What happened to the Super Hero MMOs?

[Dtrain]

Saw some discussion about EA and Marvel parting ways over here on the pc/console forum and it made me think about the MMO side of comic book games.

There was a lot of rumor and speculation in November about Marvel Online being cancelled by Cryptic and/or Microsoft, but I haven't seen anything since. There's been even less than that regarding DC Online.

So what exactly is going on here? Are the white hot prospects of early 2004 suffering under the weight of the expectations in a post-WoW world? Will these titles ever see the light of day?

I can see Microsoft having very cold feet with regards to MMOs after Vanguard, while SOE has been murky at best about it's future offerings.

[Margalis]

Needed more Elves.

[stray]

I can see Microsoft having very cold feet with regards to MMOs after Vanguard

Vanguard, Mythica, True Fantasy Online, Asheron's Call 1, Asheron's Call 2, even Freelancer was supposed to be an MMO.

[edit] By that I mean, they should have gotten cold feet long before! 

[Venkman]

Hero Comics are all about the, well, Heroes. And MMOs are specifically not about the heroes, but about becoming yet another generic one. That's a pretty fundamental difference right there. Some comics have a much better defined world, getting into a SWG-like realm where being "part" of the universe could be fine enough even if you don't get to be the main character. But the mass-marketable heroes from the DCs and Marvels of the world really don't have that.

How many people want to be in Gotham MMO while being forced to play Commissioner Gordon's file clerk?

[Lantyssa]

Mild mannered file clerk Kent Gordon (nepotism ftw!) by day... the dreaded File 13 by night!  Villains everywhere dread his red tape attack which puts them into a bureaucratic nightmare!

It'd be fun!

[Venkman]

In an open-PvP game where players could create their own stories and reward-granting quests Underlight-style, that'd be awesome! I wish glomming onto an IP didn't so often automatically drive LCD-gaming.

[schild]

Top Ten, a world where everyone has superpowers of some kind is the type of take they should do on the hero MMOG.

Futurisitic, Fifth Element style worlds.

Not the Navy Yard/Downtown Section of a city they did with CoH.

[Stormwaltz]

Top Ten

Good book. One of very few superhero titles I've wanted to read more of.

[Venkman]

I actually do think a an X-men based MMO could work, sorta rescinding what I said before. I'm not up on the comic books themselves, but the world depicted in the movies is a good setting. Heck, it is CoX: a bunch of heroes with powers while the rest of the world is only getting up to speed on the idea.

I think it could be improved to the point where people don't fall into static archetypes. You'd want to grant people more than one ability, or at least a few dozen ways to use it. Again, queue the CoX thing, just have many many more abilities so that what a player does can be as unique as how they look.

And throw balance out the window. It'd be more interesting to see how players adjust to a game purposely unbalanced (due to the IP) than to force them into contrived and duplicate roles.

But this is pure dream. It'd probably flop.

[Dtrain]

It's just funny to me that with cool ideas the genre lends itself to, the buzz about CoH that precluded WoW, and 2 major titles supposedly in development we've heard nothing about either title after about 3 years of supposed development. You'd think they'd have something... anything to show. You used to see the stray interview with Jim Lee, or some such tidbit every couple months, but lately nothing at all (beyond rumors of cancellation.)

I do get the impression that Marvel is on it's last gasp before the plug is pulled.

SOE is so much harder to read though. I do feel they're making an effort not to write any checks their ass can't cash. But maybe the apparent lack of competition in the superMMO sector doesn't require anything more than silence and a well planned release strategy.

[Slyfeind]

And throw balance out the window. It'd be more interesting to see how players adjust to a game purposely unbalanced (due to the IP) than to force them into contrived and duplicate roles.

That would honestly introduce some new kinds of fun to a game. Not everybody wants to be the most efficient killing machine, if it means they can do something else that they prefer. I know someone who wanted to play Pirates of the Burning Sea, but she just wanted to role play a pirate and hang out in taverns and such. Unfortunately, PotBS doesn't have anything to offer her.

As another example, I seem to recall you weren't too good with a blaster in SWG, but you were pretty damn good with an electric guitar. 

[Venkman]

I could crush you with my pipe organ 

Most MMOs come with too much focus on advancement and unlocks for people to really be given a chance to "hang out". This is part of their migration away from hey-cool-virtual-tavern world towards hey-cool-get-me-my-levels game. Hard to argue what "most" people want.

I think there's a lot more paths of achievement that could be introduced though. Bookie for example. So many of these worlds are set at times when people were betting on something. Like the Shimmering Flats in WoW for examples. What wasted potential that was. It was interesting to see some sense of this come to the Mos Espa (?) raceway in SWG.

Eh, I dunno. No matter what I say, I'm going to be fine killing shit in WoW.

[Yegolev]

Superhero League of Hoboken Online.

[Velorath]

Top Ten, a world where everyone has superpowers of some kind is the type of take they should do on the hero MMOG.

It would take the entire budget just to do Neopolis justice.

Edit:  And then Alan Moore would proceed to bitch about it anyway.

[UnSub]

With regards to MUO - after 1up.com's spreading the rumour of this game being canned, there's been no new information. Cryptic have gone into info blackout mode, but Microsoft still haven't officially dumped MUO.

There's some evidence that work on DC Online continues... but the exact scale of the project remains unclear. Do they have a working engine up and running yet?

I take the optimistic (yeah, yeah,      ) view that both games are still in development and that the studios behind them are keeping quiet because they believe their competitors will steal the march from them if some of these things go public too soon. Sure, it's likely that any superhero MMO will have 90% of the same features as any other MMO out there, but it's that 10% that can make a difference.

So, if MUO and DCO actually do make an appearance, I expect it to be a rapid "Here we are, beta starts this month, we launch six months from now" type deal.

[Signe]

I'm not optimistic because if you are, the terrorists will take you by surprise.  I'm reluctantly hopeful that MUO or some sort of interesting superhero MMO is being worked on.  I LOVE CoX but I'm bored with it after all this time. 

[UnSub]

I'm not optimistic because if you are, the terrorists will take you by surprise. 

The terrorists already have me. They are demanding that Vangard subs increase and that Brad McQuaid be put in charge of another multi-million dollar MMO project.

I'm as good as dead. Tell my family I said, "Hello". 

[schild]

Top Ten, a world where everyone has superpowers of some kind is the type of take they should do on the hero MMOG.

It would take the entire budget just to do Neopolis justice.

Edit:  And then Alan Moore would proceed to bitch about it anyway.

I meant the premise.

A Top Ten MMOG would suck. The premise (and the setting) doesn't.

[Draegan]

Superhero League of Hoboken Online.

There is nothing super about Hoboken but the traffic.