I enjoyed City of Heroes and City of Villains a great deal it was the mission system however that made it boring after a bit. I also believe there is a good market for this as when City of Heroes released it was well received initially and is doing okay .Of course no point comparing anything to WoW but it is making them money. I absolutely loved City of Villains.
That there is a market for a super hero game is evident from the two games still going on and I for one am one of the people who played Everquest and Everquest 2 and have always liked SOE and I am happy to give them my money. People whine about SOE when other companies do far worse and get away with it. Doesn't Blizzard sell stuff via their cash shop even mounts and pets . Sauce for the goose and gander argument huh.
I played EQ for years and I have a great deal of respect for SOE. I had good experiences in both EQ and EQ 2. So they have servers where you can buy yourself to glory just don't play on them if it is not your thing. There are people who like that sort of thing. I don't see what all the fuss is about most game companies are introducing this cash transactions thing it is the wave of the future sad though it is you either adapt or give up the hobby. I for one want to play DCU. So I am going to do it for sure because nothing will prevent me from trying out a game unless the game itself is no good. I don't make snap judgements about companies doing things to survive in this genre all I ask for is fun games from them.
People whine about SOE when other companies do far worse and get away with it. Doesn't Blizzard sell stuff via their cash shop even mounts and pets . Sauce for the goose and gander argument huh.
It is so funny when people try to talk about other companies doing things worse than soe and then citing an example of something that soe blazed the trail for and did it is a much more devious manner.
Both soe and blizzard sell vanity items in a cash shop, but that just about ends the similarities. The difference is soe sells game affecting items, allows players to sell items for cash to each other, sells items in a lottery card game, implemented the cash shop with no warning to players and on top of that promised these games would never have RMT of any kind.
What other company has had to create a massive PR stunt to answer players boycotting their product, because the company had not fixed the problems they created with their last expansion? How many companies have thrown out their current player base with the hopes of attracting more players from other games.
There are few companies that come close to how soe operates and it is just to funny to see comparisons like this.
DC Universe will peak on hype and then settle at 200k or below.
The biggest problem with the superhero genre games is once you hit level cap there is nothing to do but farm 5000 mobs for a costume piece. That's all you do at end game, farm costume pieces.
Seriously look at champions, I really liked leveling in that game but once you hit cap, go kill 5000 of X type mob and get some neat new cape.
Unless they set up Lex Luther as a raid level boss with plenty of sub bosses, then thats all it will be , Farm Farm Farm.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
The devs have already said it will have endgame raiding just like all the other MMO's. And isn't farming for a costume piece the same thing as farming tier pieces in WoW or any other MMO?
What SOE has done compared to selling your info to facebook. How about the real id scandal currently affecting Blizzard. How about incense and how Allods changed their gameplay and mechanics to force people to buy incense spend real money and there is no subtlety there at all. How about how Brad McQuaid fired his staff in the parking lot and how SOE basically saved Vanguard and employed Sigil's people.
Selling lifetime memberships then turning about and giving that content for free. Way to go there and screwing your paying playerbase. Hell no only SOE is so terrible. Oh do not forget the number of charges Mythic managed to pile on people's credit card and then when they could not pay their rent as a result of 30 charges on their credit card not even recompense that damage. Yup SoE is definitely the devil.
How about selling an expansion and then closing down your game soon after like 3 months after that Turbine did to AC 2. Why sell an expansion when you knew you were closing a game down. Blatant fraud right there.
Didn't Hellgate get people to sub for life and shut the game down in record time. But yes SOE is the devil incarnate.
Depends on what people will pay for Hellgate had a dye option you had to pay for. I am subbed to DDO and I still have to pay extra to play Drow or the favoured soul class. I have a subbed account and you think that is alright ?
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
No one should ever complain about buying an SOE game and then getting screwed over down the line.
Everyone should know by now what SOE does, and what they are, and any customer that buys one of their products anyway, gets what they deserve for patronizing this company.
