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

Interview: Bill Roper answers 18 questions on a wide variety of HGL topics.
Date: February 27, 2006
Source: Hellgate Spain Spanish or English (Dead links.)

Hellgate Spain Interview

Hello Bill, thank you for spending some of your time to answer our questions, we are impatient to know new details about Hellgate: London.

Bill Roper: It’s my pleasure to take some time out to talk with you. I’ll do my best to answer all yor questions.

Recently, in your web site, we can see that you look for DirectX and Windows Vista specialized personnel. What advantages do you think can get from these technologies? Will Hellgate: London work fine in previous versions of DirectX and Windows?

Bill Roper: We certainly want to allow as many people as possible access to playing Hellgate: London, so we will certainly support current versions of Direct X and Windows. The reason we’ve been searching for a programmer to support and integrate these new technologies is so that we can ensure all of our players have the best experience possible.

At the same time we want to utilize all of the fantastic new features and power that developers have in the upcoming Dx10 and Vista suites. There are a host of advantages we get, not the least of which is being able to make the game graphically richer, assist in scalability and better integrate our game into the Windows environment. We’ll be revealing specifics for Vista users as we get them into the game.

Also, in the last update in Flagship.com, you made an announcement a deal with WETA collectibles to make action figures from the Hellgate: London universe. You said that you are creating a very rich background history. As happened with the Diablo universe, Would we see in a near future, novels based in Hellgate: London? Are these the associated projects that you talked about before? Can this sort of projects help, financially, Flagship Studios and its future (or current) projects?

Bill Roper: We were incredibly excited to form our relationship with WETA because, well, we really idolize their work! The high-quality collectibles they create are stunning, and to have the opportunity to see what they will do with our universe is going to be an incredible experience. I’ll be traveling to New Zealand with our character art director, Phil Shenk, in March to meet with their design team and maybe even see the very first sculpts of the pieces.

As for other projects like this, I can’t get into specifics. I can say, however, that we’ve been working on creating and fostering relationships with some impressive individuals and companies for the past year and we’ll have some incredible things to announce as 2006 progresses. It has always been our goal to create a real world in which we can do much more than make our game, and our relationship with WETA is an example of this.

Let’s talk a little bit about the game, here in Spain, one of the most common questions is about the translations of the games. Well, do you have plans to translate Hellgate: London? If so, which languages are you thinking about? Spanish, perhaps? Are you going to translate both the multiplayer and single player parts? If you don't have plans to translate the game, Please tell us why? Is it quite difficult or are too many resources required to translate a game like this?

Bill Roper: We do intend to translate all parts of Hellgate: London into Spanish since we believe that the more we can make the game a comfortable and “native” experience for players, the better it will be for them. We have a lot of experience localizing our games, and we’ve planned to be able to do this from the very beginning of the project. We will also be working very closely with companies that specialize in localization in the various countries around the world to ensure that the translations are not only accurate, but have the right idioms and slang usage, as well.

Since we have plans to translate the game into about a dozen languages, it is also an effort that takes a lot of oversight on our end as well as with our publishing partners. This is a long and fairly difficult process that does add to the development time, but we know that it is worth every penny we spend and every minute we take.

In a recent image where we can see the character inventory, we can see that there is a slot for the back, also you said that the inventory is being constantly revised during the development. Will be parts of the armor like Jetpacks, that provide some kind of temporal “power” or “skill”? (e.g.: Super jump, energy shields for the entire party, etc...)

Bill Roper: The “back” slot is designed to be a generic place for anything the character could wear there, from cloaks to special armor to special items. We have discussed using this slot for pieces that grant different powers or skills, but what we get into the game will depend on how the character class development finishes up as well as what is fun to use.

As for the inventory itself, it has already changed fairly drastically since that screen shot, and it will undoubtedly change again. We’ll make sure to release some screens around E3 so you can see the evolution of our design in this area.

Something about we do not know too much is the music of Hellgate: London, What kind of music are you planing for the Hellgate: London sound track? Will be more like orchestral style, like Diablo 2 expansion, or something similar to the music that we can hear in the Blur Studio cinematic?

Bill Roper: We have two separate groups of composers working on all-original music for the game. The mood we have been striving for is an eclectic mix of both modern and classic sounds with a post-industrial edge. The music in the first Blur cinematic was a good launching point, and represents the genesis of our ideas in regards to the music for the game. We are also doing some things compositionally and technologically in how the music is being presented to the player that accentuates the game play experience.

