Nearing three weeks of no concrete information of what’s really going on with Flagship Studios and Hellgate, we are currently on a new flux of assumptions and suspicions. First, the Ping0 staff all trade their Ping0 icons and Ping0 affiliation for Namco Bandai, which led to further speculation that Namco was taking over. Still not surprisingly enough, people are still reporting that they are being billed, despite the claims by Tiggs that the billing service is down and that you wouldn’t be charged. A few hours later the Test Center was ninja’d. Now, however, our old buddies at T3/HanbitSoft (If you’re confused as to who T3 is, read here) are surfacing up again with new news, as reported by Gamasutra. Here’s the interesting bit of the article:

According to new job posting-related information, Asian publisher T3 Entertainment is setting up a San Francisco development studio to carry on work on Hellgate: London and Mythos, following developer Flagship’s recent layoffs.

The postings, which have appeared on multiple sites including DICE.com and Gamasutra, reveal: “T3 Entertainment is searching for creative minds to passionately continue development of Hellgate: London and Mythos, along with other new games, which are being published by HanbitSoft Inc.”

According to the call for programmers: “A development studio has been established in San Francisco, CA, with hopes of gathering those who wish to join us in starting a new chapter of history in the game industry.”

Yep, setting up a development studio certainly sounds like they haven’t accquired the IP rights to Hellgate and Mythos.

I know a lot of things have been blown out of proportion in the past two weeks, but I think the current “Namco is going to/has acquired the IP rights to Hellgate” really takes the cake. Even IGN has jumped on the bandwagon, going as far to say that the Namco Bandai representative, Zack Karlsson, who posted the post in question on the forums, “hinted” that they would “step in to keep the intellecutal property right going.” Let’s review Karlsson’s post, shall we?

“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.“

Remind me where Karlsson “hints” that they would “keep the intellectual property right going”? Fact is, someone cried wolf and everyone ran to check. Okay, so, for one second, let’s forget that Namco was always a partner with Flagship since the beginning of it all. Let’s also forget that Namco removed Hellgate from their list of games as well. Let’s also forget that HanbitSoft has made the claim that they are in the process of obtaining the IP rights and are even pursuing legal proceedings against Flagship Studios as well.

I’ve been trying to avoid talking about this story because Tiggs, who hasn’t been showing the greatest sense of professionalism in the past two weeks, isn’t clarifying anything at all except that news will be coming “soon.” I don’t know how long “soon” is, but it’s usually less than two weeks. Then again, given the standards of Flagship Studios, “soon” could mean two or three months. Since everyone loves it when I “debunk the real story, man!”, I’ll throw out an opinion into the mix. Notice how apparently the whole Namco mishap has everyone turned away from the lack of billing even being made noticed to the public or how no one is even talking about HanbitSoft’s claim any more? Yeah, I know how much of a big “spin” a theory on distraction is from the people who have been misleading us since day one, but hey, I’m sure someone is willing to shrug it off and not take notice of it. To those actually believing Namco is going to be in charge of things without any official word:

A month ago, Flagship Studios issued an announcement that the recently made available for purchase (zoned for Japan) version of Hellgate: London was the number one selling PC Game in Japan. This according to Amazon.co.jp’s weekly continent sale reporting. This achievement was met with great cries of fanboy joy.

One month later, the achievement of being number 1 continues to be brought up in discussions. Mentioned as much as it is, I’ve yet to see anyone talk about HGL’s sales position on week two, three or where we’re at now, week four.

Below are Amazon.co.jp’s top PC game sales in Japan for the past four weeks, made available by Gamasutra.

June 26, 2008
1. Hellgate: London (EA Games), 2. Lineage: The Cross Rancor (E-Frontier), 3. Ragnarok Online Summer Package 2008 (E-Frontier), 4. Final Fantasy XI: Vana’diel Collection (Square Enix), 5. The Sims 2: Ikea Home Pack (EA Games).

July 3, 2008
1. Monster Hunter Frontier Online Season 3.0 Premium (E-Frontier), 2. Lineage: The Cross Rancor (E-Frontier), 3. Ragnarok Online Summer Package 2008 (E-Frontier), 4. Hellgate: London (EA Games), 5. Final Fantasy XI: Vana’diel Collection (Square Enix).

July 10, 2008
1. Monster Hunter Frontier Online Season 3.0 Premium (E-Frontier), 2. Lineage: The Cross Rancor (E-Frontier), 3. Ragnarok Online Summer Package 2008 (E-Frontier), 4. Final Fantasy XI: Vana’diel Collection (Square Enix), 5. Hellgate: London (EA Games).

July 17, 2008
1. Monster Hunter Frontier Online Season 3.0 Premium (E-Frontier), 2. Ragnarok Online Summer Package 2008 (E-Frontier), 3. Lineage: The Cross Rancor (E-Frontier), 4. Sukatto Golf Pangya: Yokubari Kit (E Frontier), 5. Final Fantasy XI: Vana’diel Collection (Square Enix). (Where’d Hellgate Go?)

So, there you have it. Less than two weeks after launch, HGL went from first to fourth. After week three, it had dropped off the list all together.

While some may say sales peaked and rapidly declined as anyone who was interested in HGL had purchased within the first few weeks. Money made, success! First consider the PC Gaming Market in Japan is very small compared to the Americas, Europe and most of Asia. Even reaching number one the first week isn’t the same number of sales and profit returns as it would be in most other countries.

Very possibly a large contributing factor to this quick decline is word getting out among Japanese players that the game lacks content and (as a unique problem for Japanese HGL Players) response times are greatly delayed, since they have no localized servers and must connect to the North American ones.`Looks like Operation Middle Finger’s mission in Japan is turning out as I predicted a month ago.

