Bill Roper Joins Cryptic as Design Director of Champions Online

[DoctorFinger]

Bill Roper. Some of you may know him as the veteran Blizzard developer who made a name for himself shepherding Diablo I & II. Others may know him as the head of Flagship Studios, the ill-fated studio responsible for Hellgate: London. Well Bill has a new job: Design Director of Champions Online over at Cryptic Studios. “Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,” said John Needham, Chief Executive Officer for Cryptic Studios. “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.”Apparently Roper's duties will be limited to Champions, and not Cryptic's other MMO project: Star Trek Online.

Champions Online is an MMORPG focused on superheroes, and is set for release sometime in 2009 on both the PC and Xbox 360.

[Cyndair]

Bill seems like a good guy from what I've read of the whole Flagship fiasco. I hope that things pan out for him and Champions: Online. It sounds like he has learned from his mistakes on Hellgate.

[Telefrog]

I love Champions the pen & paper product.

That's all I really have to say since anything I say about Bill Roper and Hellgate will just be bad.

[LongStepMantis]

As long as the Hellgate payment scheme wasn't his idea, he's ok in my book.
I highly doubt it was but I had to get that out there.

[Telefrog]

As long as the Hellgate payment scheme wasn't his idea, he's ok in my book.
I highly doubt it was but I had to get that out there.

How could it not be his responsibility? He was CEO of the company and was Managing Producer on the game along with a few other credits. That thing was his baby.

[OrangePulp]

Interesting. Hopefully this works out well for everyone. After the shitfest that was flagship and hellgate london (although their other game, the name of which I can't remember, was a decent diablo clone), I'd like to think that Roper is still a good designer, just a shitty businessman. Hopefully he can stick to just making games.

[KingGorilla]

Bill is a smart guy with many more successes than failures under his belt. He was at Blizzard when it was barely more than a closet full of nerds trying to sell GamesWorkshop rip offs.

And often a setback like Hellgate can be a learning tool, more than anything. I do not see him ending up denying his fuck up like John Romero and fading from existance.

[LongStepMantis]

How could it not be his responsibility? He was CEO of the company and was Managing Producer on the game along with a few other credits. That thing was his baby.

Well then let's hope he learned his lessons from Hellgate.
I don't know that much about the guy, I only knew he was one of the head honchos for Flagship. I didn't follow Flagship that much, or his career beforehand.

[J Arcane]

Well, my estimation of that project has dropped from "going to suck hard" to "colossal failure".

Good pick there Cryptic.

[PathMaster]

Well, my estimation of that project has dropped from "going to suck hard" to "colossal failure".

Good pick there Cryptic.

So you think this is a good thing right? :rolleyes:

[J Arcane]

So you think this is a good thing right? :rolleyes:
Well, we're talking about teaming up Jack "Statesman" Emmert with Bill "Hellgate" Roper, how can one expect anything less than a cavalcade of fail?

[KingGorilla]

OK
Jack Emmert: City of Heroes, and Villians a successful MMO that he and his studio sold off for some rather ludicrous money.

Bill Roper: Warcraft 1, 2, 3, Diablo 1, 2, Starcraft, World of Warcraft. In over a decade he has been involved with 2 bad games directly. Though he was most close to the Warcraft RTS titles.

You are free to dislike them for no cause, but these guys have been rather successful this far.

[J Arcane]

Jack Emmert drove COH in to the ground so badly that NCSoft HAD to buy it off them to save the thing from tanking completely.

Bill Roper has so far yet to prove he's actually capable of producing anything of worth when divorced of the Blizzard design culture. Are we to really start parroting the same garbage people kept spouting pre-Hellgate?

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you.

[Telefrog]

Bill Roper: Warcraft 1, 2, 3, Diablo 1, 2, Starcraft, World of Warcraft. In over a decade he has been involved with 2 bad games directly. Though he was most close to the Warcraft RTS titles.

I'm pretty sure he was "most close" to Hellgate since that was his baby from start to finish.