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Marvel Goes MMPORG
traskjd writes "C|net reports that Vivendi Universal has announced that they are working with Marvel Enterprises to create a Massively Multiplayer online game. The game has your favorite Marvel characters such as the Hulk. However don't hold your breath as the game is touted as coming out in 2005." Ha. Maybe DC will get their act together, and then CowboyNeal can fufil his wildest dreams as the Green Lantern.
Did you play "Freedom Force"? There was a wealth of abilities and attributes for creating your own character. Running out of Marvel identities shouldn't be too much of a problem, in fact I wouldn't be letting random players have Marvel characters at all, but I would have all the big names as NPCs or hire people to play them as staff - kind of like walking into Disneyland and there's a guy in a Mickey Mouse suit, if you know what I mean.
Or, auction the Marvel characters, or compete for the right to play them. You could use a ladder system like Bungie did for Myth online, top player of the month gets to pick a Marvel character first, and so on.
Oh yeah, well i have the Infinite Gauntlet, so there! Actually, no, wait, I'm the Anti-Monitor so there! No, wait a sec -- no, actually, I'm Dr Manhattan...
The problem with comic book universes is that they're always trying to one-up the past and come up with the REAL ultimate threat. Take a took at the X-Men. Magneto was the real badass mutant...but hold on, if you think HE was bad, just wait until you tangle with the Hellfire Club. Whoops, never mind...those Sentinels are even WORSE...except, well, for that Mutant Massacre thingy with Mr Sinister.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
It's about a superhero who couldn't give a toss about saving the world.
One point in the story line was that there were multiple universes. In one of these universes it was all populated with superheros and only one normal person, who was being pestered the heck out of.
In a world where everyone wants to be a hero, who plays the normal people?
One of the things, well really the only thing that makes MMORPG's is the human element. I think this alone is what may stunt the growth of such games. If all the normal characters are NPC's then there are no worries about secret identitys and a lot of players will treat the NPC's as fog of war.
By the way, anyone who can't wait until 2005 I recommend you check out City of Heroes which plans to Beta test in early 2003 and has some nice movies of the gameplay. They also have a very indepth FAQ (Geek level :)
What stops people from ALL becoming Dark Jedi called Darth l33t with double-ended red lightsabers
/. addiction...
Presuming that there's interdependance on other PCs, then people will discover quickly that role-playing an "evil" character is no different from being an asshole. And in MMORPGs most assholes don't make it because they get a rep and can't advance by themselves.
So while there may be a preponderance of dark jedi (although I think SOE claimed they would be "limiting" the number of people playing Jedi somehow), they'll virtually all wind up being really nice guys, just like Dark Elves did in EQ.
Of course, as a reformed EQ addict, I can't implore people enough to stay away from EQ or SW:G or pretty much anything else like it. There are people who can balance something addictive like a MMORPG and real life, but most geeks don't fall into that category -- goal-oriented, highly focused personalities tend to get sucked in to this kind of thing, especially since it fulfills a social interaction need often not found elsewhere in geek life.
Of course, I appear to have replace the EQ addiction with a somewhat lesser
Ha, what a riot. It will be a realm with a few super heroes and thousands of super villians. How much fun is it to sit in your Heroes Hall when you could be out throwing cars around and knocking the top of mountains off.
The major problem will be PvP. You can't really have a Marvel story with out Super-hero vs. super-villian.
Chase
-==-
Star Wars RPG takes care of this nicely. In the Star Wars RPG most people end up being more like Han Solo or Leie, or a Storm Trooper than a Jedi. Each party of 6 might have 1 Jedi in it. Some parties will have none, and in some rare campaigns you'll have 5 Jedi and a noble. I think that with the range of character classes available the Mass Jedi problem won't be quit as big as people think. I personally would rather be Han Solo than Luke Skywalker (Whiny farmboy....) but then, that's just me.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Whoa, hold on there tiger lilly...
Mr. Furious and The Shoveler are two of the most interesting, unique, and sure as hell funny comic characters ever created. Not only that, but the actors who played there characters in the movie could actually act! (take note toby maguire)
Just because they don't actually have any super-powers doesn't mean their not cool. Although I don't think any normal person could throw cutlery like the "limey fork flinger" Blue Raja. That's quite impressive.
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
Do people _really_ role-play in MMORPGs? I haven't played any, so I really don't know.
And as far as it being armies trying to capture a city, I'm imagining it being more like groups of heroes claiming sections of the server as under their protection.
Scattered throughout the server would be "objectives", basically areas that have missions that villians can undertake (I'd imagine there would be missions that heroes could undertake, too). If a villian or multiple villians initiate a mission, the heroes in that area are alerted, so they can rush over in their superheromobile.
A mission objective would be something like a bank, or a mayoral debate, and would have goals and scripted events. For example, the bank goal is to open the vault and get the money. A random scripted event might be a NPC having a heart attack. Thus the villians have to decide whether to let some of the hostages in the bank take him out, and it would make the heroes have to decide quickly what to do.
There could be lots of these objectives scattered around, and they could have a variety of scripted events and mission conditions... So that every time you rob the same bank, it's a bit different.
There could also be certain time-limited missions. For example, the newspaper (which could flash up every time you log on) might report that there are protests today against a uranium shipment that is going through town... Villians could then decide - hey, let's hijack it! And heroes might think, well, let's go there in case some villians show up.
As far as armies go - you could also encourage "caps" on the size of supergroups... An easy way would be to only allow so many heroes to claim one neigborhood as their own. This wouldn't effect the villians, but there are other things you could do... Such as only allowing so many people to communicate on a shared channel, or something. OR, simply only allow X number of PCs to gain "karma" from a mission or encounter...
"..then people will discover quickly that role-playing an "evil" character is no different from being an asshole."
That's because this game won't be a roleplaying game.
EverQuest is not a roleplaying game.
Roleplaying != "OMG I GET UBAR ARMOR N LEVLZ N EXPIRIENZ AND WIN DA GAME!"
Hell, let's go back in the day. These games seem to take a lot from UO, if not everything from muds (EverQuest raped the default Merc/Envy socials.)..
UO is not a roleplaying game. How could it be? When they ban an account of a player who killed Lord British, instead of keeping the game going with a dead Lord?
Roleplaying? Most of the people who think they're 'roleplayers' wouldn't know roleplaying if it bit them in the ass, kicked them in the groin, and then stole their shoes.