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What's with the overall lack of superhero games?
JakeSim
Member RarePosts: 884
Title. One of my favorite genres. Yet it's lacking tremendously. Overall...not just including MMOs.
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A dev could make a super hero game without licensed heroes but that would defeat their purpose which i explained is to simply cash in.Besides to having recognized super heroes would likely not interest anyone.
So as of now devs have turned to even cheaper game design methods,most of the super heroes are now in house and reside inside of Moba's and fps's like Overwatch.Pretty sad that even using in house assets and not paying licenses,they still get you to buy those heroes.
Gaming is a sick dying breed right now,everything is geared towards spending money and making money.
This is not going to change anytime soon because it is too lucrative for developers.Low risk low cost development,taking less time and able to implement cash shops.Point being you might get your super hero game but it won't be a good game.
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Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
People could still create known superhero knock offs, but you could come up with something entirely original too.
And let's face it, most MMO devs are conservative and don't like to go too far from the EQ/Wow concept.
I don't think it is the license fees as such but I don't think the IP owners would like if Superman and Hulk became classic MMO tanks.
Basically have no-one figured out really good combat mechanics and group dynamics that would make superheroes justice in a MMO (CoH was still the best try but it got nowhere near what it should).
Also, the number of unique powers in Marvels and DCs IP makes things hard, most singleplayer games focus on one or a few heroes because of that. Having people travel by webbslinging, superspeed, flying and so on is hard enough, balancing it is a nightmare.
I still wish someone would do a better try at it though.
In fact Spiderman Homecoming just came in at over $850M in worldwide box office topping all others.
We've still got Thor Ragnarok and Justice League on deck.
No interest indeed.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I'm looking forward to seeing what pops up over the next couple of years. I've been getting my fix on mobile, but it's not ideal.
Ship of heroes as well.
Should be interesting to watch it develop.
To answer the question there's just a lot of expectations for superhero games. EX: If your character is supposed to be a flying super-strength user people expect to be able to pick someone up, fly 200' in the air and drop them.
Things like this set people up for disappointment, they don't think about technical limitations, only about what a superhero "should" be able to do.
It doesn't help that the superhero genre naturally creates this issue with the wide variety of powers, whereas most fantasy/sci-fi games don't have to explain why x can't do y.
MMO's are only starting to do the action to a competent level, and are usually kind of bad at story.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Despite the so-called heroes games in the works right now I don't see anything to look forward to in this genre either.
I don't think the IP is the problem either. The most successful hero game so far has been CoH, with it's own IP. And most online games you don't get to be the main characters.
People with the dough in gaming are pretty much clueless money grabbers that can't believe their choice to make a low budget flop could possibly be the reason their brilliant game failed. Must be the type of game, the genre, or the timing.
hate to break it to you, but it has always been about money. . .
For a fairly niche subgenre I wouldn't call that "lacking".
Going to the main issue with the genre forever.
You stay sassy!
So a superhero game with more limited powers can be done with limited new mechanics, but if you want the over the top heroes it is hard.
If I had to choose a superhero IP with more limited powers I think I would set it in Gotham, the powerlevel is easier to set there and you have a great bunch of villains to use as well. It would also have way more star power then anything you make up as you go.
X-Men, Avengers or Justice league would be very hard to turn into MMOs.
Except... Bicycle Repairman! https://youtu.be/U01xasUtlvw
The genre is lacking. 2-7 is extremely limited in comparison to all the other genres out there.
Infamous
Infamous 2
Infamous Last Light
Champions Online
Crackdown
Freedom Force
Prototype (kind of)
City of Heroes
All the new superhero MMOs in development
All I'm saying is that it's been done and it's possible. Yes, they're limited in a way due to powers and what not.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Superheroes never was the mainstream, even in the peak of Silver Age superhero comics were a minority if you look the published comics as a whole. And the wast majority of their share is split between DC and Marvel - both have their own game already. True, Marvel's is just a crappy diablo clone instead of a real MMO, but they've backed out of that project 10 years ago sadly.
Then there's CO, with the Champions IP - a great pick after Marvel left, the best, most customizable superhero Rpg system, a really good base for an MMO.
And, pretty much that's it. No big(ger) IPs left.
You can build a game with writing your own (that's what the games in planning do) - good luck with that, raising enough awareness in the "noise" of the heavily saturated market.
You can pick an "indie" one, there are really good ones, but that's still just a small advantage compared to the previous route (just ask Moore or Millar/Romita how long lasted the elevated interest after the movies... and you barely can find better ad for your IP than the big screen. Or the smaller screen, ask Bendis how much more people knows his -btw. awesome- Powers, now that it had a show with two seasons...)
What I try to say is, 3-5 games at once is probably the maximum we will see on the market. And mostly just indies will arrive (and leave) the market, I don't see any bigger studios suddenly realise, that their calling is to make a superhero MMO