During the Champions Online press event, we had the opportunity to pull Design Director and Executive Producer, Bill Roper aside for an interview about the games newly announced Player vs. Player mode.

During the Champions Online press event, we had the opportunity to pull Design Director and Executive Producer, Bill Roper aside for an interview about the games newly announced Player vs. Player mode. We got some great information about what players can expect at launch and in the future. Additionally we finally received confirmation that Champions Online will not be available on the Xbox 360 at launch but that the team is still actively looking into porting the game in the near future.

ZAM: First off, I'd like a bit more explanation of the three different kinds of PvP. Let's start with hero games. Can you give us a little background on what hero games are?

Bill Roper: Basically, Hero Games is the umbrella organization for both sanctioned and some unsanctioned fighting between heroes. It had a different name in the IP, originally, but the company that created Champions is called Hero Games and we wanted that to be a really cool tribute. In fact, when you see it in the game, where the Hero Game promoters are, where you go to trade in your claim points that you get for fighting, you'll see this big logo behind them. It's on the mat of one of the arenas. It's actually the Hero Games logo. We talked to them and we said "Hey we'd love to put this in as a tribute to you guys." I thought it was really cool that they were like "Oh that's awesome, that would be great!" It's a really cool nod to the creators.

The concept is that the Hero Games is like the WWE. It's an organization for promoting and - I guess to a degree - rewarding superhero versus superhero combat. I guess the big difference is that you're not fighting to the same kind of defeat; I always think you're just kind of knocking the other guy out. In terms of game mechanics, you don't lose your hero stars - you gain your hero stars by venturing into the world, and all those do is give you bonuses to your abilities. When you die, when you're defeated, you lose a star. Even if you go to 0 stars, that's base level, so it's a purely positive - additive - system. If you lose in PvP, you don't lose a star. The idea is that, if you're fighting the other guy, he yields if he's knocked out. It kind of has that honorable thing where you're not killing the other guy or pummelling him into submission. It's like when you see guys that spar - they fight until first blood or something like that. That's why it's sanctioned. They're not actually out there pummelling each other. Yeah, they're fighting really hard and everything, but the idea from a world IP stance is that that's why you don't lose hero stars. The idea is that there are different types of events that happen within the hero games. So there's bash, which is basically the unsanctioned ones; there are no sponsors for bash and it wouldn't be televised or things like that. There's the UTC, which is the Ultimate Tournament of Champions; it has sponsors and it's sort of a UFC kind of thing. Then there are the Apocalypse scenarios.

ZAM: The "What if" scenarios?

Bill: Yeah, exactly. In terms of PvP mechanics, the Bash stuff is free-for-all in a specific area. So you might go into the West Side, which is kind of the slummy district of Millennium City. It's a big free-for-all map; it's in an urban street setting and it's outdoors. You can use elevation, buildings and mobs that are there; they're all part of the strategy and your tactics.

The UTC is actually arena combat; it's five versus five, so it's team combat. It has different arenas that you get to fight in and, as you get higher level and you've earned more, you can unlock these different arenas to fight in.

And then the last one, the Apocalypse maps, the one that we're shipping with is Stronghold Prison. Stronghold is the super villain prison that's located in the desert. The idea behind the Apocalypse map is a "what if" type scenario where one side plays the heroes and one side plays the heroes. It plays a lot like DotA maps in War3, where there are waves of sides going at each other and you can call in reinforcements and there are guns emplacements and travel power suppressors, so you can't just speed through. Again, that's a five on five scenario, though I think that those will launch with fewer players on a side.

That's really a design where one side plays the heroes and one side plays the villains. If you're putting it in the game world context, you're either training to stop an uprising at Stronghold Prison, or it would be like "What if Heroes were unjustly imprisoned and you were trying to break out," but the sides they represent is heroes versus villains.

ZAM: Now the whole concept of a Superhero prison seems kind of farfetched.

