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

Interview: Bill Roper on HGL's online fee structure.
Date: May 9, 2007
Source: Gamespy.com.

Gamespy Interview

Bill Roper on Hellgate: London Elite (PC)
You gotta pay a monthly fee for Hellgate? We sit with Bill Roper to get the straight scoop on paying him ten bucks a month.
By Thierry 'Scooter' Nguyen

Back in CES 2007, news broke that the upcoming Hellgate: London would have some sort of MMO-style subscription fee, only to be met with Flagship Studio reps stating that the definitive plans were still "undergoing evaluation." Now, EA and Flagship have officially announced the subscription model, tentatively titled "Hellgate Elite." As Flagship CEO Bill Roper comments, "Some people find it snooty; we're still figuring out the title, we just want something that conveys a premium level of service that sounds cool." With that said, until Flagship settles on an actual title for the service, the use of the word "Elite" is simply Roper's shorthand for "Hellgate's Expanded Online Subscription Service"

How will it work? Out of the box, you'll have access to the entire single-player game, three character slots, a stash that can hold about twenty items, a soft level cap of about 35-40 (this will be ironed out later), basic voice chat, buddy lists, guild membership, and online co-op play.

For $9.99 a month, you can subscribe to Elite, which will give you access to ongoing content (more on this in a bit), about twelve or more characters, a larger stash that can be shared between characters, a level cap that increases as content is released, access to a special train that takes you to Elite areas, and the ability to form guilds and choose different gameplay modes (PvP, Hardcore mode, and so on). "Ongoing content" is made up of stuff like new locations, quests, enemies, item drops, player housing, and even character classes. Flagship is estimating that about 40% of the development team will be focused on just creating new content for Elite subscribers.

Like the title "Hellgate Elite," these features aren't set in stone, and final details and nuances have to be worked out, but this is the basic framework of the differences between Elite and what Roper terms "value" level players. That said, we sat down with Roper for a bit to get a rundown on how Elite came to be and what players can expect from it.

GameSpy: Okay, so give us a rundown of what Elite is and why.

Bill Roper: The most important thing that we definitely do not want to get lost in all of this is we're focusing on, at its core, giving players that same Diablo II experience. They buy a game, and for that price, in the box, they get to play single-player as much as they want, and they can go online and play with their friends, through that same experience. Getting both solo play and free multiplayer.

One of the things we learned on top of that, from all the Diablo II days and feedback we got, is how gamers have shown that they want to experience continuing online gameplay. They want to be able to get new stuff; items, places, monsters, quests, rewards, abilities for their characters, classes, skills, community things like guild things, everything. We wanted to create a model that supports that and shows how we can have the same commitment to longevity in the game as our players do. That's where having a higher, premium service comes in. The Elite subscription is a sustainable way we can continue to give players all the things they want and expect. At the same time, we want to make sure that players who bought the box are getting an incredible experience as well. I think we managed that, it's extremely comparative to the Diablo II that everybody loved.

It also depends on how you think of it. If you think of it as being a boxed product, primarily, you go "wow, for the same price you get a single-player game and you also get free, fully-supported client-server online multiplayer with all of your friends." Then, there's the potential that if you want to pay for the subscription, you can start acquiring tons of content. If you think of it as more of an MMO, you think "Great, I got this MMO that comes with an offline version that I can play by myself and a whole way to play for free that is basically a trial period that lasts forever, instead of two weeks." I think whatever side of the coin you're on, it's this pretty incredible value, either way, and that's what we were really striving to do.

The idea with Elite content is to make sure they are things that, both immediately and stretching into the future, players want in a lot of aspects. Not just more monsters and items, but things that they would be surprised to get in a continuing content package, like character classes (usually those are reserved for expansions). More community-based things; content that affects guilds like housing and community tags and gameplay types. It's content, but in areas players won't expect. That's the thing I think we missed out on in Diablo II; to have any feasible way to put content into the game after launch. There's the game and the expansion pack, and a year later, one big content patch. That's pretty much it. So on a quarterly basis, we want to roll out big chunks of content to people.

GameSpy: Are there any specific influences from other games in thinking up these content pushes?

Bill Roper: We really like the way City of Heroes does its content updates. We think it's really cool to have nice, big, meaningful chunks of content that that branches out in a lot of areas. They communicate a lot with their community, saying "hey, here's what's coming up, here's what you're getting" and they also listen to the community.

