14 DAY TRIAL // Imagine playing a game for weeks and having your character wiped out and all your efforts canceled... Remember the WoW plague that killed thousands of players and caused frustration for many others. History seems to be repeating itself in the most unpleasant matter, but this time, it's Hellgate: London's time to be plagued by such issues, at least in Asia. It's not some virus that kills characters this time, but a patch, Patch0 to be exact, which was created in order to solve the server crashing issues of the game.
All of the Asian fans of the game will have to suffer for a short while, as their character gets virtually killed, but after the problem gets solved, they'll receive a month worth of free playtime from IAH Games. They consider that the period is enough for the gamers to re-create their characters or start from the bottom and choose another play orientation.
Here's the IAH Games' notice, we stumbled upon on Kotaku:
" Implementation of Patch0 10/11/2007
Gamers,
Thank you for your patience while we worked to upload Patch0 onto our local servers. For the past two weeks, IAHGames and our partners have worked overnight almost everyday as they attempted to implement Patch0 onto our existing servers.
In the end, it has been determined that there is no way to implement Patch0 onto our Hellgate: London servers without also discarding relevant player data. Because of this, when Patch0 is installed on Tuesday, there will be a complete character wipe.
We understand this event is frustrating for you, and we are sorry for the problems in implementing Patch0. As compensation, we are providing all gamers who purchased both the Standard and Collector's Edition Box Sets 4 weeks of free subscription benefits. Each box already includes 30 days of free subscription benefits, meaning all of you will be entitled to 60 days of free subscription when the service becomes active around the end of the year.
IAHGames and our partners have taken this event very seriously, and yesterday our CEO and Deputy CEO flew to Seoul to discuss the issue with the CEO of HanbitSoft. As a result of the meeting, HanbitSoft has graciously agreed support IAH Games' decision to provide free subscription time as compensation. HanbitSoft and Flagship Studios have also agreed to provide all further patches on par with US patching time lines, to ensure the SEA version of Hellgate: London stays up-to-date.
The implementation of Patch0 and subsequent character wipe will occur at 1200hrs (GMT+8) on Monday, November 12. After the Patch is implemented, a comprehensive test will be run to ensure there are no further problems. The process will take about 8 hours.
We would like to repeat we are sorry for the delay and the frustration it may have caused you. Please accept the game time as compensation, and thank you for your support until this point.
Sincerely, Team HGL "