Bill: Well if you're going to have super criminals, you must have a place to keep them. You've got to have a structure that has cells that are designed to negate their powers.

ZAM: So it's more for super villains and not for superheroes?

Bill: Yes it's for super villains; Stronghold is the super villain prison.

ZAM: You mentioned there will be item drops in PvP and you'll also be able to constantly gain EXP to level up. How effective will that be in terms of players replacing PvE with PvP?

Bill: It could if you wanted, but it's not very efficient. If you want to level, you're probably going to be doing PvE, but we didn't want people to completely stall their progress when they PvP. The idea in my head is that if you think in terms of the game, you gain experience in RPGs by fighting things and using your spells and powers - you're learning how to do it better, you're gaining 'experience' to do it better. It just makes sense that you would be getting similar experience by fighting another hero or being in a training room, but you don't get as much because you're 'pulling' your punches; you know you're training, so the experience is reduced. I do really love the idea that it's an alternate path to gaining experience, so if I log on and my buddies aren't on and I don't want to quest tonight, I can say "Oh I think I'll PvP for a while," and "Oh! I'm gaining some experience and every now and then an item will drop." It's pretty rare, but we thought it would be a cool thing. The biggest reason I would be doing PvP is to earn the acclaim points so that I can buy PvP gear.

ZAM: Let's talk about the items; you said that they will be rare and they will be on a different drop table. Are they going to be more cosmetic for players?

Bill: Rare from the standpoint that they won't drop very often, not that they're all blues; it's just that every now and then an item drops.

ZAM: But in terms of value to the player...?

Bill: It's more equivalent to what they would be getting while they're out, but just rarer. The things that you'll be getting which is more unique is the stuff that you're going to be able to purchase from the Heroes Games organizers with the acclaim points you earn.

ZAM: Earlier you mentioned duels, and you wanted players to be able to fight anywhere in the world. Do you see that interrupting PvE content, where players can run up to an area where there's a big camp, throwing up a duel and having the whole thing covered in a force field?

Bill: The only thing the force field does is denote the boundaries for the duel. When two players duel, the dome is a visual representation of the boundaries of the duel - if you step outside, you forfeit. It doesn't stop players from coming in or leaving. When you go to duelling mode, we have to make sure that other heroes aren't tagged to you in some way, as an enemy or a friendly unit. Let's say you were in an area where there are a bunch of enemies, and you decide to duel right there. All of those mobs will treat you the same, but the only difference is that the two people that are duelling can fight each other.

ZAM: Will you get experience in all types of PvP, ranging from the duel to an actual hero game?

Bill: I'm not sure if we actually give experience for duelling - we might, but certainly not acclaim. I don't know if we're scaling that, as in if fighting in a team gives more than fighting solo, but we just want players to be able to get experience doing PvP. It's not that PvP can replace PvE, but it can certainly augment it, which is really pretty cool. I was playing one night and I was really close to levelling and I kind of didn't realize it, but I decided to PvP before I went to bed, and I levelled while I was PvPing, and I was like "Oh that's awesome!" It's like saying "This fight, this training I went into, this really kicked me over the top."

ZAM: What about the future potential of having something like WoW's Wintergrasp? Does the technology exist to add things in like player controlled vehicles and big areas to capture and control?

Bill: Yeah we can do all of that stuff. Really, for us, getting in the Hero Games concept and the PvP modes we have is to let the players know that PvP is important to us. But that's also the beauty of an MMO; we can look at it and say "hey, let's do a more vehicle oriented one, or a big one, or a capture the flag type mission, or a castle." It really opens up the doors. I think that players understand that we're going to do it. When it's not in there and you're like "No, we're going to do this stuff!" I think a lot of players end up saying "Really? Because you didn't put it in," and if that's something that they're interested in, and it's not there when you launch, it's tough to get them to come back when you actually put it in. It's really important for us to have a very good foundation - some solid fun PvP, so it's something we can build on.

ZAM: The game launches in seven weeks but we still haven't heard an update on the status of the 360 port.