A lot of things that end up in those updates are things that players say "oh, we want this, or we really want that" and that went into the development queue and then into release. We want that same kind of flexibility, as we're playing the game, with our fans and players. We have in our minds what players want and get, but you'll always be surprised. We think "they'll really want this" and players go "we don't give a crap about that, we want more of these things over here." And you go "okay, great, let's get more of those." And we're checking out stats on the server and anecdotally talking to people on the forums. You start to see different play styles or you'll see things that aren't being fulfilled like "how come nobody is using this skill?" You notice nobody has been playing without it but nobody has been really using it. And so we start to figure out why that is, you tweak that skill, and it opens up a whole new build that players can mess around with. It's a lot of interacting and attention with the community. That's another big component that we're excited about doing with ongoing content; show that same commitment that our players do. We can be building the game that everyone wants it to be.

This is still free.

GameSpy: So would the content be basically split fifty-fifty on planned versus reacted content?

Bill Roper: I wouldn't want to put an actual percentage figure on that. It would probably fluctuate with each update. Some will be "the five big things we want in this one" and that's 100% of what we have planned. Another one would be "we have a couple of big things, let's spend some time this quarter looking at player feedback then." Even when you're doing things that you planned, you need to take into account what the community says. Even in those instances where we know what we want to give out, we still need to see what players want, and do some tweaking and tuning inside of that upgrade.

GameSpy: So did you always plan to have a subscription model, or is this a response to the popularity of modern MMOs?

Bill Roper: We always knew. We might not have had every specific element planned out, but we knew from day one that we'd be doing continual content. I think the challenge for us is we knew we wanted to do both things. We knew we wanted a way to support doing continual content, and it was also equally important for us to have a way for players to play for free, because there was that expectation. How people say, "Well, you're the Diablo guys, so it's free, right?" So yes, we needed to do that. But at the same time, even at Blizzard, we couldn't just crank out continuing content and have the whole team on that without some way of sustaining it. We had to find a way to do both of those that people find exciting, and also be manageable and reasonable from a cost standpoint. That's what took us two years to figure out. But absolutely, the goal and intention was there from day one.

GameSpy: What if someone subscribes to Elite, but chooses to end their subscription? Does their gear undergo some Back To The Future effect where it just fades away?

Bill Roper: [chuckles] Nothing will ever disappear. We don't want you to suddenly lose items. Your worst-case scenario in those events (and granted, we haven't figured out every nuance of what happens to items like that) is that you would lose access to things. For example, as a "value player," you have three character slots, while the Elite has twelve. So you'd keep your three top slots, and we might have a way to choose who your top three guys are. So if you stop or cancel for whatever reason, you have access to those three, but not the rest. Those other characters won't get deleted, you'll never lose them, you just can't use them.

Same things with items, or extra stash space. We'd just gray those things out; close that part of the bank. The basic idea is that you don't lose things, you just can't use them. We know people say things like, "I'm going to be gone on vacation for a month, maybe just not pay for that one month." You can come back and get all your stuff when you pay again. I have a friend who's in a WoW guild with my wife, and he went over to Iraq a few months ago, and he asked "hey, can you keep playing my character?" He's still paying because he didn't want to lose his character status. Stuff comes up, and we want to be friendly with people. We want to say, "we'll keep your stuff, you won't lose anything." Being an Elite gets you a lot with us, and we don't want to just dump your gear and make you lose your work.

GameSpy: So what if you made a new character with an Elite-specific character class as your main, and then cancel?

Bill Roper: Okay, it depends. Maybe that's simply tagged as Elite content and you're simply told "you can't play as that guy anymore." That would be turned off as elite content. But it depends. We may decide "yea, you can keep playing", but it really depends. We don't want people to feel like "oh man, that sucks, I lost everything. I never want to go back." If people need time off or can't pay for a couple of months, whatever the reason, they can always come back and pick up where they left off. On the other hand, we don't want someone to just pay for a month, get a buncha cool gear and loot, and cancel saying, "Wahoo, look, I have all the stuff you guys get" to other players still paying for Elite. It's a fine line and there are things to work out, but the goal is that when you're an Elite player, you're getting a lot of stuff that other people don't get. So if you don't do that anymore, you won't lose things, you just can't get to them anymore.

