DC MMO to be Designed by Jim Lee [Archive]

Kefkataran

02-25-2006, 11:39 PM

Just in from the New York Comic Con, the MMO being developed by Sony that takes place in the DC Universe will feature art design by popular All-Star Batman and Robin artist Jim Lee (http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=60670) along with a group of other Wildstorm artists. Some quotes from the interview:

JL: Three factors about the deal with Sony made the decision really easy for me to make. One, Sony Online is one of the leaders in the MMO space. They have a great history of doing amazing games, and they produced one of my all-time favorite games, Everquest, which really was and continues to be one of the most immersive and entertaining games to date. Second, WildStorm was hired on to do the conceptual artwork for the game. We have a small team of really gifted, well known artists like Carlos D'Anda, Ale Garza, and Scott Iwahashi working with me on creating all the initial art assets. We are creating the line art for the figures and environments in collaboration with Mat Broome, who is one of the art directors on the project. Mat, as many will remember, was a former WildStorm artist who left the world of comics years ago to work in video game space. Third, Sony Online is local--being based in San Diego and I knew a number of people who were already working there. So while the DCO is actually being produced out of their Austin, Texas offices, there are still a lot of time efficiencies that take place because I can just drive 20 minutes over to their San Diego offices and see DCO 3-D work in progress models and get immediate feedback and answers to my questions from Mat. Then the line art gets sent to Austin where the DCO art director Jared Carr and his amazingly talented crew construct the actual in-game models and environments. Overall, it's an exciting opportunity to spread our wings here at WildStorm and do something new, but still obviously comic book related. The project is a real creative challenge and what artist can refuse that?JL: Anything you see in game will be drawn by us at WildStorm. Obviously the characters, both non-player and player designs, the environments, the trees and pedestrians...all the way down to the loaves of bread. It's a monstrous task, both artistically and logistically in that so many assets have to be designed and created. As far as adapting superheroes into other mediums, well, some changes are to be expected to make the characters 'work' in the new spaces. That said, the translation between comics and videogames is a pretty clean one in that not a lot of tweaking or fudging has to take place. However, one example of the challenges we face is...what version of the most famous landmarks and characters in the DCU do we use? There have been numerous versions of the Daily Planet from the ones seen in various movies, TV shows and comic books. Which do we use? Most people know the Teen Titans through the cartoon show. Do we use costume designs from that or from the comics? Our number one job is to keep the vision and spirit of the DC as true as possible in the game. The fact that my day job is as a comic book creator makes these types of issues much easier to resolve.
As much as I love the idea of exploring the DC universe in an MMO, I'm wary of Sony developing it. Still, at least we know the artistic direction will be solid. Maybe something lucky will happen to save it from being another Star Wars: Galaxies-size failure?

Doctor Setebos

02-26-2006, 04:44 AM

This is interesting news considering Jim Lee is a huge City of Heroes player. :D

bean19

02-26-2006, 06:09 AM

I'd like to think they were further along in the game than it sounds like from this interview. If they are still working on concept art, they are probably 2 years out from release.

This sounds like it will be a CoH clone that is set in the DC universe (perhaps with a graphical update). If this is the case, then I'm totally sold. :)

Well, if they ease off the level grindiness that CoH suffers from at about level 25-50, and if they ship with endgame content that does not a have a ridiculous barrier to entry (like CoH's Hamidon encounter or all the absurdly large raids like those found in WoW).

It sounds like they are going to ship with endgame PvP content too which should extend the gameplay too.

Ravenlock

02-26-2006, 06:46 AM

bboy

02-26-2006, 07:04 AM

DC based MMO...how many heroes can their be? Is every player going to be a DC hero, villain or civillian?

MSUStud911

02-26-2006, 07:07 AM

Having a bunch of heroes running around didn't hurt City of Heroes because the universe had no pre-existing continuity. So having a lot of heroes was built into the story. In DC, while there may be a good amount of heroes, there are nowhere near as many as CoH. I just don't see how this is all gonna make sense with hundreds of generic player heroes running around in the DCU.

That said, barring some major disaster, I'm definitely getting this game.

skribb

02-26-2006, 07:17 AM

Sophism

02-26-2006, 07:26 AM

I'm already setting up a calendar for Luthor and Doomsday raids.

Rank 2 GL LFG Sinestro!

Ravenlock

02-26-2006, 07:54 AM

That would suck. It would be cool if we could see him run around and jump across rooftops from time to time though...

A shadow here or a quick glimpse there, maybe. Batman (IMO) needs to be a half-myth, someone you only see if he's saving you or tracking you down. (And if he's tracking you down, you don't see him until it's too late, anyhow.)

Regardless, the potential - being Sony - for them to really screw up the continuity of a lot of established heroes worries me. That said, best of luck to whatever team of people they put on it.

AspectVoid

02-26-2006, 08:20 AM

The only way I can see this really working is if they make it an MMO world, meaning you HAVE to have all of the major cities available and they all need to be scaled to something near the correct size, ALONG with the massive amount of contry-side between them. Otherwise, the game is going to feel far too densly populated to have a DC feel.

KNOTE

02-26-2006, 08:21 AM

Lee is also a big WoW and EQ player too. He's a pretty hardcore MMOer. His role is advisory though, he's not the lead designer on DCU.

LilBunnyFuFu

02-26-2006, 09:15 AM

Having a bunch of heroes running around didn't hurt City of Heroes because the universe had no pre-existing continuity. So having a lot of heroes was built into the story. In DC, while there may be a good amount of heroes, there are nowhere near as many as CoH. I just don't see how this is all gonna make sense with hundreds of generic player heroes running around in the DCU.

I have a feeling that the story will start with a lot of people getting introduced to some sort of cosmic radiation, possibly used as a weapon by someone. It shouldn't be too hard to get around that (hopefully they already have).

