Flagship: "We ended up rushing Hellgate"

News Reader · Post by **News Reader** » July 8th, 2008, 16:00

Flagship: "We ended up rushing Hellgate"
I recently had a bit of a chinwag with Flagship COO Max Schaefer for Eurogamer. Primarily it's about free MMO Mythos, a game they sound supremely confident about: "Can we take down the big boys? I think we can take down some of them. And I'd like to put a dent in the others." He's [...]

Author: Alec Meer
Category: RockPaperShotgun eurogamer Flagship Hellgate MMO mythos
Publish Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:05:58 +0000

I recently had a bit of a chinwag with Flagship COO Max Schaefer for Eurogamer. Primarily it's about free MMO Mythos, a game they sound supremely confident about: "Can we take down the big boys? I think we can take down some of them. And I'd like to put a dent in the others." He's also remarkably honest about its similarities to Diablo and WoW, adamant that being so is in their audience's best interests.

There's also some interesting light-shining on the Hellgate: London balls-up. Of course he doesn't actually say it's a balls-up, but it certainly sounds as though Flagship are no longer pretending all is sweetness and light in Hellgateland: "When you're starting with a brand new game studio with very limited budget and no existing technologies, that was probably biting off too much." Read the full interview here. It was a long old chat - there's another 3000 words on the cutting room floor, which I may lob up here later on. ... [visit site to read more]

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Post by **deject** » July 8th, 2008, 17:36

I'm kind of tired of this being used as an excuse for making a bad game. It's seems like every time that a studio that should make a good game and fails just says they had to rush it out. Fuck that, every studio has massive crunch time near release time. I understand if money problems prevent you from taking the time you need to get it perfect, but otherwise it's weaksauce.

Post by **Dog Pants** » July 8th, 2008, 17:46

Doesn't matter really does it? It's not like we're all going to go "Aww, poor Flagship. Lets all go out and buy Hellgate then, it wasn't their fault".

Post by **deject** » July 8th, 2008, 19:36

Dog Pants wrote:Doesn't matter really does it? It's not like we're all going to go "Aww, poor Flagship. Lets all go out and buy Hellgate then, it wasn't their fault".

no, it doesn't I'm just a tiny bit annoyed by just blaming the shittyness on a rush job that's all.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » July 8th, 2008, 23:18

Indeed, after all, if they don't have enough time, they should make themselves more time. See: Valve.

Post by **deject** » July 9th, 2008, 2:20

Baliame wrote:Indeed, after all, if they don't have enough time, they should make themselves more time. See: Valve.

well, you can't hold everyone to valve standards. Gabe Newell still has shitloads of cash from his microsoft days that he's pledged to use to keep Valve afloat if they somehow run out of cash. Very few companies have the luxury Valve enjoys.

Nickface · Post by **Nickface** » July 9th, 2008, 4:09

That game totally felt rushed. It could've been a lot better.

Post by **Dog Pants** » July 9th, 2008, 9:03

Have they remedied it by patching it up to a decent standard though, or just decided it had flopped and ditched it? I can forgive the former.

Nickface · Post by **Nickface** » July 9th, 2008, 14:00

Dog Pants wrote:Have they remedied it by patching it up to a decent standard though, or just decided it had flopped and ditched it? I can forgive the former.

I want to say a little of both. I was one of those sucker who preordered it thinking it was going to be the next Diablo. I stopped playing a week or two after release, I came back after I upgraded my PC as it was the only DX10 game I had, and it didn't seem so bad, and I played it for a month, maybe month and a half.

The game feels more like you're playing a mod than a professional studio release. The way the randomly generated content is presented makes you think "this is definitely randomly generated content" rather than "this is a unique gaming experience."

Really, I think the best phrase that can describe the entire game is "Half-assed."