That's a good point about the resemblance to CO. The resemblance is more than a small one, and if that is the case, if DC proves to be CO with DC characters, it'll be a miserable fail.
its going to be worse then that , The player charcters have to play as wannabe sidekicks to the Main NPC DC heroes. That sounds like you will start as a second rate player with nowhere to go except to ride the capetails of the NPC heroes. ZZZZZZZ
So your telling me that you'd rather have 1000 Batmans running around? That sounds pretty lame to me.
What SOE has done compared to selling your info to facebook. How about the real id scandal currently affecting Blizzard. How about incense and how Allods changed their gameplay and mechanics to force people to buy incense spend real money and there is no subtlety there at all. How about how Brad McQuaid fired his staff in the parking lot and how SOE basically saved Vanguard and employed Sigil's people.
Selling lifetime memberships then turning about and giving that content for free. Way to go there and screwing your paying playerbase. Hell no only SOE is so terrible. Oh do not forget the number of charges Mythic managed to pile on people's credit card and then when they could not pay their rent as a result of 30 charges on their credit card not even recompense that damage. Yup SoE is definitely the devil.
How about selling an expansion and then closing down your game soon after like 3 months after that Turbine did to AC 2. Why sell an expansion when you knew you were closing a game down. Blatant fraud right there.
Didn't Hellgate get people to sub for life and shut the game down in record time. But yes SOE is the devil incarnate.
A few scattered events from an equal number of companies and still none of which are close to the list of events that soe has been involved with.
None come anywhere close to telling your current customers that they are not longer wanted and can hit the road. Using customers money to secretly design a game that they know their current customers will not want is the pinnacle example of shitting on customers bare none.
Another would be the purchase of an mmo with the intentions to let it wither away and die.... twice.
Yet another would be charging full premium price for an mmo that doesn't even have a developer working on it. Again twice...
Those are just off the top of my head.
Furthermore, you don't even seem to have a full grasp of the events you describe. Lifetime member ships were not given away for free and I don't see who was screwed anywhere. Also, AC2 made an expansion in the effort to save their game, something vanguard or matrix might have benefitted from. Expansions typically boost subscriber numbers. Kudos to turbine for trying to do something to revive their dieing game. The real id "scandal" was Blizzard saying they wanted to do something, the users say don't and they listened. If real id was being done by soe they would have patched it live first, then told the players about it after it already went live. Just like they did the cash shop in the games the promised would never have real money transactions.
The only game that had a really good chance at being a WoW killer was Age of Conan. It reached about a million subs in it's first month. Had Funcom released a more polished game with things like cross server battle grounds for the "Now" generation we'd probably be talking about whats going to be the AoC killer.
The only game that had a really good chance at being a WoW killer was Age of Conan. It reached about a million subs in it's first month. Had Funcom released a more polished game with things like cross server battle grounds for the "Now" generation we'd probably be talking about whats going to be the AoC killer.
The hardware requirements were too high.
To be a "WoW killer", you need to be able to run on a 300-500 dollar machine you can buy at Wal-Mart. You don't need to be able to do this with every option maxed out, but you need to be able to provide a decent, smooth, performance that looks good. The artists and designers at Blizzard made sure their game looked decent even with low graphics settings; they focused on "How does this PLAY?" as opposed to "How will this look in static screen shots online?". (Which is pretty much Blizzard all over -- they focus on play experience, not checklists of features which online self-proclaimed "Hardcore" gamers want and 99% of gamers don't give a damn about, and they sell millions of boxes while the hardcore sit and post "How can you PATHETIC SHEEPLE play ANY so-called GAME that doesn't have BINARY INVERSE RETICULATION???")
Everything I've seen of DC Heroes is that it's going to be a hardware hog, which doesn't bug me because I've got a decent gaming system, but it means it won't be playable on an awful lot of "legacy" (3 years old!) hardware out there. And while mummy and daddy might buy a 50 dollar game for their little darling, they won't buy an all-new computer just so he can pretend to be Superman, and until someone finds a way to pirate HARDWARE, a lot of people will just play the games that run on their existing systems. (I upgrade my computer about every 18 months, but that's very unusual.)