Wonka

02-26-2006, 09:27 AM

Lee is also a big WoW and EQ player too. He's a pretty hardcore MMOer. His role is advisory though, he's not the lead designer on DCU.

Well that's a relief. This guy being in charge of the entire game design would NOT be a win for a game as complex as an MMO (IMO). Not that he won't have a lot to offer if he has played a lot of these games. But the fact that he plays MMO's is more important than the fact that he is an artist for DC to do a job like this. I can just imagine how excited everyone would be if they announced that "joe game player" who "had played a lot of games" was going to be designing the game...

Maskatron

02-26-2006, 09:46 AM

Rob Liefeld seems like a much better choice for a SOE produced MMO. People would subscribe to it just for the unintentional comedy alone.

The Continental

02-26-2006, 10:04 AM

I have a feeling that the story will start with a lot of people getting introduced to some sort of cosmic radiation, possibly used as a weapon by someone. It shouldn't be too hard to get around that (hopefully they already have).

Do you really need a story? Other than their key 5-10 heroes, the bulk of DC characters are total garbage. Pick a theme for a costume, append "man" to it and insert powers as you please. You'll get winners like Hourman (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/4398/hourman.html) , Starman (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/4398/starman1m.html) , or Resurection Man (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/4398/resman1m.html). The possibilities are endless!

Dakar

02-26-2006, 10:36 AM

They need to do something similar to EVE and have a massive gameworld. Let us be the heroes in small cities and big cities and maybe even foreign cities (where people speak funny accented english). 1000 heroes in the same city is retarded.

Heretic Machine

02-26-2006, 11:23 AM

Having a bunch of heroes running around didn't hurt City of Heroes because the universe had no pre-existing continuity. So having a lot of heroes was built into the story. In DC, while there may be a good amount of heroes, there are nowhere near as many as CoH. I just don't see how this is all gonna make sense with hundreds of generic player heroes running around in the DCU.

Don't worry, the massive suckage of a SoE MMO will drive off even the most hardcore fanatics after six or so months, leaving only a few thousand people to populate a dozen servers...

Klade

02-26-2006, 11:46 AM

Heh I have to agree with a lot of people here that until proven otherwise, anything Sony even attempts is suspect.

Speaking about the game though, I seriously doubt we are going to be seeing more then a few cities here, and maybe only one large city. Its simply too damn hard to create. An easy way for them to get around the DC universe having few major heroes would be to create a new city. Then you wouldn't expect to see batman unless its some major function when he's "visiting" or whatever. And it would also give them room for influx of new heroes.

What I would really like to see out of this game would be more interaction with the environment. Being able to climb a wall, blow up a fence, or shatter a window and jump through would be ideal.

Hellstorm

02-26-2006, 12:14 PM

Just keep Koster away from any design input and the game should be fine.

Thenetcase

02-26-2006, 12:43 PM

I'm severely skeptical about anything SOE puts out. I'm not going to hope for anything particularly good.
If Superman is anything less than indestructable, then the game will frickin' suck balls.

-TNC-

bean19

02-26-2006, 01:15 PM

I REALLY hope Sony doesn't take the route they've now taken with Galaxies, and decide that major characters will be liberally thrown around the game to make you feel "cool" even if it makes no damn sense and takes all of the vastness out of the game. ("You were broken out of prison by Han Solo? No kidding! Me too! Small universe.")

If they turn Batman into some tutorial-level mission kiosk who lurks around on a rooftop waiting to send you out on hunter-gatherer quests, I'll be upset. :(

I don't mind the instancing of NPCs with scripted content. I mean how else are they going to do it really? Han Solo breaking you out of prison is super cool, but how would they do that for just you and not other people? If they made it so that they "randomly" pop up then the content would be difficult to locate and the game would lose appeal.

However, I am 150% behind you about the standing still NPC business. While they may have to turn some of the superheroes into lifeless robots that pop up text boxes for training or mission giving, they better be disposable heroes like Aquaman.

Batman needs to do something cool. . . like assist you on a mission fighting bad guys, then discovering clues that help you both figure out the plot.

If Superman is a lifeless NPC like the SWG NPCs were (though the one example you gave was of the ONLY NOT lifeless NPC in the game), then I will cry all over my cape.

bean19

02-26-2006, 01:29 PM

Speaking about the game though, I seriously doubt we are going to be seeing more then a few cities here, and maybe only one large city. Its simply too damn hard to create. An easy way for them to get around the DC universe having few major heroes would be to create a new city. Then you wouldn't expect to see batman unless its some major function when he's "visiting" or whatever. And it would also give them room for influx of new heroes.

What I would really like to see out of this game would be more interaction with the environment. Being able to climb a wall, blow up a fence, or shatter a window and jump through would be ideal.

I suspect they'll set the game in Metropolis and that they'll just have heroes and villains that are located elsewhere visit Metropolis as necessary. After all, he mentioned that they are creating a Daily Planet.

The game world will be like the cartoons and movies. They will draw up on the cannon from the comics but exist outside of the comic book storylines.

In addition to your comments about interactive environments, what I really want to see in all MMOs is more mission variety and/or more "single player-ish" gameplay. I think we are seeing games move towards this with upcoming games like Auto Assault, Huxley, and Tabula Rasa. They are going to require more from players than Everquest's extremely easy auto-attack/special move when appropriate set up, or CoH's slightly more involved fire powers as necessary approach.

I'd rather not do missions that all boil down to travel to X area, defeat Y mob, return to mission-giver, but I'd deal with that a lot better if they make the defeating Y mob part really entertaining.

Imagine boss fights in an MMO that can be beaten by defeating them with strategy like a boss in Zelda and gameplay in an MMO that delivers the same level of fighting mechanics that you would expect from a single player game.

It's SOE. . . they have been terrible about meeting deadlines and shipping working and fun products with all of their MMOs so far. I think we can expect an unfinished and buggy product, but I'd love for them to prove me wrong.

