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Marvel Goes MMPORG

Posted by Hemos on from the mmporg-is-a-terrible-acronym dept.

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.

4 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Character limit? by Spazholio · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Character limit? by shut_up_man · · Score: 4, Interesting

      These are the same problems Sony & Lucasarts are going to have with Star Wars Galaxies. What stops people from ALL becoming Dark Jedi called Darth l33t with double-ended red lightsabers? I'd expect Marvel start players as fairly weak heroes and allow them to improve their powers and run factions (superhero groups) up to the point where the highest level players might be in the realm of the X-Men, Alpha Flight, etc. If they want to be Spider-Man, yay... they'll just suck compared to the real thing. Sony have also indicated in Galaxies that heroes like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo will make the very very rare appearance, but will be impossible to kill, to prevent lame stuff. Of course, that didn't quite happen with Lord British on UO...

  2. I'm a little skeptical by Metaldsa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  3. That's easy -- CLONES! by mblase · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.