New Maps Details of Hellgate - London Patch 1.5 update

HanbitSoft announced that HELLGATE: LONDON, an online action RPG developed by Redbana US Studio, will present new maps in its up-coming 1.5Patch, and released screenshots of them.

The revealed maps are Training Grounds and Maritime Museum. Training Ground will become the new starting area of Hellgate, which gives bright, outdoor spirit to the game. There, players will see many NPCs holding weapons and training the players. After players accomplished the training part, they will be able to go on to the next new map called Maritime Museum.

Maritime Museum is a huge building with two stories. Maritime Museum is expected to become the new center base of the game with various quests and convenience systems. First of all, Marketplace will be placed in Maritime Museum, so players will constantly come in and go out for items exchange and communication with other players. Also, there will be new quests, and Arena Terminal to activated PvP mode that will give both entertainment and convenience to the gamers.

HanbitSoft also revealed screenshots of new maps, items and a boss monster which include Guardian’s Two-handed sword and axe and Arachtonas, one of new boss monsters. Revealed images are just part of many that will be updated through 1.5Patch, and details of the rest will also be revealed very soon.

This is the sixth announcement of Hellgates 1.5Patch details, and Korean gamers’ anticipation is reaching to its climax as outline of the Patch becomes clearer each week.

HanbitSoft Reveals 1.5 Patch Details of Hellgate: London

1.5 patch details of Hellgate: London, an online action RPG developed by Redbana US Studio, every week through the game’s Korean official website.

HanbitSoft and developers in Redbana has been preparing 1.5 patch since last year, as soon as the developing crew had been formed. It is planned to be an extensive update to reinforce Hellgate’s reputation. HanbitSoft announcing that the company will be posting the patch details in weekly basis suggests that the update date is getting close.

HanbitSoft posted the general introduction of 1.5 patch on March 6th through Hellgate’s official website, and mentioned that there will be Mode Merger, Consignment House, and various kinds of PvP features, etc. On March 13th, the company revealed parts of the patch contents in details: Mode Merger, Achievement Reward System, Instance Swtiching and Item Linking.

After 1.5 patch, all modes will be merged. In current Hellgate, players play either in Normal Mode or Elite Mode, but later on, the two modes will be combined and all players will be playing the game together. Players who are playing in Elite Mode will be able to keep the Elite mark next to their names, and granted with special titles.

Achievement Reward System is a system that rewards the players who accomplish the challenge achievements, with ‘- + To all attributes’, ‘Health injectors’ and etc. Instance Switching will also be added for easier channel shift. Instance Switching is designed with simple User Interface, so that any player can easily transfer to the place where the player he wants to play with is. Ultimately, it will also strengthen the community by providing convenient system for more active interactions between players. With Item Linking, players can link their items to chatting window, and show off their luxury items. It will make the item trade a lot easier.

HanbitSoft will be revealing more details on rest of 1.5 patch contents step by step every week through Hellgate’s Korean official website.

Hellgate - London MMO video game to shut down

Namco Bandai has announced that it is set to shut down all the servers for the struggling MMO, Hellgate: London.

The publisher will continue to support the title and offer it for free until the end of January, after which the severs will be shut down.

"Namco Bandai Games America... will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios," the company said in press release on the game's website.

"In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date."

Earlier this year, Hellgate: London's developer, Flagship Studios, closed its doors with some of the staff going on to form Runic.

Source: Games Industry

Video for Hellgate - London patch 1.3

Flagship Studios today released a video to coincide with the recent launch of patch 1.3 for its action RPG Hellgate: London. Patch 1.3 offers no less than eight new features including Shared Stash, a Premium Item Merchant, Donation Collectors and Global Buffs, Ranks and the Expertise system.

Interacting with your fellow players has been enhanced with the introduction of optional chat bubbles that appear when players talk and performable emotes that characters now have at their disposal. In Patch 1.3, players can also easily browse lists of chat and emote commands using the two according buttons in the chat panel.

Visit the site here

Hellgate - London celebrates Korean Launch - best in 3 years

Flagship Studios today announced that its action role-playing game Hellgate: London has become the most successful online video game launch in Korea of the past three years with over 1 million accounts registered within the first two weeks of its open beta test. Hellgate: London is the first online game in over three years to use a monthly subscription business model.

After launching the open beta on January 15th, Hellgate: London quickly rose to the ninth most played online game, fifth most popular RPG and most popular online beta game in PC Cafes*, with over 1 million accounts. Hellgate: London was released commercially on February 22nd, and achieved record sales in its first week of presales.

