Bill Roper speaks to alltern8.com about the many changes and views Champions online has worked with over the last few months.

Alltern8: If the forums are a reliable indication, Champions Online has certainly divided gamers, with players either loving or hating the game for its accessible, humorous and action-orientated take on the MMORPG. Were you expecting such a dividing reaction?

Bill Roper: Champions does seem to be a game that you either love or don’t, and that did take us a little by surprise. It’s interesting, though – this just may be the way that gamers view MMOs now, if not all games. It may be a side-effect of the huge amount of games being made and the length of time spent on games both pre and post launch, if a game finds a solid audience. Players that like what we’re offering with Champions Online really love the game.

A8: One of the most appealing aspects of the game for us was that it brought attention to the original HERO system Champions role-playing game and its world, characters and mythology; a universe that many gamers perhaps weren’t familiar with. How have the long-term fans reacted to Cryptic’s reconstruction of a universe that has until now been played predominantly in participant‘s heads?

BR: They really appreciate the attention to detail we’ve given to the world, the heroes, villains, and overall spirit of the game. We’ve paid a huge amount of attention to little details in the world, and the hardcore Champions lore hounds absolutely love it. Players that are new to the Champions universe have responded very positively to it, and that also make us really happy.

A8: Naturally, the first few month of any MMO is going to see plenty of updates. Were there any design issues brought up by players during the launch that you hadn’t anticipated?
 

BR: They weren’t brought up by players as much as we finally had the mass amounts of raw data to find some pretty serious balance issues. We unfortunately had to do a large balance patch on the first day of wide service, but since then we’ve worked diligently to make less dramatic changes. MMOs are amazing because they are living things – games that we can constantly work to make better with the feedback of our community. As we continue to talk with our players, we’re hitting not only the issues they note, but also meet their interests and desires to make Champions Online the best game we can.

Alltern8: The versatile character creation tools, ability to create your own hero back-story and the ‘Rate My Champion’ feature encourage gamers to use their creativity more than most other MMOs do. Was it somewhat disheartening to see so many initial players simply try and recreate existing licensed characters?

BR: That was done by an incredibly small fraction of our players. The sheer creativity of our community is awesome, and I love flying around the game seeing all of the incredibly cool characters that have been created.

A8: Common criticism of Champions Online was that the game made solo play too easy, and did not encourage players to co-operate or socialise… yet many other MMOs are criticised of the exact opposite. How important would you say this balance of solo and co-operative play was in structuring CO, and how have you been working to influence players into teaming up?

BR: The design for Champions was to allow any player to be a solo hero and make it all the way to the top experience level. We also have areas in world where you need 3 or 5 heroes to complete, and before the end of the month there will be an entire “Crossover Mission” system in the game that rewards players for helping anyone on any mission. The goal is to give players the right incentive and rewards for grouping as opposed to requiring it.

A8: Another aspect of the game that many reviewers felt was fun but undernourished was PVP. Are there any plans to take the competitive combat beyond arena fights?

BR: The PvP we launched with was a great foundation for the future, and much more than many games launch with that aren’t PvP-centric. Many gamers forget that World of Warcraft launched with duelling and that was it – no rankings, no rewards, nothing else. We shipped with three different types of PvP plus duelling and a rewards system in place. And we’re making more content, including an all new Apocalypse map and game type (Zombie Apocalypse) that is releasing with the Blood Moon event on October 27th.

A8: Looking back over Champions Online’s development and release, are there any other elements you might have taken in a different direction?

BR: I wish we would have been able to spend more time balancing powers, or shipped with less powers and spent the time we did have polishing them. Although we were dinged for not having enough content in some areas of the game, I believe a little less done better would have gone farther with our players and reviewers.

 
A8: One of the most striking impressions we got from playing Champions Online was that it played like a modern console MMO might, and was surprisingly well suited to the Xbox 360 controller. Do you feel the 360 version of the game will be received differently when released?

BR: I really do. We’ll have months off continued development and tuning under our belts, as well as more content. We’re doing a lot of work on the Xbox 360 version of the game right now with a separate team from the PC group that are working on the controller scheme, console UI, and overall performance.
 

A8: What do the upcoming months hold for Champions Online subscribers?

BR: We have the Blood Moon event (http://www.champions-online.com/bloodmoon) launching at the end of the month, a new HUGE repeatable 5-hero lair in November, and a special themed winter event in December. And in early 2010, we have some amazing planned...

A huge thanks to Bill for taking the time to talk to us, were all looking forward keeping an eye on the bright future of this somewhat lovable game.