Bill Roper Gone From Cryptic

Guess he didn't have the lobes for business.

From the Star Trek official site:

After two great years, Chief Creative Officer Bill Roper is leaving Cryptic Studios.

I would say something about how two years isn’t enough time to really stamp your influence on an MMO, but, um, 2 years is all Star Trek Online had in development (the license was acquired from Perpetual in mid-2008 and all development done to that point was scrapped). Champions Online’s development cycle wasn’t that much longer – although it’s unknown how much of Cryptic’s Marvel Online survived the transition to Champions, if you assume the project was largely rebooted with the Champions IP acquisition, that game, again, had a 2 year development cycle.

I don’t think it’s really that revolutionary a statement that two years just isn’t enough time to kick an MMO out the door, no matter how much engine work you’re cribbing from another project. And while both Champions and Star Trek had strong box sales (with over 1 million in the case of Star Trek, depending on how you parse the usual fishy PR), both have also suffered greatly in terms of retention. Cryptic’s willingness to resort to DLC early and often to supplement their revenue stream hasn’t helped (although an open user revolt of Champions users caused a turnaround in one instance). Cryptic is still slogging away at updating both games (including announcing an upcoming scenario editor for Star Trek users) but second chances aren’t an easy sell with burned MMO players.

So, given Hellgate’s path to greatness (or lack thereof), I’d say Bill Roper did indeed have a chance to leave his mark on Cryptic’s titles. In any event, with the only-barely-an-open-secret Neverwinter Nights Online announcement from Cryptic and Atari (now Cryptic’s owner) soon to be on deck, we should see the return of Jack Emmert. I can hardly wait! And you can hardly wait, too! Really. If you think otherwise, he’ll correct you.

  • http://Website Mark

    I bet Roper rues the day he and the other Blizzard crew tendered their resignations in a power-play attempt to have some say in the selling of Blizzard. Word is they were quite surprised when Vivendi accepted their resignations.
     
    So now Jack Emmert will be working on a game with elves? Didn’t he say how much he hated games with elves at one point way back when CoH was still in development?

  • http://Website Noviere

    He also said he hated micro-transactions, if I recall correctly, and look at CO/STO.
    NWNO is going to be a disaster.

  • http://Website Freakazoid

    The good news is, he isn’t ruining cryptic anymore.

    The bad news is, he’s looking to get his hands on YOUR next favorite game!

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com/ geldonyetich

    Gone, but not forgotten. *spoken between clenched teeth* Nah, really, I don’t know if it’s fair to blame Roper for any level of suck in either of the two games.

    Champions Online, underwent radical transition too late into the development on two vital tangents. They intended to make the game console compatible, so limited themselves to a 7-spot hotbar. They intended to make one point pool so you could freely customize your character. They changed their mind in both regards on the grounds that their original systems just weren’t fun by their current beta player’s assessments. They had inadequate time to make the transitions work before release.

    Star Trek Online isn’t bad, per se, just not much of an MMORPG by nature of its highly instanced nature. It’s a problem identical to DDO, and I suspect the solution is identical as well: the game needs to be F2P with microtransactions. That way, that all the Dungeons and DragonsStar Trek fans can freely play the game without the daunting overhead of a monthly subscription, all the MMORPG mainstreamers can let it not bother them the game is so heavily instanced, and the resulting bloat of players should provide adequate cashflow.

    I have no idea why Emmert took the back burner to the role of developing either game. City of Heroes turned out great, it has some of the more involving combat ever to grace an MMORPG. Perhaps it’s because his involvement in City of Heroes was light in the regards in which it shines? I can only speculate.

    (Cryptic Studios’ customer service wouldn’t go along with my under-the-table suggestion they move my lifetime subscription from Star Trek Online to Champions Online. They’re dead to me now.)

  • http://Website Mark

    I think Roper has had trouble adjusting to life after Blizzard. Instead of a development cycle that takes as long as Blizzard wants, he’s had to deal with development cycles governed by a fixed amount of cash.
     
    The funny thing about Cryptic is that they’ve managed to figure out how to develop MMOs at a fraction of the cost of other MMOs like AoC and WHO, yet they seem to make just about as much money. I would hope after Champions and Star Trek their lifetime subscription deals wouldn’t tempt anyone again when they are ready to roll out NWN.

