Hellgate London is currently owned and distributed by HanbitSoft and
NAMCO. It was originally published by Flagship Studios, and because
Flagship Studio is defunct, some people seem to think that copyright
regulations have lapsed. They have not, HanbitSoft owns them through their
development studio in SanFransisco, Redbana.
Back in 2008, they released this report...
"(1) HanbitSoft is an exclusive licensee of both Hellgate and Mythos in
Asia, with rights to sublicense the games; (2) in addition, HanbitSoft is a
secured creditor who has been pledged the Mythos (but not the Hellgate)
intellectual property as collateral for a loan; (3) Comerica, another
secured lender, has been pledged the Hellgate intellectual property as its
collateral for a loan; (4) Flagship Studios does not currently own the
intellectual properties to either game, which are held in separate
companies subject to the security interests of lenders, and Flagship
Studios’ interest in those companies is also pledged to its lenders; (5) it
is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft
offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but
HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to
see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate
online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos."]
Clearly now, we would have to contact HanbitSoft's attournies to obtain a
licence to build an armour based on their intellectual property. Since they
are in Korea, this may prove to be problematic.
http://hg.hanbiton.com/Home/**Home.aspx<
http://hg.hanbiton.com/Home/Home.aspx>
Such licensing fees may be cheap, or expensive, depending on many factors.
You must obtain a licence before I can make this armour.
A suit this large would require a design work-up out of cardboard.
Several fittings later, we would have the first of many collections of
templates.
Then the second step is to make the individual pieces out of steel.
This is the design test stage, which is used to modify the templates.
This is still part of the alpha design, and none of the steel is actually
used in the final product. (edges are not finished, hammer marks are not
removed, etc.)
The third step is to fit it to you, the wearer. This will require
modification of sizes and dimentions, and a decision on materials. A
jouster would require heavy stainless steel and an actor would require
light aluminum for instance. Material selection will have an effect on the
time it takes to do this work. Factors used in materials selection would
depend upon how much maintenance you would be prepared to do...aluminum
will be forever denting. Steel will be forever rusting. This third step is
the final set of cardboard templates.
The forth step is the simple one...actually MAKING the armour. This would
be a beta version and might well require some modifications to keep it from
pinching you or otherwise render it unsuitable. Such modifications will
allow me to deliver a serviceable package.
And then there are the license fees. There were representatives of NAMCO
at Fan Expo, keeping an eye on costumes and making sure that nobody was
ripping off their work. They don't care about one person doing themselves,
but they REALLY care about a company such as me making them for sale to
somebody else.
I could make you a perfect templar armour exactly like the one in the
video game out of steel for twenty to twenty two thousand dollars. (plus
licensing fees of course.) The second one would be a lot less (about seven
thousand including helmet) of course. The work to accomplish this task
would take me five to six months of shop time.
Bill Fedun
Armour Maker