“To become the most successful launch in Korea for over three years is an incredible achievement,” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “This milestone wouldn’t have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our publishing partner, Hanbitsoft, and our dedicated community in Korea. We look forward to expanding the Hellgate universe and building upon this success in the future.”

“Flagship Studios are well aware of how the Asian market operates very differently to the Western territories” said Alex Kim, CEO of HanbitSoft, “By listening to players’ feedback and through constant updates to the game, Hellgate: London will continue to be an incredible success throughout Asia.”

Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and the action of first-person shooter titles, while offering infinite playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies, and events. Whether online or off, a player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.

For more information please visit the official Hellgate: London site at www.hellgatelondon.com
*According to Gametrics and Game Report

Hellgate: London Beta Patch

The Hellgate: London v1.2 beta patch is for the single-player portion of the game only, and can be found here.

To see what changes and fixes have been made, check out the very extensive release notes.

Since the patch is a beta, use at your own risk.

Hellgate - London video game in the stores

Remember the dead, but fight for the living! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. today announced that Hellgate™: London, the first title from Flagship Studios and one of the most anticipated PC games of the year, is now available at retail outlets in North America and Europe1. Combining the depth and addictive gameplay of traditional role-playing games with the visceral action of first-person shooters, the long-awaited action RPG from the creators of the global blockbuster Diablo franchise is poised to keep gamers hacking-and-slashing for many Halloweens to come.

“Today marks a major milestone for Flagship Studios,” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “The greatest thrill any developer can have is to see their game actually in a player’s hands. We’ve put our all into making Hellgate: London a great gaming experience, and now we’re able to share what has been a huge part of the past four years of our lives with our friends, family, and the world.”

“The core of the EA Partners program is utilizing our strengths as a publishing organization to help world-class independent development studios like Flagship bring their games to market globally,” said David DeMartini, Vice President and Global General Manager, EA Partners. “Hellgate: London is a great achievement and we are excited to have had the opportunity to work with Flagship and NAMCO BANDAI in delivering a breakthrough action RPG.”

It’s 2038 and London lies in ruins, overrun by hordes of terrifying demons. Players begin their mission to save the once-great city by creating a hero, choosing among six character classes featuring distinct gameplay styles. Hellgate: London offers gamers a deep storyline campaign with over 35 hours of gameplay that is infinitely re-playable because of the game’s dynamically generated levels and random items, enemies and events. Hellgate’s robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of equipment ensures each player’s experience will be unique.

While some may prefer to save humanity on their own offline, gamers will also be able to fight online*, joining up with other survivors in a secure, client-server environment and playing through the entire story-driven campaign for free. For those players who want to extend their Hellgate: London experience, Flagship is offering an optional subscription service for $9.99/month2 which will give players access to tremendous amounts of ongoing content in the form of quests, character classes, demons, items, etc.

Hellgate: London has been rated M for Mature (Violence, Blood and Gore, Mild Language) by the ESRB. Visit www.esrb.org for updated rating information. For more information about Hellgate: London, log onto http://info.ea.com or the game’s official website at www.hellgatelondon.com.

Hellgate: London video game Music Interview

Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London takes place in the near future, only a few decades from now. The famed city lies in ruins, desolated by demons that simply and almost effortlessly swept aside humanity's armies. Even the most highly advanced, top secret biological and nuclear weapons have failed to slow their rampage. Reeling from the ferocious assault, the survivors have taken refuge in what's left of the Underground. Their last hope lies with three mysterious factions.

Templars have trained diligently in martial disciplines and holy magic to prepare for the conflict their predecessors foresaw centuries ago. Cabalists study the dark arts and combine them with knowledge from the peripheries of science, seeking to use the fiends' own powers against them. Hunters are former military operatives with access to ranged arms that very few others even knew existed, except perhaps in theory.

Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco

The action RPG will ship later this week, so we're only days away from taking on these diverse roles, heading out to stalk the invaders, and battling desperately to save our race from extinction. As we do so, we can look to the game's music for some additional inspiration. It's the result of a collaboration involving two accomplished composers, the team of Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan.

Their combined credits in the industry, both together and individually, are numerous and impressive, so when we learned they had been given this assignment, our expectations were naturally high. With their latest title about to be unveiled, it seemed a very fitting time to examine their contribution. Fortunately for us, the pair proved receptive when we came along with our usual plethora of questions. The result was this interesting and highly informative interview.

This game was just a perfect match for us. I really saw the opportunity to create something non-typical for Hellgate. Flagship gave us all the freedom we needed.

