Does Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 Fill the Marvel Heroes Void? - Michael Bitton - MMORPG.com

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Does Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 Fill the Marvel Heroes Void? - Michael Bitton - MMORPG.com

Now that the game has been out for a couple of days, I’m not so sure. It’s a great looking game (even if the frame rate isn’t so hot). Team Ninja did an excellent job bringing an amazing roster to life. Unfortunately, I feel like the gameplay is a bit of a regression, even for its admittedly simple predecessors.

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syltmacka

do a fekking mmorpg for petes sake. not these ...things.

Aeander

No, it doesn't for the simple reason that it lacks those fun Patrol zones (which were the real fun and life of MHO).

But as a game, it's way better than Marvel Heroes ever was. I do, however, hope that they do polish updates to clean up attack effects, add extra team bonuses that are blatantly missing from characters (HOW is Scarlet Witch not an X-men character, how does Hawkeye not have Wisecracking Warriors, why is Iron Man missing Guardians of the Galaxy), fix that worthless camera, and improve the UI (particularly the atrocious ISO-8 menu.)

JeffSpicoli

Appreciate the honest review Mikey, very disappointing to hear. I still don't understand how we don't have a ridiculous amount of Marvel or Star Wars games to choose from and how anyone could put out a meidocre title with this I.P

Spriggen1337

Its simple this game is booty compared to Marvel Heroes Omega the game itself is okay for fans of MUA/xmen legends etc but it lacks too much when compared to MHO, Gamigo Games really need to take the thumb out their collective butt and do something with the assets either reskin or rebrand the game so people can play it, hell they could rehire Brevik i know he would like a second shot at the game since its one of his favourite brands.

achmede

Retarded exclusive games.
They would gain so much more proffit if they made it for PC also.
Not to mention popularity. This exclusive console crap does not help with anything on the long run.
But they have bilions of dollars so i guess they dont care.
They do what they want.

Hashbrick

syltmacka said:

do a fekking mmorpg for petes sake. not these ...things.

Maybe you didn't get the message years ago but the MMORPG scene is washed up. They need to do other news to stay relevant and keep the lights on.

Tokken

would rather have Marvel Heroes come back.

Itzme123

This franchise was always a throw-away.

Cheap, Formulaic, fan service. Maybe a couple notches up from those movie tie in games from Activision back in the day.

Not sure what anyone was expecting. It always looked like a glorified mobile game.
The Lego marvel games for toddlers had more thought put into them.

Nanfoodle

No, Marvel needs to do something like DCUO. Small static MMO world with chapters released for DLC or sub. DCUO is too dark for my liking so I just dont play it. Been waiting for Marvel to step up for over 20 years. They almost did, scrapped the project and have not tried again.

Itzme123

Yeah I remember when the marvel MMO was announced as a first year title for Xbox 360.... different ownership now though.

Disney isn't taking any risks in the video game department.

Spriggen1337

Itzme123 said:

Yeah I remember when the marvel MMO was announced as a first year title for Xbox 360.... different ownership now though.



Disney isn't taking any risks in the video game department.

well that seems to be the case but with the money the marvel side of the business is raking in a bit of fan service in the form of a game marvel heroes, or something similar should be a no brainer

Itzme123

syltmacka said:

do a fekking mmorpg for petes sake. not these ...things.

Like what though?
Everything in development that I'm aware of is kickstarter crafting games like crowfall or survival games.

No one wants to make mmos worth writing about. Can't blame MMO sites for expanding to other genres. They'd go out of business otherwise.

Utinni

RIP Marvel Heroes. One of the most fun games I've played on PC.

Aeander

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I don't fault you for making exceptions. We all do. But I am legitimately curious to know where your standards, so strongly expressed all of the time, apply.

Utinni

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I have 900 hours on steam for Marvel Heroes and I spent $50 once during a sale. Unlocking heroes was super easy. Stash tabs is all I ever bought, just like PoE. You could even get skins through prestige.

Aeander

Utinni said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I have 900 hours on steam for Marvel Heroes and I spent $50 once during a sale. Unlocking heroes was super easy. Stash tabs is all I ever bought, just like PoE. You could even get skins through prestige.

Well aware of all of that. I played for a few months non-stop. Even cosmic prestiged my boy Gambit. Hero unlocks were NOT fast, unless you got a lucky token drop. Each character could take days of grinding for random boxes or a couple weeks for a direct shard purchase.

I actually did spend more money than I'd care to admit, but also got skins for free through prestige. That wasn't an intentional part of their business model, by the way. They vocally expressed a desire to rework prestige rewards and remove that system while they were doing the Omega reworks. I don't think any such system was ever put into practice, but the game died not too long after.

