Kotaku: bill roper

Creating a Character In Champions Online

Mike Fahey — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:20:00 MDT

Champions Online executive producer Bill Roper walks us through creating a character in Cryptic's upcoming massively-multiplayer online superhero game.

Champions Online takes the rich character creation that Cryptic created for NCsoft's City of Heroes and brings it to the next level. Not only can you spend hours designing the perfect superhero costume, the ability to pick and choose your powers rather than relying on set archetypes means that no two character need be exactly the same.

It also means that it is a bit harder to manage group roles in the game. With players able to select their own powers from a pool, players will have different ideas as to what constitutes the tradition roles of tank, damage, crowd-control, and support. At least it won't be dull, right?

Original Diablo Producer Thinks Diablo III Isn't Diablo Enough

Mike Fahey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:20:00 MDT

Someone fetch original Diablo producer Bill Roper a rainbow unicorn t-shirt, as the former VP of Blizzard North explains that Diablo III just doesn't feel like a Diablo game.

Roper worked with Blizzard back when there was a Blizzard North. His studio was responsible for the Diablo series, while Blizzard proper in Irvine, California worked on the 'craft' titles - StarCraft and WarCraft. Bill believes the merging of the studios resulted in a more cartoony, less-Diablo version of Diablo III.

"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. 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."

Cutting words, but you have to put things into perspective with this sort of thing. Bill Roper went on to form Flagship Studios, who created Hellgate London, and we all know how well that game went.

Diablo 3: What Bill Roper thinks [VideoGamer.com]

Hellgate Creator On Why Hellgate Sucked

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:00:00 MDT

Poor Hellgate. It promised so much, and delivered so little. So little, in fact, that it drove developers Flagship Studios out of business. As the mourners file slowly away from the studio's funeral and make their way towards the free finger food and drinks, it's time to reflect on just why Hellgate never made it. Creator Bill Roper has a fairly good idea:

Some of them were just bad timing in the PC market. The PC market was lousy last year. Some of it was the fact that we were an independent studio. We didn't have unlimited money, and we had to ship when we had to ship. Part of it was because we overreached, and that was a design problem that was totally our fault. We tried to do too much. We tried to be a standalone game and a free-play game and an MMO and an RPG and a shooter. We were trying to be something for everybody and ended up really not pleasing many people at all....

Sounds about right to us!

Bill Roper: 'Hellgate Wasn't As Good As It Should Have Been' [1UP]

Hellgate: London Goes Gold, Spawns Demo

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:40:06 MDT

It's been an extremely long time coming, but Flagship Studios has announced that the oft-delayed Hellgate: London has finally been freed from the nest, finding a new home at the manufacturing plant. A very proud Bill Roper of Flagship, teary-eyed from an errant stream of champagne and certainly not emotion, said that making Hellgate: London was an "amazing journey for us."

Whomever writes the press releases at EA or Namco Bandai Games reveals that the singe-player demo for the PC game will go live this Friday, October 19. Gamers will get their hands on the full version of the game on Halloween day. Yay!

HGL Gone Gold, Demo Coming! [Hellgate: London]

Diablo 3 Talk From Blizzard's Ex

Mark Wilson — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:20:46 MDT

In an 'If I Did It' type of hypothetical exploration, ex-Blizzard ex-Diablo designer Bill Roper drops his focus on Hellgate: London and talks about the difficulties in designing Diablo 3 to be everything the fans dream it will be.

I think with Diablo, for example, the camera angle is a big part of it. I think with the Diablo series there is a level of expectation about only using the mouse to move.

To be honest, the way that Blizzard is approaching StarCraft II is really smart. They're saying, 'OK, what do the millions of StarCraft fans very specifically want from a StarCraft experience? Great, well that's what we're going to give them.

As a moderate StarCraft fan, I have to agree that Blizzard nailed the feel of the game and provided all the upgraded sheen I'd hoped for. But with the Diablo franchise, it's more probable that Blizzard is feeling bigger pressure (internal or external) to completely revamp and ditch the isometric design—one of the very things that makes Diablo feel like Diablo. I don't want to say I'm outright against the idea, but Diablo 2 with more classes and better graphics doesn't sound like the absolute worst thing in the world, either.

Bill Roper: What I'd do with Diablo 3 [cvg]