Designer Admits Hellgate: London Was Too Ambitious

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
12,070
0
0
Designer Admits Hellgate: London Was Too Ambitious



Bill Roper admitted that the team may have been spoiled by working at Blizzard for so long.

The team at Blizzard is infamous (that's more than famous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIGtHhAfe8w]) for never shipping a project until its done. So when a game needs 6 months more work on it before it's perfect, Blizzard gives it that time because they have the luxury of time and money to make that decision. After making Diablo and its sequel, Bill Roper left Blizzard to form Flagship Studios, and he still worked under that mentality. Unfortunately, he didn't have the same resources and the publishers forced him to ship his ambitious Hellgate: London before it was ready. The game received lackluster reviews and a tepid consumer response after it launched in 2007, and Flagship Studios soon folded. The multiplayer servers for Hellgate closed in January 2009, and Roper is just now able to see that he may have had too many goals for the game.

"The biggest failure with Hellgate is we just tried to do too much," said Roper. "We were a single-player game, or you could go online and play for free. And there was also this hybrid subscription model that you could get into. We shipped in 17 languages, we had a very high-end graphics engine that we had built but at the same time we did low-poly versions of the game. I mean, the list just went on and on and on."

Roper was the first to admit that he and a lot of the ex-staffers from Blizzard that he hired at Flagship were unwittingly hamstrung by such a great experience at the Studio of Warcraft. "I think that was where our 'growing up Blizzard' hurt us, right? Because at Blizzard you just go for it. Every time you swing, you swing for the fences. We'd go in there and say, 'We need to take six more months. This is why. This is the benefit you will see from it,'" Roper said. The response from higher ups at Blizzard was always: "'You know what? If that's what you need to make this game great, then that's what we'll get for you. We'll figure it out.'"

But there was no such leeway at Flagship. "It still eventually comes down to dollars and cents and time," Roper said. "I think when Hellgate: London came out... we knew it needed another four to six months. The publishers knew it needed another four to six months." Despite that knowledge, both parties were reluctant to pur more money into the project. "The publishers were like, 'Hey, we're invested. We're in. We're as in as we're going to get.' So, the game's got to come out, right? You get to that point."

So is it ever a good idea to just get a game out there and hope for the best? "I think it's a horrible mistake," Roper said with a laugh.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32869/Bill_Roper_On_How_Flagship_Hellgate_Spiraled_Out_Of_Control.php]



Permalink
 

teh_Canape

New member
May 18, 2010
2,665
0
0
I was really hoping there would be any reference to Dreamcast's Hellgate

at least by the name

though it was never released T-T
 

Harbinger_

New member
Jan 8, 2009
1,050
0
0
This could have been such a great game. If only it played like the cinematics instead of trying to play ping-pong inside a vat filled with molasses with both hands tied behind your back and blind-folded whilst also reciting the alphabet in a high pitched girly voice backwards. They shouldn't blame Blizzard for their own mistakes.

I paid for the collectors editon and was disappointed. If the game was actually made properly instead of the garbage that was released I'd actually consider buying it.
 

Daemascus

WAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!!
Mar 6, 2010
792
0
0
teh_Canape said:
I was really hoping there would be any reference to Dreamcast's Hellgate

at least by the name

though it was never released T-T
It may be time to let go...
OT: Over ambition is the best way to fail, cause atleast you tried.
 

Fr]anc[is

New member
May 13, 2010
1,893
0
0
I liked this game, definitely got my $20 out of it. Summoner was awesome. Not the greatest game, but ok.
 

Sixcess

New member
Feb 27, 2010
2,719
0
0
Pity he didn't have this stunning insight (/sarc) before he went off to work with Cryptic on Champions and Stark Trek Online, given that Cryptic's entire modus operandi is to crank out MMOs at a rate more suited to single player games.

I don't know if it's funny or sad when developers whose best work is far far behind them keep giving these interviews where they try and portray themselves as experts.
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
3,560
0
0
Good thing I played the beta and I didn't bought it. Good story, I like these stories, they teach a lot on how not to make these mistakes again.
 

vxicepickxv

Slayer of Bothan Spies
Sep 28, 2008
3,126
0
0
Sixcess said:
Pity he didn't have this stunning insight (/sarc) before he went off to work with Cryptic on Champions and Stark Trek Online, given that Cryptic's entire modus operandi is to crank out MMOs at a rate more suited to single player games.

I don't know if it's funny or sad when developers whose best work is far far behind them keep giving these interviews where they try and portray themselves as experts.
How the hell is Cryptic still in business? I've already decided I'm not going to touch their new D&D game, because it's being made by Cryptic.
 

