Project lead and programmer Travis Baldree recently wrote a goodbye letter to the MMORPG's beta test community as he prepared to depart from Flagship. Here reads part of Travis' letter:

Well, it's an interesting few days here for all of us. It's just been killing me not to post until now, but I really needed to wait until some things were settled and announced. As you may or may not know Flagship Studios laid off almost all employees effective friday - you should be able to see the press release in the Announcements. Now, on the face of it, that really does sound like the end of Mythos as we know it - but we have a tight-knit team that feels like family and hopes to stick together. Unfortunately, I can't speak at any real length about our immediate plans just yet - but let's say that we hope to have you back up and Beta testing for us in one way or another sometime soon.

I'm sad to hear this news. We consider Flagship's hellgate: london as a failure, that's because we gave to much hope to this game. We believed it's a great game and compare it with diablo3. It's unfair indeed.

Anyway, hope they can survive and continue their work, best wishes to Flagship!

In a weblog post lamenting Hellgate: London's lack of success and describing the developer's work environment as "depressing," Flagship audio and gameplay programmer Guy Somberg claims that the studio's staff, including programmers, accountants, human resources personnel, and artists, has been leaving "in droves."

Somberg has since taken down the post but a cache of the page is still available. According to the programmer, Flagship's founders are still at the company but are working on projects outside of Hellgate: "The only one still actively on Hellgate is [technology director Tyler Thompson], but Tyler’s not programming anymore; he spends all of his time on management activities."

With rumors of even more artists and programmers planning to leave the Hellgate developer, Somberg commented, "Thing is, the way things are going I’m likely to be the only programmer still working on Hellgate left from the original crew."

Released for PCs in October, 2007, Hellgate: London's launch received criticism for its bugs, slowdowns, and crashes, among other issues. Somberg, however, has high hopes for the MMORPG in the Asian market: "Y

The friendly folks at Flagship Studios recently sent a set of Mythos screens exclusively for Ten Ton Hammer readers. Mythos, currently in Closed Beta, is the latest massively-multiplayer online game from the people who made Hellgate: London. Set in the fantasy world of Uld, Mythos challenges players to fight an incroaching evil in game play very similar to Diablo II and Fate, both of which are games members of the Flagship Studios crew have had a hand in creating.

Flagship Studios posted a lengthy expanation about its somewhat dubius Hellgate London EULA which basically states they have the right to scan your computer and report what software programs you have installed and other fun stuff like that. Long story short, they just want to prevent cheating:

We just made some big announcements about Hellgate: London, and it’s been great to see all of the excited comments regarding what we have in store for our players on day one and onward. On the flip side, we’ve also heard grumblings about the EULA that went out with our DX9 single-player demo.

We want to make something very clear. We are in no way scanning your computers for your personal information or taking any personal information without your knowledge. The only time that Flagship or Ping0 would collect your personally identifiable information is when you actually decide to give it to us. Examples are when you create an account for Hellgate: London online or when you provide us your personal information when you enter a contest. The language in the portion of the EULA that has been cited is actually fairly standardized language that is used in the vast majority of EULAs for recent on-line

Well geeze. It looks like if you buy Hellgate London from the EA store, the game unlocks tomorrow. Thanks, Brian Williams.

In other EA store news, if you pre-order Crysis, the game unlocks 3 days earlier than retail, plus you can download the SP demo on Thursday.

The kicker? EA's download service has a somewhat colorful history in terms of quality and support.

Do you feel lucky? Do ya?!

 

Update: Flagship is unaware of any such offer, although the EA store has yet to change its deal.

Long story short, the official [closed/secure] multiplayer servers probably won't be up and running until 10/30, but if this deal stays intact, you might still be able to play single player and unranked co-op games.

We'll see what happens at Midnight...

 

Flagship Seattle introduces new zone and content for highly anticipated free MMORPG

Ping0, LLC, a joint-venture between Flagship Studios and HanbitSoft, Inc., today announced the expansion of the closed beta program for the highly anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game Mythos™.

The expansion of the closed beta program will begin with the introduction of a new zone, Bloodbristle Heath, and the outpost town of Tulin’s Hope. Roughly doubling the size of the Mythos universe, this new content will include new levels, monsters, quests, items, and skills. To request an invitation to the closed beta, interested gamers should sign up at the official website: http://www.mythos.com/join_kingdom.jsp

If you really want the Collector's Edition of Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London, now is the perfect time to place that pre-order while supplies last. According to a post on Hellgate: London's official website, the Collector's Edition of this PC MMORPG is almost sold out. After the game ships, only Regular Edition copies will be produced.

On the same post, Flagship announced that server tests planned for Saturday may cause a downtime this weekend. When Hellgate: London goes back up, players will have to download a new build to play. No need to worry about your characters though, because there shouldn't be a wipe.

Folks from Flagship recently stated they were doing lots of server tests as the game's launch comes close. Devs are aiming for October 31, while Beta testers can hang around Hellgate: London for now.

MYTHOS/HELLGATE: LONDON: A couple of quick Flagship Studios stories in the news today. Firstly, the MYTHOS team are reportingthat due to a company-wide focus on getting HELLGATE: LONDON ready forits Halloween debut, the latest MYTHOS update has been delayed. Theteam promise a nice, fat “Zone 2″ patch will be arriving soon.

Secondly, a fire might have broken out(they’re not too sure) in the building where HELLGATE: LONDON is beingfeverishly created. I for one, find it slightly amusing that an actualfire flared up where they are busy creating artificial fires of hell.No one was injured.

“The fire alarm went off. The power went out. We allevacuated the building and waited in what felt like 100mph SF winds.What happened? Actually, we don’t really know what caused the alarm togo off, nor on which floor the fire was on (or if there even was afire). We can tell you that it wasn’t at Flagship or Ping0, and thatwe’re all safe and back at our desks. Sorry if you ran into any sitebugs last night - we were in the middle of adding some features rightwhen the power went out.”

The doors of hell will be opening for PC owners on October 31--the traditional date that ghosts are said to be able to make contact with the living--in North America.

Hellgate: London, which is made by some of the key developers of Diablo, has gamers play as a survivor of a demon invasion of London, battling the supernatural beasts and attempting to find some way to stop their takeover of the planet.

The title, which is published by EA and Namco Bandai, will also be released in Europe a few days later on November 2. For more on the game, please read GameSpot's interview with Flagship CEO Bill Roper.