Bill: We won't be launching opening day with the 360. Really, it hasn't changed much. We have guys who work on the 360; we know what the UI differences are and we haven't really done any design that breaks our ability to play on consoles. I think, really, the biggest thing is that we know, from a business model requirements standpoint, that we can't have the players play together. Xbox players have to play with Xbox players. Even if, from a technology standpoint, it would be easy for us to do, that IS one thing we have been able to identify that we can't do. I actually think that it will work to our players' benefit because we can then say "Great, we don't have to worry about imbalances between a PC and an Xbox player. PC can be tuned against PC, especially with PvP, and it's the same thing with the Xbox. But we spin builds where we're actively working on the version, making sure that the graphics still look really great on the console.

From our standpoint, it's just waiting on the final 'go ahead' from Business Development. It's a challenge - there are a lot of things that you take for granted as being able to just do on PC, but you're not allowed to or you can't on console. I think we have a lot of that stuff licked in terms of technology or game play mechanics - I'm not worried about that kind of stuff. There will be a lot of UI work to do, for screen resolutions and controller, but we've built with those things in mind, so, really, it's just going to be when those last bits of business gets hammered out.

ZAM: We've already seen the PvP campaigns in Champions Online have set the game apart from City of Heroes. What other feature or what other trait does Champions Online have that you would set it further apart from City of Heroes? What gives it that extra characteristic that players want?

Bill: I think doing things like having a full item and crafting system from day one - on launch - that has been part of the design and part of the total player balance, is important. Items weren't a big part at the very beginning of CoH, and they kind of added them later, but that's been like a core design element. I think the Nemesis system is really big. I know that CoH has come out with the mission architect, but it really just lets you build more CoH style missions. With nemesis, the fact is that you're not just creating something by putting parts together, but you're actually making an enemy you're fighting. This is what their powers are, this is how their minions work, these are their motivations and this is their look, their name, their history, everything - just like you would do with your hero. I think it's really big and the work that the nemesis guys have done is really awesome, the team of guys that work on that. They're really involving storylines with cool cinematic moments in them.

There's a lot of encouragement to go through Nemesis numerous times; not only because there are rewards you can earn by going through numerous times, but if you take five people on certain nemesis missions, as opposed to just yourself, it unlocks different areas or different content that you're going to see in there. They've built a lot of randomization into those nemesis missions. So if you go through one time, it might tell you to rescue a certain hero and it's going to be this hero. The next time it might say "Oh wow! You've unlocked this other hero you get to rescue!" Or if there are five of you, it might open up another wing because you have enough people to go through, stuff like that. It's really cool; I just think that we've done a lot of work to make certain areas repeatable because we know players will want to do them again. Personally, I just started internally doing nemesis stuff, and I already know what my next nemesis is going to be. Right now you can make ten, to fill out your nemesis gallery.

ZAM: Per character?

Bill: Yes, but I think we're actually going to extend that to 18.

ZAM: So your character doesn't necessarily stick to one nemesis?

Bill: Well, I'll basically go through a nemesis storyline, and then at the end, I've defeated them and thrown them into the stronghold. Well, now I can get another nemesis and go through another nemesis storyline that's going to be different because there are a lot of random things it pulls from. I might get a totally different challenge at showdowns, or popcorn missions that I got before. Or even if I get one where I'm like "Oh! I went through this showdown before!" But this time I went through, I had three guys with me and then it plays differently; or, maybe a different villain and hero pop up, or lieutenants and henchmen. The idea is that, again, it's that foundation. So you can go through and create another nemesis. There are even perks in the game, where if you build and defeat a nemesis of however power set type, there are achievements for that, and there are rewards for that; titles and capes and tons of cool stuff. To me, it's about building a lot of content with that in mind; knowing that it's fun and there are real reasons, different goals, as I go through and do it.

ZAM: Those are really all the questions we have for you. We really appreciate you taking the time to answer them.

Bill: Of course!

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
ZAM.com