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In what is said to be only the first installment of a new video-podcast series, Cryptic Studios have invited all of us to peak over their shoulders and see some of the members of their team at work. The video, titled "Day as a Dev", introduces us to the Production Team. Chief Creative Officer Jack Emmert recaps the three titles that the studio is working on: Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and one unannounced super-secret game. Most of the developers we meet in the video are part of the large Champions team, but all three games are represented.

It's always nice to get this sort of behind-the-scenes look at the development process for an anticipated game, and to see how the different aspects come together to make up the whole picture. We also get to see how Bill Roper is doing in his new role at Cryptic as Design Director for Champions Online. However, we're going to have to award the "best quote" to Randy Mosiondz: "It's a challenging job, but at the end of the day, I make video games, and what's more, a super-hero video game, so there's nothing wrong with that."

Gamers in that sweet spot where massively multiplayer online games and comic books intersect have long enjoyed playing City of Heroes, and are likely to well into the future... but clearly there's more room in the superhero game genre. Some MMO players are looking forward to a superhero-themed game with a different take on the genre than what's been done before. For them, the upcoming game Champions Online has some appeal. G4tv's X-Play recently took notice of this and interviewed Bill Roper, the Cryptic Studios Design Director, about what Champions Online has to offer gamers.

The video interview, "Hands On: Champions Online", is in two parts. First Roper speaks with Adam Sessler, introducing the game concept, its setting, and creating your own personal nemesis in Champions Online as you progress. Afterwards Morgan Webb delves a bit more into the core game mechanics of Champions Online, such as how loot will augment your avatar, and the incentives to play in groups with other people -- one of the key reasons gamers jump into MMOs in the first place. Roper goes on to address the possibilities of gameplay on both PC and consoles. In fact, the gameplay shown throughout the videos is done with an Xbox 360 controller. Roper also reiterates the Champions Online release date, which he says is still slated for Spring 2009. If you'd like to see what all the fuss about this new superhero MMO is about, we've got both videos embedded for you below the cut.

A special edition of Ask Cryptic for Champions Online is out now and it features Bill Roper answering all sorts of highly interesting questions. The most interesting answer from Bill concerns his involvement with the game, as it's now beyond concept and initial design stages. Apparently, Bill's past experience at Blizzard involved coming in during the polish and release phase of a game -- which is something he was never involved in at Flagship. That and the continued support for future content will be Bill's role at Cryptic with concern to Champions Online. Oh, he also expresses an interest in doing voice work for the infamously awesome Foxbat. Intriguing.

The other thing we took away from this was that the game is getting pretty close to beta, which would mean that it's on track for an early 2009 release date. We must admit our shock at the possibility, as most MMOs suffer at least one delay during the development process. Could this one prove to be an exception to the rule? We certainly hope so.

Even though former Blizzard veteran and Flagship CEO Bill Roper just recently joined Cryptic Studios as a design director, it hasn't taken them long to sit him down and put together a brand new "Meet The Team" segment for his position with the Champions Online team. If you haven't read many (or any) of these often interesting interviews just yet, we highly recommend giving this one a chance. Not only does Bill speak about his time with Blizzard, but also the essential lessons he's taken from being the CEO of Flagship and how he plans on applying them to his work at Cryptic.

Attentive readers will notice that the interview also hints at the progress of Champions Online. With Bill discussing his interest in implementing the crafting system, which isn't in the game yet, but also mentioning that the title is pretty far along. Most MMOs in development experience a delay or two, but by the sounds of it we may actually get to play this one on time.

With the future of Hellgate: London on thin ice, it should be no surprise that Flagship Studios co-founder and CEO, Bill Roper, has sought greener pastures. As was just announced, Roper has joined Cryptic Studios as their new Design Director for Champions Online. Cryptic's CEO John Needham is optimistic about the acquisition: "Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we're thrilled to have him join our team. His years of gaming and online experience are huge assets to all of our projects, and Bill will assist us in furthering our studio's vision to create innovative, exciting MMO gameplay. "

These years of gaming and online experience Needham mentions include a long list of impressive titles. Not only did Roper work as a producer and developer on many classics like the Warcraft trilogy, StarCraft and Diablo, but he also dabbled in some voiceover work for many of these games as well. Roper is now a key asset for Champions Online, and we look forward to more news on his work with the game.

There have been so many twists and turns with the future of Hellgate: London (and Mythos) that it's hard to know what will happen next. We've heard on a few occasions that Hellgate: London was about to face its demise, only to be saved. Adding to the confusion was the dispute over who even owned Hellgate: London, Flagship Studios or HanbitSoft. After Flagship folded, HanbitSoft's claims seemed to be genuine, and the IP was left in the hands of T3 Entertainment. Subscriptions, however, were then suspended. Shortly afterwards Namco-Bandai swept in, prominently featured HG: L on its site... and subsequently removed it. Despite this, the game has been kept running ever since, although Namco-Bandai's stated that the servers will shut down at the end of January, 2009.

Gaming site HellForge has picked up on what we're not ready to call anything more than 'rumor' at this point, but something that perhaps bodes well for the future of the game. Another company name has been thrown into the mix: Redbana (based in Taiwan, connected with the aforementioned T3 Entertainment). HellForge writes: "Further research leads to findings of a new San Francisco office for the company, which is where Hellgate offices were located previously." This seems to be in line with what we reported about the future of both titles in August. While we hope this information could be a positive sign for Hellgate: London and perhaps Mythos as well, at this point it's still largely conjecture.

