Muzyka, Zeschuk, and Yip sent an early version of the demo to Feargus Urquhart at Interplay. Urquhart had risen even higher to the helm of Interplay’s RPG division, Black Isle Studios.
Urquhart had trouble grasping Battleground Infinity because he wasn’t sure what BioWare intended it to be. Did they think they could deliver on a game the scale of a proper MMORPG? Because to Urquhart, it was more like a real-time strategy game: top-down, isometric view; numerous characters running amok on a battlefield.
[...]“Something went off in my head,” Urquhart recalled. “I took this party-based [concept] and called them up and said, ‘What if we made this a D&D game?’ They said, ‘That would be really cool.’”
Urquhart went to his boss at the time and showed him Battleground Infinity. The manager gave him a get-outta-town look. The manager ended his meeting with Urquhart with the ultimate dismissal: Battleground Infinity was stupid. Urquhart dug his feet in. "It was one of those times when I said, ‘That's not good enough. No. It's not stupid.’
[...], Urquhart and Chris Parker, the producer Urquhart assigned to the project, were two of the only developers within Interplay who believed in BioWare’s chances. Interplay’s UK division didn’t even bother forecasting sales. Anything connected to Dungeons & Dragons was doomed to fail.