Flagship may have lost the IP, but their overhyped MMO is still very much alive. Namco Bandai games have made an “official” annoucement by the means of a forum post:

Hello Hellgaters,

I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we’d love to make one — but right now, many things are in flux and we don’t have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we’ll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.

In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.

I’d like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.

__________________
Zack “Ozuri” Karlsson
Sr. Director, Business Development
NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Inc.

Hellgate: London - the game itself, continues to live along. For how long, that’s anybody’s guess. But with salty responses like these, it looks as if Hellgate: London already has one foot in the grave.

Everyone wants a piece of the MMO pie. Afterall, nowadays, it’s the most profitable genre on PCs. If everyone else is doing it, why must EA be left behind? BioWare is now developing a KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) MMO. yay.

We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it.

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online?  “Yes,” he said.

Flagship Studios is no longer the owner of Hellgate: London. The studio lost the IP to HanbitSoft. HanbitSoft’s reason of IP takeover:

HanbitSoft states that the reason it is pursuing this course of action is because “It is hard for us to accept Flagship Studios’ requests for continued support in capital and funding any longer and because Flagship was being difficult”, and because it co-owns a direct stake in the IP, it therefore “has a say in reviewing and determining any course of action to be taken with Hellgate: London.”

HanbitSoft is expected to take full control over the IP. HanbitSoft goes on to state that in doing so, it will be able to “properly manage and develop Hellgate: London into a good game with proper content”, with its own in-house team of developers.

Basically, Flagship did a miserable job and the korean developer took back the IP to fix the trainwreck RPG.

EVE Online is celebrating the launch of their 8th free expansion and are offering EVE Online at 10% reduced price for 1 week only.

To celebrate the launch of the eighth free expansion to Eve Online, the popular massively multi-player online game (MMOG) from CCP, the full game is available for 10% off its regular price for one week. The limited-time offer which includes the latest expansion, Empryean Age, is accompanied by the release of an impressive new trailer which is freely available now via Steam.

Flagship Studios will be releasing another patch for Hellgate: London. The patch will be available via game’s auto updater tomorrow in US/EU servers. Read me and info below:

Patch 1.3d introduces a few significant adjustments to gameplay, character creation, and one vendor NPC in particular. Players can now create Elite Mode characters (and subscribers can create Hardcore Mode characters) if their account has a character that reaches level 20 or above. The update also fixes a PRD bug and a character options issue.

Read Me: Read the rest of this entry »

More licensing revenue for Epic games as a Korean developer has bought a license for their upcoming MMO; L2.

Press Release:  

Seoul-based T-Entertainment today announced that it has licensed Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for an upcoming project codenamed L2, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

While staying true to the roots of T-Entertainment’s previous MMORPGs, Laghaim and Last Chaos, L2 draws on elements from role-playing (RPG) and real-time strategy (RTS) games, and can be described as “futuristic fantasy with a taste of space opera.” L2 is being developed for PC, and is scheduled for a worldwide release in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Swedish Developer, Lockpick Entertainment’s MMORTS will be hitting interweb on June 18th.

Press Release:  

The waiting is coming to an end and after the physical move of the servers earlier this week the team is ready to release their love child together with the community.

“We’re really happy to release The Reawakening now and I know that it is highly anticipated from the Dreamlords community. Drawing on experience from the development of our previous game Dreamlords but also through feedback and suggestions from our much devoted community, I’m convinced we’ve created the game we initially set out to produce last fall”, said David Rosén CEO and Executive Producer. “The Reawakening is in every perspective a game by gamers – for gamers and now I can only hope the players will have as much fun playing it as we’ve had developing it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Funcom’s MMO is doing really well in sales, infact, Age of Conan is now No.1 best selling title on the PC platform in Germany, UK, Australia, Italy, Sweden, Norway and Spain. Impressive.

Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan rises to number 1 on the PC charts, and the game even competes very well on the all-format lists. The normal edition is now sold out in many outlets due to the initial success of the game, and Funcom aims to resupply new boxes as fast as possible. With more than half a million customers, Age of Conan is already one of the biggest ever western MMO games, and this happens just a week after launch.

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In order to gobble up as many subscribers as possible, Age of Conan developer Funcom has tied up with PayByCash service. The service offers users 70 non-CC payment methods.

PayByCash, a division of Internet Payment Solutions, Inc., will provide non-credit card payment services for Funcom’s much anticipated, award winning Age of Conan massively multiplayer online game for PC. With the support of PayByCash, Funcom can offer Age of Conan subscribers throughout the world access to premium content through more than 70 payment methods not requiring a credit card.

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Funcom’s much hyped and anticipated MMORPGs has became one of the fastest selling PC titles of all of time — with 400,000 copies sold in the last few days. Full PR below:

Press Release:

Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan is one of the fastest selling PC games of all time. More than 400.000 gamers have entered Hyboria over the last few days, with almost half coming from the North American market. This amazing figure for a PC game shows that the positive pre-order trend has transferred into actual sales, and people from all over the world are now flocking to the most savage, sexy and brutal MMO ever created. Read the rest of this entry »