[Via Blue's News]

If you've been wondering just exactly what happened with Flagship Studios over the past year or so, then you should really give a listen to the thoughts of Bill Roper, founder of Flagship. The poor guy pretty much spills his guts to 1up.com's Jeff Green about everything that happened and is happening with the people and projects from Flagship. It's a surprisingly lengthy interview, clocking in at eight pages. It's totally worth the read if you want a gritty insight into just how much went into not only Hellgate: London and Mythos, but the team that put those titles together.

It's not often that we get such a wide and deep look into a developer. We're counting ourselves lucky that Bill seems to be such a open and forthcoming guy, otherwise we might have never known anything beyond rumors and speculation. If everyone previously involved with Flagship lands on their feet, it will be in no small part due to Bill Roper's efforts.

In the latest war of words taking place on the Korean gaming site ThisIsGame, translation by Hellgate Guru. HanbitSoft is making it known that they are preparing for a legal battle. A lawsuit against Bill Roper and the founding directors of Flagship Studios is already underway. HanbitSoft will also be visiting Comerica bank next week in order to secure to the Global intellectual property rights to Hellgate: London. HanbitSoft also stated, "Flagship not only lacked effort, but were only looking for personal gain. Firing all of the Flagship employees in order to protect the personal interests of its founding members only shows how selfish and irresponsible they are." HanbitSoft owns a 9.5% stake in Flagship Studios and went on record to state they tried to bailout Flagship Studios numerous times.

In a translation provided by Hellgate Guru, Kim Ki-young of HanbitSoft states: "If we can take intellectual property rights of relevant products from Flagship Studios, we have confidence to develop the games ourselves based on T3 Entertainment's advanced technology' and 'we believe we can service fresh and interesting games to online gamers by getting intellectual property rights and development. This crisis could be an opportunity for us."

Former Blizzard producer Bill Roper described the early days of World of Warcraft's development to CVG, saying, "we were hoping we'd be able to sell a million copies of the game." He pointed out that at the time, EverQuest was the gold standard for MMOs, and it only had 500,000 subscribers. "It would have been impossible to predict that World of Warcraft would take off as a cultural phenomenon as it did," he said.

He's right; people knew World of Warcraft would be a comparatively big deal, but how could they have predicted 9.3 million players? Throughout the history of persistent world online games, we've been surprised again and again at just how large the market for them can be. There are studios out there who think they can take it even further -- BioWare, for instance. Or maybe the industry will fragment into niche games now. The point is, you can't always predict this stuff. That's what makes it so exciting.

In case you were wondering what Roper is up to now, his company Flagship Studios recently released Hellgate: London -- more of a niche title than a mainstream record-buster. Flagship is also working on Mythos, a Diablo-esque-dungeon-crawler.

Keen Hellgate: London player, Paul Chor, has put together a petition to Bill Roper and Flagship Studios, asserting that IAHGames (responsible for servers in the South-East Asian regions) are screwing things up.

"Patch 0 has been delayed; whilst there are explanations on why it have been, there is no official ETA on its deployment."

There's a list of complaints, including potentially game-unbalancing changes, vague and unhelpful community management, delays and fears that all of this will lead to the region being the poor cousin, poor sales, and a disaffected community.

"The company is resorting to potentially harmful stop-gap measures, such as just raising the level cap to 50, but not implementing patch 0."

Ultimately, the (so far) 31 signatories want better management for the region and a review of IAHGames operations and policies by Flagship Studios.

This Halloween is full of treats, but if you can tear yourself away from the festivities in all the other online games, you can now roam post-apocalyptic London in search of weapon upgrades and experience points. Hellgate: London's public servers have gone live and are awaiting demon-slaying heroes and heroines.

Flagship Studios' Bill Roper posted a launch announcement on the game's official website, and took the opportunity to thank the community, the publishers, and the friends and families of the development team for their support over the past four years.

The single-player and multi-player 3D action RPG comes from a studio that includes some of the same developers who gave us Diablo way back in the day. If you haven't bought the game yet, you might want to check out our demo impressions or download the demo to check it out for yourself, but beware of possible in-game advertising if that sort of thing irks you.

If you're anticipating Hellgate: London amidst its recent controversy, and want to find out more about the game, why not just ask the developers? 1UP.com has posted news that Xfire is hosting a live chat with a team from Hellgate developer Flagship Studios. Listed on the Xfire site, the developers participating in the event will be:

• Bill Roper, CEO Flagship Studios
• Aletheia Simonson, Art Producer
• Bill Manegold, Game Programmer
• Amir Ebrahimi, Graphics Programmer
• Guy Somberg, Audio and Gameplay Programmer

To be in with a chance to talk to them, visit Xfire's website and enter your email address. If you're lucky enough to be selected, you'll receive an email from Xfire giving you the details of the chat. It is scheduled for 6pm EDT on October 31st, which as 1UP notes, is the actual release date of Hellgate: London, so chances are if you're a die-hard fan, you will have already been playing the game all day. Oh, and I guess October 31st is Halloween too.