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General: A Marvel-lous Announcement?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Last week, the name of the writer for Gazillion Entertainment's Marvel Universe Online was revealed during a live event. But much of that news has been buried under discussions of the financial model that Gazillion will employ. In The Free Zone today, MMORPG.com's Richard Aihoshi takes a look at the announcement and the ensuing discussion. Check it out and then weigh in with a few thoughts of your own.
I looked at four reports on the event. Admittedly, this is a small and incomplete sample. However, I found it interesting that all of them chose to headline the F2P angle rather than the introduction of the writer. I can appreciate that the respective writers did so in the belief it would garner more attention from their readers. Instead of highlighting and concentrating on the actual new news, they prioritized the confirmation of a piece of old news. I’m in no position to be holier than though about this. While I can’t recall any specific instances, I have no doubt I’ve done the same kind of thing myself. Nonetheless, it doesn’t sit completely right knowing that it happened, and wondering if the writers thought about or even realized it.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: A "Marvel-lous Announcement?
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Comments
I think the model of (F2P) with subscription only could be okay, but what worried me about this was that they announced no character customization. I think that model might be kind of an (in betweener) with both the cash shop and the monthly subscription. Cash shop for those just interested in buying characters, and subscription for those that want to unlock those characters through playing the game.
I think that would make sense. More importantly though, the game has to deliver on gameplay. No character customization is kind of a big deal for a full featured MMO. If its going to be more like ultimate alliance, like a dungeon crawler, then maybe not, but would that really be worth the monthly cost or character purchase?
And on top of that, what about character progression? Will there even be any? So many questions on this game, and until they get answered I'm going to stay uneasy with this title.
I just hope its a good triple a game experience and offer a sub option to keep the devs honest. I think too many devs take the easy way out with a f2p title and dont offer the best because its f2p and fleece you in the cash shop.
I don't think that it is going to redefine anything, nor is it the next best hope for crap. Not because it is F2P, I think that we have hit the point where F2P is not longer some kind of perceived evil. An absolute TON of players are going to want to create their own characters and play in the Marvel Universe, but it seems that will not be the case. And that will turn a huge number of players away who probably won't even give it a chance. I just don't see a super hero game where you see a bunch of Spider Men and Wovlerines running around if going to be revolutionary.
Now maybe we don't have all of the information... maybe the Be Spiderman is part of the Free model and Create your own hero will be part of the fee model... but I really do not get the impression from what we have seen so far.
So no, if the "Marvel model" is the next big thing for super hero MMO's, I guess I won't be hopping on the future express.
Imho, people tend to overstimate the power of ip's. DCUO invested a lot of money for an uncertain market and SOE is paying the price.
I think Gazillion and Marvel are going for the smart choice. Customization is expensive not only at the character development but also for power and content designing. So they are not competing with CO or CoX, and not directly with DCUO, they can predict the subs numbers easier.
I am planning to give it a try when it is release and if I like it, I might buy my favorite characters to play them.
I don't mind the FTP part, i was excited but then they said no character customisation..
Edit: I'll still give the game a go though, since i am a sucker for MMO's.
You know if DC was a good game there would be no problem, Marvel is using a cheap model. If you make a great game they will come. I would be rocking DC Universe if it was anything close to City Of Heroes, this is for a quick buck.
This was the game I was waiting on as a long time Marvel comics reader and MMORPGer. Started comicing out with CoH and loved it, tried the Marvel turned CO and it was horrible. Glad they dropped Cryptic, altough at least we would have had our own chars in it lol. DCUO isnt quite there for the MMO thing and now the game Ive been wanting turns out to be a F2P browser game with 200 Caps running around doing the same thing I am as Cap, lame. At least the story may be good enough to play it free for a bit. I'm not getting my hopes up at all thou. I saw about a year ago or more on Gazillion's site that you would be "able to play as your favorite Marvel chars" even then I knew this was going to be bad.
playing:DCUO,GW2,WoW
played:SWG,LotRO,CoH,GW,FF14,ESO,AlbionOnline
DCUO isn't an MMO. I have a better MMO experience leveling up my dog's terds in the back yard fighting grass clippings.
LF Wolverine-based guild !!
Instead of highlighting and concentrating on the actual new news, they prioritized the confirmation of a piece of old news.
Because the "free to play" information was new. The company confirmed it at the news conference. Previously, there was only speculaiton about the game's business model. A number of people, including various online posters, thought "Marvel Universe" was going to be the company's big-boy MMO and different from the Superhero Squad game.
Interestingly, your article was also nearly all about the game being free to play. You only mentioned the writer's name once.
Ive read all about the Marvel Universe Hero's in comic books..My favorite one is Gambit...But...Just becuase i like Gambit as a character dosent mean I want to play him in an MMO...No customizing my charatcer sucks!!! I would like to fight along side of Gambit and the X-men as my own charatcer...So really unless they make customization i sadlly wont be there...And that sucks cause i LOVE the Marvel Universe and i was really wanting a Marvel MMO that I would play....
writing this one off already....