More from: RPG Vault

Nvidia Unleashes GeForce 8800 GT

Gamers wanting an uber cool gaming experience this festive season have now got an affordable option.

Nvidia has launched the GeForce 8800 GT, the latest addition to its GeForce 8 Series of graphics processing units (GPUs)

GeForce 8800 GT offers a hyper-reactive, intensely robust gaming experience for the latest, next generation DirectX 10 games, such as Crysis, Hellgate: London, and Gears of War, as well as full support for current DirectX 9 games, according to Nvidia.

When the GeForce 8 Series was first introduced, gamers demanded a product with 64 stream processors and 256-bit memory interface to deliver more performance at an affordable price.

Nvidia has now responded to the demand with its GeForce 8800 GT featuring 112 stream processors, fast 256-bit memory interface, and second-generation PureVideo HD technology.

In addition to 112 stream processors, each individually clocked at 1.5GHz, plus a 256-bit memory interface running at 900MHz, the GeForce 8800 GT is designed for the new PCI Express 2.0 bus standard, and is backwards-compatible with the original PCI Express standard.

Nvidia claims the GeForce 8800GT combines the best in gaming with the best in HD. It features a second-generation video processing engine to deliver high-quality playback of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies on PCs.

According to the company, the new programmable video processing engine takes on all of the high definition H.264 video decoding, freeing the CPU to perform other tasks, as also reduces power consumption, heat, and noise.

The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT is available for Rs 14,900 plus taxes.

Xfire To Host Exclusive Live Chat With Flagship Studios

On Halloween Day, Catch Up with the Creators of the Highly-Anticipated Hellgate: London

WHAT: Xfire - the 8 million strong gaming community – today announced that they will host an exclusive live chat with Flagship Studios on Halloween day, in honor of the launch of the highly-anticipated Hellgate: London.

Log on to Xfire.com to sign up for the chance to talk to some of the brilliant minds behind this new release.

Hellgate: London will feature Xfire’s peer-to-peer communication system to give gamers the ability to chat with fellow gamers without needing to manage a standalone voice server. Additionally, online game players will be able to log in to Xfire from within the game, enabling them to easily add their friends and other Hellgate: London gamers into an Xfire voice chat room where they can chat as they play.

WHO: Bill Roper, CEO Flagship Studios
Aletheia Simonson, Art Producer
Bill Manegold, Game Programmer
Amir Ebrahimi, Graphics Programmer
Guy Somberg, Audio and Gameplay Programmer
The Xfire Community

WHY: "We are thrilled that a phenomenal title like Hellgate: London is exclusively utilizing the Xfire In-Game Voice Chat feature, and we welcome the game’s creators on their launch day to Xfire," said Xfire CEO Adam Boyden. “This exciting live online chat will give users the opportunity to discuss the title's finer points, classes, mechanics and what went into making this amazing game."

WHEN: Flagship Studios Live Chat premieres Wednesday, October 31st at 10.00pmGMT/11.00pmCET

WHERE: Via Xfire, http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_hellgate/

A Game Seeks Success Through Random Rewards

That some online games are addictive is no secret to anyone who has played a good one. They are the golf of electronic sports. The game designer Bill Roper, whose new project, Hellgate: London, is to be released next Wednesday, knows just why that is.

“It’s because of the power of what psychologists call intermittent rewards,” Mr. Roper said here recently at the offices of Flagship Studios, where he is chief executive. “When you’re playing golf and you have that one great drive, you’re excited at the end of the round even if the other 17 holes were horrible. But it’s the feeling of that one perfect shot that keeps you coming back, and when you get home you can’t stop talking about that one shot. That’s the kind of feeling we want in Hellgate: London.”

So, on Halloween, gamers will get to experience the fruits of the four years the Flagship team has spent refining its seductive “Just five more minutes” style of gameplay. That will inevitably lead to bleary eyes at 4 a.m., irate spouses and neglected schoolwork around the world. (The game is being released in 17 languages.)

More from: The New York Times

Hellgate - London video game Opens Wide at iGames

Exclusive Launch Party, Showcase, at Select iGames Member Centers Across North America to Celebrate Release of Hotly Anticipated Action RPG

Events Sponsored by 3D Monitor Manufacturer iZ3D, with exclusive event coverage provided by Premier MMO Community MMOABC.com to Include Launch Party, Nov. 10; Two-Week Showcase, Nov. 12-25

WHAT:
Leading game center organization iGames will host a series of special events to celebrate the release of Hellgate - London by EA, the hotly anticipated action RPG from Flagship Studios, the core team behind Diablo.

