What do Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Flight Unlimited and Thief do have in common?
The answer is Paul Neurath, whose developed Ultima Underworld I with Blue Sky Productions in 1992 for Origin. Blue Sky Productions became Looking Glass prior to the release of Ultima Underworld II. System Shock was the last release for Origin; what followed were a number of very ambitious products, like Flight Unlimited, Terra Nova, System Shock 2 (co-developed by Irrational Games) and finally the Thief series. Most of Paul Neurath's games are classics today.
When LGS had to shut down last year, many of his ex-colleagues were hired by Ion Storm, who also bought the rights on the Thief series - but it got very quiet on Paul Neurath, until Arkane Studios announced the cooperation with Floodgate Entertainment in matters of the Arx Audio....
And Floodgate Entertainment is just the new company founded by Paul Neurath:

RPGDot: Hi Paul! How are you?

Paul Neurath: Except for the recent floods and continued snowfall we've had in New England, just fine.

RPGDot: What have you done after LGS was closed?

Paul Neurath: Took 3 months off. Decompressed. Thought about what I wanted to do next. Started up FloodGate Entertainment.

RPGDot:Please introduce Floodgate Entertainment to us. Who else is working there? Where is the office located? What are your goals? Are you making games yourself or will FGE be working for other companies only (e.g. Arkane Studios)?

Paul Neurath: FloodGate Entertainment is a new game development studio, focused on online games for next generation console. We think social gaming on console is going to be big, and we want to play a leading role in this emerging market. Our headquarters are in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We also have a couple of folks in California.

I'm fortunate to be working with a great team, including some x-LGS folks. The team includes Jim Berry, who was a senior programmer on the Flight Unlimited series, and before that worked on Top Gun and with Sid Meier's team. Bhavin Patel, our multi-talented art director, who did graphics for the Command & Conquer series before a stint at as lead artist at LGS. Ray Tobey, who was the lead guy behind Skyfox and Budokan for Electronic Arts, and was part of the startup team for the online game Fireteam. Kemal Amarasingham is our audio director extraordinaire, and did much of the wonderful audio in the Thief series and System Shock 2. Rick Ernst is our designated game designer. Before his stint at LGS, Rick designed pen & paper games, which we try not to hold against him.

For starters, we are looking to develop an original game design. Currently we are in early stage production on one particular design. I can't divulge any details as yet. Stay tuned.

RPGDot: What projects are you woking on besides the Arx Audio thingie?

Paul Neurath: Along with an original title, we are also doing some smaller scale projects. This includes the audio work we are doing for Arx, and a handheld game. These projects are a nice balance to the big, multi-year long original projects. It's also great to have be part of a shipping title more than once every couple of years

RPGDot: What are your future projects or plans? You have always been a visioneer, so is there something special we can expect from you or FGE?

Paul Neurath: Visioneer... I think that mantle is too rich for me to wear. Guys like Will Wright with The Sims, or Peter Molyneux with Black & White as the true visionaries. They invent whole new genres from the thin air.

My interest has been in trying a new approach with an established genre. Adding 1st person action to the (at that time) hidebound FRPG genre with Ultima Underworld; going further in that direction with the immersive blend of 3D action, RPG, and horror adventure of System Shock; applying photo-realistic terrain technology in Flight Unlimited; or trying to pull off a stealthy 3D "shooter" with Thief. I do best working from existing cloth.

RPGDot: Speaking more of Arx: It is a game influenced by Ultima Underworld. What are your feelings, that another company is making this modern-day version of Underworld and you are 'just' making the audio for it?

Paul Neurath: I am tickled pink that Arkane Studios is doing a game that has roots in Ultima Underworld. The folks at Arkane are huge fans of the Underworld series, and recognized that since Ultima Underworld II's release in 1993, the 3D action/FRPG genre has laid fallow. That's ancient history in game industry terms, so it's neat that it still has influence after all these years.

We are enjoying creating audio for Arx. The Arkane team is great to work with and the game is shaping up quite nicely.

RPGDot: Which of your former games would you like to re-do, if you had enough foundings and time and freedom of choice?

Paul Neurath: Terra Nova. Back around the time Ultima Underworld II was wrapping up, I had the concept for a squad level 3D tactical game loosely based on the fiction of Starship Troopers and The Forever War.

Originally we were going to have both a single player and online team play. However when the project ran late and over budget - in part because we got diverted trying to compete with titles like the Wing Commander series by doing extensive cinematics - we had to cut online play. When the game was finally released in 1996, it failed to take off despite critical acclaim.

We had hoped to do a sequel that would focus on online team play, but the weak sales of the original made that impractical. If we could do Terra Nova over, I would have dumped the cinematics and done online team play instead. Who knows, maybe then the Tribes II and Halo teams would be talking about the influence of Terra Nova on their games.

RPGDot: How many products do you think the MMORPG market can support? Where do you think the MMORPG market will be in 3 years?

Paul Neurath: More than the half dozen on the market today, but not hundreds either. Clearly the time players dedicate to their favorite MMORPG precludes them playing a bunch of these games at the same time. However, the first generation of MMORPG are all hard core games, and reward players who are able to spend huge hours building up their characters. Ironically, I think this approach tends to work against these games in the long run.

Over the coming 3 years I think we'll see online games that can reach a wider audience, titles like Sims Online or online Star Wars. I expect that these second generation titles will not be as demanding on player's time, which will allow for more online titles in the market overall.

We will also see a broadening in the genres. So far most MMORPG have been traditional FRPGs. Many other genres are amenable to online play. Online console games will come of age as well. Our take is that this category has perhaps the greatest potential. Broadband will also have an impact. Last, developers and publishers will try new models for online games: episodic content, downloadable game modules, and so on. Some of these approaches may prove to have more potential than the current massively multiplayer model. My own belief is that massiveness per say is not the essence behind online games. You don't actually ever play with tens of thousands of other players - that's a mob.

The core of these games is that they create a playful, social world; one that is persistent and evolving, and where the player can make their mark. These are the qualities that will drive the online market to great heights in the coming years.

RPGDot: Thanks and good luck with FGE...

Paul Neurath: Thank you Garrett.