Utinni

Aeander said:

Utinni said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I have 900 hours on steam for Marvel Heroes and I spent $50 once during a sale. Unlocking heroes was super easy. Stash tabs is all I ever bought, just like PoE. You could even get skins through prestige.

Well aware of all of that. I played for a few months non-stop. Even cosmic prestiged my boy Gambit. Hero unlocks were NOT fast, unless you got a lucky token drop. Each character could take days of grinding for random boxes or a couple weeks for a direct shard purchase.

I actually did spend more money than I'd care to admit, but also got skins for free through prestige. That wasn't an intentional part of their business model, by the way. They vocally expressed a desire to rework prestige rewards and remove that system while they were doing the Omega reworks. I don't think any such system was ever put into practice, but the game died not too long after.

I got a hero every few days playing normally, maybe if you played like 10 minutes a day it would take a few weeks.

Aeander

Utinni said:

Aeander said:

Utinni said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I have 900 hours on steam for Marvel Heroes and I spent $50 once during a sale. Unlocking heroes was super easy. Stash tabs is all I ever bought, just like PoE. You could even get skins through prestige.

Well aware of all of that. I played for a few months non-stop. Even cosmic prestiged my boy Gambit. Hero unlocks were NOT fast, unless you got a lucky token drop. Each character could take days of grinding for random boxes or a couple weeks for a direct shard purchase.

I actually did spend more money than I'd care to admit, but also got skins for free through prestige. That wasn't an intentional part of their business model, by the way. They vocally expressed a desire to rework prestige rewards and remove that system while they were doing the Omega reworks. I don't think any such system was ever put into practice, but the game died not too long after.

I got a hero every few days playing normally, maybe if you played like 10 minutes a day it would take a few weeks.

What was it. 4 minutes for every shard drop? Yes, they could drop in multiples, but a vast majority of drops were single shards.

At an average cost of 400 shards, that's up to 26.67 hours for a hero, assuming you get 1 shard per every 4 minutes. The time between shards can be greater than that (especially outside of patrols where enemies are less numerous) and the number of shards can vary, so that number can go in either direction.

You would have to play for roughly 8-9 hours per day to get a hero every few (3) days.

Tiamat64

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I don't fault you for making exceptions. We all do. But I am legitimately curious to know where your standards, so strongly expressed all of the time, apply.

Er, if anything, they were way too nice with how easy it was to unlock heroes via F2P.  Tons of players pretty much easily had the eternity splinters saved up for every new hero as they were released.  Gaz couldn't release heroes fast enough to keep up with the speed at which many players earned splinters to buy them with as far as I could tell from most players on forums and in-game always saying "Got my splinters ready for the next hero!" etc.


I suspect that's a hidden reason why the game failed to bring in enough money to survive. There was almost no need for a remotely dedicated player to give Gaz money to buy heroes

Tiamat64

Aeander said:

Utinni said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I have 900 hours on steam for Marvel Heroes and I spent $50 once during a sale. Unlocking heroes was super easy. Stash tabs is all I ever bought, just like PoE. You could even get skins through prestige.

Well aware of all of that. I played for a few months non-stop. Even cosmic prestiged my boy Gambit. Hero unlocks were NOT fast, unless you got a lucky token drop. Each character could take days of grinding for random boxes or a couple weeks for a direct shard purchase.

I actually did spend more money than I'd care to admit, but also got skins for free through prestige. That wasn't an intentional part of their business model, by the way. They vocally expressed a desire to rework prestige rewards and remove that system while they were doing the Omega reworks. I don't think any such system was ever put into practice, but the game died not too long after.

Days of grinding to get a hero was nothing compared to the month+ it took Gaz to actually create a hero, which is why most players by the end stopped needing to pay Gaz money for new heros.  Gaz couldn't develop and create them faster than players earned the splinters for them (based on my own cursory observations while playing the game whenever people were talking about the next upcoming hero.  Finding players who actually would pay for the hero rather than dip into their splinter storage was really REALLY rare)

Aeander

Tiamat64 said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I don't fault you for making exceptions. We all do. But I am legitimately curious to know where your standards, so strongly expressed all of the time, apply.

Er, if anything, they were way too nice with how easy it was to unlock heroes via F2P.  Tons of players pretty much easily had the eternity splinters saved up for every new hero as they were released.  Gaz couldn't release heroes fast enough to keep up with the speed at which many players earned splinters to buy them with as far as I could tell from most players on forums and in-game always saying "Got my splinters ready for the next hero!" etc.


I suspect that's a hidden reason why the game failed to bring in enough money to survive. There was almost no need for a remotely dedicated player to give Gaz money to buy heroes

It depends on when you started playing in the game's life cycle. 

Tiamat64

Aeander said:

Tiamat64 said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I don't fault you for making exceptions. We all do. But I am legitimately curious to know where your standards, so strongly expressed all of the time, apply.