Don't fret, you can still make cool Summoners like this one even without a subscription

GameSpy: Some people criticize games with microtransactions by pointing out that the content is on the disc, and you're just paying for an unlock code. Is Elite content on the disc, or is it being pushed out?

Bill Roper: It's mostly pushing. For example, there could be elements that are already on the DVD when it ships, such as art. If we have art that we know is going to be used for Elite content, it's better to be put on the DVD. It's better than thinking "oh, hey, Elite content, here's a two-gig push." So it probably will be a situation where we have some art and think "we should do something with this" and put it on the DVD. A clear example is that in multiplayer, there's a special train that serves as your access point to Elite content areas. So even though the train itself isn't normal content, we're going to put it in there, because it's better for us to put all that art now and give it to players now on the disc. We're definitely not doing "let's just put a bunch of stuff in and ship with 90% of the game locked on the disc."

We actually had a talk about this yesterday, and we realize that people who complain will complain anyway. You can choose to not put a certain item in to give people that sense of "hey, there's a loading bar, I'm getting content" but complainers will say "they probably had that ready, why didn't they just put it on a disc?" If someone wants to believe that you've gone through several elaborate machinations in order to rip them off, nothing is going to change their minds.

GameSpy: I heard you mention "quarterly," is that the content schedule? It's not monthly?

Bill Roper: I don't know where monthly came from. I read that, but that wasn't us, maybe it's in a doc somewhere that I missed. But our push is always to do a big content update once a quarter (with smaller, incremental updates each month). Monthly would be really hard. The most difficult thing about a monthly push is QA. We talked with EA and they were all "no way we can do monthly, that's going to kill everybody." We talked about the best way of creating meaningful content, getting it through the testing process, and releasing. We also don't want to slam out buggy content and hear players talk about quests that don't even work.

It seems like quarterly was the best solution. Players just think every three months "oh, cool, there's going to be a big content drop" and it's enough time for us to make something substantive rather than say "oh look, we added a new monster. Here he is." People are already brainstorming and making a big list of ideas. I think we'll have things that will blow people away. For example, to me, offering a new character class is a really big deal, I don't think I've seen that in any other game. It's not something you associate with a normal monthly fee. You're talking about implementing all-new skills and massive amounts of artwork, and that's a big deal.

GameSpy: So what if someone subscribes to Elite before the first big content push, will there be Elite perks available for the early adopter?

Bill Roper: When the game ships, there will be Elite-level things online from day one. We don't want people to feel like they paid for something and didn't get anything. When they start paying us, there has to be something substantive to have. There are things that we are working on that are online-only content, and those things will be there when people start paying.

If you're shooting along and see someone with fab stuff, he's probably a subscriber

GameSpy: Are servers and support driven by EA then?

Bill Roper: Support is actually split. EA handles everything single-player and offline. Anything online related goes through Ping0 [points upward and mouths "fifth floor"], our partner company. That includes character hosting and customer service and tech support and everything. That's handled by those guys. We got West Coast servers here in the city.

GameSpy: Has the idea of doing a physical content disc, a packaging of Elite-content for those who don't subscribe, come up?

Bill Roper: That's something we can definitely, potentially do down the line. It's not impossible a year down the line for us to be like "let's take the last nine months of content and kick that out to the single-player people." It's just a matter of figuring out "does that make sense, and is this what single-player people want?" Of course, we'll give fixes that affect everybody, like bug fixes or major balance tweaks, for free. The package is certainly possible.

I think there's a case for saying down the line "we gotta let non-Elite people catch up to Elite," but even then, we wouldn't give them everything. But people need to remember that when you have that subscription, you're getting stuff first and continually, and you'll always have things that other people don't have. There will be time-based stuff, so someone who did wait for a theoretical "six months" disc jumps in and gets caught up, they'd miss out on special events. Like no special Christmas loot until the following Christmas. There will be times where we do things just once, and if you missed it, you can't get it. Like at BlizzCon, where every attendee got a murloc pet. If you didn't go, then you didn't get that pet.

Another thing I like is City of Heroes and its veteran rewards. For continuous membership with the game, every three or six months, you get something. One of our senior producers has been playing since CoH's launch, and when we're like "where'd you get this cool stuff," he'd answer "that's my one-year veteran reward." It's a cool way to acknowledge a customer being faithful and supportive for a long time. I love giving people stuff because they've been there for a certain time or been players for a long time.

