However you know him, we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy know Mr. Bill Roper as the Design Director and Executive Producer behind onen of our favorite games – Champions Online.  Recently the No Prisoners No Mercy team was priviledged to get Mr. Roper to take time out of his hectic day to answer a few questions for us.

And so No Prisoners, No Mercy proudly presents, Mr. Bill Roper…

(Que thunderous applause)

NPNM: First, thanks for taking the time to talk to No Prisoners, No Mercy. When I thought Star Trek Online, in its previous incarnation (so to speak) was a project that would never see the light of day I was upset, to say the least. Now that it is not only revived but the beta is in full swing, I told our listeners that I would be willing to kiss the butt of whoever brought it back…so here it is, and I owe someone a big kiss. Is it you?

BR: My butt is firmly planted in the world of Champions right now, but I’ll pass along the offer to Craig Zinkievich, the Executive Producer on Star Trek Online. Fortunately we’re all getting to play inside the company right now without having to make the same offer.

NPNM: I wonder if we could start by dispelling a myth or two about Champions Online. At least in my case I know the hole in the ceiling above my head is from jumping to conclusions about Champions Online where Cryptic Dollars are concerned – and I know there are a lot of other game journalists that followed me right out of the whole. Not long ago Jack Emmert made the following announcement on the forums (see below). The misconception by many gaming journalists are that Cryptic is trying to have “it’s cake and eat it too.” However, the same journalists obviously aren’t playing Champions Online because it is possible to “respec” using in game currency; I have done it myself twice. Why such a misconception by the gaming community about the Champions Online cash show? What were the thoughts behind the creation of a cash shop/micro-transactions, beyond simply additional profits?

“Bill and I have both posted over on the Champions boards to respond to questions raised by microtransactions. I’ll just reiterate what’s already been copied and pasted from Bill’s State of the Game address on Champions: The vast majority are aesthetic items, such as costume pieces, action figures, emblems, etc. A very few are account-level management tools, such as being able to rename a character.

Micro-transactions should never limit your ability to enjoy the game or reach the level cap. Any micro-transaction that has a game effect can also be earned in the game through play. These principles apply also to Star Trek.” – Jack Emmert

 

BR: I think that there are a certain number of players in any community that just seem to want to expect the worst from developers. I don’t know what that is, but it seems to be a fact. We haven’t changed our stance on microtransactions since we first started talking about them. The majority of items are elements that don’t affect your efficacy of game play, such as costume pieces. And there are no game-changing items for sale that you can’t earn within the game, such as being able to retcon a character. We’re far from the first game to have certain microtransactions while also maintaining a subscription fee, including World of Warcraft and City of Heroes. We’re seeing a good number of players excited about being able to get additional things in this way, and the vast majority of players and journalists cite that our pricing is extremely reasonable.

NPNM: I have to say I love the “open power” system. It adds an incredible amount of versatility to the character creation process, which already has so many options it’s a game all by itself. What provisions were made in the creation process to prevent the “theory crafters” from creating the “favored template” for powers and ruin the creativity built into the system?

BR: This is certainly a challenge as it’s impossible to test every combination, even during a lengthy beta process. We’re constantly fighting the balance war as players find overpowered combinations. We aren’t looking to just “nerf” powers moving forward. Instead we want to bump up those powers that are weaker than they should be, and focus on balancing the egregiously overpowered ones, as pointed out by our community. As we move forward with power balancing, we’re going to be working very hard to get in front of the changes and let our community know what we’re focusing on and have them test our changes on the Public Test Server. We’ve been less than perfect in this regard, but we’re continually working on the process and are dedicated to making it get better and better.

NPNM: Nemesis System seems like a great way to draw the player into the game. I can’t think of any other mmo where the player has the own individual arch-nemesis. What were the thoughts behind the creation of the system?

BR: We wanted to allow gamers the chance to create content within the game that they could not only play, but also share with their friends. A key part to any superhero story is the villain that rises above the other to become a true threat, an enemy driven by their own motivations. This villain becomes the Nemesis of that hero, and in Champions Online we let you create the look, powers, minions, and back story of that enemy. We’re going to do a lot more with Nemesis moving forward – including having multiple Nemeses battle against teams of heroes!

NPNM: Last March you told Eurogamer that you “worked at Blizzard…Pretty much after Warcraft II [you] would come in the last six to eight months of the project, and get involved at that time.” With Champions Online you also seem to have been brought in to the development in roughly the same time frame. How does being brought on board late in the development cycle of a game make development easier? How does it make it harder?

BR: It definitely gives you a different perspective on the game than when you’re there from the beginning, and I think that fresh set of eyes can be incredibly beneficial. You have the ability to make suggestions or head in directions that may not have been thought of, or abandoned much earlier in the project when the tools and tech weren’t ready and have been considered “off limits.” I think that I also was able to bring ideas that were based both on the successes and failures in previous developments, and as cliché as it may sounds, there’s no substitute for experience.