Zeal

02-26-2006, 02:00 PM

The Flash says:

Level 60 Raid Mission (Elite): Doomsday is rampaging Metropolis! It is up to you to gather 16 brave heroes to assist Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman and the Justice League in postponing the apocalypse!

Do you accept mission: Apocalypse Now!

YES/NO

lockwoodx

02-26-2006, 02:02 PM

Welp since this mmo carries the SOE taint, no way I'll ver consider going near it. I fear my eyes will shrivel up and combust if I even look at any screen shots.

Klade

02-26-2006, 02:37 PM

I suspect they'll set the game in Metropolis and that they'll just have heroes and villains that are located elsewhere visit Metropolis as necessary. After all, he mentioned that they are creating a Daily Planet.

The game world will be like the cartoons and movies. They will draw up on the cannon from the comics but exist outside of the comic book storylines.

In addition to your comments about interactive environments, what I really want to see in all MMOs is more mission variety and/or more "single player-ish" gameplay. I think we are seeing games move towards this with upcoming games like Auto Assault, Huxley, and Tabula Rasa. They are going to require more from players than Everquest's extremely easy auto-attack/special move when appropriate set up, or CoH's slightly more involved fire powers as necessary approach.

I'd rather not do missions that all boil down to travel to X area, defeat Y mob, return to mission-giver, but I'd deal with that a lot better if they make the defeating Y mob part really entertaining.

Imagine boss fights in an MMO that can be beaten by defeating them with strategy like a boss in Zelda and gameplay in an MMO that delivers the same level of fighting mechanics that you would expect from a single player game.

It's SOE. . . they have been terrible about meeting deadlines and shipping working and fun products with all of their MMOs so far. I think we can expect an unfinished and buggy product, but I'd love for them to prove me wrong.

Thats a good point about the Daily Planet, I didn't put those pieces together.

As for looking for more gameplay variety then going X area and defeat Y mob, well really what other options do they have? When it comes down to it most every game ever made has that as the basic premise of your objectives. Sometimes it will be retrieve Y item, or speak to Y person, but thats about it. And WoW already has a lot of strategy involved in big time raids. But I agree MMO's in general need to bring that level of strategy and involvement down to a lower level so you don't have to put 8+ months into a game before you can start doing the good stuff.

What can really help this game out big time is PVP integrated WoW style right from the start. Hopefully MMO makers will have figured that one out by now.

Megalith

02-26-2006, 04:51 PM

This game will be awful not only because of Jim Lee's boring, generic artwork, but the involvement of SOE as well.

bean19

02-26-2006, 05:32 PM

Zeal - lol. Exactly. . . that would suck so hard.

Thats a good point about the Daily Planet, I didn't put those pieces together.

As for looking for more gameplay variety then going X area and defeat Y mob, well really what other options do they have? When it comes down to it most every game ever made has that as the basic premise of your objectives. Sometimes it will be retrieve Y item, or speak to Y person, but thats about it. And WoW already has a lot of strategy involved in big time raids. But I agree MMO's in general need to bring that level of strategy and involvement down to a lower level so you don't have to put 8+ months into a game before you can start doing the good stuff.

What can really help this game out big time is PVP integrated WoW style right from the start. Hopefully MMO makers will have figured that one out by now.

Klade - Yeah, when you get down to basics, that is pretty much how it goes. However, it is what you do when you get there that provides variety in gameplay, and also core gameplay can have a lot of variety too.

For instance, look at Grand Theft Auto. That game has a ton of different mission types. There is a racing game, a fighting game, a meta-game when you just go on a rampage, sniping, etc. etc.

Then there are games that have a lot of replayability by just having extremely strong core gameplay. For instance, the games I replay most are Counterstrike and Dance Dance Revolution. The main gameplay is so well-tuned that I can have fun doing it again and again.

How cool would the game be if it was an MMORPG/Beat 'em up game? Like it is multiplayer and you gain levels and grow as a character, but the gameplay is similar to that in Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, River City Ransom or Double Dragon. What if they gave you the ability to block, dodge, and attack like you get in these games but with an online RPG?

I know that this would be difficult and might turn out lame. . . that is what they are doing in D&D, but in that game you can forgive the game when you hit something with a sword and the mob doesn't react because it is a sort of D&D simulator.

With comic books, seeing the villain real backwards under your attack is a big part of the feel. . .

That's why I expect that it will be a CoH clone with a DC setting and DC hero and villain cameos. . . but given that basic format, I think there are ways to innovate.

If your interested, tell me so. . . I really could go on and on. . . I'm even making a huge post just doing what was supposed to be a basic reply.

Kefkataran

02-26-2006, 06:25 PM

Without having read thourhg all these posts, so this may have been said, I think the basic idea behind having a DCU MMO is that you can make your own here but interact with the heroes and locales of the DC universe. CoH + DC wouldn't be bad. It would be better than the fuck-up that Sony COULD potentially produce. We'll see what comes...

DigiWiz

02-26-2006, 07:26 PM

I am intrigued by this game, yet very cautious. It seems like the superhero genre is niche enough for one MMO, right now NCsoft's CoH, but if the next shiny thing comes along in one or two years or so, CoH's customers are probably ripe for picking, waiting for something radically new...

KNOTE

02-26-2006, 07:39 PM

My guess is Metropolis & Gotham as the game worlds, with instanced special locations. Then Star City as an expansion.

Kefkataran

02-26-2006, 08:08 PM

My guess is Metropolis & Gotham as the game worlds, with instanced special locations. Then Star City as an expansion.

Metropolis and Gotham are obvious starting locations, yeah. But the DCU is so ridiculous big that I'd hope they'd have more than that even from the get-go.

Roc Ingersol

02-27-2006, 07:54 AM

One of these days we'll get a superhero massmog without lame massmog conventions like healers. I doubt Sony will be the ones to provide it.

Kefkataran

02-27-2006, 09:46 AM

One of these days we'll get a superhero massmog without lame massmog conventions like healers. I doubt Sony will be the ones to provide it.

