MMO veteran Bill Roper joins SpatialOS dev Improbable
MMORPG fans know well the name Bill Roper: He’s the former Blizzard developer who went on to helm Flagship’s Hellgate: London and Cryptic’s Champions Online before landing the gig at Disney Interactive. Now, he’s moving on to Improbable and SpatialOS, the distributed computing platform that seems to pop up in our feeds constantly nowadays and is allegedly worth a billion bucks.
Roper told Gamasutra that he’d been interested in SpatialOS for a few years but became a convert during this past GDC before accepting the role of Chief Creative Officer. “The possibilities for not just massive worlds, but highly detailed and truly persistent worlds built on SpatialOS are exciting. I believe the games that will define AR and VR are yet to be realized, and the type of simulation that can be achieved with our platform can be an integral part of these new experiences,” he explains.
Improbable’s tech is being used as a base for multiple incoming MMOs, including Chronicles of Elyria and Worlds Adrift. Most recently, CEO Herman Narula revealed that his long-term goal is to “literally create other worlds” and rescue to MMO industry from what he called “nuclear winter.”
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19 Comments on "MMO veteran Bill Roper joins SpatialOS dev Improbable"
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That’s enough to make sure I avoid it.
Agreed!
…he sorta reminds me of locust. Going from one field to the next after all consuming it. :(
Diablo was my first gaming love and Hellgate was a misfire that I still got my $50 of entertainment out of, so no Roper-hate from me. If Michael Bay and M. Night Shamawhatisname get to keep making movies, I have no problem with Roper making new games.
If I knew of a way to stop Shylamananana, Bay, *and* Roper… well, I’d be all over it in a heartbeat. Win/win.
It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good ol’ fashioned Bill Roper bashing session, I’ve missed it.
I must admit that, after suffering through the game-concept related problems which I felt plagued both Hellgate: London and Champions Online in design and at launch, Bill Roper is one of the few game developers whose work I pointedly avoid.
My opinions only, of course,
As far as I understand improbable isn’t planning on developing games, just on developing a platform to to run and build games on. So the creative director in that case would work on conceiving new functionality for that platform I would think…
Or I could be way off base :D
a shared opinion though, by more than a few. I remember when ole Jack Emmert at Cryptic was gushing about the new direction the company would take with Roper on board and everyone was like “….yeah.. down like his own sunken Flagship”
I guess Herman doesn’t know that AoC is already rescuing us.
Didn’t think Age of Conan was doing all that well…..
The original owners of PGA.com was the Potato Growers of America. They ended up changing their name, and selling the domain to avoid confusion.
Vince MacMahon and the World Wildlife Federation is the gold standard for trademark battles
Haha, normally I’d say we have to update our agreed-upon MMO acronyms, but at the rate they’re going Funcom will soon solve the problem for us.
I’d like to see a list of games I can play now that are using the SpatialOS.
I think it’s just World’s Adrift right now, right?
And that’s not exactly tearing up the charts on ye olde hype meter.
Yeah. Given the age of the games and platform, it’s not likely we’re going to see many right away.
lets see if this project tanks too!