Posts Tagged ‘Bill Roper’

Bill Roper we hardly knew ye…

 The quote below, from Mr. Bill Ropers final state of the game post as executive producer of Champions Online my have let us all know that Mr. Roper is moving on, but fortunately he will still be in the same green Cryptic Studios pasture:

“I am very proud to have Revelation be the addition to Champions Online that bridges my departure with the game’s new direction. The upcoming weeks and months are going to be an exciting time for us all, and I can’t wait to play what’s next.” – Bill Roper

 I has been our privilege to interview Mr. Roper twice – once for this website in an interview available here, and for the No Prisoners, No Mercy anniversary show number 50 available here and on our release to the Virgin Worlds Collective here.

The interviews with Bill Roper brought home a very valuable lesson that Frodo tells Samwise in the Ralph Bakshi animated version of the Lord of the Rings (well at least the first half as Ralph Bakshi stopped at the invasion of Helm’s Deep).   Upon first confronting “Strider” Samwise doesn’t trust him one bit and suspects him of foul play.  Frodo, thinking otherwise. turns to Samwise and says “I think a servant of the enemy would seem fair and feel fouler.”

Now we certainly aren’t saying we think Mr. Roper feels foul (and having never met him in person we have no way to know whether or not he smells like a rose).  What we are saying is that Bill Roper has often been judged unfairly ever since his Flagship Studio days.   It was very kind of Mr. Roper to share his valuable time with us and we hope he will do so again in the future.  We wish him well in whatever aspect of Cryptic Studios to which he choses to lend his talents.   And along those same lines, show 57 (following the imminent release of show 56) will feature an hour long interview with Cryptic Studio’s new marketing guru (our assigned title, not his) Joe Blancato (pictured at right).

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

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

Among the many jobs I have worked at, one of them was in a factory. There is an old expression that stuck with me from those days – no matter how tired you are, come quitting time on Friday, everyone has energy.  It’s Friday, welcome to the road to the weekend edition.

The Road to the Stars…

If you haven’t read the running conversation under this week’s “Game You Wish You Could Love” article, it’s all about Eve Online. But there is one game that we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy love even before it hits the shelves: Star Trek Online. Now mind you, these days we take anything that comes out of Eurogamer with about a truckload of salt. They are reporting, however, that Cryptic Studios has announced the official release date for Star Trek Online, which they are saying is February 5, 2010. Now mind you we are well aware that if there is anywhere that Murphy’s Law rears its ugly head it is producing games; and so that date may not be set in stone. However, at the risk of jumping the gun (for even in the world of interviews things change) we have the perfect source to ask…

Mr. Bill Roper who has kindly agreed to an interview about one of our favorite games  – Champions Online. The accompanying article prepared by our own Fran has been completed but we are going to make you wait until the audio portion is recorded.  While Fran and I are busy winging (or in my case teleporting) our way across the skies of Millennium City it occurred to us that while CCP is still talking about “walking in stations” everything we have seen from Star Trek Online so far (and that is only what we read) tells us that players in Star Trek are already footloose and fancy free instead of floating around in a pod full of primordial goo.  We only have one question left…

Who do we have to bribe to get a beta code (we missed out on the lifetime offer for Champions Online)

Dragons Age…

Dragon Age Origins has finally arrived and with it, an article over at arstechnica.com entitled “Dragon Age Launch Fails” (available here). If the article is to be believed, there are problems – here is a quote:

 “The problem? EA and Bioware require you to sign into their own websites, with their own accounts and login information, to allow you to access the bonus content from your purchase. That process, it seems, is broken for many users.” – Ben Kuchera, Arstechnica.com

I am not sure why the good folks at Arstechnica are having problems but no one at the modding group I belong to called “The Engineering Guild” (available here)  seems to be troubled at all. In fact everyone at The Engineering Guild has been planning their mods for Dragon Age Origins since long before the game came out.  And one thing is for sure, no one can say the devs at Bioware are not on the ball where the modding community is concerned – the tool set was released with the game and is available here.

Getting Hammered…

It was not that long ago that my goblin shaman finally retired from Warhammer Online for good…but maybe someone might follow in his place. Why? Here’s why..

