Pretty sure that's all three of them, although I'm actually not well informed on 'VO' and 'CoT'. I don't follow 'City of Titans' because MWM weren't taking the game in the direction I believed it should go. I never really followed 'Valiance Online' because they had been asking for more and more money and I felt they were rather unscrupulous, though now it appears they actually will launch the game so I'm glad that is working out. 'Heroes and Villains' won't even ask for money until they're 80% done with the game which is one of the reasons I follow them.
Back to your statement: Aside from 'HaV', which I know is Earth-based, I'm reasonably certain that 'CoT' and 'VO' are Earth-based as well.
Hmm, I may have been misunderstood here because I accidentally said two and didn't realize there were three. So in which case, what I really meant was Ship of Heroes is different from those other three games because it's space-based (... presumably, if it takes place on a sci-fi ship).
Again I don't know if that'll be enough to make it stand out if it releases later than those other three, though. Which is why IMHO if the developers are prudent, they'll focus more on the space and sci-fi aspect to try to differentiate their game more from the competitors.
I'm wondering how this would work. Trying to imagine the coh travel powers in space. Half don't work very well.
Without going back to their site and reading up, I'm assuming that it would be like the Watchtower in the Justice League show where the space station is more like a central base and travel hub to different parts of the planet and other places. Working off that idea the project sounds doable but the odds of the game actually launching are astronomical at this point. Not to mention that the whole thing looks and feels like a total scam meant to cheat former CoH players out of their money.
Until this project has seen at least a year and a half of development (provable development) I advise everyone to keep their wallets closed. Don't forget about all those Kickstarter scams that happened a few years back.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
Ship Of Heroes??? for a start, the name needs to change. Is the city of heroes name still under licence? because if that was me il try a name as close to that as possible, even a name like "heroes of the sky/city" would be better.
Mr. McGeever is an executive, a Professional Corporate type. There has to be a reason he chose to make this game. If someone clearly defines the goals and operation of the game systems. Then professional game programmers and artists can make any game, faster and more efficiently than amateurs.
I'm hoping he was a fan. And he decided that if done right, this could be a money making venture. Only time will tell.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
There's already three other "spiritual successors" in the works. By the time those three launch the market will be saturated and at least two are likely to fail because of the division. If this project is just starting out then it will be the first to cancel because it's so late.
Saturated, lol. There are what 2 super hero MMOs, DC and Champions with how many fantasy based MMOs? Hundreds?
I don't think 5 super hero MMOs is saturated. What's next a western MMO or 2 get announced and that is saturated too?
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
There's already three other "spiritual successors" in the works. By the time those three launch the market will be saturated and at least two are likely to fail because of the division. If this project is just starting out then it will be the first to cancel because it's so late.
Saturated, lol. There are what 2 super hero MMOs, DC and Champions with how many fantasy based MMOs? Hundreds?
I don't think 5 super hero MMOs is saturated. What's next a western MMO or 2 get announced and that is saturated too?
Well, you have to think about that. City of Heroes never had the gigantic number of players WoW had because fantasy MMOs were more popular than superhero games. For years CoH always had a smaller share of the MMO market because it was a less popular genre and it ended up being CoH and Champions Online that held the market until Marvel and DC got in on things and those two finally started getting more popular during CoH's final year of life. I know it'll still be another two years before Heroes and Villains can launch while Valiance and City of Titans may launch before it.
And, yeah, with only so many players out there willing to play superhero games over fantasy MMOs there's a much smaller market so each game will only be able to get so many players while the others get the rest. The market is just too small. In a year or two that Marvel game and the DC game won't be popular enough to hold on and CO may likely close as well considering how long it's been online (just my opinion). If all those players both continue to stay with the superhero genre and don't migrate away from gaming in the process they'll have two and then three options to choose from.