City of Villains doesn't really have healers -- not in the conventional way at least. One of their classes has a secondary healing set, but it's far from a focus.

Wolfgang

02-27-2006, 10:05 AM

City of Villains doesn't really have healers -- not in the conventional way at least. One of their classes has a secondary healing set, but it's far from a focus.

I wish more people would try CoV/CoH. It is a lot different from most MMO's out there. It answers most of the complaints from EA readers.

You can solo most of the it (they do have raids type stuff)
There is epic PvP (Siren's Call) -- out door objective based (no PvP queues)
No one looks the same (unlike WoW where everyone wear's item X)
Thousands of Power combinations
No "perfect" group (unlike WoW you need a tank, healer and CC)
Base building, Base raiding
Gameplay has flight, super speed, leaping
PvP while flying, knock people down.
More graphical effects while fighting than WoW.
It does not require to farm dungeons for items. It is not item based.

Kef is also right -- there is no true healer in CoV like there is in CoH. Infact one of the DPS classes has a possible secondary heal in CoV.

Another thing is CoV and CoH are entirely different. You don't pick a human warrior and Troll warrior and do the exact same stuff (farm UBRS, farm Dire Maul, MC, etc...) The quests are stories are completely different. WoW horde/alliance quest lines start to merge near the 40's.

City of is an amazing game. The only thing really missing from it is a sense of history. WoW has the warcraft series which people know the story of, we know the big players, history of horde vs alliance, blah, blah, blah. City of has no real history. Who the heck is Statesman. I mean, yeah he is basically Captain America, but it isn't the same. How awesome would it be to have a mission where you had to aid the Ultimates, X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, etc...

That is all CoH is missing -- history. You have to learn and enjoy helping second tier heroes I guess.

No the game is not perfect, but none of the MMO's are :) -- coming soon Issue 7 http://www.coh.com/game_update7.html

bean19

02-27-2006, 11:05 AM

Wolfgang - just to raise the contrary point of view, CoH/CoV has a lot of problems too:

1. Time to max level is way long compared to more modern MMOs like WoW, DDO, and Auto Assault. Gaining a level/week is the expectation for an average gamer after level 30, and that's if they are grouping. While you can solo, the xp is really bad in comparison to grouping.

2. Siren's Call is decent PvP, but the objectives are not very good. The other two zones are so objective based that they obscure the PvP in the zone.

3. There are only a small number of effective PvP builds. Tankers, Brutes, Kheldians, Controllers, Dominators, non-storm Defenders, non force-field Masterminds, and non-healer or buff-bot corrupters, are all way subpar in PvP compared to the other builds in the game. . . even in groups.

4. Because the PvP is not instanced, you don't wait in ques, but you often show up to find out that your side vastly outnumbers the other side and the challenge is minimal, OR you find out that you are far outnumbered and the challenge is too difficult to surmount.

5. Items of Power and SG raids aren't working.

6. The cost of entry for buiding and maintaining an SG is prohibitive for all but large SGs.

7. The gameplay, while fun, becomes tiresome in the 30's. This is really a product of the grind slowing down the game so that it takes so long to gain new powers that your character doesn't grow or change at a rate that provides fresh gameplay. Plus, with the Enhancement Nerfs, gaining new enhancement slots becomes very much less exciting since you'll have reached the max damage capacity for your main powers once you open up SOs.

8. The missions are not well-told. They are mostly text boxes. The occassional cutscene breaks this up, but the cut-scenes are usually just of two villains standing next to each other with text bubbles going over their heads.

9. Villains aren't very villainous. This should hopefully change with the new mission type in Issue 7. I think it will at least improve. While I understand they are drawing a line that will keep the game family friendly, the kidnap missions that are the exact same as the hostage-saving missions in CoH are particularly bothersome. Also, you spend 80% of your time fighting OTHER villains, and the rest of your time fighting one of the 3 hero NPC groups (Wyvern, Legacy Chain, and Longbow). In the comic books I read, villains don't spend that much time fighting with other villains.

The biggest things for me personally are the grind and ED. I agree with Cryptic that ED really brought the difficulty up so that the game was challenging and not easy, but we were making our own challenges with the game the way it existed by raising the difficulty of missions. The nerf further crippled the game's poor advancement rate at mid to high levels. . . not just by SLOWING advancement, but by making the rewards of advancement less appealling.

Since the game is so arduous to play through after level 30, I don't want to make new characters and play through it again and again like I did with WoW. Also, with SG raids not yet enabled, I don't have anything to do after hitting max level.

Go try out Auto Assault if you haven't yet. That is going to be my next MMO (if they get the PvP functioning well by release).

Kefkataran

02-27-2006, 11:07 AM

I wish more people would try CoV/CoH. It is a lot different from most MMO's out there. It answers most of the complaints from EA readers.

I go on and off between CoH and WoW. I don't think CoH is quite as perfect as you describe it, but I do think it's a really fun, well-done game. City of Villains only added to that. I'm sure I'll go back to playing it eventually.

Issue 7's looking good.

Wolfgang

02-27-2006, 12:08 PM

1. It does take longer than WoW to level due to XP Debt and no rest XP, but I don't think it is too bad espically if you don't die often. I agree, they could make it slightly faster by adding a rest XP system or something.

I do think CoX is more of a single player game mindset though. You don't need to race to level 50 like you do in WoW. In WoW there is a need to race cause you need the latest and greatest item which you can only get at 60. I think CoX allows you to have more fun and be more laid back. You do have to change how you think about the MMO world you. There is no need to race to 50 in CoH, while in WoW there is reason to brag about your /played to level 60.

2. I like Siren's call a lot more than any of the WoW BGs (I was a lt. commander in WoW PvP). WoW's PvP is always the exact samething AB, WSG or boring AV.