The real "WoW killer" will be a Facebook/Flash game, which will draw tens of millions of players (including your grandma), a "freemium" business model, and will make WoW solo play look like EQ 70-man raids when it comes to difficulty. And it will come out of left field and no one will be hyping it for four years ahead of launch, proclaiming it a "WoW killer".
I tend to agree with you Lizard. WoW's majority population is casual gamers, and it's going to be a casual type of game that will come close to matching it's numbers. I'm a "hardcore" gamer, so I don't mind resource heavy reqs on games. As long as the game is interesting to me and well made I don't really care how it's labelled.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
No doubt that DC will be big, but with games such as GW2 coming out it won't be eclipsing WoW. GW2 might not even accomplish that, at least not anytime soon.
Heard the same song and dance with CO. WoW killer, next big MMO, genre revolutionizing, blah, blah blah. Well see what it turns out like, but lets just not go all hype crazy, keep some common sense.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore) Now Playing: N/A Worst MMO: FFXIV Favorite MMO: FFXI
What planet are these people on? this game looks utter crap, totally dissapointing gameplay vids.
I was interested in this but now I won't go near this crapfest.
I'm not really debating what will be a bigger game, but actually WoW "in beta" looked like utter crap as well. I will also add that DC Universe looks just as easy to play as WoW is easy to play.
Both have big IP's and on that note I would def give the edge to DC hands down...would all come down to execution and the amount of people who prefer MMOing in a comicbook universe vs a cartoon universe.
What planet are these people on? this game looks utter crap, totally dissapointing gameplay vids.
I was interested in this but now I won't go near this crapfest.
I'm not really debating what will be a bigger game, but actually WoW "in beta" looked like utter crap as well. I will also add that DC Universe looks just as easy to play as WoW is easy to play.
Both have big IP's and on that note I would def give the edge to DC hands down...would all come down to execution and the amount of people who prefer MMOing in a comicbook universe vs a cartoon universe.
hehe sorry but comic book vs cartoon?
Now as to whether or not DCU can compete with wow, not hardly. Anything that SOE touches is doomed to mediocrity or worse. Just look at SWG for a perfect example.
To say any one game will kill WoW is a bit silly. WoW didn't become a beast over-night but increased over time by players from other games trying out and subbing.
So I'd say it would be more sensible that other games will cause people to trickle out which did actually happen time to time over the years, it's just not many have been good enough to keep anyone. I think DCUO does have a good chance of taking people and retaining them but it sure as Hell won't take a huge chunk.
TOR will have the biggest impact but that too won't "kill" WoW, it'll take many blows before it there is any noticable impact on its population.
Comments
I enjoyed City of Heroes and City of Villains a great deal it was the mission system however that made it boring after a bit. I also believe there is a good market for this as when City of Heroes released it was well received initially and is doing okay .Of course no point comparing anything to WoW but it is making them money. I absolutely loved City of Villains.
That there is a market for a super hero game is evident from the two games still going on and I for one am one of the people who played Everquest and Everquest 2 and have always liked SOE and I am happy to give them my money. People whine about SOE when other companies do far worse and get away with it. Doesn't Blizzard sell stuff via their cash shop even mounts and pets . Sauce for the goose and gander argument huh.
I played EQ for years and I have a great deal of respect for SOE. I had good experiences in both EQ and EQ 2. So they have servers where you can buy yourself to glory just don't play on them if it is not your thing. There are people who like that sort of thing. I don't see what all the fuss is about most game companies are introducing this cash transactions thing it is the wave of the future sad though it is you either adapt or give up the hobby. I for one want to play DCU. So I am going to do it for sure because nothing will prevent me from trying out a game unless the game itself is no good. I don't make snap judgements about companies doing things to survive in this genre all I ask for is fun games from them.
