My issue with the three coming out (CoT/SoH/VO) is that they are all trying to mimic City of Heroes. While I loved CoH/CoV you have to bring something way differen't. Heck almost all of the starting zones in those three games are like an alternate universe version of Atlas City ..someone of them with a Large Statue and even a globe to boot. We need a new Super Hero MMO for it to be a long term success. Don't get me wrong, I will probably play those three some but I want something that isn't just putting a fresh paint job with a couple of added engine pieces too it. I want a new car.
A well planned and developed Super Hero MMO can be a success.
I think the font exploded due to a second quote tag
You missed my first line apparently... (and I put there again later a second time) I too would love to have a Marvel mmorpg. That's why I followed Cryptic with their CO journey... which is a great game, and the Champions IP maybe even helped with the cornerstones of Freeform, but I believe it would've been much greater as an official Marvel game.
For the rest, you're thinking as a player there. Not from the other viewpoint. As the quote I left up there, sure, an mmo CAN be a success. While on the other hand they have the years long data from the past that their console action games are successful, financially. No risks or conditions or anything. They won't leave the paved road and jump into uncertainty, they are not into gaming at first, not at second either. They don't develop games, they don't even publish them.
So, from their perspective, where would you put your money allocated under "budget for games"? Give it to one of your already proven publishers, so they could hire an already proven developer team to make a game which has good sells on many platforms, or risk it on the mmorpg room of the casino? (not to mention, in this case where to start? They won't give money to newbies, so, are there any proven dev teams available who can make such an mmorpg? Not really. Beyond that, where to aim? They like action and brawlers, but going that way they would be in a clear competition with DCUO, and with that picking WB as publisher is out of the options - and WB used to publish their Lego Marvel games. Their other usual direction, the UA arpg-style was already tried and closed.)
_____ Don't get me wrong, I don't like the state of the current market either. But that's no coincidence the current big mmo hype train (like the previous ones with BDO and AA) is for a several years old, flopped and reheated, eastern import... neither that besides indie projects and crowdfunding scams (you can't say scam without s and c, right? ) there's not much in development currently. Companies can make more money, with much less risk, on elsewhere within the gaming market, since gaming is still huge - just not in its mmorpg corner.
My issue with the three coming out (CoT/SoH/VO) is that they are all trying to mimic City of Heroes. While I loved CoH/CoV you have to bring something way differen't. Heck almost all of the starting zones in those three games are like an alternate universe version of Atlas City ..someone of them with a Large Statue and even a globe to boot. We need a new Super Hero MMO for it to be a long term success. Don't get me wrong, I will probably play those three some but I want something that isn't just putting a fresh paint job with a couple of added engine pieces too it. I want a new car.
What happened to VO? I hear nothing of that game anymore. The only updates on this site is for CoT and SoH. I agree with you man, why replicate a dated game. Their marketing team is very questionable imo. If they were to copy something, copy something that is blowing up.
I don't think I'd play one. I can only see a superhero MMO working in one of two ways: either as a heavily-instanced WoW clone (although in a superhero game, most WoW clone elements would make a whole lot more sense) or a developer content-free sandbox (where player-controlled villains make plots to destroy the world and are foiled by player-controlled superheroes).
In both cases, such a game would have to mostly forego crafting (with the exception of Ironman and possibly Batman, what superhero crafts?) and many other mainstays of the genre that just wouldn't make sense when everyone's a superhero.
My issue with the three coming out (CoT/SoH/VO) is that they are all trying to mimic City of Heroes. While I loved CoH/CoV you have to bring something way differen't. Heck almost all of the starting zones in those three games are like an alternate universe version of Atlas City ..someone of them with a Large Statue and even a globe to boot. We need a new Super Hero MMO for it to be a long term success. Don't get me wrong, I will probably play those three some but I want something that isn't just putting a fresh paint job with a couple of added engine pieces too it. I want a new car.
What happened to VO? I hear nothing of that game anymore. The only updates on this site is for CoT and SoH. I agree with you man, why replicate a dated game. Their marketing team is very questionable imo. If they were to copy something, copy something that is blowing up.