3. The samething is said about every MMO though. Build X in WoW is best for PvP. Most agree on 1 to 3 builds in WoW depending on playstyle.

4. Yeah being out numbered does suck, I think Battlegrounds have their place in MMOs, but I got burnt out on WoW's 3 battlegrounds. They don't offer enough variation like CoV's do.

5. Agree.

6. Don't know enough about. But at least you can do more with your SG like build bases instead of just use /guild chat.

7. Same with most MMOs too -- the 3 60's in WoW I had all were about the same once mid 30s. Then I just started looking forward to a mount. Gameplay didn't change much, items made the bigger changes. Which required me to farm dungeon X for my item multiple times. I don't mind doing it, but I had a guy in my guild that did MC for 9 months (100% raid attendance) before he got his full tier 1 suit. Beating the same boss week after week is boring to me.

8. I think they are slightly better than WoW's telling of quests, but I think they could learn some stuff from DDO. Maybe add voice or make the cut scenes better, but it is an improvement.

9. I agree, but I think they are like you said working to try to keep it family friendly. I read mostly Marvel comics and the villains do fight a lot of other villain groups and they really aren't all that bad. In the Ultimates they have done some bad stuff like destroy cities which it sounds like Issue 7 is adding. But I haven't seen many graphic actions. It is just obvious that they killed people, they don't show that beheaded someone or something. The Villains usually kill a lot of standard military types and then beat up on the heroes.

WoW also has the problem of killing the same time of mobs over and over again. There is some variation, but it is mostly Scarlet groups or Orcs and Ogres for the end game instances. Dire Maul was a nice change, but having beaten in multiple times, it is the samething. It would be cool if it was more random, but know hey wait here 3 seconds for the patrol, ok pull this, trap that, MC him, etc... it is fun a few times to see how fast you can do it, but even that gets old.

I will look into Auto Assault -- like what I have read, but am very happy with CoX right now.

Making the 2 alts in WoW was just as painful as CoH alts, sure it is faster -- but everything is almost the exact same. The only thing different are the powers -- unlike CoH where you can take different story arcs, etc... WoW was the exact same (not even slightly random) dungeon and quest.

My biggest problem with WoW was it was the exact samething every time. Killed Onyixa... what are we going to do next week? Kill her again. It was cool until she is on "farm", then it becomes boring. So about the 3rd kill it is no longer intense or fun, it is just going through the motions.

The way my friends and I would make UBRS fun is to fear everything and just try huge pulls. Because otherwise it is the exact samething.

Kefkataran

02-27-2006, 01:02 PM

Making the 2 alts in WoW was just as painful as CoH alts, sure it is faster -- but everything is almost the exact same. The only thing different are the powers -- unlike CoH where you can take different story arcs, etc... WoW was the exact same (not even slightly random) dungeon and quest.

I call lies on this. City of Heroes doesn't have enough story arcs that you can take all seperate ones on alts. In fact, IMO, you're lucky if you get one or two you hadn't done before, and even then, they're minor and usually at the lower, faster levels anyways.

I really don't get how you can fault WoW for being "The exact same thing every time" when that's pretty much the formula CoH was founded on. Don't get me wrong, I dig CoH a lot, but there's really no difference between most missions. Go in, beat people up. Sometimes find some shinies or rescue someone, but the core -- beating people up -- is always the same.

Wolfgang

02-27-2006, 01:08 PM

I call lies on this. City of Heroes doesn't have enough story arcs that you can take all seperate ones on alts. In fact, IMO, you're lucky if you get one or two you hadn't done before, and even then, they're minor and usually at the lower, faster levels anyways.

I really don't get how you can fault WoW for being "The exact same thing every time" when that's pretty much the formula CoH was founded on. Don't get me wrong, I dig CoH a lot, but there's really no difference between most missions. Go in, beat people up. Sometimes find some shinies or rescue someone, but the core -- beating people up -- is always the same.

I fault WoW for it because it is the exact same pulls, level layout and the boss is always in the exact same location. When you get to the point where you are doing something for a virtual item over and over again -- I get bored.

Go in, beat people up. Sometimes find some shinies or rescue someone, but the core -- beating people up -- is always the same.

Both games are about beating people up. But WoW you beat the same people up in the exact same instance every night. There is no random mission, increase difficulty, etc... CoH and even WoW now with AQ have tried to add NPC helpers, etc... but at the core in CoH you are beating up baddies and stopping a bomb -- in WoW you are beating up baddies and getting loot or a key to open the next door. The difference is WoW has nothing random yet, so after you do it a few times, it is all the same.

CoH is not founded on running Onyixa every Wed, MC on Thursday and BWL on Friday. Which are always the exact same pull and the exact same fight. WoW developers recongize this and are working on an "Opera House" feature which would spawn random bosses inside for groups to right and get random loot from.

Even if you repeat missions in CoH, it is slightly different. Yes not that much different, but you can not have the instance memorized.

bean19

02-27-2006, 01:44 PM

Wolfgang

02-27-2006, 02:01 PM

Wolfgang - I totally agree with your comparisons to WoW. However, I don't think that makes any of those points good. I think it just makes both games BAD about those things.

Don't get me wrong though. I was a huge fan of CoH/CoV and actually played it longer than WoW in subscription time due to their Issue system that always suckered me in for another month. They really do add a lot in the Issues.

Issue 7 probably won't do this as it is mostly just finishing CoV, and it doesn't address my major complaint: the mid-to-high level grind and the fact that the enhancement nerfs make that mid-to-high level grind even worse since you don't really get much out of late game enhancement slots.

I agree Bean, I think both WoW and CoH could add a lot more to make the worlds more interesting, but for some reason they aren't. I am actually going to try start work on a design document tomorrow. There are so many aspects that WoW does well and CoH doesn't and CoH does well and WoW doesn't -- I would like to address those and add some more.

