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And In Other, More Hilarious News....
Somnulus
Member Posts: 354
Marvel Universe Online is officially dead... which means CoX reigns supreme for another X number of years as far as super-hero MMORPGs.
And it's all NCSoft's.
I wish I could say that I am surprised, but I'm not, at all... not even a little bit.
I sincerely wonder what Cryptic will do now?
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
Comments
Do you have a supporting article? Everything I see is still business as usual for Marvel MMO
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/11/microsofts-shane-kim-on-fable-2-why-marvel-mmo-was-canceled-and-more/
/walking away whistling
Do you have a supporting article? Everything I see is still business as usual for Marvel MMO, where do you get this info from??
I readed LOOOOOONG time ago that marvel mmo was dead. BUt... there is cox and DC Online in project..
The City of franchise is supposed to expand, according to NCsoft...this statement is already getting dusty.
So, expect an official announcements in a year or two about the incoming "sequel".
They have plans for 2 issues a year I think.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Lets not kid ourselves here boys and girls MUO is dead for one and one reason alone MS killed it like they killed their last Six MMo projects, because the metrics told them they would not get WoW like subscription numbers. MS has Fucked over so many developers that it isn't even funny. I honesty can't see anyone being stupid enough to accept a publishing deal from them after this.
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/11/microsofts-shane-kim-on-fable-2-why-marvel-mmo-was-canceled-and-more/
/walking away whistling
No need to get snotty, I'm glad its dead.
Marvel MMO Officially Canceledr sure.
Kris Pigna, 02/11/2008By
"I'll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO," Kim said. "It was an amicable decision... It's just something that we felt that, for us and for them, it would be better if we ended development. Which is disappointing, because that had a lot of promise. But sometimes you have to make these decisions."
So what went wrong? Allow Kim to explain:
When questioned whether "changing the business model" might have meant an ad-supported revenue model, Kim responded, "Item-based or transaction-based... clearly there are emerging models that have come about. At the end of the day, all of those combined for us to say, 'Look, it's probably in the interest of both parties for us not to continue.'"
This makes two failed attempts by Microsoft at launching a console-based MMO -- the other, of course, being True Fantasy Live Online (canceled way back in 2003). Kim, however, affirmed that Microsoft's dicey history in the MMO space wouldn't stop him from a third try, "if the right opportunity came along."
Here is a supporting article of the death song for MUO
Which type of peoples expect a 2000% revenue vs investments? Oh, MS does.
LOL. Good riddance.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Sounds like MS had unrealistic expectations of how much the game would bring in. I am guessing they were comparing it to WoW's vast success, which is unfair honestly. You don't need a million subs to be successful in an MMO. Numbers over 100k would be profitable (unless your MS or EA apparently).
They probably had trouble trying to mesh the game lore with the comic lore. CoH was done from scratch so they could explain why there are 1000's of superheroes/villains everywhre. May of been hard to rationalize how NYC would suddenly get an influx of superheroes.
I wasn't eagerly looking forward to this game, but it was something I had every intention of trying out. Oh well, I still got my CoH.
In this day and age, a vast majority of MMORPG companies have unrealistic expectations. Pre-WoW, 100k subscriptions was a good number of subs for a game. Today, that number of subs will get the company laughed at and the game considered a failure. It's one of the negative side effects that WoW brought to this industry.
What I got from this article is that both Marvel and MS were being overly greedy in their estimates. Both companies were ignorant of the big picture. Which is not surprising considering MS's history with MMORPG's. Instead of focusing on WoW's subs, which a vast majority aren't true mmorpg'ers, and see how many true Marvel fans/comic book fan gamers they could bring in. Which, in my mind, the Marvel name could've granted them a lot of success with this game. Unless, of course, the devs didn't fubar the whole game. Of course, greed overrode any chance of seeing if this game could've been a great.
