Shanghai. October 30. INTERFAX-CHINA - "It is I who first posted the article revealing that the source code for Hellgate: London had been hacked," an MSN Messenger user under the handle 'Hellgate: London Source Code Inquiry' recently told Interfax.

Truthfully, when trying to think of the differences, one of the biggest paradigm shifts has been from party-based play to a single hero focus. With my old favorites, like the Wizardry, Bard's Tale, or Might and Magic series, you would create a complete party of six before setting foot in the world. Even in the Ultima games, you'd end up leading Iolo and Dupre into every encounter.

I grew up on the Bard's Tale and Wizardry series, as well as the fabled Gold Box series from SSI. Wizardry in particular was seminal in cementing my desire to create games, and I have very fond memories of it. But when I went back to play, all those things that I took for granted as just being a part of a game were honestly cumbersome and frustrating. Having to sit through one combat that literally took six minutes as I painstakingly slashed my way through four groups of 99 monsters was mind numbing. The "3D" walk through the world that was captivating at that time was warmly "old-timey" compared to how movement and combat are handled today - even when using a similar die roll-based system.

Strategy Informer: Where did the idea of Hellgate: London come about?

Bill Roper: The day after we left Blizzard North, Erich & Max Schaefer and I met with David Brevik in the front room of his house. We discussed forming a new game company and then started throwing around ideas for our first game. After a while, David proposed the core concept for Hellgate: London - a completely randomized RPG played from the first person perspective. The shorthand idea was Diablo II meets Half Life 2.

TVG: Why was the decision made to create the Ping0 system, and what advantages does it offer to both Flagship Studios and gamers?

While working on the plans and technologies required to bring Hellgate: London into the MMO space, we felt the best chance to meet the demands of our game and our players would be to create our own online destination. This meant more than creating the technology, but also building up the infrastructure and coordinating customer service. Ping0 offers a unique combination of talents and experience in the realms of online gaming and publishing to offer a seamless, simple to use, stable and secure environment for gamers.

Watching Roper play, with his goatee, a Hellgate: London t-shirt, and a serious gaming face on, you'd think he was just another gamer enjoying his favorite MMO. But this is the DigitalLife expo in New York's Jacob Javits center, where the creators and average gamers come face-to-face. Bill Roper is actually co-founder and CEO of Flagship Studios, a company made of former executives and developers from Blizzard North who created the Diablo franchise. Roper's earliest work dates back to 1994 on the PC title Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, where he served as a producer and voice actor. Now, Flagship's first title will be in direct competition with Blizzard for the online PC gaming market with Hellgate: London.

Fünf Gamer-Typen haben die Datensammler von Jung von Matt/next ausgemacht: Freizeit-, Intensiv-, Gewohnheits-, Denk- und Fantasiespieler. Sogar einen Blick in ihre Kühlschränke durften die Scouts werfen.

Die ersteren, die Freizeitspieler, stellen mit einem Anteil von über 50 Prozent die größte Gruppe und - für manchen vermutlich schon die erste Überraschung - sind im Schnitt 44 Jahre alt. Die zweite Überraschung: Die Hälfte der Mitglieder dieser Gruppe ist weiblich.

Die Flagship Studios und Publisher Hanbit Soft haben einen neuen Partner für die Vermarktung von Hellgate: London im südost-asiatischen Raum bekannt gegeben. Die Firma IAH (Infocomm Asia Holdings) wird für die Veröffentlichung und den Kundenservice unter anderem in Singapur, Vietnam und Thailand verantwortlich sein. Besiegelt wurde das Geschäft nicht in Maßanzügen und mit teuren Federhaltern, sondern mit Schwertern. Die asiatischen Kollegen von CNet haben in einem Artikel zu diesem Thema folgendermaßen kommentiert:

IAH has secured the regional license for these two huge games, and will now consolidate the market by working with a partner in each country. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that IAH has raised US$10 million in its seed round of financing. Now that's some war chest for a start-up.

In addition to more Dark Horse comic books, we have Simon & Schuster novels, TOKYOPOP mangas and Weta Collectible figures in the works. For details on all those, please keep checking back right here.

Neben allen bekannten großen Messen wie der E3, der Games Convention und der Tokyo Game Show gibt es noch zahlreiche kleinere Messen überall auf der Welt. Normalerweise ist "hochkarätiger" Besuch bei den kleineren Vertretern dieser Art eher selten, jedoch konnte sich die DigitalLife, eine viertägige Messe in New York, nicht nur Microsoft als Anbieter eines Messestandes rühmen, sondern mit dem Softwareriesen auch die Entwickler von Hellgate: London, welches dort als Werbeprodukt für das kommende Windows Vista benutzt wurde. Die Zeitung The Philadelphia Inquirer hat auf ihrer Internetpräsenz einen Artikel zu diesem Thema, in dem auch Bill Roper zu Wort kommt:

Each of the three consoles has one operating system and a hardware set that every game is written for. PCs will always have different configurations, but Vista should be able to handle all of that. It should mean less patches for PC games and a better chance that games will run on your computer.