Er, if anything, they were way too nice with how easy it was to unlock heroes via F2P.  Tons of players pretty much easily had the eternity splinters saved up for every new hero as they were released.  Gaz couldn't release heroes fast enough to keep up with the speed at which many players earned splinters to buy them with as far as I could tell from most players on forums and in-game always saying "Got my splinters ready for the next hero!" etc.


I suspect that's a hidden reason why the game failed to bring in enough money to survive. There was almost no need for a remotely dedicated player to give Gaz money to buy heroes

It depends on when you started playing in the game's life cycle. 

A business needs to plan for the long term if it wishes to survive.  "only new players will give us money while older players will easily be buying new heroes for free at the speed they're earning splinters" ended up... not being the most viable business model, apparently.

Spriggen1337

Aeander said:

Utinni said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I have 900 hours on steam for Marvel Heroes and I spent $50 once during a sale. Unlocking heroes was super easy. Stash tabs is all I ever bought, just like PoE. You could even get skins through prestige.

Well aware of all of that. I played for a few months non-stop. Even cosmic prestiged my boy Gambit. Hero unlocks were NOT fast, unless you got a lucky token drop. Each character could take days of grinding for random boxes or a couple weeks for a direct shard purchase.

I actually did spend more money than I'd care to admit, but also got skins for free through prestige. That wasn't an intentional part of their business model, by the way. They vocally expressed a desire to rework prestige rewards and remove that system while they were doing the Omega reworks. I don't think any such system was ever put into practice, but the game died not too long after.

hero unlocks were not that bad if u played regular u got easy 25-50 splinters easily a day one dropped every 8 mins (not counting daily login bonuses) and most heroes only cost 400. Most the money I spent usually went on cards (only in sales), stash and costumes TBH when the game first came out the mega pack was a good buy (all chars n stash and some lil extras) you could even get it in sale too.
the partrols and prestige were sopme of the best content i have ever played in a game as well as my main Taskmaster.

Aeander

Tiamat64 said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I don't fault you for making exceptions. We all do. But I am legitimately curious to know where your standards, so strongly expressed all of the time, apply.

Er, if anything, they were way too nice with how easy it was to unlock heroes via F2P.  Tons of players pretty much easily had the eternity splinters saved up for every new hero as they were released.  Gaz couldn't release heroes fast enough to keep up with the speed at which many players earned splinters to buy them with as far as I could tell from most players on forums and in-game always saying "Got my splinters ready for the next hero!" etc.


I suspect that's a hidden reason why the game failed to bring in enough money to survive. There was almost no need for a remotely dedicated player to give Gaz money to buy heroes

That probably contributed, but I question whether that was the largest contributor to their failure. 

Once David Brevik left, they clearly lacked an overall design vision, true endgame content was sparse, and new content was far too rare. 

The game was basically defined by a few patrol zones, and repeating the same short story missions ad nauseum with a huge cast of characters over and over. When your main long term content (prestiging) shows how little content you actually have, there are going to be severe longevity problems with your game. It's nothing short of amazing that Marvel Heroes lived for as long as it did.

Utinni

Tiamat64 said:

Aeander said:

Tiamat64 said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

When I first played Marvel Heroes it bothered me seeing my same super clone everywhere. But after a few hours it didn't really matter because I enjoyed it so much. Not a perfect game by any means, but I could play so many heroes - Starlord, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange. I got Doctor Strange really late and barely got to play him. He rocked. I'd love a single / D3 style multiplayer version of that game.

Gambit was my main. My favorite superhero in fact. And not just because we're both cajun.

But aren't you betraying yourself by having played MH? Your hard line on microtransactions should apply to it, and it had a particularly bad business model. The f2p hero unlock system was atrocious.

I don't fault you for making exceptions. We all do. But I am legitimately curious to know where your standards, so strongly expressed all of the time, apply.

Er, if anything, they were way too nice with how easy it was to unlock heroes via F2P.  Tons of players pretty much easily had the eternity splinters saved up for every new hero as they were released.  Gaz couldn't release heroes fast enough to keep up with the speed at which many players earned splinters to buy them with as far as I could tell from most players on forums and in-game always saying "Got my splinters ready for the next hero!" etc.


I suspect that's a hidden reason why the game failed to bring in enough money to survive. There was almost no need for a remotely dedicated player to give Gaz money to buy heroes

It depends on when you started playing in the game's life cycle. 

A business needs to plan for the long term if it wishes to survive.  "only new players will give us money while older players will easily be buying new heroes for free at the speed they're earning splinters" ended up... not being the most viable business model, apparently.

Same business model LoL uses, they just sell skins etc. I haven't payed for a champ in LoL since 2012. MH shut down due to sexual harassment issues not their business model. Disney doesn't take kindly to stuff like that.