Well that's the burden of being a $270 billion company. A project that makes you $10 million a year is barely even worth your attention. That's the edge small businesses always have over the giants. They can't take huge risks because a flop will make the whole line look bad, even if it's a small $ impact. And they can't go chasing every line they want to, because while a thousand $10m projects would be profitable in the aggregate, it's also impossible to manage.
It's kind of a shame because they do have the brand, which was Blizzard's biggest asset, and they have the development dollars, which was their second. WoW was huge because more money was spent on development than had been done before. But still they took a big risk, and Microsoft just isn't willing to do that.
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
As for what Cryptic's going to do: http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200802/N08.0213.1711.09335.htm
Champions Online apparently, the Hero Games IP.
Yeah... I guess the bitter taste from Vista's failure is still ripe in Microsoft's mouth.
Well, here's a bit of news I just found out a minute or so ago. Was over on Voodoo Extreme and they had this little snipit up.......
Champions Online will be released for PC and consoles.
Wonder if it has anything in common with the old Superheroes RP Champions? Interesting.
Winners come and go,
but legends are forever.
I would be surprised if it wasn't, but at the same time it is pretty obvious that CoX was heavily influenced by Champions as well. I assume anyone can see the it after reading the wikipedia description of champions
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
I am glad that they still have a product in the pipeline; I hate to see a good studio go under.
However, I seriously doubt I will be adding to their revenue when/if they eventually release. Jack Emmert aka Statesman completely disillusioned me with the PvP/PvE changes to CoH that he foisted on us prior to the arena release and again just before and after the release of CoV.
I just can't trust my subscription money to Cryptic with him at the development helm. It isn't a simple fear of nerfs; it's the fear of beginning a game, enjoying it and then watching as someone changes practically every game mechanic that you had been using for the past year.
Positron aka Matt Miller is finally beginning to bring CoX back around to the point where it is actually fun again instead of the relative grind it had become.
If they would just employ a couple more minor tweaks here and there (like completely removing the ridiculous and useless travel power suppression and giving some much needed love to defenders, particularly force field) and perhaps develop the SSOC that was such a popular topic for so long, the game would be well-rounded and have more appeal to both action junkies and socializers/explorers alike.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
That's true, it did come out strong but then fade heavily, to the point where I think XP is now outselling it. "Failure" may be a little strong, but I'm sure there are memos going about in Redmond talking about how they "lost their focus" and "need to return to putting Operating Systems first."Your first post was *excellent* and was a rare oasis of rational thought among the usual crazed rantings one finds on game forums.
{ Mod Edit }
Vista has sold 100M units. More than XP in a similar timeframe. Yet all you find are "yeah but" articles. Thats how it will be. You know that the same BS happened at XP release. In a couple of years these threads will be footnote archives lost to the foggy back shelves of the internet and the "pundits" and holy warriors will have moved on to lambasting the next MSFT project and predicting the "demise of the evil empire". Meanwhile Vista will be the installed base. The holy warriors will claim this is coerscion, mind control and any other number of conspiracy theory driven insanity at work. The reality will be that the OS turned out to be nowhere near as "bad and broken" or as unpopular, as the waves of tech-terrorists seeding the net made it out to be. Just as Linux and OSX are nowhere near as *good* as they make them out to be. For the record, I have several PCs running a mix of XP and Vista, a Mac running OS9 and OSX and a Linux appliance or two. I have no horse in this race and am paid to support and integrate all of these systems (and more) { Mod Edit }
Its pathetic really. If OSX or Linux had moved 100M units you wouldnt be able to shut these people up. For the folks that take bizarre glee in every iota of bad MSFT news and find themselves angst ridden on a daily basis cursing "the evil empire", please do yourself and everyone else a favor and just switch to the Mac or Linux.
Many of them did. The problem is that the OS is still difficult to operate, mostly because all of the drivers and software is broken or nonexistent, mostly due to Microsoft strong-arming the other corporations and monopolizing the industry.