  • http://beafraid.com hellfire

    Does this mean STO will stop sucking dong? Will it stop putting the best/neatest items up for ridiculous amounts of DLC-dollars? Will it manage to find game balance without both hands, a flashlight and positronic matrix?
     
    Signs point to no. By the time any meaningful change could occur (if any meaningful change is even being considered) a completely different space IP MMO will be either in beta or launched outright.
     
    It’s a shame, too, as the creative team on the art/sound side of things were REALLY on their game with STO. Especially given that there are hundreds of posts about warp nacelle and phaser placements on obscure ships that had less than 10 minutes of screen time in 20 years of continuity. Let alone the iconic suff…

  • http://Website Sean

    I am playing STO post Season 2 and it has been an all-round great experience. I wasn’t expecting much but have been more than pleasantly surprised just how well it plays.
    Now let’s hope they add REAL space combat to SWTOR … ><

  • http://Website Jerid

    “although it’s unknown how much of Cryptic’s Marvel Online survived the transition to Champions”

    I don’t know about the mechanics, but after being in the Beta and going through their Desert scenario, it seemed they only changed the names of the MOBs and left the plot lines intact. (Just look at Grond, I’m surprised he didn’t say “Grond Smash!”)

  • http://Website Peter S.

    Quick thoughts:

    1. City of Heroes took *years* to get good, including some painful surgeries like the Global Defense Nerf and such. Arguably the stage wasn’t set for it to be a truly great game until sometime shortly after the release of City of Villains.

    2. The one truly unique and fun thing that Champions had, for me, was its ability to be played like an action game using the XBox 360 controller. That was the only reason I picked it up at all, and the only aspect of it I felt truly stood out from the other MMO choices one can make. Personally, I think deciding not to do the console release was a terrible decision given that the accommodations were already largely made, it was those accommodations that made it unique, different, and fun, and it would have represented a segregated and largely untapped market compared to the PC space.

    Champions ultimately suffers from being “only” above average; great to play through once, but not really awesome enough to keep playing afterwards when there’s a new gaming distraction every other week.

    (Virtual 3.: I never played STO, but have heard good things. I just don’t care about the setting, and I think the specificity of it likely works against them in the marketplace. Having said that, like LOTRO, I think it’s a solid niche provided they’re comfortable being a solid niche product.)

  • http://www.poesies.com Cedia

    Cryptic is working on NWN Online?

    Oh, how the mighty have fallen. :(

    As for City of Heroes being a good game, well, I have played on and off from release and I think things really only started getting a whole lot better when Cryptic ditched it.

    Though I do think Jack Emmert is very good at creating compelling stories and areas, and this does show in CoH. He just needs to let other people design the actual gameplay.

  • http://Website Bleaktea

    I have to chime in and agree with Hellfire about the art/sound/story/quest side of STO – it’s a total labour of nerdlove. I am constantly surprised by the accuracy of the environments (I think the most triumphant example is the Promenade on DS9 – I was actually able to find my way around based on having watched the show). The sound effects, the interface… I will reign in my fanboy gushing here and shorten this to say: it’s very good. It feels very much like being the subject of a Star Trek TV series.

    You can guarantee, for example, that if you’ve been sent on a quest to do something mundane (“go scan that rock”) it will balloon into some epic confrontation to save a world (“the rock is a bomb! A bomb full of Cardassians! A random weird particle shows up – and then, MAYHEM.”) And if, in the middle of all this, you have to use a Cardassian console, it will make the appropriate bleep noises for Cardassian technology, just like on the show.

    Unfortunately it’s stapled to a fairly dull and shaky game system, which would be completely uninteresting if it weren’t for the heaps of nostalgia piled on top.

  • http://Website ToeJob

    STO was suffocating from a lack of content as much as the instancing was helping hold the community of the game back. I hope they don’t do NWN, that’ll make two shitty D&D games out there.

  • http://Website Vaxhacker


    hellfire:

    It’s a shame, too, as the creative team on the art/sound side of things were REALLY on their game with STO.

    You cannot be serious. Some of the character art in STO is horrendous (Gorn, Nausiccans and Klingons in particular – head ridges are apparently hard!). Character animations are awful across the board. Ships look good, and some of the space stations are cool (I’ll agree with DS9) but the much of the ground stuff (i.e. every planet you visit) is just plain bad and/or boring. IMO.

  • http://Website Gx1080

    The cynical in me says:

    He was FIRED. Duh.