Comics are the theme of the day, and next up is Bill Roper.

This week's Ask Cryptic brings us none other than a special edition with Bill Roper. Bill is well known for his work at Blizzard, and more recently the founding and closing of Flagship Studios which created Hellgate: London. Bill seems comfortable in his skin and discusses what he learned from his successes and less-than-successes during the question and answer period. I mean heck, we all make mistakes, we just have to hope for a better batting average than a national league pitcher when it comes to getting some hits. Maybe Bill is ready for a home run. He does receive my attention when he discusses what he has learned through game development:

"Having the time to polish the content that exists and ensure smooth play and functionality isn’t as easy as it seems, but it has been a part of the plan on Champions Online since well before I came onboard. It is better to have less content that’s highly tuned than scads of it that’s haphazardly executed."

Those terms seem to be a chorus in a mostly deaf industry, so I hope he can own up to the ideal. The interesting dichotomy in the industry today is the cries of "polish over content" being pushed back with "there's not enough content." I first hold up Age of Conan which had an amazing amount of polish for the first twenty levels and then could not keep up the pace. Next, I hold up Warhammer Online that had a wide variety of content, was well polished (maybe not to a fine sheen) but couldn't keep enough upper end content to keep the race horses happy either. Games no longer get a mulligan (its a golf term, go look it up) or a honeymoon or other "I call do over" terms. Nope, MMOs are scrutinized like single player games period. End of story. Is it right, or fair or just? It doesn't matter, it's how it is. Big money has crossed into this industry and that brings big expectations, or actually huge expectations. I truly hope some of these developers are really tuning in and figuring out how to keep their bosses happy and yet deliver products that hit home runs. Is Cryptic ready to hit a home run? Can Bill's experience on all facets of success as well as a few kicks to the jewels round out the team so they can bring us a satisfying and polished product? I think they can, the quest is will they. What do you think?