Both games could benefit more from a sense of epicness. Like WoW tried, but failed with the AQ event and it would be nice if CoV allowed you to team up with lord recluse and more outdoor world events like they had at the end of the CoH beta.

Kefkataran

02-27-2006, 03:22 PM

I fault WoW for it because it is the exact same pulls, level layout and the boss is always in the exact same location. When you get to the point where you are doing something for a virtual item over and over again -- I get bored.

Both games are about beating people up. But WoW you beat the same people up in the exact same instance every night. There is no random mission, increase difficulty, etc... CoH and even WoW now with AQ have tried to add NPC helpers, etc... but at the core in CoH you are beating up baddies and stopping a bomb -- in WoW you are beating up baddies and getting loot or a key to open the next door. The difference is WoW has nothing random yet, so after you do it a few times, it is all the same.

Even if you repeat missions in CoH, it is slightly different. Yes not that much different, but you can not have the instance memorized.

It's an extremely minor difference. You're still basically going to be redoing the same or similar strategies over and over in CoH depending on what mobs or groups you're fighting. I don't see a big enough difference there to really say CoH is pronouncedly better in that area.

bean19

02-27-2006, 03:52 PM

Both games could benefit more from a sense of epicness. Like WoW tried, but failed with the AQ event and it would be nice if CoV allowed you to team up with lord recluse and more outdoor world events like they had at the end of the CoH beta.

Are you a CoX dev?

Don't laugh if you aren't. I got in a fight with Raph Koster on here recently (though we actually agreed on a great many more things than we disagreed about), and there are a lot of devs that read and occassionally comment here.

Anyway, if you are and don't want to answer, let me give this piece of feedback. I led a large SG on Victory at the game's launch and we eventually grew into 3 full SGs of active members (no alts allowed in SGs). While we had 200-300 at any given time, we definitely had over 1000 throughout the time I led the SG. My biggest problems with retention were "nothing to do" and "can't stand the mid-level xp grind".

What this game needs to raise retention is a high quality endgame, which SG raids and IoPs hopefully will provide to answer the "nothing to do", and an easeir time getting to max level once there is an endgame in place.

Cryptic is smart to have a very time-consuming grind while their endgame is not yet working, but they'll raise retention by lowering this burden once there is an endgame in place (provided it is done well and getting positive player feedback).

Of course, they really also need a PvE endgame to suit that type of player, but since I'm both a PvE and PvP player, I don't want the easing off the level grind to wait until the PvE content is complete.

Epicness is cool. People like having an ongoing story, and that kept the attention of the WoW crowd with a reasonably small amount of work required. They leveraged there already existing resource gathering system and added in some NPCs and a storyline to create an epic and time-consuming event that really didn't take a ton of new stuff (the event itself that is. . . the unlocked content would be time consuming for sure). Very, very smart.

But CoX doesn't have 3 instanced battlegrounds, and tons of endgame PvE instances yet. They need to run (they are already walking. . . briskly even) before they can fly.

Ravenlock

02-28-2006, 02:05 AM

I don't mind the instancing of NPCs with scripted content. I mean how else are they going to do it really? Han Solo breaking you out of prison is super cool, but how would they do that for just you and not other people? If they made it so that they "randomly" pop up then the content would be difficult to locate and the game would lose appeal.

However, I am 150% behind you about the standing still NPC business. While they may have to turn some of the superheroes into lifeless robots that pop up text boxes for training or mission giving, they better be disposable heroes like Aquaman.

Batman needs to do something cool. . . like assist you on a mission fighting bad guys, then discovering clues that help you both figure out the plot.

If Superman is a lifeless NPC like the SWG NPCs were (though the one example you gave was of the ONLY NOT lifeless NPC in the game), then I will cry all over my cape.

Han Solo breaking you out of prison isn't super-cool - that was my whole point. It's ridiculously lame. In a situation where the same thing has to be available to everyone, a close encounter with one of the universe's most famous characters either shouldn't happen at all, or should be restricted to high-level content that a lot of people won't get to. It should NOT be the default first thing that happens to everyone.

The net result is - to paraphrase The Incredibles - a situation where everyone's special, so nobody is. SW Galaxies started out with the right idea. Create a huge, wide open universe where people can create whatever kind of character they like - a dancer, a trader, a crafter, a smuggler - but not everybody gets to be a Jedi and fight Darth Vader. Now that anybody can be a Jedi there's nothing the least bit impressive about it anymore. I really liked what one person said in a review of the new Galaxies revisions - "George Lucas created an incredibly vast universe of possibility, and ever since Lucasarts has insisted on keeping it as small as they can."

There's plenty of room in Star Wars for people to have fun and create good stories without meeting Han Solo right off the bat. Ditto for a DC comics universe. Batman doesn't choose to hang out with anybody, as a rule, so not everybody should get to hang out with him.

bean19

02-28-2006, 02:57 AM

Ravenlock - I disagree competely. However, I've never understood the desire some players have to distinguish themselves in an online game outside of competitive play.

I thought that it was ridiculous for the SWG designers to pick a time in the SW universe when Jedi were scarce as playing as a Jedi is such a big deal, and I think meeting Han Solo, fighting stormtroopers with him and then escaping from an Imperial station with him on the Millenium Falcon was the most immersive and impressive thing in Star Wars Galaxies.

Ravenlock

02-28-2006, 11:03 AM

Ravenlock - I disagree competely. However, I've never understood the desire some players have to distinguish themselves in an online game outside of competitive play.

Roleplay. Or anything even remotely approximating it. "MMORPG", remember?

If every character goes through the same story, there is no story. At least, the game - the community - has no story. Each player does, but if it's the SAME for each player then why the heck are you playing it online with others? A single-player RPG gives you a story that revolves around you. An online RPG should give you a larger story which you are a PART of; preferably not the same part as every other player.

I thought that it was ridiculous for the SWG designers to pick a time in the SW universe when Jedi were scarce as playing as a Jedi is such a big deal, and I think meeting Han Solo, fighting stormtroopers with him and then escaping from an Imperial station with him on the Millenium Falcon was the most immersive and impressive thing in Star Wars Galaxies.

