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Champions Online: Bill Roper Leaves Cryptic Studios
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a surprising post on the official Champions Online page, it has been announced that Bill Roper has left Cryptic Studios to, as he puts it, "look for new opportunities". Roper had been instrumental in producing Champions Online, struggled with Flagship's Hellgate: London and was the driving force behind Blizzard's Diablo series.
The effort and dedication that has gone into the launching of Champions Online and Star Trek Online, as well as the continued support of these games in the months that followed, shows the passion that everyone here has for the games and our community. And even as verbose as I usually am, I can’t properly express how incredibly inspiring it has been to work with the people here at Cryptic and how much I’ve learned from my time here. Most importantly, I learned a lot from you – our players. In the months and years ahead, I hope to be able to apply that knowledge and continue to create worlds and games that entertain. Thank you all for both the support and the kicks in the ass that have pushed me to constantly evaluate and grow.
Read the full letter here and let us know your thoughts.
Thanks Ramael for the tip.
Comments
Bill did a pretty good job in the pre-launch development of CO, at least for players like me that like the action based combat, but he was not as good of a post-launch figurehead as the current exec producer Poz. Poz is a lot better at listening to the players, but Bill deserves a lot of credit for making such a good combat system as the game's foundation.
Another Fall guy. I hope someday the corporate execs. get what's coming to em.
I always use Champions Online as my example of a "great ideas, bad execution" MMO. I was in since beta, wound up being a lifer (as a present, admittedly), and truthfully did enjoy the game's concepts and mechanics, despite the way they eventually came together.
A little too late don't you think? They shouldn't have hired him in the first place.
All the damage he has done. It has left an unrepairable damage to the corporate image of Cryptic, together with Atari making it even worse.
Bye bye. Lets all just hope he doesn't end up with some other major studio and run it into the ground there too.
To me CO is a good example of "Make late changes that pissed off Beta testers, and completely mismanage public relations at launch. " Fortunately neither of those things effect the actual game, which is quite good.
Not get rid of Jack Emmert and John Needham and Cryptic will be a quarter way toward not being such a horrid game studio!
Good riddance to bad rubbish!
I have no ill-will toward Mr.Roper, but I can't pull punches with the way this games direction went. They had such a strong base to work off of, very great ideas, but its true, the execution was terrible. I'm speaking about Champions specifically, but it holds the same for STO. I'm afraid its a little late to turn champions around though, DCUO is just around the corner - my guess is, Mr. Roper made the smart choice to seize a lifeboat on this sinking ship.
Good. Maybe in time, I can trust Cryptic again. Roper was a disease, and I honestly hope another company isn't stupid enough to hire him. This is the second company he's had a hand in ruining, and that should tell people something.
Bill must have figured out that that multi-million $$ bonus wasn't going to be coming through and like the big bag of wind that he is, lifted off for greener shores. Roper is a master salesman and hell on an expense account, nothing more. No tears shed here.
Bill Roper was hardly instrumental in developing CO, he wasn't hired until a few months before release. I think the only reason they hired they guy was because they thought his name might still carry some weight, despite the Hellgate disaster.
His departure doesn't really signal any sort of change, given that he didn't appear to actually do much of anything at the studio.
Such disdain for a person we barely know!
Losing Bill Roper is a step in the right direction for Cryptic, but the CEO John Needham absolutely needs to go before there is any chance of a turn around for Cryptic.
Without that change it will just be business as usual.
I don't know what Roper was or wasn't responsible for with either CO or STO. All I know is that they both had terrible launches and STO continues to be a below par game.
However, both Vibora Bay and Serpent Lantern are great additions to CO. Scalable instances and really fun content? I still go back to CO ocassionally to play that stuff. I'm curious to see what they come up with next.
DCO around the cornor? All the hype like every other game and people will end up puttting that game down to, todays players ruin every game on the market gamers are never happy period.
I know some games suck and people have every right to dislike a game but , this forum mostly every single game people complain about every game , even games not out yet, look at SWTOR people already complaining and its not out yet..
I liked champions and STO was ok, both games where good games , but they lacked content in the end, I can both games doing better if they tried harder but I doubt it, cryptic problem is they push games out to fast and not enough content.
Champions biggest problem was not enough group play, it didnt feel like an MMO, more of an RPG single player game. Thats one of few problems major I seen.
But people complain no matter what game is out there , I hate to be a dev because you can never make everyone happy..
They both had good launches compared to most MMO's.....They both had decent launches not bad, but not 100 great..
Look at WOW, they had a horrid launch, and if you try and sau they had a good launch then you where not there... WOW is the number 1 game with sub wise.. Not game play for me but they have the most subs and had a horrid launch so, just because a game has a bad launch doesn't mean much to me.
Its rough to launch a game takes alot of time and work, but kids now a days would have no idea what work is..
I agree content was the BIGGEST problem, but not the ONLY problem. Levels post 25 were pretty much pointless as far as your power pools were concerned. You'd get new skills but you only really used the same 3 - 5 skills, anything over that was pointless. The melee and ranged disparity was so great it made melee characters pointless.
The game was touted as very actionish combat with no auto attack but turned into combat that absolutely needed the auto attack at least at the early levels.
I liked the game, played it in beta to help squash bugs, didn't buy it on launch, instead, bought it a couple months later for 10 dollars and was surprised to find these glaring issues still in game, including the low content. It just couldn't hold my attention, but it was worth the 10 dollar purchase.
EDIT:: You are right also about being a developer. Everyone wants games specifically geared towards them, and believe if a game doesn't appeal to them then it fails. Most players on this site especially are part of a very vocal minority of gamers. These same people will always complain.
Me on the other hand, I enjoyed Champions when I played it, and wrote the first on-site review stating such after the NDA was lifted. I'm willing to give all games a try, and if it has pitfalls, I post what they were for me. It in no way means the game will be terrible for everyone.
This...I'm not a fna of Bill Roper but he was mor eof a PR mouthpiece thna anything else.Cryptic thought his name still had value from his Blizzard days and tried to use it to push their products.He had very little to do with the direction CO and STO took.
If I was as paranoid as some here I'd say he was hired to be the fall guy Cryptic knew they'd evenutally need.LOL
I just have to say one thing, Roper was FAR from a 'driving force behind the Diablo series'. He played a minor non-design non-developer role. There's been this myth that he was important in the design and development of diablo 1 and 2, which were awesome games, and this myth was used to sell people on CO and Hellgate. It needs to stop.
Even giving the benefit of the doubt, that since Hellgate also had randomized instances/loot, that Roper was even remotely instrumental in those features seeing the light of day...
...those were the least appealing features of Diablo, IMO.
Everything Roper has since been involved in, has either been a dismal failure or a spectacular one.
Could just be coincidence. But I don't plan to keep or buy stock in the next company that hires him.
Uh to the poeple bashing Roper not realize he was at the helm of Vibora bay, and possibly early concepts of Serpent Lantern. If your going to bash atleast bring facts to back your claims.
Oh dear, this means he is now on the loose to ruin even more mmo's lol
Playing: FFXIV
Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic
Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
Interesting Fact - I own 27 Tarantula's
I sure hope Bioware or other good developers dont pick this guy up
Fact: every game Roper has touched since Hellgate: London has taken a leap into the turdbowl.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Which wacky MMO personality can save Champions!? Hmm he'd have to be someone really Smart like with a PhD or something...
Wait a minute, wasn't the shift of Poz to Exec Producer for CO supposed to free Bill up for work on Cryptic's rumoured NWN/Forgotten Realms MMO?