GameSpy: So can Elite players play with regular players on the same server?

Bill Roper: We actually don't have "servers" in the traditional sense. You're not like "I have a dude on Laughing Skull and an alt on Ner'Zhul." In Hellgate, it's more like Diablo, where you're simply in a geographical region. So you're playing with people that are also close to that region. Elite lets you select additional modes of gameplay, but not a specific server.

Players can intermingle in every way, and even play together. Everybody can access the common areas, and they can trade normal items. Anything a normal player can do, they can do with an Elite in common zones. They just can't access Elite-only areas. It's like walking around town with a buddy until he gets to a club and says "Sorry, this is a members-only kind of place." And then he goes up to the smoking room with masseuses and 50-year-old single malt scotches.

We want players to intermingle. We didn't want to segregate the player base. It also helps regular players see why they'd want to be Elite, such as when a normal asks an Elite about where to get gear. You wouldn't segregate a level 50 from a level 12 guy. You want the level 12 guy to see what he can look forward to at 50. We want players to see and go "okay, that's cool and meaningful, there's a reason for me to go Elite."

Crazy gear like this dude's hiveblade (Hellgate for "a sword with bugs") might be a subscriber perk

GameSpy: Can an Elite player help twink out his lower-level buddy?

Bill Roper: Well, in general, any high-level player can twink out a lower-level, Elite or not. You can't give Elite gear to non-Elite players, but you can do everything else.

GameSpy: Conversely, does that mean Elite players will always gank non-Elite players?

Bill Roper: We haven't done a ton of PvP, as PvP isn't a focus for our game. We'll have Arenas and PvP stuff, but the game is predominantly co-op focus. We know that players like to play each other and test themselves. On the situation of two similar-level guys, but the Elite has better gear, I don't know how much you'd run into that. We just don't see the situation where a level 30 Elite kicks the crap out of a level 30 normal. With the randomized loot system, Elite gear doesn't automatically mean "better," it's just "different." There could be a normal drop that's better than Elite.

   We want players to see an Elite guy and be like "Wow, where did you get that thing?"An example conversation could be, "I didn't know Cabalists can equip swords," "well, normally they don't, but I'm an Elite and I did this quest to get this special sword." The sword might not technically be better, but it's different and cool. It's not necessarily about becoming an Elite to be better than everyone else, it's more about exploring and unlocking different styles and builds and areas. It's the difference between "I kind of want to make an Aura-based Guardian build" for normal and an Elite saying "oh, with these Elite drops, I can totally make an Aura-spec Guardian."

GameSpy: What about things like guild housing? Or player housing in general. Can an Elite guy be tagged as the guild bank and just build a bunch of houses for guild members to store stuff in?

Bill Roper: Well, er, it's not in yet, so...

Great question, but we haven't really designed those systems out just yet. The goal is that you want people to share the experience when you're not Elite, but creation and ownership is an Elite perk. As a normal, I can join and be a member of a guild. Not a creator or an officer, but at least I can get the experience of being in a guild. So apply that to housing, as a normal, maybe I can access and hang out at the guild headquarters, but I can't touch the guild stash. Yea, there is some basic functionality at the guild house for normals, but there will be a whole new layer of things to do as an Elite. For housing, non-Elites can't have housing, but Elites can invite players to come check out the house. They can see it, but they can't collect trophies or do things. So people can experience, but you have to be Elite for creation.

GameSpy: With this subscription model with regular, quarterly pushes of big content, does that mean you've abandoned the traditional expansion pack model of action-RPGs?

Bill Roper: We've just been focused on shipping the game. If we want to, and there was demand, we can easily do both models. What we like about the Hellgate universe is that it's expandable. It's a specific "what is happening in this time at this part of the world during a demon invasion." One of the things I'd like to do is to take that "camera lens" and aim it at different places in the world. So this game covers London, but I'd like to see what's happening in Cairo or New York or Tokyo or Seoul. One of the most fascinating things from working on the game is seeing what the mythologies and histories of the city itself are. The heroes and villains in London would be very different than something in Egypt; where we'd then be playing with Anubis and Iris instead and be focusing on creating sand magic. Or go to Japan and have samurai and ninja for character classes and factions, with their own unique demonology. Those are the kinds of things you can explore in the size of a typical expansion, whereas continual content is focused on building up and fleshing out the area you're in. You can do both.