Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The greatest tragedy about the closure of Flagship last year – apart from a ton of good people losing their jobs, of course – was not the loss of dreary demon-basher Hellgate: London, but of the promising free-to-play Diablolike Mythos. Ditching the subscription fee was a dangerous experiment for Flagship, but Bill Roper and co never got to see if it worked. However, their sometime publisher Hannbitsoft managed to hang on to the license and tech upon Flagship’s demise, and they’ve just announced development has restarted. From a different studio, inevitably. How do we feel about this?
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And so the great Flagship saga/farce continues. The long-running Mythos beta closed down suddenly on Friday, with no word of when it’ll return, in either beta or release form. Boo.

Whichever lost souls are still haunting Flagship’s corridors attempted to make light of what’s officially and optimistically being termed “a hiatus”:

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.

Which is the roleplaying way of saying “Shit! The jig’s up!” Will the free-to-play MMO Diablolike ever return? I hope so. While it veered a little too close to genre stereotypes in its tone and mechanics, it was a fun old time – and I’m very keen to know whether free-to-play can work in the US/Europe.

Those of us hoping for a fairytale ending to the snowballing Flagship Studios saga aren’t going to get one. But we do get one of those ambiguous movie endings where whether the hero lives or dies after the credits roll depends on the viewer’s rationalisation/wishful thinking. Yes, a weird story gets weirder: despite reports of their demise since Friday, the troubled studio behind Hellgate: London and Mythos still functions.
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What on Earth’s going on with Flagship Studios? The short answer is it’s not entirely clear yet. But some newsmen are claiming that the creators of Hellgate: London, and the forthcoming Mythos, are shutting up shop, with the ownership and IP of both games transferring elsewhere. Blimey. How did it come to this?
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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.

Half the planet might be getting its knickers of skeleton slaying +1 in a twist about whether or not Blizzard will announce Diablo 3 this weekend, but it’s worth remembering we won’t be left starving of slick, hacky-slashy action-RPG treats if it isn’t. I’ve been tooling around in the Mythos beta lately, and Eurogamer have given me enough jelly beans to coax a preview out of me.

Mythos is a fascinating wee thing – as well as it quite clearly chasing both the Diablo and WoW audience, Flagship Studio’s reputation fair hangs on it after Hellgate went a bit awry. Plus, it’s one of them free to play affairs. There’s quite the chance it’ll absolutely massive. Find out a bit more about it, and how it’s changed dramatically in the last few weeks, over yonder.

I’ve really rather enjoyed what I’ve played of Mythos. It’s still a closed beta, so I’m not entirely sure what’s appropriate to say. It’s been in closed beta for about 240 years now, originally developed as a stress test for Hellgate’s servers, and quickly evolving into its own distinct self. In fact, it bears pretty much nothing in common with Hellgate, beyond the spanners. It’s a Diablo-like MMO (this is no shock when you realise it’s lead dev is Travis Baldree, creator of Fate, and will be utterly free to play.

The closed beta isn’t so easy to get into just now. However, there’s good news on the horizon. Flagship Studios Seattle have just relaunched the website, and opened Zone 3 for the testers to play with, along with the news, “Next stop, Open Beta!” It’s finally coming. To celebrate, there’s also the first new trailer in months to watch, which introduces you to the races and classes that will be available.

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Confused. Trying to play two MMOs at once really divides a man’s loyalties, not to mention totally messes with his ability to memorise hotkeys. My muscle memory is going haywire, tapping controls that do nothing or inadvertantly cause the usage of some precious potion I’d been saving for an emergency.

I’ll have to be brief about both MMOs, as one I’m under NDA for, the other I’m writing about for other taskmasters. Both deserve a few words, however. The latter is Sword of the New World, aka Granado Espada, which usually sounds like Granny Spaniel when I try and speak it aloud. It’s one of those Korean grind-centric MMOs even the most determined of games journos run a mile from. I was tricked into reviewing it by an editor pretending he thought it was an RTS. Actually, I’ve had fun, as it’s really spectacularly silly despite the inherent repetition. You control a party of three soft-focus anime-fantasy characters – in fact with a well-realised Spanish colonial twist here – rather than the usual one, and to compensate on-screen enemies number in the dozens.You can kill a hundred beasts in five minutes.

But that’s enough semi-critique – what I wanted to point out was that Gammy Spagetti can be played for free, right now, from here. Only for the first 20 character levels (though you can keep playing even after that, it’s just you won’t level any further), then you have to subscribe. I’ve a sneaking suspicion those 20 levels are all anyone really needs from this game, and at any rate there’s a good 10 or so hours of happyfuntime there. It’s more entertaining than these things possibly have any right to be – take a look.

The other is Mythos, currently in closed beta. Initially, I presumed this was a mere side-project for Flagship Studios, the ex-Blizzard crew working on Hellgate: London. Again, under NDA for now so have to be very, very vague, but I’m getting a funny feeling this might, in fact, turn out to be the main event. Just two things I’ll say about it – 1) if you thought World of Warcraft was the natural child of Diablo and Warcraft III gettin’ it on, think again. This would appear to be true bloodline. 2) My halfing-gunman character permanently chomps on a fat stogie. I’d happily have called him Colonel Fury if I wasn’t afraid of being booted out of the beta for it.

In both, I’m currently being bothered by giant evil wolves. I don’t know where I am anymore.