WHEN:
Co-sponsored by 3D monitor manufacturer iZ3D, the events will include a one-day launch party, Saturday, November 10 at select iGames member centers, followed by an expanded showcase, November 12-25, allowing gamers one free hour over a two-week period to sample the game.

WHERE:
• Launch Party: 50 select iGames member centers across the United States and Canada.
• Showcase: 100 additional iGames member centers.

ABOUT THE GAME:
From Flagship Studios –fathers of the action role playing genre – comes Hellgate: London, the next benchmark in the evolution of the RPG genre.
Combining the depth of traditional RPGs with the frenetic, visceral feel of first-person shooters, Hellgate: London offers infinite replayability with dynamically created levels, monsters, items and events that gives each player their own unique hack-and-slash experience.

A post-apocalyptic London has been overrun by hordes of terrifying demons, leaving the city desolate and scorched by hellfire. Those who were unlucky enough to survive now gather in the only sanctuary left, the Underground, banding together in order to gain a foothold against the minions of darkness and ultimately save the bloodline of humanity.
It is no surprise that these sole survivors come from three of society’s most elite factions, each of whom are masters of a robust number of skills and weapons essential to demon-thrashing.

The Templar, a secret society preserving the rites of the original Knights Templar, mix futuristic technology with ancient artifacts to create powerful weapons and armor perfect for short-ranged and melee attacks.
The Cabalists are students of the dark arts and edges of science which often leaves them standing right on the line between good and evil. Their mystifying spells make them suited for mid-range combat.
The Hunters are mysterious, highly trained ex-military operatives who lay waste to their foes with hyper-advanced weapons that blend theoretical science and the latest in technology – and their bullets can come from almost any distance.
Hellgate: London delivers an amazing gaming experience to PC gamers of all types – delivering the eye-popping DX10 visuals demanded by the hardcore, and scaling to ensure the masses of casual RPG players can still get the best performance on older PCs.
Hellgate: London is rated “M” for “Mature” with descriptors Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Violence, by the ESRB and comes with a MSRP of $49.99. For more information about the title, visit: http://www.hellgatelondon.com.

Hellgate video game explain in game adware

EULA (End-User License Agreement) Explained

We just made some big announcements about Hellgate: London, and it’s been great to see all of the excited comments regarding what we have in store for our players on day one and onward. On the flip side, we’ve also heard grumblings about the EULA that went out with our DX9 single-player demo.

We want to make something very clear. We are in no way scanning your computers for your personal information or taking any personal information without your knowledge. The only time that Flagship or Ping0 would collect your personally identifiable information is when you actually decide to give it to us. Examples are when you create an account for Hellgate: London online or when you provide us your personal information when you enter a contest.

The language in the portion of the EULA that has been cited is actually fairly standardized language that is used in the vast majority of EULAs for recent on-line software. It was unfortunately also somewhat broad in scope and potentially ambiguous in nature in an attempt to keep the legalese at a minimum.

This catch-all statement was included so that we have the ability to determine if someone is using hacks, unauthorized mods or other abusive applications while playing the game which spoils the gameplay for everyone else. We also use this catch-all to protect other parties offering technical support, such as our online provider, Ping0.

This is a completely legitimate function and other leaders in the MMO space do it in an effort to stop hackers and provide better technical support. In order to stop hacks and cheats, as well as attempts at outright fraud, we may need the ability to scan our player’s computers for applications running at the same time as our game.

This paragraph was designed to be able to allow for such functionality. It is also important to point out that EA does not determine what we do in regards to online and offline for our game security.

Hellgate Beta's In-Game Ads Raise Eyebrows

IGN.com has put up a post discussing the new EA/Flagship game Hellgate: London, and the in-game advertisements it includes to facilitate targeted marketing.

Though ads in games aren't exactly new, some Beta testers are objecting to their apparently off-putting presence. Users have also noted that accepting the game's EULA means you submit to the collection of 'technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware'."

The Software incorporates technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive") that enables in-game advertising, and the display of other similar in-game objects, which are uploaded temporarily to your personal computer or game console and replaced during online game play.

As part of this process, Massive may collect your Internet protocol address and other basic anonymous information, and will use this information for the general purposes of transmitting and measuring in-game advertising. Massive does not store or use any of this information for the purpose of discovering your personal identity. For additional details regarding Massive’s in-game advertising practices, and to understand your options with respect to in-game advertising and data collection, please see Massive's privacy policy. The trademarks and copyrighted material contained in all in-game advertising are the property of the respective owners. Portions of this product are © 2007 Massive Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play.

EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

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