As many of us awaits more Diablo III goodness to be trickle down Blizzard’s milky teat, there are more than a few games out there to provide us with our Diablo “fix”, as I like to call it. I’ve written up a list of 5 of what I think are the best Diablo clones.
Dungeon Siege II
Let me say right off the bat that I hated Dungeon Siege. It wasn’t a bad game by any means, but nonetheless, I did not enjoy it. It played itself and all you had to do was click to move and spam the heal potion button every once in awhile. In stark contrast, Dungeon Siege 2 does not in fact play itself. In fact, I’d say that Dungeon Siege 2 is a lot of fun.
It’s set in a fantasy-steampunk world with clockwork devices, Uruk Hai-like legions of bad guys, crossbows, dryads who live in trees and elves. The story’s pretty run of the mill, but the locations are varied enough and the NPCs are somewhat interesting, though they are nowhere close to reaching Bioware-levels of character depth.
Titan Quest
Titan Quest is arguably the one Diablo clone that manages to capture the visceral feel of Diablo’s combat and take it to a whole new level. **** goes flying when you hit it with a bat. The only problem with all this hilarious brutality is that there’s no blood or dismemberment, so they feel like little more than indestructible ragdolls.
On the one hand, it’s very satisfying to see a monster go flying after you swat it with a maul, but on the other hand it’s very disappointing when they don’t explode into a fine bloody mist or have body parts flying away when you throw a fireball at them. It’s simply not vicious enough.
With the ‘death’ of Hellgate: London and Mythos, the collective staff of Hellgate Guru have shifted our focus to the one game that holds the most promise in all of our hearts and minds: Diablo III.
With that in mind, we’ve created Hellforge — It is not your average Diablo III fansite. To us it’s all about the community. At Hellforge, you tell us what you want to say and share your views with our innovative blogging system. It’s easier than posting on a forum, and we have those, too!
You can also share your own videos and images by uploading them for all to see. Writing your own blog, responding to one, or simply posting on a traditional forum? It’s all up to you.
Be a part of something special and join the Hellforge community.
A new studio called Runic Games has arisen from the ashes of Flagship Studios’ demise. I managed to get a hold of Travis Baldree, founder and president of Runic Games and formerly the creator of Mythos, to ask him a few things about his new studio and the plans he has in store for it.
While not strictly related to Blizzard, we’ve been following the progress of the former Flagship Studios’ developers, so this is relevant.
GameCyte has a new interview up with two of them who have started a new studio, Runic Games, who are Max Schaeferand Travis Baldree. The interview delves deep into why the company moved, why they think FSS failed like it did. It specifically mentions the current state of FSS right now as well. Specifically Max makes an emphasis on the fact that for all intents and purposes Flagship Studios is closed down, and Bill is just there to finish off the closure.
Max then goes on to talk about his brother and his involvement with the team. It then goes on to talk about if FSS had any chance of staying open. They then talk of the sorts of games they want to make with the new studios.
Next they talk about the game’s (Mythos) differentiation with Diablo 3 and Sacred 2, as well as the whole colour issue in Diablo 3. Lastly they mention that Namco at the moment is just handling the box sales of Hellgate London, but there is no current knowledge of what they plan to do with the game later.
WarCry network has posted up a new interview with Runic Games founder, Travis Baldree. He talks of the new studio, talks a little bit about Diablo 3 which may be their direct competition later, the sorts of games they want to make as well as what payment systems they are thinking of doing.
Diane “Tiggs” Migliaccio contacted me with the following news on behalf of Flagship Studios with regards to Mythos.
<blockquote>Travelers of Uld,
We, the ancient elders of Uld are issuing this warning to all citizens and travelers. Hurry! The great darkness that once plagued Uld is returning. Everyone is ordered to close down their shops and prepare. We predict the when night is at its peak the darkness will arrive. The ancient elders of Uld will be leaving immediately in order to preserve the lore of this wonderful world. Citizens please prepare thyself and know that the elders will be back from their travels some day.
From the team:
We regretfully announce that on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 11:59 CST the world of Uld known as Mythos will be going on hiatus. On behalf of all of the Devs and Community team we want to say thank you to everyone for their support and assistance with Mythos Alpha and Beta testing and we will see you soon.
Tiggs made a post on the Official Forums stating that both the official forums of Hellgate: London and Mythos will be shutting down.
On Friday, July 18th at Midnight (CST) the forums will be shutting down. We would like to thank everyone for being a part of this wonderful community and we hope to see you all again soon.
-Tiggs
See it for yourself. Thanks for the news tip, Swordplay. You shame me with your news finding abilities sometimes.
Travis Baldree, Project Lead and Programmer on Mythos created a thread on the official Mythos forum to bid his farewells to the Mythos community and other members of the Mythos team have since added their heartfelt goodbyes to the thread.
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.
You’ve been an incredible community that we’ve all felt priveleged to be a part of, and we’re not quite ready to let go of that little family just yet. No matter the outcome, this has been a fantastic experience, and I and the team would like to thank each and every one of you for the tireless hours of testing and discussion you’ve undergone, and the uniquely friendly community spirit that you all helped foster. It’s been a treat every step of the way.
So, I’m not exactly sure how long Mythos in its current form will remain up, since it is effectively a testing server. I’ll try to get you that information as soon as I can.
In the meantime, I know the rest of the team would love to post their farewells and thanks to all of you. We’ll try to keep you as up to date as we can in one way or another.
Thanks again to all of you - and I hope to be seeing all of you online again very, very soon.
Travis
Others of Flagship Studios who have contributed their farewells and goodbyes to the thread include Jason “Grimby” Beck (Art Lead), Adam “HamSandwhich” Perin (3D Technical Artist), Kyle “SkyCrickett” Cornelius (Concept Artist) and Taylor Balbi (Community Manager).
History will, perhaps, remember Mythos as one of those “great games that should have been”, along with Black Isle Studios’ Van Buren and Troika’s post-apocalyptic RPG. Hope may yet exist for the game, so we’ll be crossing our fingers for a miracle.
Flagships’s Community Manager, Taylor Balbi, has revealed to VE3D that all Ping0 and Flagship Studios staff have been made redundant. According to Taylor and the VE3D article, employees were notified at a company meeting and subsequently informed that the offices will be officially closed on Saturday. The source went on to reveal that three of the studio’s top brass dug into their own pockets to provide 30 days of pay to all employees.
As mentioned earlier, word of the studio’s closure reached HanbitSoft, leading to an early press release regarding the control over the Hellgate: London intellectual property that lead to a stern rebuttal from an official source in Flagship Studios, which, subsequently lead to a HanbitSoft lawyer posting the following sentence on our very website: “It is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open.”
As also referenced in the legal release, HanbitSoft hopes to independently continue development of Mythos, to which it owns the rights thanks to a loan agreement enacted with Flagship. Comerica now owns the Hellgate: London rights through a similar loan agreement, and will likely continue Asian development with HanbitSoft. As for English-language releases of the two games, it is possible that the Asian companies would continue development, but the fate of the US, Japanese and European version of Hellgate: London remain a mystery.
In short, Flagship’s time has run out, and all intellectual property may have been lost, all staff fired, and the studio closed. Flagship, we hardly knew ye…
Mythos Guru was founded early in 2007 as the first fansite and forum ever dedicated to Flagship Studios' online game, Mythos. It caters to an international base of players and guilds. Following in the footsteps of its predecessor Hellgate Guru, Mythos Guru shares a proud tradition of sponsoring and organizing community backed projects and events, and a powerful skill calculator. More
