Hellgate: London Interview

The editors at Games Radar have tossed up a fairly short interview with Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper. A bit of an odd question considering Bill Roper's background, but they ask it nonetheless:
GamesRadar: So, first off, why make Hellgate: London as an action RPG?

Bill Roper:
[At developer Flagship Studios] we really like action RPGS. We like fighting lots of demons, and having you feel really heroic with your character. A lot of us play a lot of different MMOs, going all the way back to Ultima Online, and earlier with MUDs and stuff. There's plenty of WoW players in the office, and Dark Age, so it's not that we dislike that pace of gameplay, but we just prefer action in our RPGs.

Just like when the original Diablo came out, we think there's a big hole in the gamer's palette for this style of game. There's a few that do come out. But it's the ones that focus not only on the action element but the randomisation element that we know gamers love. Diablo II players especially are going to keep waiting for that next big thing they can latch on to, and hopefully that'll be Hellgate. Because we definitely love that style of game, and that's who we made it for - for us and for them.