GR: How did manage to blend the two styles - action RPG andFPS - and create character classes to fit?
They blended very well. We always had at the centre of our design that we were making an action RPG.So what we were doing with the Hunter classes, especially the Marksman, was wanting to fold in those elements of an FPS but not having it replace the fact that you are still playing an RPG.
We still care about your level, and the monster's level, and the skills you've chosen and what weapon you have. You don't just get a gun, and never do anything to it for the entirety of the game. Just like every other class you can replace your weapon, or upgrade your weapon using different devices.
That was a really big thing for us, making sure that we drew that layer of an FPS on top of all that, and provide that style of gameplay. As opposed to just saying:You've chosen the Marksman so you're going to be playing an FPS.
We don't do ammunition, there isn't always a reloading animation, and there's a lot of elements that I think are core to FPS gameplay that we don't make a player follow. But, still, you are playing from that perspective. If you're playing the Marksman, the higher levels that you get particularly on your weapon loadouts and your skill focuses, you really do get that FPS flavour of gameplay.
We care more and more about the player's ability to aim. You don't get auto-aiming, and you have to worry about trajectories and leading, and those things that are also elements of FPS play. But we try to make it more of a sheen of an FPS over that rather than replacing the RPG game.
We've got a really nice mix. We've had some great feedback from FPS players who've tried it because now they have hundreds of weapons to choose from instead of, you know, eight. They've got skills, they can build up this avatar that's gaining new equipment and growing over the course of time. And it's really neat to see where FPS players are used to having a 15 minute relationship, that then changes and resets to zero everytime they start a new match, to going tohaving this ongoing relationship with the character that they're building, the reputation that they're building, and getting excited about finding something new, as opposed to just winning spawn points on a map.
GR: Which is your favourite class?
Umm... all of them. Right now I'm playing the Guardian all the way through, because I hadn't played the class that deep, and I'm having a brilliant time.
It's really exciting - I was playing for quite a bit, and loving the Invoker. Then I started playing the Engineer predominantly and had an awesome time with that because I always like pet classes, I like being able to use items I've found to build my drone.
And now, as the Guardian, I'm absolutely in love with all the shield skills. There's nothing more satisfying than running up to a zombie with a big piece of metal and smashing it in the face with it, it's amazing how visceral it is. This is the good thing, you know, I've played a lot, a lot of the different character classes and they've all played very differently and I've enjoyed them all immensely. So I think fortunately I don't really have a favourite, and I really like them all for very different reasons, and want to play them all.
GR: Hellgate's subscription service includes both a Diablo-style free play option and a pay-monthly charge which gives extra benefits. Was this always the plan?
That was definitely what we wanted to do from the beginning. It was a direct response to all the feedback we got from our Diablo II players back in the day, which was that they constantly wanted more. They wanted more items, more monsters, more areas, more spells, more gameplay modes, more things to do. And we weren't really set up back in those days at Blizzard to do that from either a technology or a business point, it just wasn't the model that was being built then.
Especially at Blizzard. We were more focused on that we released a game, then wait a year or so and get an expansion pack out, then move on to the next title. We did that with Warcraft 2, with Starcraft, we did that with Diablo. That was really the model back then.
When we started talking about what we were gonig to do with Hellgate, we said we want to have the ability, both in how we design the game and how we develop our tools and also having a supportive model for it, to react to that commitment and that passion that our gamers have where they want a steady stream of content. They want the game to be growing organically as they play it.
So we came up with that hybrid model of having free online play but then having subscription for players who want more.
