Flagship's Roper On Hellgate: London's Online Plans

Following Hellgate: London's presence at the recent CES in Las Vegas, Flagship Studios' CEO Bill Roper has spoken to Gamasutra, revealing a number of details concerning the upcoming PC role-playing game, including its online component, which has up to now remained largely a mystery. Regarding the game's presence at CES, a show that is traditionally more heavily focused on hardware rather than software and games, Roper seemed pleased at the reception his latest project was given at the event, even going so far as saying that he was “shocked at how much attention and coverage we received.” “The game was on display and playable at the Microsoft, Intel, NVidia and Dell booths, we had a TON of people drop by to offer encouragement, support and play the game,” he commented. “We were also honored to be included in both the keynote speeches given by Bill Gates and Michael Dell.” Looking to the game itself, Roper spoke candidly regarding Hellgate: London's online components, which interestingly he openly compared to those found in other popular massively multiplayer online games. “We have always had the intention of providing a rich, robust, MMO gaming experience for our players,” stated Roper. His comments follow Flagship's August 2006 formation of Ping0, a joint venture designed to manage online services for Hellgate: London. He continued: “This means that we will be providing everything from a secure client/server infrastructure to 24/7 customer support to maintaining a complete live team to provide not only balance and bug fixes, but more importantly, continuing, ongoing content updates to the game. And while we are still finalizing the commercial and game aspects of our online plans, we can tell players that there will definitely be significant free online play.” However, the executive was quick to add that while the game's online component is currently enjoying a great deal of attention, players who are unable or unwilling to play the game online should still find reason to look forward to Hellgate's summer 2007 release. “Just as with the Diablo series,” commented Roper, “we’ve created a complete single player experience whose longevity of game play benefits from all of the randomization, rarity and customization you’d expect from us.” First announced in 2004, Hellgate: London is an action style role-playing game for the PC that is played from either the first or third-person perspective. Designed by former developers from Blizzard North and the creators of the world renowned Diablo franchise, the game promises “infinite playability” through the use of randomly created levels, items, and events.