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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.
How long before all the cool characters are used, and you're relegated to Mr. Furious and The Shoveler?
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.
Try freedom force -- www.myfreedomforce.com!
well the girls have always told me i'm like "The Flash" in bed...oh, wait...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
There is a super-hero MMORPG already in the works that will let you roll your own hero. Should be out sometime next year. It is called City of Heroes
.. 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.
Thought it said "then CowboyNeal can fufil his wildest dreams of the Green Lantern."
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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.
Rather than playing a super hero, the game could be based around inhabiting the land of the superheroes - and trying to get yourself into positions where you require their attention.
I'm not into Marvel, having been a DC kiddie, so forgive the character references. But if you kick some ass outside a cinema you get a pounding from Batman, if you don't wash for like, a year, you get a fungus on your toes that Swamp Thing has to come and eradicate. Say 'Im gonna shag that Lois Lane good' enough and eventually Superman will kick your ass.
You build up 'exposure' points until you earn the right to BE a supe for a while!!! Then you can go around listening out for people saying "Where's little jimmy!"
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?"
If you join NOW, you can practice throwing fireballs in 2018...
For those non-mutant wanna-be heros, there will be radioactive spiders, and gamma-ray explosions randomly througout the game... If you're lucky, you can take 99% damage, and have your gamma-irradiated friend heal you, greatly increasing your strength and agility (and breast size) permanantly (rather than just when you get pissed).
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I can see it now. Spidey, Wolverine, and three different Invisible Girls from the Fantastic Four all standing on the same street, waiting for the bad guy to spawn so they can take turns capturing him. What fun.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It's all good, I prefer getting my online drugs from Captain Picard in a Wheelchair (TM) than some silly EQ dwarf.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Now that is an idea I can get behind! What a great MMORPG a "Marvel Villians" game would be. Play a super-villian, and try to cause as much mayhem and distruction as you can before Spidey comes in to ruin your diabolical schemes. Curses! Foiled again!
Being a bad guy on a server with 1500 other bad guys, all trying to plunder the city, would be a blast.
It would certainly be more fun that being in a League of Heroes so big that you gotta carry union cards, which is what this announcement sounds like.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I don't agree. X-Men is a team for a reason. So are all the other teams: X-Force, Excalibur, Fantastic Four.
You must be thinking of DC. DC is more 'one loner vs them all'. In Marvel, the good guys get their asses kicked all the time, and regularly get help from other characters.
Look at Spiderman.. He gets help from/helps other 'New York' superheroes all the time. Having 50 in a large city such as NY still makes it a rarity.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
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 :)
Yes. You see, it's all in a day's work for Bicycle Repair Man...
Cheers,
Ian
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
i hate it when people troll to, trying to make themselves feel better it IS your dad's fault YOU'RE TOO stupid to understand.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
what's really funny is that he thinks that making a computer game out of something dispels the notion that the thing is just for children.
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...
I'd look forward to a VS fighting game from Capcom that would pit DC characters against Marvel characters (this was rumored a while back but nothing ever came of it... anybody at Capcom listening? Put this out!)
Everone will start as equals (that doesn't necessarily mean equal to you and me - see my other post
Just like any other MMORPG, there will be a slew of 'normals' and then a small number of higher-ups. Even on UO, 'normal' is much more advanced than a 'regular person'. I sure as hell can't make myself invisible ;)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
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.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
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
-==-
I always wondered how superpowers would work in bed.
I don't think sex with Superman (DC I know) would be nice. Can imagine it would be rather lethal for the average girl. Picture this:
girl: how about this?
supe: nope, nothing..
girl: and this?
supe: still don't feel a thing
girl: but I'm biting in it!
supe: well... urm..let's try some Viagronite then
hulk: here it comes!
girl: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarch!! aaaaaa..*
On the other hand:
Girl: WOW! is that your hand??
Mr.Fantastic: guess again baby!
Girl: WOOOOOOW!
Vision: Yea I know. I've upgraded it with the new Vibro Pro Powerpac. Btw, I'm using the lowest setting...
Girl: AAAAAH!
Girl: Impressive!
Collusus: Yep. Wood is overrated.
Girls (in-sync): AAAAAH, so soft!
Beast: He, he, he well, in this case soft is a good thing!
Flash: Quit the crappy remarks!
Flash2:..I'm..
Flash3:..so fast..
Flash4:..I can be..
Flash5:..6 guys..
Flash6:..at once!..
Girl: I only got 3 slots!
Flash1-6: Thats what you think!
The glass is half-full. With poison. And there are cracks in the glass. The dirty, dirty glass.
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.
I'd definately subscribe to that. Just imagine how you'd gain experience! Think of all of the cool silicone and leather gear you could collect. And no more "player killers", instead you'd have "player f*****s"
Seriously, I'm surprised it hasn't been done already.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I've got dips on The Beyonder character.
The Beyonder can seriously mess you up, so you won't see me putting dip on him, much less more than one. Unless it's his favorite dip? Mmmm... French-Onion.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The very first thing I thought of when I read this was: Mystery Men. Since it just wouldn't do to have everyone be Spider-Man, most of the players will, at least at first, have to throw forks or swing shovels. Then I realized that if people create their own characters and make their own names, it will be more like The Tick because if people can't be Batman, then there will be a Der Fliedermouse (spelling?) I think I would choose something like The Mutterer or The Umpire if I were to play.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
>Everyone in the game is a hero
Of course. Who wants to play Leo the Newstand Guy?
Normal people are represented by NPCs.
Nobody in Ultima Online wanted to be a goblin foot soldier, did they?
-l
Particle Man!
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
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...