Tag Archives: bill roper

Disney isn’t discounting the possibility of adding Marvel or Star Wars theme to its Infinity hybrid products.

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Bill Roper has announced his departure from Cryptic Studios.

He was CEO of the firm for the last two years.

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Bill Roper, Cyrptic’s CCO, has said that one of the games the studio’s been hard at work on will be revealed this summer.

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After the break there’s a video of Bill Roper detailing Champions Online’s character creation tools, and it really does look bonkers. It’s cool stuff.

The MMO’s out in September for PC, with a 360 version to follow. The beta starts August 17.

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Cryptic Studios has changed the release date for Champions Online from July 14 to September 1.

According to a post on the official website, the developers want the game to have a bit more time for polish and the like before it’s released.

“It is critically important for an MMO to be as good as it possibly can be at launch,” wrote Bill Roper on the site.

“Through our constant dialogue with our vocal and supportive community of beta testers, we quickly realized that in order to implement certain features that we all considered important the development of Champions Online would require more time. So that’s what we’re going to give it.

“Cryptic has a proven track record of releasing solid games and we want to maintain that with Champions Online.”

Good enough.

Thanks, Massively.

Tons of stuff happens during the week with MMOs that it would just boggle your brains, so it’s all here for you in one post as usual.

Fallen Earth promises to be different by being “elf free”, Star Wars revealed the Trooper class, EVE gets a bit of a storyline change, and LOTRO shows you how to pull off those tricky fellowship maneuvers.

Wanna know the rest? Of course you do, and it’s all after the break.

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Champions Online will be one of 360′s first MMOs, Cryptic design boss Bill Roper has told VG247, and has promised there won’t be a “huge gap of time” between the PC version on June 14 and the console SKU.

“I do, I really do, and we’re really excited about that,” said the exec of the chances of being one of the first MMOs on the Microsoft system.

“I think the consoles are ripe for having a really great MMO, and I think the players have got to be really excited about that. The platform has matured, the connectivity has matured enough to where the time to do it, really, is now. We’re just looking forward to getting it done.”

Roper said a date wasn’t fixed the the superhero game’s 360 version, but that it is being full developed alongside the PC title.

“I don’t have a date, I don’t have a window, because we haven’t been given any separate requirement for that, but I don’t think it will be a huge gap of time for when it follows,” he added.

“It’s not going to be a year later, or something like that. We spin builds every day, QA makes sure everything’s still working, the engine works great on 360, all the server stuff works well. We still make sure everything works.

“For the most part we put a lot of focus on the UI. That, of course, is one of the biggest features: that it plays and feels really good on consoles.”

The 360 version has been pushed back thanks to both wrangling between Atari and Microsoft on the game’s console launch, Roper said, and the fact Cryptic’s focused on the PC SKU because it has more control over its launch.

“We’ve been putting a lot of focus on the PC version because we have a lot of control about how that releases, when it releases, requirements, all those kind of things. There’s always a lot of things to get worked out when you’ve got big companies working with each other. There’s obviously a lot of stuff for Atari and Microsoft to hammer out in terms of bringing an MMO to the consoles, and 360 specifically.”

To date, 360 has been very sparsely populated with MMOs, the only “traditional” examples being FFXI and Phantasy Star Universe.

Roper was talking in a phone interview yesterday.

Microsoft has responded to claims from Bill Roper that Don Mattrick isn’t a “fan” of the MMO genre by saying 360 is already creating “memorable” MMO experiences for its 17 million Live members.

Cryptic design boss Roper told VG247 yesterday that he thought it unlikely Microsoft would announce a first-party MMO for 360 at E3, as Xbox boss Mattrick isn’t keen on the sector.

In a statement issued to VG247, a Microsoft US spokesperson said:

We’re already tapping into the robust Xbox LIVE community of more than 17 million members to create memorable massively multiplayer experiences on Xbox 360. In fact, we already have MMOs on the console, including “Final Fantasy XI” and “Phantasy Star Universe,” and even more on the way with “Age of Conan.” We’re even introducing the first a whole new type of massively multiplayer online game later this year with “1 vs. 100,” a dynamic, interactive game that lets the LIVE community play along in front of an audience of thousands and an actual host for a chance to win real prizes.

MMO games are a growing category on consoles today and they hold great potential for the future, and Xbox 360 is the only console with the rich online capabilities of Xbox LIVE to deliver those kinds of innovative experiences in the living room.

Roper himself is working on Cryptic’s Champions online, which is in development for 360 as well as PC.

Don Mattrick is unlikely to announce a Microsoft MMO for 360 at E3, Cryptic design director Bill Roper told VG247 in a phone interview today, as the Xbox boss isn’t a fan of the genre and doesn’t have the infrastructure to support a perpetual online 360 product.

“I actually would be a little surprised,” he said when asked if we’re likely to see a first-party Microsoft MMO revealed at the show.

“I don’t think that’s something they’ve been really pushing towards. From any discussions I’ve ever had, or heard with Don Mattrick, Don’s not necessarily a huge MMO fan.”

Roper added: “[There's a] a sticky and difficult thing they’re still going through of how do they do it with third-parties. All those same concerns about business models and technology are going to be the same on the Microsoft side, and they don’t really have that online server platform, especially on the console, because they’re not developing one.

