Marvel MMO: Death Knell

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's like that fantasy game world where the NPCs are way cooler than the PCs could ever be.

Norrath? There were like three expansions that consisted of all the players following around Morden Rasp and cleaning up behind him heroically saving the day, exploring new frontiers or picking up hot elf chicks.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I think he's making a dig at the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think he's making a dig at the Forgotten Realms.

Morden Rasp is way worse than Elmonster ever was.

 

[Vigilance]

Norrath? There were like three expansions that consisted of all the players following around Morden Rasp and cleaning up behind him heroically saving the day, exploring new frontiers or picking up hot elf chicks.

I never played enough EQ to notice lol.

And to answer the post after this, it wasn't specifically a dig at FR either, although I think it might apply to FR.

I was actually thinking about the homebrew world of a guy I knew in college, and several worlds I've seen since then, where the NPCs are way, way cooler than you.

I think Jeremy's ideas could work in a smaller game, sort of like the Magic the Gathering "Legends" concept where if one person has a Legend out, no one else can play him.

But in a game with thousands per server, you'd run into 800 Daredevils all doing the Kingpin Instance in the Hell's Kitchen Zone and it would get real silly real quick.

But hey, it's not all bad for us comics nerds, Activision dropped a casual mention that there would be a Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think Jeremy's ideas could work in a smaller game, sort of like the Magic the Gathering "Legends" concept where if one person has a Legend out, no one else can play him.

But in a game with thousands per server, you'd run into 800 Daredevils all doing the Kingpin Instance in the Hell's Kitchen Zone and it would get real silly real quick.

Well, you might need more instances/channels, say 100 people max per location. Then you'd probably only get a few repetitions of a hero, and if they had different costumes, then it wouldn't be so big a deal. I think Ultimate Alliance had was 3-4 costumes per hero?

(In fact, Ultimate Alliance is a lot like what I was thinking of. You have 4 heroes all the time as part of the your team, which you name and have an emblem for)

 

[Cthulhudrew]

And to answer the post after this, it wasn't specifically a dig at FR either, although I think it might apply to FR.

Sorry if I sounded snarky ('dig' was probably too strong a phrase to use). It sounded like you had a specific "known" world in mind, though.

But hey, it's not all bad for us comics nerds, Activision dropped a casual mention that there would be a Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

Which is cool. Frankly, that's the model I think would work best anyway, especially something that allows a small group of multiple players. A cross-platform, multiplayer online optional game or something (think HALO), with various types of scenarios (PVP, PVE, multiplayer or solo storyline).

The MMO concept just doesn't really seem to fit too well with the Marvel notion, even taking into account the possibility of multiple worlds and all (for one thing, how do you differentiate between the different Spider-Men being played? Do they have the player's handle next to it, are they Spider-Man1, Spider-Man2, etc.?)

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Cryptic working on Champions Online.

Guess they didn't want all that work they put into the cancelled Marvel MMO to go to waste. Good for them. Should be interesting to see how it compares with CoX.

 

[Vigilance]

Cryptic working on Champions Online.

Guess they didn't want all that work they put into the cancelled Marvel MMO to go to waste. Good for them. Should be interesting to see how it compares with CoX.

For some reason I am way more interested in this than a Marvel MMO.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

For some reason I am way more interested in this than a Marvel MMO.

I agree- I think it sounds pretty cool. I've never actually played Champions, mind (I played its redheaded stepchild Villains and Vigilante, and, later, Marvel Superheroes RPG), but from what little I've read thus far about the Champions Online game it sounds like it might be a worthy alternative/successor to CoX. Especially being able to play villains and heroes right out of the box!

Also, the fact that it's apparently going to be cross-platform (hopefully for the PS3, and not just XBox 360), makes it even more appealing to me.

 

[Felon]

Good lord, I can come up with 20 ways to improve upon CoX without even trying hard. CoX is a freaking mess, especially for a purported superhero game.

CoX is the biggest superhero MMO only by virtue of being the ONLY superhero MMO.

It's definitely in need of something at the moment. I love the game, but I haven't even been active in quite some time, because it's just too much of the same thing all the time. Get a mish, go beat up villains/heroes, finish, repeat. There are some really great elements, but, yeah. The last really cool thing was the Rikti Invasion, with the revamped Rikti War Zone and the random raids, which were all fun. RWZ is a virtual graveyard these days, and forget about trying to get a ship raid together.

I'm hoping that now that NCSoft has it all to their lonesomes, there will be some great things coming down the line; I know that Cryptic kept them from doing at least a few things they wanted.

Yeah, CoH is probably the only MMO I've played that I'll even think about returning to, but then again they'd have to really come up with some new gameplay elements.

The biggest mistake was probably not having the post-max-level game in mind. Instead of thinking in terms of the endgame, the focus was on dragging one's way up to the endgame.

The other major mistake was locking themselves into the "city" theme. There's too many missions taking place in extremely mundane environments that you see over and over again. Of course, the repetition in environments is linked to the first mistake; in WoW, you level fast enough that you're moving onto a new location before the old one's gotten really stale.

Then there's the lack of interaction in the environments. Superheroes like to smash stuff. Some of'em like to pick stuff up and throw it.

All-in-all, I'm just not convinced that the superhero genre is well-suited to an MMO. There shouldn't be squads of high-powered villains standing around on every street corner locked in an eternal struggle with some old lady whose purse they're trying to snatch. And I probably shouldn't be running past those crimes just because they're conning grey or purple to me.

Hate to say it, but the DDO model would probably work better for Marvel. Don't have a "wilderness" to run around in, just instanced missions. Have the heroes in a central base--S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters or whatever--and then have them alerted to various dangers. The pitfall to avoid here (that DDO didn't) is to have some time sinks built in; floating, dynamic missions that keep the player from running through all the content too quickly.