Quote:Our original intention back in 2003 was not to leave Blizzard. We wanted some level of participation and direct communication with Vivendi’s home office in order to offer our insight, knowledge and desires as to their plans at the time in terms of a possible sale or IPO of the games unit. The level of uncertainty back then made it extremely difficult to plan for our futures, as well as the futures of our team members.

And with no long-term compensation or employment contracts in place, we wanted to be able to interact directly with the people making the key decisions that could drastically affect our lives and workplace. In the end, Vivendi chose not to make that opportunity available and accepted our resignations over the matter.

Quote:Gamasutra has an interview up with Bill Roper of Flagship Studios. He discusses why they left Blizzard, and what's up with Hellgate: London and Mythos.
This matches some of the rumors I'd heard. Anyway, see the full interview here.

Quote:Just as a side note, the Mythos beta is due to begin very soon:
http://www.mythos.com/

Quote:Just as a side note, the Mythos beta is due to begin very soon:

http://www.mythos.com/

though no indications yet about a possible release date.

Hellgate:London is currently in a closed friends and family alpha test. For those of us with absolutely nothing better to do, you can look at the alpha-login page here:

http://alpha.hellgatelondon.com/

There was already some sort of Korean public beta HG:L event in a big stadium, but no word yet about when the US beta will begin. The game was supposed to be released this summer (generously defined as before the end of September), but it's looking more and more like it will be pushed back a month or two from that.

Quote:It's actually up, though they haven't made any big announcement. Said they want to keep the population relatively low over the weekend. But Lurkers don't count towards the quota, right?:)

--me