I think VO is just being more tight lipped right now. They are the only ones that have a live test server... but word on the street is they are the furthest behind. I can't confirm this, but from what I heard the game they created was originally supposed to be a fantasy title that they are transitioning to a super hero game, and that forward development isn't moving very quickly. Maybe in the future we'll see them provide info to MMORPG but right now it doesn't look like they're interested in letting any cats out of any bags as far as development goes.
I like superheroes, my profile pic is a dabbing Superman, nuff said
Black Panther and Avengers have been dominating the box office these past few months. How Black Panther is still climbing through the record books despite being released in February, and having a juggernaut in Infinity Wars screening alongside it is amazing. How it broke into Saudi was equally as impressive. How Avengers got to a billion this fast was crazy.
Do I want a Marvel Superhero mmo? Yep. Do I trust SoH or CoT? Nope. I did not mention VO because it is not going to amount to much in my opinion. I sign this under three conditions.
1: (Character creation) MH Omega did not have it; ironically, it is no longer running
2: (Made by a known studio), preferably Korean
3: (Action mmo), Which is why I wanted it made by Koreans. They do action mmo quite well. CoX was made by a South Korean video game developer. The irony we cant do superheroes right by they can.
NCSoft eventually was the publisher of CoX, but cryptic was not korean.
MH Omega didn't have character creation, but that wasn't why it failed. It was kind of a silly premise when you look back on it, had they expanded on the formula they tried to replicate from Marvel Ultimate Alliance, the game would likely still be running. It should never have been pushed into an MMO space where it was online only, and the studio behind it, gazillion, had tons of issues, especially in management roles.
Strangely enough the korean MOBA is awful in terms of action combat, MHO was way better.
Some Korean action combat is good or even great. The issue with that is Action Combat does not always equal a good MMORPG. What's action combat in the Super Hero universe? Melee fighters? Sure. Magic casters? Nope ... nearly none do instant abilities and often have long charge ups even in the movies.
My main issue with action combat in MMORPGs is that nearly every class starts to feel the same. You just click buttons as fast as you can that are typically built on chains with nearly tactical planning other than using 1 or 2 reactive abilities. That is actually far less tactical than even some of the very early gen tab MMORPGs which allowed time to survey the entire battlefield.
Action combat often also relies on use of an FPS engine which has historically proven to not scale well to MMORPGs and we are left with smaller zones or graphic tricks to reduce visual scaling. Add to this that Korean games are disliked by as many Western players due to game play style and design, pvp focus and embedded cash shop tactics.
My real concern however, from where ever it is made, is scale and concept. I have no doubt that the current interest in Superheroes (I've never been into them but enjoy a "good" movie if done right) will lead to many video games. This issue is whether or not a MMORPG is a good fit. It will likely just be a much easier to make instanced game for 2 main reasons:
1. High detail graphics will force limited size and scope especially if built with current engines adapted for several game genres.
2. EVERYONE can't play Spiderman or Captain America in an open world.
Frankly, and even as much fun as some have been, Superhero worlds makes poor MMORPGs. When everyone and everything in the game is "Super" nothing is super anymore. If an open universe, it requires a scale so entirely large so everyone spreads out that it would reflect what Marvel is attempting in their movies but not a single developer has created such an example yet. It's why Star Wars MMORPGs have yet to fully captured the universe or even why we haven't seen D&D worlds as fully massive and open to explore as they are in the real RPG game.
It all depends on ..well.. many different things.
MHO allowed several people to play spiderman in the same area, it was ridiculous, true, but you unfortunately see this even in super hero shows where multiples of the same character appear and are pitted against one another. It's one of the worst superhero tropes of recent memory... instead of making a villain, in most cases, film studios just reverse the character.
Just about every season of the Flash has the speedster up against a faster speedster... it's boring.. annoying... played out.
High detailed graphics don't necessarily limit size and scope depending on the engine, but it depends on how high of a limit you're looking for. 200 players on screen isn't hard to do, even consoles can handle that amount these days. Upscale that by double and you're reaching the limits of some engines.
I wouldn't specifically want a Korean developer, not any more or less than if I wanted a Japanese or American developer. I've played great games regardless of development, the main issues are making the setting and content make sense.
