From Hellgatewiki.com

An archived Hellgate: London feature. See the Hellgate Archives for more.

Interview: Bill Roper talks about RPGs, starting Flagship, and leaving Blizzard.
Date: October 26, 2003
Source: Silven Crossroads

Silven Crossroads Interview

Silven Crossroads: Thank you for taking the time to tell us more about Flagship Studios. Gamers around the world are anxious to know more about the new company and, of course, the new games that will be developed.

Bill Roper: Of course! We all have a real desire to stay as connected as possible with the worldwide community of gamers, and we appreciate the chance to do that through your website. We can't wait to talk about what we're up to - well, as much as we can, at least, during this early stage of the company and the game's development.

Silven Crossroads: The pressing question on the minds of many gamers regards your collective departure from Blizzard Entertainment, an announcement that at least somewhat shocked the gaming community. How did the decision, as a team, to leave Blizzard come about and why did you decide to leave? Was it a coordinated effort, or did it just sort "happen" during a brainstorming session or perhaps in a more "relaxed" atmosphere with someone throwing out the idea of creating a new development house?

Bill Roper: Actually, we didn't plan on leaving Blizzard, but that's the way things ended up working out. Basically, we were looking for a higher level of involvement concerning the sale of the Vivendi Universal Games unit and felt we had to go as far as tendering our resignations to try and open a direct line of communication with the decision maker's in France. As was their right, they decided to not afford us that opportunity and chose instead to accept our resignations.

To be honest, that came as a shock to us, but we looked at it as a new opportunity to start all over again doing something we love. Sometimes life throws you a curve and - to use a baseball analogy - hopefully you've been sitting on that pitch and you can drive it out of the park.

Silven Crossroads: The games division of Vivendi has been on and off the sale block for some time now. Did this uncertain status have any influence on your decision to depart?

Bill Roper: It was a contributing factor to our desire to talk with the folks in France that eventually led to our departure.

Silven Crossroads: This question is for Bill Roper. What was it like for you having your cell phone number published in some news stories?

Bill Roper: That was really a consequence of the unexpected nature of our departure from Blizzard. Dave, Erich, Max and I were standing in Erich's office, making the snap decision to start a company, and we realized that once the news got out about our departure, no one was going to be able to get a hold of us. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and said, "Well, I guess this just became the company phone, then."

Fortunately most people respected what we were trying to do, and the vast majority of calls were people trying to get in touch with is about what our future plans were. We also got more than a couple of gamers calling to wish us luck, and that was some really great support to get.

Silven Crossroads: Your group has worked together for quite awhile now on various projects. It is obvious that you all seem to be on the same page, but what is the main goal of the new company?

Bill Roper: Flagship Studios intends to establish a focused computer games development house comprised of the very best individuals in the industry. The company is dedicated to making games that set the standard in interactive entertainment through fostering of a small, focused development group solely committed to the creation of world-class games.

We want to create an immersive and compelling game play experience with both single and multiplayer gamers in mind with experiences that will appeal to both hard-core and casual gamers alike.

We also will create an interactive, online gaming network designed to provide players with easy access to our games. This experience will be supported in numerous ways, including the maintenance of close relationships with the worldwide gaming community.

Silven Crossroads: Your team is well known for their involvement in high-profile (and best-selling) products in the games industry. How are you preparing for the inevitable high expectations, of both gamers and publishers, of your new product?

Bill Roper: We've always felt that we are our own harshest critics and have the highest expectations for doing the best job that we can, so we're going to work very hard to live up to our own standards. We know that people are looking at us with pretty high expectations, and we don't want to disappoint them, so you can bet we're already spending a lot of hours going over design ideas, modeling game play, and iterating on all aspects of the play experience.

I think it's also important to point out that we want to keep the gaming community as informed as to the progress of the game as we can, so that they have as good an idea as possible as to what we're making and what to expect. Obviously, that level of detail is going to be extremely low this early in the process, but as time goes by, we'll keep you all updated.

Silven Crossroads: Several members of your team were instrumental in developing the design, structure and interface of Blizzard's online gameplay service, Battle.net. Will you be utilizing that knowledge and talent to develop your own online gaming service for multiplayer gameplay in your games, or is that a project that is planned for a later date?

Bill Roper: One of the best things about Blizzard is their acceptance and encouragement of involvement from people all throughout the company, so while we certainly didn't invent Battle.net, we had a lot of exposure to it and had input on areas that directly interfaced with the projects we were working on. We learned a lot from the Battle.net team as well, so we have a solid footing from which to build a way for gamers to hook up online and play our games.

Silven Crossroads: You are waiting to make an announcement regarding the game title and possible projected release window with your selected publisher. Do you have any feel for when that announcement might be made? Are you at liberty to reveal which publishers are being considered?

Bill Roper: No, and no. Setting a release window this early in the process of making the game would be utter and complete speculation. We have internal development milestones we want to meet, and we do have an idea of how long the game will take to make, but saying it will be ready for a certain day or month years form now is just a goal and is really a disservice in the context of setting people's expectations.

As far as publishers go, we've talked with just about anyone you can imagine, probably some you wouldn't think of, or even know about. The games industry had really grown up over the past decade, and the number of people who came to us to discuss publishing opportunities was a little overwhelming. We really count ourselves fortunate to have made these contacts and are excited about some of the possibilities. Hopefully we'll have something to announce in terms of a publishing partner in the relatively near future.

Silven Crossroads: You have hinted that fans of your past games will enjoy this new project but that the game will "not be what anyone expects". This is rather cryptic and leaves the door open for a great deal of interpretation. Without revealing too much about this project, are you at liberty to reveal any more "hints" about the game at this time?

Bill Roper: Only that we're not looking to chase our past success, but want to go in a new direction in many regards. When Dave (Brevik) dropped the concept on the table, our first reaction was, "Why isn't anyone doing this?"

Silven Crossroads: Obviously, your collective reputation precedes you and many fans are very excited about this project and your new development studio. Thank you for taking the time to address our questions. We look forward to more information about Flagship Studios and this new project as development continues. We especially await the "big announcement" concerning your first game!

Bill Roper: Thanks again for giving us the chance to talk about Flagship and our direction as a company. We all look forward to staying in touch with the great group of gamers out there that have played the games we worked on in the past and want to know what we're going to do in the future.

We are indeed excited about this new venture and will keep you posted as more news is released from Flagship Studios. Although Bill indicated the game will be something different from games that have been done before, we at Silven are hoping for some type of RPG. Check back here for new information on this exciting new studio.