TheRealGoochman

New member
Apr 7, 2010
331
0
0
I respect this guy, he recognized what the problem was (too ambitious). Not many heads of game companies do that, it is usually "because of these guys we had to make a crap game'
Props to him, and it was a bummer Hellgate London did get me excited, but the flaws due to shooting for the stars became too overwhelming.
 

Blizzarded Soul

New member
Jan 27, 2010
230
0
0
hmmm I bought a copy of the game.....didn't realise at the time how punishing it would be on my graphics card, was virtually unplayable with the amount of screen lag, thus have never played it again and it's sitting on my shelf waiting for the time I decide to upgrade.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
Hmmm, well I think it's one of those things where the game was just flat out a bad idea, and poorly implemented. Four to six months would not have saved that game. When I played it I thought the central idea was fine, but the money making aspect of it seemed like a fairly extreme cash grab compared to other MMO-type games out there on the market, with the free-to-play version being a little too limited to be taken seriously on that front. Basically it seemed like someone looked at multiplayer FPS games that weren't making any money, and decided to see if they could find a way to get people to pay for it. The content was also too limited, with not enough monster models or tile sets, this was perhaps it's biggest problem and honestly I don't think enough content could be generated in a couple of months to make that game worth paying for. It was also incredibly linear compared to most other persistant world games.

It's one of those things where the idea of "let's add MMO aspects to a FPS shooter and see if we can get people to pay subscriptions for it" seemed to be the central idea rather than the game itself being paticularly ambitious.

It did have some neat world ideas, some fun weapons, and some interesting artwork, a good MMORPG could have been built around that universe idea, unfortunatly that didn't seem to be their plan.

To be honest I miss "Earth and Beyond" a lot more than I do "Hellgate: London".

As far as the Blizzard mentality goes, I think we're going to see how much that matters. It seems like Bioware is being given a similar degree of slack in their game production, and if that climate does make a big differance we should see "Old Republic Online" being a major competitor on the MMORPG market, probably blowing away WoW given it's sheer age. If that doesn't happen I'll think it means that this doesn't matter all that much, and indirectly that Mr. Roeper just made some pretty bad games.
 

Sixcess

New member
Feb 27, 2010
2,719
0
0
vxicepickxv said:
Sixcess said:
Pity he didn't have this stunning insight (/sarc) before he went off to work with Cryptic on Champions and Stark Trek Online, given that Cryptic's entire modus operandi is to crank out MMOs at a rate more suited to single player games.

I don't know if it's funny or sad when developers whose best work is far far behind them keep giving these interviews where they try and portray themselves as experts.
How the hell is Cryptic still in business? I've already decided I'm not going to touch their new D&D game, because it's being made by Cryptic.
As much as I hate to admit it, Cryptic's assembly line approach might be a good business strategy for them. My impression is Cryptic is all about the box sales and the first few months (during which they will shamelessly double dip their excited new subscribers with a cash shop) and if it all goes wrong after that it doesn't matter because they've already got the next launch lined up and in due course they'll kick the under performers into F2P and keep running the cash shop.

It's good for business but bad for gamers, and I have to say that hearing Cryptic had got a hold of an IP I liked would be like hearing the movie was going to be made by Uwe Boll.
 

ThreeKneeNick

New member
Aug 4, 2009
741
0
0
Sixcess said:
vxicepickxv said:
Sixcess said:
Pity he didn't have this stunning insight (/sarc) before he went off to work with Cryptic on Champions and Stark Trek Online, given that Cryptic's entire modus operandi is to crank out MMOs at a rate more suited to single player games.

I don't know if it's funny or sad when developers whose best work is far far behind them keep giving these interviews where they try and portray themselves as experts.
How the hell is Cryptic still in business? I've already decided I'm not going to touch their new D&D game, because it's being made by Cryptic.
As much as I hate to admit it, Cryptic's assembly line approach might be a good business strategy for them. My impression is Cryptic is all about the box sales and the first few months (during which they will shamelessly double dip their excited new subscribers with a cash shop) and if it all goes wrong after that it doesn't matter because they've already got the next launch lined up and in due course they'll kick the under performers into F2P and keep running the cash shop.

It's good for business but bad for gamers, and I have to say that hearing Cryptic had got a hold of an IP I liked would be like hearing the movie was going to be made by Uwe Boll.
You forgot selling lifetime subscriptions BEFORE a game launches, and also before a game goes free to play.