Thursday, January 22, 2009

HGLD Updates!


Hellgate: London, Future Updates are All About Stronger Community

Seoul, Korea - January 23, 2009 – HanbitSoft, Inc. announced today that Hellgate: London, an online action RPG developed by Redbana US Studio, will focus its future updates on strengthening community features. During Hellgate: London’s meeting with fan gamers on the 16th, producers and marketing managers revealed plans regarding the direction of future development and new features to be updated.

Maintaining the Speedy, Thrilling Action Game Elements and Strengthening the Community System

Hellgate: London’s future development direction will be focused on strengthening community features while maintaining the speedy and thrilling action game elements, as many users have wanted better community functionality for quite some time. HanbitSoft revealed the new content that is to be included in the next large-scale patch, which is expected to be released soon. In the upcoming update, HanbitSoft plans to combine the two game play modes, unifying the split two communities into one. Also planned are class balance improvements and differentiation of each of the 5 acts. Gamers who attended the conference applauded this announcement.

Hellgate: London Switches Over to a Free-to-Play Model

During the conference, HanbitSoft also announced that Hellgate: London will soon be serviced in a free-to-play model. This was the first time that any related official announcements had been made. HanbitSoft explained that by switching over to a free-to-play model, users will feel less burdened, opening the doors to a larger, more diverse gaming community. The date of the free-to-play switch over is undetermined at this point, but HanbitSoft stated that more news will be released through the official Hellgate: London website soon.

For more information, visit the official Hellgate: London website at
http://hg.hanbiton.com/ or contact Janelle Ha at hBonkiE@hanbitsoft.co.kr.

13 comments:

Braindead Gaming said...

Why are you guys only let koreans play Hellgate? There are people, like me, who have followed the game all the way from the first post in the internet until today. We are now getting shut down for good, but why? Are Europeans and the rest of the world uninteresting for you? Is our money not good enough for you? I put over 300€ into Hellgate and Websites and Goodies and I am not the only one. I am not asking for refund, I love to have helped with my money, the only thing I really want, is to keep my Hellgate and get Mythos back.

AzraelDarkbringer said...

I guess the real question is as follows:

Considering the US/EU servers are going to shut down on February 1st, 2009, does Hanbitsoft plan on extending server support for the US/EU region? If so, wouldn't that throw Hanbitsoft into conflict with Namco, as they are (or rather claim to be) the sole publisher with rights to the US/EU domains? Furthermore, if you do plan on keeping the US/EU servers open, making some sort of Official Announcement (tm) would go a long way to alleviating concerns of players in these two regions. Thank you for your time.

Chris said...

Is this global or Asia servers only?

Unknown said...

yes! please please please let Hellgate happen again in North America. If Hanbit doesn't do it, I dont know who will...

Ambrielstacksnorpenticlestormockinty said...

Well, it's over for Hellgate in NA, EU and Japan.

The ball is in your court Hanbitsoft. I can understand you not willing to spend the money to do as little as:

* Set up an interface on your website to allow for users who are non-Korean residents to register with Hanbiton and log into the Hellgate: London server.

- It seems to me that you are only encouraging a few individuals outside of Korea to commit identity fraud by using fake or stolen Korean Social Security Numbers. There ARE already at least a few people in the US who are playing on your Hellgate: London server. Perhaps you do not care about how they've obtained their ID numbers since..

Oddly, You HAVE gone to the trouble to set up English chat rooms for the Korean Hellgate server itself...


But please, do not take what I am saying as hostile. I am just pointing out that there are people who will go to desperate measures to play and experience Hellgate: London. This may only get worse now that the servers that were hosted by the vile entity known as Namco-Bandai has canceled service.

Also consider the fact that aside from a few inferior products, there really is nothing that comes close to Hellgate: London on the market today. I think you would be selling yourself short by not at least finding some way to bypass Namco - Bandai's bizzare insistence that you cannot host servers in North America and other regions.

As I have said, the ball is in your court. Myself and the remaining Hellgate: London fans are eager to see you do something. Please don't let this be the end of Hellgate: London for the rest of the world.

Unknown said...

Guys,

Forget it. You're flogging a dead horse.

HanbitSoft don't care about you OR your money, or else they would have spent a little more time communicating with us.

The NA/EU servers are down and it looks like they're going to stay that way.

HanbitSoft refuse to make ANY kind of statement regarding the furture of HG:L in NA/EU and it's pretty clear that they either do not have the legal ability or the motivation to provide HG:L service to those areas.

I tend to agree with the sentiment that Namco are vile in the way they've handled this, but from the looks of things, I'm having a hard time seeing HanbitSoft's callous silence anything but vile as well.

Ambrielstacksnorpenticlestormockinty said...

I won't deny that their silence has been anything less than insulting. It would perhaps do a lot of good for the hangers-on (such as myself) to just come out say: "No we're not going to do it."

Otherwise, they may be just as insidious as Namco-Bandai. And even more so, criminal by practically condoning the practice of identity theft/falsification (even if it is just blokes trying to play a video game).

Are you listening Hanbitsoft? I'm sure you've had enough time to do so. It doesn't take much put an end to rumors. As I said before, the ball is in your court. Just letting it sit there is only going to leave impressions of apathy or even worse, xenophobia.

Josie said...

I beg your pardon and apology that we trouble you with our questions, but we were a small family guild in Hellgate: London (father, son, daughter-in-law) and we loved it so much to play together in the evening. After the end of the server in Europe we all have the feeling, that we have lost something important in our live.
Please, can you communicate us, whether there is a tiny chance that this 'Best Game of the World' will goes online also into Europe again sometime?
For a small report with an approximate timeframe we would be very, very grateful.
Vienna, Austria

Unknown said...

Best wishes to your Hellgate team. The game has so much potential that was wasted by releasing before it was ready. I'd like to play it again so hoping you're able to sort out the legal and other issues needed to rerelease in Australia.

Markus said...

Please give us some information about how you are going to handle the whole situation for the hlg:london world outside korea.
I personally would like to play on your servers even when logging on from Germany.
And i know may others that would love to aswell.
Please just don't keep up the silence even if the answers are negative for the community.

Markus

Unknown said...

I would love to see the game back in the states. It is by far one of the most fun games to date.

Hellgate fan Joe

Dany said...

Did I buy This game for shit ? if i can not connect to any servers, do i will play on solo only ? on the box of the game it clearly say MUTLIPLAYER !! WHAT DO I DO NOW ????

The problem of the game in EU/US is not my problem they did sell the game in EU/US, so they took the money, but now they left and no one maintain a service support and even game service on my region ? is this fair ?


I am Really Frustrated about this game, who in fact is a good game when you played hours on multiplayer and have perso with good items and high lvl so tell me pls what can i do ? , do i put the game on the dust box ?


shit.

Unknown said...

Dear Sirs, Please let all of us devoted HGL fans know if you plan to allow any access to the multiplayer game from the US/EU/Austrailia. the new developments your company is planning sound very much like what many of us here were wanting out of the game while flagship was still running it. we are a devoted fanbase, and would very much like to play alongside new and existing fans in korea.

thank you very much for your time and consideration.