Interview Bill Roper Interviewed at CGM

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: Bill Roper; Flagship Studios

Bill Roper of Diablo and Blizzard fame, and the founder and CEO of Flagship Studios has been <a href=http://www.cgonline.com/content/view/434/2/>interviewed</a> at Computer Games Online about a variety of subjects, including Blizzard North, their departure, and work on his new RPG.
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<blockquote>We're still staying pretty tight lipped about game specifics for a little while longer, so adding anything past what we've already said (RPG, non-fantasy setting, staying true to our core development values) is tough. I do honestly believe that a variety of gamers, however, are going to beinterested in what we're creating. We hope to do our part in expanding the RPG market.</blockquote>
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He doesn't have much to say about the new game, but promises to release new details in the upcoming months.
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<blockquote>We will be making some big specific announcements about the game in the next few months. We really wanted to wait until we had something that was representative of how the game will look and play before we started talking about it in detail. Everyone who has heard about or seen it in the past always has questions, and we felt it was important to have the game itself answer as many of those as possible. As they say, "seeing is believing."</blockquote>
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Flagship Studios' game, which is headed by Bill Roper, David Brevik, Kenneth Williams and the Schaeffer brothers, the creators and lead designers of Diablo, and Diablo 2, is currently expected to be released sometime in 2006.

 

[Fez]

They've a lot to live up to, let's hope they don't go the way of Troika.

 

[Lady Armageddona]

They probably won't.

 

[Sol Invictus]

These guys turned Blizzard into a success. I don't think they'll muck it up.

 

[Fez]

Yeah, I've got some hope for them, but it's hard not to be cynical.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Bill Roper has never failed. These guys have never made a crappy game in their entire lives. Count it: BlackThorne, The Lost Dwarves, Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo 2.

Not a crappy game among them.

 

[Fez]

Yeah, it's a star-studded line up of titles. I AM JUST TOO SCARED OF BEING LET DOWN TO HOPE ANY MORE.

Once the news of the project starts coming out a bit, I'll probably get more excited. At least they are working on an RPG, and one which is probably new IP that will let them design it how they want, without compromise. They've got a good chance of making a gem. Hopefully, the publishers will treat them decently too. Threats of mighty reckonings, and all that.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I dunno. I thought Starcraft was pretty crappy.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I dunno. I thought Starcraft was pretty crappy.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Aren't you way past your troll quota, Otaku?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

No. I thought Starcraft sucked too. Kthx. :D

 

[Lady Armageddona]

From a gameplay point of view Starcraft really, really, really sucked.
But the story was great, so I am willing to forget that.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

The story of Starcraft was okay. What killed the game for me was the fact that it was just standard RTS fare of the time and I'm just not fond of that style in the genre. Total Annihilation is really the only RTS title I like from "back in the day".

 

[xemous]

Bill Roper has never failed. These guys have never made a crappy game in their entire lives. Count it: BlackThorne, The Lost Dwarves, Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo 2.

Not a crappy game among them.

apart from the console games which i never played, thats 100% correct. whatever sucess warcraft 3 and its expansion had was due to what the devs learnt from them, and the games were still shit.

can't to see what these guys release, but the final 12 months before release is going to kill me, i hated waiting for diablo2 since fucking 1998 man.

 

[xemous]

From a gameplay point of view Starcraft really, really, really sucked.
But the story was great, so I am willing to forget that.

you people are fucking morons, from a gameplay point view starcraft is the best rts the world will ever see. morons..

 

[Surlent]

Bill Roper has never failed. These guys have never made a crappy game in their entire lives. Count it: BlackThorne, The Lost Dwarves, Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Diablo, Diablo 2.

Not a crappy game among them.

You mean Lost Vikings ? Now there's classic series.
But gotta hand it to Roper, he knows how to make good games. Not many industry vets have made as succesful games as he has both gameplay and commercially wise.

from a gameplay point view starcraft is the best rts the world will ever see. morons..

I don't think so pal. I recently played SC and its xpansion. The units staggered and clunched to each other. In multiple levels of terrain units gets clunched to path leading to higher hills. So in short the pathfinding sucks. There's still whole lot of micromanagement going on in combat like also in W3:TFT. Resource management is your basic harvesting. Not to mention questionable "tactics" like rushing. (A lot of those points W3:TFT and Dawn of War have adressed.)

edit: this is not to say SC is bad game. Especially the story telling rocks and characters were colorful, Kerrigan for example. W3 repeated whole lot of her in Arthas.

 

[Volourn]

Man. From that list of games, Bill Roper makes games soc rappy I'd rather not play them at all... and, I haven't.

Muahahahahahahahahaha!!

 

[xemous]

Surlent: Thats because your shit.

I can micromanage all my units flawlessly, rushing is a valid tactic with draw backs.

Having heavy emphasis on resource management, unit control along with a near perfect balance of 3 very different teams is perfect.

The problem with Warcraft 3 is they tried to shift all the games tactics to pure unit management that dosent leave much room for good resource management and with poor balancing your going to get shitty games that are all similar in play.

Starcraft has a range of tools in game that you can use to defeat your enemy, that lets very different players get a fair go, if I have weak unit control I can just out resource my enemy and overwhelm him with units, if I have weak resource managemtn i'll control my units carefully to cause as much damage early on or late game to gain the upper hand. That and the difference in teams and plethora of different moves and unit types, your choice increases exponentially. Everyone who complains about pathfinding is just shit, learn to manually controls your units.

Not only is the multiplayer the best multiplayer in the known world, the single player story is the best i have ever played in an RTS.

The graphics were built around the gameplay design. If you read up on the alphas, the engine was constantly undergoing changes and looks completely different from the original first alpha. This is why the game still looks pleasant now.

Evolution of Starcraft url,
http://www.sclegacy.com/features/evolution.php

 

[Surlent]

Thats because your shit.

Kinda was expecting that. Well it's opinions all the same and thanks to more enthusiastic SC fans like you there's still multiplayer community around.

But the computer pathfinding still staggers like in an Infinity engine game. By resource harvesting I meant the usual gold mine in base gathering opposed different solutions for example like in Dawn of War resources are gathered from points spread across the map and you're forced to come out of base instead of turtling.

Interesting link. Graphics and interface look pretty much the same over the development since the alpha stage. Seems though they remoled the units lots of times.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

No, Xemous, I am not a moron. You are a fanboy. Rushing tactics and all that shit are crap RTS bullshit. There's not tactics in that. Just build up as fast as you can and rush out the gate. Where's the fun in that? Maybe you enjoy it, but I don't. And you are a moron if you don't like that. :D

 

[Sol Invictus]

There is not much tactics in StarCraft and 'Gosu-style' clickfests aren't my idea of intellectual workouts. While the idea of macro-management and build queues is an interesting one to many, it isn't one that I find very appealing as it's completely abstract (think theoretical math) and detached from any kind of reality.

Starcraft is still a good game, though, inspite of that. And a better one, if you like that sort of thing.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I already said the story in Starcraft was good, but I borrowed my friend's copy of both it and the expansion and proceeded to cheat my way through it just to see the story through because that gameplay style just doesn't appeal to me at all.

 

[xemous]

No, Xemous, I am not a moron. You are a fanboy. Rushing tactics and all that shit are crap RTS bullshit. There's not tactics in that. Just build up as fast as you can and rush out the gate. Where's the fun in that? Maybe you enjoy it, but I don't. And you are a moron if you don't like that. :D

your an idiot.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I believe the proper word is "you're", which is abbreviated to mean "you are".
e.g. You are an idiot.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Haha! Too funny.