Hellgate: London Monthly Fee Or Not?
January 11, 2007Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper dropped a bombshell at CES yesterday. The multiplayer portion of their upcoming Diablo-ish FPS/RPG Hellgate: London will be subscription based, which means you will have to “pay-to-play”. He said the game will offer a free trial of some sort, and maybe even some sort of limited free play. There will be a beta test of the service before the game launches. Mr. Roper stated quite plainly that Flagship considers Hellgate an MMORPG, with a full guild system in place, continually added content and raiding and other such MMORPG-ish activities. A dedicated team of workers will add new content to the game and there will also be a “hardcore” mode, probably similar to the one found in Diablo II.
However, in a new interview with Ivan Sulic, Flagship Studios’ community manager states that a pricing structure hasn’t been set in stone yet for the multiplayer portion of the game, and in fact EA itself is saying now that the game may or may not have a subscription based multiplayer.
Is this all one big misunderstanding or rather a publicitystunt?
And what makes a game an MMORPG. Does Hellgate: London fit the usual criteria of an MMORPG? If the multiplayer portion of the game is $5 a month, will you pay for it? If it is $15 a month, will you pay for it? I know I would not. Feel free to share your opinions.
UPDATE: Hellgate London Elite Multiplayer will cost $9.95/month (location specific)
I want this game to be free -.- if its not free or really cheap like 5$ a month then im not playing it and it requires 50$ purchase of game and then monthly feee might as go play wow which isnt even that good
If you have a monthly cost I won’t even buy the game, I have 1 MMORPG that I play and that is enough, even if it is a cheap 5$ a month, add the purchase cost and the shipping (as there are no game stores near me) and you get a rather large bill..
I was first interested in the game because it brings what looks like a really fun cooperative multiplayer mode. and it was just the initial purchase cost..
Im no expert but with a monthly cost… your gonna lose alot of purchases, and you wont keep them for very long i don’t think, as a typical MMORPG brings more than just zombie/monster slaughter to the scene… there nothing wrong with getting a few people together and going out to massacre enemies… i find it rather amusing, but im not willing to pay for it on a monthly basis.
just my 5 cents
it all depends what the price is.
if it is 5 bucks then heck yes! one year is 5×12=60 bucks, and if you decide you want to take a break then don’t pay and just play single player.
even so, haveing no cost, like diablo 2, would be the defenent selling point for me. Free online play? bring it on!
Indeed SSA, if it would be free multiplayer action, I’m sure there will be a huge community behind it short after the release. However, charging 5€ seems a bit useless to me since all other high-profile games who do require a monthly fee charge a lot more. When you charge money for the game anyway, why not make it equal to the standards? In my opinion it’s mostly the monthly paying for a game itself that is the big step people have to pay, whether it is 5 or 15€ wouldn’t really matter.
[...] Hellgate: London Elite Multiplayer $9.95/mo May 10th, 2007 As an update to January’s post the latest issue of Games for Windows Magazine has revealed the elite subscription pricing behind [...]
I know I would not pay it. I have several other friends who were as excited about this game comming out back in December and January as I was. We were excited because we heard it would be free. It is douche-tastic of them to decide a month before it comes out that it will probably have a monthly fee. I say monthly fees are good for one thing: “For me to poop on.”
I wouldn’t pay for Hellgates multiplayer. If Ncsoft can produce Guildwars as a free monthly MMORPG then why can’t other companies?
I agree with Chewie. If NCsoft can do it Flagship can as well. Plus, the way they are proposing this fee would make for a completely unfair community. One where the option of paying made you a “god” and not made you bum.
“Can not use ‘elite’ items. It should be noted that elite items are not more powerful/unbalanced items but rather have flashier appearances or simply new items that still fit in the overall balance scheme.”
Quote off of the hellgate london homepage
its not going to be unbalanced in terms of elite vs basic
http://www.hellgateguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81122&postcount=301
There is the official post
it seems like it will be balance, just that you cant get new content (like quests/stages etc)
this makes sense, because you would be paying the $ for an expansion too… and new levels/quests dont just make themselves
I would say that hellgate: london might be a tasty game.. but if the wanna beat world of warcraft, they most skip the monthly fees, so that more people has the lust to buy the game – you know greedishness shines through.. and as there was said.. how can Guild Wars be free.. when other games can’t.
It looks like all the good stuff is available to elite members (elite items, making guilds, etc.) that have to pay $9.95 for it. Just gonna keep playing Guild Wars
Forget Hellgate London
With the closed beta running, I have received a lot of positive comments on the gameplay. This game is possibly the unofficial Diablo 3. Play the demo, and see if it’s as good as most people say. Perhaps then the monthly fee is something worth thinking of.
man who would pay for play on hardcore mode waste of money
i better whipe my back with these money isntead of paying for it 
multiplayer should be free for all , anyone ca ncreate server and others join it with some limitations seted. Why you need to pay for it additional if its good game why they worring about not getting enough from it.
i dont agree with monthly fee’s atall. i play guild wars and they seem to be doin fine. why cant the selfish ******** just have it for free?
In my opionion If Hellgate wanna beat the Other MMORPG like WoW Everquest( That are Monthly fees) they should make it Free, Hellgate Looks Good and i play WoW and now i think Hellgate will Own it and any other game. BUT if they wanna make it a successful game they would consider it free. There are alot of games that are free why cant this one be free…the monthly fee is only for the Support and the Maintainence….its not like 9 bucks will change the Techies life LOL they make like 1mil or so a year or something like that. why would they want 9 bucks more or whatever the price is gunna be!.. ill buy the game if its free cuz i aint paying for another game stuff that!:P
Those 9 bucks are a world of difference if every user out of 9 million pays it. A little calculation: 9,000,000 users * 9 € = 81,000,000 €
totally agree guild wars is doing fine with free play and is going from strengh to strengh.
what makes me mad more than any thing is the fact you are going to get the players who think they are far better than than the people who dont pay.also so the fact you will be shackled when it comes to game play .when you buy the game which is about 30.00 pounds you would expect to get the full game but if they are going to stop you playing certain parts of the game unless you pay how is this fair
If Diablo and Diablo II could be run without monthly fees by Blizzard, and could supposedly be the sequel to it, don’t you think they could just have it the exact same way…? They already have WoW going, it’s not like they’re losing ANY money at all… selfish bastards.
the last poster apparently doesn’t realize Hellgate London is NOT a blizzard game.
Doesn’t change the fact though that it’s kind of rediculous to charge people basic costs+ money for 3d chat rooms + instanced multiplayer
The game is being made by a lot of former Diablo coders/designers, and therefore I guess Achen referred to it. Guild wars is also made by former Diablo coders, cfr. the ArenaNet system.
Why evry good thing in the world is expensive!
I will not pay a monthly fee for any game from any producer. The fact that they do offer a multiplayer aspect that is free is nice, but the gap between the elite players will be to much to compete with. Besides, PvP is what all these games turn into after slaughtering monsters is done and if the other players have advantages, where is the fun.
I cannot help but think that $10 a month can go towards feeding some children that have no food to eat. For me to pay that, would be selfish on my part. On the other hand, I would pay over the standard $50 US for a game that has continued support and updates. I think $100 would be my limit, but then I would want everything available, no two versions of the game.
There will never be another Diablo II with this type of gaming mentality. Perhaps there is hope in ID software…
does HL have monthly fee or not?