It's well known (and well documented) how "evil" the "evil empire" really is. I'm no Microsoft hater, and I use XP myself, but to think they are "just another company" is a joke. They have knowingly and purposefully build holes into XP so that they can inject their corporate propaganda into the OS without you knowing about it, and without asking permission. The fact that they felt the need to shut down millions of copies of Vista that were supposedly "pirated" (and were, in fact, legitimate copies) just shows how determined they are to eke every last dollar out of the population.
At any rate, don't bring the Microsoft vs The World debate into this forum. We're here to talk about games, not operating systems. If you really want to attack Microsoft, go to Slashdot.
That's true, it did come out strong but then fade heavily, to the point where I think XP is now outselling it. "Failure" may be a little strong, but I'm sure there are memos going about in Redmond talking about how they "lost their focus" and "need to return to putting Operating Systems first."Your first post was *excellent* and was a rare oasis of rational thought among the usual crazed rantings one finds on game forums.
{ Mod Edit }
Vista has sold 100M units. More than XP in a similar timeframe. Yet all you find are "yeah but" articles. Thats how it will be. You know that the same BS happened at XP release. In a couple of years these threads will be footnote archives lost to the foggy back shelves of the internet and the "pundits" and holy warriors will have moved on to lambasting the next MSFT project and predicting the "demise of the evil empire". Meanwhile Vista will be the installed base. The holy warriors will claim this is coerscion, mind control and any other number of conspiracy theory driven insanity at work. The reality will be that the OS turned out to be nowhere near as "bad and broken" or as unpopular, as the waves of tech-terrorists seeding the net made it out to be. Just as Linux and OSX are nowhere near as *good* as they make them out to be. For the record, I have several PCs running a mix of XP and Vista, a Mac running OS9 and OSX and a Linux appliance or two. I have no horse in this race and am paid to support and integrate all of these systems (and more) - <Bannable offense>.
Its pathetic really. If OSX or Linux had moved 100M units you wouldnt be able to shut these people up. For the folks that take bizarre glee in every iota of bad MSFT news and find themselves angst ridden on a daily basis cursing "the evil empire", please do yourself and everyone else a favor and just switch to the Mac or Linux.
<The above message has been brought to you by a paid representative of Microsoft>
Seriously, I've never seen nor heard anyone defend Vista with such zeal as you apparently have... except when the defense is by a paid representative of Microsoft. Regardless of the words you were paid to use to try to use to defend Vista, that OS is an utter failure. It has been stated in media. It has been avoided by majority of computer users. Heck, even some computer-building companies now offer an option for either Vista or XP as their sales dropped when they only offered Vista (Dell). The OS is clunky, stifling with security, and a ram hog. Microsoft should have kept their previous word, and kept XP as their last OS instead of making a monstrosity of an OS that Vista is.
Oh, and your "Vista has sold 100M units" comment, where's your proof? Anyways, I'd be curious to see how many people bought computers with Vista or installed Vista on their current computers, then went back to XP in disgust. I personally know of five people who have done just that. Oh, and your little tirade about "the evil empire" BS... there's a little thing called compatibility issues between programs/games and OS. Therefore, I don't switch to Mac/Linux just for that specific reason. Anyways, XP is far superior of an OS to Vista anyways.
Yeah I get that a lot.
Am I wrong on Vista sales? I thought I'd read that it outpaced XP comparisons for the first few weeks, then fell off significantly. And I know Ballmer said it didn't live up to forecasts.
Which doesn't make it a failure, but interjecting personally anecdotal evidence I know I have no plans to upgrade, which is different from how I'd reacted to XP. (And 98 before that.) In fact I've done / seen more XP -> Linux transitions in the last year than XP -> Vista. I think the pundits do have something it that Mr. Softy isn't make quite the impact he once did.
That said, I do chuckle anytime anti-Microsoft talk takes a pro-Apple angle. Microsoft was from the very beginning an enabler of the little guy, existing to make disparate pieces work together. It started out as a way to make IBM PCs and x86 chips resemble each other, when the natural tendency would have been to diverge.