Superheroes may be more popular now than they've been in the last thirty years due to all the successful movies, related productions and products but the same was true when CoH closed and it wasn't a big enough factor in NCsoft's decision to shut down the game and its studio. Right now I'm also starting to think that the superhero revival of the last eighteen to twenty-seven years is likely to reach a point of burnout within the next few years due to all the movies that have come out. I could be wrong about that but I fear the public will soon be tiring of the genre and that may extend to the gaming market as well.
So, yeah. With an already small market only two or three games at the most will be able to survive and if Ship of Heroes is just now getting started, and isn't a scam like I suspect, then it'll have to be a game that's superior to the competition in order to last even a couple of years after the other three already had their chance.
That's how I see things.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
There's already three other "spiritual successors" in the works. By the time those three launch the market will be saturated and at least two are likely to fail because of the division. If this project is just starting out then it will be the first to cancel because it's so late.
Saturated, lol. There are what 2 super hero MMOs, DC and Champions with how many fantasy based MMOs? Hundreds?
I don't think 5 super hero MMOs is saturated. What's next a western MMO or 2 get announced and that is saturated too?
Well, you have to think about that. City of Heroes never had the gigantic number of players WoW had because fantasy MMOs were more popular than superhero games. For years CoH always had a smaller share of the MMO market because it was a less popular genre and it ended up being CoH and Champions Online that held the market until Marvel and DC got in on things and those two finally started getting more popular during CoH's final year of life. I know it'll still be another two years before Heroes and Villains can launch while Valiance and City of Titans may launch before it.
And, yeah, with only so many players out there willing to play superhero games over fantasy MMOs there's a much smaller market so each game will only be able to get so many players while the others get the rest. The market is just too small. In a year or two that Marvel game and the DC game won't be popular enough to hold on and CO may likely close as well considering how long it's been online (just my opinion). If all those players both continue to stay with the superhero genre and don't migrate away from gaming in the process they'll have two and then three options to choose from.
Superheroes may be more popular now than they've been in the last thirty years due to all the successful movies, related productions and products but the same was true when CoH closed and it wasn't a big enough factor in NCsoft's decision to shut down the game and its studio. Right now I'm also starting to think that the superhero revival of the last eighteen to twenty-seven years is likely to reach a point of burnout within the next few years due to all the movies that have come out. I could be wrong about that but I fear the public will soon be tiring of the genre and that may extend to the gaming market as well.
So, yeah. With an already small market only two or three games at the most will be able to survive and if Ship of Heroes is just now getting started, and isn't a scam like I suspect, then it'll have to be a game that's superior to the competition in order to last even a couple of years after the other three already had their chance.
That's how I see things.
I get where you are coming from and you make some good points but I just can't view the super hero MMOs as saturated when the fantasy ones number in the hundreds and super hero MMOs number in the single digits.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
There's already three other "spiritual successors" in the works. By the time those three launch the market will be saturated and at least two are likely to fail because of the division. If this project is just starting out then it will be the first to cancel because it's so late.
Saturated, lol. There are what 2 super hero MMOs, DC and Champions with how many fantasy based MMOs? Hundreds?
I don't think 5 super hero MMOs is saturated. What's next a western MMO or 2 get announced and that is saturated too?
Well, you have to think about that. City of Heroes never had the gigantic number of players WoW had because fantasy MMOs were more popular than superhero games. For years CoH always had a smaller share of the MMO market because it was a less popular genre and it ended up being CoH and Champions Online that held the market until Marvel and DC got in on things and those two finally started getting more popular during CoH's final year of life. I know it'll still be another two years before Heroes and Villains can launch while Valiance and City of Titans may launch before it.
And, yeah, with only so many players out there willing to play superhero games over fantasy MMOs there's a much smaller market so each game will only be able to get so many players while the others get the rest. The market is just too small. In a year or two that Marvel game and the DC game won't be popular enough to hold on and CO may likely close as well considering how long it's been online (just my opinion). If all those players both continue to stay with the superhero genre and don't migrate away from gaming in the process they'll have two and then three options to choose from.