In fantasy MMOs everyone is a hero, or a story is built around you. In a super hero MMO every player is a hero. I don't mind that this is the premise in many cases... that happens to also be the premise of some super hero shows.. everyone has a "power"... I just feel that the underlying plotlines of what it means to be a hero are largely forgotten specifically in a Super Hero game.
Like I said, it comes down to scale. Players on the screen isn't really scale. It's just means the engine can handle that many players in a local area. What I mean is how massive the world is so that the impact of travel powers doesn't shrink it to a much smaller effective size.
Even CoX had this issue. It really didn't take long to traverse an entire map. Exploration was minimal (not that it was really meant to be an exploration game). I know a balance must be met but I'd much better enjoy a Super Hero game if the universe was massive.
I'd have reasons to take a plane or shuttle somewhere instead of just using my travel power 24/7. I'd find areas where I truly am the ONLY super hero in the area and NEEDED. Players would be spread out and each street wouldn't have 5-20 heros fighting a hundred bad guys. There would be room for many other player/guild controlled game systems to evolve and far off places of mystery, not to mention not seeing 5 other Hulks at any given time (this was real issue in CoX and CO).
I CAN see a super hero game working but the most effective way to make one isn't likely going to happen due to the engines they build these games on and (even if using something like SpatialOS) developers do not often continue zone design as primary content after release. They like their tiny little instances areas the entire player population has to repeat countless times in some grind.
When it comes to making MMORPGs, developers continue to fail by trying to divide players through instancing when they actually need to divide the population by game space. Game space means content however, something developers try to minimize even if it destroys the very concept of their game.
Well we got three superhero mmo's in development coming out. City of Titans, Valiance Online and Ship of Heroes (terrible name) other than that it's the Avengers project.
I am pretty sure everyone here knows that. The thread is about AAA development and it's abandonment of the Super Hero genre, not indie development.
Personally i would like to see a decent Superhero MMO, but realistically Marvel is not the company that i would entrust in the making of one, it would probably be a good idea to avoid the IP's of both Marvel and DC, if only because i don't think either one would be a positive influence on an MMO's development/management, DC probably has fewer issues when it comes to dodgy politics than Marvel, their only redeeming features has been the Marvel Movies and even that is under threat if recent anouncements are to be taken seriously.
Like I said, it comes down to scale. Players on the screen isn't really scale. It's just means the engine can handle that many players in a local area. What I mean is how massive the world is so that the impact of travel powers doesn't shrink it to a much smaller effective size.
Even CoX had this issue. It really didn't take long to traverse an entire map. Exploration was minimal (not that it was really meant to be an exploration game). I know a balance must be met but I'd much better enjoy a Super Hero game if the universe was massive.
I'd have reasons to take a plane or shuttle somewhere instead of just using my travel power 24/7. I'd find areas where I truly am the ONLY super hero in the area and NEEDED. Players would be spread out and each street wouldn't have 5-20 heros fighting a hundred bad guys. There would be room for many other player/guild controlled game systems to evolve and far off places of mystery, not to mention not seeing 5 other Hulks at any given time (this was real issue in CoX and CO).
I CAN see a super hero game working but the most effective way to make one isn't likely going to happen due to the engines they build these games on and (even if using something like SpatialOS) developers do not often continue zone design as primary content after release. They like their tiny little instances areas the entire player population has to repeat countless times in some grind.
When it comes to making MMORPGs, developers continue to fail by trying to divide players through instancing when they actually need to divide the population by game space. Game space means content however, something developers try to minimize even if it destroys the very concept of their game.
Your idea of space in a Superhero MMORPG is also my idea of space in a SF MMORPG. I'd love to start the campaign as a solitary hero in a herd of citizens and only encounter other players after a while, not start the game with 30 heroes fighting for 100 spawns, and everyone doing the same 'kill 10' quests. Spread everyone out so that there are 100 NPC spawns for each hero. The same principle works for Supers and SF.
