Hellgate:London

[Thecla]

I'd prepare to take the game, warts and all, and expect nothing to be fixed. That way, any features that are modified will be a pleasant surprise.

Ok --- I'll amend my previous statement to: "I hope this will be fixed".:)

But there are a couple of significant differences between HG:L and either Diablo. The good news is that FSS has said they're commited to continual game updates, in a way they weren't able to do with Diablo (hence, they would say, the subscription option). The bad news is that HG:L was, unfortunately, launched in an incomplete state, with a lot of bugs (crashes, bad UI, quests, skills,..) and features that aren't fully implemented (reputations, achievement points, shared stash, auction house...). Whatever complaints one might have about Diablo (or WoW) at launch, the issues with HG:L are much worse, I'm sorry to say.

I guess FSS decided that, for whatever reason, they needed to get the game out and they'd fix up any problems "going forward". So actually I do think, unlike Diablo, a lot of things in HG:L will be fixed. Probably the main obstacle will be how well the game does financially. If they get a lot of sales and a lot of subscription, or founders accounts, then they'll have the resources to fix it up. I do get the impression that FSS is working on a shoestring compared with Blizzard, say --- and clearly WoW has vast resources for its development. So if HG:L flops the whole thing may go down the toilet.

Beyond this, there may be a bigger issue of how many people want to play a Diablo-style hack'n slash game (which HG:L defintely is, and IMO a good one ) versus an EQ/WoW-type MMORPG.