Superheroes may be more popular now than they've been in the last thirty years due to all the successful movies, related productions and products but the same was true when CoH closed and it wasn't a big enough factor in NCsoft's decision to shut down the game and its studio. Right now I'm also starting to think that the superhero revival of the last eighteen to twenty-seven years is likely to reach a point of burnout within the next few years due to all the movies that have come out. I could be wrong about that but I fear the public will soon be tiring of the genre and that may extend to the gaming market as well.
So, yeah. With an already small market only two or three games at the most will be able to survive and if Ship of Heroes is just now getting started, and isn't a scam like I suspect, then it'll have to be a game that's superior to the competition in order to last even a couple of years after the other three already had their chance.
That's how I see things.
I get where you are coming from and you make some good points but I just can't view the super hero MMOs as saturated when the fantasy ones number in the hundreds and super hero MMOs number in the single digits.
That's just it. You said it: "the fantasy ones number in the hundreds and the super hero MMOs number in the single digits".
Now, I'm going off of the impression I get from the last decade. CoH was the leader in the superhero MMO market with only Champions Online being any worthwhile competition. Even at it's peak CoH never had the players that would cause anyone to view it as a gigantic success or a game that was shaking up the industry. It ended up being the best game among two.
I'll admit that two or three MMO games can't saturate a market, but that's only when there are a dozen or more other games already online within the specific market competing for the same players. The market was small back then and even when Champions launched in 2009 things didn't change very much. CoH lost a few players to CO but they kept going. There was still no other worthwhile competition. No other games that were remarkably similar to those two were online or being made.
I can't speak for CO because I never played it but I played CoH regularly throughout its lifetime and I only ever saw three or four servers showing near full capacity, with maybe one ever being so full as to be completely inaccessible. With the majority of the servers being open year after year for many years I'm lead to believe that despite being number 1 in the superhero MMO marketplace, that marketplace was rather small.
I'm going to admit that I may very well be wrong in several of my assumptions for the coming years. The marketplace for superhero MMOs may have grown in the past few years due to the launches of DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes. Those two continue to coexist with CO but each game is a bit different from the other and DC and Marvel are using characters that have been around for decades while all the games in development will be starting with new universes, characters and stories, just like CO and CoH did years ago. Starting fresh means that each game has to prove itself based on what it is and what it offers rather than relying on well-known existing characters and huge marketing dollars from their parent companies for promotion.
CoH had it easy back in 2004 as it was the first of its kind and there was no competition. CO copied or borrowed from CoH and started up, and even then it was only competing with CoH. Within the next three years three games will be launching with similar structures and all new universes, characters and stories. With Champions Online continuing to age and fall out of favor the newcomers will have a slightly easier time emerging and getting their foothold in the marketplace. I have to wonder though, just how big is the market for superhero MMOs. With all the successful movies of the past twenty-seven years (I'm starting with 1989's 'Batman' as the movie that turned around the genre for movies), superheroes may be more popular now than ever before. But we all have to ask: "Can these new, unestablished properties make a name for themselves and survive against both each other and games with well-known characters and their established backgrounds?"
You may be right and I may be right. Only time will tell.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
This post is about market saturation and potential for hero games. If you want to get to the meat and potatoes and skip the rehash of current hero MMORPGs, skip to the lower dotted line.
---------------------------------
Right now there are three released MMORPG style Superhero titles; DC Universe Online, Marvel Heroes and Champions Online.
Champions is under the PWE umbrella and as long as a few whales continue to circle this project, it will survive. This one has the smallest player base. It has a lot of fun features, but it is EXTREMELY limited unless you spend money on it, which is a trademark of PWE. I alpha and beta tested this game, and I really thought it had lots of potential, but when it went PWE and F2P all that potential went down the drain. Unless of course you don't mind dropping a couple of C-notes to be the baddest of the badasses...
