Today’s MMOrning shot comes from Gazillion Entertainment, showing off the new UI in Marvel Heroes.
MMOrning Shots is a (somewhat) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”
I’ve grown attached to Marvel Heroes ever since I previewed the game at New York Comic Con. The game is far more enjoyable if you think of it less as a newer attempt at City of Heroes and more as a spiritual successor to the Diablo games. Still, despite all the time I’ve spent going through dungeons and beating people up, drinking a whole lot of alcohol, and turning into a giant green monster…I can’t help but think that Marvel Heroes should take a nod from its genre and maybe we will one day see the release of Marvel Villains. Let’s face it, now that City of Heroes is gone, our already short list of super hero MMOs that let us play the villain has become much shorter.
Actually, DC Universe is the only one that comes to mind. Champions Online does not allow you to roll a villain. So let’s see it, Marvel! And while I’m making demands, how about a Marvel Zombies expansions as well? Then who knows where!
When thinking about Marvel Heroes, I want you to remember one name: David Brevik. If you already know who David Brevik is, then my mention of his name should automatically make you think of Diablo, and that is where I would like to begin. For a while now, you may have heard of Marvel: Heroes be referred to as “Marvel Ultimate Alliance Online.” It isn’t, at least in the sense that the two don’t carry much resemblance. Instead, I think it would be more suitable to think of Heroes as the spiritual successor to Diablo. Born of the same mind, and although vastly different in many ways, it feels quite familiar.
As I’ve already mentioned, I had an opportunity to head over to New York Comic Con, and I made a note of going to the Marvel: Heroes booth and taking the game for a couple of spins. And the folks handing out cards and helping out players wanted me to be absolutely clear: Marvel: Heroes is completely free to play, and not at all pay to win. You don’t have to pay to continue through the story, you won’t have to pay to unlock heroes, and you won’t have to worry about pay to win equipment.
The demo I was able to play was rather short, a condensed version of the level that took about ten minutes to play through. Starting out on the rooftop of a city building, I was given a quest to head down into the subway and defeat Electro. Down in the city below, I took to the streets with my fellow heroes (with usernames like NYCC19), on an expansive but linear street filled with gang members. Along the way, our heroes grouped up momentarily to take down Shocker, who cut through our group of newbie players like a hot knife through butter. But through diligence (and an incredibly lenient revival system for the sake of the demo), we managed to take him down.
Heading into the sewer, I found myself in one of Marvel’s instanced areas. It was just Electro, myself, and a whole bunch of grunts in the way. The inspiration that Marvel: Heroes draws from Diablo is obvious, the player moves around by clicking the left mouse button on the scenery, which also translates to the character’s primary attack. Each character has a secondary attack made possible with the right mouse button, and additional powers that are unlocked and used with the ASDF keys.
The game looks fantastic, and handles just as fluidly. Heroes handle pretty much just like you’d expect them to. For instance, Tony Stark is more suited to ranged combat, and while he isn’t afraid to get down and dirty, I wouldn’t recommend staying in melee distance for too long. The Hulk doesn’t have much on the side of ranged combat, but he does have a knack for smashing things. And Deadpool carries both his trademark swords and pistols, making him useful in melee or ranged situations. In total there will be a few dozen heroes to choose from, each with a massive range of costumes, with the possibility of more heroes post-launch.
Overall, Marvel: Heroes is turning out to be a great game. I’ll be looking forward to covering the game as it progresses closer to launch.
By now, you may be slightly familiar with the name Stephen Calender, ex-programmer for NetDevil. A few weeks ago, I brought up his blog post in a Week in Review, that went into detail starting at the acquisition of Lego Universe by Lego (and subsequent layoffs) to the relationship between Gazillion and NetDevil and even advice on how to get hired in the industry. In his post, he also expressed his “frustration with fellow co-workers who primed the rumor machine,” dealing with how the media (including myself) managed to come across the news of the NetDevil layoffs before some of the people actually affected by the layoffs, thanks partially to the quick dissemination of details by laid off staff.
The next day I found an email from who else? Stephen Calender, with the hopes of explaining that his intention was not to “take a jab” (as I described it) at the media. So after a short back and forth, I saw this as an excellent opportunity for both of us, and requested an interview.
The interview is huge, so I’ve taken the liberty of hiding it behind the break.
At one point working on MMO Fallout excavated a tiny part of my brain, and replaced it with a long list of industry names and their associations. So any time I hear the name Bill Roper, David Bravik, or Max Schaefer, the “Flagship Studios” red alert goes off and won’t stop buzzing until I finish writing the article. My article on Marvel Universe’s complete disregard for character creation caught a lot of attention (and was featured on MMORPG.com), and the topic as a whole stemming from the initial interview has been thrown back and forth by supporters and dissenters.
I raised the all important question at the end: What will make Marvel Universe stand out from its competition? The market is already somewhat saturated with three MMOs. Two of them hold subscriptions, one is free to play. All three allow me to heavily customize my hero, including free range of powers. Two allow me to play as a villain. One relies on a cash shop. One leans more toward action games while the other two lean closer to the traditional RPG. Now, the future of Champions Online rests in where Cryptic is sold off to, and DC Universe hangs on the will of its players to continue populating the servers, but City of Heroes has proven it isn’t going anywhere soon.
So I’ve been pondering what Marvel Universe will bring to the MMO table, and I’ve come to a few conclusions.
I want to make it clear that I’m not saying Marvel Universe will be a bad game, but rather expressing my concerns in Gazillion advertising it as an MMO. It should not mark itself as an MMO because it will not function as an MMO, and should not be supported and developed for as it if were an MMO. Gazillion is clearly going after a different audience than those who play City of Heroes/Champs/DC Universe, and calling it something along the lines of Marvel Ultimate Alliance Online might have presented the game to its proper target audience. Gazillion has already talked about the game being ultra cheap to maintain (a system similar to Guild Wars).
Pull the MMO market and tell them they aren’t able to create their own characters, and they will reject the game as an MMO. Call it an online game with microtransactions, and you’ll have a wider audience. Those who want to play a superhero MMO are likely already playing a superhero MMO, but again Gazillion is not advertising to MMO players.
I’ll be doing more articles on Marvel Universe as more information appears.
No, I’m not talking about Super Hero Squad! Marvel Universe Online is in fact still in development, and in an interview with Massively.com, Jeff Lind talked about the game launching from the start as free to play:
That was the big surprise of the day! We are very excited about that. We think that [F2P] is an awesome way to make this game much more accessible. It’s a great way to get more people to play (which is good in and of itself), but also we think it’s a good business decision. We think this is a better way to make games in the business now. There is plenty of evidence out there — you guys see it all the time — and we feel like this is a great way to go for the game.
I have an article coming on Marvel Universe that should be published tonight. Find out why I believe this title is going to hit a hard brick wall at launch.
MMO Fallout 