The problem with this is that developers *try* to create all this content manually. They've not invested into generation algorithms that can develop the world procedurally *before* the game launches. There seems to be a narrow range of thought concerning 'how to build a game world'. The way the industry has chosen makes for slower and more costly development, resulting in 'smaller' worlds.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The three successors are an emotional journey and a pipe-dream. The emotional attachment to a dated game that shutdown leads a team to recreate that game. That sounds like surefire plan for success
The three successors are an emotional journey and a pipe-dream. The emotional attachment to a dated game that shutdown leads a team to recreate that game. That sounds like surefire plan for success
They have more of a built in audience in those lamenting the loss of CoH than something vastly different. The whole point of being spiritual successors it to recapture what was lost.
The current superhero fad is certainly no better foundation for long-term success.
The three successors are an emotional journey and a pipe-dream. The emotional attachment to a dated game that shutdown leads a team to recreate that game. That sounds like surefire plan for success
They have more of a built in audience in those lamenting the loss of CoH than something vastly different. The whole point of being spiritual successors it to recapture what was lost.
The current superhero fad is certainly no better foundation for long-term success.
Is there a current fad? They were all different, and failed in different ways. CO, DCUO, and MHO.
Comments
You missed my first line apparently... (and I put there again later a second time)
I too would love to have a Marvel mmorpg. That's why I followed Cryptic with their CO journey... which is a great game, and the Champions IP maybe even helped with the cornerstones of Freeform, but I believe it would've been much greater as an official Marvel game.
For the rest, you're thinking as a player there. Not from the other viewpoint.
As the quote I left up there, sure, an mmo CAN be a success. While on the other hand they have the years long data from the past that their console action games are successful, financially. No risks or conditions or anything.
They won't leave the paved road and jump into uncertainty, they are not into gaming at first, not at second either. They don't develop games, they don't even publish them.
So, from their perspective, where would you put your money allocated under "budget for games"? Give it to one of your already proven publishers, so they could hire an already proven developer team to make a game which has good sells on many platforms,
or
risk it on the mmorpg room of the casino?
(not to mention, in this case where to start? They won't give money to newbies, so, are there any proven dev teams available who can make such an mmorpg? Not really.
Beyond that, where to aim? They like action and brawlers, but going that way they would be in a clear competition with DCUO, and with that picking WB as publisher is out of the options - and WB used to publish their Lego Marvel games.
Their other usual direction, the UA arpg-style was already tried and closed.)
_____
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the state of the current market either. But that's no coincidence the current big mmo hype train (like the previous ones with BDO and AA) is for a several years old, flopped and reheated, eastern import...
neither that besides indie projects and crowdfunding scams (you can't say scam without s and c, right?
In both cases, such a game would have to mostly forego crafting (with the exception of Ironman and possibly Batman, what superhero crafts?) and many other mainstays of the genre that just wouldn't make sense when everyone's a superhero.
Even CoX had this issue. It really didn't take long to traverse an entire map. Exploration was minimal (not that it was really meant to be an exploration game). I know a balance must be met but I'd much better enjoy a Super Hero game if the universe was massive.
I'd have reasons to take a plane or shuttle somewhere instead of just using my travel power 24/7. I'd find areas where I truly am the ONLY super hero in the area and NEEDED. Players would be spread out and each street wouldn't have 5-20 heros fighting a hundred bad guys. There would be room for many other player/guild controlled game systems to evolve and far off places of mystery, not to mention not seeing 5 other Hulks at any given time (this was real issue in CoX and CO).
I CAN see a super hero game working but the most effective way to make one isn't likely going to happen due to the engines they build these games on and (even if using something like SpatialOS) developers do not often continue zone design as primary content after release. They like their tiny little instances areas the entire player population has to repeat countless times in some grind.
When it comes to making MMORPGs, developers continue to fail by trying to divide players through instancing when they actually need to divide the population by game space. Game space means content however, something developers try to minimize even if it destroys the very concept of their game.
You stay sassy!
You stay sassy!
The problem with this is that developers *try* to create all this content manually. They've not invested into generation algorithms that can develop the world procedurally *before* the game launches. There seems to be a narrow range of thought concerning 'how to build a game world'. The way the industry has chosen makes for slower and more costly development, resulting in 'smaller' worlds.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The current superhero fad is certainly no better foundation for long-term success.