Werit had an article this week  (and if you don’t read Werits blog why not? It’s good.) reporting that the new 10 day trial for Warhammer Online has been extended – indefinitely. In other words, while players are still limited to Tier one they can now play longer than 10 days. In fact they can play as long as they want.  Here is the article. Let’s hope that this is not only true, but that those who participate will max out at the top of the Tier One levels. After all, Tier One is where I had the most fun; especially in the Empire RvR lake. Either way, another one of our favorite sites, The Ancient Gaming Noob, has an interesting post this week about the possible consequences of the new trial (available here) entitled “a mass of Tier One Twinks”

Meanwhile back at the (post apocalyptic) corral:

Meanwhile the Wandering Goblin is reporting that Interplay and Bethesda (makers of Fallout 3, one of my favorite stand alone games) are still fighting it out in court for the rights to produce a Fallout MMO (which I read is set to expire this month for Interplay). The article is available here.  So while Interplay and Bethesda have been busy playing dueling lawyers I have been busy in the post apocalyptic world of FALLEN EARTH.  And if you want to know a bit more about how things have been going for the dev team over at Icarus there is nothing like hearing it straight from the “horses mouth” as it were – or in this case the project managers mouth.  Yes, Mr. Colin Dwan, project manager for Fallen Earth was kind enough to share some time with us earlier this week. The interview has been through the editing process and will be the top half of show number 48.

The folks over at Wizard 101 have been asking the No Prisoners No Mercy team to come back and play in their world again. As for me, I will be spending time buzzing through the skies of Millennium City faster than a speeding pullet and learning my way around the post apocalyptic Fallen Earth. However, I will not be playing any more Aion Online. For me I believe it is finally time to hang up my wings. I will be in good company, however as Werit appears to being hanging up a similar pair of wings and talks about it in an article here called Farewell Aion.

The last straw…

Werit’s article touched on a couple of points that, for me, were the last straw. Here are the quotes:

“Abyss.  The Abyss sounded interesting on paper, but in reality it was one big gank fest.  Allowing ranks 25 through 50 to fight in the same space, without a bolster, just was not fun.” – Werit

 ”Leveling.  It’s a long way to the top if you want to PvP.  I am a big fan of PvP leveling and Aion just does support that style of gameplay.” – Werit

“Guild.  There are quite a few CoW’s [presumably his guild] who play Aion and I will miss grouping with them.” – Werit

Pvp is  one place that place that Warhammer did it right and NCSoft  still hasn’t learned. If you are going to make a game where the focus is primarily on pvp make sure you can easily level with pvp. The interesting thing about pvp is that everyone talks about balance but what most people really mean is they want the scales tipped in their favor.  As far as balance is concerned I still like the approach Warhammer took (every class is strong against some and weak against others) as opposed to World of Warcraft’s approach (Micromanage all the classes until you manage to tick off just about everyone but rogues). And while Werit said he will miss some of his guild mates, the best thing about organizations that cross multiple games like The Older Gamers is that you will still see the same people in other games.

Stinking out loud…

There is little doubt that anyone who surfs the waves of the blogsphere has not heard about the ‘Blizzard Cash Shop” by now. Earlier this week Fran wrote about this at the end of her “Homey doesn’t like pugs” article.  John Woods echoes our (that’s the royal we) opinion in his article over at www.mmorpg.com.

“By raising a gigantic stink about this particular move on Blizzard’spart, the only thing that is going to happen is that next time, when a company actually does do something offensive like charge a subscription and offer game-enhancing items within a store, is that no one is going to listen to the horde of people that are crying foul.

By reacting and over-reacting negatively every time even the slightest thing is done that might possibly be controversial, the voices of the fans get easier and easier for game companies to ignore. This, my friends, is not good for our genre and opens the door to truly unscrupulous actions by others.” – John Wood, MMORPG.com ( available here )

Now on to the next section…

Lets start with a bit of fiction about Fallen Earth Lore.  Enjoy the story. See you on the other side of Friday.

- The No Prisoners No Mercy team

Most people have memories of their past: playing with childhood friends (or a lack thereof), parents, perhaps a sister or two. People often look back on times spent with families (and not necessarily fondly).  Her memories didn’t extend past the last half hour. In fact the only thing she could remember was her name, and that was only because it was tattooed across her upper left arm, that and a mass of Celtic scroll work. A similar tattoo adorned her right forearm, with two matching tattoos on each of her right and left leg, that went all the way up to her thigh.

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