The articles focused on what was important to their target audience.
For comic book readers, Bendis being the writer was important. For MMO players, the F2P aspect (and 'fixed' characters) were the critical issues.
DCUO should go F2P - that would help solve a lot of its population issues and the title is better suited to that payment model.
This, I could not careless that it is free to play, however I do care that I cannot create my own hero and because of this I will not play the MMO. I was looking forward to a competitor to City of Heroes that would hopefully be executed better than two most recent attempts. It's clear this is not the MMO for me; yet I do know that there are people who wanted this from DCUO so hopefully this will be the MMO they are looking for.
Because flying a Minmatar ship is like going down a flight of stairs on an office chair while firing an Uzi.
so what happens when you have 500 wolverines and 300 spidermen and 9001 deadpools? (i could continue guesstimating numbers, but you get the point...) people play MMOs to be able to (somewhat) make their own mark on that universe. stripping away one of the key ingredients to what makes MMOs fun; character customization, is like shooting yourself in the face to check if your gun is loaded.
for the younger audience(those playing the children-aimed version) no character customization is no big deal, because they aren't concerned about "creating" their own character. they just want and find satisfaction in being their iconic characters. to those of us more up in age who find more enjoyment in putting a piece of ourselves into the game world are not going to find much fun in this decision. doesn't matter what the story is. doesn't matter what the cast of characters is. people are going to turn away from this title simply at the thought of a full team of all the same characters. bottom line, there is no fun in that.
let's face it, there are many characters in the marvel unviverse many don't know or are not that familiar with. lot's of people have favorites and those favorites are sometimes based on popularity trends. with that comes - Marvel Clone Universe Online - BORING. another way to look at it is this way. you expect people to invest their money into a game in which they have no say in how personal their game experience will ultimately be.
one poster stated that they have a particular favorite character, but that doesn't mean they want to play AS that character. instead they'd rather play alondside that character. imo, character customization is just as important to an MMO as the story and lore it's built around. if i can't bring my own character/elements to that story, it's a waste of my time. i'm not going to spend money to have a game spoon-fed to me and saying "we already have a vast and expansive roster of our own characters so why don't you just use ours instead of your own?" just won't cut it.
sadly, i feel there may be many more that feel the way i do. most importantly remember this, this is MY opinion.
<a href="http://www.enjin.com/"; alt="guild hosting"><img src="http://sigs.enjin.com/sig-ffxiv/29734_e07e81c20cf5935f.png"></a>;
Elektra ,3rd person + zoomed out low angle view = Zoom da boom boom
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Hey people, no character customization means it is definitely NOT a MMO. Just another fps game. MMORPG needs to take this game off the MMO list!
Hm, I must say I find the emphasis of the article a bit... strange. I mean, you discuss the payment model, the writer... but the MOST discussed feature is entirely left out: the fact that we won't have any individual characters! Wouldn't that be a more important discussion topic? Just saying.
At this moment I don't care much about payment models or writers. Both can be good or not. But no customized self-made characters totally makes the game uninteresting for me. So the article sort of turned priorities upside down. With all due respect.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
i would love to see them do the same successful model that lotro has, im enjoying the hell out of their new f2p model. i only paid to level my toons and buy cosmetics from the store and mounts i wanted. everything else has been free! it's nice.
F2P and no custimization.
Marvel should pull the plug on this now, it sounds like a giant turd.
In every MMO's there a chance you'll run into a character that looks a lot like you and sometimes, with the right gear, exactly likeyou. But if you can ONLY play their superheros, there most definitely will be a bunch of clones running around... I'll be passing on this one as well.
That game will be a joke. You are not supposed to create your own Super Hero but play one of the existing Marvel characters, which potentially means there will be tens of not houndreds of Spider Man per server. Ridicilous to say the least.
Why even make it an MMORPG then?
As a longtime Marvel fan this is terrible news indeed...
My gaming blog
Gamasutra did an interview with Jeff Lind about Marvel Universe Online, which has a little more information, but not much more.
You can read it here.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Playing as Marvel characters? First and last thing I'll ever read about this game. Sad.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
It's funny, in games such as DCUO or CO I would spend most of my time just trying to recreate some of my favourite characters from all sorts of other things, that was probably the most fun I had with them (especially playing as Marvel chars in a DC game >:B).
But to be forced into playing only preset versions of a rather limited pallete of characters does not sound fun at all.. (yes I know there are a lot of Marvel chars, but not really thaaaat many to support the main idea of the MMO, and as mentioned many times now there will be ALOT of only the same few chars running around).
They are really going to miss their mark by excluding full-on appearence customization, and you would think they would want to be competeing with DCUO as much as they could, but I guess they just don't want to put that kind of work and money into trying to surpass it.
Which kind of makes sense, just look at all DCUO has built for itself, and in the grand scheme of things a Marvel mmo would have a lot to live up to in order to even be on par with it, let alone to make it bigger and better.
It's just a shame they are taking a completely different route than what DCUO did, most likely in order to not be in direct competition.
Real missed oppertunity here though.