Hellgate: London is promised to be regularly updated after its release, to offer worthwhile exclusive content for those who opt into its $9.95 subscription fee, and to still be a fully-featured online experience for those who do not. It's a tall order. How does developer Flagship Studios plan to pull it off?

In the final days before the game's release, I met with Flagship Studios' Bill Roper in a small San Francisco sandwich shop to discuss just that. Roper briefed me on the immediate Halloween content and the seasonal content that will immediately follow, the first major content expansion for subscribers coming in December, responses to criticisms of the beta, plans for other near-future additions, the possibility of a full retail expansion, and the team's attitude towards incorporating fan feedback.

December's "Patch 1"
The first major set of new subscriber content will come in Patch 1, an ambitious package set to release this December. For some context, the tweak-heavy Patch 0 that will go live when the game launches weighs in at around 30MB, while Patch 1 is closer to 300MB. In general, Flagship plans to release that level of new material approximately every three months, meaning Patch 1 is coming earlier than it would have. Roper said Flagship felt a December release made sense for the first new content expansion, slotting into the holiday season and providing an initial example of what players can expect long-term.

Patch 1 will add a new hub, the first to be located outside the city of London. It deals with Stonehenge which, unlike the city of London itself, has proven to be impervious to demon attacks. Roper showed me some artwork of the Stonehenge locale, which has the iconic standing stones remaining untouched despite the surrounding earth being utterly destroyed. The henges themselves will serve as transportation portals for players among the various new areas, as humanity attempts to figure out how to harness the power contained within them to push the demonic incursion back.

Along with the new hub and surrounding areas will of course be new monsters, items, quests, and even potentially new classes; the latter has been promised to come to subscribers in content patches, though it is not clear if Patch 1 will include new classes. Unsurprisingly, Flagship isn't providing many further details just yet, with the main game not even yet on store shelves.

How does Flagship plan to maintain its stated quarterly schedule? "We're already hiring up again," he responded, adding that the upcoming Guy Fawkes content (see below) has been a good testbed for how long it takes to create various types of content. Flagship developers plan to work on multiple patches concurrently. "We don't want to be in crunch mode week after week," said Roper.

Auction Houses and Mail
Without actually touching on the question of whether Hellgate is an MMO, the game will be getting some more traditionally MMO-like features, such as item auction houses and in-game mail. Such features will be available for all users, both subscribers and non-subscribers.

When will we be seeing these additions? "As soon as possible," promised Roper, clarifying that with those kinds of broad game features Flagship will not be waiting to slot them into the normal patch schedule. Whenever they're ready, they'll be in--hopefully before Patch 1.

Launch Tweaks and Responses to Criticism
I shared with Roper one of the chief criticisms of Hellgate: London's beta phase, the overly repetitive nature of the environments. He was aware of the concerns, and in fact had a rebuttal to those holding them. "We have as many, if not a few more, locations than in Diablo II," he said, but pointed out that they are not separated in the same hard-edged "act" structure of that game. He also noted that beta players have still yet to see the fourth and fifth acts, present in the shipping game but not the beta, which he describes as wildly different from the first three.

Still, in an attempt to ameliorate those complaints, Flagship has readjusted the environment flow, grouping environments more according to their theme, and hopefully providing an experience that feels better separated into discrete acts. This tweak will be enabled once Patch 0 goes live and the game is officially launched.

A main frustration of mine with Hellgate has been its approach to weapon stats and comparisons--items include a fairly long list of attributes and statistics, but boil them down into a single "power rating" that can be arguably difficult to use as a practical real-world metric. I asked Roper if there are any plans to provide a more straightforward "damage per second" rating on weapons or characters. To my surprise, he answered that Flagship is actually trying to look for solutions to that very problem, but it is more complex than many players may think.

"It's really hard," he explained. "The weapons all work so differently. Is it direct damage? Is it splash? What about modding? Do we have four DPS [damage per second] numbers depending on the weapon's damage types? So we tried to have this big number instead, but it's kind of a bitch because there are so many mods you can put on things. We spent a lot of time on that."

I pressed him further regarding the team's willingness to modify basic game systems such as the way Hellgate displays damage. "If someone comes up with a better way to do it, we'll look at it," he said. In general, he noted, Flagship is open to hearing and implementing fan feedback if appropriate.

Turn the page for details on Flagship's attitude towards Hellgate's subscriber content versus non-subscriber content, potential ideas for retail expansions, and upcoming seasonal content.