It is so funny when people try to talk about other companies doing things worse than soe and then citing an example of something that soe blazed the trail for and did it is a much more devious manner.
Both soe and blizzard sell vanity items in a cash shop, but that just about ends the similarities. The difference is soe sells game affecting items, allows players to sell items for cash to each other, sells items in a lottery card game, implemented the cash shop with no warning to players and on top of that promised these games would never have RMT of any kind.
What other company has had to create a massive PR stunt to answer players boycotting their product, because the company had not fixed the problems they created with their last expansion? How many companies have thrown out their current player base with the hopes of attracting more players from other games.
There are few companies that come close to how soe operates and it is just to funny to see comparisons like this.
DC Universe will peak on hype and then settle at 200k or below.
The biggest problem with the superhero genre games is once you hit level cap there is nothing to do but farm 5000 mobs for a costume piece. That's all you do at end game, farm costume pieces.
Seriously look at champions, I really liked leveling in that game but once you hit cap, go kill 5000 of X type mob and get some neat new cape.
Unless they set up Lex Luther as a raid level boss with plenty of sub bosses, then thats all it will be , Farm Farm Farm.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
The devs have already said it will have endgame raiding just like all the other MMO's. And isn't farming for a costume piece the same thing as farming tier pieces in WoW or any other MMO?
What SOE has done compared to selling your info to facebook. How about the real id scandal currently affecting Blizzard. How about incense and how Allods changed their gameplay and mechanics to force people to buy incense spend real money and there is no subtlety there at all. How about how Brad McQuaid fired his staff in the parking lot and how SOE basically saved Vanguard and employed Sigil's people.
Selling lifetime memberships then turning about and giving that content for free. Way to go there and screwing your paying playerbase. Hell no only SOE is so terrible. Oh do not forget the number of charges Mythic managed to pile on people's credit card and then when they could not pay their rent as a result of 30 charges on their credit card not even recompense that damage. Yup SoE is definitely the devil.
How about selling an expansion and then closing down your game soon after like 3 months after that Turbine did to AC 2. Why sell an expansion when you knew you were closing a game down. Blatant fraud right there.
Didn't Hellgate get people to sub for life and shut the game down in record time. But yes SOE is the devil incarnate.
Well, good if it does have some actual end game.
And no I don't think end games raids for items is the same as farming for costume pieces.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
Depends on what people will pay for Hellgate had a dye option you had to pay for. I am subbed to DDO and I still have to pay extra to play Drow or the favoured soul class. I have a subbed account and you think that is alright ?
Doubt it.
Need i say more.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Superheroes & comic books are only really popular in America, their following in Europe and Asia is minimal, nowhere near enough to compete with WoW.
No one should ever complain about buying an SOE game and then getting screwed over down the line.
Everyone should know by now what SOE does, and what they are, and any customer that buys one of their products anyway, gets what they deserve for patronizing this company.
Customers are only CC numbers to SOE.
So your telling me that you'd rather have 1000 Batmans running around? That sounds pretty lame to me.
Is there a company to whom customers aren't?
A few scattered events from an equal number of companies and still none of which are close to the list of events that soe has been involved with.
None come anywhere close to telling your current customers that they are not longer wanted and can hit the road. Using customers money to secretly design a game that they know their current customers will not want is the pinnacle example of shitting on customers bare none.
Another would be the purchase of an mmo with the intentions to let it wither away and die.... twice.
Yet another would be charging full premium price for an mmo that doesn't even have a developer working on it. Again twice...
Those are just off the top of my head.
Furthermore, you don't even seem to have a full grasp of the events you describe. Lifetime member ships were not given away for free and I don't see who was screwed anywhere. Also, AC2 made an expansion in the effort to save their game, something vanguard or matrix might have benefitted from. Expansions typically boost subscriber numbers. Kudos to turbine for trying to do something to revive their dieing game. The real id "scandal" was Blizzard saying they wanted to do something, the users say don't and they listened. If real id was being done by soe they would have patched it live first, then told the players about it after it already went live. Just like they did the cash shop in the games the promised would never have real money transactions.
