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Hellgate: London - Q&A Part 1 Feature
Derek dela Fuente
29/06/2005
Flagship CEO Bill Roper speaks extensively about their new project to TVG...
Many say this was the most impressive game at the E3, let alone on the PC, and we would certainly not disagree. Coming from Bill Roperâs newly formed FlagShip Studios, comprising of many former Blizzard team members, it appears they are already onto a massive hit title in this RPG/Action feast genre creator that really conveys itself through its name â“ Hellgate: London. In an extensive âtwo-partâ interview Bill Roper, CEO at FlagShip Studios was eager to divulge all to our man on the spot!
"Imagine the massive diversity of items from Diablo II mixed with the persistent economy and vibrant community of an MMORPG played from the immersive perspective of Half Life 2."
As a new developer, albeit one with expectations already high and headed by â“ what many believe you to be - one of the few industry luminaries , what kind of obstacles have you had to overcome for your much-anticipated game?
We were extremely fortunate to have many of the people we worked with at Blizzard and Blizzard North approach us about joining the crew at Flagship Studios. This has provided an excellent base for the company since weâve all worked together on some great games. We all have a true feeling of ownership over what weâre making and are all closely connected to the game. And since weâre only focusing on one project at a time, we are extremely focused on putting everything we have into it.
Since Flagship is a small company, we spend a lot of time with each other so no one feels like a cog in the machine. This also means, though, that we have to take on many more tasks than normal, and if there is one real difficulty we face, it is in trying to do too much too fast. We have a lot of ideas and goals, and making sure we approach them sanely and intelligently is a constant struggle. I also think that an obstacle we are facing is in not doing too much with the game. By that, I mean we have so many good ideas, if we tried to put them all in, weâd never ship. Boiling the game design down to its fundamental elements and then building around that core will make for the best game, and while we all realize that, the temptation to get âjust one more cool thingâ in can sometimes be distracting. Fortunately, weâve been down this part of the road before, know the potential for hitting major potholes, and are very serious about avoiding them!
Is innovation (creating something radically new within the RPG genre) the real issue and focus for the team? Even this early on, what is the one aspect of the game you see as groundbreaking?
While the concept for Hellgate: London is quite different from what weâve done in the past in many ways, there are some specific design philosophies that we would incorporate into any game we did, and those are easy to spot in our current game. We place a strong design emphasis on focusing on whatâs fun, throwing out whatâs not, and iterating, iterating, iterating!
Some of the more important elements are making the game simple to learn and easy to play, while offering amazing depth and replayability based on highly randomized and then customiseable content. Also, we make sure that we keep going over the game and its design every step of the way so we can do everything possible to make it as much fun as it can be.
Weâre also taking some standard RPG game mechanics and trying to push them to new heights. Weâre working on some very unique ways of allowing players within the same class to have very different paths they can take with their characters, even if they have chosen a similar focus for their skills or spells. The massive amounts of customization to individual items through the use of Mods is also something that should have players who love collecting, building and crafting something unique really excited.
Basically, we envision a game that we would love to play, and then we make it. We think that fans of our past games will see this and appreciate it. Gamers can expect an exciting, compelling, addictive experience with a strong multiplayer component and a lot of content to keep them coming back for more and more and more!
Is there any reason you have chosen London as the setting for the game? Will there be a number of factual focal points for gamers to recognise, and what influences the team and drives them to create the story and look of the game?
The world of Hellgate: London is a blending of fact and fantasy, of the real and the rumoured. We have done a lot of research not only into the look and feel of modern day London, but into the history of the city itself. There is so much there, from itâs inception as the ancient Londinuim to the years of Roman occupation to the Elizabethan, Edwardian and Victorian eras through two World Wars. From fire to plague to devastating attacks, London is a storied city that makes the perfect locale for our game and the world weâre creating. Our goal is to create a place where players experience a realistic setting that has been interweaved with myth, magic and demons to create something unlike anything they have seen before.
We are using current day London, both above and below ground, as the basic model for creating the randomized environments for our game. Players will explore the devastated streets and structures of different areas within the city as well as the tunnels and locales beneath the surface. We will be creating some adventuring areas based on known locales, such as the areas around Big Ben, St. Paulâs Cathedral, or stations within the London Underground. The overall world we are creating is a combination of fact, conspiracy theory, mythical references and our own take on events real and imagined. We play a lot of âwhat ifs?â scenarios in the world design, and in this regard we certainly reference factual events, people and places, using the known as a launching pad for our own vision of the universe.
Games increasingly seem to combine several genres for a more âwholesomeâ gaming experience. With Hellgate merging the action of first-person games, along with the depth of an RPG, do you feel this is the direction many games will take, and are you doing it to try to capture a larger audience or to offer more gameplay components?
While there have been first person RPGs, there has never been anything quite like Hellgate: London. We are creating an action oriented, fully randomized, dynamically generated RPG with a massive co-operative online component that combines the community and economy elements of an MMORPG with an individualized gaming experience. Imagine the massive diversity of items from Diablo II mixed with the persistent economy and vibrant community of an MMORPG played from the immersive perspective of Half Life 2. Players can play the game as a stand-alone RPG or join forces with players from around the world through a dedicated online gaming destination.
Basically, we have never set out to create games that need to fit into a specific genre. We always strive to make games that are innovative and focus on ease of play, high levels of replayability, and are just plain fun! Hopefully this is a way in which we will continue to influence game design as well as capture larger audiences.
Technology is an important aspect of Hellgate, so can you tell/ highlight a few features of the gameâs 3D engine that deserves some praise?
We undertook the creation of our own 3D engine because we felt that there were numerous things we needed to do from a graphics standpoint that wasnât easily facilitated in existing engines. The vast amounts of randomness and how that effects lighting, for example, or how we are approaching online multiplayer would have required a major reworking of a licensed engine. We do feel that weâre creating a game that will stand up visually to any of the best games out there today, and is also tuned to allow for the best game play possible.
As one example, our levels are built using vast amounts of random variation. This high degree of randomness leads to graphical problems (especially in the outdoor areas), and a big one was how to present global illumination. Currently, we use a hybrid light-map approach. We pre-generate a light map containing local lighting information, such as streetlamps, and then at load time, we calculate global lighting like moonlight and shadows. We then add this to the original light-map for that chunk of the environment. This has given us very good results, and the hellish rendition of London seems to have the unifying colour and shading that we're all accustomed to seeing in conventional fixed-layout game levels.
Weâll have more from Bill Roper on Flagshipâs highly anticipated debut title very shortly, in which Bill discusses the finer details of Hellgate: London â“ look out for Part 2 towards the end of the week...
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