Meanwhile Apple had a lockup over hardware and software, restricting who could write applications for them and controlling the entire production line. Hell, since getting smacked down years ago they've tried to reimage themselves. But while Windows can run on a Motorola chip, I encourage you to try to run OS X on AMD chips. Even if you could, it's illegal.
No, Apple is at least as "evil" as Microsoft is. Which of course is not very. When the worst thing you do is give out free software, it's hard to make the Worse-Than-Hitler story stick.
As for Linux: Hey, if you're comfortable running it, go for it. But those who have know that it simply isn't that public friendly. And a lot of publishers and manufacturers just haven't cared to cover it. (Including CoH, which developed for Direct X instead of Open GL.)
"Monopolizing" an industry in and of itself isn't really a criticism of them. It means no other products were sigifnicantly desireable. Making what people want is not a bad thing. And if people stop wanting it, then that's a problem that fixes itself.Now as for the "strong arming the other corporations" to keep drivers from Linux, explain please how that works. Let's say I make a digital camera and want to sell it to the public. How will Microsoft stop me from making Linux drivers?
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
Only if Microsoft don't want it, (after already paying for a significant part of it) that's because it isn't any good.
Only if Microsoft don't want it, (after already paying for a significant part of it) that's because it isn't any good.
Hey Baff, you got proof? got a statement saying that's the exact reason?
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
The main point I wanted to share was that everyone in this whole thread is correct in some way that is arguing about the OS's. Whether you are defending Microsoft or hating on them, both sides of the argument have valid points.
A brief background on me so you know where I am coming from. I started out 11 years ago building computer systems after school when I was 15. I have been in the IT industry ever since either working in sales, service, or technical support for local computer system builders ( aka whitebox builder), ISP's, large retailers, etc.
The current local IT company I work for provides hardware and maintenance services to local K-12 school districts and area SMB's. Considering our client base we recommend Windows XP for their workstations. The only time we "typically" install Vista is for home users at their request and or recommendation depending on how I feel about the customer.
We usually load XP for a few reasons those primarily being that it is obviously more stable/better patched, wider software support (especially for programs reaching that 3-5 yr mark), driver availability, user familiarity (think of teachers here), etc. However, if you recall and go back in time a few years, let's say, pre-SP2 era. I don't think XP was as stable at this point nor did all the "older" software always work right after its immediate release. It's release was much like Vistas. Windows 2000 was probably a more stable OS at lunch but it wasn't perfect either immediately, the same with Win98. It is the way it has always been with the exception of Windows ME which was the biggest piece of trash ever created and it was incapable of being saved with serice packs and updates.
Onto Windows Vista. I consider my self an advanced user and as a MS Reseller we get our hands on builds pretty early. I have ran Vista since Beta 1 at home and progressed through RC1 and RC2 and then finally onto the RTM which I am running currently. Currently I am running Windows Vista 64-bit Ultimate to be exact. This is the most feature full (equaling trouble prone) version of Vista on the market. I also run Vista Business at the office.
What I have seen since the release of Vista over the last year is a much more stable OS, with many more drivers available than there once were. I foresee Vista becoming a commercially viable option as a workstation OS within the next 6-12 months. However, I would like to mention that this past year has been frustrating at times with the lack of drivers, especially for me with the 64-bit version and a monster machine with a ton of hardware. I have also had a lot of applications I have to use for my IT Security courses at the local university that don't run. Mainly the 64-bit part hinders me more so than the 32-bit users would ever notice. I do have to dig harder to find versions of app's that will work. So with that said Vista 32bit should be pretty good at this point IMHO.
Overall could Vista be better? Of Course!!
Is it really all that bad? Hell No, it's alright!!
Are we suprised? Why should you be this is the same thing that happens every 3-5 years when a new MS OS rolls out.
-Duvious-