Flagship on Hellgate

The Max Schaefer Interview on Eurogamer talks with the Flagship cofounder in a conversation that mostly centers around Mythos, their upcoming MMORPG. Towards the end of the article a question about lessons learned from Hellgate: London prompts a confession that they bit off more than they could chew with the action/RPG:
Oh yeah! [laughs]. If we made a mistake with Hellgate, it was trying to do too many things for too many people. We wanted a cutting edge graphics engine, we wanted multiple business models with subscriptions and free play, and single-player, we wanted to combine third-person play with first-person play, we wanted to do random 3D levels, and 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. We ended up rushing it to market and not keeping it in the oven long enough, just out of necessity.

We learned from that, and going forward as a studio, it's a new emphasis of ours to do things that are more efficient and better-planned, and smaller teams on smaller projects so we can get more ideas out there. With Mythos we're definitely taking our time, we're well within our budget and our means to make it. It's a little bit of a turning point for us - don't try to do everything for everybody. Just be more realistic about your design goals. Bring it back to nine tenths instead of ten tenths and things will go much sooner.
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Re: Mistake
Jul 7, 2008, 17:57
11.
Re: Mistake Jul 7, 2008, 17:57
Jul 7, 2008, 17:57
 
To date, there has only been one content update

Whoa. I knew Hellgate was bad, even commented on it profusely at release, but promptly quit playing about two weeks later. But 8+ months or so later and only one substandard content update?!?! And people paid $150+ for a lifetime subscription?! That is brutal! I'm so glad Flagship is going to "redeem" itself by releasing a cutsy little game as an afterthought that was originally developed simply to test a Hellgate engine. *heavy sarcasm intended*

This companies done. stick a fork in them!

Amen.

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