Marvel MMO: Death Knell

[cignus_pfaccari]

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.

Hrm, that is an interesting idea.

It might work best as a mix; you've got wide outdoor zones (mostly city, because 99% of the Marvel Universe lives and works in NYC), but a variety of other instanced zones or servers to go to, and the sky's the limit there. You can even take advantage of "time travel" to deal with alternate costumes ("Well, we're in the '70s, which is why Spidey's wearing bell bottoms...").

Brad

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Don't mistake what CoX did for what a superhero MMO has to be.

There should obviously be a little bit of street crime, based on location, time of day, and other factors, but the CoX model is basically what's been around since EQ1: "Let's have a ton of low level monsters everywhere, so that players will trip over content when they go looking for it."

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.

I would go farther than that: The GuildWars model makes more sense than the current one. CoX gains almost nothing by being a subscription-based MMO with hundreds of superheroes and villains active on each server. By making the entire world an instance, effectively, you could get rid of all the swarms of villains, and make each hero have a meaningful impact on the world: Defeat some villainous organization and, as far as you can tell, they're gone (until the inevitable prison escape a few weeks later).

And the GuildWars model has the advantage that you don't need to pull back out the credit card to start playing again. Just play.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

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.

I think that actually sounds like a really good idea as well. It works perfectly fine in Guildwars, for instance. It would allow you to have common "city" and "hq" areas where you could interact with other heroes and form teams.

I'd also like to see some kind of hero/villain interaction that might be a bit too artificial with the instanced method. Then again, there are some ways to do it (the mission in Factions where one group of heroes plays the Canthan team and the other group plays the Prophecies team and you eventually both meet up in the middle comes to mind.*)

*That one freaked me out, actually. The first time I did it, I had no idea what was going on (was soloing)- kept wondering why I was seeing all this dialogue and figured there was something wrong with the chat system. The mission ended as a failure for reasons I couldn't fathom either. When I tried it again, I realized they were trying to talk to me, and the whole thing finally dawned on me. It was pretty cool as a result.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

And the GuildWars model has the advantage that you don't need to pull back out the credit card to start playing again. Just play.

And let us not underestimate that. It's one reason why I still play GW and have let my subscription to CoX lapse pending a new issue release (hm. Just remembered, I haven't resubbed for V-Day event. Not sure if it's worth it...?)

Also, and as much as I think there are people who absolutely loathe the notion, the CoX/Champions/Superhero sort of environment (modern day) would be conducive to the developers financially by allowing them to offset any costs by allowing in-game advertising in a (hopefully) non-intrusive way by just appearing to be like the RW- putting ads on the billboards that are already there, having a mission to save the Coca-Cola plant, etc. Frankly, if it would minimize the subscription cost (or negate it), I'd be all for them moving to that model.

 

[Felon]

Don't mistake what CoX did for what a superhero MMO has to be.

Well, the point being, it's not just what CoX did, it's the model that CoX followed. WoW follows it too for the most part. I'm not sure what it is in WoW that keeps people playing for years on end. Maybe the PvP experience is just that good, or maybe it's the constant stream of bigger and better phat lewt.

There should obviously be a little bit of street crime, based on location, time of day, and other factors, but the CoX model is basically what's been around since EQ1: "Let's have a ton of low level monsters everywhere, so that players will trip over content when they go looking for it."

I don't think there should be any street crime. I mean, raise your hand if you want to play a superhero so that you can patrol for muggers and purse-snatchers.

I would go farther than that: The GuildWars model makes more sense than the current one. CoX gains almost nothing by being a subscription-based MMO with hundreds of superheroes and villains active on each server. By making the entire world an instance, effectively, you could get rid of all the swarms of villains, and make each hero have a meaningful impact on the world: Defeat some villainous organization and, as far as you can tell, they're gone (until the inevitable prison escape a few weeks later).

And the GuildWars model has the advantage that you don't need to pull back out the credit card to start playing again. Just play.

Not familiar with Guild Wars.

 

[Felon]

Hrm, that is an interesting idea.

It might work best as a mix; you've got wide outdoor zones (mostly city, because 99% of the Marvel Universe lives and works in NYC), but a variety of other instanced zones or servers to go to, and the sky's the limit there. You can even take advantage of "time travel" to deal with alternate costumes ("Well, we're in the '70s, which is why Spidey's wearing bell bottoms...").

Brad

Sure, you can have instances similar to the safeguard in CoH, where the character's on patrol and stops some minor crime before the main villain's caper starts. That's about as close I'd want to be to fighting muggers and other cheap hoodlums.

 

[Felon]

More like someone realized that the single draw of a Marvel MMO was the cast of Marvel characters, and that you could either play as Marvel characters- having thousands of Spider-Man, Sp!d&r_M@n, $pydrmn, etc. clones- or else create all original characters and have them pal around with the Marvel cast as sidekicks, teammates. Neither of which truly is all that exciting, IMO.

People focused a bit too much on Marvel's big draw being the potential to play a hero. I suspect the folks at Marvel realized early on that they wouldn't be letting people play their IP characters. They were going to sell the game off the possibility of fighting Marvel supervillains with your own original superhero. That's actually another area where CoX is kind of weak. They haven't really developed a cavalcade of colorful supervillains.

 

[hong]

Not familiar with Guild Wars.

It's the best single-player RPG I've played since Baldur's Gate 2!

 

[Felon]

It's the best single-player RPG I've played since Baldur's Gate 2!

Single-player? Thought it was a MMO?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Single-player? Thought it was a MMO?

It kind of occupies its own unique place in between.

Diablo has always been the closest comparison, but then again, even that's not really very accurate.