“I would actually be surprised, pleasantly surprised, but I actually would be surprised if they were announcing something first-party.”

Roper said that console MMOs in general are unlikely to be a hot topic at this year’s E3 due to the problems involved in getting them up and running on first-party hardware.

“There could be a lot of people sticking toes in the water, but maybe less than you would imagine, only from the standpoint that there are so many logistics to work through,” he said.

“There’s just so much to go through in terms of how technology interfaces and how the business model works. So much has to happen outside the walls of the developer or a publisher.

“That’s the thing that would potentially be slowing people down from saying they’re going to be creating MMOs on the consoles, but I think we’ll probably see one or two big announcements about it, would be my guess.”

Roper’s Champions Online is currently in development for 360, but no date’s been set for the game’s launch as yet. It’s PC SKU is out June 14.

Bill Roper, design director for Cryptic, says that he prefers the “darker, more realistic” Diablo to the “Blizzard interpretation” of Diablo III.

Speaking in an interview with VideoGamer.com, the ex-Blizzard North exec said he does not think that the new Diablo looks bad as such, just that he liked the more gritty version better.

“You know, I liked the darker, grittier. I liked the differences in art style, to be honest. So, I think I would personally, from a player standpoint, prefer that.

“I think that one of the things that we always tried to get across was that Diablo was Gothic fantasy, and I think there was just a need that was put in there from the visuals that I didn’t necessarily get,” he continued.

“I got it from the architecture and to a degree from the character design but not the feeling of the world. I can’t say that I dislike it. I didn’t look at it and go, ‘Oh my God that’s horrible.’ But I looked at it and went, it’s not really… To me, as a player, it just didn’t really ring with Diablo.”

Say it ain’t so, Bill. More through there.

Cryptic’s Bill Roper has confirmed to Eurogamer that Champions Online will launch for PC only this spring.

Atari and Cryptic seem reluctant to specify when an Xbox 360 version will arrive.

A PS3 version has also be rumored, but no definitive answer has been given on launch.

“All I know is it’s coming out first on the PC,” said Roper in an interview.

“We really, really want to bring it out on console. The consoles are just hungry and perfect for an MMO, and we’ve done a lot of work to ensure that there’s nothing to prevent us from doing that.

“It’s an area beyond my control at this point: I just work on the game.”

Early beta testing is currently underway.

Bill Roper has told MTV that it’s too early to write off Warhammer Online just yet.

“It’s so funny, I hear half the people are saying, ‘Oh gosh, Warhammer looks like it isn’t doing so great’, because they said they had [dropped to] 300,000 subscribers”, said the Cryptic boss.

“Those are not bad numbers. And I think people look at it and go, ‘Well, WoW has got 11 million and your game only has 300,000, your game must not be doing good’.

“I know many games out there that would love to have 300,000 subscribers”, he added.

Roper said that MMO players go back and forth between games – especially when new expansions come out – so you have to give numbers time to rise again.

To help balance out server populations, Mythic announced that more free character transfers began yesterday, and as an incentive to switch you’ll get a 20 percent experience and renown bonus for a limited time.

Thanks, Massively

Champions Online developer Cryptic Studios just confirmed that Bill Roper has taken a role at the firm as design director.

Roper’s last project, Hellgate: London, ended in the closure of Flagship Studios, the company Roper co-founded.

“Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,” said Cryptic boss John Needham.

“His years of gaming and online experience are huge assets to all of our projects, and Bill will assist us in furthering our studio’s vision to create innovative, exciting MMO gameplay.”

“Cryptic has experienced huge growth over the past year and has exciting opportunities ahead of it,” said Roper.

“The company knows how to choose compelling IPs that have rich histories such as Champions and Star Trek. I’m looking forward to working with the team.”

Press release after the link.

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Speaking to 1UP in a frank interview, Flagship boss Bill Roper has admitted there’s nothing left to do with Hellgate developer Flagship other than pack up and go home with a little dignity.

“We’re working hard on how to end gracefully,” he said. “Obviously, we’ve got people we owe money to, so we’re doing absolutely everything in our power to get those people the money we owe them, whether that’s on an institutional side, lenders, or, equally as important, with our employees who aren’t there anymore.”

There’s plenty more through there. It doesn’t make for especially pleasant reading, however.

According to this Bingegamer piece, Flagship boss Bill Roper has issued a statement on the state of the developer, saying that while everyone has been laid off, the company is still alive.

“It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees,” he said. “However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship. The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain the size of the company any longer.”

More through the link.

Flagship head Bill Roper’s held his hands up over PC oddity Hellgate: London and said that it wasn’t the game he wanted it to be.

“I think that people had incredibly high expectations that we simply didn’t meet,” he said, adding, “We simply tried to do too much with the game. Vista, DirectX 10, being both a single-player boxed product and a multiplayer online game, a simultaneous launch in seven languages across Europe, the US and South East Asia, and creating our own fully-featured online destination on top of all that.”

Sounds like you may be right, Bill, but we do know a few Germans that properly love Hellgate because you “can just keep your finger down and keep firing.” There’s got to be something to be said for that.