However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship.” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain the size of the company any longer.”

Flagship Studios owns the rights to all its technology and IP, including Hellgate: London and Mythos. Due to the current situation, Flagship will not be taking any new subscribers for Hellgate: London, and all current subscriptions will not be billed.

Flagship wishes to extend their heartfelt thanks to those that have supported the company and games over the past five years.

Unlike James Cameron’s Titanic movie, there’s no romantic story and Bill Roper won’t be yelling “I’m the king of the world!” anytime soon. Much like the movie, however, we do have the entire studio and staff being left floating in freezing water as Flagship is pulled under.

I’d written an article about this yesterday, since everyone else was distracted by the Warhammer content reduction announcement, but took it offline to verify a few facts in the story. Turns out more developments have occurred, and rather than re-writing the entire story, I’ll refer you to Hellgate Guru’s article which now has all the goods. Gamasutra and VE3D are also following the story.

The very short version: yesterday a Korean site published a story saying that HanbitSoft was attempting to wrest control of the Hellgate: London IP from its creators and developers (but apparently not owners), Flagship Studios. An attorney representing HanbitSoft issued a statement on the matter, which also mentioned Mythos, Flagship’s beta F2P Diablo-esque MMORPG. Simultaneously, Gamasutra was reporting that Flagship was allegedly laying off some of their Hellgate: London staff.

Today, it has been confirmed that it Flagship Studios has closed, all staff has been terminated, and their IP’s now belong to Korean companies. HanbitSoft now owns Mythos outright and will continue its development while Comerica now owns the Hellgate: London IP and promises to continue development and content updates for its large Asian market. Given HGL’s poor reception from English audiences and Mythos’ superior business model, future development of HGL for the Western market is unlikely at this point.

And we thought it was bad when the Sigil guys were fired in the parking lot…

I will say one nice thing: the story did say that three members (no names mentioned) of Flagship’s top management paid the employees an additional 30 days of salary out of their own pockets. Brad McQuaid couldn’t even be bothered to be present at Sigil’s parking lot party.

Arena.net updated their Guild Wars 2 FAQ a few days ago. One particular item was of interest — and concern — to me:

How will character progression work? Will you be raising the level cap

Guild Wars 2 will have the kind of extensive character advancement appropriate to a persistent world RPG. It is our priority to avoid forcing players into the grind-based gameplay that too often accompanies a high level cap.

Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekicking system, similar to that used in City of Heroes.

We’re applying this same philosophy to competitive play. Players will be able to engage in organized, balanced PvP (similar to GvG in the original Guild Wars) without needing to first level up characters, find equipment, or unlock skills. While inside the organized PvP area, all characters will be the same power level and will have access to the same equipment.

/sigh

I’ve always felt one of the sources of confusion many players had in their attempts to adapt to Guild Wars was having levels at all. It’s a skills-based game, and the majority of the game takes place at level cap. The leveling phase is fairly quick and serves only to introduce you to the basic concepts of the game, nothing more. If you come into Guild Wars with the levels-and-gear-based mentality that most MMO’s have, you’re doing it “wrong” and will only walk away in disappointment.

When Arena.net originally announced Guild Wars 2 would be raising the level cap, or possibly have no level cap at all, I was immediately concerned. This takes away from everything Guild Wars stands for and lowers it to the sewer standards of a typical MMO. Having no level cap raised questions of balancing with mobs and other characters, then I thought of Asheron’s Call. AC is also a skills-based game, but it does have levels. However, your level is not an indication of your power like it would be in other MMO’s, but merely an indication of the total xp you’ve accrued on that character. Vanity abounds in Guild Wars, from elite armors, to green weapons, to title tracks, to mini-pets, and even Collector’s Edition emotes. Guild Wars also keeps track of your total xp (since you still “ding” repeatedly after reaching “level cap”) but it’s only available to you, no one else can see it. Within that context, a limitless level cap would actually make sense in the Guild Wars universe.

However, with this recent FAQ update, and the mere mention of a CoX-like sidekick system, I am very concerned that in GW2 levels, and all their associated problems, will suddenly matter. I think part of me just died inside…