We'll just have to agree to disagree there. I remember following the beta long ago for Galaxies and not having the money to play after release, but loving that you could make a totally unique character, give him the skills YOU wanted him to have, and have him join the Empire. Or join the Rebels. And if you did one of those, take part in battles against the opposing factions that mattered in a totally different way from the big battles of the film - these were ground skirmishes, dominance battles between ordinary soldiers. When you got wounded, duck into a cantina and somebody who had chosen to play a healer would patch you up while somebody who had chosen to play an entertainer would be dancing on the stage. People got the chance to flesh out the edges of the Star Wars universe, and they jumped at the chance.

I installed the "New Game Enhancement" demo when it came out, created a new character in an archetypal mold, met Han Solo, clicked to shoot some things, got a bounty hunter quest from a Boba Fett-alike (was it Boba himself? Might've been. I don't really even care), realized it was the equivalent of hunting rats, and immediately uninstalled. All reason to interact with other people had been taken away - it was now a cooperative single player RPG.

And that's my biggest issue. If I want a single-player RPG, I'll play one - the plot will be better and it doesn't have a fee. The story they create for one of these is never going to be good enough to be worth $15 a month just to play through it with others - certainly not in the long term. In the end, it's all just virtual loot you're collecting, and the world doesn't change via your actions because the next guy to play has to go through the same storyline. The only way a world becomes dynamic enough to hold long-term interest is if you let the players create some of the story themselves.

bean19

02-28-2006, 12:30 PM

Ravenlock

02-28-2006, 01:02 PM

Ravenlock - I want single player quality of story-telling. . . and that means that other people will get to access that content.

SWG was a fiasco. While you may have enjoyed the exclusivity of the Jedi, you didn't enjoy it enough to keep playing. $15/month is not a barrier that even a child cannot surmount (if you were a child then).

I was a college student, and it was more than I was willing to pay for any online game. I only recently started playing WoW, which has a lot of the same problems I'm railing against, but I plan to take one character through to 60 so I can see the content, which is impressive. I don't, however, plan to continue playing after that, as the player interaction there is... weak, at best. Anyhow, I only now started being willing to pay a monthly fee after 2 years of full time work. Call me stingy.

SWG, the only game to really attempt at the story-free MMO that you desire, is an MMO horror story. They have one of the top 5 franchises with the Star Wars universe and somehow still managed to make an unpopular game.

I can't respond to your comments about SWG post-release, because as we've established I didn't pay. The buzz I got from the people who did stick around though was that they absolutely hated the recent "expansion" and redesign, mostly for the reasons I've stated.

And for the record, you do not need to interact with characters from the movies to make it "feel like Star Wars". Some of the best Star Wars games of all time are Dark Forces, Jedi Knight and Knights of the Old Republic, all of which branch off significantly from movie territory. The worst mistake the prequel films made was to restrain themselves to territory Lucas had already covered instead of giving audiences something new. The Clone Wars animated series, which was willing to do that, was much better than the films.

As for "the only game to really attempt the story-free MMO" part, though, that's just flat out bull. EVE Online is doing exactly that, and is doing extremely well with a mature, very involved player base. The sociopolitical interactions that go on in that game are mind-blowing.

Unfortunately, EVE's gameplay is tailored for a very hardcore crowd, and I don't feel like I have the time to put in to making it worthwhile for me. Otherwise, I would definitely be on board. If I got to have my wish, I would go for EVE's style of player interaction coupled with a more fantasy based setting and slightly faster gameplay. UO did come close to that, from what I understand, but I missed the UO boat back in high school. I have no doubt it could still be pulled off, though.

Getting back to topic, nobody's going to convince me that having Han Solo break every single player in SWG out of prison makes any kind of sense, and that kind of logical disconnect is precisely what ruins immersion for me, not what creates it. The same problem would arise in a DC MMO where the heroes are applied with a big old paintbrush wherever the devs need to cover their lack of creativity. The heroes should exist in the world, of course. They should not be every single player's personal friend.

Ravenlock

03-02-2006, 12:34 AM

I would've let this thread die, but Gabe from P-A summed up my position pretty perfectly yesterday.I didn’t really mention it when I tried out SWG a few months ago. After they completely changed the game I thought I should take a look and see if they changed it to something I’d like. Within the first 10 minutes I had met Han Solo and Chewy and I was shooting down Tie fighters from the Goddamned Millenium Falcon. Listen guys, I know it’s a fucking Star Wars game. I don’t need to be best friends with Luke Skywalker before I’m level 2. It’s a huge universe and shoving me into encounters with my “favorite heroes from the films” just feels manipulative.

Obviously I don’t have high hopes for the DC MMO. If it plays out anything like Galaxies I can tell you exactly how it will go. You will create your character and then spawn in the center of the Fortress of Solitude. Super Man will fly up to you and tell you that Lex Luther and the Joker are fighting Batman and he needs your help. He’ll scoop you up and fly you to Gotham via Metropolis (Hey look, it’s the Daily Planet) where you will meet up with the rest of the Justice League and they will make you an honorary member. After a crazy battle involving everyone from Wonder Woman to Krypto the super dog, you’ll end up in some filthy ally shooting rats with your heat vision.Yup. That about says it. You can say my idea of a "good" MMO is ludicrous and that everybody should be able to run around with Han Solo at the very beginning of Galaxies because it's "cool", but I consider Gabe pretty good company for my opinion. ;)

bean19

03-02-2006, 07:44 AM

Yeah. I read that too, and wondered if he had read this thread.

His example is way over-the-top, but he isn't saying that interaction with Han Solo or the possible interaction with DC characters sucks. On the contrary, he is saying that "shoving me into encounters with my "favorite heroes from the films" just feels manipulative."

