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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.
I've been a Marvel fan for quite some time, and am well aware that there are many charaters in there, however, that number is quite finite. Once people snatch up all the pre-existing characters, how do they plan on having anyone else play? Make up your own character? Give them whatever powers you choose? Maybe have 1,836 people ALL playing Spider-Man (not to mention all the irritating Venom/Carnage/clone divergents)? Sounds like an interesting idea, I'm all for anything that brings comics to the forefront, and dispels the notion that they're ONLY for children. Hope they can pull it off.
.. is all that this looks now, seriously, if somebody announces a game FIVE years beforehand, it is nothing yet except first level talks and maybe some sketches to show to top level officers that so that they can have something to chat.
there is no mention of platform, gameplay, or anything really.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I love games, I love comics, I love Marvel. However, this just doesn't sound that great. The point of being a superhero is that you are unique. Its not really strength, but relative strength, that people desire.
An example is how Wonder Woman is not unique in her amazonian land. However, when she is off fighting against normal criminals she is unique. Imagine living (as an amazonian) in the land of the amazonians? Everyone is the same strength so it would be quite boring.
The only way to alleviate this problem would to make the server size limited compared to other MMORPGs and the size of the maps huge. If you could visit 30 cities, average of 50 heroes to a city, it would be fun. That makes only 1,500 per server. I have heard the new Star Wars MMORPG might have 50,000 per server (but I could be deadly wrong). If you end up in a city with 1,000 heroes it would seem like you wouldn't get that unique feel you read about in the books.
Yeah, but you know that 90% of the player base is going to rip off comic book heroes, that there'll be hundreds each of Spiderman, Hulk, etc. and the Comic Book Guys will still be at each others' throats about how faithful their characters are to the ones they're based on.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
The problem with licenses such as Marvel, Star Wars, or LOTR is that they were never created with MM (Massively Multiplayer) games in mind.
Take Star Wars: most people will want to be a Jedi, right?
But you can't have 100k Jedis running around choping heads with their light sabers: that just wouldn't work nor would it be true to the license. So the designers have to come up with game design tricks to limit the number of people that can be a Jedi at any given time. And that's just one example of the hundreds of problems that will pop up when you to stick a license on a MM game: it's like trying to force a square peg in a round hole.
Persistent worlds are communities. As such they have dynamics of their own and the best way to stick to these dynamics is to craft a world specifically around them.
I believe that, in the long run, MM games that will be the most successful will be the ones that take into acount the nature of online communities and tailor their game design accordingly. Unfortunately, licenses that come from other media aren't flexible enough to do this...
Green Lantern? what crap! seriously. Marvel has always been the company with the best heroes. Spiderman, the hulk, x-men, etc. But marvel villains were all crap. Except for Doctor Doom, Thanos, Magneto, and Mister Sinister. Look! I can count the good marvel villains on one hand! DC however, have very few good heroes Batman, Superman, that's about it. However, all of the DC villains totally rock the house.
I don't think the comic book industry is doing as well as it once was. I mean didn't marvel almost go bankrupt a few years back? Now it seems as if they aren't really competing anymore. I mean they both have Heroclix http://www.wizkidsgames.com
Both companies should merge and pit the marvel heroes against the dc villains. it would be like the second coming of the golden age of comics.
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Nowhere on the CNet adver^H^H^H^H^Harticle does it mention that players will *play* famous characters like the Hulk, Spidey, X-Men, etc, they'll likely meet them (then again, a really cool feature would be to give control of famous characters to players who are particularly good or well-liked; or, better, have famous actors guest star as famous characters)...I'm assuming that players will develop their own super-powers as they play the game, making each character unique. 'course, if they're really smart, they'll allow player-developed skins/models.
('course, I'll only play this game if they bring back Nightcrawler, I still miss 'im.)
Anyone see the actual press release? (www.vivendiuniversal.com gives me a ColdFusion error, heh!)
Spider-Man's been cloned at least once, maybe twice. One clone of Cable. Two of Marvel Girl (if you count Phoenix). The villain Carnage had, I think, six "spawns" with basically identical powers. If you need to re-use the same Marvel character more than once at a time, it's insanely easy. The technology's there. :)
I foresee two big problems with a Marvel MMPORG, though. First, the resurrection factor -- it's impossible to keep ANY Marvel character dead, whether he be good, evil or civilian. So there's no danger to the player, right? Get killed, come back a few days later, repeat ad nauseam. Want to fight? Just run in, guns or powers blazing, and expect to get resurrected next week if it turns out to be fatal.
The second is the power-upgrade factor. This is a corollary of the death factor -- ninety-nine percent of the time, in the Marvel Universe, a super-hero's resurrection is ALWAYS accompanied by an amplification of his powers, if not a completely new set of them. So there's actually an INCENTIVE for players to rush in and get killed -- they'll increase their level status that much more quickly, possibly taking entire quantum leaps with each successive death.
I'd like nothing better than to play a Marvel mutant super-hero online, myself. By skillfully employing the above tactics, I'd be at god-level powers in a month, no sweat.