Yeah, Flagship hurt themselves with all of the subscription stuff that was off-putting, a lackluster beta that put off the faithful, and too many issues at release.

I’ve only been able to squeeze in a couple hours so far but I absolutely love this game too. And you hit the nail on the head — I most appreciate games that know what they are and don’t try to be something they’re not, regardless of how innovative they are. And Torchlight is such a perfect example of that. It is a lot of the same thing over and over, but it’s executed so well that it stays fun.

As for Hellgate, I always thought it got a bit of a bad rap. It was definitely a flawed game, but it was damn fun to play for a lot of the same reasons most action-RPGs are. I was more disappointed by how much Flagship tried to make the game like an MMO-lite with optional subscriptions and whatnot. They got too ambitious instead of just focusing on the basics, and I think that’s what led to the game turning into such a failure and ultimately led to the failure of the studio itself. They should have stuck with Mythos as their multiplayer game and Hellgate more for solo players with more basic multiplayer options.