By the way, did I quote that correctly, Ivan? Send me your complaints via E-Mail if I didn’t.

Anyways, Tiggs has posted another bit of information regarding the current upheaval everyone is in about the state of the game. Here’s a link to her post in the lolcat spam thread.

“Since word spreads fast around here and this thread needs a boost I can tell you this much… news will be coming soon for you folks. The game isn’t going anywhere at the end of the month like the speculation has it nor is the forums. So you are stuck with Hellgate and the forums for a while That is all I can answer for now but I wanted to let you know you can focus on playing and not worrying.”

Interesting how she doesn’t mention how the company will be fine. Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the company isn’t fine; you don’t lay off everyone but the founding members and expect to continue on. But hey, if you’re still denying that, then I think you might want to look in to taking over this guy’s job:

“The Flagshipped.com press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!”

Update: 07/22/2008 AM EST (by Phil) Looks like the above post has been given its own thread in the announcement forum. Based on many of the replies made to Tiggs’s message, within the HGL Forums, a good deal of trust has been lost with many players. This is far from surprising when taking into account the news and actions of FSS over the past few days. You can’t very well fault players for being overly skeptical about the future of the game and steadfastness of decisions chosen by this stripped down company.

Add this to the list of poor money and time management HGL received. It turns about according to a post by FSS10 they were actually were starting to develop HGL for the Xbox 360.

I‘m not joking this time.

There was a semi-working version running on a Xbox 360. Run, jump, shoot, monsters, etc. Sure it was an old build by about a year but it did work (It had the crappy ORANGE inventory UI and the cool health and power meter in the top left.) It came in very very late and it needed a whole new dev team to make it. It might have been cool.

Why? The time and money spent on working on a 360 version of HGL could have been used for things like….more content? But when you’re blowing your money away on a custom engine, and Weta figures and god knows what else a independent developer shouldn’t be doing….why not blow some more on something that you never really intended to create.

Mythos servers (and forums) are now officially down. Again, you guys know as much as we do about the final word on everything. Keep us posted if anyone changes their mind at the last minute.

“Travelers of Uld,

We, the ancient elders of Uld are issuing this warning to all citizens and travelers. Hurry! The great darkness that once plagued Uld is returning. Everyone is ordered to close down their shops and prepare. We predict the when night is at its peak the darkness will arrive. The ancient elders of Uld will be leaving immediately in order to preserve the lore of this wonderful world. Citizens please prepare thyself and know that the elders will be back from their travels some day.

From the team:

We regretfully announce that on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 11:59 PST the world of Uld known as Mythos will be going on hiatus. On behalf of all of the Devs and Community team we want to say thank you to everyone for their support and assistance with Mythos Alpha and Beta testing and we will see you soon.

The Mythos Team”

Link

Well it looks like Tiggs has changed her mind. The Hellgate forums are not coming down tonight. No word why. No word on anything else either. The Mythos servers won’t be coming down for another two hours, however. Let us know if anyone else would like to change their mind about anything else regarding Flagship Studios; maybe they are still claiming the IP rights belong to them? You never know.

From a post made by the former community manager Tiggs, on the Official Mythos Forum, word has been given that the Diablo Clone know as Mythos will shutting down today at 11:59 PM CST.

Mythos Beta Going on Hiatus

Bonus Link: Mythos Farewells and Well Wishes Message Thread

“Mythos was not the reason Flagship laid everyone off. We cannot afford to pay moderators and customer service people (like Tiggs and her Minions). In fact, we’ve all been on here doing this for free FYI. The forums are one of many faces of the company, and if it were left to the wolves it would become infested with spam and advertisements. We can’t allow that, so the boards have to come down. The Mythos Team” –Taylor Babli

As usual it’s the players fault, all of those vicious wolves in paying player clothing pretending to be innocent consumers! Just waiting to shed their skin soon as they get the chance to ruin a good forum with spam and ads. Can’t let you players have anything important, you’ll just ruin it and hurt yourselves without FSS to keep you safe. Thanks FSS for saving us from ourselves!

With all this alluding to being still in business despite all the staff but directors left go and now with this report of Mythos closing, full of cutesy roleplay to soften the fail it my be, it even is hinting at a return… “Citizens please prepare thyself and know that the elders will be back from their travels some day.” Something, one bright, slim, chance of hope must exist for FSS to salvage, repair and return Mythos and Hellgate to the market.

Could this hope be that new company being talked of which will arise from the ashes of Flagship Studios?

Special thanks to Kevin for quickly reporting the existence of this announcement. Thanks Kevin!

Link.

On Friday, July 18th at 11:59PM (CST) the forums will be shutting down. We would like to thank everyone for being a part of this wonderful community and we hope to see you all again soon.

-Tiggs

Well I guess that would explain why people have been reporting their temp bans have turned into perma bans. It won’t matter any more when Friday night rolls around. No mention of what will be happening to the game or the company itself.

EDIT: Forgot to check if it was the same for the Mythos forums. The answer is yes.

EDIT: Tiggs clarified the time. It is not tonight, it is tomorrow.

UPDATE: (Phil) (July 18,11:30 PM EST) According to a post by Tiggs on the Official Hellgate: London Forums, HGL Forums will not be going down tonight. Also all the message bases have returned. Just don’t get too excited. No word if they are being turned off tomorrow or weeks/months/years from now.

As for Mythos, currently nothing has been announced to change. If I had to guess why HGL was spared, tonight, I’d put my money on, when you’re not being paid to work you’d rather not stay up all night dealing with two forum take-downs, back to back. (now that I see all the areas have returned) is someone(s) at FSS/Ping0 care enough to keep it up for a few days to let players/site save all the great information only available from that site. Well done FSS!

HGG has picked up on an article from thisisgame.com, a Korean news site. I’ll just let it do the talking.