If you've read our report on Hellgate: London back in January, you probably know by now that this upcoming FPS and RPG MMO from Flagship Studios is somewhat the spiritual successor to Diablo II. Bill Roper himself explained that one of their objectives is to reach out and attract Diablo players.

Quite interestingly, Roper is now saying that the main concept for Hellgate: London began when Warcraft II was still under development. This is not entirely surprising as most Flagship employees used to work with Blizzard Entertainment. Speaking to magazine Games for Windows, Roper elaborated,

After the first Warcraft and when we were talking about Warcraft II, there was an idea for about a week where we'd open another portal open and have the Orcs invade the modern-day world. We had this whole cut-scene we were talking about where it was going to be dragons and F-16s and firefights and stuff.