Marvel Heroes is actually a very fun game, but it has no staying power. People play it about 6 months and they are done. They go back after a few months, yawn through a few days/weeks of gameplay and quit, often for good. However, Marvel has great name recognition and this game should survive for at least a decade. Even with the constant turnover of players, the player base is surprisingly consistent number-wise.
DC Universe Online is the one with by far the most expansive game universe. It has a lot going for it and I still play it on occasion. They keep releasing more and more expansions (up to 27 right now), and they have a HUGE variety of powersets. The vision on this game is good, and being available on 3 platforms (PC, XBOX One and PS4) means this is the only superhero game that has broken a million active players. It is getting long in the tooth, but still, it is a fun game. It is different from CoH and what will be H&V. Because of that it doesn't hold former CoH players for very long. But fans of the DC Universe and especially those fans playing consoles will ensure its survival for quite a long time.
What does this show us? That there is a market for hero based MMORPGs. Someone that finds the right target (all three that I listed miss the target for CoH fans) has a lot of players waiting to throw money at it.
However, the approx 2 million players in superhero games (if you count former CoH players) pale in comparison to fantasy MMO players, which probably number well over 8 million in the US alone, and probably well over 50 million world wide. Even if the new generation of games attracts a half million+ players and 'steals' a half million from the current games, that is a player pool of over one million spread over 4 games (assuming SoH releases), of which about 60% (based on trends from other new releases, and considering the fan desire for a 'new' CoH) will quit within two months. There will be a big winner and a big loser, and one of the three non-losers will have trouble keeping up, so I think that two of them surviving successfully beyond two years is the likely outcome.
Who will win the cage match? There are actually two of these cage matches on deck. Champions and VO are fighting for the same players, and I think that the whales will wallow away from CO and VO will win that one, based on modern graphics. However, the player base for this style of game is not huge, so even the winner may not be overwhelming.
The 2nd one is CoT, H&V and SoH. As has been stated, SoH may be too ambitious for the team making it, not to mention potential legal hassles from NCsoft. If it does pan out, well, it looks a whole lot like a remastered CoH, which guarantees a strong fan base. CoT looks like it will release first, which will be a big boon for them. H&V is the game with the most potential, and they are also the only one of these games that won't ask for money until they are sure their product is viable, which they have mentioned means the game is 80% done.
It is hard for me to say, but IF SoH releases, it will have a huge surge, and then fall on its face. Why? Because way too many of the CoH crowd will say, "been there, done that, and it was done better before." CoT looks to be competing against DCUO more than CoH. Considering how well DCUO is doing, that bodes well for them. And, H&V has IMO the best potential to rule the roost. They are CoH'y, but they are doing it their own way, and I think that in the long run they will have the largest player base of all of them.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
One last thing I wanted to mention. in THEORY games made for PC using DX12 should easily port to XBOX One and vice versa. Games with simpler control mechanics should take advantage of this and develop the console market. I played DCUO solidly for over a year on the PC, and now I play it on my XBOX. This game, due to simplified controls, is ideal to play on a console, and I am developing new characters on my XBOX account, even though I have several well developed characters on PC. The game is just plenty of fun on XBOX. If CoT follows the DCUO template, they would do well to get a console version going ASAP. If SoH and H&V follow their design goals, the controls will be far too complex for the consoles. No matter how you look at it, an XBOX controller (21 Buttons and 2 sticks) can't do nearly as much as KB + mouse (110 keys, 3+ mouse buttons and one very precise stick).
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
Comments
Again I don't know if that'll be enough to make it stand out if it releases later than those other three, though. Which is why IMHO if the developers are prudent, they'll focus more on the space and sci-fi aspect to try to differentiate their game more from the competitors.
Without going back to their site and reading up, I'm assuming that it would be like the Watchtower in the Justice League show where the space station is more like a central base and travel hub to different parts of the planet and other places. Working off that idea the project sounds doable but the odds of the game actually launching are astronomical at this point. Not to mention that the whole thing looks and feels like a total scam meant to cheat former CoH players out of their money.