This has been a real challenge for the composers, but the results so far have been great. Basically, the music is written, performed and integrated to support and reflect what is happening in the game at any point in time. This also means that the music and the sound effects are very conscious of each other from a mixing standpoint, making for a very complex and rewarding soundscape.

About the Hellgate: London engine, up to this moment what part of it has been the most complex to create/tweak? About the random map generation, has it been very hard to avoid the possibility to create a “no escape” zone?

Bill Roper: Creating a full 3D engine that can not only handle the amount of randomization we do, but look good doing it has been an ongoing task for our graphics guru, Chris Lambert. This is something that takes constant attention and is never really done as there are always new features he and the artists want added, new demands placed upon the engine when new background supersets are created, and of course, all the little tweaks that take place to get better and better performance.

We have a LOT of experience with random map generation, so while things like “no escape zones” are always something we keep an eye out for, it isn’t quite the same concern for us as it would be for other developers. We’ve also created tools that do a lot of combined level generation and flow-through testing that make our lives a little easier in this regard.

Time to talk about the third and first person views. You had said that Hellgate: London is an RPG, so the resolution of the combat is stat based, also you had said that you are looking a set of skills for a class more FPS playstyle friendly. So, what the first person view can offer to a more RPG focused player apart from a more deeper immersion in the game? And another one, The models of the arms and its armor that we can see in first person view, will change depending on the gender of our character and his/her equipment? As far as I know, we only have seen male arms without any type of armor...

Bill Roper: The first person viewpoint offers a few things. First and foremost is the one you mentioned – immersion in the world. Really being your character as opposed to directing one around the world is very appealing to many players. This perspective also allows us create new types of challenges and experiences for the players, such as playing with altitude, demons that hide and effectively use their environment, and can really surprise the player in a lot of ways.

The arms you see in the game are the base, non-armored ones for male characters. We always concentrate first on getting art into the game that makes a substantive difference to the experience and the game play. This means weapons, particle effects, monsters, armor, mods and so forth all come first. We will accurately reflect the armor you’re character is wearing on his/her arms and hands when in first person view – we just have not put a priority on it yet.

In some of the Hellgate: London videos, we can see items that give “shields”, in other video we also see a female templar with a yellow colored bar where again we can read “Shields”. What is that? Can you tell us more about it? And continuing with the shield, Will be more “traditional” shields and will we see it soon  ? In the artwork we can see some of them...

Bill Roper: The shields in the game are magical in nature, an incantation of protection the Templar can cast about themselves. We’ve gone back and forth on how this protection is represented in beyond the graphical effect that surrounds the character, and the yellow bar is just one of those passes. There will also be different types of these arcane shields to protect against different sorts of damage, so we’ll keep working on the best way to make it clear to players what the shield is defending them against as well as how effective it is.

As for traditional shields, some of the early concept work did indeed feature them. Is this something you’d like your Templar to have? Maybe a poll amongst your readers would be some great feedback to pass to the design team!

Talking about the multiplayer part. You had commented that to want to avoid the abuse of the “Town portals”. They only will send you back to the last secure location, you've visited. In Diablo 2 the portals can also be used to rendezvous far from cities. Will have Hellgate: London any type of option for players to “regroup” in a non secure zone? If so, Will the current zone increase the number of monster and their levels to be challenging for the new players? If it is not possible. Why this limitation?

Bill Roper: We do have ways for players to quickly traverse the world to easily get into groups. Once you’ve visited an Underground Station, you will always be able to get there from any other station, much like the waypoints in Diablo II.

As for being able to give out intricate details about how our dynamically generated areas support players (how many, how they group up, scalabilty and so on) we’re working on something right now that will answer a great many of your questions. That means, however, you’ll have to wait JUST a bit longer to hear it all!

At this moment, Can you confirm us if there will be quests or challenges for large groups of people (e.g.: guilds)? Can you give us some examples?

Bill Roper: I can confirm that we have “raid-level” content on our radar, but I don’t have a specific example for you. I can say that we have always envisioned being able to have 40+ characters in the same adventuring areas and the game play mechanics and engine have been thought out this way from the very start.

In other games, when forming groups, is necessary, or at least recommended, that certain character classes are present in the group (typical example the healers) Will this happen in Hellgate: London? To be more specific, A group would not be able to finish some quests if they don't have certain kind of characters?

Bill Roper: Since Hellgate: London can also be played as a stand alone, single-player game we need to make sure that every character class can effectively solo. We are also making sure that there are very specific reasons for different classes to be in groups when players are online. We never want a quest to be unable to finish because your group is lacking a certain class, but we do anticipate players looking for all types of characters to make a well-rounded and highly effective group.

