Champions Online Interview

Rock, Paper, Shotgun offers an interview with Cryptic’s Jack Emmert about Champions Online.

RPS: For me, there’s an interesting synergy between the world of Pen & Paper roleplaying and games now. You make a game of champions and Hero games are making your content into the game world. Warcraft turning into pen-and-paper roleplaying games. Would you agree?

Jack Emmert: I can name several World of Darkness which is being made by the CCP guys. Obviously Warhammer online is a miniature wargame, not a role playing game and then there’s the fourth edition of Dungeons of Dragons which is clearly though they’re denying it vociferously inspired by MMOs. There’s a back and forth, and I think it’s for very simple reason RPGs created MMOs. The reason why the industry started in the first place was because of an outgrowth of the text only games. The text only games came because people couldn’t find friends to play their D&D games with. And it slowly marches forward. though interestingly enough, D&D started as a miniature wargame, before it became a roleplaying agme, where you play-act a character. MMOs, to people my age, in their thirties or forties hark back to their days of people around a table. But the younger generation typically know the idea of MMOs from games they’ve been playing either on consoles or PC for decades.
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RPS: My reading of Cryptic is that you tend to be Pen and Paper guys, with a lot of staff coming from that backdrop. However, now you’re making something that’s much more an action game. That’s a real challenge.

Emmert: It’s one of the reasons why we did it. To be honest, you’ve hit on the thing which was toughest for me as a designer. I broke out every possible action RPG I could and Spider-man games, Incredible hulk games, God of War games, Shadow of the Colossus. I just started playing all of those, and looking at them not as a fan, but as a designer. How can I get some of these elements into an MMO in a way which preserves the genre, but still captures the essence? It’s the biggest challenge for us as a company.