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Mission Map Upgrades - Ship of Heroes Videos - MMORPG.com
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Mission Map Upgrades - Ship of Heroes Videos - MMORPG.com
It's been a year since the first Mission Map was shown to Ship of Heroes fans. To celebrate the big day and to show off the vast number of improvements and updates that the Mission Map has gone through in the intervening months, a new video has been released. It features the same map as shown a year ago with a completely new look and is shown using the new, upgraded engine.
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I looked into it and there seems to be a program to let you create a character and run around but with no content. Another program is being made that allows for community created content for the first program. It seems all the content was server side or something like that. I saw that on reddit. I also found a ton of sites claiming to have CoX servers running, but as I have little knowledge or experience with private servers I didn't want to check anything out, and the info from reddit seems safer to trust.
IMHO this game is further along. At least they've been more open about showing their progress. I backed CoT's kickstarter and instead of showing screen shots they filled my inbox with updates about the setting including one from an NPC taxi driver's POV. Their last YouTube clip has them going on about capes which makes me question their priorities.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Fair enough. My main concern is that there won't be enough MMO players to keep more than one game going. CO is limping along because it's still making a profit. I don't know what's happening with DCO and with more games adding MMO-like elements the pool of potential players could be shrinking. If the popularity of Marvel Movies couldn't save CoX then I doubt it could keep two new superhero MMOs profitable.
That's what I'm worried about, the fanbase being split to the point where neither game can survive.
I think CoX closed before the new Marvel movies started. And I know for certain watching a movie hasn't made me want to play a game related to the movie since I've been older than 20, at the oldest. And if it did, people probably would have played the Marvel game that was an arpg/mmo. Most kids probably want to play an established super hero, instead of creating their own.
And not all mmorpgs are created equal. CoX, CO, and DCUO all played very differently. Just as WoW, EQ2, and SWG all played very differently. Only one of those blew up. And that game shot itself in the foot by catering to a younger and younger audience and removing all the reasons people like me played with every expansion after WotLK.
I don't think people looking for a new, great mmorpg care if it is a super hero focused, fantasy focused, or sci-fi. I think mechanics and systems will be the big selling point. And I think there are tons of people waiting in the wings for something new that has the depth to hook us, that isn't made for and aimed at kids.
It also depends on how success is defined - Wow was way more successful than EQ2, but EQ2 is still running with new content being made for it. If they bring in enough revenue for new content to be created that would be a success by most definitions. And since these games aren't being made with huge budgets, they aren't under the same pressure to attain and retain the numbers of players of those types of games, and don't have to worry about a publisher's financial analysis on sunk costs, damage to brand, etc.
However, there is one area where SoH is clearly ahead; I’ve played the game, as have about 35 other people that are not on the dev team. Is the game finished? No, the SoH team still has a way to go. But there is a fun basic game in place. They feel confident enough in their product to offer a beta at the end of the year. It won’t be a finished game of course, and you will have to pay a sub fee to play – this money is going to be for finishing the game. But I will be paying, and playing!
I’ve seen several people call Ship of Heroes a CoH clone. And many of the game aspects are the same. But, you can only get so close to the game before you are getting into legal hassle land. CoT is also using several aspects from CoH, for the same reason; CoH was a damn fun game, and certain things, such as player interactions, their enhancements system and how they handled mana, are going to carry over to any game that claims to be a spiritual successor to City of Heroes. I think all of the successor projects want to eventually have a BETTER game than CoH, and not just graphically. But I will be very happy with fun and a bit buggy at release.
I also wanted to mention that there is no real rhyme or reason to why CoH closed. The Avengers had just released a few weeks before it was announced that CoH was closing down. I’m still convinced that the main reason NCsoft closed CoH was because they had no idea how to run a niche product in a western market, when they own some of the biggest and most successful IPs in the world.
Last thing; the CoH private server project is called SEGS. I ignored it for a long time, since I don’t support illegal projects. However, I’ve been re-edumacated on this. The people doing the project are not using any trademarked items. They are not using any signature heroes, and they are not using public server systems to support the game. This will be a server system that supports home servers. All of the missions will be player generated, so there is not going to be any ‘stolen’ story arcs or task forces. Because of the server structure, there won’t be any raid type events. So you will get the underlying game with its 14 year old graphics. As long as this is the extent of it, and they are not breaking copyright and trademark laws, I will be playing this, at least for nostalgia’s sake.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
Between the two, I'm more excited for CoT, after listening to their interview on the systems they are working on, it's more than what CoH could have imagined. Not to mention I still don't like SoH name, and really recommend they change it.