Until this project has seen at least a year and a half of development (provable development) I advise everyone to keep their wallets closed. Don't forget about all those Kickstarter scams that happened a few years back.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
Mr. McGeever is an executive, a Professional Corporate type. There has to be a reason he chose to make this game. If someone clearly defines the goals and operation of the game systems. Then professional game programmers and artists can make any game, faster and more efficiently than amateurs.
I'm hoping he was a fan. And he decided that if done right, this could be a money making venture. Only time will tell.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I don't think 5 super hero MMOs is saturated. What's next a western MMO or 2 get announced and that is saturated too?
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Well, you have to think about that. City of Heroes never had the gigantic number of players WoW had because fantasy MMOs were more popular than superhero games. For years CoH always had a smaller share of the MMO market because it was a less popular genre and it ended up being CoH and Champions Online that held the market until Marvel and DC got in on things and those two finally started getting more popular during CoH's final year of life. I know it'll still be another two years before Heroes and Villains can launch while Valiance and City of Titans may launch before it.
And, yeah, with only so many players out there willing to play superhero games over fantasy MMOs there's a much smaller market so each game will only be able to get so many players while the others get the rest. The market is just too small. In a year or two that Marvel game and the DC game won't be popular enough to hold on and CO may likely close as well considering how long it's been online (just my opinion). If all those players both continue to stay with the superhero genre and don't migrate away from gaming in the process they'll have two and then three options to choose from.
Superheroes may be more popular now than they've been in the last thirty years due to all the successful movies, related productions and products but the same was true when CoH closed and it wasn't a big enough factor in NCsoft's decision to shut down the game and its studio. Right now I'm also starting to think that the superhero revival of the last eighteen to twenty-seven years is likely to reach a point of burnout within the next few years due to all the movies that have come out. I could be wrong about that but I fear the public will soon be tiring of the genre and that may extend to the gaming market as well.
So, yeah. With an already small market only two or three games at the most will be able to survive and if Ship of Heroes is just now getting started, and isn't a scam like I suspect, then it'll have to be a game that's superior to the competition in order to last even a couple of years after the other three already had their chance.
That's how I see things.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/That's just it. You said it: "the fantasy ones number in the hundreds and the super hero MMOs number in the single digits".
Now, I'm going off of the impression I get from the last decade. CoH was the leader in the superhero MMO market with only Champions Online being any worthwhile competition. Even at it's peak CoH never had the players that would cause anyone to view it as a gigantic success or a game that was shaking up the industry. It ended up being the best game among two.
I'll admit that two or three MMO games can't saturate a market, but that's only when there are a dozen or more other games already online within the specific market competing for the same players. The market was small back then and even when Champions launched in 2009 things didn't change very much. CoH lost a few players to CO but they kept going. There was still no other worthwhile competition. No other games that were remarkably similar to those two were online or being made.
I can't speak for CO because I never played it but I played CoH regularly throughout its lifetime and I only ever saw three or four servers showing near full capacity, with maybe one ever being so full as to be completely inaccessible. With the majority of the servers being open year after year for many years I'm lead to believe that despite being number 1 in the superhero MMO marketplace, that marketplace was rather small.
I'm going to admit that I may very well be wrong in several of my assumptions for the coming years. The marketplace for superhero MMOs may have grown in the past few years due to the launches of DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes. Those two continue to coexist with CO but each game is a bit different from the other and DC and Marvel are using characters that have been around for decades while all the games in development will be starting with new universes, characters and stories, just like CO and CoH did years ago. Starting fresh means that each game has to prove itself based on what it is and what it offers rather than relying on well-known existing characters and huge marketing dollars from their parent companies for promotion.