I didn't read any of this post and have no clue what it's about.
Saying that, this title gave me a big laugh
The only game that had a really good chance at being a WoW killer was Age of Conan. It reached about a million subs in it's first month. Had Funcom released a more polished game with things like cross server battle grounds for the "Now" generation we'd probably be talking about whats going to be the AoC killer.
The hardware requirements were too high.
To be a "WoW killer", you need to be able to run on a 300-500 dollar machine you can buy at Wal-Mart. You don't need to be able to do this with every option maxed out, but you need to be able to provide a decent, smooth, performance that looks good. The artists and designers at Blizzard made sure their game looked decent even with low graphics settings; they focused on "How does this PLAY?" as opposed to "How will this look in static screen shots online?". (Which is pretty much Blizzard all over -- they focus on play experience, not checklists of features which online self-proclaimed "Hardcore" gamers want and 99% of gamers don't give a damn about, and they sell millions of boxes while the hardcore sit and post "How can you PATHETIC SHEEPLE play ANY so-called GAME that doesn't have BINARY INVERSE RETICULATION???")
Everything I've seen of DC Heroes is that it's going to be a hardware hog, which doesn't bug me because I've got a decent gaming system, but it means it won't be playable on an awful lot of "legacy" (3 years old!) hardware out there. And while mummy and daddy might buy a 50 dollar game for their little darling, they won't buy an all-new computer just so he can pretend to be Superman, and until someone finds a way to pirate HARDWARE, a lot of people will just play the games that run on their existing systems. (I upgrade my computer about every 18 months, but that's very unusual.)
The real "WoW killer" will be a Facebook/Flash game, which will draw tens of millions of players (including your grandma), a "freemium" business model, and will make WoW solo play look like EQ 70-man raids when it comes to difficulty. And it will come out of left field and no one will be hyping it for four years ahead of launch, proclaiming it a "WoW killer".
I tend to agree with you Lizard. WoW's majority population is casual gamers, and it's going to be a casual type of game that will come close to matching it's numbers. I'm a "hardcore" gamer, so I don't mind resource heavy reqs on games. As long as the game is interesting to me and well made I don't really care how it's labelled.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~Omar Khayyam
No doubt that DC will be big, but with games such as GW2 coming out it won't be eclipsing WoW. GW2 might not even accomplish that, at least not anytime soon.
Heard the same song and dance with CO. WoW killer, next big MMO, genre revolutionizing, blah, blah blah. Well see what it turns out like, but lets just not go all hype crazy, keep some common sense.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
lol bigger than wow! heh
What planet are these people on? this game looks utter crap, totally dissapointing gameplay vids.
I was interested in this but now I won't go near this crapfest.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Yeah, don't see it...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I'm not really debating what will be a bigger game, but actually WoW "in beta" looked like utter crap as well. I will also add that DC Universe looks just as easy to play as WoW is easy to play.
Both have big IP's and on that note I would def give the edge to DC hands down...would all come down to execution and the amount of people who prefer MMOing in a comicbook universe vs a cartoon universe.
PIRATE LORDS
hehe sorry but comic book vs cartoon?
Now as to whether or not DCU can compete with wow, not hardly. Anything that SOE touches is doomed to mediocrity or worse. Just look at SWG for a perfect example.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
To say any one game will kill WoW is a bit silly. WoW didn't become a beast over-night but increased over time by players from other games trying out and subbing.
So I'd say it would be more sensible that other games will cause people to trickle out which did actually happen time to time over the years, it's just not many have been good enough to keep anyone. I think DCUO does have a good chance of taking people and retaining them but it sure as Hell won't take a huge chunk.
TOR will have the biggest impact but that too won't "kill" WoW, it'll take many blows before it there is any noticable impact on its population.