NPNM: When Paul Barnett was on the No Prisoners, No Mercy show he spoke about “non-gamer, gamers” and my co-host has been defining herself that way ever since. There are some members of the mmo community (myself included) that may not be aware that the “Champions Online” IP has actually been around since 1981 in the form of a “paper and pencil” role playing game. Does a lack of familiarity with the original IP hurt the online version of the game, help it, or have no effect? Are there many players that expect the game to reflect the original IP?

What efforts have been made to “educate” those players who are unfamiliar with the IP?

 

BR: I don’t think it hurts the game in any way, and in fact, having a solid and histories world to build on makes a lot of what we do easier. Having a complete universe with heroes, villains, places, devices, organizations, and on and on allows us to concentrate on other areas of development while giving us an amazing canvas with which to work. We have done a lot to introduce these elements to the players through lore items and perks, mission text, voice over, and in-mission cinematic sequences, being able to get info and bios on enemies, villains and heroes in the game by simply right-clicking on them, and much more.

NPNM: Any time a new game launches, the biggest competition seems to come from already well established games. Even in the case of Aion Online, the game has been out in its country of Origin for over a year. As a developer how do you cope with that?

BR: It’s amazingly difficult to compete with any game that has been out and has years worth of additional development time simply because players (and may journalists) make direct comparisons. They also tend to forget what other games were like when they came out and, to be honest, the expectations of MMO players is much higher than ever before. The way that I look at MMOs as a player is as a TV Series as opposed to a movie. I look at the core game, the ideas there, the world, the responsiveness of the development team, and if I’m into those things, I want to stick around and see how it develops. I don’t think that I represent the majority of gamers in this way, though, as MMOs are more of a lifestyle than a game, and getting someone to change their lifestyle is amazingly difficult.

NPNM: You worked both inside and outside Blizzard Entertainment – you were with Blizzard back as far as the Warcraft 2 days. Can you share some insights with us on how the success of Warcraft Online and other Blizzard games affect the release of newly developed games?

BR: Actually, I was at Blizzard for the launch of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, so it’s been amazing to see the growth of the franchise since I helped create it. Blizzard definitely is amongst the very few companies that set the gold standard for PC games, so every game that comes out in any space they develop in is going to be compared. The Blizzard teams are consistently good and of equal importance, they’ve always had the support of their publisher to take as much time as required to get the game right. On top of all that, they have excellent marketing and sales support, which means players everywhere know when they come out and are excited about them.

NPNM: One of the approaches that Cryptic seems to have taken with the design of Champions Online is a game that is more “accessible” – there are no long drawn out grinds, for example. In fact the leveling is quite fast, even considering the whole “perceived leveling speed” that Paul Barnett spoke about when he was on our show. Why has Cryptic designed the game to be (and here I hesitate to use the word) “casual player friendly”?

 

BR: Yes and no, and we probably should have erred more on the side of user friendly than core gamer. The additional content we’ve been working on is more geared towards that style of play, and our interactions with the community are focusing on getting in what they want to see. We’ve gone back and forth in regards to more “traditional” style of MMO play and more casual-friendly mechanics, and it seems that our players are excited about the ideas that fall into that realm.

NPNM: The Blood Moon Rising event has an interesting take on pvp – sort of a “last superhero standing” event where those heroes defeated die and are “reborn” as the “enemy”. Zombie apocalypse pvp – what’s not to like? Assuming, of course, you are a big fan of the zombie apocalypse genre (my co-host and I are). Still, if there is any way for players to abuse a system, they will. As we saw with the public quest in Warhammer Online, what starts as a fantastic idea doesn’t always work out that way. What was behind the decision to bring this new twist on pvp to the table (so to speak) let alone make the map a permanent part of the game?

BR: From a genre and lore standpoint, the Apocalypse maps in Champions Online are designed to portray drastic situations that heroes are training for. The idea of zombies attacking a cabin in the wilderness just made perfect sense with both the Blood Moon event and as geeks who love zombies! The game play mechanic is seriously fun, and our players and all of us here at the office have been having a blast playing. It’s one of the reasons we wanted to keep this around even after the event ended.

NPNM: Whenever a developer comes out with new content, it almost always seems to gravitate toward end game content. This makes we wonder where Cryptic will concentrate its development in the future? What does the future hold for Champions Online?

BR: We’ve been polling our players, and are working on the areas they’re showing the most interest in. This actually means we’re simultaneously working on filling in more content within the existent levels to provide more paths for growing heroes to follow while simultaneously working on end-game level content. The next big release players will see is in the latter area, combining UNITY and Nemesis storylines and game play to provide a totally new style of Lair for heroes to explore.

NPNM: We here at the No Prisoners No Mercy team would like to thank Mr. Roper for taking the time to answer our questions.  And as for the rest of you…see you online, in Champions Online

Julie Whitefeather and Fran Kosac

Co-hosts of the No Prisoners, No Mercy show