It's a very cool and fun thing, but it is manimpulative in SWG because it lasts all of ten minutes and then you are left with a crappy game to play. Notice how he ended his analogy: "you'll end up in some filthy ally [sic] shooting rats with your heat vision."

It's not the cool encounters with DC characters that he dislikes so much as that they are manipulative and thus not representative of normal gameplay.

Personally, I think the DC MMO should have these throughout the game, in intervals so that your character can also be the star of his own adventures too, but spread across the game to make sure that it continues to feel like you are in the DC universe.

Your argument is that the players shouldn't get these interactions at all, or that they should be exclusive and random for players (though I don't know how you could do this without having them played manually by GMs, and it would suck for everyone who didn't get lucky; mostly everyone).

He thinks they are manipulative. You think they don't create an "honest" online world. Those are two different opinions, though both of them are against encounters. His may just be against one initial cool encounter followed by crap gameplay though. We don't really know if Gabe would enjoy a game that spaced these encounters apart and had good gameplay in between them. . . all we can be sure of from his post is that he just doesn't want a repeat of Star War's manipulative and cool beggining that is followed by tripe.

I let the thread die because it is a basic difference of opinion. Your opinion is as valid as mine, and unless one of us is willing to perform a study asking which type of gameplay MORE people would prefer, I don't think we have anywhere to go with this.

Sure, Batman isn't the friend of everyone in a comic universe, but every hero doesn't fight every villain in the same universe or otherwise go through other shared content like missions. Games that aren't scripted deliver unscripted storylines and have always been less immersive to me.

Eve Online is a good positive example of this. They have a very unscripted game where the drama is largely created by the playerbase through their interactions with one another. It is an interesting game and the effects are very cool. However, it also reaches a very specific niche audience of only about 100K players.

SWG had 250K subscribers the last time I looked at the mmogcharts, but that is a horrible failure when you consider the popularity of the Star Wars franchise.

Equally, if they made a Koster-type version of the DC universe, it would probably be a failure. People seem to want directed story-telling AND an immersive, changeable world. The two things aren't mutually exclusive, except that you have to get over the fact that every other character in the game has the same opportunities to go through the scripted missions and fight along with the same NPCs or agsint the same NPCs.

If you can't do that, then how are you playing WoW? All of it's content is scripted. Every quest you do in that game has been done by multiple other people. Also, none of them have any effect on the world.

Kefkataran

03-02-2006, 08:19 AM

Yup. That about says it. You can say my idea of a "good" MMO is ludicrous and that everybody should be able to run around with Han Solo at the very beginning of Galaxies because it's "cool", but I consider Gabe pretty good company for my opinion.

He's saying having that kind of stuff right at the beginning is crazy and feels wrong. Not that it shouldn't be in the game at all at some point.

Ravenlock

03-02-2006, 05:37 PM

He's saying having that kind of stuff right at the beginning is crazy and feels wrong. Not that it shouldn't be in the game at all at some point.I didn't say it shouldn't be in the game at all either. I said it should at the least be restricted to high-level content.

he isn't saying that interaction with Han Solo or the possible interaction with DC characters sucks. On the contrary, he is saying that "shoving me into encounters with my "favorite heroes from the films" just feels manipulative."Well, actually, his full statement is "I know it’s a fucking Star Wars game. I don’t need to be best friends with Luke Skywalker before I’m level 2. It’s a huge universe and shoving me into encounters with my “favorite heroes from the films” just feels manipulative."

The part I bolded very strongly indicates to me that he's saying what I'm saying - those types of encounters just aren't necessary, certainly not that early in the game. But maybe he is, maybe he isn't, we obviously can't read his mind.

Your argument is that the players shouldn't get these interactions at all, or that they should be exclusive and random for players (though I don't know how you could do this without having them played manually by GMs, and it would suck for everyone who didn't get lucky; mostly everyone).I'm perfectly willing to accept that there has to be some compromising medium in there - the characters do have to exist in the world, and yes, people are going to want to do more than just see them jump around rooftops. When I say such things should be "exclusive" I'm talking more about level exclusivity, in that it's possible for everyone to get to the point where they're trading stories with Green Lantern, but it's not going to happen unless you put in some time and effort. It's a reward. That carries a little more believability than having major heroes running around the newbie area, yes?

People seem to want directed story-telling AND an immersive, changeable world. The two things aren't mutually exclusive, except that you have to get over the fact that every other character in the game has the same opportunities to go through the scripted missions and fight along with the same NPCs or agsint the same NPCs.

If you can't do that, then how are you playing WoW? All of it's content is scripted. Every quest you do in that game has been done by multiple other people. Also, none of them have any effect on the world.I'm playing WoW by basically playing it as a single-player action RPG that happens to have other people running around. I plan to take a character through (maybe two, one alliance and one horde) to see what there is to see, and then be done with it. Re-running instances over and over at L60 to get uber loot holds no appeal for me, and that seems to be all the community has managed to build as a foundation for long-term play, which is a great shame.

Honestly, I got confused way back in the thread when you said "I want single player quality of story-telling. . . and that means that other people will get to access that content." I've yet to see any MMO that has a plot worthy of being compared to, say, a Bioware RPG. Not even close. To have such a thing, you'd need a plot that ends, and the whole point of an MMO is not to end. Which is why I contend that the only satisfying storytelling that's going to happen in an MMO is going to have to arise out of the players. I just want a system that's set up to let that happen - I'm fully aware it might not, but I'd like to see the mechanics in place.

EVE (and what I've read of UO, I guess, having missed that boat) is the only game I've seen pull that off so far. I play Guild Wars because I find the combat system entertaining and the PvP is good, and I'm running through WoW because they built a HUGE, gorgeous environment and I want to see it. But neither game has a story worth writing down or quests that make you feel like a legitimate RPG should. "Go get 10 silk red bandanas from the members of the Defias Brotherhood!" ...I'll get right on that. ;)