CoH had it easy back in 2004 as it was the first of its kind and there was no competition. CO copied or borrowed from CoH and started up, and even then it was only competing with CoH. Within the next three years three games will be launching with similar structures and all new universes, characters and stories. With Champions Online continuing to age and fall out of favor the newcomers will have a slightly easier time emerging and getting their foothold in the marketplace. I have to wonder though, just how big is the market for superhero MMOs. With all the successful movies of the past twenty-seven years (I'm starting with 1989's 'Batman' as the movie that turned around the genre for movies), superheroes may be more popular now than ever before. But we all have to ask: "Can these new, unestablished properties make a name for themselves and survive against both each other and games with well-known characters and their established backgrounds?"
You may be right and I may be right. Only time will tell.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
---------------------------------
Right now there are three released MMORPG style Superhero titles; DC Universe Online, Marvel Heroes and Champions Online.
Champions is under the PWE umbrella and as long as a few whales continue to circle this project, it will survive. This one has the smallest player base. It has a lot of fun features, but it is EXTREMELY limited unless you spend money on it, which is a trademark of PWE. I alpha and beta tested this game, and I really thought it had lots of potential, but when it went PWE and F2P all that potential went down the drain. Unless of course you don't mind dropping a couple of C-notes to be the baddest of the badasses...
Marvel Heroes is actually a very fun game, but it has no staying power. People play it about 6 months and they are done. They go back after a few months, yawn through a few days/weeks of gameplay and quit, often for good. However, Marvel has great name recognition and this game should survive for at least a decade. Even with the constant turnover of players, the player base is surprisingly consistent number-wise.
DC Universe Online is the one with by far the most expansive game universe. It has a lot going for it and I still play it on occasion. They keep releasing more and more expansions (up to 27 right now), and they have a HUGE variety of powersets. The vision on this game is good, and being available on 3 platforms (PC, XBOX One and PS4) means this is the only superhero game that has broken a million active players. It is getting long in the tooth, but still, it is a fun game. It is different from CoH and what will be H&V. Because of that it doesn't hold former CoH players for very long. But fans of the DC Universe and especially those fans playing consoles will ensure its survival for quite a long time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
What does this show us? That there is a market for hero based MMORPGs. Someone that finds the right target (all three that I listed miss the target for CoH fans) has a lot of players waiting to throw money at it.
However, the approx 2 million players in superhero games (if you count former CoH players) pale in comparison to fantasy MMO players, which probably number well over 8 million in the US alone, and probably well over 50 million world wide. Even if the new generation of games attracts a half million+ players and 'steals' a half million from the current games, that is a player pool of over one million spread over 4 games (assuming SoH releases), of which about 60% (based on trends from other new releases, and considering the fan desire for a 'new' CoH) will quit within two months. There will be a big winner and a big loser, and one of the three non-losers will have trouble keeping up, so I think that two of them surviving successfully beyond two years is the likely outcome.
Who will win the cage match? There are actually two of these cage matches on deck. Champions and VO are fighting for the same players, and I think that the whales will wallow away from CO and VO will win that one, based on modern graphics. However, the player base for this style of game is not huge, so even the winner may not be overwhelming.
The 2nd one is CoT, H&V and SoH. As has been stated, SoH may be too ambitious for the team making it, not to mention potential legal hassles from NCsoft. If it does pan out, well, it looks a whole lot like a remastered CoH, which guarantees a strong fan base. CoT looks like it will release first, which will be a big boon for them. H&V is the game with the most potential, and they are also the only one of these games that won't ask for money until they are sure their product is viable, which they have mentioned means the game is 80% done.
It is hard for me to say, but IF SoH releases, it will have a huge surge, and then fall on its face. Why? Because way too many of the CoH crowd will say, "been there, done that, and it was done better before." CoT looks to be competing against DCUO more than CoH. Considering how well DCUO is doing, that bodes well for them. And, H&V has IMO the best potential to rule the roost. They are CoH'y, but they are doing it their own way, and I think that in the long run they will have the largest player base of all of them.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!