A tricky question, Up to now we don´t know if we will have to pay some fee to play the multiplayer part of the game, Can you give us more details about this or is too soon? Selling merchandising and other related products will help to the maintenance of the online servers? Maybe the publishing of little expansion for the game for a small price can be a more realistic solution? Nowadays is impossible to create and support a service like Battle.Net, if you are not a very big company?

Bill Roper: We have not set anything in regards to payment and our online model. We do intend to support the game with continuing content after launch, and we know that providing anything short of full customer support and a secure, client/server model is unacceptable to gamers. Obviously servers and customer service representatives and ongoing content take money, but as to how we fund that is not determined.

Diablo 2 has a death penalty that depends on the difficulty level, that encourages the player to stay alive as long as he can. In a game like Hellgate: London, where at first look would not be easy to add some type of difficult levels like in Diablo 2, Will be any type of death penalty, that will make the player think twice before engaging in a lost battle? How the death will affect our character?

Our death penalty isn’t set, but there are a LOT of people here who aren’t into making it horribly punitive. I have always believed that when you die you should be thinking, “If I would have done that just a little differently I could have won that fight! I have to get back there and try it right now!” Many online RPGs have such severe death penalties that, when you die, you just want to turn the computer off and go curl up in the corner of your room. We don’t like making our player’s lives miserable, so I don’t anticipate our death penalty being very harsh while at the same time, it won’t feel meaningless. Again, this is something that will undergo a lot of tweaking – especially when we get into beta testing.

Bill Roper: The major part of the time in the game we will be killing demonic entities again and again, How you going to avoid the possible monotony in the game? Do you have plans to add new content (enemies, zones, even weapons) in a regular basis?

The random nature of the game really helps stop that first basic level of boredom that comes from sheer time invested. We also have many tasks and quests that give some meaning to your slaying of demons other than the fact that they are, well, evil demons. We also intend to support the game after the initial launch with ongoing content such as demons, items, areas and new game play modes. We know that RPGs – especially those that live online – have very long life-spans and have players that make a real commitment and investment in them. We want to match that commitment and passion to keep Hellgate: London a thriving and exciting game for years to come.

Talking about PvP, up to now you have not given so many details (you said that you are looking into it) but I want to know your ideas about it, How can you expect to have a balanced PvP when you have to think about so many random elements, ranging from the skills to the equipment?

Bill Roper: Well, that’s why we aren’t talking too much about it yet. The game is very cooperative and PvE focused, but we do realize that players want to test themselves against each other. We have some ideas on how to accomplish this, but it is going to be awhile yet until we can really see what may or may not work. Until then, we’re just acknowledging the desire of the community and promising to see what we can do.

While we are playing, We will have all our skills available? Or we will have to prepare them before starting any mission? As Hellgate: London will have a great degree of randomness, in theory, will be hard to choose the right skills before initiating a “expedition”. There will be places in the mission zones where we can change our skill setup to adapt it better to the situation?

Bill Roper: You will always have access to any skill or spell you’ve learned, although the ones you choose to have at your fingertips (so to speak) is your choice and one of the real tactics in the game. You can set both of your mouse buttons to be different skills/spells, making these your top priority. Assigning different skills to these buttons is a fairly simple matter, but you’ll want to have a plan of action before just wading into the fray. Changing your skills is always done on the fly, so you have a high degree of flexibility to adapt to whatever dangers you face.

A couple of questions about enemies, Do they have any type of AI? Or they only have a fixed behavior for every class? As an example, the zombies attack always directly without any type of care for theirs no-life, some demons only attack from distance etc... Or we can see some type of ambush made by some enemies depending on, the zone where they are o what characters are in the game, or another kind of strange behavior?

Bill Roper: We spend a great deal of time on our monster AI. Our philosophy on monster design is that every type of creature you encounter should have one special thing that they do, and that special thing should alter how you play the game in some way. Whether they have specialized attacks, change over the course of a battle, interact with other demons or affect the game environment, we want you thinking about each encounter from a strategic standpoint. You’ll see a lot of little surprises from our monsters, and we’ll always be playing with them to make them more and more fun to fight.

Blur Studio did an amazing work with the Hellgate: London cinematic, will you work again with them to make the intro and end cinematics?

Bill Roper: Most definitely! Blur did such an amazing job bringing our world to life last E3, we had to lock them up for the rest of our cinematic sequences. We’ll have something all-new for E3 this year, so if you thought the last one was great, wait until you see what coming next!